StarCraft Ghost Warrior

Chapter 7

The Rescue part 2

A/N: I finally decided to give the stolen freighter a name, the Swift Messenger.

Also I know that there have been a couple of reviewers have recently expressed concern that the Battle of Shi was when Tosh started to get doubts about the Dominion and without him being present at the battle and the Old Family children being rescued the reviewers have expressed fear that he won't have a valid reason to turn on the Dominion. However rest assured that I have plans for good 'ol Tosh that involves a far more disturbing scenario that will be sure to all but shatter Tosh's faith in the Dominion government.


-Stolen Dominion Freighter, high orbit above Shi-


It took them almost an hour but finally the stolen freighter was within communications distance of Shi. Inside the cockpit Colin was sitting down on one of the chairs struggling to remain calm. The boy had seen the Zerg several times before and knew full well of the things that they were capable of and had seen a lot of people become brutally butchered by them.

Delta was looking over at Nova with a very concerned expression. The older sister figure in her life was pacing back and forth impatiently and anxiously. For everybody else that was in the cockpit it was easy to detect the large amount of anxiety that was all but radiating from Nova's thoughts.

After a while it seemed that Nova wouldn't be loosening up anytime soon Andrew let out a sigh and said "Nova, please try and calm down a little, we're in communications range, just have a seat and try to relax a little, I promise we'll get your friends out in one piece".

Somehow that made Nova feel a little bit more assured than she had been feeling just a few seconds earlier. Andrew reached for the communications unit and flipped a switch. The very instant that Andrew flipped the switch that activated the communications terminal the desperate, pleading voices of the Kusinis twins filled the audio receivers.

"Please if anyone can hear us please help!" the male twin, Rockham, if Andrew was correct with the name, begged which was soon followed by the female of the two speaking up as well "T-there's a big reward for rescuing us!" even though the freighter's communication system only allowed audio rather than visual communications like most Terran ships did it was easy to tell that the girl had been crying.

Andrew immediately spoke into the microphone the moment that he heard the two pleading for someone to help them over the communications link "This is lieutenant Andrew Cole of the Swift Messenger, we received your distress call, to who am I speaking with?" he announced. There was a pause on the end of the line as though who were speaking couldn't believe that their calls and prayers for help had been answered.

"This is Rockham and Bess Kusinis, thank god you're here, we were starting to think that there wasn't anyone coming. We're in the solar flare bunker, how long until you can get to us?" said Rockham still in disbelief that someone had actually managed to pick up on their distress beacon.

"I'm not entirely sure yet, just hold tight for a little while longer, we'll get you out of there" Andrew promised before he looked over at the sensors console area of the cockpit and started to use the ship's scanners to get a better idea of what it was that they were going to be facing once they set down onto the planet.

Although the Swift Messenger was a military vessel it was still just a freighter so most of its electronic equipment wasn't exactly state of the art. Because of this the scanning of the area took a bit longer than Andrew and the others would have liked but it couldn't be helped. After a few minutes the scanning finally finished and Andrew saw what appeared to be a large cluster of hatcheries that were all centered very close to one another.

Each of the hatcheries were being guarded by what looked like spore crawlers as well as several large groups of zerglings and hydralisks but at least there weren't any combat capable flyers in the area for which everyone was thankful for. Andrew frowned at the sight of the horde of Zerg that were in the area and once he saw the Zerg that were by the refinery where the transmission had originated from.

A direct assault on either the hatcheries or the refinery would be suicide without a hell of a lot of backup or at least a few dozen nukes to burn all of the hatcheries from orbit. The only things that they had that could do any real damage to the hatcheries were the crucio shock cannon shells that Andrew had found while snooping around the cargo hold of the freighter. The only problem was that they had no launching system for the explosives.

After thinking of a delivery mechanism for a few moments Andrew quickly recalled that there was a large number of escape pods built into the freighter. Each one was more than big enough to carry at least a full squad of marines wearing CMC powered combat armor which was large enough for several cruicio shells.

What was even better was that he remembered that the escape pods could also be operated by remote from the ship which allowed the ship's commanding officer to decide when and where the pods would land so there was no need for any insane kamikaze stunts.

Once their makeshift bombs were sent down to the Zerg hatcheries in the area they would have at most a thirty minute window to go in and extract any survivors that were in the refinery before the Zerg wised up and figured out that there wasn't going to be a follow up ground strike to their orbital bombardment maneuver.

Andrew then drew up a list of possible landing zones for the freighter, almost all of the closer ones were simply too close to areas that groups of Zerg were patrolling for any of them to be a viable landing site. However there was one LZ that was far enough away from the Zerg but was also relatively close to the refinery.

