Chapter 29: The Brewing Storm
The gust of wind brought with it dust and sand, stirred up from the desolate terrain around the dormant zerg hive cluster. The sun, partially obscured by the haze, glowed a dim orange over the silent land. No human had come by this place in over a year since the zerg invasion had first overrun the planet. All that remained were zerg, coated with a layer of dirt and sand accumulated over months of hibernation.
One solitary individual walked within the shadows of the slumbering zerg. She reached out to them, both physically and mentally and roused them with one push. For they were hers. The pernicious buzz of the Psi Disruptor had faded from her mind, signaling the success of the first phase of the plan. Across much of the blighted surface of Tarsonis, the scattered zerg hives awoke as one.
The time had finally come for the zerg to make their true strength known at last and destroy the Psi Disruptor. No longer would the zerg be trampled underfoot by these terrans. Kerrigan took a deep breath as the minds of the zerg scattered across the planet connected with her own and lit up with activity, ready to perform their duty, as would she. The preparation of many months would culminate here.
Elsewhere, her cerebrate Kaloth informed her of his progress in organizing the productive centers of the zerg hives to begin hatching dormant eggs and rallying the armies together. The force was formidable; it had to be. The UED had provided Tarsonis with as much men and material as it could spare without undermining their numerous commitments and offensives across the sector and they had made the best of their position here.
Regardless of what difficulty there would be, this would be their only chance to turn things around. Kerrigan remembered Daggoth's recriminations against her as the UED seized Char, the result of the stage she herself had set first by seizing control of the swarm by force and secondly with the failed campaign against the Dominion. Her only refutation was insistence that her methods would ultimately turn the tables, a claim that was hollow at the time. Only now did she have an opportunity within sight to show that she could lead the zerg to triumph and throw off the shackles of the UED. And to prove that Kaloth's assurances about her had not been a lie.
Zerg skittered around the hive, preparing for the coming battle. Already, the UED had taken notice of the movements and were preparing to strike first before the zerg could finish streaming in, traveling through tunnels to reach the outlying hives that were the target of the offensive. Many small skirmishes were happening across the land, small groups of terrans and zerg clashing with each other, the prelude to the coming battle. A large terran force gathered itself and advanced. Finally, the terrans were arriving. The Queen of Blades roused herself from her seat and walked forward, stepped away from the cover of the hive's buildings. Victory and defeat rested in the balance. Failure was not an option, it must not be.
The UED commander was lamenting the fact that the zerg on the planet were not completely purged from the very start. But after they had claimed the planet, control over Tarsonis was granted back to its old masters who were to be responsible for controlling and governing it. The bulk of the military forces belonged to what remained of the Terran Confederacy and what mercenaries and disreputable folk the oligarchs of the fallen state could gather with their resources.
It was their job to cleanse the planet of the zerg while the orders given to the UED garrison were only to protect the Psi Disruptor. But alas, they had dithered and squabbled rather than fight the zerg. The commander dwelled on their reasons. They didn't have enough people to repopulate all of Tarsonis anyways, and besides, they must have thought zerg were of no threat with the nearby Psi Disruptor keeping them in check. Why fight costly battles to reclaim land for someone else to take for themselves? Or perhaps they believed that the Directorate would eventually become so fed up they would finish the job themselves?
The commander of the UED garrison could only bemoan the idiots he was saddled with. He dreamed of rounding them up and forcing them to follow his orders. If only he was allowed to. The admiral had been quite clear about maintaining the cooperation of these parasites. Here it was, the fruits of their cooperation.
Even now, their so-called allies were fumbling around trying to get their forces organized. There was no time to waste waiting for them to get their act together. The tenets of Earth's military doctrine were clear: take the first strike, swiftly and decisively. He had three battlecruisers in orbit and immediately gave them orders to gather together and then descend to the surface to bombard the largest of the newly awakened zerg hives on the planet. The ground army was also mobilized to advance on the zerg's primary staging point on the continent, to end the threat before they could organize.
From inside the leading battlecruiser, the captain watched calmly as his ship began approaching the zerg hives. Then, the vessel shuddered as projectiles shot from the spore colonies below impacted the hull. Flocks of mutalisks filled their view, drawing ever closer.
"Deploy our fighters," the captain calmly ordered. The wraiths and valkyrie frigates flew out from the hangars, pushing back the tide of zerg. Their ships were taking moderate damage so far, still within acceptable parameters. Soon, they would be able to strike back and level the infested city to eliminate the zerg presence in the region.
