CHAPTER 3: A NEW BEGINNING
The next morning he began running some tests. He wanted to know how much the chemicals had weakened her body and how much they had strengthened her powers. He assured her that she could stop them at any time. He found she could still cloak, read minds, read minds, shoot a gun, and everything else required to be a ghost. But during the week she developed an attitude, a sort of defensive shell against probing curiosities. No properly trained ghost would respond to "Lieutenant?" with "What is it now?!"
The tests showed bodily functions as normal. However, the last test in the sick bay was a neural scan. While she hadn't been brain-panned or anything, there WERE some odd things going on inside her head. Mensk just chalked it up to being psychic.
What worried Kerrigan the most was that every so often Mensk would disappear, become unavailable when she wanted to talk, and so forth. Snooping led her to be locked in her room. Soon she was regularly locked in her room whenever they approached a planet.
One night, she confronted Arcturus about this. He sighed and sat on her bed. Then, he began to tell her his story.
"I was not always the man you see before you. Once I was a small boy who loved his father. I did not always live among the stars. Once I had a planet.
"Did you ever wonder why we are called the Sons of Korhal? Well, Korhal was once a prosperous planet. But my father ran into some trouble with the Confederates, and they began to despise him.
"Me and everyone else on this ship were offworld when the Confeds blew up Korhal. My father was not.
"We are all that's left of our planet. We travel around setting things right."
"You seek vengeance."
"No, my dear, we seek justice. The Confederacy seek to do others the harm they did us. We resist. Therefore, they seek to kill us."
Kerrigan stiffened, realizing, remembering that so many of the live targets at school were "Sons of Korhal, some of the most hated criminals in the whole confederacy." She gasped, realizing she personally had stood in the way of this great man's cause.
" I know. Horrible, isn't it?"
So he didn't know what happened to the ones the Confederates caught. She didn't bother to correct him. Why would he, or anyone, like her, trust her, love her, if they knew she had killed so many of their friends? She resolved to dedicate herself to repaying this man, not just for the loss of valuable friends and soldiers, but for returning to her her soul.
"I want to help"
Arcturus just smiled. He had known this day would come.
-------
Over the planet Chau Sara he briefed her: The Confederacy had been doing evil experiments in their labs. Sarah assumed on people. He assigned her to watch from a science vessel.
Overt the next few weeks, they had a bunch of skirmishes. Kerrigan was getting fed up of watching. She didn't realize all her pilots were incompetent and slow-minded. Arcturus had hand-picked them.
She barely recognized the world of her birth and imprisonment. She had spent most of her time in the academy, but even so, they were on the other side of the planet. There were strange animals here that attacked them. It added a complication to battle strategies.
She was learning a lot about strategy, but she yearned to fight. She confronted Mensk: "When are you going to let me fight?!?!?!?!" "When you're ready." Came the reply.
But I AM ready!! She thought to herself. I don't care WHAT he thinks!!!
The next battle she simple cloaked and hopped to the ground upon liftoff. Easy as pie. Then, she began her work.
She soon lost herself in killing. It felt like a ballet. Sneak up, appear slit throat, vanish, like a moth going from lamp to night to lamp, slitting each throat with care, single-mindedly, yet in another part of her, painfully aware of each man's last thoughts: I hate war, There's one, another one bites the dust, I'm Hit!!!, I'm never doing this again, One less rebel!, That'll teach you to murder my Sally!!, damn cutthroat rebel scum, BOB!!! They got BOB!!!, and a dozen others all at once.
After a long while she realized the enemy were dead, the Sons of Korhal regrouping. She was alone. She sank to her knees and let out a low moan, and grieved for all the men killed upon the battlefield.