After landing they would take the APC to the refinery and pick up the Kusinis twins along with any other survivors in the area. Once that had been finished they would head back to the Swift Messenger and get the hell out of there. Andrew turned and looked right at Nova and the others and told them of his plan. The moment that he was finished they all looked at him with almost incredulous expressions on their faces.

Before any of them could say anything though Andrew spoke up "Look I know full well that it sounds like a bit of a long shot, for all we know the Zerg may not even fall back to the hatcheries after we've dropped our makeshift bombs onto them but this is probably our best option right now" he explained.

The rest of the group looked at each other as if silently debating it amongst themselves. After several long seconds Nova spoke up, "Alright I don't know about Delta and Colin but I'm in" she declared. Not two seconds afterwards Delta declared that she was more than willing to follow along with the plan as well the same with Colin who looked even more nervous than he did earlier.

Andrew noted that and wondered why that was to himself. Then he mentally smacked himself, how could he have been so forgetful about that little tidbit of information that he had been given by Corbin Phash before Andrew left on this mission. Colin had come within inches of being murdered by the Zerg several times and since they were going up against Zerg it was probably drudging up a lot of bad memories for the kid.

Looking over at Colin, Andrew gave the kid a sympathetic look "Colin you're not going out there, you're going to be staying with the ship, okay, you'll be safe" he explained which managed to calm Colin down a little bit. Andrew then handed him a small device that everyone instantly recognized to be a psi-screen which would block out the psionic emanations that Ghosts gave off and said "I suggest that you put this on so that the Zerg won't be able to detect you"

Andrew had been informed from some of the Umojan spies who had dug up some information on Colin that the Zerg were especially attracted to him for some unknown reason, and he'd rather not have a massive Zerg horde coming down upon them like some kind of dark tide while they attempted their little rescue mission.

The psionic quickly put such thoughts out of his head when he heard Colin speak up "I-I-I don't n-n-need that, I-I can just use my quiet voice, t-that w-w-way the Z-Zerg won't even know I'm here" he explained. Andrew blinked confused, he hadn't heard of that kind of a telepathic ability before "What's a quiet voice?" he asked seemingly very curious as to what kind of an ability that Colin had.

The seven year old telepath looked down for a moment and hesitated for a few moments in an attempt to find a way to explain his astral projection capabilities but he was a little nervous. Andrew noticed the boy's hesitation and decided that it would probably be for the best if he didn't try and continue to push the kid into answering his question.

"Look, if you don't want to tell me then you don't have to Colin, just stay aboard the ship and no matter what happens, do not come out after us, understand?" Colin quickly nodded. "Alright, Nova, Delta meet me in the cargo bay, we're going to need to load the cruicio shells onto the escape pods now if we want to have any real hope of rescuing your friends" Andrew explained before the three of them headed straight for the cargo hold while Colin stayed inside the cockpit.


-Ghost Academy, preceptor Soohoo's Classroom-


Just a few moments earlier the newly reformed team Blue had taken their seats inside preceptor Soohoo's classroom. The elderly preceptor as well as Sarco Angelini were both about to give a lecture about how Ghosts were used in combat during both the Confederacy in comparison as to how they're used now in the Dominion.

The only one that was part of Blue team that appeared to be absent however was Lio Travski. However Amelia was the only one who decided to bring it up "Am I the only one who seems to have noticed that Lio's absent again?" she whispered as to not interrupt the preceptor's lecture.

Tosh however just shrugged his bulky shoulders and whispered back to his comrade "I guess he still has food poisoning from-"

"Tosh get real nobody get's food poisoning two days in a row" said Kath not letting Tosh finish his sentence considering that was what each of them were thinking. Hell even Tosh had to admit that the whole food poisoning thing looked pretty damned fishy to him.

After all someone's chances of getting food poisoning two straight days in a row were incredibly small at best. The dreadlocked trainee was about to respond to Kath when he heard the elderly preceptor speak up again "Now I'd like to allow superintendent Sarco Angelini to take over from here" Soohoo stated. Sarco limped forward his footing being supported by the cane he was now using much more commonly.

While Sarco continued to limp his way forwards to the center of the stage area of the room Tosh grew somewhat curious. Why was the man even using a cane, Sarco had never needed to use one before, so why did he have to use one now?

It was also a pretty strange coincidence that the superintendent had started to use a cane almost immediately after that gas explosion had taken the lives of Nova, Delta and Andrew. However Tosh quickly and logically concluded that the two instances had nothing to do with one another. Sarco had probably just had a bad fall or something similar recently and had probably ended up injuring his leg in the process.

