Starcraft: Contingency

Disclaimer: I do Not own Starcraft.

Gonna give this a shot, see if I can't come u with something entertaining.

Chapter 1: Birth

-1 year after the end of the Brood War-

Emily Park thrashed in her sleep, her body twisting and contorting as it floated suspended in fluid. Her eyelids twitched as her mind was assaulted by nightmares and memories. And pain. So much pain at times even the nightmares blacked out as her mind failed under its sway.

A flash of wavy green grass and a battered corpse would flash in her dreams, her first incident, back before her parent knew she was psionic. She never knew who the person was, only that he had scared her, and seemed to implode with horrible crunching noises as she fainted. There had been so much blood on her own face, from ruptured vessels when she woke up, she had just sat and cried until someone found her.

More flashes, her being taken from her home by the dominion soldiers, the painful clasp of the collar that weakened her Psionics for handling, the years of intensive and grueling training, and then... nothing but dark.

She thrashed again as the blank spot that was her 5 years of work as a Confederacy and then Dominion Ghost had been. When they wiped the early memories, they had added the now standard block that had been standard procedure since the rouge Ghost Gabriel Tosh had begun abducting and releasing Ghosts from Mengsk's program for his own means. It kept them from recalling what they had done and compromising other operatives if they were captured and given the Terrazine gas that destroyed the Resoc. Her head in snapped back as the next memory hit her.

It was a fist, slamming her full in the face. Her mouth was bloody, and not just her own; she had bitten her doctor in a crazy haze of returning memories and emotions.

She shivered as her arms burned in her very bones.

More flashes, combat in many locations, gunning down EDF, Protoss, and Zerg. Biting stabs of phantom thoughts made in long dead heads. Then her last memory.

She was on some backwoods planet, working with a freelance group that were hunting clutches of Zerg left behind after they retreated back to their core world. They were especially active, and after they had knocked of a pair of hatcheries, they swarmed. Waves of living flesh crashed against their bunkers and turrets, forming tides of the dead, but there were hundreds of the bugs, and they were slowly getting overrun. She relived the fall as she got hit by a pair of Hydralisk barbs, piercing her shoulder and side. The bastard slithered up to her, hissing and roared, it's mandibles flared and carapace rattling as it's jaw flashed forward.

Her eyes shot open in the fluid filled tank, and she screamed, and screamed, and screamed until she subsided back into her tortuous coma.

(...)

-1 month later-

Emily Park came awake suddenly with the realization that she could not breathe. She was confused, and her eyes snapped open, a dark, almost glowing green, as panic flared in her mind as she began to drown. She thrashed and spun around suspended in some yellowish tinged, cloudy liquid, until her hands found a soft surface. She pounded at it, then scratched. Her fingernails were long, and dug furrows out of the surprisingly soft surface, but it did not breach. She started to flail when she felt a second set of appendages she was not familiar with twitch as she moved them. This was weird, as she was not aware of ever having had these limbs before, but they worked as if she had always used them. She did not analyze it, as she was starting to black out, but flexed the appendages and drove it forward, where it pierced the soft surface far enough that she could feel the warm air on the other side. She jerked, and with a rushing sensation of movement, she was sucked out and down, sliding along the ground on her stomach in a wave of fluid.

She coughed up globs of liquid and gel, raising herself to her hands and knees as she vomited a bigger stream of the fluid onto the ground. Her eyes were open, but they took just hazy colors and the vague shapes of her hands. It looked as if her hands and arms were suddenly brown, but she couldn't focus her mind on it.

She felt rather that heard a soft, amused laugh, and raised her head, still coughing. She got the hazy impression of a woman standing in front of a dead tree. She could even hear the clicking noise of the branches as they collided in a light breeze. Were she not so disoriented from her revival, she would have wondered why she could pick up no thought emanations from this woman. She was in no state, shocked and her brain still burning with fever, to muster the control necessary to block the brain waves of others.

It was warmer outside than it had been in the tank, and she could smell acrid, burned earth and another hot smell she recognized as melted rock. But the ground was not hard and hot under her bare legs and hands; it was pleasantly warm and soft, slightly springy, not what one would expect given the clearly volcanic atmosphere her senses detected. Her hair hung in wet folds to either side of her neck, its tips dangled in and out of her hazy vision as she continued to cough up the sweet tasting liquid. The liquid continued to stream down her naked body as it evaporated and a sudden embarrassed thought struck her.

I'm naked.

It was an absurd thought, given all the unknowns, but it was a knee jerk reaction. The amused laugh wafted through her mind, softer this time, a cool river that calmed her fevered brain.

Welcome, child. The others voice was solely in her mind, and still held traces of amusement, pride, and satisfaction that steamed off the thought like mist. Arise. The command knifed through her brain and shattered of her fever like the snapping of a rubber band. Her coughing ended and Emily brought her shaky legs up under her and stood. She had to shift, she seemed to weigh less that she remembered, and her center of balance was different. The blurred woman moved closer and her hand raised, brushing Emily's cheek softly with the back of her hand. The hand was boney and rough, even through the caress was almost tender.

