Chapter 24: Flashpoint

IDS Sovereign

Royal chambers public office.

Xapferey was busy meeting with his wife, daughter and Admiral Allaris Starseeker. At the moment, the women were waiting for the Dragon Emperor to arrange his thoughts and speak.

"Well this is certainly interesting and unexpected. I take it we all studied and know what would have happened in normal timeframes for Starcraft?" Xapferey asked.

"Yes, this Jason Davis is nobody I've heard of in any way relating to the… canonical events," Malkira agreed.

"What I feel is that we will have several problems when it comes to the truths about us," Deedlit said as her ears twitched at the mild irritation she felt. Explaining about magic and Elves was a bit of a pet peeve of hers, having dealt with humans long before she had met her husband."

"Agreed, though long lived species is not going to be an issue… at least with Tassadar," Allaris said. "Personally, My Lord, My Ladies, I think it is something that will need to be discussed and handled as soon as possible. Magic on the other hand will be an issue, as magic is far more diverse and, well I don't have the words capable of properly conveying the hassle that will likely become."

"No arguments on that score from me Allaris," Xapferey sighed. "Still best we get these issues ironed out now before they fester."

"Of course dad… that means introducing Elves and the fact that you and I have Dragon blood," Malkira said grimacing.

"Nope no easy button, we should speak with Davis and Raynor soon. Though if they don't call us first within the next while, we'll call them."

"Marfa preserve us," Allaris prayed under her breath as they set off to handle the somewhat daunting tasks ahead.

Liberator

Tactical Room

"Well, this is going to make things interesting." Jim Raynor was the first to speak out of the assembled group. "You know, when I thought we had our day planned out, this wasn't quite what I had in mind."

"You and me both." Sarah replied, shooting a glare towards Jason. "You mind explaining what's going on?"

"I'm going to assume that you're referring to Nova, rather than Xapferey, given there's no way that any of us can explain that."

"Sure, we'll start there."

Jason sighed. "You know that I used to be Confederate, same as both of you. What I didn't tell you, and haven't told anyone else here, is that I'm a lot higher up the chain than I appeared."

"How high up?" Jim asked.

Jason grimaced. "Old Families level, and not one of the nicer ones. As soon as I could, I cut all ties with them, changed my name and tried to make a name for myself that didn't rely on those pricks. Only one family knew who I was; the Terras. Of all the families, they were the only ones with a conscience and a willingness to do the decent thing. Nova and I go back a long way, because of that, and I was assigned to her as her bodyguard at one point in my military career. We lost touch after I retired and got sent to Mar Sara, though." Jason stared at Sarah. "I know you both have issues with the Old Families, but I think we have something else to worry about right now."

Sarah sighed unhappily. "Yeah. Don't think you're off the hook just yet, but you've stood up for us enough to make your priorities clear. But what do we do about Xapferey and his group?"

"That's the million credit question." Jim commented. "I don't like how they turned up at just the right moment. He's hiding something."

Sarah snorted. "No question of that. Those shields of his are damn near unbreakable. Even for Terra or I," she scowled as she said Nova's name, "trying to break through them undetected would be impossible."

"Lovely. So we have a group we've never heard of that is immensely powerful, hiding secrets and we have no way of being able to work out their plans." Jason summed up.

Sarah nodded. "I don't like this, Jason."

"I don't much care for it either. But our backs are against the wall, we have both the Zerg and Mengsk out to take our heads off and we're running out of allies. I don't think we have much choice, do you?"

"You want to work with them?" Jim asked.

"At the very least, we need to find out more about them. If they prove to be as friendly as they seem, then we've found another good ally. But pushing them away right now is just asking for trouble." Jason frowned. "But we need to find somewhere we can talk to them. I don't want them on here until we've worked out if we can trust them, and, even if they'd let us on theirs, that's risky in itself. We'd better go through the star charts and find somewhere that fits the bill."

IDS Sovereign

Bridge

"My Lord, we're receiving a transmission from the Liberator." Admiral Allaris reported.

