by Timothy Zahn
There were five of them, she discovered as she sorted them out, two of them lying practically on top of each other. That must have been a particularly tricky shot, and she wondered briefly how Whist had managed it. She took the two carcasses by the base of their claws, making sure not to grab the claws themselves, and started to pull them across the rough floor.
She paused. Pulling on their limbs that way exposed their torsos and the rib-cage-like outer bone structure. Right in the center, just to the side of the layered sternum, was a gaping wound. Not a puncture wound, like a gauss rifle spike would leave, but a slash like that from a wide-bladed knife.
And both carcasses had the exact same wound.
She frowned, leaning forward for a closer look. A knife wound, definitely. But who in the Dominion made knives that could cut through zerg bone in a single thrust? Had someone come up with something new since the war ended?
She looked over at Whist, hauling carcasses, and Dizz, carefully turning grenades inside out. Both men had field knives—well, Dizz did; Whist had given his to Ulavu to cut tree branches—but those weapons didn’t have blades that were wide enough to make this kind of wound. Some new breed of vibrating or chain-cut blade, maybe? A vibroblade could theoretically make the wound look wider as it dug through zerg bone.
But even if something like that existed, the weapon at Dizz’s waist didn’t have nearly the size and bulk that would be needed to house that kind of mechanism, not to mention the necessary power supply. Neither had the knife Whist had given Ulavu.
Could one of the gauss bolts have somehow picked up a spin halfway to the target? No—that was even more unlikely than a vibroblade she’d somehow failed to hear about. Not only would that probably have wrecked whatever gun it had been fired from, but it typically took half a dozen bolts to break through zerg bone armor even when they were going straight and delivered all their momentum and kinetic energy to a single fifty-square-millimeter spot. A spinning bolt would almost certainly just bounce off instead of cutting through the bone like—
Like a protoss psi blade.
She stared at the wound, a sudden icy feeling wrapping around her heart. No. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.
But there was no other explanation. Nothing else that made sense.
Ulavu was a Templar. A hard, cold, exquisitely deadly protoss warrior. Who had been hanging out in the ghost program, masquerading as a harmless researcher.
Pretending to be Tanya’s friend.
“Tanya?” Whist called. “Trouble?”
Tanya blinked away sudden tears. “No trouble,” she called back. Straightening up, she started pulling the carcasses across to where the others were working.
Feeling her heart crumbling within her.
She’d thought Ulavu was her friend. She’d wrapped herself in that relationship. Even when he went off and did crazy things like that midnight visit to Dante’s Circle, all of her thoughts and responses had been predicated on the certain knowledge that he would also be there for her if the situation were reversed. She had his back, and he had hers.
Only he didn’t. And probably never had.
He’d lied to Commandant Schmidt about who he was. He’d lied to the rest of the ghosts. There was no reason to think he hadn’t lied to Tanya, too.
She looked at each of the others as she walked mechanically across the room. Did everyone else on the team already know? Had Ulavu revealed his true identity in battle? Erin’s back had been to him, but Whist might have seen him in action.
Or maybe Ulavu had told all of them. Maybe they were all secretly amused by Tanya’s naïve ignorance.
She could ask them. But she didn’t dare. Besides, whether they knew or not didn’t really matter.
She’d had something special. Now she didn’t.
She’d never had friends. Not really. As a child, she’d blamed it on her power, and people’s fear of it. Later, at the Ghost Academy, she’d blamed it on the implant they’d put into her brain, and the way it sometimes messed with her mind and emotions. During the war she’d blamed it on the stresses of combat that were tearing at the whole of terran society. After the war, she’d blamed it on people’s PTSD or the struggle to adjust to peacetime life.
But it was none of those. She knew that now.
It was her. She could get along with people for a while. But sooner or later, usually just when everything was going smoothly, she would say something wrong, or do something wrong, and they would be gone, never to return.
Ulavu had been the sole exception. Unlike any of her fellow terrans, he always had been there, always willing to forgive an unintended slight or an unexpected outburst. He’d been her rock. Her anchor. Her friend.