Suddenly, an alert blared out, signaling a new presence on the battlefield.
"I want our sensors at full power," the captain swiftly ordered. "What's coming at us?"
"We're detecting one terran battlecruiser, accompanied by…" the crew member paused for a moment. "Protoss vessels?"
"Protoss? What the hell is going on here? We need to take them out. Now!"
The protoss spacecraft sped forward, tearing through the UED's fighter screen with almost contemptible ease. The terran battlecruiser soon followed and opened fire as well.
"Focus our main guns on the enemy battlecruiser. I want it gone," the captain ordered. He watched as they began trading fire. The lone enemy battlecruiser bore hit after hit of battery fire, but it was surprisingly resilient. And yet more zerg were coming at them. Time was not on their side.
"Hail the other captains," he ordered. "We will prepare to fire yamato cannons on my mark. Don't leave that ship with any way to evade."
The fronts of the battlecruisers shined brightly as superheated plasma gathered, the prelude to a devastating attack. Finally, the ships unleashed their attacks simultaneously toward the Hyperion, leaving it with no opening to evade.
The shots passed through their target as though it was not even there. For a brief period of time, the ship was shunted out of reality, frozen in place as they existed in a state of stasis. For a few moments, the UED battlecruisers simply continued to hang in the sky, their captains not believing what they were seeing. "What… is that?" the captain muttered. "Are you all seeing this?" It was almost unimaginable, and certainly nothing the terrans of this sector could have created.
The sudden surprise cost them. After having diverted the ship's power to charge the yamato cannons, they were left briefly vulnerable, and the zerg fliers took full advantage of the opening. A new surge of mutalisks rushed forward, followed by streams of scourge launched from their nests.
The swarm was just so overwhelming. The captain almost fell in a daze as the ship began shaking even more intensely while more and more red lights flashed. To the side, one of the other battlecruisers fell to the ground, and he could only watch helplessly.
"Fall back," he muttered. "We have to get out of here."
The slow lumbering ship, using the full force of its engines, began to turn around. More and more projectiles tore into the hull. The battlecruiser to their right began listing to the side and entered freefall. Now, it was only them left.
The enemy battlecruiser was on the move, no longer frozen in space. The front of the ship lit up as it gathered energy in front of it.
"Destroy that ship!" the captain shouted frantically. "Destroy it before it fires, damn it!"
In their last gasp, they attacked with everything they had, battering the enemy battlecruiser extensively. But it was too late. A bright flash engulfed their field of view, and it was the last thing they ever saw.
Orderly rectangular formations of infantry, equipped with power armor, continued their unrelenting march through the arid wasteland nestled in the rain shadow of the mountains. A cloud of dust rose into the air, stirred up by the approaching troops. The tanks rolled in behind them, also accompanied by goliath walkers scanning the air for threats. Several aircraft flew through the air above them. One approached, drawing closer and closer until a missile shot out.
The vision cut out as the zerg overlord exploded into chunks of meat, but not before relaying what it saw back to its masters.
"They are here," Kerrigan said to her cerebrate.
"The terrans are likely seeking to entrench themselves on the cliffs within range of the hive," Kaloth said. "We will need to stop them before they reach their destination."
"And your armies still need time to arrive, I can see that. I'll take the forces at my disposal here and intercept them first," Kerrigan replied. "How long do you need?"
"Half an hour most likely. Less if I push the minions to rush at top speed. In that case it would probably take-"
"Don't," Kerrigan cut him off. "They'll need to keep their energy for the actual fight. We both know what the most effective strategy is here."
Kaloth paused for a few moments before responding. "I'll keep you informed on my progress and if circumstances change. Don't hesitate to back off should unexpected events occur."
With the discussion over, the army began to move out. A few cave systems nearby provided a way to approach the path the terran army would be taking, allowing them to attack from the flank while also providing an area to retreat to. When the zerg finally emerged into the light, the terran army was close to being within sight.
It didn't take long for the terrans to notice the approaching zerg army. They kept up frequent scans of the surrounding area because of the risk of hidden ambushes from both above or below ground. The terran commander immediately ordered his men to form up into a defensive formation and the tanks shifted into siege mode in anticipation of the incoming attack. Despite this flurry of activity, the terrans were certainly not afraid. They could see the size of the attacking zerg force and saw that it was no threat to their large army.
