Chapter 2: Vengeance Runs In The Family
I'm so terribly sorry for holding this off for as long as I did. All the other stories were getting that much more attention and I kinda lost this in the shuffle until just recently. I hope this offering of words will help alleviate your tastebuds even if it's just for a while. I'd like to thank anyone still reading for their patience and for the reviews, favs and follows you've given this fanfic. Less talk, more reading and let's begin...
Three Weeks After Deinfestation, Umojan Space Station
November 28, 2504, Koprulu Sector
Maxwell Holmes Kerrigan
The thump of his metallic boots hammered the ground with resounding force, each footstep a mini-shockwave in its own right. Every pounding stomp matched in tandem with his own heartbeat, just three days into his new detail. All eyes were on him as his bulky armour collided with shoulders and ribs on a near-constant basis, eliciting profuse apologies and hurried send-offs en route to his daily routine. Scientists wielding datapads tapped furiously at them, deciphering the latest batch of data like they would a bowl of spaghetti. Comrades-in-arms grunting and whispering between one another amidst smoke breaks. All in all, a hectic day... Or rather night, looking out the polymer-based glass layering the walls of his newfound home.
The crisp clean air breathtakingly washed over his relaxed demeanour, coating his nostrils in a layer of pure, fresh air that intoxicated him to no avail. Each breath was clean, absolute and divine, a complete opposite to what was now wreaking havoc on the remaining settlements across the sector. Flipping up his helmet's opaque cover, the night sky twinkled within his own emerald green irises, its stars flashing signs of both hope and fear into his very heart. A sigh echoed from his lips, passing unheeded, unknown, unloved. It may have been existential within these halls but to all who remained scattered across the globe, Maxwell Kerrigan was either a myth or long dead by now. How he wanted to prove them wrong...
But the day was not to be wasted on such petty misgivings. He had a job to do and he was going to do it anyway, regardless of the circumstances. So he scurried the length of the catwalk and divested himself back into the confines of the laboratory to do just that. Steps after steps after steps greeted him, sending him deeper and deeper into the bowels of the core, till at last he came upon his usual station.
Right behind the two-way glass sat Sarah Kerrigan, draped in a ghost suit glowing with yellow hues and segmented dreadlocks, sitting forlorn and meditating in captivity. Maxwell grunted in blank resignation, pulling up a chair from the room opposite them and propping himself in for what appeared to be another normal night. His grunt was usually the signal for Kerrigan to know of her new captor and to begin probing him or her for any tidbits of information regarding recent events and James Raynor's current condition.
The pull was there, weaker than before but still peaking at the edges of his frayed mind. Snippets of conversation between him and the rebel commander threatened to slip out of his grasp and into her own mind but the latent powers proved far more useful than he had given them credit for. The barrier stayed alive, for all the good it's worth. He could hear her scuffle and slam her fist on the round white floor beneath her in frustration, like she had just slammed head-first into a brick wall. And if there's one thing he knew about his sister from their brief reunion, she wasn't the type to surrender quite easily. Maxwell reclined back in his seat, secure in the fact that he had gotten through another day of his sister's personal mind rape.
Sleep came easily soon afterwards, lulled into a sense of complacency after hearing Sarah sigh in defeat and telepathically flipped the switch, enveloping her in pitch black darkness. His eyes steadily drifted downwards, closing until nothing but a tiny slit remained open, just in case she attempted to pull a fast one on him. For forty minutes, silence was the golden rule outside the containment chamber. Until of course, Maxwell stirred awake from his relaxing slumber by a whisper.
"Psst? You awake there?" Kerrigan rapped quietly on the encasing's door. Maxwell stuttered out a series of words so garbled it felt incomplete.
"Huhhh... Wha..." He bantered, his hazy eyes flipping to meet the see-through door. His feet rose lazily to the challenge, his arms outstretched to compliment his futile yawn.
"Are you awake?" Kerrigan repeated the question slowly.
"I'm... I'm... awa... I'm awake. Brrr... What do you want, Kerrigan?" He shook his head vigorously, keeping his senses intact and fully functioning as he met his sister's curious green eyes.
"You a ghost?" Sarah put the question bluntly.
