Chapter 3 : Amongst Enemies Or Allies
Finally, some traction managed to grease the wheels and turn this puppy. I'm truly sorry for the late update. Life always catches up whether we want it to or not. Hopefully, I'll be able to make this more frequent. So, without further ado...
Four Weeks After Deinfestation, Planet Char
December 1, 2504, Koprulu Sector
Sarah Louise Kerrigan
"My Queen, what do you wish for the Swarm to do with him?" Iszha's brooding voice hummed within her mind as both lieutenant and leader watched as Maxwell struggled against the two Hydralisks flanking either side of him, their grip on his shoulders tight but relaxed to avoid injuring her impromptu prisoner. Sarah just stood there, her hand pressed against her temple, straining hard to crack his defences. But it would hold, nary a crack to slip through at all.
"My Queen?" Iszha interrupted her. A small pinch of rage flooded her senses. 'How dare this underling disturb me?!' went her thoughts, dark as they already were. She had at least some control when it came time to command her fledgling army.
"Keep him alive. I want answers." Sarah relented, glancing back out at the opening to her cave-like base. It had been just one week since the attack on the Umojan research center, resulting in a massive blow to the Raiders' morale, particularly Matt. At first, there was some hope that Raynor had simply managed to escape or find a hiding spot from his adversaries, waiting to reintroduce himself into the fight. Her mind remembered how she was gung-ho on returning alone to get him, reluctantly allowing Maxwell to tag along when Matt insisted on his presence strangely enough. But before she could even hit the eject button on the shuttle, hope shattered into pieces like frail glass against the rough terrain beneath it.
The announcement put to rest any attempts, for what good would it do to lie about such a crushing blow to the enemy. A wake was held, empty casket and all. All were in attendance, Maxwell suspiciously of all people. Kerrigan meanwhile preferred to stay in the shadows. Her heart felt heavy from guilt and pain, wracked by the thirst for vengeance and the flinching eyes that the crew sparsely fixed her with. Worse were those that could not bear to gaze upon, for fear of being shredded into bits.
That was around the same time she snapped, thoughts of reuniting the only army capable and bloodthirsty enough to combat Arcturus' empire. So it was that she found herself back on this hellish landscape that passed for a planet, accompanied by Maxwell. Naught 24 hours into her arrival, he was already paying the price for that ill-decided decision.
"As you wish, my Queen." Iszha bowed low, communicating telepathically to the guards to relinquish their grips slightly. Bulbous yellow orbs flourished and blinked, but question they would not.
"Get your hands off me, you bloody freaks!" Maxwell responded to supposed kindness. His sister paced around the square space right in front of him, judging, determining. 'And I used to call her blood. What an idiot I was to believe she would give two stones aside from bloody vengeance!' he angrily commented to himself, still wrapped in his signature protection.
"You have a right nerve to hold me like this! I'm on your side!" he exclaimed in protest, nerves bundling and flaring just below his neck.
"Certainly didn't seem that way when you left Jim to die." She said knowingly with hints of venom masquerading as indifference.
"On his orders, you sociopath!" his defence came right out. Sarah scoffed, a short stiff laugh his reply.
"Why?" she questioned. Maxwell just looked shocked, disbelief at the sheer stupidity of the question.
"Why, what?!" he answered derisively and with annoyance, still flailing against his organic chains.
"Why do so? You don't seem the type to follow orders." Sarah bombarded him with the same line of questioning.
"I get paid! That's what!" He shouted in defiance, bile rising up in his throat. Sarah looked less aghast and more rudely defined, sure of his insufficient answer than ever before.
"Don't lie to me! This is something more than just money. Spit it out!" she verbalized in the basest tone she could muster, raw human and animalistic rage boiling to breaking point.
"You want something else besides the truth?! Then prepare to be disappointed!" Maxwell screamed back, finally wracking up the courage to spit in her face. Slimy drips of saliva splattered her face, to which she angrily wiped off in disgust. Sarah edged closer, pulling Maxwell in closer with a jested sneer and a newfound loathing. Her mind torn between honouring Jim's supposed last wishes and dicing him into giblets preyed on her waning sanity. Still, human nature won out and with a great deal of reluctance and multiple long breaths, she flung him backwards and turned her back to him.
