"Awaken, my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright."
I awoke, as the voice commanded. I realized I'd spent the last however-long dreaming. All I could remember were strange images, of batlike wings and insects and faces full of fear and horror.
"Know that I am the Overmind, the eternal will of the swarm, and that you have been created to serve me."
The... swarm? What had happened? I opened my eyes. I was still on Tarsonis. In the Zerg base that we had been defending. I recognized the wriggling alien structures. I had never seen them up close with my own eyes before. Where once I had seen them in monitors and felt revulsion, now I felt... comfort.
"Behold that I shall set you amongst the greatest of my cerebrates, that you might benefit from their wisdom and experience."
I looked down at myself, and inhaled sharply. I was covered in... an exoskeleton. A bony plate covered my chest, meeting other plates over my legs, arms, and - I raised sharpened fingers to my cheek - even my face. Then I felt new appendages. My eyes widened in surprise as I realized I now had wings. Huge batlike wings spreading out behind me. I wiggled them around, marveling at the new sensation.
"Yet your purpose is unique. While they carry forth my will to the innumerable broods, you have but one charge entrusted to your care."
I paid more attention to the voice. I was hearing it in my head. For some reason, this didn't strike me as strange. Maybe I'd been hearing a lot of voices in my head while I'd been sleeping.
"For I have found a creature that may yet become the greatest of my agents. Even now, it resides within a protective chrysalis, awaiting its rebirth into the swarm."
A chrysalis? I examined my surroundings more closely. Sure enough, nestled in the folds of a nearby hatchery was a pulsating cocoon-like object, about the size of an adult human being. What creature slept inside? I caught a glimpse of my own bony wing as I absent-mindedly moved it around. Maybe... yes, now that I looked, scattered around the ground at my feet were large strips of flesh arranged in such a way as to give the impression that a huge organic object, located right where I was standing, had recently exploded. So I had come from a Chrysalis as well. But then, who...
"You must watch over the Chrysalis, and ensure that no harm comes to the creature within it. Go now and keep safe my prize."
As the Overmind's final words reverberated in my head, a compulsion began to take hold of me. It was a strange experience, something like the need to straighten a crooked picture frame, or to quiet a wailing baby, only more forceful and alien. It told me to enter the nearby hatchery and assume control of the Zerg forces in this area. I obeyed it; I had to obey it, for the sake of my own sanity.
I hesitated briefly when I arrived at the gaping maw that was the entrance to the hatchery, and then took the plunge. I wandered pulsating hallways for some time, following some unspoken instinct, until I came to the chamber I was looking for. It was the nerve center of the hatchery, the brain of the giant living organism that is a zero hive cluster. A large goopy sac stood prominently in the center of the room, tendrils stretching out from it into the walls in every direction. I opened and entered the sac. It felt like I was swimming in gelatin, at first, and then my sensations changed. I was no longer in my body in the hatchery. Now I WAS the hatchery, the whole hive cluster, feeling everything every structure, drone, and overlord felt. It was overwhelming.
A new voice, high and scratchy, rang in my head. "Greetings," it said. "I am Zasz. I too am a cerebrate of the Overmind."
"And I am Daggoth," said an additional voice, this one deep and reverberating. "It is our task to instruct you in the creation and rule of your own brood. We begin now. Mentally select a larva in the hatchery, and command it to morph into a drone."
Under the guidance of Zasz and Daggoth, I learned to sort through the sensations flooding into me, to telepathically single out and communicate with a particular larva, and to control the rest of the drones and overlords under my command. It was a wonderful experience, and I wished more than once that issuing commands as a Terran had been half as quick and intuitive. Over the next few days, all of which were spent in the sac, my bodies' needs seen to by the goop and tendrils around it, I built up the force under my command into a mighty swarm. Finally, Daggoth and Zasz pronounced my efforts satisfactory.
The voice of the Overmind broke into my consciousness then. "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. If ever your flesh should fail, that flesh shall be made anew. That is my covenant with all Cerebrates."