However Tosh put those thoughts behind him and continued to focus on what the superintendent was talking about. Sarco started to compare how both the Confederacy and the Dominion differed in their strategies in regards to Ghost operatives but didn't get far in his lesson because the entrance to the classroom that the preceptors normally took in slid open and the director of the Ghost Academy, Kevin Bick himself stepped into the room.

"Sarco I'm sorry to interrupt but I need to speak with you immediately" he declared with a tone of absolute seriousness in his voice. The look on his face also told Sarco that trying to argue with the man would be a very bad idea at best.

The Ghost Academy's superintendent looked a little hesitant at first but then he looked over at the rest of the class and said "I apologize but it looks as though that we're going have to finish this up some other time" he said before he followed Bick straight out the door. The two of them walked down the halls as quickly as they could before they reached an elevator. Once inside Sarco began to demand some answers out of his superior.

"Would you mind telling me what the hell was so important that you needed to interrupt me during-" however he never got a chance to finish his question since Bick quickly and bluntly answered without even listening in to what it was that Sarco was saying to him "We're going to readmit Aal Cistler" to say that this was a shock was and understatement.

Sarco had thought that they had gotten rid of that trouble maker why in the hell would Bick want him back here to cause another mess?

"Are you serious?" Sarco demanded, hoping to god or whoever was listening that this whole thing was some sort of sick joke from the director. However the superintendent had no such luck, Bick's face remained very serious "We don't have any other choice in the matter. He's already on his way now with three senators and his father" Bick explained.

Sarco could immediately feel a preemptive headache coming on. As if things weren't bad enough with several of the most promising trainees escaping to who knew where but now they had to deal with that rich little bastard once again?

It was to be expected he supposed, after all with Aal's father as Emperor Mengsk's finance minister along with the holos that Aal had made which were currently being aired on UNN about how Aal had been set up it was obvious that they hadn't escaped the little rat bastard just yet.

The elevator door opened and the two walked out into the main courtyard of the Ghost Academy. Almost directly in front of the two there was a massive crowd of reporters all of whom were trailing right behind Aal Cistler who was wearing that same pompous smirk he always liked to wear on his face whenever he got his way. Behind Cistler was his father along with the three senators and their bodyguards.

"This is the last thing we need right now" muttered Sarco as he and Bick approached the crowd that was in front of them "Shut up" Bick muttered back. He didn't need that sort of an attitude from Sarco at the moment especially with three senators as well as the fincance minister in the vicinity. Aal marched right up to the two of them with a document in his hand that had been signed by the three senators along with the finance minister himself.

"Director Bick, superintendent Angelini, I'm here to resume my studies" he announced as he handed over the document over to the director still giving that same irritating look that almost everyone who knew him came to dislike as he made his next remark "As you know the evidence that had been presented against me was seriously lacking in merit"

While the director looked over the document reading through the terms and everything regarding Aal's return to the Ghost Academy Sarco looked over at the three senators as well as Aal's father and explained "We'll take all of this under consideration of course, it'll take some time to make sure this all goes through the proper channels"

One of the senators however didn't seem to care about any of that at the moment "He's to be readmitted, immediately" he said in a firm, commanding tone. However Sarco continued to speak not being one to kowtow to a bunch of politicians "Yes of course, but there are procedures and this is highly irregular" he explained. Unfortunately for Bick and Sarco all of the individuals gathered there knew that something like this may very well end up happening, another senator spoke up this time with a warning tone to his voice.

"There should also be one more thing that you should be made aware of, the finance minister will be reviewing your budget records, so you should really make sure that everything is in order, especially your personal finance records" Bick knew for a fact that all of his finance records were spotless, however from what he knew about that greedy jackal, the man would probably end up fabricating something that would send him to prison for quite a while.

Seeing as how there was no other alternative Bick let out a sigh "Very well, welcome back mister Cistler" he said knowing that once Aal was back in the Ghost Academy he'd somehow end up starting even more trouble for them. A few minutes later the group was inside the academy getting some last minute things out of the way "So we have your assurances?" one of the senators asked.

"Absolutely senator" Sarco promised but the senator continued on anyways just to make sure that he drove the point across to the two of them "I mean it, there won't be any brain-panning, mind adjustment or any transformational therapies occurring to mister Cistler" he said listing off some of the many 'behavioral and personality adjustment' activities that the Ghost Academy had been well known for doing back during the days of the Confederacy.

Bick gave the senator that had just given him and his subordinate a rather long do-not list, a look of mock outrage "Senator I'm highly offended at these implications, we would never do anything like that to our students here" as the group continued to talk amongst themselves Aal noticed that there was a familiar individual walking nearby.

It was Kath who was heading towards what Aal assumed to be her next class and as she walked there with her friends she saw Cistler. Once eye contact was made Aal gave her that same annoyingly smug grin he liked to give people who had wronged him as well as an abbreviated wave.

