Flashpoint Page 2

  This sound, though, snapped him to full attention. He could see the creatures now, heading toward him and his team. Uncontrolled, they were reacting like the beasts they were, scenting prey and closing in on it. Jim felt a flash of grim humor as he realized that Lisle and Haynes were probably safer than he was this time. Without Kerrigan to control them, the zerg would likely be less interested in the two humans with the artifact than the four humans without it, simply because Jim’s group would provide more food.

  “Stand your ground!”

  There was a clatter as the soldiers came to a halt, lifted their rifles, and stood ready to attack on his command. Jim could distinguish three separate packs. There was no order to them, no uniform numbers or types, no flanking on one side or the other, no strategy at all. There was only hunger.

  Wait . . .

  “Fire!”

  The Raiders butchered the zerg relentlessly. Some of the things stopped dead in their tracks and whirled, turning on their fallen colleagues for sustenance with the same enthusiasm they would have turned on Raynor’s Raiders. While Jim held Sarah, the others kept firing, dropping more and more of the wretches, and when at last no attacking zerg remained, only diners and dinners, he gestured to his soldiers to go around the feast. The Raiders ran past while zerglings cannibalized hydralisks. As he left the grotesque sight behind, he suddenly wondered if the zerg would find and devour the body of a man he had once regarded as “friend,” cracking open the metal shell of Findlay’s armor to get to what was inside. . . .

  He recoiled from the image for an instant and then forced himself to harden his heart against it. Tychus was dead. He didn’t have to be. He could have still been alive, have still been Jim’s friend, if he had turned his back on his “deal with the Devil.” If only he had not been about to murder the woman Jim loved. But Tychus had made his choice, and he had to have known going in what Jim would do. He knew Jim better than anybody.

  Tychus. Damn, there was a time when I’d have done anything for you. And when I thought you would’ve done anything for me. A time when you did give up everything for me.

  A zergling was charging up to him, slaver dripping from its jaws. Without a pack its run was suicidal, but it didn’t know that. It just knew it was hungry. Jim cradled Kerrigan close and turned so his back was to the creature, protecting her with his own body. Fraser leveled his rifle and fired a spike right between the thing’s gleaming eyes. It kept coming for a stride or two, as if its body required a few seconds to understand that its brain had just been impaled, then it collapsed. Fraser took a bead on a second one, but it was unnecessary. The other zergling came to a halt and began to tear chunks out of its pack mate.

  “Behind you!” Jim shouted.

  Fraser whirled and dropped two more. The other zerglings chattered excitedly at the banquet Jim and his Raiders had spread out before them. Jim didn’t even bother to wrinkle his nose in disgust. He simply held Kerrigan and started, again, to run straight for the rendezvous point.

  It would be hypocrisy to condemn the zerg for turning on their own. They, at least, had excuses. Once completely controlled by the Overmind and then by the Queen of Blades, now they were nothing but simpleminded beasts. What excuse did humans have for doing the same thing?

  Mengsk had turned on Kerrigan without batting an eye, abandoning her to what he expected would be a horrifically brutal fate. Tychus, at least, seemed to have taken an instant to mourn what he saw as a necessity. “Damn shame,” he had muttered.

  Before starting to squeeze the trigger.

  Before choosing to murder a helpless, traumatized woman right in front the man who loved her.

  Damn him anyway.

  It was becoming brutally rote: Zerg, one or two or twenty, would come out of nowhere. Jim would shout the orders. His Raiders would fire, and the zerg would fall, sometimes quickly, sometimes not. And when enough were dead, as if there were some kind of tipping point unknown to the Raiders, the zerg would stop hunting humans and start eating their own kind.

  He wondered if his people resented the fact that their leader, who had chosen to put all their lives in jeopardy, stood by, holding Sarah Kerrigan, the former Queen of Blades—the one responsible for the deaths of so very many—while they fought to protect them all. Jim realized with a sick sensation that no matter how well you thought you knew someone, you didn’t. You couldn’t. Only the protoss could know someone through and through, by linking their minds and essences in the great psychic meeting space they called the Khala. And even some of their own kind, the dark templar, had chosen not to reveal themselves so profoundly.