Tense minutes passed as the UED army readied themselves for battle. But it never came. The zerg seemed content with halting outside the range of the tanks to simply wait. It was a stalling tactic, the terran commander quickly realized. He then ordered most of the army to resume the march, with a portion left behind which would suffice as a blocking force against the zerg.
Kerrigan watched as the terran force separated and the bulk of it began moving into the distance. The enemy commander was certainly confident in his chances, but she would show him the consequences of his folly. Her zerg, composed of basic zerglings and hydralisks, rushed forward at the smaller terran army. As the enemy concentrated their forces to meet the brunt of the assault, she gathered her power, unleashing her psionic might on the assembled terran soldiers. Death came swiftly for them as they were fried to a crisp by the concentrated energies.
The zerg surged through the gap, quickly overrunning the artillery in the back before turning to envelop the flanks of the terran forces. Kerrigan gazed upon the carnage with satisfaction; it was the first step toward repaying the UED for their actions. Even after the exertion of that attack, she had never felt so energized and eager to continue the fight.
The bulk of the terran army, now quickly realizing their mistake, quickly turned back to rescue their comrades from the zerg now surrounding them. It was total chaos with scattered pockets mired in close quarters combat against the zerg. No artillery fire came, the commander reluctant to catch his own forces in the blast zone.
Instead, the firebats advanced to meet the charging zerg while behind them the marines opened fire into the swarm of zerg. The tight formations quickly devolved into a chaotic melee as streams of flame blanketed the ground, zerglings leaped through the air to claw at whatever poor soul they landed on, and projectiles filled the air from both sides. Medics tried to treat who they could, patching up wounds and stemming bleeding, but even so numerous corpses littered the ground.
There wasn't a sense of frontlines, not anymore as it became every squad for themselves, each group being neither able to advance nor retreat. Still, more groups of infantry continued to stream in, matching the influx of zerg. While within the melee, the zerg seemed endless, looking from the outside their numbers were dwindling.
Claw met gun, batting it to the side while a fist smashed through the visor of the helmet and the face underneath. A pair of bony wings unfurled, sweeping around in a slash which sliced the neighboring soldiers to pieces. Several bullets pinged off her side, but Kerrigan ignored them as she rushed toward the shooters, impaling them on the tips of her blades. A firebat approached, spewing flames from his arms, but with a casual thought she lifted him off the ground and tossed him into the soldiers behind him. The cry of alarm from them was cut short as they were engulfed by an explosion of flame. The smoke rose from the ashes, mixing into the haze that covered the battlefield.
Out of this haze, more indistinct outlines appeared off to the side, another squad of soldiers not seeing what they were walking into. In the midst of the indistinct chaos, each group might as well be in their own little world, caring only about what was inside their little bubble. For herself, she was unstoppable within her bubble, cutting down enemies as trivially as harvesting wheat. It was easy to relish this and immerse herself in the brawl without end. But she was aware of everything around her and could see the zerg force she brought slowly fragmenting as more of the terrans pushed through the gaps. It would only be a matter of time before the enemy gained enough of an advantage for the slow attrition to tip into a complete rout.
Time. That was the fulcrum here on which everything balanced. In the end, each corpse that fell here mattered only insofar as it bought another moment. At one end of the scales, a tightening encirclement. On the other, a distant zerg swarm bearing down on the army mired in battle. The strategic situation was obvious for both sides; there was no need to think about it, only to fight.
More soldiers marched toward her, their heavy stomps barely audible in the cacophony of battle. Once more, she dove into their midst, beginning to tear through them like a whirlwind before they could even react. It was over in a few seconds, with barely a few shots fired. But even as she was about to stop and examine her handiwork, more shots came from behind. Yet more to deal with. The all important time slowly ticked by. Ironically, time itself felt like it was losing meaning, becoming an indistinct blur. A goliath emerged from the dusty haze, firing its autocannons at any zerg within sight. As Kerrigan ran toward it, the pilot spotted her and turned to shoot. She kept ahead of its aim, eventually sliding beneath its body and slicing through its legs. The machine toppled to the ground and she stabbed her wings in to finish it off. Another one down. How long has it been?