"Excuse me?" Maxwell answered, taken aback for a moment.
"Are you a ghost? I tried reading you... but you seemed potent enough to block me out." Sarah tapped her noggin as she said this, indicating her attempts to pierce his mental veil. 'Gotta make up a story as I go along. This should be fun...' he mused instinctively.
"Uh... yeah... Didn't complete full training but yeah, I am." Maxwell shrugged at last, opting instead to confirm her suspicions rather than misdirect them.
"Wait, what? Didn't they wipe your memory?" Kerrigan inquired suspiciously, the plothole as clear as day. So much for winging it...
"Let's just say that their training paid off. Just not in the way they expected..." Maxwell chuckled to himself as he relayed this bit of information.
"Huh... What psi level are you? You'd have to be a pretty high level to block me out." Sarah folded her arms and paced around the door, collating any hints of data she received in replete fashion.
"Don't know. Never bothered to check. Is that all you wanted to know? My background?" Maxwell raised an eyebrow, remembering to shoulder his rifle in case of anything. The big gun wrapped gently around his armoured hands was enough to convince Sarah that she wasn't about to pull a fast one on him anytime soon.
"I'm bored. You won't believe how assembling things with your mind can get boring after you've done it fifty gazillion times." Sarah groaned, motioning to the metallic ball sitting haplessly in pieces on a makeshift mantelpiece.
"Huh, fair point." Maxwell could not help but agree. Solitude got boring after a while after all.
"So, care to tell me your story?" Kerrigan veered the conversation into murky waters. He on the other hand decided to give a rapt, simple and loophole-free backstory. Granted, it was stereotypical but it would have to do...
"Got no story to tell. They asked for paid volunteers. I signed up. That's the end of that." He grunted, fixing her with a stout glare that felt like daggers ripped into her sockets.
"So you're a merc now." She intoned meekly.
"Man's gotta eat, lady. We can't all be blatantly important." Maxwell snorted again, referencing the prophecy that all but kept her alive at this juncture.
"I didn't ask for this." Sarah snarled bitterly, biting her lip.
"Neither did I, lady." He responded in kind, though with a slight dip into sadness and misery. That subtle clue tuned her in and Sarah instantly fell to the wrong conclusion, albeit the one that felt most familiar.
"Did I... Did I do something to you? As the Queen of Blades?" Sarah dipped into something more suited for this, a mix between regret and bitterness. Maxwell scoffed at the question. What hadn't she done to him that hadn't been done already? Suffering might as well have been his middle name at that juncture. Again though, he reined in his ideals, opting instead to look as passive as can be.
"No... But I've met poor souls who have." He mused, staring blankly into space and thinking of all the men, women and children who would never get their lives back or get them sorted out.
"I... I'm sorry." She desperately apologized.
"Don't apologize to me. Save your tears for those who really need it." Maxwell waved her off, advising her not to give him apologies. After all, what is there to apologize for when he was dead-set on blaming himself?
"Sigh... It's funny, really..." Sarah sighed, sitting down right next to the door and speaking from her shortened position. Brother and sister were separated by little less than a few inches of steel, oblivious to how close both siblings could be at that moment.
"What's funny?" Maxwell asked. He heard her visibly sigh again before her lips began to part again.
"Here I am, repenting for my sins, seeking atonement. Yet I'm trapped in here, helpless and powerless to do anything to help them. But I'm a monster. And monsters get locked up in cages." Sarah depressingly stated the truth of the matter.
"Kerrigan... Take it from a guy like me. When the deed's all said and done, people make a choice. Either they spend their lives trying to build a future or they spend it trying to rebuild the past." Maxwell intoned basely, trying his darndest to get his sister out of her rut. But it only served as an opening salvo for her own delving into his past.
"Which one are you?" Kerrigan asked, staring right back at him with those same green halos that twinkled gently in the moonlight creeping through the panelled windows.
"Neither... I'm caught in between..." Maxwell replied grimly, looking at Kerrigan with a dark face, every word of his statement true and completely aimed at the sister he tried to protect all these years. But of course, without the help of her psionics, she was as naive to this idea as she was to relationships in general not counting her mutual attraction to Raynor.
