Kerrigan floated in the gentle fluid of the overlord's ventral sacs. Her eyes were closed, and she felt the presence of every Cerebrate in the Swarm. Each was busy in maintaining its own Brood, and every now and again one found time to speak with her. It was pleasant to be able to speak with those her predecessor, the fallen Overmind, had created. The Cerebrate that had been created to watch her, to guide over her, Sehr'tal, was the one who she "saw" most often, and she was grateful to him for protecting her during her incubation. He still remained among the most adept of the Cerebrates, and his Ashur brood was one of the most terrifying war machines that she could remember, or she could dredge up from the minds of the older Cerebrates.
No Cerebrate could match the Overmind in wisdom, and not an hour passed when she did not think of Him. Sometimes, she could feel Him stirring inside her, slowly awakening, and she embraced Him with open arms. The process, however, was slow- He had been shattered by the Protoss in His quest for transcendence, and though He would be remade in her mind and her body, it was still a difficult undertaking. She prayed in His memory that the Swarm could someday be made whole once more, with its embodiment taking His rightful place as its collective consciousness.
The overlord saw Protoss Scout-class fighters streaking in the endless void, and relayed the sight to Kerrigan. Kerrigan allowed a command to issue from her mind to the overlords, and she changed the course of the entire Brood to deal with the threat. Best not to split the strength of her precious, only Brood while it was still in transit, lest the way be open to her enemies to wipe out detachments of it.
As she watched, the Scouts began to engage her forces. Perhaps six hundred of her mutalisks, aerial beauties with glittering wings and gaping maws without mouths, fired upon the Protoss craft at once.
A mutalisk is a helpless creature without its symbiotes. That, Kerrigan reflected, was true of the entire Swarm. No one creature could last on its own, but together, they formed something glorious. The symbiotes of the mutalisk in particular, however, performed a dramatic role. The vicious, ever-hungering glaive wurms launched themselves out of the "throat" of the mutalisk flyer, tearing into the foes of the Swarm and often returning back to the mutalisk to leap out once more.
Satisfied with the destruction of the Scouts, Kerrigan moved her forces back to the original course.
The Karriat system awaited her.
Max woke up to a searing white light in his eyes. The first time this had happened, he had thought he had gone to heaven. Now, he realized immediately what had happened. He had been recovered, miraculously. In the past, he had only fallen to fellow Terran soldiers, and they took care of the wounded, if they could. He knew for a fact that the Zerg had not picked him up, because he was completely able to hate the Zerg and love himself over all other things. But nobody was ever rescued from the Zerg. Simply put, nobody had the balls to pick up one of their wounded after they see their best friend being reduced to a cloud of red by needle spines.
He looked up at the ceiling, and stood up from the metal cot. He had not seen a real surgeon, and the problems he currently had would most likely recur, severely, in several years. That didn't worry him- everybody knew he would never live that long.