Ethan sent his zerg of course, and they obeyed like a pack of hounds on the hunt, scurrying, slithering, and flying toward the creature. The mutalisks attacked from above, spitting out their insatiable, horrific symbiotes. Ulrezaj’s form pulsed, and with seeming casualness a wave of shadow spread off of him, like a pool of oil but one that moved unnaturally fast. The mutalisks were struck dead instantly, their corpses and those of the voracious symbiotes falling heavily atop their comrades, crushing several of them. Ethan caught glimpses of zergling legs wriggling frantically from beneath the mutalisk bodies. Others dropped on Ulrezaj and were turned to ash on contact.
The hydralisks hunched forward and fired wave after wave of spines at the creature. The spines, deadly when striking flesh, seemed somehow to be absorbed by the monstrous creature. Bolts of blue-white energy exploded from the dark archon, as if it was parodying the attack it had just received. The hydralisks were impaled with glowing energy, shrieked, and died, their scythe-arms—so like Ethan’s own—clawing one final time in their dying paroxysms.
The zerglings descended en masse. They never even reached the foe. A single pulse and they swirled about futilely like leaves blown by a strong wind.
Ethan swallowed hard as the zerglings fell like so many dominos. Surely the attack had done something—weakened the bastard somewhat. But no. Nothing about Ulrezaj showed any kind of weakness—any kind of way an antagonist using physical means such as acid, spines, or pincers could bring him down.
Cold sweat broke out on Ethan’s smooth, gray-green skin. He had failed his queen once before. He could not fail her a second time. He had hoped to save this final attack for later, but he realized he had to call out the guardians now. Crablike creatures that were even more powerful than the mutalisks they had once been, the guardians began bombarding Ulrezaj with globules of acid. Accompanying the huge creatures were dozens of tiny scourge. They dove suicidally toward Ulrezaj, their sole purpose to explode like small, living plasma bombs. This, finally, seemed to rattle the dark archon. He stopped and roared with pain, and his glowing dark aura seemed dimmer and more erratic. He turned his terrible attention to the guardians and the scourge. Some of them perished instantly, but others darted away from Ulrezaj, coming back in for another attack.
He was stopped, for the moment, and he would be slowed.
It was the best Ethan could hope for.
Which meant that he had to have another plan. A thought sent a pack of several dozen zerglings racing toward the protoss temple. The least useful of his army against Ulrezaj, they would have no trouble ripping apart a few protoss monks. Whether or not the ritual was completed, if Ulrezaj moved too close for Ethan’s comfort, Professor Jacob Jefferson Ramsey and the crystal that hovered over him would belong to the zerg before the dark archon could bring the temple crashing down upon him.
The protoss were mobilizing, as best as a group of scholars could. Orders flew, whizzing past and through Rosemary’s head at dizzying speed. She got a vague gist of the plan: Those who could stand against the onslaught would do so. A second time, they were in a peculiar alliance with Ethan and his zerg; neither zerg nor protoss wished to see Ulrezaj triumph.
“The protection of this place and its knowledge is vital,” Selendis’s thoughts, clear and hard and pure as a khaydarin crystal, rose above the jumble. “We must permit Krythkal to finish the ritual to preserve Zamara’s knowledge. While it continues, as many crystals as possible will be placed in the vessel Rosemary Dahl has restored to us. We cannot possibly mount an assault with so few numbers and no weaponry. Ethan and the zerg are currently engaged in combat; we will let them weaken our enemy for us. They seem to be slowing his advance. Nonetheless, I do not believe they will be able to halt Ulrezaj, and therefore we must prepare for defense of the Alys’aril. But we will wait until the last possible moment; it will not serve us to reveal our plan too swiftly.”
Rosemary remembered that someone had said something about erecting a psionic shield over the temple. It would buy them some time, but Selendis was right to save that defense, and even the knowledge that the protoss had such a defense, as the ace in the hole. Again, she approved of how Selendis’s mind worked.