Ants skittered across Emily's brain, crawling through her skull before burrowing in and probing.

Good, the thoughts crashed against her again, no mental degradation, and the stains I have increased your Psionic powers in line with my projections.

"What?" Emily said, blinking. She then realized that the reason her eyes were blurred because of a buildup of the gel from the tank. She brought her arm and brushed the back of it across her eyes, wiping away the gunk. She was slightly unnerved now; the back of her arm, and even her hand as she used her fingers to clear the rest of the gunk from her eyes was hard and ridged, though it felt normal on the inside. She took a breath, suddenly filed with dread, opened her eyes, and almost fainted. Psionic assistants from the other "woman" was all that kept her on her feet.

Black clouds of smoke churned lazily in the dull red sky visible in all directions over the rims of the deep volcanic rock crater in which she stood. Rivulets of lava flowed between chinks in the rocks and cast a dull orange glow from deeper crevasses. Beneath her, and stretching the entire length of the defile was the purplish, squishy, pulsating carpet of creep that always accompanied a Zerg infestation. The "woman" in front of her was none other than the Queen of Blades herself. There was no mistaking the figure with her long, segmented "hair," her wicked looking blade wings, the polished brown chitin that covered her body, and the brooding, glowing yellow eyes.

But standing little more than a foot from the most deadly creature in the known universe was not the most unnerving part of the whole experience. Around her, standing in rings, were hundreds upon hundreds of Zerg. Not unusual, but the creepy part was that they were all standing completely still, like horrifying statues. There was no noise from them, and in a way, that was more frightening that the chattering that usually came with the swarms forces. Emily's first coherent thought was "why am I not dead yet?"

"Simple." The Queen answered her unspoken question. "You live because you are mine." Her voice was quiet and almost soothing. Emily brought her hand up and looked at it. It was now light brown; a clawed gauntlet of ridged chitin that completely covered the flesh. The ridged plating continued up her arm as far as she could see, a curved, protruding spike at her elbow. Smoother, yellowish-brown plating in two solid pieces. Deep green plates were present in the forearm, with matching colored striations woven into upper arm shell. She flexed her fingers, dizzy at what she saw, then reached up to touch her face. To her face skin, her fingers felt hard, but she was able to feel the softer skin of her face through the chitin shell of her gauntlet.

"What... am I?" She asked, speaking aloud. Her voice sounded different, now that she heard it aloud. There was a slight reverberation deeply layered in it, and it seemed to thrum with a calm power.

"You are part of the Swarm." Her new Queen answered easily.

"You mean... I am infested?" She replied shakily. She had fought the infested before; shambling zombies in grotesque mockeries of the human form. The Queen of Blades snorted derisively.

"No, nothing as crude as that. And infestation is merely a empty puppet of my will. You are so much more than that." Again the Queen caressed the side of Emily's face. She was surprised she was not repulsed at the contact. In fact, she almost welcomed the touch. Even the creep beneath her feet no longer seemed to be a stick, disgusting scab covering the land, but rather a soft, almost comforting presence. Emily met the Queens eyes, glowing dimly yellow.

"I took your body, and crafted it into a form useful to me, such as I myself by the Overmind itself." She smiled slightly, reflecting on memories. "No, my child, you are not Infested in the sense of combat husk. You have been...transfigured, or Hybridized."

"... why?" Emily asked meekly.

"To be one of my generals." The Queen replied with a sweeping gesture. "The Swarm will sweep through the stars, consuming, growing, evolving. I will dominate the galaxy, and nothing shall stand in my way." The last phrase was uttered through clenched teeth, brimming with rage. The Queen turned on her heel, and walked to the surrounding circle of Zerg. A massive Ultralisk bent its knee, and the Queen leapt upon it, coming to rest in a sitting position high upon its back.

"You have passed your first test, the first test any of us face. You have survived the birthing, unlike so many of the others harvested." She gestured with a sweep of her hand, and Emily turned, seeing more than a dozen cocoons like the partially decomposed one she had emerged from, that was being slowly absorbed back into the creep. Vaguely human shaped forms floated gently in the cloudy liquid, and she did not know how, but she was aware that all the occupants in these chambers were dead. She felt the Queens command like wind through her mind as she ordered a group of Zerglings and Hyrdalisks to destroy the failures, watching with fascination as the leapt upon them, rupturing the cocoons and devouring the corpses. It was over in less than a minute, and the Zerg returned to their places in line. The Queen chuckled softly, and the noise carried in the near silence.

"Yes, child. It is odd at first, seeing my Zerg as one of them. They look exactly the same as they did before you were turned, but now, instead of revulsion and unconditioned fear, you can see them as the beautiful creatures they are, pure death and destruction made flesh. The perfect expression of form following function. Your neural hardware only required the slightest tweaking during your reconstruction to see them as they are. You respected them us, even as you feared our coming." She stroked the Ultralisk idly as spoke, her eyes locked upon her newest creation. She hoped it lived. Over a year of still births, culls, and abominations, and finally she had one.