Kath scowled at him but otherwise ignored the slimy little snake and continued on to her next class. Aal didn't stop smirking even though he knew that she wasn't looking at him. The son of the finance minister intended on showing that little bitch exactly what happened to those that decided to try and spurn him. But it wasn't just Kath he intended on targeting for his little revenge scheme, Aal was fully intent on making everyone on his former team's lives a much a living hell as possible while he was at the academy.

"So," said Aal as he looked back to the director and superintendent "What team am I going to be on?" he asked curiously. The director looked relatively impassive at Aal's question "I hadn't really considered a team for you" but Aal waved the guy off having already picked the perfect team which had almost as much dislike for Blue team as he did. "Team Red please, I want to make things right. With everyone" Aal said cryptically while he stroked his goatee with a sinister look on his face.


-Stolen Dominion freighter, the Swift Messenger, Cargo bay-


After getting suited up in their armor they began to move the crucio shock cannon shells into the escape pods. Despite the fact that they only had three people for the job moving the cruicio shells was proceeding remarkably quickly. The Automated Loading Unit (ALU) which was basically a moderately sized robotic cart. ALUs were capable of lifting very heavy loads for people and taking them throughout different kinds of ships.

The reason for this was because that SCVs were simply too big and too bulky to fit into the corridors of Terran manufactured ships. All that the occupants of the ship needed do was guide the Automated Loading Unit to where they needed to take the shells.

"Alright people let's keep moving we're almost done here!" Andrew announced as he moved one of the shells onto another ALU. Over the past twenty five minutes they had been cramming as many of the shells as they could right into each of the escape pods.

Andrew could tell that Nova was getting really anxious about all of this. She was worried that her friends would be overrun by the Zerg by the time that they got there despite all his efforts to assure her that everyone would make it out of this alive. Once the last of the shells had finally finished loading onto their makeshift missiles Andrew turned around and headed back towards the cockpit of the freighter. As he walked there he felt that Nova was close by, judging by how anxious the thoughts that he had detected.

Sure enough Andrew practically bumped right on into Nova but managed to avoid impacting her at the last second. Both of their faces were now almost inches away from one another. If Andrew hadn't managed to avoid impacting Nova the two of them may very well have ended up in an 'intimate' position with one another.

It took a few seconds for both of them to realize this little tidbit of information and when they did the two teenagers' faces started to do a very good impression of overly ripe tomatoes. Neither of them said anything for a few moments before Andrew having seemingly found his voice and he spoke up albeit with a hint of both awkwardness and nervousness in his tone "Uh, Nova, what exactly are you doing here?" he asked in an attempt to get his thoughts away the fact that the two of them came very close to kissing, albeit accidentally.

Nova rubbed the back of her head and looked off to the side a bit while blushing before answering Andrew's question "I was looking for you, we've already gotten everything loaded up onto the pods so we should all get to the cockpit" she said a little awkwardly, it was obvious that her mind was also trying to get its thoughts away from what had almost happened to the two of them just a couple of moments ago too.

"Alright then let's go" said Andrew before he lead the blond telepath back to the freighter's cockpit. The trip wasn't' that long since most of the escape pods were positioned very close to the ship's living compartments which were just a few dozen meters away from the freighter's cockpit.

Once Andrew entered the cockpit of the ship he walked over to the navigation system and began to input the destinations for their makeshift bombs. Once at the navigation system he looked over at the map of the area surrounding the abandoned refinery. As Andrew looked at the map he saw that the Zerg hatcheries were primarily concentrated in a canyon several miles to the west of the refinery.

Andrew quickly selected the drop points for each of the six pods which were primarily targeted at large concentrations of idle Zerg or the hatcheries themselves. The explosions from the crucio shells wouldn't be nearly enough to destroy the hatcheries. It would take several dozen direct hits from crucio artillery shells to do something like that.

However it would most likely kill the Zerg that were guarding the hatcheries. Although the overlords that were flying around nearby would probably be relatively safe from the blasts which would be a pain if Andrew and the others needed to use their cloaking emitters against the Zerg.

Andrew also briefly considered the possibility that the overlords would try and use themselves as shields to protect the hatcheries and the other Zerg organisms that were on the ground but quickly pushed that thought away.

Andrew found it unlikely that since the hive cluster appeared to be fairly young considering that there were only some of the smaller ground based Zerg organisms were in the area. Once Andrew was directly over the target in high orbit he hit the button that sent the makeshift bombs down towards the surface.