Only now she knew it had all been a lie.
So let Whist know. What did she care? Let Erin know, and Dizz, and Emperor Valerian, and the whole damn Dominion if it came to that. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.
For that matter, there was really no reason for Dizz to fiddle with those grenades. Tanya could just as easily stand over the pods and ignite everything, taking the whole place down in a sort of Old Earth Viking funeral pyre. The mission was over. There was no reason not to go out right here and now and put an end to her misery.
She clenched her teeth. No. This part of the mission was over, but Erin had said there were two other focal points. Valerian might decide to nuke the planet from orbit, but he might also decide that a more surgical strike was needed. A strike that might include their team.
Ulavu had forfeited her trust and her loyalty. But Whist and the others hadn’t. Not even if they were all secretly laughing behind her back.
She would stay with them. She would do whatever was necessary to complete the mission. She owed the Dominion that much for the time and effort it had put into her over the years.
But if it came down to the need for someone to make the ultimate sacrifice, as had happened with so many missions during the war…well, at least Whist wouldn’t have to send out a call for volunteers.
—
Ulavu returned with more branches than he should have been able to scavenge, or even to cut with Whist’s knife. Tanya pretended not to notice. At one point the protoss inquired about her health and her strength. She answered him civilly, burying her anger and anguish deep where he wouldn’t see them.
And when the preparations were finished, she watched with the others from the end of the tunnel, with malevolent satisfaction, as the pods and zerg carcasses consumed themselves in white-hot flame.
It took their last three grenades to blow open a new path through the tree palisade blocking the cavern entrance. Fortunately, the group of zerg that had driven them inside earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“What now?” Erin asked.
“Dizz goes and gets the dropship,” Whist said. “Once he’s on his way, I’ll turn off my psi block and call in our report.”
“Okay.” Erin shivered. “I just hope turning it off doesn’t bring a new batch.”
“If it does, we’ll kill them,” Tanya said calmly.
Whist threw her an odd look, but nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “Hit the sky, Dizz. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
Midway through Valerian’s presentation of the survey team’s report, Abathur’s arms had started twitching. By the time he reached the part about the pods, the evolution master’s clawed hands were working as if he were trying to strangle an invisible opponent.
And by the time he finished—
Terran organisms destroyed adostra? Abathur snarled. Terran organisms destroyed adostra? Work of Abathur’s hands—future of Swarm—burned to ash?
“The team was attacked,” Valerian said, watching Zagara out of the corner of his eye. So far the Overqueen hadn’t spoken, nor had she moved a muscle. But throughout his report Valerian had felt an ever-deepening sense of danger and foreboding from her.
And right now she looked as alien as any zerg had ever looked.
Impossible,
Abathur bit out. Adostra harmless. Dreaming. Cannot attack.
“I’m not talking about the ones in the pods,” Valerian said. “I’m talking about the other ones, the ones we’re calling psyolisks.”
And yet you destroyed the adostra in their pods, Zagara said quietly.
A shiver ran up Valerian’s back. Very alien…and very angry.
Artanis, at least, wasn’t moved so easily. You knew of these creatures, he said. Yet you said nothing. Why?
You dare to ask that? Zagara countered. After all your sentiment against the Swarm and against the evolution master’s attempts to create and mold and extend life? You dare to ask why we would not trust you with the knowledge of the adostra?
So you admit you lied to us?
I allowed you to go anywhere, Emperor Valerian, Zagara said, ignoring Artanis’s question. You repaid that graciousness with wanton slaughter.
“It wasn’t wanton, Overqueen,” Valerian said. A movement caught his eye: a pair of ravagers had appeared just outside the entrance to the chamber. So far they hadn’t entered, but it was clear they were ready to do so at a moment’s notice.
Artanis had noticed them, too. Do you now bring a direct attack? he demanded.
Would I not be justified in doing so? Zagara shot back. You have attempted to destroy the future of the zerg. Shall I have no right to fight back in the Swarm’s defense?
