Thank you Liara Evans and anonymous person for pointing out the formatting errors in Chapter 4. I recently changed a couple of minor errors in the chapter, so that must have caused the issues.
May went over her topics, remaining careful to only discuss the strengths of the Zerg. After giving as much information
as she deemed necessary, May concluded her speech in a nice summary. She finished on time, and her speech was followed by many questions about her intentions in the Middle East.
The only question that she answered in a straight forward manner was about the birth of Zerg forces. She made it perfectly clear that only Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives could produce the larvae that the Swarm relied on. One weakness. That is the only one that she would tell them of.
After all of this was taken care of, the topic of The Marie Byrd Lands being officially made into a recognized nation was brought forward by the council president. This was by far the shortest part of the meeting, as the idea was only mentioned so that it would be discussed by the council behind closed doors after the meeting.
The council was dismissed shortly after, and May exited the room the way she came in.
"How'd it go?" Stephanie asked as soon as May exited the meeting room.
"I have no idea. Everything is a bit of a blur." May replied in a calm voice that somehow did not reflect the nervousness she felt.
"Don't worry, I am sure that you did just fine." Stephanie said while flashing a smile.
Stephanie quietly led May through the empty halls of the building to the back double doors that May had to squeeze through once more. Once outside, May stretched her wings out wide while loudly popping her neck and back.
Stephanie shivered and wrinkled her nose.
"I don't mean to sound rude, but that was disgustin'." Stephanie commented with a queasy look on her face.
"Well, if you were in my...shoes? Can I say shoes even if I don't wear them? Claws? Paws?" May began to look herself over for something to replace shoes in her statement. "Carapace? No, that sounds weird. Scales? Scales... If you were in my scales today, that would signal freedom, and you would love that sound."
May looked over to see Stephanie giving her a strange look.
"What?" May asked.
"You." Stephanie replied without looking away.
"What about me?" May asked as she began looking herself over for anything strange.
"You aren't what I would have expected from a big ol' fire breathin' dragon." Stephanie said as she walked away towards the entrance to the building complex.
"I would think not." May stated as though Stephanie had overlooked something obvious. "I don't breathe fire. I would be completely different if I could breathe fire." May hopped to catch up to Stephanie and kept pace beside her.
"Oh, why don't you just get into the truck so that I can get rid of you." Stephanie said with good humor.
"Can I not get in the truck? Maybe I can just walk." May said in an attempt to avoid a cramped ride.
"That is a worse idea than flying back. You'd be swarmed by nagging reporters tryin' to get anything and everything they can out of ya."
May began to think of ways to avoid getting back into the simi-truck trailer. "I have an idea that doesn't involve flying or walking." May stated.
"Getting in the trailer?" Stephanie asked.
May stopped, sat down, and closed her eyes to concentrate. "No, something else. If it works, then I will see you at the airport." May decided to mimic the psionic ability of Leviathans to warp herself to the airport. May opened her eyes and picked up the two Zerglings that had accompanied her for most of her trip.
"We aren't going to the airport." Stephanie stated.
May didn't move an inch.
"We should go if we want to be on time."
May peeked an eye open. "Well, that didn't work."
"What didn't work?" Stephanie asked.
"It doesn't matter." May said as she stood and walked over to the semi-truck.
"Where are we going now?" May asked as she backed into the truck.
"To a joint interview with the CIA and FBI in Philadelphia."
May frowned. "How long is the drive to Philadelphia?"
At this, Stephanie smiled. "We won't be driving for more than thirty minutes. Now get in."
May thought that the ride to Philadelphia would have been longer, but she was not going to complain. Little did she know that she would not be riding to Philadelphia.
May backed into the trailer like she had done before and her Zerglings hopped in with her. The door to the trailer was closed, and May began the ride to an airport just outside of New York city.
The ride was just as unpleasant as the one before.
The truck stopped and May heard, and felt, the transmission move into park. They had arrived. May was hoping that the unpleasant ride would be worth it in the long run.