“But once we have begun to walk that path, we will protect the Alys’aril until our defenses are breached, and then, we will do our best to provide sufficient distraction so that the single vessel can escape to safety.”
More thoughts, input from the scholars, comments from Ataldis, things that Rosemary didn’t understand and wouldn’t, even if she lived among them for the rest of her life. How they would defend this place, make their last stand, wasn’t her concern. Getting out of it with her hide, Jake’s, and whatever information they could was.
She tried to hurry through the last few checks of the vessel, wishing she could skip them entirely, too professional a mechanic to do so. When a group of several very earnest-feeling alysaar approached carrying boxes of glittering, gleaming crystals, Rosemary, glittering and gleaming herself from the crystal dust on her leather outfit, rose and examined the cargo.
“This it?” She was surprised that they had selected the most important memory crystals already.
“Oh no,” one of them replied. “This is just the first sorting. There will be many more.”
Her blue eyes widened slightly as she asked, “Just how many?”
“A few dozen more at least. The vessel is large enough, is it not?”
“They’re all in individual boxes,” she said, frowning.
“Of course,” one of them said, his confusion clear. “We analyze and label every single memory crystal. How else can we catalogue the data?”
“Great for librarians, not so great for smugglers,” Rosemary said. “You’ll be able to take more crystals if you just pile them in. Put them in every damned nook and cranny that isn’t being taken up with a living, breathing—” She paused, realizing that the protoss didn’t technically breathe and amended, “…uh…existing protoss. That’s how you’re going to get the largest number of crystals into the smallest amount of space.”
The alysaar looked as though she’d suggested cutting protoss themselves into bits in order to make them fit. “But…centuries of sorting, of organization—you wish to discard that labor?”
“You want to take as many crystals as possible or not?”
The protoss still looked dazed. “I—”
“Look,” Rosemary said, taking pity on him, “leave them here for now, we’re still running some last-minute checks. Talk to one of your superiors and tell him what I said. These are your crystals—your people’s history, not mine. I don’t give a damn if we take three, three thousand, or three million.” Just as long as Jake and I get out of here safely. “I’ll take them in boxes if that’s what you guys really want. But I’d think that you’d want to save as many as possible, and sort them out later on some peaceful, out-of-the-way place once we’re all off this moon and we don’t have zerg and a dark archon demigod on our asses.”
The alysaar exchanged glances; probably they were communicating among themselves. Then they nodded, put down the boxes, and hastened off.
“How are our friends the zerg doing on the front?” she asked Vartanil wryly, scooting back underneath the vessel.
“Not well,” Vartanil admitted. “He moves through them as inexorably as shadow moves at twilight, slowly, steadily, and unable to be held at bay. He has paused, for the moment, but I do not think he will be thwarted for much longer. Ethan has sent several dozen zerglings away from the attack; they sit at the base of the stairs, silent and still.”
“Damn it. He’s going to storm the temple and get Jake!”
“But he knows that the ritual is still going on,” Vartanil replied, puzzled.
“Yeah, but he knows as well as we do that if Ulrezaj gets here first, it won’t matter if the ritual’s done or not. I know how he thinks.”
Rosemary felt a tremor beneath her body. More powdery crystal residue drifted, soft as snowfall, on her face
. She didn’t need to ask what had caused it.
Ulrezaj was approaching on the Alys’aril.
Just a little time. Time to finish this and get out of here with Jake. Jake, you had damn well better make it. That’s all I’ve got to say.
The earth rumbled again, more strongly. This time Rosemary heard something in the ancient vessel rattle. Sweat dotted her forehead, turning the crystal powder into a paste. She couldn’t take it any longer. Growling, she scooted out from under the vessel and leaped to her feet, absently dusting off the glowing crystal residue as she seized her rifle from where it was propped up against the wall and raced toward the door of this makeshift hangar.
“Rosemary!” Vartanil’s mental voice rang in her mind. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a hydralisk watching Jake right now that might decide to abduct him at any minute. I don’t care what you all are planning, I’m going to get it before it gets him,” she shot back over her shoulder.