"You'd better get some sleep. You'll need it." He stuttered out after an extended sabbatical of silence between the two, briefly glancing down at his wristwatch just as an excuse to halt this conversation dead in its tracks. Sarah seemed to get the message and nodded politely to Maxwell before turning to walk back to her bed.
"Thank you." She said, her back still turned to the door behind her. Maxwell stopped at his post, his muscles clenching even tighter around the rifle already gripped within his fingers. 'Had she just said thank you?' he muttered, the thought completely foreign to him.
"For what?" he dared to ask.
"For putting things into perspective." She replied, smiling warmly to him as she vanished back into the dark confines of her containment zone.
"Heh... Yeah, right..." Maxwell balked, chatting to himself in hushed silence. She may have a perspective now. All it stood to reason was what perspective he gave her. Now that really made him stay awake for the next hour or so, until sleep eventually took hold of his bodily functions and shut them down one by one. His grip slacked from the rifle and it lazed vicariously off his armoured lap like a puppy letting its tongue lag out of its mouth. His eyes fluttered in and out, blurry images hazing back and forth within his own mind. It batted at him like those old baseball players bat at base.
His eyes rolled back open when the nightmares began anew, the cold, dreary yellow eyes staring back at him in the darkness and a searing flash of pain shooting up his tepid nerves like a firecracker. His body shuddered awake and fell messily from his seat, clanging dangerously on the floor. Maxwell groaned as the impact rolled out the welcome mat and took him through the dizzying effects of a mild concussion. His head spun around like a top, the fragmented images slowly coming into focus and greeting him with a red-hued soldier pointing the business end of his pulse rifle right down his delirious face. 'Oh, crap.' He swore aloud in his mind. As the man's itchy trigger finger started to curl ominously around the thin sheet of metal, the door right next to him came flying off its hinges with extreme, brute force. The rivets and seals that held it in place popped right off the side and the wall of steel sent the man flying to the other end of the wall for a literal jam sandwich. Maxwell grimaced as dust poured out from the opening of the black room, coughing heavily with pain rolling in his blood vessels. And there she was, standing right in front of him, dressed in her usual ghost garb and giving her former captor a menacing stare that he felt in his bones. Maxwell wasted no time to reach for the sidearm in his pocket, his palm digging into the varnished wooden stock for a showdown.
"I'm not going to hurt you." Kerrigan remained standing above him, looking utterly exhausted from her show of psionics. Maxwell chaffed as the armour dug in places, eliciting small but focused amounts of pain rising back and forth through his body.
"I wouldn't count your cards too early, Kerrigan. Give me one good reason I shouldn't cap you in the head." He grimaced, hand still locked to his side at a moment's notice.
"I don't have one. All I'm asking for is your trust in me." She extended her arm calmly to the man whose title she associated with psychopaths and sick people. For a moment, Maxwell saw his sister again, loving, caring and the soul he hoped to salvage from this mess. And out of duty as her brother, he was willing to be pulled along for the ride.
"Fine..." Maxwell sighed, grabbing ahold of her hand and yanking himself off the ground with help from Kerrigan.
"We need to get out of here. I sense Dominion reinforcements headed our way." Her psionics went to work, her hand pressed to her head like a sonar beacon. Maxwell kept close, his eyes scanning each and every corner.
"This way. There should be an evac point at the northern helipad. With luck, we'll find a ship that can get us out of here." Maxwell called out to Kerrigan, a long finger thumbed straight down a narrow corridor leading out into the clear sunrise beyond.
"Wait... I'm not leaving without Jim." Kerrigan bade to move, but quickly halted dead in her tracks. Maxwell sighed. To him, this was a life and death situation. The longer they flailed about, the less likely they'd be still left to tell tales to their grandchildren.
"Well, we won't find him here. He's probably..." Maxwell was about to reassure her when the object of her affection came barrelling through, clad in full black armour and handling a standard issue rifle.
"Sarah!" he screamed with relief and joy caught in his throat, racing to meet Kerrigan head on.