"Let him go." She muttered plainly, crossing her fingers.
"My Queen?" Iszha responded confused, mirroring Maxwell's sentiments to the letter.
"Do it!" Sarah bluntly yelled as if trying to educate a deaf person. Message received, Iszha telepathically informed the Hydralisks, Maxwell feeling their grip relinquish and his body tumble to the slimy goop underneath him.
"Does your contract still hold?" Her next question went directed at Maxwell as he brushed off his injuries and clothes off partial dust, standing tall before he replied.
"If you're asking if I have any loyalty to you, fat chance. You're lucky his pal Matt decided to foot the bill for my services." He did so in the same fashion. One could indeed believe that the Kerrigans were more blunt A-type personalities, like something out of a strange intergalactic sitcom.
"That'll do." She figured. And if he did betray her, he could be swiftly dealt with in short order and fed as supper to her new pets. She bade to her new followers and Iszha, swiftly leaving the dilapidated room behind in her wake, leaving Maxwell to gather himself alone. But before she could clear out, Maxwell called back to her.
"Hey!" he shouted, clutching his discarded pulse rifle. Sarah remained rooted, back turned, emotions running high.
"For what it's worth, Kerrigan... I'm sorry about Raynor. Truly..." He intoned sadly, attempting some form of pity for the former Queen of Blades. Whatever it was worth, it wasn't worth enough. With a grunt of indifference, Kerrigan stepped back out into the main body of the cave and begun preparing for the worst, a full-on brawl with Arcturus. So, that's where she found herself, overlooking a dusty red wasteland with Iszha by her side.
"How many broods remain loyal to me?" Kerrigan snapped straight into business, eyes glinting with red, blazing rage.
"Very few, my Queen. Your... demise left a vacuum of which many of the broodmothers tried to fill, to little extent and effort. Most are scattered across the sector, gathering strength." Iszha responded in a natural demeanor, her claw-like mouth flapping open and shut like an insect would.
"They will bow before me or they will be destroyed. I will not tolerate this nonsense any longer." Kerrigan harshly commented, fists balling tightly. She could feel her old personality start to slip its coat back onto her, the remnants of Sarah Kerrigan the Ghost tossed aside like dirty laundry. But she welcomed it like an old friend, especially when it would give her the power needed to confront Mengsk in his element.
"As you wish, my Queen." Iszha bowed low to her master. Kerrigan nodded, anticipating this to be the modicum of new around here.
"First plan is to take care of the broodmother here on Char." She continued planning her moves.
"Zagara's brood is not easy to take to heel. She was the most cunning of the splinters." Iszha forewarned in silent vain.
"Wait till she gets a load of me. Anything else?" Kerrigan brushed it off as easy, unassumingly so.
"There is a Dominion presence on Char, led by Horace Warfield." Iszha proclaimed plainly, one of her many scaly tentacles inching towards the giant monolithic eyesore that was his fortress in the distance. Kerrigan peeked at it, seeing that it was not some ordinary fort built in a day. Concrete walls made a solid perimeter around the main building, which was just as fortified as all the other smaller structures dotting the space within. Columns rode forth into the barren lands, eradicating wherever they went.
"Warfield... He'll pay just for being in the Dominion... After we bring Zagara into the fold, I want plans drawn up immediately to assault his little stronghold. There will be no place for him to hide." Sarah reacted just as harshly, a grim outlook awaiting her opponent. It was safe to say red was the only worth looking at.
"My Queen..." Iszha bowed yet again.
"Tell Abathur to evolve the Zerglings. I will go to Zagara." Sarah told her as she made in the general direction of Zagara's den. Where the Queen of Blades went, her minions followed. Zerglings, Banellings, Hydralisks and Roaches massed behind her and walked out the front door with her, her own army of walking revenge tools.
"Anything you wish, My Queen." Iszha responded, silently flitting away to see Abathur immediately as requested. Neither knew that Maxwell, having watched from afar looked forlorn as he saw his sister vanish into the night like a one-night stand, to seek bloody vengeance. And there was nothing he could do to stop her, nor did he plan to tag along in her little crusade.