"There is no room for the weak among the Zerg. You have been bred with the best genes I could provide. You have earned your chance to live, and now you will prove you are worthy." She smiled slightly, a predatory grin. "Kill her." She said. A Zergling off to Emily's left snarled and leapt at her.

She could feel it's desire to tear out her throat an instant before it leapt. It was so quick she didn't have time to consciously react. Her hand shot out, gripping the writing thing by the throat. It broke under her grip and she flung it aside. Two more dashed forward, frothing and chattering, slashing arms twitching. She could sense what they were going to do before they did it. She was stronger and faster than she had ever been. She side stepped as the first leapt, spinning away and ducking under the second and slamming it in the middle with an uppercut, shattering chitin and snapping and rupturing organs. She dashed to the first as it rounded on her, catching it's sweeping slashing arms and planting an armored foot which was similar in coloration to her arm into the beasts skull, crushing it and wrenching the appendages loose.

4 more Zergling charged, and Emily brandished the dead Zerg's appendages as weapons, cleaving into the furious creatures. As she killed a third, one of the limbs snapped and she shoved the other down the last assailants throat as it leapt.

"Not bad, my pet." The Queen said. She was sitting in Emily's mind, watching through her eyes as well as her own. She could feel the surging blood her disciple, her new instincts and mutations screaming for more blood. And she complied, sending 8 more Zergling hurtling at her.

Emily felt the 8 Zerglings detach and charge, and her newly bred instincts kicked in, drawing her attention to the new appendages she had forgotten about that had released her from her second womb. She stretched them, feeling the thrill of the taut muscles as the limbs stretched and joints popped as she spread them for the first time. She caught a glimpse of them as they reached full extension. She had wings. Boney, segmented wings, like her Queen had, but she could tell just from the small look she got that they were smaller and not nearly as magnificent as her matriarchs. They retracted to a comfortable hanging, and quivered, ready to strike. They lashed out at the first Zerg to come into range, slicing it cleanly and sending the pieces to be dissolved by the creep. She spun and dove, clawing and smashing with her hands, wings flashing and slashing. More Zerglings entered the fray, falling to the Disciple of Blades as her bloodlust drove her to greater heights of violence. When the last Zergling fell, to her arching wings, she had killed 40. That was she was hit and sent sprawling across the creep, catching a hand in it and using it to slide herself to a stop. She looked up, and two Hydralisks had closed, hissing and drooling in rage. She reached out with her arm and her mind, reacting on an purely instinctual level. Psionic energy coalesced around the left hand Hydralisk, and as she Closed her fist, the creature imploded into a pulpy mass of broken armor. The other roared, it's mandibles full extended and slithered forward.

It swiped at her without full extension, catching her with the back of its scythe-like hands in the side before she could dodge, and again tossing her like a ragdoll. It slithered after her, arms raised to drive its blades into her body, and pounced. She managed to catch it's forearms just below the wicked sickles, the force and weight of the creature slamming her elbow spikes deep into the creep, and she managed to get her foot lodged against its chest. It hissed an spit, jaws urging forward, snapping mere inches away from her face, pinning her. Suddenly, it eased back, and the carapace on either side of its arms parted, exposing the powerful muscles and tips of its deadly spines. Panicking, she braced her free foot on the ground, and pushed with all her might. Her effort was strong enough against the less resistant creature that it lifted completely off the ground, landing on its own back. Emily was on top of it instantly, smashing and slashing, until little remained of her attacker.

Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her and she spun, wings arching out to strike. They stopped two feet from piercing the carapace of the Queen.

"You body knows." She remarked disinterestedly, tapping the tip of one of the blood smeared wing radials with the clawed nail of her own hand. Emily's wings retracted themselves and folded into groves in her back plating. Her yellow eyes locked again with Emily's again, and she had the feeling of being dissected. "You did well. You shall be allowed to serve me. I can see you are still frightened and confused. But you will learn to enjoy your new freedoms." She placed a finger under Emily's chin, digging into the soft flesh, but not enough to draw blood. "You name shall hence forth be Kestrel, Disciple of the Queen of Blades." She stated. And Emily felt it take hold in her own mind.

"Yes, my Queen." Kestrel replied, taking a knee in a bow. Kerrigan smirked before turning on her heel and walking back toward her Hydralisk. "Come, my disciple we have more hatcheries to visit, and you have much to learn."

Emily Park followed. She still had mixed feeling about her conversion to the Zerg, but if felt right. But whether that was because of the conditioning she had while in the Zerg womb or not, she did not know. But for the first time in her life, she felt a true sense of purpose. She was no long just a drifting mercenary, or a brain washed assassin. She did not know why or how, but she knew she had an important role to play, and she the prospect excited her.

End 1.

Alright. Just trying stuff here, seeing where it goes. If you read it, thanks. May have the next part up in the next couple of days, but not sure. Has more direction than most I start, so we'll see where it takes us.