Not wasting anymore time Andrew began to maneuver the freighter towards their landing zone that was several miles away from the opposite side of the old mining complex which put them far enough away from the primary and secondary Zerg hive clusters. The ship began to make its descent into Shi's atmosphere and of course it began shaking since they were passing through the planet's gravitational field which would make for a very bumpy ride going through the atmosphere.

Andrew heard the telltale sounds of nauseous groaning coming from the backseat of the ship and Andrew knew immediately that Colin was the one who was desperately trying to avoid vomiting all over the cockpit. Immediately Andrew thanked god that he had the foresight to give the kid a moderately sized bag just in case Colin became nauseous again while reentering the atmosphere.

After a few more seconds of turbulence the freighter's finally ceased shaking and it flew a bit less violently than it had been earlier. Curious as to how Colin was handling the atmospheric entry Andrew spoke up "You feeling alright Colin?" he asked.

Colin hesitated for a few seconds before responding "Y-yeah I-I'm fine t-t-thank you" he managed to stutter out. With that said Andrew continued to lower the ship's altitude until they were roughly one mile and a half miles east of the mining complex where the distress signal had been sent out.

"Nova, Delta you're with me" Andrew ordered much to Delta's surprise. She was honestly expecting him to tell her to stay with the ship again. Delta felt that she had to confirm this just to be sure "You mean that I'm coming with you two? Seriously?" she asked not really believing what it was that she was hearing. Once they had escaped from the Ghost Academy they hadn't really let Delta or Colin do anything dangerous but it seemed that this was about to change, for Delta at least.

"Are you sure about this, I don't think that she's ready for the Zerg" said Nova to which Andrew sighed "Nova, I can say with first hand experience that nobody is ever truly ready for the Zerg" he explained before turning to Delta "If you're going to come with us Delta I expect you to follow any order that I give you, understand?" Delta nodded before they all headed for the cargo bay.


-Ghost Academy, Gym-


Every Blue team member save for Lio who was still out sick from another bout of 'food poisoning' were standing right across from Red team. Each member of the team was giving the person that was directly across from them a very angry glare. However the only member of Red team that wasn't glaring at one of the other Blue team members was Aal who was actually giving Kath a smug looking grin like he normally did when things were going his way.

Preceptor Hartley was walking in front of both rows of trainees making sure that each of them had their psi-screens on them. The marine sergeant that was on loan to the Ghost Academy looked at Aal with a look of complete and utter distaste.

"Don't be so smug mister Cistler" Hartley ordered with that same tone that he seemed to always give to those that had earned his displeasure in some what before he continued "You're all going to pull together or you're all going to be pulled apart!"

Hartley then all but shouted the rules of the exercise "Alright, team Blue will face team Red one at a time!" he explained loudly before Cistler's grin intensified "Oh I'm going to just love this" he said looking straight at Kath and if looks could kill Cistler would be a pile of molten slag if the glare that Kath was giving him was anything to go by.

"What a Bastard" she muttered to herself. Ignoring the small banter Hartley then elaborated further on the exercise "You will all use hand to hand combat only, no psionic tricks, hence the psi-screens. You will do what you need to do to best your opponent. Now who's up first?" Seeing this as his chance to get a little bit of retribution against the girl who had spurned him a while back Aal looked over at the instructor and declared "I'll go first!" before giving the dark skinned telepath a few feet away from him a challenging gesture "And I challenge Kath!"

"That son of a bitch" Kath muttered before she and Aal approached each other and got into ready stances. Neither of the two combatants made a move at first each one trying to find an opening that they could exploit. After a couple of seconds Aal gave Kath a toothy grin that made the young woman want to punch every last one of his teeth clean out of his skull.

"Come on sweetheart, anytime now!" he declared while both teams cheered their respective teammates on.

At that little comment Kath's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, Kath couldn't wait any longer for an opening she needed to beat the living shit out of that asshole now! Kath's anger overriding her better judgment she attempted a sweeping kick underneath Aal's legs with the hopes of knocking him over. There was no luck however as Cistler had quickly anticipated her doing this by her legs' movements before attempting that attack and easily jumped over the kick and proceeded to block each and every other strike that she attempted on him all the while goading her even more as he did.

Eventually Aal finally made his counter attack and grabbed Kath's leg when she attempted a roundhouse kick to his face. Aal pushed the outstretched leg up causing Kath to lose her balance and fall backwards onto the gym floor.

"I bet daddy didn't tell you that mine just had him arrested" Aal declared "Watch out for Sector Nine you little bitch" this caused Kath to lose whatever was left of her cool and charge straight at him with her fist pulled back into a striking position hoping to slam her fist right into his face. "Don't you dare call me that again!" she screamed with pure fury.