"Put it through."

Davis's face appeared on the screen in front of them. "Emperor. I think we need to talk face to face before we can go much further. Are you amenable to that?"

"Perfectly Commander, where would you prefer it to take place?" Xapferey asked.

"There's a little uncolonized planet not too far from here, Astrid III. It's private enough for this conversation, I think. Executor Tassadar has also expressed an interest in attending this. Frankly, we're all rather curious about you. I'm sending you the coordinates."

"Excellent, it'll be nice to finally meet you in person without the threat of the Zerg Swarm bearing down on us. My Admiral, my wife and daughter will be joining us at that conference if you wouldn't mind?" Xapferey asked.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Not at all, if you have no problems with Nova, Jim and Sarah tagging along as well. It's the three of us that really run this show, such as it is."

"I have no problems with it, just bear in mind my wife and daughter are of a race you have likely never seen before."

Jason chuckled. "You're definitely the mystery man, aren't you? There won't be a problem with that. I look forward to our meeting, Emperor."

"Me as well Commander, I have the coordinates, and we will see you at Astrid III soon."

"Understood. We should be there in a day or so. The rest of our fleet is regrouping there, regardless of the outcome, we need to plan out our next move."

"Well you'll beat us there… it'll take us a bit longer to make that journey… my frigates sadly are not as fast as my destroyers or Flagship," Xapferey said in mild apology.

Jason cracked a small grin. "Nice to know you don't beat us in absolutely every regard. I'll make sure that the fleet knows to give you a friendly greeting."

"I suppose it's our cross to bear for focusing on our tactical abilities," Xapferey said with a small grin of his own. "I suppose we'd better get going… We'll see you there Commander, Manaweaver out. Xapferey to the fleet, set course for these coordinates and jump to warp."

The 10 Manaweaver ships spun about elegantly and made the jump to warp speed heading for Astrid III. After 3 days of uneventful travel, the 10 ships entered the system to meet up with their tentative acquaintances. Jason had evidently not wasted any time, and he'd scraped together a reasonable sized fleet of his own. Two-dozen battlecruisers flew in tight formation in low orbit alongside Tassadar's own sizable fleet. Several Wraith squadrons were on patrol and two of them formed up alongside the Sovereign as an honour guard. Davis was quick to contact Xapferey.

"Good to see you made it, Emperor. We should be safe enough here for a while. There's a nice spot down on the planet I'm sending you coordinates too. I'll see you there shortly."

"Of course, we'll be waiting," Xapferey agreed before he closed the line and headed to the transporter room alongside Malkira and Deedlit. Allaris joined them a moment later while being shadowed by a pair of Royal Guardsmen only equipped with sidearms. The group beamed down to the meeting coordinates to wait for Davis and his group.

They didn't have to wait long, as the Liberator streaked down towards the landing zone, flaring slightly before touching down. Once again, the five that Xapferey had met on Tarsonis were the only ones to disembark before the ship took off once more, heading back for orbit. Davis and his people walked up towards the waiting group, all of them in casual clothes, or as close as they came to such in the sector. Jim was wearing the shirt and pants that Xapferey remembered from Starcraft II, while Tassadar wore the same armour that he had fought in on Tarsonis. Sarah, too, still wore her Ghost suit, but that was likely what she was most comfortable in. Nova was dressed in a casual blouse and skirt combination that still allowed her plenty of movement. Davis himself, however, wore a semi-formal uniform with insignia that Xapferey couldn't immediately place. All of them, however, carried sidearms as a minimum.

As for the Draconian party, Xapferey stood in his semi-formal fine clothes that he used on Lodoss. An outfit the same as he wore in Valis long ago, a black doublet with split sleeves with silver edging, black trousers and thigh-high black boots. Deedlit was wearing her usual dress minus the armor, though her wrists were still enclosed in the bracers she normally wore. Malkira wore an outfit similar to her father, though the colors were lighter and softer that the outright black her father wore. Allaris on the other hand was dressed in the standard Draconia outfit that Xapferey took from Star Trek, the shoulder section proclaimed her as a rich command-gold; her rank insignia on her neck as per the norm. All four wore sidearms as well, though the Royal Guardsmen were faceless behind their helmets and armor.

