Being given orders to get lots of rest and take the antibiotics as prescribed felt strange when it was being done on a ship full of mind slaves that was docked on a Leviathan covered in slavering alien animals. Looking down at the small containers in her left hand, Jayce smirked slightly. "I've had my rest Doctor, and now it's time to get back to work. I'll take it easy- there is plenty of muscle available, I'm just here to bypass the Adjutant." Stetmann looked uneasy, but couldn't argue either. Time was ticking down before Jim woke and he felt it was imperative the ship was as close to ready to leave as possible when that happened.

"Alright Jayce." Stetmann tilted his head slightly, rolling his shoulders as he received a message from Swann, who had been hard at practice- if only because he was a practical man. We're ready to deal with the Adjutant, get Jayce down here.

"Swann wants you down at the Adjutants mainframe. Finally time to get everything up and running!" He couldn't hide his excitement, Stetmann had been all but burning to take a closer look at the samples he gathered and do much more thorough testing on everyone. As soon as Jayce and Tychus were walking away, he made a beeline for the lab in preparation.

"Lets go get this tub running." Jayce began the long walk with a sigh, she was still very easily fatigued and had to take breaks, having not allowed herself more than a couple hours more to rest, but she'd get wherever she needed to be.

Tychus smirked at the little woman ordering him around. Warfield and him had been taking turns guarding Jayce since they lacked the technical expertise to fix most things on the ship, and it was his turn. The two hit it off pretty good during their time together, Jayce was enjoyably sassy and Tychus loved himself some banter. There were times though when she'd recoil away if he got too close when reaching for a tool or helping with an object out of easy reach, but he couldn't blame her.

"So, once you get outta this mess what are you going to do? Find yourself a Mr. Jayce and settle down on some dirt farm?" Resting his hands atop his Gauss rifle, Tychus was smirking easily.

"Burrough is my last name, Tychus. But no, last time I checked the whole sector is either on fire or covered in aliens anyway."

"Burrow as in digging?"

"No. It just sounds the same." Rolling her eyes, she leaned heavily on the guardrail of the stairs as they went down a few floors. Tychus kept an easy stance, ready to catch her if she slipped.

Jayce was puffing and sweat was beading down her forehead when they were done going down the six flights of stairs to the lowest level of the ship, they took a pause for her to catch her breath. "So, what about you? Got a Mrs. Findlay waiting for you somewhere?" Jayce couldn't help but smirk at the thought of a man like Tychus actually being tied down anywhere.

"Oh no. I am a strictly free man, to deny other women my raw sex appeal would be a crime." Leaning on the wall opposite of her, the humor visibly died in his eyes as his smile melted away. "Don't really think we're getting out of this anyway, doll."

"Don't go all Captain on me, please. One of him is enough right now." Taking a deep breath, Jayce righted herself and started walking.

Tychus. What is taking so long?

Tychus grunted when Swann barged into his head. Unless you want me carrying her everywhere, the girl is slow. When no response came, he nodded to himself and caught up to Jayce quickly.

"Some news?"

"No." Their conversation was officially dead, but it was only a few minutes of listening to their footsteps and the ship humming before they arrived at the electrically charged door.

"Hello beautiful, how you feelin'?" Swann piped up as soon as they were in sight. Jayce took a breath to respond but Tychus barged in.

"Just swell, sugar." Jayce laughed in good humor while Swann made a face and shook his head.

"Been better sir. We better be able to get things running from here, because I don't think I'm going up that many stairs like this."

"You'll get it, I got all the access codes- you have the uninfested genes. Together we make one regular person." They huddled up to the control panel of the door, which Swann had hooked back up after realizing he wasn't getting any farther trying to force the door open, and began the long process of turning off the electrical field and opening the door. Tychus turned away and stood at rest, rifle in hand. Eyes half-closed, he felt the empty husks of the infested and began to slowly shuffle them around on the athletic field; He had moved them there one by one and had been working on controlling multiple at the same time. Stetmann had noticed what he was doing and helped, too. Together they were moving husks of their former shipmates around the turf like chess pieces, and Tychus had to admit it had become frighteningly easy to command them, as Stetmann had observed.

The hiss of the door opening and happy wooping from Swann and Jayce only vaguely registered to Tychus, who remained in place.

"Alright girl, this is all you now. I ain't going in there- don't want to trip any other defenses, but I'll talk you through it."

"Yes sir. Oh, and sir?"

"Yeah hot stuff?"

"I better not be a Junior Mechanical Engineer anymore when this is over."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Warfield was sharpening the bayonet attached to the tip of his Gauss rifle, watching an infested man he brought to the mess hall to "operate". The worst was the gasping, gurgling and random spasms they seemed wracked by. Once he had set aside his moral hookups, he found it increasingly easier to manipulate the infested, as Stetmann had pointed out.