However Aal easily sidestepped her and gave a karate chop with his left hand to the back of her neck sending her straight into the ground "Take that you bitch" he remarked.

Hartley then declared Aal the winner of the first round albeit with an tone that told everyone of his complete and utter distaste for Aal's attitude towards his now defeated opponent. Tosh and the other members of Blue team went over to help their injured comrade up "You alright Kath?" Tosh asked while helping Kath to her feet.

"Yeah I'm okay, thanks Tosh" she said as she stood up while rubbing the back of her neck gingerly. As Tosh helped up Kath, Amelia Ingram looked straight at Dylanna who had been grinning almost sadistically the entire time that Kath was being trounced by that Cistler asshole.

She was seriously enjoying the sight but clearly it wasn't because Kath was getting her ass kicked that she was grinning. Instead her eyes had been looking straight at Tosh the whole time, as if she knew that Tosh's teammates being hurt was making him hurt more than if he was the one receiving the blows.

Amelia had always had a unique ability along with her standard telepathy and limited telekinesis to tell what someone's intentions were just by how their body was moving. At the moment however Amelia didn't even need that little ability to see that Dylanna wanted to have Tosh get his ass royally handed to him.

However when Dylanna voiced out the next challenge it wasn't directed at Blue team's leader like he had originally thought. Instead it was directed straight at Amelia "Amelia Ingram you're up against me next!" she declared pointing at the girl before walking straight for her.

Amelia was more than prepared to face Dylanna's challenge head on when Tosh stepped directly in front of her "No you don't, you're going to be fighting me, I'm the one that you want to hurt" he declared before looking for approval from Amelia who just shrugged "Go ahead, I don't mind, just kick her ass" Amelia requested.

With that Tosh and Dylanna began to strike at each other neither of them giving in to their opponent in any way shape or form. Eventually though Dylanna saw an opening in Tosh's defenses and instantly went for it and sent her fist straight for Tosh's face. The punch impacted Tosh on the side of the head with such a force that it caused him to lose his balance and fall to the ground.

Dylanna looked at him with a similar look that Cistler liked to give Kath "Not so tough now are you?" she mocked her arms crossed across her chest as she leaned in a little. "You're…lucky" Tosh said trying to regain his wind while he gave Dylanna a hate filled glare "If it weren't…for the rules of hand-to-hand combat…you'd be dead…right now" he said in between breaths.

The rounds continued for another twenty minutes before preceptor Hartley had them all cease immediately "Alright listen up!" he shouted to make sure that he got their attention. "This was the easy part of your training, your next challenge will be a no holds barred combat simulation, it begins tomorrow so I suggest that you get ready for it!" he ordered.

And with that he ordered that they were all dismissed. Before they left however Tosh looked straight at Dylanna and muttered "Things are going to be different now, a lot different I'll promise you that" Aal meanwhile just looked right at Kath and said "Looks like your daddy won't be able to protect you anymore little girl!" he taunted.

That remark instantly set Kath off and she rushed towards Aal again with the intent on breaking as many bones as she could in Aal's body, and she intended on starting with his jaw.

But before she could even make it more than two feet towards him however Hartley came between both of them and said "Both of you save it for the combat simulation tomorrow!" he ordered sternly which made Kath reluctantly stand down although she was still sorely tempted to try and rush him again. Aal started to stroke his goatee "Anticipation makes my heart glow, and there's still so much more I need to make right" he said.


-APC, currently en-route to abandoned mining facility on Shi-


Andrew was driving the APC while Delta manned the remote controlled gauss turret that was located on the roof of the vehicle and at the current moment she was scanning for anything that could remotely be considered a threat. Nova however was sitting down in one of the chairs and was wondering how Rockham and Bess were doing.

Hopefully the twins were still alive. After all Andrew had said that the explosions from the crucio shells that were loaded in those pods would have already reached the hive clusters and exploded by now. The amount of destruction that would be done to the hive clusters would be minimal at best but it would still be more enough to make the Zerg retreat from the refinery and head back to defend their base.

Nova only hoped that he was right and that the Zerg did indeed fall back to take up defensive positions at the hive clusters. If they didn't than they were all dead or worse, infested. Nova shuddered at the possibility of becoming infested. The very thought of her whole being twisted into something monstrous and her individuality stripped away into little more than a mindless beast that unquestioningly obeyed the Zerg swarm.

Once Nova finished that thought she soon realized something interesting, wasn't that what she wanted back at the Ghost Academy. After she had graduated she would have been given a memory wipe which would leave her as little more than blank slate that the Dominion military could mold into whatever they wished. In a disturbing sense the memory wipe procedure that all Ghost Operatives received was almost the same as infestation by the Zerg save for the physical changes.