"Jim!" She followed in unison. The two collided in between, hugging one another like it was the last breath of fresh air available in the entire universe. They locked eyes and passion overwhelmed all manner of professionalism still aching in their bones. The communication method of the day was fervously kissing one another, their lips glued to each other with little else than saliva and love. All the while, Maxwell looked on, embarrassed and feeling just a tad bit more awkward to be stuck in this position.
"Uh, don't mind me." He rubbed his helmeted head, trying to look away from the lovey-dovey couple. Both monster and hero pulled away from each other's embrace and coughed slightly to excuse themselves
"Sorry..." James struggled to find words. Imagine that, the fearless leader of a rebellion at a loss for words. That was in itself a rare thing to come across.
"Come on, we have to move." Maxwell reminded them. That really let them spring into action all at once. Raynor nodded, leading the way for the dynamic trio.
"Right behind you, Jim." Kerrigan replied coolly, completely ignoring Maxwell entirely. Maxwell scoffed in silence, trundling forward at a glacial pace set by Raynor to ensure minimum detection by the enemy. Had it been a stranger, he would paid little attention. Had she known his true identity, it may changed things. But now, it meant little more than shattered memories he could only hope his baby sister would create in future with her suitor. And that was all he could ask for.
The journey across the facility's length was at times reminiscent of the cramped corridors of their ship. Flickering lights, gun-metal gray walls and a host of other unworldly sights still trapped within their tanks were the sights of the day. The boots of their armour trampled over the floor one by one, a cacophonous muse of song and dull thuds. The trio pressed on, halted by the occasional command to check their corners or to observe the scene of a fight.
And make no mistake, there were fights and their aftermaths strewn all over the complex. Loyalist Dominion soldiers clashed with the Rebels led by Valerian, gunfire exchanged intermittently between one another. Several bodies still clad in their armour had gaping holes in their chest, heads completely blasted into chunks, kneecaps indicative of mass execution, basically grim stuff all around. If that wasn't enough, signs of Ghost involvement was present as they rounded the research labs. Scientists with neck cleanly sliced from one point to the next, to gagged soldiers with singed skin and a pair of high-powered electric tools sitting next to them. One Ghost had at the very least fallen victim on the enemy's side, his face masked by a thin sheath of black cloth and his sidearm placed on top of his chestplate. It was a war where honour still had some free reign, yet it was also still as brutal as it has always been.
"All this... For her? What the... How does anyone..." Maxwell mused darkly as they passed a corridor littered with the sin of battle. Undoubtedly, he failed to notice Kerrigan at his rear, who while keeping a steely exterior was deeply hurt by his comments. Only Raynor spotted this discrepancy and acted on it, as any good lover would do. In an instant, Maxwell felt a rough hand clad in black armour hold onto his shoulder and pull him aside gently.
"Hey? Can I talk to you? In private?" Raynor snarled bitterly with those last two words. Both men took one glance at Kerrigan to convey the nature of their meaning, to which she nodded hesitantly and took to guarding the hallway in her spare time.
"Uh...sure..." Maxwell replied.
"Keep a lookout, Sarah. We don't want anyone sneaking up on us." Raynor verbalised the order again, just to be safe.
"Got it..." she replied in kind. Raynor dragged him away from the scene of the crime, down a nearby staircase blocked off on the next floor over by a cascade of office supplies. 'Sure didn't seem to do them much good. Caught between a rock and a hard place.' Maxwell sarcastically commented within when he spotted fresh blood dripping from behind the barricade seeping out into their end. All attention was immediately retrained to Raynor who at this point was the epitome of a howling storm, ready and willing to lash out at anyone who dared anger him.
"What is wrong with you?" he spat out, prompting Maxwell to defend himself.
"What did I do?" he replied incredulously to what seemed like an outlandish claim.
"You had to go and say that crap right in front of her. Look at her!" Raynor retorted, grabbing his face with his own gloves and pulling it to watch Kerrigan mulling over her thoughts just down the hall. Maxwell instantly yanked said intrusions upon his personal space off him and shoved them aside.
"Well, look at this place! There are enough bodies here to fill a mass grave!" he threw his arms up in the air and in a grave manner, circled the small clearing like a bird without a head.
