"That was fast." May commented upon hearing that the Israelis had accepted her "trade." It had only been a couple of hours since she arrived at the warehouse.
"Even politicians can make quick decisions times of crisis." Amos commented. "Now we need to find a way of working with you."
"Just get me a map and tell me what needs to be done."
"How will you give orders to the Zerg?" Amos asked as he sent someone to get a map of Israel.
"I have a psionic connection to the Zerg. I give them orders with my mind."
"As in telepathy?"
"In a basic sense, yes."
"This keeps getting more interesting every minute." Amos said as a soldier brought a large tablet to the group of Israelis and May. Amos pulled up a map and began pointing out key locations.
"Alright. The brunt force of the attacks are here." Amos said while pointing to Jericho. "We have been slowly forced back toward Jerusalem, and cannot keep Jericho for much longer. How long would it take to get Zerg reinforcements there?"
"I have over seven hundred Zerg here at Janin." May said as she pointed to a city about 40 miles north of Jericho. She could feel the Zerg minds that came from that area, and knew that Janin was the city where she had entered Israel's side of the war. "We can fight our way out of there and be in Jericho in about an hour."
"How do you have hundreds of troops in the middle of a warzone?"
"They are buried beneath the city."
Amos looked like he was about to ask another question, but stopped himself. "The sooner they get over there, the better. As I said, we can't hold Jericho much longer."
May nodded and closed her eyes. She reached out to her nearest orbiting Overseer and used its eyes to find her forces in Janin. They were just as she had left them, but now the land they were burrowed in was occupied by the Jordanians. She ordered all of the seven hundred forty two Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydralisks to unburrow. Upon surfacing, they were faced with the Jordainian front lines, but the Zerg were behind the enemy with the Israelis on the other side of the Jordainians.
May figured that she might as well help the Israelis here, so she split her forces. She ordered her Zerglings to attack the Jordainians from behind, and she ordered the Roaches and Hydralisks to begin heading south toward Jericho; she instructed them to kill any non-Israeli forces they encountered.
As the Roaches and Hydralisks began their trek south, the Zerglings began tearing through the Jordanian occupied streets toward the Israelis. They quickly took out the enemy soldiers along the way until they had eliminated all of the Jordanians that had been in their path. They stopped their rampage as they reached the Israelis and turned south to spread more chaos on their way to Jericho. She ordered them to keep pace with the other forces once they caught up. May watched all of this over the course of several minutes.
May returned the mind of the Overseer she had been looking through and took a quick overview of her swarm. The Hatcheries that she had ordered Matilda to construct were nearing completion. Once they finished, she would have twenty four bases and twenty three Extractors: one for each base excluding the Iraqi Hatchery. Her military was the same as it had been when she arrived in Iraq. Being just over one thousand five hundred strong, the Zerg were getting ready for war.
In terms of a human military, her numbers were laughable, but May knew just how different the Zerg were from humanity. Even though she was vastly outnumbered, she had the element of surprise.
May returned to herself and opened her eyes. Amos was looking at her expectantly.
"I sent my forces to Jericho. They will be there in about an hour."
"Are they just...running there?"
"Yes."
"Won't they be tired when they get there?"
"I doubt it. The last time they went into battle, it was just after running for eleven hours straight."
Amos gave her a slightly surprised look. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him how dangerous her swarm was. Only now that she had begun comparing the Zerg's capabilities to man's did she begin to wonder just how powerful her swarm, and essentially herself, was. Following this train of thought, May closed her eyes and contacted Matilda.
"Matilda?" She thought.
"Yes?"
"Would it be possible for the swarm to conquer the entire Middle East by itself?" May asked, driven by a morbid curiosity.
"Yes." Matilda answered casually.
The lack of thought that went into that answer the question was slightly unnerving.
"How long would that take?"
This time, there was a pause before an answer came.
"About six months."
That sent shivers down her spine. The idea of having enough power to take over the entire middle east in half of a year was not something that she could wrap her head around, and that this power was in her hands made her nervous.
"How long would it take if Israel was against us?"
Again, there was a moments pause.
"I was assuming Israel was against us. If Israel was with us, it would take about five and a half months to take over the Middle East...excluding Israel."
May considered asking about America, but was not sure that she wanted to know the answer. She returned her focus on her own surroundings and heard Amos saying something about a dragon. Then May remembered that she was a dragon, and realized that Amos was just trying to get her attention. She opened her eyes and looked down at Amos.
"I'm sorry. What did you say? I was...talking to my Queen."
"I need to know where our troops in Jericho should expect the Zerg to approach from. We don't want to fire on your forces... Wait, I thought that you were the queen of the Zerg."
