Chapter eight
Nicky Hammond
Arkbird
150 miles above Char
0410 Hours Local
After Changing back, (a very tricky thing to do in Zero Gravity) I went to ask the chief military officer about the nuclear weapons that had been loaded. He told me that we were going to use them to bomb a Zerg Base. The reason the SOLG couldn't do that was because it was being deployed to maintain superiority over Shakuras. Plus, there were several Terran bases nearby, and I misfire from the SOLG would cause massive collateral damage. The Arkbird had an extremely powerful targeting system so we could plant bombs with mush more efficiency then the SOLG ever could.
Shrugging, I was forced to agree with that, and went to take my post. Like the laser, when the Arkbird had nuclear weapons, I could also manually control where they would go. For a target of this importance, I wouldn't risk the automatic release system. Computers, despite however advanced they are, can make mistakes.
Taking my position, I switched on an external view, and saw the Zerg Base far below me. I switched on the targeting system for the nuclear weapons, and armed two of the four warheads. After getting clearance from the Chief military Officer, I was ready to drop the payload. At falling speeds of over Mach 6, the warheads would be nearly unstoppable, and undetectable. Once the computer gave me a solid lock, I mashed the release switch down as hard as I could. From where I was, the drop was imperceptible, but I knew that the two 10 megaton each nuclear warheads were now falling towards the planet.
Veronica Barns
Terran Base, Char
1400 Hours Local
My training was going pretty easily. I could now move more gracefully, and I was also getting pretty good at using my scythes and needle spines. Strange, I only had my new Hydralisk body for a few days, and already, it felt perfectly natural. I was hunting for my own dinner (as I could have probably eaten the Terrans out of house and home in a day or so) when I felt a massive headache! Doubling over from the pain, I snarled, and a few seconds later, it cleared.
The new Zerg part of my brain figured it out faster then I could: the hive had been attack. Hard. Only one thing my brain knew of could make a threat warning: a nuclear weapon had been dropped onto the Hive Cluster!
Snarling, I got up, made my kill and headed back to the base. When I got there, I looked up at the sky, and saw a second nuclear bomb heading down, trailing fire as though it was a missile! The second bomb hit even harder then the first and my headache returned with a vengeance forcing me down, and causing convulsions as though I was having a seizure. The Overmind's 'Voice' boomed into my head, ordering me to protect the Hive from whatever was attacking it, but I fought it off, and went inside the base.
When I went inside, the people there were in a panic from the nuclear blasts, but they seemed to pretend like I wasn't there. To this day, I still wonder how they managed to NOT see a nine-meter tall Hydralisk… apparently, the nuclear weapons had come from high orbit over the planet, and I knew what that meant: either the Arkbird or the SOLG had launched them. Normal nuclear missiles simply went into sub-orbital flight once they launched, meaning that they were still in the atmosphere, but close to space.
I got Roberto to help me finish my training, and once I was ready, I went to fight the Queen of Blades. Before I left, the base personnel wished me luck, and I knew that I'd need it. By then, I was getting used to seeing myself like this, and the Hydralisk, now a Hunter-Killer, felt natural; as though I had been born this way. The Zerg parts of my brain were now almost fully meshed with the human parts, and now I could easily recall any of the pooled memories they had, every one of the encounters the Zerg had faced, every battle tactic that had ever been used by the Cerebrates, every weak point for every Zerg species, and much more.
Once I got into the Hive Cluster, or at least what was left of it, the radiation hit me, and it hurt a bit, but for the most part I ignored it, and I went to find Kerrigan. I could still sense her presence, so I knew she was still alive. Throwing my head back, I let out a roar that only my new body could produce: a distinct battle-cry that could come from only a Hunter-Killer. Kerrigan would be able to identify it easily, and once she heard that, she'd come to me.
An Overlord floated over to where I was, trying to see what the fuss was all about, but I opened my chest cavity and blasted its eyes and other sensory organs with the more powerful spines. It screamed it pain, and crashed to the ground where I then proceeded to hack it apart forcing some of the nearby Zerg to go out of control for a few seconds, but the Cerebrate took direct control a few seconds later.
Eventually, I saw HER. She grinned, and said: so, you've come back for more?" she grinned, and said: "I've been improving, hopefully, you'll be a more satisfying toy then last time."
I snarled and said: "so have I, and this time, I'm going to kill you."
She laughed. "Is that so? Well, normally, I let my minions do my fighting for me, but I just gotta see what you got!"
I snarled and lunged!
