StarCraft

by Timothy Zahn

  “I see,” Valerian murmured. As far as he knew, no one in the Dominion had even scored a sample of xel’naga tissue, let alone figured out how to properly analyze it. Making a deal to get access to the protoss data was definitely going on his list of things to discuss with Artanis after all this was over. “If I may make a suggestion?”

  You may.

  “I think it might be wise to continue our examination of the plants,” Valerian said, nodding to the rest of the cases around the edges of the room. “See if we can determine if all or only some of them include xel’naga factors. Once we know that, we can return to Zagara and ask her about it.”

  You do not expect that her words will merely be more lies?

  “She may not actually have lied to us,” Valerian pointed out. “The xel’naga connection may simply be something she hasn’t yet had a chance to mention.”

  Artanis was silent a moment. Very well, he said reluctantly. We will continue. But I firmly believe she is lying.

  “Then let’s catch her at it and see what happens.” Valerian gestured toward the next case in line. “And it would be helpful if you would give me the numbers or pattern of this Cuccodujo series.”

  —

  When something goes to hell, one of Tanya’s instructors back in the Ghost Academy had liked to say, everything else will probably go to hell with it. In this case, Ulavu barely had time to warn that a zerg was approaching when ten of the creatures burst through the foliage a hundred meters away and headed straight toward them.

  Tanya felt the air freeze in her lungs as she reflexively ran the numbers. Five leopard-sized zerglings were ranged at the front of the pack, their sickle-bladed limbs and razor fangs poised to cut straight through CMC neosteel and tear into human flesh. A baneling anchored each end of the line, the bloated acid sacs on their backs pulsating as they strode along. That acid would take marginally longer to destroy their armor, but would be no less effective at the job. Behind the banelings were a pair of hydralisks like the one the group had encountered earlier. But these two had nothing of that first hydralisk’s air of idle curiosity about them. Their eyes were fixed on the intruders, their claws twitching, the muscles that launched their poison needles rippling with anticipation.

  And behind all of them, one of the nastiest heavy-ground zerg of them all: a ravager, standing even taller than the hydralisks, its broad, turtle-like shell surrounded by a crown of bone spikes. Set deep within the circle of spikes was an organic mortar capable of launching globs of acidic bile through the air, strong enough to destroy even protoss force fields.

  “Combat stance,” Whist said, his voice unnaturally calm as he took a wide step to the right and brought up his gauss rifle. “Hold fire until they close to seventy meters, then target the hydralisks first. When the zerglings get within fifty meters, switch targets to them—”

  “Wait,” Erin protested. “They may not be attacking. Shouldn’t we wait to see if they are?”

  “Why do you think I said to wait until they reach seventy?” Whist countered. “If they’re still coming—”

  “Incoming!” Dizz snapped.

  Tanya caught her breath. A globule of orange slime had shot out from the ravager’s back and was arcing toward them like a well-kicked football.

  “Scatter!” Dizz barked, the word almost lost as he kicked power to his jump pack and leaped up into the air.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tanya saw Erin stagger as she tried to get clear of the acidic ball in her still-unfamiliar suit. She started to turn toward the scientist, wondering if she would reach her in time.

  But Ulavu was already on it. Tanya had barely taken her first step when the protoss brushed past, moving faster than she’d ever seen him travel. He grabbed Erin and hauled her away from the incoming bile. Tanya checked her own motion and backpedaled hard, taking another quick look at the arcing globule. It would be close…

  Luckily, not quite as close as it had looked. The bile splashed to the ground a solid two meters away.

  Just about where she and Erin would have been if she’d tried to get the other woman out of the way.

  A second later her headset erupted with the staccato crackle of Whist’s gauss rifle on full auto, the sound counterpointed by the slightly higher pitch of Dizz’s P-45 gauss pistol as he soared over the battlefield, firing angled shots beneath the hydralisks’ armored heads into their torsos.

  All right, she told herself firmly. You’ve practiced for this. You can do it.

