Chapter 2: When All Hope Is Lost
She was alone on an infested world. Tarsonis City had been the capital of the Confederacy, which was itself the most populated planet in the Koprulu sector. There were no humans left, however – the great city was dark, and the streets that weren't impassable from the carnage were filled with hundreds of thousands of milling Zerg savage searching for any hapless survivors. The enormous crustacean Drones were slowly dismantling the city, reducing it to rubble and extracting any resources they could.
Weeks before, Zerg had descended on the planet – the Confederacy, had fought back long and hard, throwing hundreds of thousands of marines and soldiers at the Swarm, buying time for at least some of the civilian population to escape. In the end, however, they were overrun, and the streets had been filled with millions of screaming men and women, dying. Even now the desolate cities still screamed on the psychic plane, begging for respite from the pain and horror and awful betrayal.
And this thing, this monstrous Cerebrate, sat in the middle of the currents of horror, feeding off of the pain like a great bloated spider. It's frigid touch caressed Kerrigan's psychic profile almost tenderly, and she pushed it away with all the power left in her soul.
The bargain was made, and I have upheld my end, it's loathsome thoughts squirmed through her mind. You belong to the Swarm, now. Discard your weapon.
Sarah felt sick. The thrumming "heartbeat" of the Zerg hive was growing ever louder, threatening to drown out all thought, all reason. Her canister rifle fell from nerveless fingers, and she heard the dull squish of it hitting the creep-covered ground almost absently. She tried to close her mind to the overwhelming pressure from the Cerebrate, but the more she tried to reinforce her mental "walls" the stronger the compulsion pressed upon her, and she grew ever more exhausted.
Bile rose in her throat, and she tore off the face mask before retching. The crushing agony was too much, and she dropped to her knees as her stomach kept heaving. She was helpless.
A Zerg larva, looking like nothing so much as a half-meter long centipede, slithered over her legs. Kerrigan shuddered and ordered her body to rise, but the pounding in her head redoubled and folded in on herself. A pain-wracked sob rose in her throat, and the tried to suppress it. She failed.
The larva was crawling up her leg as she lay on the ground, and she weakly tried to tug it off. It simply ignored her efforts. Instead it wrapped itself around her hips and then climbed up the valley between her breasts, a sick mockery of a lover's embrace.
Kerrigan's struggles began again, more desperately this time. She pulled her slender blade from its sheath on her thigh, and brought it up to kill the monster. Before she could strike the deathblow, however, she was stopped by a mental command. The Cerebrate had plowed through her mental guard like it wasn't even there, and its compulsion was everywhere in her mind, too massive to fight or to hide from.
Do not move, Terran, it commanded with a note of impatience. Your resistance is commendable, but it grows tiresome. Now BE STILL.
She was paralyzed, utterly unable to stop the larva as it coiled around her neck. There was a sudden shock of pain, and the control loosened enough to allow her to scream. The larva was burrowing into the base of her skull – the alien was physically present in her body. She screamed in pain and fear and loss, her screams joining with those left behind by millions of uncelebrated slain, echoing through the dead city of Tarsonis until the darkness took her.