Stetmann was sitting in the lab, but his mind was elsewhere. He had noticed Tychus slowly but surely lining up two rows of infested on the field, and when he began to line up another row on the opposite side of the field it clicked for Stetmann, who was morbidly entertained. Unbeknownst to the others, and neither would ever mention it, the two engaged in a completely silly game of infested chess. Shlassa watched what everyone was doing, a silent third party. She had taken a very hands off approach after displeasing her Queen, and was content with not having received any further criticism on the matter.

Horner was on the bridge, looking across the room at an empty alcohol bottle and frowning. Flexing his hand slowly for a moment, he snapped his whole arm forwards in a quick gesture, eye on the bottle. From his hand erupted the bundle of thin tendrils that had been tucked away, stretching out morbidly and lashing around the bottle. Pausing, he felt the strange twisting of muscles he never had in his arm before flexing them hard and pulling the bottle to him in a lightning fast whipping motion. The bottle landed in his hand with a dull clunk. You are doing this for Jayce. He reminded himself, staring in disgust as his extra appendages unwrapped from the bottle and hid back in his arm.

His shambling "Queen" had put the "King" into a checkmate and Stetmann was victorious, but Tychus had given him a good run for his money- which he didn't think he would.

Tychus rolled his shoulders, having been standing rigid for a lengthy time. Next time, egghead.

Stetmann was about to reply, but he was pulled back to the lab with the mental equivalent of a hard jerk when the voice of the Adjutant startled him. "Egon Stetmann, Chief Science Adviser. Your equipment is ready."

"Adjutant! You have NO idea how much I missed you!" The Adjutant did not respond. Stetmann had already begun putting the samples he gathered from Warfield, Tychus and himself into analysis equipment and copying his notes into the digital logs for further study.

Swann and Jayce shared a high-five that jarred Jayces arm so hard she yelped and quickly dampened the celebration, but she recovered and they walked together, Swann swung an arm over her shoulders and remained in good spirits. "Good job girl. Hey meathead! Wake up, we're done here!" Tychus grunted and fell in step beside the two, looking down at them. "This mean I can finally use the sonics?"

"Oh yes. I almost forgot what it's like to be clean!" Touching her good hand to her grimy face, Jayce grimaced.

"Yeah that'll be nice." Swann muttered, a bit subdued. Nobody had seen the thick chitin that covered his body since he had covered it up with his suit, except for his hands. Being honest with himself, he didn't want to see it either. They took a lift up through the floors in celebration, much to Jayces relief.

Horner stood up quickly as the bridge sprang to life around him, he almost missed the star chart showing their current location- very, very far away from Char. Resting his hands on the main command console, he sighed in relief at the familiar feeling. "Adjutant. Put me on comms."

"Yes, Captain."

Taking a breath, Horner switched into captain mode, as natural as breathing for him. "Good work team. The Hyperion has some structural damage from the battle of Char, but I believe it is all repairable with what we have available. I am sending the information of each location to your data pads right now." He paused to tap a few keys, routing the data to all Engineer and Mechanic data pads on the ship. "Once the repairs are done, we will be able to leave- Kerrigan willing anyway." Disabling the comms, Horner pulled the star chart back up and tried to figure out just where they were and maybe where the Swarm was bound.

Warfield smiled in relief, listening to the Captains voice over the comm and echoing through the ship. He took the data pad off of the infested mechanic he had been manipulating in preparation, though he paused when he was about to open a comm line to Swann, thinking twice about it.

Good job Swann, tell Jayce I said so too. You just tell me where you need me to go and I'll get working. They still needed to keep working on their psychic strength, comms or no comms, and nobody responded to argue about it.

Jayce thumbed her data pad and opened up a channel with Warfield, Horner and Stetmann. "Gentlemen. I know you want to get the ship up and running as soon as possible- so do I. However, I just thought you should know that the sonics are operational and that you smell. Badly."

"Thanks for that, Jayce." Horner was torn between being annoyed at the way he was being casually addressed and the desire to be clean, so he let it be.

"Good plan. Some normality wouldn't hurt." Warfield digressed, the idea of removing all the dried up bug junk on his body was awfully tempting.

"I'm not even sure if hygiene is a necessity for us anymore, Jayce." Stetmann commented offhandedly as he rifled through blood work he had done on himself.

"Stetmann." Jayce snapped at the younger man as she separated from Tychus and Swann, entering the woman's facilities.

"Alright! Yes, fine." Satisfied with Stetmann's surrender, Jayce closed the comm with him and began the adventure to get clean without messing up her cast. Tychus and Swann were similarly attempting to get clean without destroying everything.