Nicky Hammond
Arkbird
150 miles above Char
0415 Hours Local
as I was watching the display, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Kerrigan and a Hunter-Killer were fighting, and pretty fiercely too from what I could tell. For a second, I thought the sensitive real-time camera feed was malfunctioning, but after doing several diagnostic tests, I knew that it was really happening.
I turned on my communicator and got a hold of Chief Military Officer a few seconds later.
"Chief," I asked. "You're not going to believe this, but I think the Zerg down there are going berserk. A Hunter-Killer's fighting Kerrigan as we speak. I've ran several full diagnostic tests, and none of them show any flaws."
"You're right, I DON'T believe you. Hang on, I'm coming." He replied.
A few seconds later, he drifted into the control Room of the Arkbird and I let him take the scope so he could see what was going on below. After a few minuets, he said: "hmm… must be a rival Cerebrate attacking her. Either that or that Psi Disrupter thing is active again. Stay on it, let me know of any developments, but don't get involved."
"Affirmative sir," I said nodding. And I went back to the viewing screen.
Veronica Barns
Primary Hive Cluster, Char
My lunge attack missed, but I managed to graze Kerrigan's face with a Needle Spine that I had managed to fire at the same time. She was using her wing-like bones to attack me now and I kept blocking with my two Scythes. i didn't notice that the Hunter-Killer's reflexes were a hell of a lot better then my own, but I didn't really care just then. All that mattered was don't get hit.
I swung my right scythe as hard as I could at Kerrigan's waist, hoping to get off a lucky hit that she couldn't evade, but it was a bit difficult because of the height difference between us. I missed, she went behind me and started to try and jam her claw-like wings into my spine, or at least what I assumed to BE my spine. Anyways, I saw what she was about to do, and I turned sharply, blasting Needle Spines all over the place. One hit her in the kneecap, forcing her down, another in the left side, and a final hit to her right Wing-bone, knocking it off in a single hit from the sheer kinetic energy.
Getting up, she seemed to be pissed. The air suddenly cracked around me, and I knew that she was preparing a psionic attack of some kind. My Zerg brain knew what to do almost before I did, and I burrowed in less then a second, causing the blow to miss by a generous margin before I popped back up, and delivered a massive blow to her left side with one sweep of the dull side of my left blade. I heard a distinct 'Oomph!' as the wind was knocked out of her.
Before she could get up, I started stabbing away at the general area she was in with my scythes, hoping to get a lucky hit and impale her, but she kept moving from side to side without giving me an opportunity to attack. Roaring in rage and frustration, I blasted her with another volley of Needle Spines, and this time, I scored a lucky hit right on her stomach. I could smell the concentrated Stomach acid already begin to eat away her flesh, and from my training, I knew that stomach wounds can last for HOURS in agony as the body's own acid dissolved them.
Kerrigan didn't seem to phased by the pain, if she was feeling any. Instead, she got up, placed one finger to the wound, and said: "Nice shot, but that won't be enough to stop me."
"No, but it's a start!" I yelled, as I slashed again and again with my twin blades, giving her very little room to evade. With each of her seeming near misses, I caught a whiff of blood, and knew that I was hitting her. After a few seconds of this, I stopped, blood soaking my scythes and she propped herself up against a rock, bleeding from the many cuts and wounds across her body.
Panting, she managed to say: "Wow… I never expected you to beat me. But you won't kill me. You're still to HUMAN," she spat that last word out like a curse, along with a bit of blood. "if you were any kind of Zerg, you'd have killed me by now. You'll never be a part of the great Swarm. You're NOTING. A Freak of nature, a genetic experiment gone wrong, a—"
I decapitated her in one swipe before she could insult me any further. She was wrong: I WAS a Zerg. I COULD have been a part of the Swarm… IF I wanted to, but I CHOSE not to. That made me stronger then she was. I had fought the Overmind's will, and I didn't let it break me. that and I had killed the 'Queen of Blades'. She would never pose a threat to anybody ever again.
Finding myself quite exhausted, I more or less sat down, and took a few deep breaths. Once I caught my breath, I noticed that all the Zerg around me were standing there, as if waiting for something. They all looked at me expectantly, and I gave them what they were waiting for: an extremely loud roar and throwing my left scythe into the air. A show of dominance to the lesser Zerg, and letting them all know that I was their new leader.
And a good thing too, because there was still ONE last thing that I had to do. Or at least, I was SURE there was one thing I had to do, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was.
Once again, the Zerg part of my brain came to the rescue: Kill the Overmind. Grinning at this objective, I mentally broadcasted it to every Zerg in the area, telling them to get ready for war.