  Sure enough, even as the thought flashed through her mind, she found reflexes and muscle memory taking over, bringing her canister rifle to bear and squeezing off a round into the hydralisk on the right end. Normal C-10 ammo wasn’t rated at this range against heavily armored zerg like hydralisks, but Cruikshank had assured her that the rounds he was sending down with her were the latest innovations that Dominion tech had been able to produce.

  He was right. The round blew a small but significant piece off the hydralisk’s exposed-rib-style torso armor. She chambered another round and fired again, taking another chunk off the enemy.

  Her secret concern earlier was that she wouldn’t be able to do her job as a soldier. That fear was now gone. She was indeed a soldier.

  Time now to see if she was also a ghost.

  Back at the academy, her instructors had originally told her to go for the brain. What no one had realized at the time was that the thick skull carapace was an amazingly good heat sink. Unless she positioned her hot spot directly in the center of the brain matter, the heat got siphoned away so quickly that it took forever to scorch enough tissue for a kill. The eyes were another good target, but with the same limitations.

  Fortunately, zerg also had a lot of interior organs, and those weren’t nearly so well protected. She’d studied the anatomy of every zerg variation known, most of it on mangled corpses brought in from the battlefield.

  Time to see how well she’d learned her lessons.

  The attack force was getting closer. She fired a pair of rounds into one of the banelings, sending it staggering with the impact. Then, shifting her attention to the ravager at the back of the formation, she focused her mind.

  She’d never used her power against a live zerg before. Her instructors hadn’t wanted to take the risk that even an isolated prisoner might somehow be able to use its psionic connection with the Swarm to leak information about her ability. Still, each of her experiments had ended the same way: a few seconds of effort, a careful focusing of her pyrokinetic power, and the carcass would burst into flame.

  Only it wasn’t working. The ravager continued on, shrugging off both her efforts and the bursts of hypersonic 8mm spikes Whist was occasionally sending into its torso when he could spare a moment from his assault on the hydralisks. Tanya leaned into the effort, wondering desperately what was wrong. Even at sixty meters the creature should be well within her range. Was its movement throwing off her aim? Was its circulatory system dissipating or diffusing the heat like the skull carapace did? She clenched her teeth harder…

  And without even the slightest poof of flame or smoke, the ravager abruptly collapsed to the ground and lay still.

  “Shift fire to zerglings!” Whist shouted over the noise.

  Tanya blinked, refocusing her attention on the rest of the battlefield. The leading edge of the assault line of zerglings had passed the fifty-meter mark, and both Whist and Dizz had abandoned their attacks on the larger zerg to the rear and concentrated their fire on the closer threat. Firing a round into each of the two nearest zerglings, Tanya shifted her mental attack to one of the hydralisks.

  Once again, it didn’t work. Or at least, it didn’t work fast enough. She kept trying, firing her C-10 on pure reflex at the charging zerglings, focusing all her power on the hydralisk.

  And then it went down. She smiled in private victory—

  —only to realize it was Dizz’s fire that had killed it. Swearing under her breath, she took another moment for assessment.

  Not
too bad. Two of the zerglings were down, but the other three were still coming, fighting stubbornly against the blasts that Whist and Dizz were hammering into them. The two banelings were relatively untouched; Tanya fired a pair of rounds from her C-10 into the closest, staggering it to a momentary halt, at the same time focusing her power on it. It got a few more steps before it collapsed, though whether from the explosive rounds or her pyrokinetic attack, she couldn’t tell. She shifted her attack to the remaining baneling, noting out of the corner of her eye that one more zergling was down and that Dizz was also firing at her baneling. The baneling went down, and Tanya shifted her attention to the remaining two zerglings.

  Ten seconds later, it was over.

  Tanya took a deep breath, let it out in a long, shuddering sigh. So did I do it? she wondered.

  Maybe. Maybe not. She’d faced combat, and she’d lived through it. That was something. But how much of their victory had hinged on her power, she still didn’t know.

