Author's Note: I do not own Starcraft or any of the units portrayed within it. Starcraft is the property of Blizzard Entertainment, I only own my original creations. This is a work of fan fiction, existing entirely outside any canon material. This tale was inspired by reading "The Zerg Swarm" tale by East Bridge.

Chapter 14 – The Lost

The searing heat of a psi-blade thrust through the hound's neck, killing it as its spine broke. The zealot squad kept dancing like whirling dervishes, the blue flash of a blade promising death to each approaching foe. They were good. Fast, elegant, and lethally precise, and the jaws of the beasts found only the shimmering field of personal energy shield each one of the zealots carried.

They were truly frightening to behold, Executor Tal'dan told himself. Yet they would not be enough. Ever since he discovered the presence of Zerg, the zealots were far from enough. Yet they were all he had for now. The nexus' isolated location at the small isle of steady ground amidst the swamp's treacherous soil made it hard to expand, but it also kept away most people that might have threatened its presence. The two drones were working on manufacturing the two new pylons near it, to provide him with more power.

For now, he was on his own. No emergency signals seemed to get an answer. Ever sine Executor Tal'dan awoke in this world at the controller's seat of the nexus he had found this troubling, but locating zerg so near his stronghold was frightening. The old gateway rested nearby, refusing to grant him more warriors than the eight zealots he had at his side for now, and the two drones laboring on the pylons construction.

He had found no minerals, no vespene gas, but instead had the nexus gathering an ambient resonance from this world, empowering crystals gathered at the old native ruins to create these pylons, and hopefully in time, some more advanced technology. The protoss presence in this world was weak, and if the zerg knew this, they would overwhelm them. The executor had no doubts about this. They were savage, cruel bastards that wanted nothing more than to extinguish all life.

In his mind a whispering presence urged him on. It was bizarre, no connection to the comforting psychic presence of the other Protoss existed, only the psychic net created by him and his followers, the nexus' amplifiers allowing him to tap into the awareness of his allies in this task.

It had been several days since they had awoken at the swamp, finding the crashed carrier's broken remnants scattered about. The probes within contained plans for the pylons, and perhaps a key to repairing the broken nexus and gateway. For now, they were stranded with little promises of aid, and without the pylons, the little psychic sustenance that the nexus could provide was hardly sufficient for large numbers of protoss to arrive anyway.

Yet he was keenly aware that without increasing numbers their efforts would be doomed. Zergs meant that they had to act swiftly, even if it meant tearing apart the ruins of whatever native terrans called this place their home. Their old ruins contained a wealth of fragments, part of khaydarin crystal, an immense one that was certain. Tal'dan did not want this all to come for nothing, he didn't wish to admit defeat and let some zerg monstrosity lay its ugly claws upon the pure crystals.

They'd need to prepare. Given time, they'd get the nexus operational, and the gateway functioning. Even now, resonance was building, and the executor was keying down commands. From what he understood from the panels, as soon as the pylons would be activated, he should be able to call upon more warriors.

There was constant references to the 'void' and the silence. It troubled him, and the headache was not made any easier by the irritating hallucinations he felt he was having. Mental image of a terran, though one that called himself human, trying to tell him to hurry up and get things started before a zerg rush would crush his defenses. It was irritating, and he already knew that there was a rush, but disturbing the assembly was not something he was willing to risk. Two more days, he silently hoped.

Two more days and the pylons would be operational. Then they could call upon more warriors. Expand their structures. Begin to create some turrets to aid in culling down these beasts that kept bothering him. At least there was one good thing about them. Slaughtering the right ones seemed to yield some kind of crystalline orbs that the drones were capable of utilizing, shattering them for a quick boost of resonance.

Executor Tal'dan. Taro Hiraki. Two names he had in his mind, one was him, and the other one was insisting it was also him. Part of him. Irritating. It did lend some accurate thoughts about the situation from time to time, but Tal'dan fought to keep it quiet for most part. He couldn't let the warriors see him losing his sanity when they were being threatened by a foe as dangerous as the zerg. Without his leadership, they'd all be doomed.

Thankfully, all his warriors lived up to their name, zealots. They were truly frightening to face on the battlefield, and so far, only two of them had been injured, and even then, he had found to his amazement that the nexus he was controlling had the capabilities of restoring wounded protoss back to full health, without the need for a recovery vessel that he was used to sending his wounded and broken warriors to at the end of a battle. At least he thought he was, that irritating voice kept saying Protoss were not meant to heal in any way, just rely on their shields.