  I’m flying blind, Jim thought as he kept running, trying to cover as much ground as he could while jostling Sarah as little as possible. We all are. Every man, every woman. We’re flying blind, and we never really know shit about any other heart or mind but our own.

  * * *

  “Sir!” cried Fraser. “Look!”

  Mortified, Jim realized he had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t seen the tiny speck in the sky that was growing larger and larger, its shape becoming clearer until he could see the familiar and welcome curves of the dropship Fanfare. It looked more beautiful to Jim than just about any other sight he had ever seen . . . except for the look Sarah had given him as he bore her away.

  But as cheers and whoops of delight went up from the weary soldiers, the sound was joined by another—a buzzing, humming noise. Jim swore. The Fanfare, like all dropships, had no weapons, and it couldn’t land to rescue them until Jim’s team cleared the area first.

  “Fire at will!” Jim ordered. “Ain’t gonna let a few pesky zerg get in our way!”

  The soldiers agreed, and they fired on the zerg with even more intensity than they had demonstrated before. Zerg blew apart into pieces, and this time the Raiders didn’t spare those that stopped to eat. Jim and his soldiers kept going, winning the prize step by slogging step, spattered in zerg blood and ichor. And finally, blessedly, the Fanfare settled on the rocky but mostly flat ground.

  The ramp extended and the pilot, Wil Merrick, beckoned furiously. “Hurry! There’s a whole slew of them heading this way!”

  “Any sign of the second team?”

  “None,” Merrick said, then his eyes fell on the blanket-wrapped form. “Damn, that her?”

  “That’s her,” Jim said.

  “She’s in shock,” said Preston. She reached to take Jim’s precious burden away from him, lifting Sarah as easily as he did thanks to the medic’s armor. Jim didn’t want to let Sarah go, but she needed what the medics could do for her right now more than what he could do. He handed her over to Preston, feeling a lurch in his heart as he watched the medic carry her inside. Kerrigan was eased into a seat and hooked up to an IV drip and (what looked to Jim) about six thousand other tubes or portable monitors. The words forced themselves out of Jim’s mouth, a quiet plea: “Be gentle.”

  The irony did not escape him; it was a hell of a request to show gentleness to the murderess of billions. But Preston understood, nodding wordlessly as she went about her job of trying to save Kerrigan’s life. Sarah gave no sign that she was even peripherally aware of anything.

  Hang on, Sarah. You’re tough; you can survive. Don’t let it be too late. Not after all this. . . .

  “Damn, sir, we need to get going!” the pilot shouted. “We got another bunch of zerg incoming.”

  “What kind?”

  “We had to evade a whole shitload of mutalisks just to get down here, sir,” Merrick replied. “Once we hit atmosphere, they went after someone else, but sensors indicate there’s a mess of zerglings and hydralisks that seem intent on finishing the job.”

  Jim glanced over at Sarah. He desperately wished she could be gone, out of danger, safely in the Hyperion’s sick bay, but he couldn’t abandon the men who had risked everything to save her.

  “We ain’t leaving my men to be zerg fodder nor that artifact to be destroyed!” Jim snapped. “Keep her as stable as possible. Her survival i
s paramount. If I give the order for you to take off and get to safety and leave me behind, you do it, do you understand?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  Jim looked again at Sarah, her skin painted an unnatural hue by the artificial lighting, then jumped out of the dropship. The doors closed behind him.

  His Raiders joined him, one of them handing Jim a gauss rifle. While he had treasured every moment he had tasted with Sarah in his arms again, Jim was also glad to be hoisting a rifle and tackling an active role in the fight once more.

  He could hear the zerg coming now, feel the earth tremble beneath their onslaught. Grinning a little, Raynor lifted his rifle, pointed it at the roiling cloud of gray dust, and began to fire.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the palatial bridge aboard the Bucephalus, Valerian Mengsk, Heir Apparent to the Terran Dominion, removed the stopper from a very rare vintage of tawny port, poured himself a small glass, and gazed out of the huge viewport window that occupied a full wall.