She continued to move through the battlefield, past the motionless suits of power armor littering the ground and the heaps of zerg bodies lying nearby. The rapid tapping of gunfire, the screeches of the zerg, the groan of metal being ripped apart, and the sounds of battle came from all directions.
The sounds of battle grew in intensity, with the sheer quantity of gunfire becoming overwhelming even as the screeches of zerg became increasingly numerous. In the distance, the sound of artillery rocked the ground as they fired at the approaching zerg.
More and more zerg burst through the curtain of haze around her as they overran the pockets of terran resistance and streamed into the center of the battlefield. The sounds of artillery in the distance had ceased. Around them, the dust was beginning to clear. Sporadic gunfire remained and several explosions happened nearby as the remaining soldiers either fought to their last or tried to retreat.
Then, the battlefield fell silent.
A gust blew over the rocky wasteland, blowing away the smog and smoke and revealing the landscape. There was hardly any open ground to stand on without stepping on either the wreck of a vehicle or one of the countless bodies carpeting the area. The battle was won and the terran army was utterly obliterated. Though many zerg corpses joined the terrans on the dirt, more zerg were arriving from across the planet to bolster their numbers. Now, all that was left was to crush the terran stronghold guarding the Psi Disruptor nestled within the mountain ranges to the north of Tarsonis City.
Kerrigan rested inside the hive as she watched the inexorable march of the zerg armies across the continent as they began approaching their destination. The remaining terran forces were scrambling to establish defenses, fortifying defensible locations to block the zerg advance. But without the numbers to cover every approach, the attacking zerg only had to spend some time taking a detour to outflank the defenses.
"They don't have a hope of stopping us," Kerrigan mused to Kaloth. "It won't be long."
Suddenly, many zerg in the vanguard cried out through the hivemind as they died, with even mighty ultralisks brought down. Vehicles fired at the army from a distance, but when the zerg began chasing, they swiftly turned and fled while continuing to fire. The vehicles appeared quite bulky, but they were still capable of gliding over the ground at incredible speeds. There was a lack of visible wheels and though it was difficult to spot from a distance, the vehicles seemed to hover. They were armed with railguns which outranged the zerg but which also packed heavy firepower.
"How troublesome." Kerrigan frowned. "I don't know where they got these things from but it will be quite hard to pin them down."
"We can attempt to limit their movements by splitting up smaller groups to block off escape," Kaloth replied. "The more time they spend trying to extricate themselves from an encirclement, the less time they will have to attack. Harry them with zerglings and force them to expend their ammunition on them. We only need to minimize the damage they cause."
While the zerg army continued to advance, a transmission came from their allies. Raynor, still fighting alongside his men holed up in Tarsonis City after their attack on the power generators, seemed rather anxious when he spoke.
"We're gonna need some help here sooner or later," he said. "These underground bunkers and tunnels won't hold out forever. My men are getting tired and I don't know how much longer we can last. I wouldn't put it past the Confeds to wreck a chunk of their own city just to deal with us."
Kerrigan looked at the screen silently, mulling over the situation. "I'll see what I can do."
"Well don't take too long thinking, Sarah," Raynor replied in a half joking, half agitated tone as the sound of gunfire continued in the background.
The transmission ended, leaving Kerrigan to ponder. "What are our options?" she asked her cerebrate.
"We have an army close enough to the city to assault it," he replied. "Capturing the entire city will be long and bloody, but if we only need to distract the defenders enough, we can do it. However, we would be delaying our assault on the Psi Disruptor, giving them more time to reinforce their defenses." The implications of each option were left unsaid, but silence itself carried enough meaning that there was no need to elaborate.
The silence continued to drag on while she continued to think to herself, the tips of her fingers digging into her palms as the seconds dragged on. "We'll go to the city," she finally announced. "We don't need to attack too far in, just overrunning their outer defenses and scaring them is enough."
Kaloth hesitated for a barely perceptible moment before responding. "If that is your wish, I will commence the attack at once."
The Confederate forces seemed somewhat surprised at the zerg changing course, more focused inward than outward. Some portions of the army immediately withdrew deeper into the city while others stood and fought ineffectively. The remainder, uncommitted to the fight, began to retreat as well, collapsing into a rout when pursued.
This felt easy, too easy. Kaloth's mind raced as he examined the field again, looking over each possibility to find the trap. Enemy movement was spotted in the distance. Additional terrans were approaching. Initially positioned in the area around the Psi Disruptor, they were now traveling toward the city, moving along the shortest path.
