Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own Starcraft it is owned entirely by Blizzard, and I only own my own plot, characters, and anything else I have created for the sole purpose of this story. Therefore please no lawyers, I do not have the money to give them. Thank You.

A Heroes Last Stand

A Starcraft Short Story

Brought to you by,

William R. Woods

Brief Foreword

Hello all! I like to welcome you to my very first Starcraft Fanfiction, well official posted fanfiction anyways. This idea came about from two sources, the first is an old one-shot story I wrote back in High School for my Creative Writing class called The Last Stand which I never posted online for several reasons and later lost much of it during the years since then. This mentioned one-shot follows the Leviathan Class Battlecruiser Thunder Child during the Final Battle of Aiur. This ship maybe a bit familiar to those who follow the Starcraft story outside of the games, for it is the ship that Michael Liberty, Raynor, and his men managed to use to get out of the Tarsonis System during the final chapter of novel Liberty's Crusade. Here it becomes part of the Raynor's Raider Fleet, where they use it to destroy the Ion Cannon of the final Terran mission in the original game, and later transport the Raiders to the Dylarian Shipyards where the Raiders capture the Hyperion along with the other ships we see them having in Queen of Blades. However to get around what happens in the beginning of Queen of Blades where the entire Raider Fleet, bar the Hyperion, is destroyed by the Protoss in orbit of Char, I am having the Thunder Child undergoing a needed refit somewhere else and joining up with the Hyperion later on Aiur. This allows Raynor to have a larger fleet during the Battle of Aiur, since you can build Battlecruisers during the mission.

Moving on, the second source of this story is my recent play through of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and seeing Battlecruiser wreckage around the dead Overmind on Aiur during the Echoes of the Future Mission got me thinking. This reminded me of my old story and I decided to expand on it as well as rewriting it thanks to the new stuff introduced in not only in the game story of Wings of Liberty but some of the new novels released since then. Since we know that the Hyperion manages to survive through Aiur I thought it would be interesting to see the story behind that crashed Battlecruiser hence this story.

Now the entire "story" is actually going to be an extended flashback to the Fall of Aiur and the Battle against the Overmind. It will follow the point of view of the crew of the Thunder Child and will have a few of the canon characters like James Raynor, Zeratul, Tassadar, and maybe even Artanis will make an appearance as well. Also included will be a few less-known characters introduced in the books, like Deke Cavez and some others who had survived Char alongside Raynor, Tassadar, and Zeratul. However the crewmembers of the Thunder Child, the ones we see anyways, are in going to be OCs though the commander of the ship is going to be quite the surprise.

Before I finish this foreword I like to mention that I have a few other ideas for a Starcraft Fanfiction, a complete Wings of Liberty Novelization being one of them, and this story is primarily going to be "testing the waters" sort of speak in the Starcraft Fandom since this is my first foray into it. Therefore please leave me reviews or PMs on how I am doing and if you have any ideas for me as well. For what I understand the Starcraft FFN Fandom is pretty tight net group.

Anyways with all that taken care I shall leave you all to read this story instead of me jawing at you all. So please enjoy the story folks!

William R. Woods

March 1, 2012

Story Opening is Victoriam Speramus by Krypteria

Story Summary: While many have heard the heroic tale of the Protoss Tassadar and his sacrifice against the Zerg Overmind during the Battle of Aiur, however not many know of the sacrifice of a few others who had paved the way for Tassadar and victory. This is their story.

Chapter BGM is Mercy in Darkness by Two Steps from Hell

Antebellum: Looking Back

The CSS Thunder Child was an old aging Leviathan Class Battlecruiser that had been brought back into service by the Confederacy Armed Forces during chaos of the Great War. It was assigned to Delta Squadron's 4th Naval Flotilla and took part in the Battle of Tarsonis. However during the battle some of its crew mutinied against the Confederacy when the Zerg and Protoss arrived on planet. During the aftermath of the battle it would pick up a Sons of Korhal Dropship with Captain James Raynor, Michael Liberty, and the Captain's men on board. The Thunder Child would then become a Rebel Ship under command of Raynor, taking part in the brief Skirmish of Hammer Platform which resulted in the destruction of the platforms defensive Ion Cannon. It would then transport Raynor and his followers to the Dylarian Shipyards to take possession of ships needed for their fight against the newly formed Terran Dominion. Following this, the Thunder Child would then disappear. No one knows what happened to the ship in the end.