"Commander Davis, Executor Tassadar, Captains Kerrigan and Raynor," Xapferey greeted them. "My wife Deedlit," Xapferey said gesturing to the High Elf. "My daughter Malkira, and our commander of the First Fleet, Admiral Allaris Starseeker."

Davis bowed his head at each as they were introduced, before gesturing to Nova. "My pleasure. I believe I haven't formally introduced Nova Terra. She's an old friend of mine." Davis's eyes flicked over each of them, pausing only slightly to take in the features of Deedlit and Malkira before moving on. He paused briefly before continuing. "Emperor, as timely as your assistance was, we are most intrigued as to your arrival here."

"That's an interesting tale Commander, as it is quite long and some of the answers you get will not be what anyone expected. Though I do suspect they will be of great shock and some comfort,"

"Well, that's not ominous at all." Jim commented.

"I suppose so, but it means we can be of great help to one and other. As for what my forces are doing here, we became aware of a long abandoned Confederacy outpost and became aware of the larger Koprulu sector and based on the knowledge I have we were wondering what was occurring at the time… things were certainly different than I expected to find."

"Indeed." Tassadar replied. "Much has changed here in the past few months."

"Particularly in the eyes of the Confederacy." Jason added. "Six months ago, they were the undisputed top faction here. Now, with the arrival of the Zerg, and Tassadar's forces hot on their heels, the Confederacy has been essentially shattered. You've met the guy that I suspect is going to try and set up in place of them."

"Yes he will. I'm going to be blunt here and your psionic friends will be able to see what I am saying," Xapferey lowered his mental shields around the general knowledge of the Starcraft universe and how he got that knowledge. "From my perspective… the Koprulu sector was… fictional, from a highly popular game series that spawned books alongside entailing current and future events of this whole area of space."

Jim stepped back in shock, his eyes flickering to Sarah, who looked pale. Nova and Tassadar didn't look much better. Jason's eyes narrowed as he stared, first at Xapferey, then at Sarah and Nova. Both nodded at him and he frowned in thought.

"Well, that does make things interesting. Of all the explanations I had considered for your actions, that wasn't one of them. But it does explain some other things I had wondered about."

"Such as?" The disguised Dragon queried.

Jason smiled slightly. "Well, there was the fact that you didn't even stop to get Mengsk's side of the story before you engaged him, to begin with. That one, I could chalk up to you coming across Confederate information. The timing of your arrival, as I've said, was suspiciously good. Then there was that crack about the blast. Supernova, huh? An interesting shot in the dark, I must say. But you know what was the key that gave away you knew more than you let on?"

"And that would be?" Xapferey asked. "Though I shouldn't be surprised, you're not the only one who figured out I knew more than I was originally letting on when it came to other events," at that Deedlit rolled her eyes and smiled slightly.

Jason grinned. "Evidently, there's a good story there too. But you weren't surprised to see many of us. Only me, I think. Sarah and Jim, I could write up to Confederate information, Tassadar possibly to intercepted transmissions. But no more than a handful of people would have been able to connect Nova with psionics and you recognized her instantly."

Nova grinned slightly. "I have rather good hearing, you know. I heard you say my name, and Jason told me he hadn't let it slip to anyone exactly what I was capable of."

"Miss Terra, my wife is a High Elf I am used to those with excellent hearing, those ears are not for show... Though sometimes I forget how good human hearing can be… I haven't been one in over 36 years," Xapferey grinned himself.

That got Jason's attention. "Haven't been one? That would imply that you used to be, but I haven't heard of any means of changing from human to another race, other than Zerg infestation and that's clearly not something that you've gone through."