Some of the things the voice kept repeating made no sense at all, but at the same time, he was a bit troubled by the events that had taken place. First humans entered the ruins and ran right into the probes, then hunting down those humans had brought him face to face with zerglings. Face to face through the psychic vision that one of his zealots was sharing with him, but still. The zealots had proven their worth that day, slaughtering the zerg mercilessly and efficiently. They looked tired, worn and beaten already, but for the zerg there was no mercy, as they would not give any mercy to a tired protoss either.

Part of him wanted to scream, troubled by the fact there was no word of contact anywhere nearby. The nexus' communications must be down beyond the atmosphere, he kept telling himself. It had to be that. Otherwise, if the unthinkable had happened and Aiur had fallen, he wasn't sure what he could rely on. Of course, such thoughts should not be entertained. They might lead to some interesting questions from the High Templars, once the connections would be re-established.

The only light in the end of the tunnel appeared to be the two pylons coming closer and closer to completion. Unfortunately the solid ground was highly contested territory at the swamps, and it appeared the damn creatures felt that whoever owned the biggest solid ground was the one most likely to get a mate. That much the analysis software was capable of telling him about the situation. Though the advice, relocating to a better area, was not one that he could follow. There was no way of moving the nexus from where it was, and given the situation he had no means of establishing a second nexus elsewhere, and he was certainly not sure he could get all these strange little fixes and updates to the newly constructed one that the nexus he was sitting in appeared to contain.

At the very least the shields were strong enough that the beasts could rage against its walls helplessly for a long time, and though the weaponry was limited, the nexus' sides each houses a powerful plasma gun. Deterrent more than a serious threat, their accuracy was horrible, but at least they provided him with some defenses when he didn't have the benefit of defensive turrets at his disposal yet.

The thought of the zerg kept arising to his mind over and over again. Something about that incident bothered him. Keying in a command to show a recording of the events, he looked them over, one frame at a time, warily observing everything taking place. The zerglings being cut down. The terrans on the ground. The one standing.

The one standing terran was infested, but not in a way that he was familiar with. This one looked mostly human, but the obvious zerg carapace along the arms was noteworthy and it didn't look like he had just skinned a zerg wearing it as a shell armor either. The man turned to face the protoss, and he died swiftly. Yet even as he fell, there was a sense of dread spreading among the zealots.

They had retreated quickly, after the fight. The last images showed the blood's flow ceasing, and then movement in the distance. One more terran, a female one it appeared. This troubled the executor. He had missed this bit of the puzzle earlier, but he had also neglected to pay attention to all the different views. The four zealots had given him a combined vision that used all their senses, but it was a gestalt built from all of that, rather than individual pieces. Some information was lost that way.

Damn it. The zealots were close to that place now, but he knew from the past events that the spot would be 'clean' again. Dead didn't linger for long in this world. Scavengers were plentiful, and opportunistic. Even so, he worried about it, because if the native terrans were scouting out the perimeter of the swamp, and they had zerg that were not threatening all of them either, then there was a very real possibility of a terran-zerg alliance of some sort. Likely in the form of infected warriors of some sort. The executor considered the past evidence, and silently shook his head. Nothing that joined the zerg would care for anything else but the swarm.

They would have to be burned, every last zerg on the face of this world. Perhaps the terrans as well. If they were willing to let zerg run among them, and ally with them like this, then they would deserve to share the fate of these bug-critters and die in agony.

Instructing his zealots once again to kill anything that came too close to the nexus on sight, not caring about what it was, he checked to see the overriding command was present. Any contact with other protoss was to be reported immediately, any sighting or suspected sighting of the zerg a cause for an immediate full scale alarm and deployment. He didn't want to get caught unprepared.

Tal'dan knew that wishing for those two days might be folly, but he also knew that should the foe delay that long, they would be able to get on their feet, and after that, they'd show the zerg that there was no chance of infesting a planet after it had been torched.

OOOOOO

Long time since I last posted. Real life intruded on my writing, and I had a case of writer's block to combat as well. I'm moving back to writing about Dain, Vera and Gem in the next chapter, the humans of Ravenrock are going to be given some space. I felt I should give some insight to the protoss dilemma at the time being, so that's shown here.

I hope to get more writing out soon, and see what happens. I've had a good chance to catch my breath and rethink a few things after all.

I'm also glad to see East-Bridge has updated his own story, the one that has inspired this and other tales to emerge.

Lastly, I spoke with marine3950 about a dream-crossover section to happen soon, but then I hit my own snag with the writer's block and real life interference. I'm going to be adding my part of that soon, not perhaps the next chapter but the one after that at latest. I'm seeing about how exactly I return to the protagonists right now, so I will just say it will be soon.

I'm glad to be back, and I hope anyone that reads this is also glad to see me back.