-o- Taken from an Dominion Intelligence Report on the Raynor's Raiders

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Valley of Remembrance
Scion Province, Aiur
September 27, 2504AD
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Valley of Remembrance was once holy ground to the Protoss. It was the site of where their gods the Xel'Naga first sit foot on the planet centuries before. Now it was a dead wasteland, filled with the purple-gray mass of the Zerg creep surrounding the dead husk of the Zerg Overmind which dominated the former site of the Protoss Temple. None of this mattered to the blurred and shadowed form of Zeratul, Prelate of the Dark Templar as he silently made his way towards the dead husk of the Overmind down a strip of land once called the Road of Remembrance. He was trying to find a way to get to the creature's remaining nerve tendrils to seek out why he came to this planet in the first place. However, the large brood of Zerg that gathered around the body of their dead Overmind made things more difficult. He couldn't find any way to get to the tendrils without resorting to fighting his way through them. With a weary sigh the ancient warrior turned away and prepared to head back to the Void Seeker and the forces that awaited him therewhile signaling the other Dark Templar he had scouting around the weathered form of the dead Overmind to head back as well.

However before he could move back towards his ship he suddenly saw a crashed space ship that was twisted and mangled from the crash itself received as well as extreme damage. The space ship he recognized as a Terran Battlecruiser, even though was hard to identify since it was being spread out over the area. Though he could see that a section of the wreck resembled the iconic front hammerhead that all Battlecruisers sported. He knew that this particular ship happened to be the Thunder Child, a ship that had earned the respect of many of his Protoss brethren for its part in the battle against the Overmind. As he continued to stare down at the wreck he started to remember what had happened four years ago in the days leading up to the battle. For example like the arrival of the Thunder Child and the Terran Forces that came with the larger ship to assist Protoss against the Zerg.

"Great One what is the matter?" came the questioning thought of one of the Dark Templar scouts. It broke him out of his thoughts of the battle and the Thunder Child in particular . Blinking, the Prelate turned away from the sight of the wreck and looked to his side to the blurred form of the other Dark Templar.

"Nothing, young one. Just remembering the battle that happened here against the Overmind," he thought back to the other Dark Templar with a soft sigh before looking back at the crashed Battlecruiser once more. He saw it once more in his mind's eye fighting alongside the Protoss Fleet against the massive waves of the Zerg Flyers during the final push against the Overmind.

"I understand exalted one, but may I ask why there is a Terran ship here on Aiur?" the younger Protoss asked, now looking down at the wrecked ship as well. Zeratul beamed down at the young Dark Templar for his interest.

"Ah, young one, you have a good eye. This ship is the Thunder Child; it had been one of the handful of Terran ships present here on Aiur fighting alongside our Protoss brethren during the final battle against the accursed Overmind," Zeratul replied, turning back to look back down at the wreck once more.

"There were Terrans here fighting against the Zerg with Protoss? Why?" the young Protoss asked, almost dropping his shadowed cloak in his shock. Zeratul looked over at him, remembering that this particular Dark Templar had been part of a small scouting force before the Zerg Invasion similar to Zeratul's own force. After he had returned to Shakuras he had immediately sent off to Zhakul to help guard the Archives and the Preservers where he had been soon thrown into a stasis prison by the Protoss controlled by Maar the Hybrid.

"Ah! That is a long story. Come, Deerim. While we head back to the Void Seeker I shall tell it to you, and tell you of the sheer courage and honor of the Terran crew of that ship," he said as he turned away from the wrecked Thunder Child and started to head back to his ship with the young Dark Templar Deerim at his side. As they did so Zeratul told the young warrior the tales of the Raiders on Char, and later here on Aiur. However, he paid particular attention to the actions of the Thunder Child and its crew.

-o-Chapter End-o-

Post Chapter Notes:

Alright here is the first opening chapter of the story and as you can see it is based in the Starcraft II mission Echoes of the Future where Zeratul arrives on Aiur to find out information from the Overmind. Now the rest of the story is going to be basically a long extended flashback detailing what happens with the Thunder Child during the Battle of Aiur. This is one part of the mentioned changes I have made to my older story in that I am adding the idea that entire story is actually told by Zeratul to a young Dark Templar who had been surprised to see and hear that Terrans had fought alongside Protoss on Aiur.

I also took some liberties with the story of the game in that the uncontrolled friendly Protoss forces Zeratul comes across on Zhakul during A Sinister Turn are in fact been held in stasis prisons similar to those that are used a few times in the original Starcraft game. Instead of them just appearing after you power up the buildings around the map with pylons. Another liberty is that Zeratul brought all of these forces, including the Stalkers that assisted him on Urun with him on the Void Seeker. This makes does sense in when writing a novelization of a game such as Starcraft.

Anyways that is about it for this chapter, next chapter should briefly give us some background on the Thunder Child and its crew before it gets to Aiur. It should be out soon as I can write it. I should have plenty of time to write it over the weekend if I actually remember to charge my lap top. Anyhow I hoped you all enjoyed this chapter and I shall see you all in the next chapter.

EDITED 3/27/12
NOTE: Changed Prelude to Antebellum for it makes more sense, and changed the way of address for Zeratul from other Templar.