The battle was underway as Zerg assault the gate in waves, none getting through quite yet as Kerrigan spoke.
"We've reach the Terran fortress. They're dug in and ready for us. They is no room for subtlety here. We will go after them wherever they are, and overwhelm them." Warfield was also making good on his threats as he commanded.
"Prepare for nuclear launch! I want the only thing left of these bugs is to be a glowing corpses!"
"General Warfield is activating his nuclear arsenal!"
"We have to move fast. Zagara, you set up a hive cluster while I take this wave and do as much damage as I can."
"I will set up a hive cluster for the Swarm while you do as much damage as you can, my Queen!" Then came the surge of Zerglings and Banelings against the gates as Warfield exclaimed to Kerrigan breaching the line again buying Zagara time to build up the cluster and ready a force to attack again.
"Repel the Zerg assault! Don't budge an inch!" It was a short window, but one that Kerrigan used to soften up Warfield's initial defenses as reinforcements of Zerg charged to join their Queen in war as Kerrigan groaned to them crippling the bases, but not destroying them in time.
"We are running out of time."
"Wipe them out, men! These bugs will never take Char!" Then it timed out as Warfield moved on the final option. "Time for the nuclear option! Kill them all!" Then a maelstrom of nuclear missiles barraged the road inward, blasting the Zerg forces to none, so no more reinforcements for now as several managed to blasted the hive cluster, it taking heavy damage, but it clung on as Zagara voiced.
"Our hive cluster barely survived that blast, my Queen!"
"Warfield will drop more nukes on us as his arsenal comes online." Kerrigan suspected that the only hope of stopping those missiles was to destroy the operations that are formulating the attacks. "Our only option is to breach his Tactical Operations Center. Once we're inside, it's all over."
"I have created something to help you destroy the Terrans: the Aberration!" Several large creatures emerged from the ground at Zagara command and Kerrigan wasn't too sure about it yet, but no terran subject could have grew to that size, so Zagara must have been playing around with some of the infested terrans and using them for this creature of tank-like stature.
"Sequences sloppy. Yet... effective." Whoa, if Abathur was saying, then Kerrigan wasn't going to judge as they moved to join the remaining assault force of Zerg.
"Use them, my queen! Take control of the base, and the Terrans will learn to fear the Swarm!" Then came the assault once more in both keeping Warfield occupied and destroying his bases for more resources and a moved-up position of attack and defense, Kerrigan also taking the time to destroy the Science Facilities that were storing Zerg subjects inside and getting stronger from it as she made to threaten Warfield.
"Leave Char. If you stay, I will slaughter your men to the last." He didn't reply back, but she suspected that he didn't want to let the Zerg retake the home world and to have an established zone of power again. The forces there also tried to escape back to the main line and further before the Zerg could take them.
"Incoming Zerg! Get the wounded to the evac ship!" The Hercules transport lifted off as the Zerg cleared out the lower ground and made their bases apparent as Warfield scoffed in anger.
"Dammit, girl, we save you! How could you return to... this? You gave up your humanity for this? To kill more people?" Kerrigan broke character a bit as she shouted back at Warfield.
"You don't know my pain right now!" Warfield tried to keep them out, sending Ghosts and assault squads to attack the Zerg, even repairing the Operations Center when the Swarm descended, but it just wasn't enough as Zagara exclaimed in victory.
"The way is clear!"
"Go, hunt them all down. But leave General Warfield to me." She headed into the base that was falling apart, not taking a moment to realize that the voice's source had just warped in over Char...
Warfield was alone, mortally injured, but he put his men first as he commanded from laying on his back to a fallen pillar, girders protruding from his Marine suit. "Lieutenant, get the wounded to those shuttles!"
"We're almost there! Should I send a team to get you?"
"I'm fine, Lieutenant." He coughed in reaching up to the girder closest to his chest. "Just see to those wounded." He grabbed hold and kicking himself before he tried. "I'll get out another way." He started to pull, but even shifting it out was a taxing pain as he stopped with a Zergling coming closer, likely to kill him as the officer exclaimed.
"General! There's too many Zerg! We're not going to make it!" The creature snarled at him, but taking to the side, revealing Kerrigan behind it as she stared down at Warfield before he spoke.
"Kerrigan." He took a breath in trying to get her to let those who were surviving go free. "You listen to me. I have three shuttles packed with men too injured to ever be a threat to you. Husbands. Fathers." He coughed as he continued. "You let those shuttles go. You hear me?" Kerrigan made no notion of accepting or acknowledging Warfield's words as the officer exclaimed in certain doom of what was to come.
"General, we're surrounded! There's no way out!"
"You bitch. You're not even human anymore." He grunted in raising his cannon-arm for one final shot as he growled at her. "You betrayed us all. For what? Petty revenge? How many innocents have you killed? How many more have to die?" He spoke further, as if to incur her fury. "What if Raynor could see you right now?" Kerrigan felt the boil of psionic power well up to kill Warfield, ramming that girder straight through him and silence his struggle, but her next words spoke otherwise.
"He would be dismayed with me, putting my anger, my rage, my vengeance over a new life away from Mengsk first." The cannon started to slow as the comm still had volume, but it was being drowned out. "I am not human anymore, Warfield, that is true..." She brought a hand up and pluck one of the Zerg tendrils out, a new one growing in, but the lock of Zerg still remained. "I can't just live with the fantasy that I am back to being Terran, not when I am still Zerg..." She crushed it as she spoke with venom. "...Not when your emperor killed Jim and declared it that the Dominion have won the day..." She loosened and the dust from her palm was scattered to the ground as she spoke.