  But she hadn’t lost control. That was the possibility that had worried her the most. She’d waded into the heat of combat, and hadn’t lost control.

  “And that, boys and girls,” Whist said into the suddenly deafening silence, “is how it’s done. Anyone hurt?”

  —

  Valerian and Artanis were about two-thirds of the way around the room when Matt alerted them to the incident.

  “You’re sure it was an isolated attack?” Valerian asked quietly into his comm. Zagara and Abathur were halfway across the structure, but he had no idea how good their hearing was.

  “That’s how it seems so far,” Matt said. “There are other zerg in the area—both individuals and groups like this one—and they haven’t made any move against the team.”

  Though that could be the psi blocks messing with their communication, Valerian knew. “Any idea what set this group off?”

  “No, sir,” Matt said. “The team might have some ideas, but we still can’t raise them. The techs are trying to figure out how to punch a signal through the psi blocks’ interference, but so far they haven’t had any luck.”

  Valerian shook his head. Damn untested tech.

  Still, as downsides went, comm silence was a relatively small price to pay for keeping masses of zerg off their backs.

  They are unharmed? Artanis asked.

  “It appears so,” Valerian assured him. “We’re not sure why this group attacked, but so far none of the other zerg nearby have made any aggressive moves.”

  And Ulavu? Any word of him?

  Valerian eyed him closely. Was that some actual concern he was sensing in the hierarch’s tone? “Nothing specific,” he said. “But the sensors seem to indicate no one was hurt.”

  That is good, Artanis said. Then let us continue our study, and add this incident to the matters we will discuss with Zagara.

  Valerian looked over his shoulder at Zagara, still waiting patiently like a good diplomat.

  Or perhaps like a spider in her web.

  “Yes,” he agreed, turning back to the plant case. “We will definitely have a list.”

  All ten of the zerg seemed solidly dead. But Whist had long since learned the virtue of making sure.

  A single spike to each carcass, either between carapace plates or at soft intersect points, made sure.

  The others were waiting in a small clump near the ravager’s still-smoldering acid-bile burn as Whist strode toward them, taking advantage of that handful of seconds to do a quick assessment. Dizz was behaving like a proper soldier should, slowly turning in place and keeping watch for new threats. Erin was crouched beside the burn, pretending to examine it while she worked off the adrenaline shaking that Whist could see even through her CMC. Tanya and Ulavu were standing near her, watching Whist and probably talking together via that annoying ghost–protoss psi thing.

  Whist still wasn’t sure about Tanya. She’d kept firing, but she’d also done a lot of staring while he and Dizz handled the bulk of the fighting. Best guess was that she was very new to all this combat stuff. It might even have been her first battle, which raised the question of why Cruikshank had saddled them with her to begin with.

  Unless all the staring had been her using some ghost trick against the attackers. But if she had, Whist hadn’t seen a lick of evidence of it. As for Ulavu, at least he’d stayed out of the way, which was about the best any of them could have hoped for.

  By the time Whist rejoined the group, Erin had finished her make-believe inspection and risen from her crouch. “They’re all dead?” she asked, only a slight quaver still left in her voice.

  “All dead,” Whist assured her.

  “Thank God,” she murmured. “Is it…always like that?”

  “No, usually they move faster,” Whist said calmly. “Probably the psi blocks. Dizz?”

  “They’re usually harder to kill, too,” Dizz offered, still doing his slow sweep. “Nothing so far. Which, I’ve got to say, is pretty damn sloppy. Did Zagara really think ten zerg were all she’d need?”

  I do not believe these zerg were sent by Zagara, Ulavu said. I believe we have merely run afoul of a balance crossing.

  Whist frowned. “A what?”

  It is the line or arc where the territories of two zerg queens or broodmothers are at equilibrium, Ulavu explained. At such places the zerg are under less control and are more likely to act on individual instinct.

  Whist pursed his lips. “Dizz?”