"She doesn't need to be reminded of what she used to be. She needs to move on, not get caught up in the past!" Raynor responded stubbornly.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Maxwell shoved the commander away like a selfish, rude little boy who didn't know better.
"A person who cares about her! Something I'd hoped we'd share in common!" the same behaviour called back in his Raynor's own actions.
"I do care about her!" Maxwell shouted.
"Then act like it. Now you're going to go out there and you're going to shut your mouth and act like the damn sibling you are! Is that clear?!" the law was brought crashing down, his gruffness in no respect challenged by this miniscule threat.
"Fine... Get out of my way." Maxwell wistfully commented in a harsh tone, his eyes narrowing and affixing Raynor with a level of contempt, a reminder of darker days aboard the Hyperion before all this. Having settled the argument temporarily, both individuals sauntered back to meet their charge, unaware that Kerrigan had by some degree ascertained the topic of the conversation fairly quickly. If she knew, she didn't know, only hoped that they would trust her enough to be able to take care of herself.
"All done?" she deadpanned perfectly, never betraying of her true emotional state.
"Yep... Anything?" Raynor also returned back to his country-style slang, raising his bulky rifle to ready himself for any situation.
"Dominion squad below us. They're blocking our path." Kerrigan tapped her noggin once, then to the floor beneath them. Maxwell, latent in his talents could only hope to hear the dull thud of boots and the steady shockwave it sent down his back along with Raynor.
"Damnit... I was hoping we could sneak past." Raynor cursed.
"Then we have no choice." Maxwell chimed in.
"Afraid not." Kerrigan summed up the topic in two choice words. On a quick nod of agreement, Raynor decided to hang back and cover their rear while Kerrigan took point to scout the enemy positions and possible patrols. Maxwell reluctantly took it upon himself to protect his sister, despite his misgivings and the giant knife still mentally in his back. One by one, the trio clambered down the steps, halting every now and then when during a shift of sound from their foes. The dim light in the stairwell barely highlighted them, let alone illuminate them at all.
Soon enough, the trio of war-hardened and scarred soldiers managed to miraculously sneak up to two Dominion thugs facing directly away from them. 'Honestly, them Dominion people need to pump more money into their training if this is what they're calling soldiers.' Maxwell wryly remarked in silence. Just the way they were facing away from a potential entrance point was beyond stupidity, threatening to go into complete idiocy. For that, two cleanly sliced necks courtesy of Maxwell and Sarah was to be their punishment. Yet even in the act, he found reason to complain. 'This isn't what I'd want in a brother and sister bonding moment.' He coldly enthused as his blade met flesh and flesh gave way to gushing blood.
The next few patrols were dealt in a similar fashion, silent, efficient and completely devoid of emotion. Sarah quickly grew used to it, aware that it was her group or theirs, by no means a tough call to make. The last four however put up much more of a fight. In the midst of training her rifle on their heads, one guard had the inopportune timing to swing around and ask for a cigar from his other two compatriots. Raynor and Maxwell still in the act of towing the bodies away were met with the revealing glare of the guard's mounted flashlight and a cry that escaped his throat. No sooner had this act been fulfilled did his duties end with a bullet lodged in his brain. Eyes rolled back, his corpse slumped to the floor and with it, all pretences of continuing this endeavour stealthily. The last guard, drawn by the howl, took to shouting himself, whipping out his rifle and spraying hot lead across the length of the corridor, unable to draw a bead on his targets. His blistering blind-fire nearly clipped Kerrigan in her place and she was forced to duck down into cover. Maxwell and Raynor meanwhile dived for opposite ends of the hallway, just as a hail of bullets zipped below and above their still exposed legs.
The last guard, bolting for cover right next to the exit, relented in his assault, reaching for his comm link just as his training told him to. Within seconds, he could hear a deluge of footsteps bantering down the stairs two by two like rats, his comrades drawn closer and eager to fight. But just as the gaggle of fresh reinforcements rallied behind him and charged out into the open like pigs to the slaughter, the distinct ping of a metal ball raced in their ears. And the guard only had to glance once at his feet to discover a primed grenade at his feet to know that his journey had come to an end. It ended in a blaze of glory and a showering of gear clashing all over the room like heated particles in a container.