Nova pushed those thoughts aside and looked down at her C10 canister rifle and checked the magazine. The young telepath/telekinetic already knew that the magazine had all forty rounds (A/N: seeing as how I am unsure as to how many rounds are in a standard C10 rifle so I'm just going to say that it's around forty rounds unless somebody here knows the exact number in which case please let me know) but to a certain extent examining the weapon sometimes had managed to help keep her mind off of the possibilities on what could have happened to the Kusinis twins since their last transmission was sent to the ship.

Given what the Zerg were capable of doing to the twins she found it to probably be best if she didn't think about the worst case scenarios of what may have happened before they even arrived there. However despite her best attempts to keep those kinds of thoughts out of her head Nova found it nearly impossible to do so.

The images of her childhood friends being devoured alive by the Zerg or worse infested continued to seep into her thoughts. Even now examining her weapon wasn't enough to keep her mind occupied.

Nova became so engrossed into her own thoughts that she didn't really notice Andrew who was trying to get her attention until he all but shouted her name "Nova!" he called breaking the blond telepath/telekinetic out of her zoned out state. The blonde telepath/telekinetic looked up from her rifle and over towards the other end of the APC where Andrew was driving while Delta was on the remote gunner seat, both of whom were looking at her worriedly.

"Please try and relax a little bit okay?" Andrew asked and although Nova couldn't see past his Ghost suit's mask or hear through the voice filter she could tell that he was very concerned about how she was doing. "Yeah, sure thing" she said a little uneasily as the APC's treads continued forwards.

Eventually they reached the refinery and Delta quickly became more alert than she was just a few minutes ago. The remote controlled gauss turret on top of the APC started to quickly swivel about even faster than it had been earlier. If the Zerg were indeed lying in wait for them than this would probably be the second best spot to lay an ambush for them.

There were plenty of titanium plated structures on both the left and right sides of the APC almost all of which were completely locked down, in what was most likely in a last ditch effort for the defenders to try and keep the Zerg from overrunning them. However it was obvious that this probably wouldn't have worked anyways seeing as how the Zerg had a habit of tunneling under defenses if they weren't able to get in the old fashioned way.

The APC stopped right outside the entrance that led into the solar flare bunker. The rear hatch opened up and Nova along with Andrew quickly stormed out of the vehicle with their weapons at the ready, prepared to open fire on anything that so much as looked like a Zerg.

Andrew hit the button on his head mounted communicator and spoke into his helmet's microphone "Delta, keep the perimeter secured while Nova and I extract the Kusinis twins" he ordered "Got it just make it back in one piece" Delta requested. Andrew gave an affirmative before both he and Nova entered the solar flare bunker.

It would be idiotic to say that the second that they walked into the entrance that lead into the bunker that the Kusinis twins were just standing there waiting for them. No instead Nova and Cole had to go down an elevator that connected the lowest part of the bunker to the surface access shaft.

As the elevator went downwards Andrew started to sense the thought patterns of who he assumed to be the Kusinis twins and he quickly noticed that Nova's demeanor quickly changed to one that was less tense. It was obvious that she had already sensed the twins' thought patterns as well. The elevator ride continued down in almost complete silence until it finally hit the solar flare bunker's main area. The doors opened up to reveal the Kusinis twins the male of whom was standing in front of the .

Both of them looked as though they had gone through hell. They both seemed as though they had barely eaten anything in several days, their hair was longer than Nova had remembered it being and was seriously unkempt. Rockham had what looked like five o'clock shadow on his cheeks and chin and Bess' cheeks were pink from what had to have been crying.

The first one to speak up was Rockham "Are you guys here to help us?" he asked noticing that they were both wearing Ghost armor which kept their faces from being seen. Andrew quickly replied his voice being changed by the modulator "Yes I'm lieutenant Cole, the guy you spoke with on the communicator are either of you hurt?" he asked. They both shook their heads no "Alright come with us we'll get you out of here" said Andrew before he and Nova both led them into the elevator.

As the elevator went upwards Andrew turned to Nova and sent "Just out of curiosity why haven't you told them who you are yet?" he asked. Nova looked over at him "It would probably be for the best if we saved the introductions for later, at least until we get back to the Swift Messenger" Andrew gave a slight nod at her response which made sense.

It would take way too much time to explain everything and it would be much easier to focus on getting everyone out of there than answering questions. Andrew activated the communications unit that was built into helmet of the Ghost armor that he was using "Delta we're on our way back up, any sign of hostiles?" he asked. Delta's response was immediate "No but I keep getting this weird feeling that something's out there, I think we should move this along"

"Got it call us if you see or sense anything out of the ordinary" said Andrew before he turned to look back over at the twins. Maybe they knew if there was anyone else was still alive in this hole "Are there any other survivors in the area or is it just you two?" Rockham and Bess then looked at each other before the female twin responded with a nervous look.

