A/N
So, Blizzard recently revealed the Liberator. My thoughts more or less went as follows:
1) Liberator? You mean the ship from Blake's 7?
2) Huh. That looks a bit like the Venom from Command & Conquer 3.
3) None of this matters, because I don't have access to the beta anyway. :(
Oh well. Drabbled this up at least.
Liberated
They're killing us.
Not the zerg, for all their savagery. Not the protoss, for all their wrath. Not those that combined the aspects of each. No. We are facing humanity's oldest enemy - humanity itself.
The days of military oppression, forced labour, and unlawful conscription are coming to an end. I have already begun establishing new regulations and limitations for the senate to weed out corruption and ensure that it stands as a clear and unwavering voice of the people.
We thought we were free. We thought this would be our haven. We thought that are all that had fought and died, this would truly be a new beginning. We did not think we would have to fight again. We did not think it would come to this.
Our military will be re-purposed to protect the people instead of proscribing them.
The Dominion wants "their" planet back. We had heard of a new emperor. We had heard of change. We had heard that years ago, and thought ourselves safe. Fools, that we were. There is no safety among the stars. No haven, no shelter, no sanctuary. Only serenades of screams, sirens, and shots. Like those around me.
This new order of rule, this new Dominion, shall be maintained by liberty and justice to the citizens of mankind.
They're using new ships. Liberators, they call them – small warships that are mopping up the last of our air support. You can't build that many starships when you're a colony of a few thousand, even if you're left in peace for a few years. You can't get ahead in the technological race. You can't hope to fight, and win. Defy reality. Or defy the norms.
Those courageous pioneers who have fought through horrors unimaginable to become stewards of this distant end of the universe.
I fire my rifle in vain as the ships turn around – they're quite fast, for all the armament they carry. Or have we just got that good at killing? I don't know. I realize that I shall never know. I realize that they're quite willing to kill us all. I am only left to wonder when. And reflect that with what must have been words on Korhal, 5,744 men, women, and children, are about to die.
Never again will fear, greed, or alien threats force us from our rightful place in the Koprulu sector, or from the sacred human desire for freedom.
They're changing formation. They are preparing for an air-to-ground barrage. They are all around us. I drop my rifle, and look upwards. Trying to see the pilots, if these harbingers of death are indeed manned by the living. Trying to see their faces. I do not expect to see regret. But if I am to leave this world, this life, this universe, if my face can haunt their nightmares…that is not victory. But it is all I can get.
Humbly decreed,
Valerian Mengsk
They fire. The missiles come. I drop my rifle, and await the fire that burns away our lives and freedoms.
The inferno takes me.
And I am liberated.