The survey team was attacked, Artanis said.
The zerg you speak of do not exist, Zagara said. Yet I do not attack. Despite deadly provocation, I stand ready to continue our discussion.
But I do not. Artanis stood and lifted a hand. We will leave now. And we will then deliver to you the penalty for your actions.
The high templar and dark templar escort shifted positions, forming a cordon back to the shuttle. Zagara drew herself up, and Valerian sensed her making a supreme effort to rein in her anger. I ask you to reconsider, Hierarch Artanis, she said. I ask most strongly and urgently. This conversation is vital to the future of our civilizations.
I will hear nothing more. Artanis turned to Valerian. Come, Emperor Valerian Mengsk. It is time we leave this place.
Valerian hesitated. Artanis was undoubtedly right. In all of Zagara’s talk about xel’naga-influenced plants and grandiose plans for feeding starving terrans, she’d never said a word about new zerg strains.
Yet they clearly existed. And it was absolutely certain that zerg with the kind of psionic abilities Sergeant Cray had described could not be permitted to leave Gystt.
But there was something wrong here. Something that didn’t make sense.
Why would Zagara invite them to Gystt and allow him to send a survey team anywhere on the planet, knowing full well what that team might run into? Not only might, but had. Even more telling, she’d known since the team’s run-in with zerg at the balance crossing that they were heading toward the mesa. She’d suggested at the time that she thought the team would be moving on, but she hadn’t explicitly said so. She certainly hadn’t insisted on it.
So why hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she made some excuse to Valerian and found a reason for him to withdraw the team or send it elsewhere?
Emperor Valerian Mengsk?
“Emperor Valerian?” one of Valerian’s bodyguards murmured, his eyes on the waiting ravagers. “Hierarch Artanis is right. We need to go.”
Valerian pursed his lips, trying to see through Zagara’s armored skin and face and get to her soul. She was still angry, still agitated. Yet she was making no move to stop her guests from leaving.
Unless that move wasn’t going to come from in here.
“Signal the Hyperion,” he murmured to the guard. “See if there are mutalisks or other zerg heading in this direction.”
“Already done, Emperor,” the guard said. “Sensors show nothing in the air near us. The only large zerg nearby is Mukav’s leviathan—the one we followed in from Korhal—and it’s still on the ground.”
Valerian chewed the inside of his cheek. Zagara’s deepest secret had supposedly been laid bare, bringing her and the entire planet to the brink of annihilation. Yet she was doing nothing.
Emperor Valerian Mengsk? Artanis repeated his call, this time with an edge of impatience.
Valerian wanted to go. He and Artanis had been lied to, and the implied threat underlying their agreement to attend this meeting had to be carried out. Not following up on threats and promises was the worst thing a leader could do.
But something was wrong. And if he didn’t get to the bottom of it, he knew he would always look back on this moment and wonder what might have been.
“Thank you, Hierarch Artanis,” he said. “But I’d like to stay a little longer. We need to offer Overqueen Zagara the chance to give us an explanation.”
We need offer her nothing, Artanis said flatly. We made an agreement. That agreement has been abrogated.
“Perhaps,” Valerian said. “Nevertheless, I’m staying.”
Then you do so alone, Artanis said. I take my leave.
Valerian nodded. “Understood.”
He watched as Artanis strode into the shuttle, followed by his guards. The hatch was sealed, and a moment later the vehicle rose from the floor and disappeared through the cone and into the sky, the phoenixes rising as well in escort formation.
And now, Valerian knew, he was truly committed.
He gestured to the marine. “Call the Hyperion and have Admiral Horner send a dropship,” he said. “And now, Overqueen, let us continue our discussion.”
—
“They’re still ignoring our requests for information,” Cruikshank growled. “But whatever they’re planning, they’re serious as hell about it. Energy profiles indicate all their hangar bays are at full operation, probably prepping warp prisms. Best guess is that they’re massing troops.”