Jim was floating in blissful nothingness, that all too rare dreamless sleep, when the voice that had haunted him for years whispered. Jim. This was not the usual start of his recurring nightmares, and he twitched at the thought of a new torment being unveiled.

How does it feel, Jim? Sweet poison, that's what Sarahs voice had come to sound like tainted by the Zerg. It's time to wake up and play your part. You are mine, now and forever, until this galaxy is consumed in the coming storm.

When Jim Raynor's eyes opened, as solid black as the void with golden chips for pupils, all actions on the ship came to a halt. All except for Jayce, who looked in confusion at Swann when he wouldn't move his hand away from the ion torch she was using to weld a thick steel plate to a small hull breach.

The veil of sleep had been protecting him from the awful truth, but as he hung suspended inside his chrysalis and stared at the sickly green wall that contained him, he understood what had really happened. Bile rising, Raynor snapped the dried gray matter that was connected to his body and struck the transparent wall with his fists in a fury. When he spilled out of the chrysalis and into his room in a small shower of shards, he fell to his knees and vomited.

As Raynor was going through what each man already had, they all collectively snapped out of it when they could no longer hear him breaking out.

"Swann? What is going on?" Jayce had turned off the ion torch and was staring at him in concern. The last time someone lost control of their body around her she had almost been killed, and she just wasn't ready for the trauma of going through that again.

Blinking and swiping the back of his hand across his eyes, feigning tiredness, Swann croaked. "Commander is out, we better keep goin'." Resolutely, he returned to holding and adjusting the steel plate for Jayce, and with that reassurance she returned to welding it.

Tychus had been following guidelines Swann had written out for him on his data pad, using the infested to hold plates in place for him as he welded hull breaches and made minor repairs. When Jim woke, he only paused briefly. Better to get as far away from the Queen of Blades as possible before Jim got any new fool ideas.

Stetmann was in the lab with Warfield, analyzing the particles he had found being excreted by the Generals arm when the two of them and Shlassa shifted slightly, going rigid as they listened to Raynor.

Swallowing weakly, Stetmann muttered "This won't be good, General. Kerrigan was Jims purpose." His concern could not be masked even if he cared to try.

Taking a breath, Warfield refocused on the younger man and shook his head. "He's a tough son of a bitch. Lets not second guess him before he is up and moving, he needs to see we're managing this." Shlassa chuckled softly, but was ignored.

Horner was staring at the world arrayed in brilliant orange and green before him, and the swarm spread out into space as far as his eyes could see. The planet was not known to him, and the star chart indicated they were well out of the Koprulu sector. What Kerrigan could be doing here he had no idea. He was running a scan on the planets surface when he jerked slightly, treated to Jim's awakening. Shortly afterwards he stared down at the comm system thoughtfully, trying to find the right words.

Swiping his mouth with the back of his forearm, Jim paused and gulped a few ragged breaths. A set of clothes folded on his bed and the blinking light of a recorded message drew his eye. When he enabled the message with the swipe of a pale gray hand, fingers elongated by thick claws, he snorted in disbelief. "Shoulda guessed it'd be you, Stetmann. Lookin' pretty good, aren't you?" He questioned the babbling image of the scientist before shuffling to his arrayed clothing.

It took some work and no small amount of fabric ripping to fit into his old outfit, but he managed. Jim walked to the door of his room and paused, resting his hands on either side of the door frame and leaning forwards, pressing his face against the cold steel as he tried to sort his thoughts out. A numb disbelief had settled over him at a frightful pace.

Jimmy. Raynor hissed and partially stumbled out of his room. Pressing the palm of his hand to his forehead firmly, aware of small spines digging at the skin, as Tychus' voice struck his mind with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Go to the bridge. It wasn't a request, but Jim was ready to say yes to anything to make the ache in his head stop just then.

"Jayce, listen. I need you to go to your room and just hang tight for a while, best not ask why." Swann had called a stop as soon as the plate they had been welding was properly bonded to the ship.

"Alright, sir. Be safe." Wary, Jayce didn't waste time making a bee-line for her room while Swann made his way to the bridge. Warfield and Stetmann had taken Tychus' announcement as their cue to head there as well.

Tychus was forcing this gathering sooner than Horner wanted, and as soon as the big man strode into the bridge he was snapping at him angrily. "Why are you doing this? What the hell could any one of us possibly say to make this any less screwed up?" Tychus regarded him evenly, taking a slow pull of a cigar he had managed to scavenge.

