10 – True Colors

"You are sure of it?"

"There is no other. Just the two of you."

"And the other—you are sure it's her?"

"The vat produced two—you, while married to your father, the second as a cloned fetal host, braindead in the Dominion labs. She was sent to Earth for testing once you passed your psi entrance diagnostic for the Ghost program."

"Why ship a body so far?"

"You were not the only one. Mothers with firstborns who tested high were extracted for study. An unethical but secret operation, no doubt Mengsk approved of, even by inaction. But none from the same parent as you."

"And this bond donor, the Starling man—"

"A powerful ex-marine who rose to ranks in politics. He buys his last name on an entire generation cloned en masse in hopes of getting a few super soldiers to send to war. The rest go through officer training or are reassigned to other departments—keep in mind, Mister Starling had to pass physical competency tests on the health inspector's watch as the spawning bond is a mutual selection process. What we have is the best genes available for the best price—and one sister among them."

She paused, considering this. It didn't strike her as heinous that they collected her mother's broken body, shipped it lightyears away, and cloned a soldier for money from her corpse—it was standard for what Mengsk would do to win—just that she had never known. Her little sister had come to clean up her mess.

"Demeter."

"Yes, a fine thing," he crooned. "Even sick you could hear her sing."

"And she came of this cloning process as a Ghost?"

He shook his head, fantasy snapping. "No, my Queen, a medic, with administrative review from the late Admiral Stukov." His eyes were deep and red, hungry, but he calmed. "She volunteered for assignment into the jump platoon after gaining a promotion to first lieutenant, and joined the forces in Koprulu after a fairly long hypersleep, shortly before Char was liberated and you were freed."

"How did we not find her? As soon as I sought revenge I looked through everything Mengsk had to hide—"

"I discovered this on my research, independently. A fallen Adjutant contained in the Braxis labs still had an open connection to UED datalinks, which held birth records and military papers I used to track her to your cloning vat—your mother. It is possible she may even have been present with the human forces on Char."

Kerrigan shut her eyes. To think that her own sister had been hovering just miles away from her, even resisting her… Mengsk would pay for this. A grievance against her blood was heavy. "I want her returned to me. Mengsk has ruined her life as much as mine by handing her over to the UED. They marooned her with the Protoss and now they just sniped their Vice-Admiral?"

"I sniped their Vice-Admiral," Duran declared, but her fiery glare silenced him.

"She is a part of this, and Zeratul knows it. Is there any way he could find this out?"

"She is aware of her father but she believes her clone to be a voluntary fetal mother, then a gene vat until physical maturity," he stammered. "Unless Stukov knew and told her, perhaps that is what the Adjutant was for… perhaps, that is why he chased her from Earth to here, to die in her arms…"

"I don't give a damn about his emotional problems, dead or alive," she mused. "Bring her in. If Zeratul discovers this, he will use her against me, and I need no equals right now."

Duran bowed to obey, but he couldn't help thinking that Kerrigan would lose interest in this new pursuit, a bored cat with a much-too-small bug, and soon, he would have a firefly all to himself.

"Captain, please recite your serial number clearly an—"

"STR dash quad-oh, dash triple-oh, dash oh-two."

"Thank you, Captain. Your med ticket is printing, and is to be displayed in a viewable position at all times. Please update your active profile, biometrics first."

The soft light played strings of purple lines across her vision and her hand warmed on the scanner.

"Biometrics captured. Height, five foot 8 inches—95th percentile for Starling class, 80th percentile overall. Weight, one hundred twenty-nine pounds with seven-point-nine percent body fat—99th percentile for Starling class, 90th percentile overall. Psi-index from previous records 2.6, 99th percentile for Starling class, 60th percentile overall; new index untested. Eye color, brown. Hair color, blonde. Makeup set, Kember Classics in Natural Eggshell with Charcoal Frame. Body marks, blemish under the left eye."

She frowned. The readout reminded her of what she was—an old soldier with new polish. The adjutant's impassionate eyes made it seem less harsh. "Would you like to update any of this information?"

"Makeup. Show me the standards."

"The Vice-Admiral has a board of choices saved from your previous employment. Shall I access those?"

She shook her head. "No. I want something natural, just liner and a nude shadow." I want to look as human as possible.

Somehow just being home didn't feel enough. She wanted to have something to take back, a last splash of human beauty before she knew he would come for her.

Zeratul… Duran… even Alexei…

"Options on screen, you may scroll to the right."

She picked the first one she was drawn to, a simple brown cateye with a soft smoky tattoo in the nude matte she wanted, simple and striking, pricking neatly into her skin as she closed her eyes, pores dancing open and closed, swollen with ink. The cold cream soothed the burn a little. "Would you like to update your eye or hair color or hair style?"

"Flatten the edges on the back, just a trim. Then do I get orders?"

"You will be released into the care of the Vice-Admiral once his escort arrives. He has made his way to the rendezvous point where you will join him in arms."

"I have to fight?"