She heard footsteps approaching the trailer door followed by the latch being opened. The door quickly rose, and May was forced to squint for a moment before her eyes adjusted to the sudden increase in light.
Stephanie was standing to the side with a big grin on her face.
"What are you so happy about?" May asked as she stepped out of the trailer with her Zerglings. She looked around as she stretched and quickly noticed that they were at another airport.
"I thought that we were going to Philadelphia and not to the airport." May stated, voicing her confusion.
"We are, but not in this truck, and this ain't the same airport. The drive to Philly would be over two hours long." Stephanie replied.
"We are going by plane?" May asked.
"I am going by helicopter. You are going on your own power. How fast can you fly?"
May smiled.
"Are you smiling?" Stephanie asked as the grin that she was wearing dropped.
"Yeah."
"Never do that again. It's terrifying."
May's smile fell.
"Alright. Let's go." Stephanie said as she began walking away from the truck. May fast walked until she was next to Stephanie.
"I really do need to know how fast you can fly though. We assumed that you could fly at least forty miles per hour, but it will help the pilots if know how fast to go before we take off."
"I never tried to test my limits like that. I was too busy doing other things. I'll bet that I can go faster than forty miles per hour though."
Stephanie, May, and the two Zerglings continued in silence for a while before Stephanie broke the silence.
"I have been meaning to ask, why such a small guard? I would have thought that you would have brought at least ten...things with you." Stephanie said gesturing to the Zerglings.
May chuckled. "They're called Zerglings. I wasn't going to bring any guards with me at all, but I was told that going alone would be unusual. Bringing one Zergling would make it seem overly important, and bringing something other than Zerglings would mean bringing something slower. Also, Zerglings come in pairs. They are the smallest and fastest ground Zerg, and I wanted something small enough to fit through human buildings easily."
"But why didn't you want any guards? There are plenty of people who want you dead...no offence." Stephanie replied.
"It's fine. I just don't like having to keep up with them. They tend to be curious, so if I take my eye off of them for a while, there is no telling what they'll get into."
The two rounded the corner of a building and were faced with two helicopters, one red and one blue. The pilots of the helicopters were talking, but stopped upon noticing May and Stephanie.
"Hello!" One of the pilots said to Stephanie. "This must be the dragon."
"That is correct." May replied.
The pilot looked slightly surprised that May could speak English and muttered something about it before he recomposed himself. "Give us a moment to request takeoff." The pilot turned and faced Stephanie. "While we get ready, why don't you go ahead an get into the blue chopper? It will be just a minute."
The pilot then turned back to May. "When we are cleared for takeoff, I will be lifting off first in the blue helicopter. You will be second, and James, piloting the red helicopter, will be third. If you follow me the entire flight, everything should go just fine. Since we won't be able to talk when we get in the air, you will need to stay directly between James and me."
"By the way, how fast can you fly?" He asked.
May thought for a moment. Because she couldn't emulate the Leviathan's psyionic ability to jump through space, she figured that she wouldn't be able to emulate the Scourge's and Mutalisk's psy-propelled flight. They co
uld fly at around MACH 3-4.
"We are about to find out." She stated.
The pilot shrugged. "Just say directly between the helicopters, and we'll slow down if you can't keep up."
The pilot then turned around and walked to the blue helicopter.
It occurred to May that the pilot did not seem to be as frightened by her as most people did. The same could be said of Stephanie. Perhaps she was less intimidating now that she was not constantly stressing over the war with I.S.I.S. Speaking English again for the first time in months had likely improved her mood also.
May smiled as the helicopter rotors began to spin up. This would be an interesting flight.
Sorry for the short chapter. :(
So...I had about three paragraphs of stuff in this bold portion written out, but I backspaced it all in favor of something shorter. This story is in the top fifty StarCraft stories in terms of reviews, favorites, and followers (M rated stories included.) I did not expect this when I started writing this story, and you guys kept me from abandoning this story when I lost my phone a while back (because pretty much this entire story was written on a phone.) I lost a lot of stuff for this story and didn't want to rewrite what I had lost. You guys kept me on track though, and the end of book one draws nigh as a result. Thank you.