"Ah, well. Guess I should get better acquainted with the walking freaks of nature." Maxwell joked to himself aloud before finally hauling ass towards the genetics pools.
Four Weeks After Deinfestation, Dominion Prison
December 1, 2504, Koprulu Sector
James Eugene Raynor
His cell was certainly much better than some of the more high-profile murderers and psychopaths locked up in this little man-made hellhole. Then again, he wasn't exactly meant to be high-profile to begin with. Raynor felt his skin blister as he wrestled against the cuffs binding his arms together. Bruises long earned waned his senses considerably, the swelling a reminder of his brazen yet suicidal charge against Nova and her Ghosts. The small room he had been placed in was wall-to-wall gun metal gray with rust creeping in on all sides. A tiny crack in the hull allowed water to seep right into the cell, the plink of each drop a clock determining his prolonged sentence. But even in that cell, he remained optimistic that Sarah would bail him out of this jam in no time. He still worried, sure but he could do little to act on it.
As he settled down into what would be another long day toiling away, his ears perked up at the sound of scratching emanating from the other side. His eyes glanced forward and found to his surprise a small alcove joining the cell next to him, not big enough to fit through but just right that he could communicate without fear of detection. Before he could ponder whether or not the cell was even occupied, his question answered itself.
"Hey, you!" He could hear a woman whisper from behind the crack. With trepidation, he pointed towards himself with a weakened finger.
"Yeah, you!" she whispered back annoyed, like she was talking to a dumb person. Raynor nodded slightly, shifting from one side of the cell to the other, right next to the crack in the wall. Peering in, he saw a young redhead of vibrant posture, sitting in the same position as he was. If not for the fact that she seemed thinner due to malnourishment, her brown irises and height, he would have considered her another Kerrigan.
"What you in for?" she asked plainly.
"Political enemy... You?" Raynor bounced back the question like a game of tennis.
"Theologist..." She mumbled, still sunny and cheerful. Raynor scratched his head at that. 'How did a girl studying the theory of God get caught up with his bedfellows?' was all he could muster.
"What would Arcturus want with a theory expert?" He asked her with suspicion.
"I may have ruffled his feathers when I published some opposing material." She shrugged her shoulders with genuine lack of knowledge present.
"That'll do it." Raynor nodded, finally letting his body collapse nicely onto the wall. She did the same, exhausted and tired. She felt like she could sleep forever, sod the idea of dying right in its undead face.
"From your voice, I can tell you're that rebel guy." She relented, forcing herself to stay awake until at least her next meal. She heard him chuckle behind the wall, beating the floor softly with his feet like he heard a bad joke.
"Rebel guy?" He replied, wiping tears from his delirious face. Rare to find anyone these days who didn't jump at the sight of an infamous celebrity...
"I hear news. Doesn't mean I have to care about it." Nikki answered, feeling even more stupid by the minute. It wasn't her fault that she was more interested in books rather than gossip on the disaster that passed as UNN broadcasts these days.
"Good point... And the name's Raynor." James smiled politely through the crack.
"Nikki Valeni." She replied in earnest, affixing the commander with a straight-laced wink. It came off more like flirtation rather than simple minded friendship, but that could be addressed soon enough.
"Nice name." He conceded the point.
"Thanks. Your name is nice too." She did the same. As both prisoners grew accustomed with their idle chit-chatter, a loud rap on both their cell doors woke them from their social trance, reminding them of the harsh reality they found themselves in. Two burly men, carrying trays far too small for their pudgy hands laden with slop glared at them from behind the thin sheets of metal separating them. Clad in armour, they stepped inside and placed the trays down before promptly leaving. In a flash, Nikki pounced on it like a caged animal, scarfing down one, then two and then three mouthfuls of bland, tasteless slop. Raynor meanwhile still in defiance, opted to shove it aside to prove that he could take the punishment. His resolve was still strong, even if Nikki's eating habits threatened to dissolve it.
"You'd better eat to keep your strength up. They'll be setting us to labour soon enough and we don't get breaks." She said matter-of-factly in a muffled tone, probably due to her mouth being filled to the brim.
"I'll be fine." Raynor assured her and himself at the same time.
