Author's Note: I wrote this as a meditation on what might have happened to the Cerebrate after Episode VI. While I am aware that the Starcraft novel claims that the Cerebrate of Episode II and that of Episode VI are not the same, I've decided to ignore that fact because, quite simply, it makes for a better story.

Last Message

[[[connection initiated]]]

Yes, Cerebrate?

I know you plan to kill me, my Queen.

Right down to business…yes, I thought you might.

What? Not surprised?

I suppose I should be, but, no – not really. You were always one step ahead, Cerebrate – it's what makes you such a brilliant tactician. It's why I've kept you alive as long as I have, and why I won't bother lying to you now.

You have a higher opinion of me than I gave you credit for. I'm…grateful for that.

[silence]

I've known it for some time, actually. Or, at least, I suspected. You've destroyed every last element of the old swarm, every brood, every Cerebrate, even the fledgling Overmind Daggoth sought to create. He's dead now, him and all the others. And now, I am the last of my kind – and I know that you plan to kill me too, as soon as I outlive my usefulness.

Get to the point, Cerebrate. All right, you know what I plan. What are you going to do?

Nothing.

[silence]

What?

It may not have come as a surprise that I knew what you were going to do. But what may surprise you, my Queen, is that when the time comes, as it eventually must, I will not resist you as the others did.

You'll just sit there and let me kill you? No resistance? No futile attempt to rally a brood against me and make a last stand?

Yes.

[silence]

Why?

Ever since the Overmind died, my Queen, I've been confronted with choice, the burden of free will, where before I had none. Before you, the Overmind was always there. A great voice in my head, speaking to me, guiding me, making me part of a larger whole. And he was the one who made all the great decisions. Certainly, I could think for myself – when and how I moved my troops in battle, for instance, was my own prerogative, and I had and still have opinions and a personality. But until he died, I never had to make any choices, or at least any choices more substantive than mere tactics and strategy. My life had a purpose, and I found that comforting.

And you don't want to live any more without him – is that it?

Not quite. When you came to me and offered me the choice between death and servitude to you, I could have chosen to let you kill me, if that was what I wanted. I chose to live.

You wanted someone to tell you what to think, did you?

Perhaps that's part of it. I never wanted that burden of free will, but it's one I must now bear, one I've had to bear ever since I chose to serve you rather than to die. And now where that servitude and that death are one and the same, I still choose to obey you. I choose to follow your orders, even to my own death. I choose to die, whenever you think it's best for me to do so.

You're an enigma, Cerebrate. I suppose that's part of why I've let you live as long as you have. I've become fond of you. Like a pet you don't want to put down.

Thank you.

[silence]

Just do me one favour, my Queen. One last favour.

What is it you want?

Long ago, when the Overmind still lived and you were only newly emerged from your Chrysalis, you said you were grateful to me for watching over you during your incubation. Those were your words, were they not?

Yes…

In the name of that gratitude, in the name of all my devotion to you, past and present, in the name of my willingness to go peacefully, I ask you only one thing in return, and it is this…Kerrigan, come to me.

…What?

I want to die, but not indirectly, not beneath the claws of your minions. No, my Queen, I want to die by your hand. Grant me this one request.

[a long silence]

You…

[silence]

You've served me well. So fine. Fine. I'll do it myself.

Thank you.

But not yet. I'm not done with you, Cerebrate. You haven't outlived your usefulness. Not yet…

Haven't I? Ever since we defeated the Dominion, Protoss, and UED fleets above Char, there have been no real battles. And I admit – brilliant tactician though I may be, my ability to help you in designing your new broods is…limited.

Hardly brilliant tactics to argue that I should kill you sooner rather than later.

Touché.

Perhaps you're right, though – your usefulness is more or less at an end. It comes down to that fondness I mentioned. You've…surprised me, Cerebrate. You're a lot more complex than I gave you credit for. I suppose I find it refreshing.

And you need refreshment, don't you? From…boredom.

Tread carefully, Cerebrate. Remember to whom you speak. I am…

The Queen Bitch of the Universe.

[Kerrigan laughs]

I must admit, Cerebrate, I am perplexed. I could understand mere willingness to accept your inevitable death – but what I can't understand is why you want me to kill you. It's not that I mind, of course – I've never killed one of you personally, and this will be my last chance.