"We…don't really know, we saw a lot of our friends get torn to shreds out there by the Zerg but maybe some of them could have made it" she said but Rockham looked over at her like she was crazy "Are you nuts, the Zerg were all over them, there was no way in hell that any of them could have made it" he said his eyes wide with fear.

Despite Rockham's bleak look on their friends' current condition Bess still tried to cling onto the hope that at least some of them were still alive "You don't know that, if they made it to one of the dig sites they could have had a fighting chance!" she exclaimed. Andrew turned to Nova and said "Can you see if there are any other human thought patterns in the area? I'm not leaving here until we save as many as we can" Nova nodded and began to stretch out her consciousness to see if there were any other Terrans that were in the area.

Rockham and Bess both looked at each other wondering such a level of telepathy was even possible for someone. When they both saw Andrew and his companion's armor they knew immediately that they were Ghost operatives which were of course powerful psionics but they had always thought that they could just read minds, nothing else.

"Wait she can actually do that?" asked Rockham to which Andrew simply nodded "My teammate here has a psi index of ten and is one of the most powerful psionics outside of a Protoss if anyone can detect your friends she can" he said before Bess asked "Yeah but who is she anyways?" Andrew knew that question was coming since he hadn't introduced Nova yet. "I promise that all will be explained once we get out of here" he said.

Nova meanwhile simply ignored the three of them and continued to check for anything that resembled a human thought pattern. At first she didn't sense anything at all but then out of pure luck she found something. There were thought patterns. There were two others, Antonia Tygore and Morgan Calabas, they were close by, in an old dig site that wasn't too far from where they were.

However there wasn't any other humans that were still amongst the living. "There are two others near a dig site that's not far from here we can make it there and back to the freighter if we hurry" she explained. The elevator door opened and not wasting a second of what precious time that they had left Nova and Andrew sprinted ahead, taking the lead while the twins followed close behind them.

They soon reached the APC's ramp and the twins got in while Nova and Andrew covered them from outside before getting in the vehicle themselves. Nova and the other two passengers took their seats while Andrew walked towards the drivers chair as Delta scanned the area with the remote guided turret. "Hey where's the rest of the rescue team there's only three of you?" asked Rockham.

Before Andrew could get into the pilot seat he turned his head a little and attempted to reassure his passengers "What you see is what you get and it'll be enough, trust me I've fought the Zerg more times than I care to remember" he then got into the driver's seat and began to head for where Nova said she had sensed the other two survivors.

Nova meanwhile looked over at Rockham and Bess and could tell by their thoughts that the Kusinis twins had been hoping for a few platoons of marines and maybe even a couple of battle cruisers waiting for them and were now much more worried than they had been earlier.

"There's just the three of you?!" Rockham all but shouted while Bess looked even more scared than she had been earlier "At least tell us that you have a ship" she begged. "We have a ship that's big enough for everyone and it even has a warp drive" said Delta not taking her eyes off of the turret's POV (Point Of View) display unit.

Not wasting anymore time the APC set out towards the dig site where Antonia and Morgan had taken shelter in, nearly a week before Nova and the others had arrived at Shi. As they drove towards the dig site the passengers slowly became more and more on edge. They were broadcasting their thoughts so loudly that Nova started to wonder if she should have brought a psi-screen with her.

Eventually the APC reached the dig site, there still wasn't any sign of the Zerg but they were now a bit closer to the hive clusters than they were earlier and Andrew knew that it was only a matter of time before those bugs wizened up and knew that there was no follow-up attack to their improvised bombing campaign. When that happened the Zerg would probably head back out to secure more territory like the refinery which would provide them with the resources that they needed to expand. If that happened Andrew had his doubts that they would all be able to get back to the ship in one piece.

The APC's ramp lowered but before Nova could go out and get her friends a hand grabbed her shoulder keeping her from leaving the armored personnel carrier "I'll go and get Morgan and Antonia, you stay here and make sure that everyone here stays safe" Andrew ordered. Nova wanted to protest at first but she realized that he had a point, they were almost out of time and one person going down into the dig site would make things go a lot faster. With this in mind she nodded her head in agreement.

Not wasting any time Andrew rushed out towards the dig site. Nova went back into the APC and raised the ramp up behind her. As she walked back to the seat she could sense that the Zerg were starting to come back from their hive clusters and she knew full well what they would do when they found them.

To be continued


A/N: next we'll finally have some Zerg vs. Ghost action, originally I wanted to see if I could get the rescue finished with just this chapter but I found that I had to put it into a third part