A/N

Well, this story went up a little early. But with Blizzard's writing contest having a limit of 10,000 words, this was my best bet at writing a story for a Blizzard franchise with a plot that could fit into such a short length. I had to cut stuff out and compress character development, but hopefully I can finish it in time and get some feedback in the meantime. Just asking. :)

StarCraft: The New Order

Chapter 1: Deliberations

Misconceptions are common these days.

That, the marshal knew, was a galaxy-sized understatement. An understatement compressed into the Leviathan-class battlecruiser Thunder Child and personified by the ship's bridge. A bridge that only held four individuals, three of them exhausted and one of them with the burden of leadership. A burden that stemmed from the misconception that only a few of his men would follow him in his breakaway from the Sons of Korhal, rather than the 300 strong army he found himself the head of. A mixture of personalities and former allegiances, their only common ground being their knowledge that Mengsk had gone too far at Tarsonis and were willing to put their faith in a new man instead. Were willing to put their lives in his hands...

James Raynor sighed. Fate had a twisted sense of humour.

"So...enjoying the view?"

"No...I'm not," the marshal answered, not turning from the bridge's plasteel windows that gave a view into the Tarsonis System.

"Then why keep staring?"

Raynor remained silent. Commander Alexander Granger had been sedate the past few hours, exhausted after all that had occurred on and around Tarsonis and he wasn't about to criticize the former magistrate of Mar Sara for any break out of that entropy. But right now he wanted to keep contact down to a minimum. He'd practically dragged the magistrate with him after New Gettysburg, plunging head first to destroy the ion cannon. Had he ever thought that this might not have been what he wanted?

Did you even think at all?

Raynor ran his hand through his hair. This was going from bad to worse.

Of course, things had been going down over the past seven months anyway. One minute, James "Jim" Raynor had been a marshal in the colonial militia of the Fringe World of Mar Sara, willing to uphold the law, lend a hand to those who needed it and be content to be ignored by the Terran Confederacy. Suddenly, that oppressive government which he so despised ordered that the planet's citizens be escorted to concentration points for supposed evacuation, courtesy of humanity being caught up in a war between two alien species. A war that saw Mar Sara follow the same fate as its sister planet of Chau Sara, Raynor and his men arrested for doing their jobs and with the aid of UNN reporter Michael Liberty, wind up in the rebel/terrorist organization known as the Sons of Korhal.

Perhaps he'd known...perhaps he knew that Arcturus Mengsk, formerly loyal to the Confederacy like his new captain, would become the very evil he'd been fighting against. Perhaps he knew that even after six months of hell on Antiga Prime, the worst was yet to come. He'd agreed with Mengsk that the Confederacy needed to be disbanded, that a new government was needed if humanity was to endure the baptism of fire the zerg and protoss brought to every planet they graced with their presence. But planting psi emitters on Tarsonis, acting as the Hand of God and ending the lives of millions, all for a cause that supposedly involved saving humanity...it was too much. He couldn't save Mar Sara or Antiga Prime. He couldn't save Tarsonis. He couldn't even save Kerrigan...but dammit, he wasn't about to become expendable or a monster so he'd cut and run. He'd run and until now, hours later, he'd never looked back.

And why's that? The horror on Tarsonis? Or is it because you can't?

Raynor didn't know and the newly opened can of Happy Jack's Ale wasn't helping matters. He hadn't foreseen Mengsk's true colours, but he could dwell in guilt later. Right now he had to deal with another example of poor planning or rather the lack of it. He hadn't planned for leading an army that only had a single battlecruiser that should have been decommissioned decades ago along with a few shuttles and dropships for transport. The bridge might have been devoid of life, but he'd seen the conditions throughout the rest of the ship. Space wasn't exactly lacking, but living quarters and storage were insufficient to meet long term needs. If this new band of...well, whatever they were was to survive, they needed new ships. And fast.

But how? We can't steal ships from Mengsk and it's not as if there's any ships lying around for us to-...

"Sir, we've reached the edge of the Tarsonis System."

The former marshal walked over to the pilot's chair, leaning over the shoulder of perhaps the only one on the bridge who was able to put a smile on things. Lieutenant Matt Horner-late teens, black hair, brown eyes and enough enthusiasm to sink a battleship.

"Anyone follow us?" Raynor asked.

"Not that I can see," the pilot answered. "There's no sign of pursuit from Mengsk and the protoss and zerg are too busy killing each other to worry about anyone leaving the system."

And killing anyone stupid enough to get between them, Raynor thought to himself. He stopped that train of thought quickly however. Caught between the protoss and zerg...just like at New Gettysburg...