"No hostiles are currently detected at this time, Captain. Would you like to close your profile?"

"Yes."

"Before I close your profile, would you like to schedule a psi-index test, Captain?"

"No."

"Affirmed. Profile closed. Your escort will arrive at the med bay shortly. Please pick up your ticket and meet them at the operations hub."

She lurched along, prodding her eyes, which had finally settled. Her summons took her to the printing desk where a nurse taped her ticket over her arm plate, and she slowly pulled herself into the padded thermal to prep for a chest plate. Her ribs ached at the thought of having to run, or even climb stairs, and her legs sympathized. She hobbled along on her crutch for speed once she scooped it up from the operations bay. There, the wraith Captain from the commlink and two massive guards were waiting, and swept her a quick salute. "No worries, Captain. We got a comfy Goliath for you to rendezvous in."

She winced at that. "Just got shot off one recently. Don't do so well with them. How far is the touchpoint?"

"You can take a bike if you want. I'll call one of the boys."

"Thanks."

She stood there and tried not to sway as she thought of what she was doing, really thought about it, and wondered who she would find when she drive out to meet the Vice-Admiral. Alexei had gone mad parading such a force through here without du Galle's consent or backup. And she had come and put herself in the middle of it.

Perhaps it is not so bad to want to be found.

She shook her head, that fleshy, throat-heavy voice coursing through her mind, and she remembered how it felt to look up at her greatest fear, face like a tribal mask covered in splashes of creep and blood, but it was broken by a dark wind in the void, grey and silver as a shadow in the moon—

I do want to be found. Just not by you.

It was as she feared.

He had gone mad.

She thought back to the last time she had seen him when he didn't appear frazzled or crazy—he was always a little off-edge around her, like a child knowing his babysitter couldn't scold him—but had been something entirely different.

She had colicked again when she arrived, and was pulled off tubes to prep for rehab, a brief three-day tour of the med facility, before he had rushed to her, concerned. She had suffered a beating to remember and, thanks to good timing, she dodged any fallout from her emergency overdose. But even as she staggered on her healing legs, muscles blooming hot against her skin, it was he who had lost his grip on the world, a once excited boy turned babbling fool.

She tried to find room to tell him about the man in the ICU but he was going on and on about someone else, an insurgent who betrayed him to du Galle, a Zerg Infested lieutenant in the service of the UED, here to sabotage everything—

No. She couldn't think like him. He chattered about it like it would soothe her and she grinned like an idiot to play along, calling to the darkness like before, wanting to hear another voice. Not his.

"Demie… Demie, my heart…"

She shook her head roughly. None of it made any sense. Her hands came free of the fistfuls of jacket she was crushing in her hands, and her legs cooled as the warm body slid from her lap, arms hooking under her own to pull her away. She didn't struggle.

Zeratul…

She felt whoever it was test her feet but her knees buckled, and she bounced idly before they caught her again. She felt something dry and crackling over the skin near her eye but she hand no hands to grab it.

Starling, you must try—

Her knees locked this time and she felt her arms return to her sides. She was surrounded by several Protoss with dark robes, each smoldering as they waited, watching—but he split them as he came to meet her, tall and foreboding even in the full view of the facility lighting.

He stopped before her. She couldn't discern any emotion in his eyes and his thoughts were still. It was nice, despite her impulse to read him. He didn't move when he spoke. "Are you alright?"

"No," she said reflexively, taking breaths to think about it. She knew honesty was the way to go with him. "They killed him. Zeratul… they…"

"I know," he said. The quiet tone stopped her search for words. He reached for her cheek, breaking the blood tracks off with a gentle sweep of his claw. "You have witnessed much today and I fear there is more to come. We have leave to bring you to safety."

"From who?"

"Admiral du Galle."

She stood there, useless, and gave up on articulation. "Huh. Admiral."

"Come,little one."

She felt it twist through her head before she realized she was shaking. Her mind had declared its limit and was overriding her control. "No. You don't understand."

He hadn't moved, as if he expected her resist. "Why not?"

"If you're trying to dodge my court marshal, don't."

"Why not?"

"I got full pardon," she stammered. "Shouldn't be any trouble going home."

"What home, Demeter?"

She looked at him, hand catching the claw coming to push her towards his main fleet with an unexpected flinch at the sharpness, and his eyes narrowed heavily. "They have taken everything from you. Your homeworld, your Vice-Admiral, Epsilon… there is nothing for you here."

She resisted as he tested her with a weak twist but she shook her head furiously, taking a step back. "I can't give up. You wouldn't give up. Why do you expect me—"

"I expect nothing from you, Starling," he replied. "I am here to deliver you from those who would do you ill, as you were operating as an agent in my care—"

"You're wrong," she spat. "You're wrong, and you can't force me to do anything—"

He was still but his brothers had swarmed her, pinning her hands to her back, lashing from thumb to wrist to pinkie, a binding so tight she couldn't help but follow the hand on her back, pulling the bundle up her spine. It didn't hurt so much as force her to obey from strength alone, and Zeratul took up the spare bindings from his officer with a nod. "Your resist disappoints me. Come."