"No and that is one process I wouldn't want to wish upon anyone. It ties into my powers, well actions do speak louder than words." A rock floated up into his hand and after a touch of magic, Xapferey was holding a living, breathing, thinking kitten. Jason lost his calm demeanor at that, eyes widening.

"OK, I've seen a lot of things, but never anything like that." He blinked. "Or whatever it was you did to accelerate us on Tarsonis."

"How did you do that?" Jim breathed.

"It should be obvious, it's a five letter word starting with m and ending with c," Xapferey teased gently. "It's how I changed, one of my ancestors was not human and with my powers I called the bloodline forward at full strength, though I had to shed my human blood to do it."

"Magic." Jason breathed. "Now, I've seen it all."

"Not quite, ever seen a Dragon?"

"What? You mean to say that-" Jim started.

"That I am a Dragon? Yes I am; this was what I looked like when I was human. I had a very good reason for doing so at the time," Xapferey grinned, the kitten was returned to a rock, and in his place was a 21 foot tall young adult gold Dragon.

Jason and his group stepped back, stunned. Jason suddenly reached for his earpiece. "Calm down, Ros. It's fine. Yes, I know there is a massive Dragon here, I am standing right in front of him. No, you don't need to start firing, that would seriously upset our friends. Yes, we're perfectly safe, if they wanted us dead, then they've had about a dozen chances to make it happen. Thank you." Jason sighed as his hand dropped. "Sorry about that, that wasn't exactly something that we anticipated." He shook his head. "I stand corrected. Now, I've seen it all. Unless you have some other little trick to play on us poor sods."

"No, though I felt you needed the truth about what I was and for the sake of your psionic friends why I could handle and hold so much power without adverse effects. I do hope we can become allies Commander, as we can be of great benefit to one and other. Imagine magical enhancements to your ships, increasing gun magazine sizes on orders of magnitudes, hull armor five times stronger than normal simply by the power of the arcane arts. My Empire may be small, but we have diverse and powerful talents." The Dragon said in his powerful voice.

Jason managed to recover at least part of his decorum. "As appealing as that sounds, Emperor, why offer this? What do you get out of it? The last person who promised us the world betrayed us and left Sarah to the Zerg. I made the mistake of not establishing his motives quickly enough. I won't make that mistake twice."

"Nor would I blame you, but I am nothing like Arcturus Mengsk, I wouldn't trust the man even as far as I could throw him in my natural state… As for why you could trust me let me tell you that if not for your actions, or mine in case you weren't here to interfere with… His plans, Sarah would now be in the hands of the Zerg being psionically and physically broken into becoming the hated and feared Queen of Blades, when I had discovered her fate at the time… I was playing, and your friends here can confirm this as I won't stop them on this matter; I did everything in my power at the time to try and avert her fate, including cheat codes and even designing my own scenario where the goal was to rescue her before her fate."

"I know that's what would have happened, that's a major part of why I intervened." Jason said calmly.

"And I am glad you did, for billions would have died if not for that. Fine, have your friends look at my life and judge me on the merits of what I have done. I know their lives for the most part through… psionic means for lack of a better term. Let them know mine in the same way. Though some things I will keep private as they are not to be shared," Xapferey offered.

Jason shook his head. "No. I don't want to and, frankly, I don't need to. You wouldn't say something that outrageous without the evidence to back it up. But I do want an answer to one question before we go any further, and I will insist on Tassadar, Sarah and Nova verifying it. Have you ever attempted to enter my mind?"

"If you are the Magistrate of Mar Sara as I suspect then… technically as from the perspective of the game, the player is the Magistrate. Aside from that, I have not attempted to enter your mind in any way or form," Xapferey said honestly as he let the psychic trio see the truth.

Oddly, Jason frowned as the three nodded at him. "Of course not. That would have been too easy."

"Blame the developers, I had nothing to do with that, nor do but what they wanted, including failing a friend of sorts from that perspective."

Sarah looked at Jason. "What do you mean, it would have been too easy?"