Prior to the attack, zerg lurkers were already positioned in the area to ambush and destroy any attempt from the terrans in the city to reinforce the Psi Disruptor and strike the zerg from the flanks while in the middle of the assault. Now, the terrans were walking in from the other direction. Once they reached the ambush point, the ground erupted with the hidden attacks of the lurkers. The terran army disintegrated into chaos as the soldiers began to flee the carnage. The survivors began to flee toward the city while more zerg forces arrived to pick off stragglers.
Only a fraction of them survived, but they were able to break through the zerg's loose encirclement and linked up with the other terrans defending the city. Meanwhile, air forces emerged from the terran base defending the Psi Disruptor. Dropships, escorted by fighter craft, flew toward the city. However, they never reached the city. Instead, the dropships unloaded their cargo.
The ships were not transporting people, but instead dropped a multitude of bombs onto the area the zerg had set their ambush. The bombs didn't detonate upon contact with the ground but instead through some mechanism tunneled into the ground before exploding. The lurkers hidden beneath the ground were killed by the shockwave and the dropships returned to base. Following this, the same fast moving vehicles from earlier came in and eliminated any remaining zerg in the area, clearing the path again.
But still, the terrans within the city did not move. The terrans defenders had regained cohesion but continued to maintain their positions rather than take the path of escape. The vehicles continued to idle outside as if waiting for something.
Though he felt hesitant to go through with the attack without first ascertaining the enemy's plan, Kaloth wasn't willing to let the opportunity go to waste and now rushed forward another army on the path to the Psi Disruptor while having the army surrounding the city continue their assault to encircle the terrans outside. Blocked off from escape, the annoying and persistent terran attack force was finally vanquished. And still no trap revealed itself.
"Excellent work, Kaloth," Kerrigan said. "You've really outdone yourself this time. The enemy forces have been weakened significantly and our allies have been extracted. We can proceed with the main attack now."
"I…" he seemed unsure of himself for a moment. "I cannot understand the actions of the enemy. Their movements feel puzzling."
"I don't think there is anything you need to be concerned about," Kerrigan replied. "The terrans blundered, and that was it. The Confederate insignias on them show that these terrans were taking orders from the Old Family remnants still holed up here. They likely recalled their forces to defend themselves. The UED likely tried to order them to abandon Tarsonis City and focus all of their forces around the Psi Disruptor, sending forces to support a breakout, but they weren't willing to leave. Now we can simply leave the remaining defenders alive, they are no threat to us holed up inside the core of the city."
"The decision making of these terrans is truly inexplicable," Kaloth said after spending a few seconds thinking it over.
"One only has to understand their interests and the way they think, and it all becomes clear. Though, I wasn't expecting a blunder of this scale," Kerrigan said.
"I shall keep that in mind." Kaloth then turned his attention toward their true objective.
The Confederacy had built the Psi Disruptor in a remote location, far from where ordinary people might notice it. The site was located on a small plateau, surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges which had been formed long before terrans had ever arrived. Desolate granite cliffs, having a slight reddish color, overlooked the landscape and provided an imposing barrier to any approach.
The one side of the plateau that led into a gentle slope was the most approachable and also held the main road into the area. But even here most of the ground was rocky and uneven, broken up small cliffs and also with small gorges cut by rivers fed by melting snow from the mountains.
It was through here that the zerg now approached. Creep blanketed the terrain, smoothing over rough areas while drones carved additional paths out of the rock. Fleshy structures popped up, bridging the gap to allow for additional crossings across ravines. As the zerg creeped closer, explosions began blanketing the landscape, carving a clear line where the range of the terran weaponry extended.
The zerg continued their exploratory attacks, searching for holes in the terran defenses as well as favorable terrain to make the final approach. Finally, a headlong rush began, rushing toward the front lines. Countless zerg were blown to pieces by the mines and yet more died when the second layer of the terran defenses opened fire. The remainder reached the lines of bunkers where a brutal melee ensued.
The zerglings clawed away at the metal, only to be burned out by the flames emitting from within. A few lucky hydralisk shots went through the holes where the marines shot from, earning some kills, but far more zerg died from the return fire. It didn't take long for the offensive to peter out as the zerg ceased their attack.