She stumbled after him, struggling against her cough, and managed to keep it down as the warp prism spun overhead. His vigilance was almost omnipresent, but he knew he could not be soft with her. If du Galle was right, he would have to tread wisely to dodge the poison.

Her face seemed even thinner as she warped out, light and psi turning her white in the dim light of the Carrier. He would have to wait another couple minutes for a warp out so she would stop vibrating.

Humans, so delicate. Glass cannons on a steel ship.

She was silent, eyes red and puffy and raw, slick with the fresh quiet tears she kept trying to blink away, and he hoped Jim had taught him enough to maneuver this properly. His escort took up their sentry positions at the doors to his chambers, and he lightly guided her within, stopping in the foyer to reach for a command screen. He would send word of what happened to the Praetor, then make the jump to Talematros within the quarter hour. Demeter stood, docile for the moment, as he entered his orders, mind watchful of her, watching him.

He finished, sliding the screen back up into the wall. She kept her head low and eyes on him, timid for the first timid. Or perhaps just tired.

"Tell me what happened before I arrived."

"How much did you see?"

He played it back through his mind careful to keep it from her. "A single shot, and you abandoned your cloaker. Then we secured the area and collected you."

She gave him the same look a shadowolf would give a larger kill, wondering if it was worth the risk. She sighed. "Someone shot him, didn't have anything to save him."

"Who shot him?"

She closed her eyes. Not worth it. "Duran."

Zeratul cocked his head, bemused. "The Admiral's informant?"

"The Admiral's lieutenant. Du Galle ordered it." Her eyes didn't open, and he could feel her concentration humming in his throat. "He cloaked me when he realized what was going on. That the Admiral betrayed him."

The slits in her eyes gave way to the bloodshot tears beneath, the cough coming in a gentle rumble. She dragged her face against her sleeve. "Maybe you're right."

He knew he was, but hearing her say it in that exhausted, weak voice was painful. He faced her at full height. "We will warp to Talematros shortly, and we can discuss your plans for the future. For now—rest. That's an order."

"You should know," she started before he went for her bingings.

She stopped, but the possibility of freedom didn't persuade her. "I radioed the Vice-Admiral on the open channel. For recon. It wasn't—I wasn't operating under your orders."

"You disobeyed me."

She swallowed at that. "Yes. I didn't know…"

He held the lacings tight in his fists. "You defected to the enemy midfield."

"Zeratul," I didn't know what I would find there, Alexei wasn't—"

"Are you speaking the truth, now?"

Her shoulders sank. "Yes. That's why I told you. It couldn't go unsaid."

That was a stroke of loyalty. Perhaps the tides were shifting within. "Your backhanded honesty is… noted, I suppose. Do not let it repeat itself. I will release you to sleep with your sickness until warp. You will be complicit in all capacities, understood?"

"Yes." She needed an order badly, and turned to obey, waiting patiently as he unlaced her hand cuffs, and she offered him her fist when they stood to face each other. "Here."

He cupped his hand beneath hers as she rolled something gently into his palm, metal clinking against the scales. It was a simple hammered ring, probably gold, with a thin band of diamonds encircling the center. She started towards her chambers.

"What is this, Demeter?"

He said it, He said my name.

She stopped to hear the echo and savor before answering. "His wedding ring." She pursed her lips but there was no need to fight the tears—none came. "I don't want it. Should have left it with him. Send it to space, I don't care."

"Did he-?"

"No." Her nose, buttoned against her face, outlined her sadness as she looked back at him, gold eyes brighter and stronger than the metal in his hand. "If he did, it wouldn't have mattered. I always told him I would say no. He knew better than to ruin his death with…"

It trailed off, but he felt her sadness set back in over her fatigue. "Go, Demeter."

She went, bars lighting up to lock her away, and he felt the reflective through of flinging bloody clothes into the sink, sitting in the shower for the smallest time possible on the coldest setting to scrub the clotted blood off, then sheets, diving into sheets, and her dreams were like soft winds in a wheatfield, slow and undulating as exhaustion plunged her further into sleep than she'd ever been before. He pulled himself from it carefully.

The warp to Talematros was soft and gentle, the warp pad bringing them to surface equilibrium as the fleet touched down on the mesa's landing strip. The city pulsed in the distance, and the subtle waves of psi that spilled in as the invisibility fields parted made him remember the dark, cold of home, and how these gentle lights in the distance were the best he could do.

He flew in low attitude to his estate with a small portion of his fleet who came to staff and hunt in the wildlands beyond. The current crew was awaiting a ferry off for their month away. Demeter slept for the flight, but came bound in escort to the font, where he personally showed her to the prisoner's suite—a spacious room, but with no windows or screens, just furnishings and an adjoining washroom. She slumped down on the bed as he closed the door.

She will sleep. She will earn her precious stars with talk.