“Plus sentries and whatever other gear they packed aboard,” Admiral Horner agreed grimly. “At least they’re not going for a full burn-off.”
“Not yet, anyway, sir,” Cruikshank warned. Horner could whistle in the dark all he wanted, but to anyone with half a brain, it was obvious what Artanis was up to. Sergeant Cray had reported zerg with psionic powers, which as far as Cruikshank was concerned, already put Gystt on the nuke-it-from-orbit list.
But rather than take the terrans’ word for it, Artanis had apparently decided to send some protoss down to check it out for themselves. “They may not have enough firepower assembled for a burn-off,” he added. “But I’ll bet they’re gearing up for it.”
“Probably,” Horner said. “They’d just better not try it until Emperor Valerian and our team are back.”
“Colonel?” the tech at the comm station called. “Sergeant Cray, sir.”
Cruikshank nodded, keying his comm for relay. That was another thing: what in hell was a sergeant doing making reports and acting like he was in charge instead of Lieutenant Halkman? “Cruikshank.”
“Sergeant Cray, sir,” the marine’s voice came. “Lieutenant Halkman’s back with the dropship. Do you want us to return to the Hyperion?”
Cruikshank wrinkled his nose. Horner could wish and hope and make as many private threats as he wanted. But the dirty fact was that if Artanis decided to burn off Gystt while there were still terrans on the surface, he would damn well do so. And there was nothing Horner or the Dominion could do about it.
The emperor was still in harm’s way by his own decision. He could do that. And while Cruikshank didn’t like it, he had zero say in the matter.
Halkman and his team were different. Those four men and women were Cruikshank’s responsibility, and he had no desire to leave them on that deathtrap planet a single tick longer than necessary.
Still, while Valerian was down there, the survey team’s presence might conceivably be necessary. Cruikshank wasn’t sure how or why, but he’d seen enough situations where victory had hinged on a single person being in the right place at the right time.
“Negative,” he said. “Remain where you are an
d await further orders. And leave the psi blocks off unless you see zerg on the way.”
There might have been the slightest hesitation. But Cray’s voice was solid enough. “Yes, sir.”
“And watch yourselves,” Cruikshank added. “Cruikshank out.”
He keyed off the comm, glaring at the protoss gathering their forces for whatever the hell they were up to. Yes, sometimes the right person at the right place made all the difference.
But more often than not, that person got killed right along with everyone else.
He hoped that wouldn’t be the case here. But he wouldn’t bet money on it.
—
You and Hierarch Artanis were correct about the xel’naga essence, Zagara said. But I note to you that Abathur did not create the plants. He created the adostra. The adostra created the plants.
She was still angry, Valerian could tell. But at least she was still talking.
Maybe she was sincere. Maybe she simply knew this was her absolute last chance before fire began raining down on her and the Swarm. The essence was something that we could not incorporate into plants—only into animal species.
“And so you created a species that could do that.”
We modified one, Zagara corrected. It was the Queen of Blades who pointed the way and encouraged us along the proper path. She identified a species that could be used, a nonviolent, not fully sentient species. We took only those we needed, leaving the others on their planet in peace. Abathur then melded the xel’naga strands salvaged from Ulnar into them, and with his skill we were able in the end to achieve her dream.
“Yes, the survey team saw the results of that dream,” Valerian said grimly.
No, Abathur bit out. Impossible. Terran describes creatures. Do not exist.
I do not say your soldiers are lying, Emperor Valerian, Zagara added. But these are not the creatures of Abathur’s hands who lie dreaming within their cocooning.
“Fine,” Valerian said. So damn sincere…but Cray had been equally sincere in his report about what had just happened at Focal Point One.
Unfortunately, all Valerian had was Cray’s word against Zagara’s. The CMC recorders, which should have made a clear record of the battle, had apparently fallen victim to the same psi-block-induced failure that was affecting the long-range comms. The audio had been completely scrambled, and all the video showed were vague blurs that could be anything. “Tell me about these new creatures. What were they like? Or let’s start with what they were supposed to be like.”