"Whatever..." Nikki scoffed, returning to her meal. As the night continued to drag on, Raynor found solace in the idea that wherever she was, Maxwell would remain at her side. 'Kid's been alone a long time. Maybe this is all just a stroke of fate. Who knows?' he found himself thinking philosophically. One by one, the lights dimmed and fell silent, awashing them in artificial darkness. He found slumber easy to come by and soon enough, there he would for the next seven hours...
Four Weeks after Deinfestation, Planet Char
December 1, 2504, Koprulu Sector
Maxwell Holmes Kerrigan
Maxwell's boots stuck constantly to the sticky mess down below him. How the Zerg managed to traverse this travesty smoothly, let alone the entire pack was beyond his feeble understanding. Weak as he was though from the week's constant upheaval of scenery, he pushed onwards for his sister's sake. As he made his way to the genetics' pool where Iszha and Abathur no doubt were, he passed several gaping holes in the caves to which he came face-to-face with the giant structure sitting pretty on red dust and waste. He stopped, paused to ponder and take it in. 'There must be at least ten thousand on station at that very moment. They have no idea of what's coming to their doorstep.' He thought. Discussions of forewarning raced through him, silenced once or twice by the knowledge of the Dominion's sketchy background. 'Perhaps I can sell Sarah on a less risky plan than lay waste like a Viking.' He finally conceded the internal battle. As his feet struggled to gain ground, he caught a glimpse of the genetics pools for the first time.
He knew that the Zerg's idea of structural architecture would vastly differ from his but the sight sickened him nonetheless. For the uninitiated, it looked like a vast big hole with a ton of green fluids suspiciously looking like acid, like some psycho's idea of torture. For those intimate or now counted among the Zerg's ranks, it was a place where genetics could be combined, erased, changed and altered to suit the adaptability of its current battles. It also served as a personal healing chamber for its higher powers, specifically the broodmothers and Kerrigan at one point. All that meant nothing to a man of the gun...
"It is not that simple, Iszha. Were it so, the Swarm would be much more powerful." Abathur's slimy voice pounded the walls as he argued with Iszha next to the main genetic pool.
"Then figure it out. I will not be the first to disappoint our Queen." Iszha bluntly implied, eyes barely betraying except pure compliance. The creature looked proud in her posture, like she felt beneath this excuse she was being given.
"Neither would I." Abathur canted the same impression. Just as the two creatures dared to carry this argument further, Maxwell had the urge to vomit.
"Uggghhh..." he groaned, stepping in with a face of disgust as he re-examined his boots for the umpteenth time. Iszha and Abathur silenced each other, turning to face their unwelcome visitor.
"Ah, the human..." Abathur snarkily commented, looking down upon Maxwell with disinterested eyes. Iszha, while of the same boat hid it much better than her grubby counterpart.
"Yeah, this human has a name." Maxwell replied, visibly annoyed.
"My apologies, Maxwell. Abathur..." Iszha remarked, doing the equivalent of a shoulder bump against Abathur. Again, he gave the same equivalent of clearing his throat before readdressing Maxwell yet again, this time with a pinch of respect.
"Sorry." He responded.
"Are you being civil because she asked you to or because you want to?" he dared to ask in sarcastic tones.
"We live only to serve the Queen." Iszha proudly pronounced to him without shame. 'So much for independence...' Maxwell ironically stated.
"Hmmmph..." Maxwell snorted deliberately.
"Why are you here, Maxwell?" Iszha shot back a question of her own.
"Does it look like I have anywhere better to go?" Maxwell shrugged, the shoulder plates inching ever so slightly back and forth with a soft rattle. The rifle clattered nosily as the plates shuffled it from its sling to the left.
"Surely the Terran..." Iszha replied, only to be met by Maxwell's outstretched hand held up in her eyes.
"That was a rhetorical question, Iszha..." he went straight to rubbing his forehead with redundancy.
"I'm afraid I'm unaccustomed to Terran customs." Iszha admitted truthfully.
"It's not a... Never mind. What's wrong?" Maxwell brushed it off with an answer of rueful tone.
"The Queen has asked Abathur to aid in evolving the Swarm but he has run into some trouble." She explained in great detail.