  The ugly planet of Char, red and sullen-looking, was prominently featured. There, a battle was taking place. One whose outcome meant everything to Valerian. On that volcanic, inhospitable world, either Sarah Kerrigan was being reborn, or the Queen of Blades was slaughtering those who had come to save her lost humanity.

  Out among the stars, too, a battle was still raging. The zerg were uncontrolled, which was both good and bad. Good, in that their attacks had no strategy; bad, in that they were so brutally random. His own vessels were involved, and he had seen at least eleven of the twenty-five battlecruisers he’d brought to the fight destroyed. Even the glorious Bucephalus was coming under attack.

  There had been, and were still, so many ifs. If Raynor could find Kerrigan. If his team could place the artifact close enough for it to work. If the artifact even did work. Valerian had had every confidence that it would, but, of course, as an old quote so sagely held, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry.” Fortunately, thus far, it seemed his gamble had paid off, at least if the out-of-control behavior of the zerg was any indication.

  Even so, he kept his pleasure in check, mindful of the remaining ifs. If, if, if . . . if Raynor survived long enough to get Kerrigan to safety . . . if he would agree to turn her over to Valerian.

  Then the Heir Apparent would celebrate in truth.

  In anticipation of the moment, Valerian had assembled a group of doctors and scientists. Granted, it was only an interim team until they could get Kerrigan to a more suitable facility, but a fine selection nonetheless. They stood by, almost as excited as he, ready to begin examining Kerrigan the second she arrived. Raynor was not a fool. The former outlaw had to know that these men and women were far superior to any so-called doctor or scientist he had on the Hyperion. Valerian was gambling that in the end, the man’s concern for his beloved would win out, and Raynor would want the best treatment for Sarah.

  Valerian swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his gray eyes thoughtful, and took a sip of the warming fluid. His tongue crept out to capture a stray drop.

  The power that would soon be his . . . the power to finally prove to his father that he was as strong a man—and a better man—than Arcturus Mengsk. But even more important to Valerian was the knowledge that Kerrigan had stored inside her skull. At least, he hoped she still had knowledge. It could be that she would remember nothing of being turned into a monster, the glorious and terrifying Queen of Blades, the mistress of the zerg. It could even be that her mind had been completely destroyed by the transformation.

  It would grieve him if such were the situation. More than power or wealth, Valerian was excited by and valued knowledge. Particularly ancient knowledge. And surely, Kerrigan had once been in possession of it.

  The soaring music emanating from the vinyl disc playing on the antique phonograph swelled to a crescendo, then came to a halt. The room was filled with a faint scratching noise. Valerian extended a well-manicured hand, lifted the needle, and started to replay the album. Old instruments began once again to play, and a human female voice, its owner dead for centuries, began to sing.

  One could use knowledge for personal gain, of course. But just like the opera to which Valerian was only half listening, it was beautiful, and precious, and held value simply for what it was. For simply being.

  He took another sip of port and reflected on the power of something called “love.” Valerian had loved his late mother, but other than that, he’d had little familiarity with the emotion. He’d known respect and affection for others, but never considered himself to have been in love. He hoped to, one day; as a man who craved understanding of all things, he wished to experience such a powerful force. More than once he had witnessed what it could do. Love had turned one R. M. Dahl, an extremely efficient and selfish killer, into a woman who would be willing to kill—and die—for not just the man she unexpectedly found herself in love with, but also the ideals he cherished.

  And that man, Professor Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, not only had loved her in return, but also had learned to understand, admire, and, yes, love an entire alien species. Valerian freely admitted that he had not remained unmoved by the experience of getting to know these two people. It had made him regret even more what he had later done to Jake.

