Prologue – Just Another Spawn…/ The False Marine

The Drone's metamorphosis was complete. For the first time in its brief life, it felt intelligent thought come to its puny consciousness and sprout like a seed. As the tendrils of this new ability fused with the beast's paltry brain, it opened a pair of obsidian eyes. With a shriek, the colony's first Hydralisk tore from its cocoon with scythe-like claws and beheld its new world. The other three drones that had been feeding, cleaning and caring for the once-larval Hydralisk fell back, their cries echoing of confusion, sanctified reverence, and awe. The Hydralisk blinked and rubbed the cocoon's remaining membranes from its face with long, nimble, three-fingered hands as its young eyes fell upon its colony. The Drones made a motion that can best be described as a bow, falling to the ground before their new flesh-and-blood chief.

"Cerebrate…"

The voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere. Only the Hydralisk heard its voice, gazing around in confusion and perhaps a bit of recognition. One Drone hooted in impatience.

"My Cerebrate…" Now the Hydralisk suddenly realized what the voice was: its master, the Overmind itself! It let loose a peal of snarls and screeches, causing two more Drones which had approached, curious of this winged monstrosity, to scurry away in terror, uttering scratchy growls of fright. "Behold your new colony!" Said the Overmind; "I do hope you care for it well… Knowing that you are the first Cerebrate in a mobile form, let it be recognized that I will not tolerate failure, Zasknar."

The Hydralisk abruptly felt it had a name. Zasknar. Yes, a perfect name for a perfect being. Zasknar screeched in delight, pleased to hear from its lord, and sent a psionic confirmation to its Overmind. Stretching out as if from a long sleep, it arched its wings - the only sign that it was indeed special, different, superior to all others, save the Overmind itself. With a hiss, Zasknar made its move and ordered one of its former caretakers to morph into a new Hatchery. It would need far more Drones in the colony in order to explore Zasknar's new kingdom.

On the same planet, a mere

seven-hundred clicks away...

Katherine Billings groaned in ire. Only less than a week since she arrived as a Medic here, and already the other cadets were calling her "Dr. Billings" not "Miss Billings" or even simply "Kate". She found it more than slightly uncomfortable, being the only Medic in the outpost, but it was what Commander Biggs wanted her to do; train others in her talent.

Sometimes she wondered if she would be able to keep up with demand for her services.

The Marine in front of her kept poking his finger in her face, holding it like it was the fanged end of a snake and wailing like a banshee. The finger had been cut to the bone and was dangling by a thin sinew from his mangled hand. With a whir from the generator on her back, she swiveled in her chair and glanced down at the Marine. He was a smallish, pudgy Asian-looking man in his late thirties with narrow black eyes and wild black hair. She snorted in derision and with deft hands bandaged it with tack-wrap and boosted the wailing boy's metabolism with the healing energies she had gathered up earlier.

"You'll be okay sir." She said with a sigh. That kind of injury was very minor. The Marine would be back to work in half an hour sharp. "Just give it about an hour before you remove that bandage. Don't move that finger until half of that. Understood?"

The man nodded. He was quite a bit calmer now that all of his appendages were firmly attached. "So you're the new Medic. I'm Lieutenant James Sakeó." He extended his healthy left hand, caked with the ruddy grime of the planet's soil. "Do call me James."

"Kate." Kate replied stoically. She turned away from Sakeó, ignoring his cordially offered hand, and back to the computer terminal she was working at. Striking a key, she brought up an analysis screen for the injury. Kate wondered briefly what could have done that, but shook it off. Guesswork was almost always just that, a guess, especially a guess without proof.

"Kate. Lovely name if I may say so." Kate's noncommittal look showed Sakeó her attitude toward him. Or maybe she was just being professional. He couldn't tell. "Anyhow, Dr. Kate," Kate looked to him over her shoulder at the sound of that cliché, "as I said, I'm the head Marine here. What's the status?"

Kate said nothing in return, but with a swift key-combination and voice command ("Status report: planet data: Saskri. Authorization level Beta."), she brought up a hologram of the planet; Saskri – a new planet recently colonized. Most of the holo showed a grayed-out landscape, representing areas as yet unexplored, but there was a small area with the colony's buildings and a tiny area around it displayed.

"As of now," she said, still tapping away at that computer, "nothing of prudent importance has been uncovered. Evidence of a possible Zerg nest," the holo glowed. A blinking red dot about two "inches" away from the colony's only bunker glowed into existence at the words 'Zerg nest', "was uncovered about two weeks ago. Three Marines have been reported MIA, with another's mangled and eviscerated body discovered yesterday. Autopsy showed that a Zergling attack had been his end. With the 'nest' size we've estimated, though, the Zerg colony should not have been strong enough yet to support more than two Zerglings. Commander Biggs has sent a new Ghost type to assist us in the investigation. Supposedly, this 'Ghost', dubbed a Shade, is a hybrid between Zerg and human genomes. Its hybrid nature may enable us to find out what the Zerg are up to."

Sakeó nodded. "I have heard of the Shade too. She, (or is it he?), is supposed to be the first mobile human-Zerg fusion since Kerrigan. I just hope the chick's still got her human brains for rationality. I don't want to fight another bitch like Kerrigan ever again." He shook his mop of a head side-to-side violently to emphasize the point.

Sakeó abruptly changed subjects, seeming to want to avoid the disturbing subject, "Rumor's got it that a new Overmind has grown from an advanced Zerg. What is the story on that bastard?"

Kate growled quietly. With the current population in the colony low, she had to perform a second job: security manager-in-chief. As such, she was in charge of keeping the people in line. Now, she suspected more than ever that Sakeó was not a Marine. She looked down the length of her nose, flipping her raven's-wing hair over her shoulder as she looked intently and angrily at Sakeó with her piercing green eyes. If she had one talent for extracting the truth, it was her razor-sharp "Tell me everything now!" stare.

"You're not really a Marine, are you, James?" She said sharply, well expecting the answer to be somewhat of a no.

Sakeó cringed under the scrutiny of her stare. He faltered for half-a-second, then lowered his head. "No…" he said guiltily, "I…I-I'm really an SCV pilot. I-I-I…I really did fight those damn Zerg and their concubine, Kerrigan, though…"

Katrina narrowed her eyes. This might be a long day… she thought as the cringing Sakeó met her eyes timidly, head lowered in apparent shame. A very long day…