Chapter 5

High Orbit Over Haven

"Jim, it's good to see you again," Dr. Ariel Hanson greeted. "I take it your assault on Char was a success?"

"It kind of depends on what you mean by success, Doc," Jim replied into the communicator. "That artifact did de-infest Kerrigan, although no one knows right now if her murderous nature had been stripped as well or not."

"You want me to help in that issue," Ariel stated.

"Exactly. I told you all the details regarding the prophecy during the time you spent on my ship, you know Sarah is the key to all of this. But getting her back to human form is just the starting step. The next step is to get her into shape so she can do her part in preventing Armageddon, and that's not going to happen until she is able to recover from everything that's happened to her during the time she spent with the Zerg."

Ariel nodded. "I did see this coming ever since you saved my people from the Protoss on Haven. They are not going to be pleased to see Kerrigan again, no matter what form she's in."

Jim sighed. The fact that Haven is a Protoss world is yet another obstacle he would have to overcome. It was bad enough fighting Selendis over the Zerg infestation virus that the female executor deemed impossible to cure short of eradicating the colonists completely. The fact that Dr. Hanson did not send out a call for help after the Protoss fleet had been driven off was barely short of a miracle. He did not expect the Protoss to give her the benefit of the doubt and allow her to proceed with trying to discover a cure. After everything that had happened to the Protoss people by Kerrigan's hand, he was fully expecting a very hostile greeting from the Protoss before the Hyperion could even touch the ground.

Still, while Sarah's infestation may have been different from the others, it was an infestation nonetheless. If there was some way to persuade the Protoss that infested humans were being controlled to commit atrocities against their own will, maybe there was still a chance.

"Doc, how is the cure for the virus coming along?" Jim asked. "It's my hope that if you can cure your own people, you can do similarly to help Sarah."

"Surprisingly enough, there are some Protoss who actually believed me. Apparently their technology had created some sort of serum known as anti-zerg nanites. It was originally designed to sever the link the infested terrans had with the Zerg, but apparently there were some that could even reverse the infestation altogether."

"I've seen it in action myself, Ariel. After the Brood War and the UED's defeat, a UED officer by the name of Alexei Stukov had been revived by the Zerg on Braxis. I fought alongside the Protoss to restore him back to human form using the same serum you just described, and it turned out to be a success. Did they give you the serum to test on the infested refugees?"

Ariel nodded. "Unfortunately the Zerg virus has also evolved, the serum is now useless in such restorations. The most it can do is slow down the rate of infestation, and even then there's no guarantee. The Protoss here have given me access to some of the serum to buy extra time while I come up with a cure of my own. So far, what I have developed is working out."

"So you've cured them?"

"Not to that extent. I've been able to isolate and quarantine the virus, preventing it from spreading further. The only ones this has proved to be ineffective against are the aberrations, but you saw what they looked like on Meinhoff. The virus had mutated them to the point where they didn't look anything like a human being anymore."

"Well those are relatively rare, so I'd say you did a great job for your people."

"Out of curiosity Jim, why is there a huge Dominion fleet with you? I thought after Char you had no more use of their help."

Jim smiled. "After everything I had accomplished on Char, much of the Dominion officers had finally began to question if I was really the terrorist Mengsk portrayed me as all those years. Given that I saved so many of their soldiers, let's just say they're more willing to look at things from my perspective for a little while."

"I'm glad to hear that," Ariel replied. "Still, I'd imagine after all the fighting that had happened on Char, you must also be bringing in thousands upon thousands of wounded people that need treatment."

"Of course, and I'm not here to ask you to help Kerrigan the moment I touch down. She's still peacefully asleep down in the med bay, so you can concentrate on helping the wounded first. I'll be seeing you on the surface soon."

Jim turned off the communicator, before turning to Stetmann. "Now that we've got a better Zerg expert to help Sarah, I want to know what you have found out so far since she was brought up to the ship."

Stetmann hesitated, unsure how the commander would take the news. "Well there are still traces of Zerg DNA in her, though the vast majority of her DNA is human again."

Jim nodded. It was too much to have expected the Xel'Naga artifact to work perfectly, and that's just from the physical aspect of it. "For the remaining Zerg blood in her, can it be removed?"

"Hard to say, sir. They don't appear to be spreading, so the chances are virtually zero that she could return to the Queen of Blades again, at least from the physical standpoint. In terms of removing it, that could be dangerous. The traces are clinging to her vital organs, and trying to remove them could cause them to shut down."

"What about her mind? Or is it impossible to tell right now?"

"There's no Zerg DNA present in her brain, so theoretically, she should be back her normal self in that aspect."

Jim shook his head. There is absolutely no way Sarah could wake up and still be the same woman he first met on Antiga Prime. Still, he had been surprised to discover the surgical operation had been a success. The Zerg tendril like hair had been removed, and as Stetmann theorized, her natural red hair had begun growing again. With the help of modern medicine, her shiny hair had already grown past her shoulders. He had been expecting something along the lines of the mutated hair had forced Zerg DNA into her brain, and if removed, would kill her instantly.