Jason looked away for a moment. "Ordinarily, you wouldn't believe this, but after a day like today, who knows?" Jason turned back to Sarah. "Sarah, the night before New Gettysburg, I saw everything. You and I went after the Protoss, we dealt with them and the Zerg overran you."

"Exactly like what happened." Sarah said slowly.

"NO! Not like what happened at all. We fought the Protoss, destroyed their bases and drove them off. Then the Zerg attacked, you called for extraction and Mengsk stopped us from doing it. We weren't ready and by the time we were, you were gone."

"It seems I am not the only one mucking about in this sandbox and I doubt it would have been Amon," Xapferey growled. "He would have made sure you died outright," a small tongue of flame escaped from Xapferey's nostrils as he snorted.

"Agreed." Jason nodded angrily. "What I want to know, is who else is out there trying to change things and why. Someone with the kind of mental power to plant that vision, and the knowledge of what happened…Well that scares me more than the Zerg."

"I have a thought, as knowing what I know, and the fact my IQ was 151 when I was human, it has only grown since my transformation. But I know someone who became a class 12 psionic and my suspicions are pointing me in that direction. Though how that is possible even boggles my mind a little even though I know of ways it could be done," Xapferey said pinching the bridge of his snout. "If I were still human I could freely complain about getting too old for this."

"Nor would you have any right to complain about your age my love... Considering how much older I am," Deedlit added with a slight smile.

Jason grinned. "Someone's got some sweet talking to do." His grin faded as he considered the possibilities. "A Class 12 psionic. Now how would….that….." Jason trailed off as he looked at Sarah, putting pieces together. His eyes widened. "The HELL?!"

"The Queen of Blades… a Zerg being of tremendous and terrible power all aimed at the so called "Emperor of Man,"" Xapferey sneered. "An alternate and/or future version of Sarah Kerrigan most likely after her ascension to the Primal Queen of Blades is my guess…" The Dragon trailed off.

"Well, that would make a degree of sense, but as you said, how is that possible?" Jason wondered.

"Um, boys? A little lost here. Can one of you explain WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Jim roared.

Jason spun towards Jim, speaking urgently. "Jim, if we didn't make it to Sarah in time, the Zerg would have taken her. You don't have to be a genius to see that. A powerful psionic, and the Zerg love to get new biological boosts to their Swarm. But evidently something changed. If that did happen, then she must have broken free of whatever programming that the Zerg did. Question is, what happened next?"

"From what I know, Sarah would have eventually ascended to become a Xel'Naga and godly levels of power, she would have killed Amon though the Galaxy would be in flames from the sheer terrors involved. Executor, we must find Praetor Zeratul of the Dark Templar, even with his void energies, slaying a Cerebrate will bring the Overmind straight to your homeworld," Xapferey said as a dangerous thought occurred to him. "With my powers I could theoretically finish off a Cerebrate without putting either of our homeworlds at risk. Search my mind, see what I want to help prevent."

Tassadar didn't waste any time, moving quickly through the various images that Xapferey showed him. But the Terrans didn't need any images shown to them, they had already seen it far too often.

"Where can we find him?" Sarah asked quickly.

Jason frowned. "It's not that easy, Sarah. Even with Xapferey's help, we're not even close to being ready to take on the Swarm on that scale."

"Possibly we can, though it might require distasteful methods, I realize the Zerg are quickly adaptable and hardy. But I feel it might be possible to fight them using trilithium compound, as in systems completely overrun by the Zerg we could use it to collapse stars and cause quantum implosions. Distasteful I know but against the Zerg the kid gloves must come off… but not at the expense of innocent lives. Executor I have a strong feeling the Conclave is going to be a gigantic pain in our collective asses and they must be handled one way or another… as you saw they let Aiur die in their denial, and I don't want the blood of countless Protoss on my hands due to idiotic inaction."