“But—what about the ship?”
“It’s spaceworthy now. You can run the final tests and put crystals into corners as easily as I can. And I can’t even pilot the thing, I’m not a protoss.”
“Oh…you are correct. I…had forgotten.”
Even as she ran up the wide, dimly lit corridor that led toward the surface, toward the fighting, Rosemary grinned at that. She raced down the halls, her booted feet ringing as she ran. Even now, even with an attack from a creature that shook the very foundation of this building and the sounds of battle at its doorstep, it seemed wrong to be moving loudly down these ancient halls.
She rounded a corner and kept going. She only hoped she wouldn’t be too late.
Jake stared sickly at Zamara, his hands clutching hers as if he could physically keep her here, keep her from dissolving into nothingness, even though he knew that the entire encounter was taking place solely in his mind.
“Is there no other way? Couldn’t—I don’t know—couldn’t I be put in some kind of stasis until we find another preserver?”
“Even if we did attempt such a thing, I do not know if it would make a difference. The memories are held in a human brain now, not a protoss brain. Perhaps I was fated to this the moment I bonded with you.”
She reached out a long-fingered hand to touch his cheek. “And if that is so,” she continued, “then it is so. Without you, I never would have had the chance to reveal my knowledge. I only hope that you survive, Jacob. You have astonished me at every turn with your ability to adapt, recover, and persevere. If your species produces individuals like you…then the protoss have much to learn from such an upstart race.”
She was attempting to interject levity, but Jake shook his head. He couldn’t believe this. Zamara had done so much. She couldn’t just…be wiped out like this….
“Zamara!” he cried brokenly. Impulsively, he reached out to hold her, to keep her here, just for a little while longer. He realized, odd as it seemed, he’d grown to love this protoss. She’d hijacked his body, brought about the death of his friends, and her presence inside him might indeed mean his own death. But he’d never before seen such integrity. She had become part of him. And now she was about to disappear. About to become lost forever.
“No,” he vowed. “You won’t be lost, Zamara. I’ll remember you…the way humans do. I’ll make sure that everyone knows about you—what you did for your people. How brave you were. How much you loved them. I know it’s not the same thing, hell, it’s not the same thing at all, but you’ll still be more than just dry words locked in a crystal somewhere. I’ll tell them, I swear. If you learned something about us, then I swear to you, we’ll learn something about the protoss. I just wish—”
Her hand, warm, the skin slightly rough and dry, brushing his cheek.
“I know, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey. I know.”
And before his eyes, she began to fade.
Even though the energy creature appeared to have a clear purpose, it seemed to dance as it flew rather than heading on a laser-straight path. Despite the urgency of the situation, Zeratul’s heart lifted as he followed.
His delight turned to momentary confusion when suddenly his screen was crowded with dozens of blips with readings identical to the creature whose trail he was following. It had to be a malfunction. Perhaps there was some sort of echo that—
A few moments later, Zeratul stared in wide-eyed astonishment at what he was able to see with his own eyes.
There were indeed dozens—perhaps hundreds—of the luminous, vaguely-aquatic, wholly mysterious creatures swirling and dancing and diving together. For a long time, this glowing ritual was enacted, and Zeratul simply watched. He enjoyed the feeling of humility that rose in him as he witnessed this spectacle. He knew that if he survived what Zamara feared was coming he would enjoy the feeling again.
Abruptly, as if from an unheard signal, they all became very still. Zeratul waited, watching. And then, more swiftly than his vision could even register, they began to whirl. Faster and faster they flew until they became a blur of glowing movement, growing brighter and brighter still until the dark templar was forced to narrow his eyes and then finally shield them. A blast of light made him jerk with pain and he closed his eyes for a moment. Cautiously he opened them.