Nevertheless, he refused to take any chances. Ever since Kerrigan had been brought aboard the Hyperion, he had posted guards outside the med bay, under orders to alert him to any signs of unusual behavior. Nova had detected a sharp psionic signature jump in her mind shortly after she had been brought into the med bay, and Jim immediately agreed to her recommendation to fit the psionic dampener to Sarah's head to drain that energy.

Stetmann had theorized that this is because most of the psionic power she had were still of terran origin, and Jim was inclined to agree. After fighting alongside and against both Confederate and Dominion ghosts since his military days, and then alongside the Protoss and seen firsthand of their psionic potential, Raynor felt that in comparison, the only psionic power the Zerg possessed was the mental attraction to terran psionic individuals.

If so, then Sarah's infestation could not have created new powers, but rather enhanced them. Now it was still unclear to Jim if her powers had been reduced down to that of a normal human, of if the traces of Zerg DNA in her meant they were still enhanced and as powerful as ever.

That is, he told himself, assuming the Xel'Naga artifact didn't affect her psionic potential as well.

Nova had felt exactly the same after the energy blasts from the relic when she fought along him to defend the Xel'Naga artifact from Kerrigan, which seemed to suggest the artifact was completely harmless to terrans, but Jim had recalled that some of his crew experienced hallucinations and felt device was haunted. This seems to suggest to him that the artifact is indeed capable of affecting human beings, just not killing them.

In Sarah's case, he had Nova check up at the med bay on a daily basis. Until she wakes up, the former Dominion ghost is the strongest psionic individual on the ship, and therefore was the most capable of detecting abnormal activity in that area. Jim didn't want to believe the Zerg enhanced powers were still present in Kerrigan, but he knew that possibility could not be ruled out.

If they were, that might not be entirely a bad thing if Sarah's mind is normal again. She had been the fiercest fighter Jim had ever seen even prior to her infestation, and while others in the Koprulu sector feel the Queen of Blades's incapacitation was a significant victory, he and all his Raiders knew this was still just another step towards toppling Mengsk and his corrupt government.

And this time, Sarah will be fighting alongside him.

"Sir, we're entering Haven's atmosphere," Matt announced, directing Jim's thoughts elsewhere.

"Good," the commander replied. "Send the word to the other ships to be on battle alert."

"What for? You had saved those people down there, why would they be hostile to us?"

"It's not them, Matt. I'm more concerned about the Protoss. We're taking Kerrigan down to what was once their colony. She's going to be surrounded by thousands of Protoss, every one of them who want her dead for all that she's done. Even now, most of my boys are still uncomfortable about letting her live, and I already anticipate Warfield will be telling me he's having problems getting his Dominion troops to control their seething hatred for her. Therefore, I'm not going to be one bit surprised if I'd have to deal with Protoss barging their way through us for her head."

Imperial Palace, Augustgrad, Korhal

Arcturus Mengsk turned off the media news coverage screen, absolutely livid. Valerian really had every intention to topple him from his throne. From every channel he saw, broadcasts were being made about the invasion of Char, and his boy was making public speeches to reporters from all over the sector. Rather than claiming all credit, he gave it all to Jim Raynor, stating that had it was the commander's strategy that won them this victory, while his strategy would have gotten the whole invasion fleet annihilated.

Even worse, Valerian had continuously criticized the Dominion military, or rather what remained of it, for their sheer stupidity and incompetence, and all their boasts about stopping the Zerg were nothing but empty words, whereas Jim Raynor actually delivered on his promise. Now Mengsk's control over the media had weakened even more. With Vermilion gone, Kate Lockwell has declared that the UNN will no longer be fully supportive of the Terran Dominion, and focus on investigating the perspectives of other factions, rather than swallowing everything that comes out of the Dominion's version of the truth.

To make things worse, other Dominion media branches were starting to follow UNN's example. Although there's still a few that are sympathetic towards the Dominion, more and more branches have publicly announced that they're finally starting to question the emperor's declarations and intentions of peace, and speculation was rapidly spreading about if Raynor was ever an unscrupulous, lawless revolutionary to begin with.

All over the news, every media branch had declared the one thing he had been dreading: that his words and claims about peace to the sector could no longer be trusted. His popularity had receded to just 14 percent after the broadcasts on Korhal. With the broadcasts about what had happened on Char, it has become a total catastrophe.

The ending was supposed to have been different! He was supposed to have been the hero for stopping Zerg invasion! With the vast number of Zerg in the galaxy, he knew that it made no difference how many of them anyone killed, it'd only take a matter of weeks, or at most months, before the Zerg fully recovered. The only way to defeat them was to go for the command chain, and that meant killing the Queen of Blades.