  Now another man who loved with his whole heart had done Valerian perhaps the greatest service yet. The fair-haired prince well knew that Jim Raynor was the sole reason Sarah Kerrigan was alive now. Raynor loved her, despite what she had become, despite the atrocities she had performed. Loved her enough to risk his life and those of others, enough to walk right into the heart of the monster’s lair without any idea of whether he would find his death or his beloved.

  Remarkable, quite remarkable, all of it. Valerian swirled the remaining liquid in his glass and smiled slightly. He raised the glass, said in his rich, pleasant voice, “Well, then, to love,” and drained the last drops.

  * * *

  The pair was on its way with the artifact, Lisle had told Jim what felt like about four centuries ago.

  In those four centuries, which were probably more like four minutes, Jim and his team had piled up an impressive number of zerg bodies, although that pile had grown smaller when two hydralisks had come to attack the terrans. Jim’s Raiders had blasted one of them into a chunky magenta salsa. The surviving hydralisk had impaled a zergling corpse on its scythelike arms and retreated.

  The Raiders had whooped in delight, not wasting ammunition as the huge creature slithered away with its prize.

  “The solution to the zerg at last,” Fraser had said. “Cut off the head and feed the limbs to each other.”

  Jim had shot him a quick look, but there had been no malice in the comment. And it was true. The Queen of Blades was gone, although the human who had been her genesis was—he hoped—inside the dropship.

  There was a click in Jim’s ear. “We’re a kilometer out,” Lisle said. “Sorry, boss. This xel’naga toy is slowing us a bit. And we got us some ugly dogs to put down.”

  Jim couldn’t help but smile as Lisle downplayed what Jim knew damn good and well was life and death. “Roger that,” Jim said, keeping his own voice light. Keeping up their spirits. He pointed to two of his men. “Fraser, Rolfsen—you go ahead and meet them. Clear their path. We got plenty of distracting snacks for the next wave. Those boys ain’t got nothing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fraser said. He and Rolfsen took off. “Sir,” came the voice of the pilot in Jim’s ear, “I’m getting reports that there’s a cluster of mutalisks assembling between us and the main fleet up there.”

  The tone of the man’s voice—carefully flat, too neutral—told Jim all he needed to know.

  “Kerrigan is still out cold,” Jim said. “There’s no way she could be directing them.”

  “If you say so, sir, but they are gathering. They could be following us—can’t quite be sure.”

  “They may decide they just like each other’s company,” Jim shot back. “Unless you can tell me that you know exactly h
ow zerg function when they’re not receiving orders, we’re going to assume this is nothing but a coincidence.” He realized he sounded angry and defensive, but he couldn’t help it. He knew Sarah wasn’t controlling the zerg. Knew it in a way he could never explain.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dust heralded something approaching on the ground. Jim couldn’t tell how far away it was. He lifted his weapon, but felt a prickling at the back of his neck—the instinct of a man so used to fighting that the gut was sometimes wiser than the head.

  He held his fire. Sure enough, three seconds later, he could plainly see that the powder of Char was not being stirred up by a cluster of ravenous monsters but rather by Lisle, Haynes, Fraser, and Rolfsen approaching, heading toward them at as brisk a pace as they could manage while bearing the protective case that housed the gleaming alien artifact.

  A cheer went up, and the dropship’s ramp lowered. Grinning, covered in gray dust, the four Raiders loaded the invaluable artifact onto the ship. Jim glanced past them into the ship’s interior to see Sarah, still unconscious, still breathing, still looking almost less human with all the machinery attached to her than she had appeared when he had first found her in the cavern.

  He looked over his shoulder and swore. Another dust cloud—and this time he could see ugly silhouettes in it. “More pets to the party,” he said. “Looks like they did follow the dropship’s path.” He hoisted his rifle and took aim.

  “Sir, we need to go!” shouted Rolfsen.

  Jim didn’t waste breath replying. They had to take off—but they would be more successful doing so without a bunch of zerg flinging their bodies onto the ship. He mowed them down as they came, experiencing neither remorse nor delight, then leaped into the ship and tumbled into the seat next to Kerrigan. Almost before the doors had closed, the passengers had fastened their harnesses, and the dropship was airborne.