Immortality. The Overmind was telling me I was immortal, at least as long as the creature in the chrysalis was. Working for the Zerg was looking better and better. Some small quiet part of me still resisted, still shouted that I was a Terran, that Terran lives mattered. But that part was insignificant next to infested parts of me that knew I was Zerg, and that my sole goal in life was to serve the Overmind. Forever.
The Overmind continued. "Now you have grown strong enough to bear the rigors of warp travel with the Swarm. Thus we shall make our exit from this blasted world and secure the Chrysalis within the Hive cluster upon the planet Char."
We were leaving. Some amount of fear gripped me at those words. For all intents and purposes, Tarsonis was my home. I didn't know what Zerg warp travel would be like, what a fully infested Zerg planet would be like. And I think that tiny Terran part of me feared I couldn't be rescued if I left. But I was Zerg. I would obey the Overmind unto death.
Zasz spoke then. "Remnants of the Protoss fleet still linger within this planet's orbit. They will attempt to block our exodus at every turn."
A chance to test out my mastery of the Swarm in combat, then.
Daggoth's voice rumbled in my head. "My Brood shall aid you, Cerebrate, should you require assistance."
I resolved then to break the Protoss blockade without any assistance. I would prove myself to the Overmind.
…
A few hours later, my ground-based forces were safely tucked away within the bodily cavities of my overlords, who served as the aerial transports of the Zerg. I, too, lay within a specially designed overlord, floating in a smaller goop-filled sac that served as my mobile command center. With me was the chrysalis I was tasked with guarding. On my orders, the overlords began their ascent from Tarsonis, led by swarms of mutalisks, scourge, and guardians. My own overlord, externally indistinguishable from any other, lay near the center of the formation.
As we distanced ourselves from the hive cluster on the surface, my telepathic connection to the grounded structures weakened and finally died. All my sensations were those of the flying units I was tasked with using to break through the Protoss blockade. It was a tense time for me, those minutes spent waiting to enter orbit. My first combat experience as a Zerg cerebrate awaited me.
I did not have to wait long before the battle began. Protoss scouts moved to intercept us, and my sensations exploded into a flurry of movement and colors as I guided my mutalisks and scourge in highspeed aerial dogfights. I was quickly overwhelmed with my attempts to tightly control these fights, so much so that I failed to notice when my overlords floated past the Confederate orbital platforms. The protoss had commandeered these space stations and installed devastating photon cannons on their surface. Four overlords and all the forces they were transporting were vaporized before I heard Zasz' voice scream a warning to me. I immediately moved to order my overlords to drop off their units onto the platforms, guiding zergings, hydralisks, and guardians to destroy the photon cannons and their guards. As my attention left the dogfight, however, I felt the pain of a full control group of mutalisks as they became surrounded by scouts and swiftly exterminated. Daggoth shouted at me, this time. Angrily I resigned myself to my failure, and asked Daggoth to look after the aerial battle, while I concentrated on the space platforms. He agreed, and with the reduction in focus came an increase in strategy, and after some time I was able to destroy the protoss forces on the platforms with minimal losses.
A short while later, Daggoth punched a hole through the Protoss fleet, and I ordered my forces to return to their overlords and escape orbit. Once we were at a safe distance, I breathed a sigh of relief and gave the order to initiate warp travel.
Zasz spoke up, then, saying, "The battle could have gone better, but do not fear, Cerebrate, for you ultimately succeeded. Now, prepare yourself. Your first jump through warp space could be... unsettling."
What an understatement. Warp travel on a Terran battlecruiser felt clean and tight, like my body was being squeezed through a stainless steel pipe. Warp travel in a Zerg overlord felt rough and twisted, like my body was being squeezed through some enormous creature's hairy intestines. It was unpleasant, to say the least.
Gratitude welled up in me when we finally exited warp travel in orbit around the planet Char. As we descended to the surface, I examined the planet through the eyes of my minions. It was a lava planet, scalding hot and full of rivers of bubbling magma. Strategically, it was wonderful, an ideal headquarters for those who have evolved heat resistance in their war against those who have not. But aesthetically, I felt like I was looking at hell itself.