This was exactly the reason he had allowed Tychus Findley to be released from New Folsom. During the 9 years the convict spent there he had known about the man's friendship with Raynor. Similarly, he also knew about how Raynor felt about Kerrigan.

Invasion or not, Mengsk knew it was inevitable that Raynor and Kerrigan would cross paths again at some point. What the former Confederate Marshal would do was irrelevant, as Tychus would have delivered the bullet to end her life. At that point, he would simply activate the codes to have the convict killed, and then broadcast how he had killed the Queen of Blades to the media, dealing a blow to the Zerg in which it would be virtually impossible for them to recover. He would have seen the people's savior to every world, whether they were pro-Dominion or not.

Now, not only was his plan in total ruins, but his arch enemy had achieved a victory over him that rivaled his victory over the Confederacy. It was bad enough that many Dominion worlds saw him as a tyrannical mass murderer after what happened on Korhal, but now he is being portrayed as an utter coward who had no intention of saving the people he had sworn to protect, and if things got too rough, was willing to sacrifice everyone if it ensured his own survival.

It had only been a few days since the first of Valerian's broadcasts, and already his son's popularity had exceeded that of his own. Jim Raynor's, on the other hand, had skyrocketed all the way up to 82 percent, while his was down to only 0.1 percent. All of a sudden, the steps he had taken to ensure humanity's survival, and his actions that built up an empire of law and order, meant nothing to the public.

Most of the Dominion worlds have openly declared that they would want nothing to do with the Dominion until new leadership is placed on the throne. They no longer felt safe about being under Dominion protection. Some of them had even gone as far as declaring they would turn to the Kel-Morian Combine and the Umojan Protectorate if Raynor's Raiders were not available.

This was utter madness. The Kel-Morian Combine practiced slavery, while the Umojans had more spies than he wanted to believe. Both factions were full of pirates, scoundrels, criminals, murderers, and traitors. And despite the experience of such claims the Dominion worlds had experienced of them in the past, even their popularity had exceeded that of his own, although their military strength remained inferior to that of the Dominion's.

However, the media speculations declared that this was exactly the reason why they were not able to take the fight to the Zerg. Without sufficient numbers, any and all offensive operations would have proven futile. And while both factions had given ground from the invasion, at least they had made far greater efforts to save their own people, instead of just simply abandoning them like expendable assets. To that end, the public are acting like the mindless drones he had always expected them to be, and willing to turn to anyone who is able to protect them.

Unfortunately, this time the concept was being used against him, but he still had one last trump card up his sleeve. It won't be an easy one, and it would certainly be a long path, but it could still facilitate in him regaining control of his Dominion empire.

Mengsk went over to his desk and flipped on the intercom. "General Ridgeway, how is the salvage operation coming along?"

"Not too good, sir," the general replied. "Raynor's attack on the Castanar orbital platform had wrecked havoc on the lab. Blowing the reactor and releasing the hybrid just made it even worse."

"Well, what have you managed to salvage?"

"The hybrid had destroyed most of the genetically spliced specimens that had been so painstakingly made. Most of them weren't as successful as you had hoped it would be, but we all knew creating a perfect clone of that hybrid was going to require a lot of effort, time, and patience. We were only able to recover about 12 percent of the specimens. It's much less than what we had hoped for, but it's enough to allow us to continue with the experiment from where we last left off."

"And what of the hybrid itself?"

"Still rampaging around the lab ruins. Fortunately for us it's not very smart, we were able to send a few marine squads down there to distract it while the scientists were successfully evacuated. The hybrid does not have interstellar flight capabilities, so it's pretty much stuck there."

"Can you subdue it?"

"Hard to say. Your special weapons may have proven to be very effective at killing the Zerg and Protoss test subjects, but all they seemed to do to the hybrid was make it angry."

"I didn't say kill it, general. I want it to be taken alive."

"That's not going to go well with my boys, sir. They took quite a beating from that creature just to bring it to the lab installation, and that was when we had found the hybrid floating in space in a severely weakened state. Ordering them to subdue it when it's at full strength is going to be a death sentence to them."

"Look, there has to be a way to weaken it. It had the rapid regeneration abilities like the Zerg, so it was able to restore strength on its own accord. But it was found barely alive, so someone had to know how to hurt it."

"And what do you plan to do with the hybrid once it's subdued?"

"For now, move it to another installation on Castanar. In addition, the order I gave to liquidate all the scientists working on the project is to be rescinded. Most of the computer systems in the lab have been destroyed, and with them most of the experimental data we had on the hybrid and its specimens. I'll be needing those eggheads alive to get the data back. Once I have that, the creature will play its role in securing my throne again."

Author's Note: All right everyone, this chapter I was meant to give further development to some of the supporting characters, and as a starting point for you to see their morals and personalities. Kerrigan will be entering the story very soon, and I'll focus on her when that happens.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review!