"Well, that was... lucky." Maxwell grimly remarked as his own green eyes peered over the landscape through his opaque helmet.
"No kidding." Kerrigan seconded that motion, kicking one of the shattered helmets a few feet away from her with an idle swing of her foot. Silence accompanied those few words for the briefest of moments, not even the wind daring to make an appearance. Raynor's rasp throat cleared itself, drawing both siblings back to the matter at hand.
"Evac point's just up two floors. Let's keep moving." He gruffly replied.
"Okay, Jim." Her own voice perked up. Shuffling past Maxwell, she took note of his definitive scoff, wondering what had ticked him off. Up the stairs the trio went and within sight of the evac point, just a few hallways away from their grasp. That is until a thin red laser took aim squarely at Kerrigan's chestplate from out of nowhere.
"Stay where you are. She's coming with me." A thinly veiled threat peaked out of the shadows. A shimmer of blue a tuft of blonde hair gave her identity, not that Raynor needed the hints.
"I know that voice. Nova?" James responded, stepping in the way of the laser and training his own firearm at the source. Nova smirked and chuckled, yet remained cloaked by the dark.
"You catch on quick, Raynor. I see you brought your confidant with you." Her head shifted focus, the laser briefly illuminating Maxwell's torso for a change.
"How did you..." he spoke in a hushed tone.
"I have eyes and ears everywhere. Not really much of a stretch. But I certainly didn't expect him to be psionically talented." She remarked with interest. Maxwell did not take kindly to the idea of being a hunted man yet again. It took him ages to disappear from the Confederacy, not to mention burning quite a few bridges. He wasn't looking forward to repeating the vicious cycle all over again.
"That makes two of us. I presume Mengsk sent you after her?" he retorted dryly as the beam shone back on him.
"One way or the other. Preferably dead." She affirmed the answer he was looking for.
"You'll have to go through me, sweetheart." He derisively responded.
"Jim, no!" Kerrigan objected almost instantly, her fingers clawing at Raynor to shove him aside. His feet refused to budge, out of love and out of loyalty.
"Maxwell, get her to the helipad and take her back to the Hyperion! I'll hold her off!" James commanded Maxwell.
"There's three of us and one of her. We..." he was about to say until ten more red beams took aim at the party, crisscrossing each other like a light show.
"Go! That's an order!" Raynor verbalised the order at the top of his lungs. As he made to pull the trigger, so too did the eleven trained Ghosts. Maxwell reacted instinctively, grabbing Kerrigan by her feet and hoisting her up like a hostage.
"No! Let go of me!" she shouted, her arms and legs flailing in the air as the sound of gunfire filled their ears. Her captor took into a sprint for the ages, his feet clapping one by one against the unsteady floor for all it's worth. Behind his back, her eyes watered in despair, helpless in watching her lover fend off a Ghost's strike with pained expression.
"You heard him! We have to go!" Maxwell reluctantly retorted as the shuttle and its landing pad came into view.
"I don't care! Get your hands off me, you brute!" she screamed with fury, her tantrum driving her to punch him in the back endlessly.
"I'm doing this for your own good, Kerrigan!" Maxwell said to her, carrying her up the ramp into the ship and escorted inside by two of the Hyperion's crew. Setting her down on a seat, he was none too surprised to see her bolt out of it at once and dash for the exit. But it was too late. The metal hinges pulled the ramp upwards, trapping her within its confines. Her psionics weakened from liberal experimentation, she couldn't put a dent in its defences.
"No! No! Jim!" she smacked the door repeatedly, sobbing tears of misery like a waterfall. Again and again, her fist banged against the metal till it drew blood. Maxwell stepped in and held her back, forlornly looking down at his sister cradled in his arms, still weeping and her knuckles still coated in fresh blood. What little comfort he could offer, he did. But as he helped her back into her seat, he could not sense the feelings of vengeance snapping inside of her mind. All she could see was red and she would have bloody vengeance against Arcturus for what he had done...
And done! Finally got some work done at last... Nothing else to say but thanks for your support and keep on giving it as best you can. See you all next time!