I'm happy my death will give you pleasure.

But why, Cerebrate? Why?

I don't know if I can explain it, myself. Not…entirely. But I think I may have an idea.

Then tell me.

When I was first created, the Overmind bound me to you – I'm sure you remember. Your life and mine, he told me, would be as one…

I am well pleased, young Cerebrate, and so long as my prize remains intact, I shall remain pleased. Thus its life and yours shall be made as one. As it prospers, so shall you. For you are part of the Swarm…

[silence]

I never fully understood the intricacies of the link he forged between us. I still struggle to understand them. I was your guardian then, your keeper. And I remained so until I left you on Char to heed the greater call of the fight on Aiur. And now you are grown above me, and I am your servant rather than your guardian. Now the Overmind is dead, and nothing remains of his power but echoes in my memory. Now I am…free. Even if I don't want to be.

But the feeling persists. This…connection.

…What are you getting at?

I can see from your face that you've started to guess at what I'm going to say. Yes, my Queen. In the end, I realized that it could only be one thing.

I love you.

You what?!

I love you, Sarah. I've always loved you.

[silence]

And because I love you, I know I cannot resist you. That, my Queen, is why.

[Kerrigan makes a strangled noise]

[silence]

You're speechless, for once.

[silence]

I don't quite understand it either. But all my life, I've tried to. And in my long efforts in trying to articulate the feeling I now know as love, I sought to understand you. Not merely the you who stands before me now, beautiful, powerful, the Queen Bitch of the Universe, as you so memorably put it – no, all of you, past and present. What you were as well as what you are – the Terran, Sarah Kerrigan, as well as the Queen of Blades.

I thought that was my key, this second side of you. I immersed myself in your culture, poring over every piece of data from every captured ship and command centre, the thoughts and memories of every infested Terran. It was in that search that I first heard about the human concept of love.

At first, it didn't seem right. Love has no place in the Swarm – except perhaps for the love we all bore to the Overmind. The way we breed and reproduce has nothing to do with mating in the Terran sense, the way we think leaves no room for emotional bonding. Yet…by all rights, with the Overmind dead, the bond he made between you and I should have been broken with all the rest. And yet it remains. That's when I knew it could be only this: that I love you.

Cerebrate, you go too far.

I know you can't feel the same way about me. Terran love is different from mine. Love, for the Terrans, is connected with sex. Reproduction. But that has no relevance to me – because I lack the drive, need, and ability to have sex in any physical sense of the term.

Be silent, Cerebrate!

You still love Raynor, don't you?

[momentary silence. Kerrigan's voice when it comes is an outraged shriek]

How dare you?! I'll have you torn apart, Cerebrate! I'll have what's left of you thrown into the Defiler Mound! I'll…

How can you threaten me, my Queen, when my death is already a foregone conclusion?

[silence]

I speak of Raynor, in any case, because he and I, I've come to realize, are like mirrors of one another. I remember how he reacted when he saw you emerging from the Chrysalis. Where I saw beauty, he saw horror. Raynor loves the Sarah that was, the image in his head of the person he knew in that infinite time before I even came to exist. I know this because I know him as well as you do.

And how is that, O self-proclaimed lover?

In the darkness of your dreams in the Chrysalis, the dreams you helplessly sent out across the void of space, I saw your memories of him; the time you spent together. Raw, emotional images. I saw the first time you met him; the banter. You read his mind; called him a pig. I remember exactly what he was thinking, just as well as you do. I remember the adrenaline rush you felt when you fought beside him on Antiga. It wasn't just from the fighting; there was something else. A strange, erotic edge to the violence. I remember your first kiss, in your old quarters aboard the Hyperion. I remember the night that followed that kiss…

Damn you. Damn you!

I, on the other hand, love the Kerrigan that is, the you who stands before me even now, beautiful in your glory. In your wrath, even now. I've realized that I loved you ever since you emerged from the Chrysalis, the greatest creation of the Overmind, the eternal will of the Swarm.

So take me, Kerrigan, my Queen, my love. Take my life.

Take me now.

[silence]

[[[connection terminated]]]