"If I didn't have that, if I didn't try to keep Jim's opinions real in giving everyone a fair chance recently, I would have killed the Protoss, I would have been without mercy when you dared to bring up Jim's name to me..." She peered back at Warfield as she spoke. "Now, you are alone, those troops will die if I let the Zerg kill them now, and you know that there is no force in the universe coming to save you now." She planted a foot on Warfield's shoulder as she spoke, forcing the cannon down. "If you don't want to surrender, then I will make your death just as quickly." She raised a fist before the click of a gun was heard, she stopping as the same voice spoke.
"Don't be reckless, Kerrigan..." She turned to look to see someone in Spectre armor and a rifle in hand, a powerful psionic at that as the blue lens peered back.
"You..."
"Me indeed..." Kerrigan moved away as the Spectre did the unthinkable as well, he holstered his rifle and got over to Warfield, picking him up as a pair of Marines joined him. "When I heard that the Swarm had invaded Char, I rushed here to get Warfield out, telling him not to be reckless, but finding him like this, he truly is stubborn to the end."
"General! We're surrounded! We're not going to make it!" That didn't help matters, but Kerrigan did the same unthinkable as she sent her command as the comm continued. "General! The Zerg pulled back! It's a miracle! We're going to make it! ...General! ...General?" Warfield roused himself to speak.
"Lieutenant, meet me over Haven, I have some company who would like to take us all in."
"Yes sir!" Warfield's comm died as Kerrigan spoke.
"Then you knew..."
"I knew that Raynor was a pirate, a rebel, but I didn't promote the thought that he had to die, he stood shoulder to shoulder with my men and his, he controlled the battlefield with peerless skill..." He coughed once more as the Marines lightly took him into their hands. "...He gave everything to bring you back, I am certain that what Arcturus Mengsk has done was sign his own death warrant. Tarsonis will be remembered, and Raynor will not be forgotten. Hearts and Minds..."
"Hearts and Minds..." Kerrigan voiced back as Warfield was carried away as the Spectre turned back to her.
"We'll meet again, Sarah Kerrigan. One day, we will..."
"I will be different when I come back, but I promise to know you more, you are the one who stood with Jim when he went searching for the pieces."
"I am just one of many inspired by his cause and insisted to make him better." The Spectre spoke with giving a soft salute. "Hearts and Minds, Sarah Kerrigan." She copied the gesture as she returned the phrase, something that meant so much more to her in that moment.
"Hearts and Minds, Alexander Wrench." They eased and Alex headed out as a transport took off and headed to the stars, the survivors heading to Dr. Hanson's world with the small fleet heading out as well, not interfering with the Zerg now controlling the world of Char...
"Another world for the Swarm. The broods are coming back together." Kerrigan voiced with returning to the Leviathan as Izsha spoke.
"Our enemies should fear us."
"There is still much to do."
"We are numberless, we are relentless, and we are evolving."
"We are also done on Char." Power was one thing, but Kerrigan needed to change to be much stronger, better against the Dominion before she decided that she could topple Korhal. "I will decide on our next destination soon." The world of Zerus was on the list, to see and learn of what the Primal Zerg are like and how to grow from them as Zagara spoke with returning to the chamber overlooking the remains of the terran base and the swarming hive clusters below.
"I am so powerful. I feel as if I could... be a threat to you now."
"Listen well, Zagara. Someday you might rule the Swarm. If you think you can take it now, make your move. But the next time we fight, it is to death. All or nothing."
"I will serve you, and learn from you. And perhaps someday I will lead the Swarm. But not today."
"And what lesson did I teach you?" Kerrigan asked the Broodmother who stood her ground on Char, despite the terrans barraging her brood and beating her into the marshes.
"Vision, my queen. You taught me vision."
"The Swarm is powerful. But power is not enough for its leader." Warfield could have done the same, but he was blinded for the most part, he didn't think he would have made it out alive and, sensing his presence before the ship he was on jumped, he would live on to fight the battle against the corrupt Dominion. "I defeated Warfield, not through numbers, or strength. I simply possessed vision and he did not."
"I will remember it, my queen." Kerrigan took a trip down into the evolution pit and peered at the gene-weaver for the Zerg before she inquired as to what exactly he was.
"There is no other creature like you in the Swarm. Where did your essence come from?"
"The Overmind spun me from many species. A brood of one."
"What did you do after the Overmind died?"
"Wandered the tunnels of Char, without purpose. Feral. Queen of Blades found me. Made me Zerg again."
"You aren't Zerg unless you are under someone's control?"
"Without overriding will, am beast. Less." Kerrigan raised her brow to the answer before Abathur continued. "Broodmother Zagara delivered Aberrations to battlefield. Aberration sequences... sloppy, but suitable for unique augmentation."
"What can you do with the Aberrations?"
"Can develop unique death mechanism to erupt in creep, enabling faster attack and healing of Zerg, with embedded creep tumor spores. Can improve carapace defenses of Zerg strains with ancient Queen strain, influencing strains to harden within distance. May also possess toxic claws to stun ground opponents briefly to create gaps in attack patterns."
So the Aberration could be mutated to have Creep Spread, enabling their death to implant a hidden Creep Tumor in the ground, like a frontline position to develop from before the enemy could notice, Swarm Command, which actually increases the defenses of any small Zerg in range of the Aberration, or the Claw Bash which grants the Aberration a chance to stun enemy units. With that in mind, and having the vague feeling that Abathur wouldn't normally do this sort of thing unless something had indeed changed, she mutated the Aberration to have Swarm Command, making it a defensive tank for all of the troops as Abathur brought up the Baneling Evolutions which he had managed to set up for Kerrigan's approve...