  “Never heard of it,” Dizz said. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen it, either.”

  The effect is less noticeable on a battlefield, where territories are continually in flux, Ulavu said. Only in static conditions, such as on a planet, does it come into play.

  “Okay, assume that’s what happened, and that it’s not just the psi blocks hiding us from whoever else is out there,” Whist said. “What’s our next move?”

  We stay on our present path, Ulavu said. We have already cleared this part of the balance crossing. Deviating to a different path would gain us nothing. It would merely bring us to a separate group of uncontrolled zerg.

  Whist looked at Tanya. “You’re his boss. You buy this?”

  “I’m hardly his boss,” she said, a little stiffly. “But yes, I do. Ulavu’s usually right about these things.”

  “Well, for lack of a better theory, I guess we’ll take this one,” Whist said. “Let’s get moving.”

  “One other point first,” Dizz said, lifting a finger. “If you all think back carefully, you may remember that I was put in command here.”

  Whist felt his lip twist. Was Dizz really going to pull rank crap on them?

  “We also know—or if we didn’t, we should now—that Sergeant Cray has a lot more field experience than I do,” Dizz continued. “Under the somewhat old-fashioned notion of the best person for the job, I hereby formally relinquish my command in his favor.” He cocked his head. “Consider it a battlefield promotion, Sergeant. Congratulations.”

  It took Whist a second to find his voice. That was definitely not the kind of rank crap he was used to. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Wait a second,” Erin said, sounding confused. “Can he do that?”

  “Technically, probably not,” Dizz said with a casual shrug. “As a practical matter, who’s going to stop me?”

  “It’s all right, Erin,” Whist added. “I used to order lieutenants around all the time.”

  “See?” Dizz said. “So. We’re heading straight on to Erin’s focal point, then?”

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Whist said.

  “Shouldn’t we call this in before we go?” Erin asked. “At least tell them what just happened?”

  “They’re watching from orbit,” Whist reminded her. “Cruikshank and Horner will have had a grandstand view of the whole thing. Begs the question of why no backup, but it was probably over too fast.”

  “They’ve also probably relayed a report to Emperor Valerian,” Dizz added. “So don’t worry. Everyone who matters is already in the loop.
”

  “I meant should we tell them Ulavu’s theory that this was an isolated incident,” Erin said.

  “They’ll know whether it was isolated by whether or not we get attacked again,” Dizz said patiently.

  “Let’s put it this way,” Whist said. “We can’t call Cruikshank unless we shut down the psi blocks, or send one of you out of their range. You think either of those is a good idea?”

  Erin winced. “Not really.”

  “So we keep going,” Whist concluded. “I’ll take point, with Tanya behind me, Ulavu and Erin next, and Dizz at rear guard. I figure we’re only about three klicks out, so we’ll do the rest at a walk with eyes open and weapons ready.” He looked at Ulavu. “Just in case that little slugfest wasn’t some zerg turf war. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Dizz said. “You heard the chief. Line up, and let’s get on with it.”

  Whist strode to the front of the new line, wondering what the hell that had been about. What kind of criminal—even a former criminal—scored himself a line command, then just handed it off at the first opportunity?

  Because all the criminals Whist had ever met had one characteristic in common: they were self-centered to the point of full-blown narcissism. Almost by definition, people who defied society’s laws did so because they liked doing exactly what they wanted, and to hell with everyone else. The power to order other people around was an extra bonus most of them would jump at.

  Unless Dizz’s goal hadn’t been to give Whist power, but to load him with responsibility.

  He scowled. Sure—that had to be it. Dizz had seen how their first battle had gone, figured they’d been damn lucky to get through it unscathed, and decided to slither out from under accountability for whatever happened in round two.

  Was that how a criminal would think? Or was that more like a politician?

  Did the reapers take disgraced government types?

  “Hey, chief.” Dizz’s voice came through Whist’s headset. “Couple of hills up ahead. You want me to do a bounce and see if there’s anything on the other side?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Whist said.