He looked at Matt. The boy at joined the SOK to "make a difference" but had switched allegiance alongside the former marshal. And while he'd proved himself to be an excellent pilot, his enthusiasm that bordered on hero-worship made Raynor uneasy. He didn't feel like a hero and didn't want to be. Mengsk had claimed to be a hero, a champion of the common man, but had ended that facade when it was too late for the common man to realize the truth. Still, while he wanted to get away from the bastard, he had no idea how to fly a battlecruiser, so would have to put up with Horner's presence for now. And ordering that he set a course for the deep space platform Jefferson, he could take some solace that while there was no telling when Mengsk might come after him, he wouldn't die through some horrible accident in warp space. The lieutenant was too good of a pilot for that. Heading over to the fourth person on the bridge, Michael Liberty, to let him know the travel time to his intended drop-off point, Raynor hoped he could be just as good a leader.

Probably not.

General Edmund Duke...an idiot if there ever was one.

If someone had told Arcturus Mengsk this, he would have at best politely agreed and at worst berated them for telling something he already knew. He'd known Duke was far from a flawless commander since 2485 during their battle together at Onuru Sigma and had suspected as such before that. And now, fifteen years later, after Duke had proven himself to be a valuable asset in planting the final nail in the coffin of the Confederacy, the general had reverted to Mengsk's first impression.

Mengsk irritably paced around the bridge of the Hyperion, the Behemoth-class battlecruiser leading the Sons of Korhal fleet away from Tarsonis. Things could have been worse, the protoss or zerg coming after them for instance, but from the outset, the final strike against the Confederacy had been plagued by hiccups. The psi emitters had lured more than enough zerg to shatter his enemy's final bastion of power, but with the protoss arriving far sooner than expected and choosing to engage the zerg directly rather than reducing Tarsonis to a molten wasteland, there had been the chance that elements of the Confederate government, not to mention the Old Families, might escape. Thanks to his late lieutenant, Sarah Kerrigan, they hadn't. But her sacrifice had sent his usually reliable captain Jim Raynor over the edge and had the audacity to take an entire army with him.

And it should have ended there, thought the rebel bitterly. If not for that idiot.

Had Duke done his job properly, Raynor and his men would have been eliminated, either through the might of Alpha Squadron or destroyed by Tarsonis' ion cannon. But with the Mar Saran outmanoeuvring the former and destroying the latter, Mengsk had lost a significant amount of pride and if he hadn't kept his rage in check when Duke reported his failure, he might have lost his general as well.

Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.

Sighing, Mengsk lay back in his command chair, running a rough hand through his salt-and-pepper beard as he gazed out into the void of space. It was funny really, how the destruction of the Terran Confederacy had made him feel...empty. He'd done the right thing, had done the right thing over the past eleven years. The Confederacy was responsible for the deaths of his family, the destruction of his homeworld and, somewhat conveniently, hundreds of other atrocities that provided fuel for his propaganda. But with that goal achieved...what now?

In truth, he already knew. Like his father, Angus Mengsk, Arcturus had come to realize that the Confederacy had to be dismantled. However, unlike Angus' dreams for a more democratic form of government, Arcturus knew that such a thing would only lead to the same corruption and decay that had gripped the Council and Senate. In this new power vacuum, a government would have to be swift and dynamic, ruled by an individual to match. And as he had known for years, that individual would be himself. Vainglorious perhaps, but after all he'd seen and done, after all he'd lost, he deserved it.

And for that, thought the future ruler of the Koprulu Sector as he rose from his chair, preparations must be made.

It wouldn't be easy. Moria and Umoja would welcome the downfall of their Tarsonian counterpart, but would not be as reciprocal to an infamous terrorist taking its place. And while the protoss and zerg had indirectly served him in this task as per their apparent fanatical hatred for each other, there was still the very real risk of humanity still being caught in the crossfire. However, if the SOK moved quickly...

"Duke, get up here," murmured the general into his comm. unit.

"Pardon?" Duke queried. "What's on your mind boy?"

Mengsk sighed. Even now Duke was liable to forget his place. Annoying, but all the more reason for the future ruler of Koprulu to keep the leader of Alpha Squadron under his eye.

"Quite a lot is on my mind Edmund but I won't bore you with that. For now, I'm sending the fleet to Korhal to finish rebuilding Augustgrad. The Hyperion however, will be heading to Umoja."

"Umoja? What about Raynor? We're just going to-..."

Mengsk shut him off.

He wouldn't admit it, but Duke perhaps had a point about Raynor. Despite the size of the captain's army, he apparently had no intention of taking the fight to the SOK, having headed for the outskirts of the Tarsonis System as soon as the ion cannon was destroyed. However, Raynor had proved how volatile he could be after Kerrigan's downfall at New Gettysburg and Mengsk had originally been written off by the Confederacy, only to prove himself a thorn in their side with the Tarsonis Ghost Academy and numerous installations after it. Over time, there was the very real risk that Raynor could repeat history.

Then again, while useful, neither Kerrigan nor Raynor had vision. Both were pawns and extremely useful ones at that, but neither had any aspirations to cross the board to become queens. And although losing both of them was regrettable, they were not in-expendable. Mengsk had lost many pawns over the years. But he, the black sheep and now king of the Mengsk Dynasty, stood unscathed while in contrast, the white king of the Confederacy had been toppled and its guardian pieces swept off the board. A board that would be Mengsk's own...

...and woe betide anyone who stood in his way.