"Better to get the shock over with fast, kiddo." He gave Horner a half-cocked smirk when he was visibly riled by the jab. "Get the fist fights and accusations over with, then we can work on getting the hell outta here." Biting back a scathing reply, Horner had to privately admit it was not that bad an idea. They ruminated in the silence, surely the calm before the storm, waiting for the rest of their unique crew to arrive.

As the bridge filled with uncomfortable fidgeting people, Jim took his time making his way. The Hyperion looked and sounded almost post-apocalyptic. There was no undertone of the crew at work or play under the humming and creaking of the ship, and it seemed at every other doorway or intersection there was signs of a fight or flight. Papers, spent bullets, clawed-at steel and dark blood stains were everywhere. When the doors of the bridge hissed open to reveal his old friends, most looking his way couldn't hold back visible winces. He wasn't sure what his own reaction to their varied appearances looked like, but it was not kind either.

Tychus whistled low. "Wow, Jimmy. Looks like your little girlfriend didn't like you so much after all." Nobody could argue with his statement. Jim had put his clothes on and looked like his old self in shape and stance, but that was about it. From his thighs, large spikes that went from the pale gray of his skin to a dark golden brown in color at the tips had torn through his pants and jutted outwards in a dense cluster. They couldn't see his back, but it was clear there was some long spikes jutting outwards from his shirt too. While his head retained its old familiar facial hair and haircut, ridges of small spines started just above his eyebrows and traveled into his hair where slightly longer spines stuck out in irregular intervals.

Jim felt sick all over again looking at the faces of his friends. Tychus' jab already forgotten, Jim swallowed hard at the lump in his throat and mumbled weakly. "I am so sorry."

"We're not done fighting, Commander, and we need you." Stetmann piped up, looking uncharacteristically determined.

"My boys didn't die on that molten rock for nothing, Raynor. This is not over yet, Kerrigan still has much to answer for." Warfield had adopted a stern look, arms crossed.

"We've hit rock bottom. Ain't nowhere to go but up now, Commander. Good people still need our help." Swann joined in, letting his misgivings rest for the time being like the others.

Horner had looked away, hands clasped behind his back and frowning as Tychus piped up. Flicking ash from his cigar off the leathery hide of his forearm, Tychus shook his head. "I told you my niche was here with you, brother, right to the end. Thought the end had come a while ago, but it seems we got something to fight for still, Jimmy. I ain't gone yet."

Jim was taken aback by the sincerity and conviction he found in the words of his men. As one, they all looked at Horner expectantly. Clearing his throat, Jim willed himself to sound stronger. "Matt?"

Sharply, Horner looked up from the floor and directly at Raynor. "You got us all killed, Jim." His features softened slightly then, and he took a breath. "But you were right. Kerrigan was the biggest threat to the galaxy before she beat us, and maybe even moreso now that no one is standing in her way. I'm with you."

Raynors black eyes, with their flinty chips of gold, regarded everyone evenly then. After a long thoughtful pause, it seemed as though a visible breath of life entered their Commander. "Captain."

Snapping to attention, Horner responded. "Yes Commander?"

"What is the status of my ship?"

"Few small repairs and she'll be ready to get off the Leviathan. Fuel is a concern, however."

"Swann."

"Commander?"

"Why are you in here when my ship needs repairs?"

"Alright hotshot, I'll go get to work. She'll be ready before the day is over." Swann was already moving out and Horner had returned to his console.

"Stetmann!"

"Sir?"

"Tell me you've been working on some way to reverse this?"

"Well, no. We only recently regained full power over the ship, the Adjutants protocols had to be undermined in order to-"

Raising his hand in a stopping gesture, Raynor looked decidedly bored. "Get to work."

"Yes sir!" Stetmann was about to step through the door as it hissed open, but paused beside Raynor when he remembered Jayce. "Oh, sir. You should know there is one uninfested survivor, named Jayce." He proceeded to leave before Raynor could formulate a response. Only Warfield, Tychus and Horner remained on the bridge with him. Looking at the two good fighting men, Raynor was thoughtful.

"We've been taking turns keeping watch on the survivor, and assisting with what repairs we can." Warfield offered. "Speaking of which, my turn for watch I believe. You should meet the girl sometime, Raynor. Remind yourself what you were fighting for in the first place." Jim stepped aside further for Warfield to walk out, giving a noncommittal grunt in response.

"Lets go for a walk, Jimmy. Got some catchin' up to do, I reckon." Tychus straightened up from the wall he had been leaning on and started walking. Jim certainly had questions, and he knew Tychus had been the first to get out of his chrysalis if him being first into the pool meant anything, so he followed along.

"Not quite like old times."

Tychus snorted. "No."

Man, I feel like I landed flat on my face trying to describe Jim to you guys. Had a hell of a time taking that image in my head and putting it into words, hopefully I can redeem myself in time.