The energy creatures were gone. In their place was a hole in the very fabric of space—a tunnel, a wormhole, outlined in shining light, its center dark and mysterious and beckoning with the exception of a single world, barely glimpsed, waiting on the other side. Zeratul knew he could no more refrain from entering that mysterious doorway than he could stop his skin from absorbing nutrients from the cosmos. He was a protoss, and though he knew and understood and practiced intelligent caution, his curiosity would not let him be.
He calmed his thoughts, although in truth he was almost quivering with excitement. He would need all his wits about him if what awaited him on that world was not benevolent. For a moment, he forced himself to be still, to go within, and when he was ready, Zeratul moved slowly, steadily toward the wormhole. What was on the other side, he somehow knew, be it beautiful and wonderful or horrific and destructive, would change everything.
CHAPTER 21
THERE WAS NO THOUGHT OF BOXES, LABELS, OR categorization now. With the very foundation of their sacred place shivering beneath the figurative footfalls of the encroaching dark archon, the alysaar came at a run, their arms filled with brimming boxes or even sacks. The ship was large, but not enormous. It had been designed to carry about a dozen protoss and a fairly decent amount of cargo, presumably for shorter-term excursions. Vartanil realized, as they all did, that only a small handful of those here would make it out of the Alys’aril.
He and the others began to tear out seats. They would load the vessel with as many protoss and crystals as they could. It was the best he could do.
Ulrezaj was almost—almost—disappointed.
It had been a long time since anyone had offered even the merest possibility of defeating him in battle. He had actually worried for a time on Aiur, with the three factions attacking him simultaneously. Indeed, had he not retreated when he did, they might have won.
But it had taken all three large forces to threaten him with any real danger. Now it was the remnants of the zerg and a handful of alysaar untrained in combat who foolishly tried to stop the mighty Ulrezaj from achieving his goal.
Effortlessly, almost lazily, he continued to move forward toward the building where he had once been an eager young student. How the memories raced through him now. He thought, almost nostalgically, that he might opt to spare the building. But no—why leave anything the protoss could use against him? Better to raze it all, protoss, terrans, zerg, crystals, structure. Wipe the surface clean. Then he could return here unmolested whenever he needed to.
It was time. Ethan wondered if he wasn’t already cutting it too close. At the speed of thought, his zerg acted. The pack that had been waiting like good dogs at the foot of the stairs now sprang into action. They bounded up the stai
rs, chittering and snapping their jaws.
They were not unseen. Selendis rushed forward, psi blades glittering, and sliced three in half almost immediately. Blood and ichor began to drip down the black stairs. Still the zerg came on, driven and utterly obedient.
Inside, the hydralisk acted. It hunched forward, firing spines from its back. The two guardian protoss immediately sprang toward it, blocking the deadly barbs with their own bodies, dying to protect their alysaar’vah and the human he tended to. They went down silently, their bodies impaled a dozen times over, blood pooling out from beneath them.
The four forms within the room remained still, as if they had not noticed anything. The hydralisk ducked its head and moved forward, sliding into the chamber.
There was no battle cry to alert it, no posturing threat or warning. Only the sudden and violent impact of spikes of quite another variety than its own, riddling it as it screamed and thrashed and twisted around to see a petite human female still firing at it.
It surged toward her, extending its scythes to separate the human’s head from its body. The human didn’t back down. Pale, tight-lipped, her blue eyes intense, she kept firing until, with a final faint swipe, the hydralisk toppled and hit the floor. The intense yellow of its eyes faded to dark.
Rosemary stared at it a moment, panting. It had gotten within inches of striking her. Quickly she glanced into the room. All was as it had been when she had left. Nodding to herself, she took off for the courtyard, where she could hear the sounds of ravening zerglings on the rampage.
Ethan grunted as the zerg that was his eyes on the inside died. Rosemary, of course…Trouble had much to answer for. Still, several zerglings had managed to get past Selendis and make it inside. The executor killed all she attacked, but the sheer volume ensured that she couldn’t take down all of them. A thought sent a second group away from harrying the dark archon and rushing up the stairs.
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