"If I do not have the necessary DNA strains, I cannot do anything. Minor tweaks, sure but not on the scale the Queen desires." He said, even more frustrated and flustered that he was even discussing such matters with an un-infested Terran of all things. At least those mindless drones had the common decency to obey their superiors.
"Where would you even begin to look?" Maxwell queried curiously.
"I know of several caverns that houses the more feral of our number that will serve us adequately. Sadly, we cannot afford to do so without a proper number." Abathur sighed at the prospect.
"Perhaps I can go..." he offered himself. Abathur certainly could help but grimace when the idea was presented.
"You, human? You would not last long, even if you were as strong as our Queen." He rudely interluded, bringing up a strong point. Of the many beings inhabiting this festering warzone of a sector, Kerrigan was among the more powerful of the lot. Luckily, they were just as clueless about Maxwell's lineage as Kerrigan was.
"All the better then." He accepted the thinly-veiled challenge with gusto. Abathur laughed, grinning if you could call it that. 'This fool will off himself so quickly that it will be of little consequence. How these Terrans managed to hold us back was a miracle.' He intoned arrogantly, a trait Kerrigan would disapprove of if she knew the extent of it.
"You're foolish, human. But so be it." He relented with hidden glee. A short howl and an armoured zergling with metal-like carapaces covering its body emerged from one of the smaller genetic pools. It scurried at its master's beck and call, clicking its jaws together with glee. Sliding over, Abathur initiated a telepathic link to its hive mind, visualized for Maxwell as a short blue chain between their glowing eyes. In time, the bond strengthened to a causal point at which he disrupted it for the moment.
"This zergling will accompany you as my eyes and ears, so you humans say. He is given strict orders to observe and not to interfere. Understood?" he spoke proudly. Maxwell grimaced when eyes and ears were mentioned. He was basically sending a living camera to document his every move. Whether for posterity, experimentation or posthumous giggles, he could not tell. Nor did he really want to know.
"Clearly... Come on then..." Maxwell sighed at the prospect of being babysat by something barely higher than his boots. 'Well, if this thing gets on my nerves, I can always just squash it like a bug.' He kept that option open in his mind.
His tracker set with coordinates given by Iszha, Maxwell was well on his way towards the Restitution Ravines, a local name given due to its unnatural spiked rocks growing on the sides, meaning the only safe haven was the passageway down at the bottom. Behind him, he could still hear the little zergling that could scuttle out of sight, its yellow bulbous eyes taking occasional glances at Maxwell as he pressed on. The sun baked both observer and observed in its hot, high-noon glow. Beads of sweat perspired down his forehead and all over his body, making wearing the suit of armour almost downright unbearable at times. If not for the constant threat of danger lurking in the ground and high above, he would have given into his urges of stripping down to his bare underwear if need be, a less comforting thought than initially idealized.
The cave seemed only to grow more and more distant with every laboured second, the sun burning deeply on his near raw skin. At the rate he was going, Maxwell almost thought he would wind up looking like a reindeer or a well-done slab of meat. Thankfully, the observer spotted land-ho and clicked its fangs together to form a dangerous clicking sound.
"Wha...?" Maxwell groaned as his head spun to listen to the incessant clicking distraction, registering the cave in his field of vision only on the second bout of clicking.
"Huh, what do you know?" He indelibly mused, biting his lower lip and peering down into the depths below. 'Yep, this little crack in hell's just as dark as the last few shitholes.' he pondered with barely another moment.
"Dark as night in there, gonna need some flares to light my way." His thoughts verbalized themselves on demand, extremities fumbling for the sticks of white phosphorus clipped to his belt. As he did so, the armoured zergling decided to one-up its human compatriot and descend willingly first in line down into the depths below.
"Or glow-in-the-dark, bulbous pupils... Sigh..." Maxwell sardonically quipped, fielding his rifle and following suit after the little bugger, pride knocked down a peg by the notion that a zergling had more gall than he did, even if it was perfectly reasoned in his own head.
Trepidation followed Maxwell like a dog on a leash, never willing to let go on the spoils of its owner. Step by jagged step illuminated briefly by the zergling's yellow eyes were the least of his concerns, tossed along with glacial ceilings that wobbled with every little shift in tectonic plates, acid that dripped from every little orifice this festering cave could find or the chasms that reached even deeper down to the planet's core that he dared to plumb. No, if something were to be feared, it was the fact that he was inhabiting the same local space as a pack of feral zerg, all with the lethality to challenge any creature that dare intrude upon its territory.