"I am the queen of the Zerg, yes. A Queen is a type of Zerg, like the Zergling. I am not a Queen, but I am the queen of the Zerg." May explained. "Anyway, we will be moving in a straight line from Janin to Jericho."
"Thanks." Amos then turned and made a call on his phone.
"Sir, the Zerg will be approaching Jericho from the north north-west in about an hour."
...
"Yes sir, the Zerg that are moving on Jericho were in Janin."
...
"What?" Amos asked as he looked over his shoulder at May.
...
"Yes sir." He then hung up the phone and turned back towards May.
"Thanks for the help in Janin. We weren't expecting that."
"Yeah," May said, slightly embarrassed, "I just saw that we had a good position on the Jordanians and decided that it would be best to help out. There was a minimal chance of us taking any losses...so...I helped."
"Why? You put your own forces in danger to help us, and you are sending them to more danger to protect us. What do you gain in all of this?"
May contemplated the man's question. She gained recognition as a nation, sure, but she did not have to help he Israelis in Janin to gain that.
"I..." she sighed, "the Zerg can be reborn. People cannot."
This seemed to satisfy Amos' curiosity for now, but he still seemed suspicious.
"Alright, let's get back to work."
Hey guys, sorry for the short chapter. :( Before I say anything, I want to mention something. When the chapters get into the twenties, the first part of this story will end. At that point, there will likely be several weeks (but maybe even over a month) when I don't post any new chapters. This will be because I will be working on the second part of the story and making sure that I know exactly where I am going to take the story before putting out new stuff.
Just a random thing really quick (not really quick, but oh well...). I always used to wonder how writers came up with their character's names, so I figured that I would tell you guys where the name "May Flowers" came from. Truly, the name has no meaning whatsoever. When I first had the idea for this story it was going to be about a character that I had not created a name for, and the story was not even going to be a Starcraft Fic. Because of this, I just wrote "Main" as the name when referring to the main character in my storyline. Then, I decided to just use the name "May" because it was the closest actual name that sounded like "Main." The name "May" was never meant to be permanent.
After a while, I began to consider the idea of May having a twin sister. Being me, I decided to give May's possible twin sister the name "April" referring to the old rhyme "April showers bring May flowers." May Flowers. I figured that "Flowers" sounded like a viable last name, and it stuck. Yep. I really did that. By the time I had a significant amount of stuff written down, I was too lazy to change the name to something more meaningful. I eventually discarded the twin sister idea, but I kept the name for May's college roommate, April Showers, as a bit of an inside joke that was going to be known by only me. I thought that the whole evolution of the name was a bit funny, so here I am telling you guys.
If you guys want to know more about how I developed the things in the story, let me know.
P.S. It may be a while (hopefully not more than a week) before I can get another chapter out.
To Starjumper2821: I do that all of the time. I hate it when someone gets halfway through writing a story and then quits updating without giving a reason. If I, for some strange reason, stop posting new chapters, I will definitely tell you guys why.
To Akshka: I did not really think about that, but I am glad that you brought it up. (Hold onto your seats. I over-think everything. This could take a while.) For reasons that will be explained MUCH later on, May's psionic abilities have no basis on her physiology. Her psionic growth will only be the result of either practice, figuring out how things work, or reflex (like when she stopped the spit of her interrogator).
(/\ /\ /\ That is the short answer.)
(\/ \/ \/ Down there is the long answer. Read it at your own peril. There is a plot hole(ish) that I only just now noticed, and it is revealed below.)
"Why couldn't she use psionics stop herself from being kidnapped and beaten?" I hear you ask as you raise an eyebrow. Because she was focusing on escape. An escape is an idea, not an action. I like to think of psionics like I think of a calculator. It is a tool to make solving a problem easier, but it cannot solve problems on its own. May's instinctual reaction to being spit at was to stop the spit, something that is a direct action, and thus capable of being acted upon directly through psionics. Escape is not a direct action, but rather an abstract idea that requires multiple direct actions to take place in order to be accomplished.
"But she could have untied the rope that tied her to the pole." Yes, but she was not acting on instinct when she was trying to free herself. She was using what tools she had to bring to fruition an abstract idea.
"If everything you have said is true, then why did she only notice the three separate strains of Zerg DNA for each Zerg creature after she became a dragon?" Because...well...May's ability to see DNA is related to her biology?
"So you are saying that if/when May becomes a human again, she won't be able to see the strands of Zerg DNA?" Well...I plan on avoiding that becoming an issue...so...yeah...
Maybe I should stop taking this story so seriously...or I could not do that...I will not do that.