Tassadar blinked. "You are talking about removing the leadership of my race when they have not yet done anything. Even though I have already gone against their wishes, I cannot easily consider their destruction as a necessity. But I like the idea of the loss of Aiur and its people just as little."

Jason didn't look any happier. "Blowing up entire star systems to destroy the Zerg is the same kind of tactic that the Protoss used early on, even if it is up a level. It didn't work completely then and I'm not convinced it's going to work this time either, even if we could guarantee that there were no innocents in the area. We need a way to cut the Zerg off at the head and, even then, with what you're saying, we're going to need them to take on Amon."

"Yes, there is a way… I have a feeling we might… and I strongly hedge might be able to reason with the Overmind, it converted Sarah as part of a plan to break its chains and defeat Amon once and for all…" Xapferey swore in Draconic under his breath. "We have limited options here Commander, as between Mengsk, Amon's loyalists, the Zerg and even the United Earth Directorate… we cannot play kid games. I only have 14 ships and you have two dozen. What with Tassadar here that eases the burden some. But if we do ally I can offer you all safety and a port of harbor completely loyal to any alliance we make and free of outside spies and saboteurs."

"That will help, certainly, but we need to gather our strength here." Jason said grimly. "If Amon and his plans aren't stopped here, then I'm not sure if we'll stop them anywhere. Running and retreating isn't an option for us right now. The weakest option, and our best chance to grow our strength is Mengsk. He's still in the process of establishing his rule. It's chaotic in Terran space and we can use that to our advantage. I can think of three viable options for us to utilize and I suspect one of them will be of particular interest to you."

"Do tell?" Xapferey asked.

"As I've told my friends here, I used to be fairly high up in the Confederacy. I learned a lot of secrets and I still have access to a fair few of them. One of them is knowledge of the location of a concealed, highly experimental mobile shipyard that produces cutting edge designs. It's the facility that built the Liberator. I know they have some other advanced designs there, of various minds, and I'm fairly sure they'd have some more of the Stingray-class gunships like the Liberator built or under construction. There isn't a more advanced Terran design in existence right now than that ship. The technology and designs there could boost our capability considerably. Other than that, the Dylarian shipyards and New Fulsom are other obvious targets for manpower, vehicles and ships."

"Agreed, though if we hit New Fulsom, and if your old friend Tychus is there Captain Raynor, if he hits on my wife or daughter I will not be pleased. I do know your friend and what he is like Captain, let's work to prevent his unfortunate possible death at your and Mengsk's hands shall we?"

Jim shivered. "That sounds like a good idea. He's, well, something of a rogue."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Jim, if he tries anything on me, I will turn him into a smear."

"That goes double for me." Nova added.

"I could turn him into a newt if you preferred, though he won't get better," Xapferey grinned at his quip causing Malkira and Deedlit to groan at the bad joke.

The two Terran ladies grinned. "That would be interesting to see. Maybe a small porcupine, so we can play polo with him psionically?" Nova suggested.

"Or he might be feeling sheep-ish afterwards," Malkira added with a laugh.

"Oh, now that's just cruel." Jim groaned. "You might as well strap him to a pole and start lobbing bottles of whiskey at him, it would be as humane to him."

"Trust me Captain, women of any species when at risk of being annoyed is hazardous for one's health. Especially when they are naturally eight times stronger than humans… especially if that woman can literally breathe fire," Malkira said with a grin as she flexed her wings and claws.

Jim and Jason exchanged looks. "Jim, make a note. If Tychus starts hitting on someone, shoot him. He'd thank us for it, eventually."

"So, shall we work together Commander? As equals you and I?" Xapferey asked while smiling.

Jason nodded. "Agreed. We stand together, against whatever comes at us."

Xapferey returned to his human form, and they shook hands a moment later. "Together we shall win. First order of business is we need to claim that mobile shipyard and find Zeratul. Are you joining us Executor?" Xapferey asked Tassadar.

Tassadar nodded. "For my people, whether they appreciate it or not."

"Indeed, as your people would say, may Adun be with us all..."