The terran defenders took this brief reprieve to replenish their front lines and rotate soldiers, but it took little time before the alarm was sounded again. The zerg were not willing to continue to try using their numbers to force their way through the front lines. Instead, they attacked through the only other route possible, by air.
However, the zerg weren't alone in their attack. Several protoss craft were intermingled within the flocks of zerg fliers. The anti aircraft missile platforms built into the mountainside revealed themselves and began opening fire at the incoming zerg, scoring many hits. Then, many of them went dark as webs of energy surrounded them, disrupting the technology used to track and aim their weapons.
The zerg continued to descend, beginning to pick apart the defenses. In response, the UED dispatched the remainder of their air forces to combat the zerg attack while squadrons of goliath walkers on the ground moved into position to fire additional missiles at the incoming zerg. Even the zerg guardians which were bombarding the area were taken down, the capabilities of the UED goliaths allowing them to fire at much greater distances than the standard model. The firepower continued to concentrate as more units entered the fight, creating a near impenetrable flurry of ordinance that destroyed any zerg that tried to descend to attack the rest of the terran fortifications. Once again, the zerg pulled back.
While both sides paused to rest and prepare for the next round, the discussions within the zerg hive were becoming increasingly frustrated.
"We are at their literal doorstep," Kerrigan hissed as her fist struck the wall. "We can't be stopped here of all places. Even if it takes everything we have, we have to win here. There won't be another chance at this."
"Even everything we have isn't enough if we send it all on a frontal assault," Kaloth replied calmly. "We simply do not have the numbers to overwhelm them completely, even if you insist on throwing yourself into the fight again and again. By now we've scraped together all the zerg we have on this planet. And there won't be any significant amount of new zerg produced before the UED inevitably sends reinforcements."
"Let's try to think outside the box again, something other than more zerg rushes from various different angles." Annoyance and a tinge of desperation was leaking into her voice.
"We've already talked about tunneling," Kaloth replied. "But it's all solid and hard rock here. There is no way we'll be able to get through anytime soon. We've already tried attacking from the air once. We can try again and drop ground forces, but even if their defenses are weaker in the rear, it would be almost impossible to break through with what we are able to transport in. Do our allies not have any other tricks up their sleeves?"
Kerrigan shook her head. "The Hyperion is too damaged from the earlier fight to be engaging in head on battle now, it needs to be repaired. The protoss can help us a bit in an aerial attack just like before, but that is it. They mostly brought supportive vessels along. At the end of the day, it is all up to us."
For the first time in his rather short life, Kaltoh began experiencing a sensation he'd never felt to such a degree. To terrans, it might be described closest to dread. Even in the previous defeats on Korhal and Char, or even back when the first Overmind died on Aiur, there had never been such a sense of finality and despondency as now. No matter what he could think of, their future course seemed carved into stone. Perhaps these were the natural results of his own choices. But even so, he felt no regret here.
Kerrigan sensed his change in mood. "You've done many feats in the past which seemed impossible, I wouldn't have made it this far otherwise. This time I will find a way."
For several minutes, they sunk back into silence, contemplating the possible options. Kerrigan scraped her finger along the biological map grown to mimic the landscape of the battle arrayed before her. The many pointed peaks jutted out, not so imposing in miniature, but it didn't make it any less of an obstacle.
Plan after plan, created and discarded. A desperate hunt for a silver bullet that turned up empty.
Finally, the Queen of the Zerg rose from her seat. "We can't wait around any longer. The only way we can win is through boldness and action. There won't be any easy solution. The fight will end now, one way or the other."
"What will you have us do?" Kaloth conceded in resignation.
"We'll simply use the best plan we've come up with so far. Hit them from every angle and hope they expose an opening. Send in our remaining fliers to allow us to drop an army on the slopes of the surrounding mountains and attack with whatever we have. Meanwhile we continue to pressure them from the front and force them to split their attention. Eventually, they are bound to make a mistake. I'll drop in with our forces in the back and lead the attack from there. I'll trust you to handle the front."
"The chances of success are uncertain. Too much is out of our control," Kaloth said with some hesitation. "And if you drop in with our forces behind their lines, it will indeed be more effective, if the attack fails there will be no way to extract you. Even you… will…"
"Then it is what it is," Kerrigan said with finality. "What is the alternative? To be reduced to a vagabond seeking scraps, relying on others to survive? I'll take this chance."
"Yes," her cerebrate said solemnly, "My Queen."