"Oh, that's high..." Maxwell trembled collectively upon glancing down at a chasm that barely bridged the nest to the rest of the cavern. One narrow walkway was all that bridged him and his destination and he wasn't about to let Abathur witness him collapse entirely so close to the end.
'Okay... Okay... I can do this. I can do this. You're a Kerrigan. You've been through worse than this.' He muttered like a chant in his head over and over again. His first step nudged a loose rock, clattering nosily on its way down to nowhere, a terrifying reminder of the attempt. Another foot forward, another rumble. The pattern was bound to repeat itself. Progress was made inevitably and he could breathe easier when the other side was nearer in fruition. At least that was the plan...
"Just one more step... Come on, Maxwell. Just one more..." the chant resumed its calling card. The zergling perched precariously on the other side, relayed all of this to Abathur with enhanced giggles coming from the parasitic worm of a researcher. If he could laugh, then he would for it is always funny to watch humans cowering in fear. His eyes salivated as he looked upon Maxwell barely wiping his brow of cold sweat, even more so when his own kind was waiting just around the corner. Sure, it would mean that he would not be receiving the samples he requested any time soon but that was a small price to pay for the early, untimely demise of their unwanted guest.
"Holy shit!" went his startled cry as the talons burst out from the seam behind him and sent him flying over the edge. The ferals, unwilling to let their hard-earned food disappear like the rest, yanked him back up to solid ground with brute force, sending flying at least half the cavern lengths and bones crunching underneath the ground with audible cracks for all.
"Arrrgh!" He moaned in pain, clutching his already broken ribs with a tight fist, the pain shooting each spinal point in his body. His eyes watered, nearly blinding him to the rage-fuelled mutated freak of a Hydralisk barrelling down on him with pace.
"Whoa!" Maxwell rolled out of its warpath, watching with teary eyes as the Hydralisk charged blindly into what amounted as a brick wall, head reeling back from impact. Flesh and bone spewed like a fountain, staining the rocky ground with congealed pools of bloody spit. Sensing opportunity, Maxwell scrambled to his feet in a jiffy, unsheathing his weathered blade from his handle and raising it to strike.
"Night, night, creep!" he screamed, plunging the near-dull blade right through the centrepiece of the monster's skull, spurting blood and silencing its dejected howls for good. With a relieved pant, he rose up, leaving the blade still jutting out off the dead Hydralisk for added poignancy.
"Hey, Abathur. Is this enough to do the job?" Maxwell thrust his hand towards the cooling corpse as he glared wearily at the zergling eye-to-eye. A simple nod was enough to convey his satisfaction with the subject's availability. With that out of the way, Maxwell set about the gruesome task of carving the Hydralisk into smaller chunks that he could lug around in his rucksack. Just as the hunters once sliced their prey open to make it easier for themselves, Maxwell did the same. Carving the beast with his blade, his mind wandered again into uncharted territory.
'Here I am, on the orders on a possibly dead man, protecting a sister that tried to kill me on a planet with a deathwish on my head. Man, I lead a charmed life.' He sighed, dragging the blade another few inches across the belly. 'One thing's for sure. I'll be seeing this through before long.' Oh, how he could not phantom... Flesh chewed by the blade, parting at his fingertips to allow him safe passage. All in service so that more like it could prey on flesh just that little bit more efficiently? Hypocrisy sounded like just the right word, went every fiber of his being.
"Well, that's done... Hopefully it's smooth sailing from here on out." Maxwell jinxed himself in the foot, for a loud growl and clicking sound accompanied ten pairs of yellow bulbous eyes steadily closing in on him from the impenetrable darkness. 'I just had to open my flapping gums for one minute...' he sighed, unsheathing the barely clean blade and preparing to do battle. 'Hopefully, sis is having a better time at it than I am...'
And done... Finally some progress on this homefront... Thanks for the support all of you have given thus far and hope to see you guys again soon... Have fun and be CO-OPERATIVE!