StarCraft

by Timothy Zahn

  And, perhaps, of the structure that housed the chrysalis the Overmind had used to imprison Kerrigan during her forced transformation. “Well,” she commented, keeping her voice level. “That’s new.”

  “Yeah,” Whist said tightly. “And that’s not.”

  Tanya turned her attention from the pods. The sides of the chamber were fifty meters away in both directions.

  Lined up against both walls were more psyolisks. At least twenty on each side, all of them just standing silently.

  And as her stomach knotted up, she felt the buzzing in her brain getting louder.

  “Whist?” Dizz murmured. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Easy,” Whist cautioned. “They’re up to something.”

  “All the more reason to start evening up the numbers right now,” Dizz insisted.

  “Maybe they’re waiting to see if we’re interested in those pods,” Erin offered. “Any idea what those are?”

  “Never seen them before,” Whist said. “Course, we haven’t seen psyolisks before, either, so we left known territory a long time ago.”

  “Some new kind of spawning pool or evolution chamber, I’m guessing,” Tanya said, studying the psyolisks. She hadn’t had a chance to try anything on the last batch, and Whist’s grenade had messed up the carcasses too much for her to look for weak spots.

  But they looked a lot like scaled-down hydralisks. If they shared the same organ layout as well, she should be able to take them.

  They may be waiting for us to move away from the tunnel, Ulavu suggested.

  “Away from a quick exit, and without a wall to put our backs to?” Whist said grimly. “Sure, that makes sense.”

  “Are we leaving, then?” Erin asked.

  Whist snorted. “Like hell. We were given a mission, Doc, which seems to have come down to taking a look at those damn pods. So we take a look at the damn pods.”

  “Then we get the hell out?” Dizz suggested.

  “Probably.” Whist looked back at Erin. “Doesn’t mean we have to drag you into the middle of it. You could stay back here, where you can make a run for it if the psyolisks decide they don’t want us poking around the pods.”

  Tanya frowned. Now that Whist mentioned it, what were the psyolisks doing all the way at the sides of the room? If they were trying to guard the pods, shouldn’t they have formed their lines across the team’s path?

  “Oh, absolutely,” Erin said sourly. “Alone and unarmed? Thanks, but I’ll take my chances with the rest of you.”

  “You didn’t have to be unarmed, you know,” Whist pointed out. “You passed right by the rack of C-14s on your way out of the dropship.”

  “None of which I know how to use,” Erin said. “I barely got five minutes of instruction.”

  “Great—that puts you ahead of most marine recruits,” Whist said. He unslung his spare gauss rifle from his shoulder and handed it over. “Here—already set for semiauto. Flip off the safety—thumb lever just over the mag release—then point and shoot. Try not to hit any of us.”

  “And hold on to this for me while you’re at it,” Tanya added, unslinging her C-10 and offering it to Erin.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Whist said. “We’re disarming ourselves in the face of the enemy now, are we?”

  “We’re thinking this through,” Tanya corrected, pointing to the lines of zerg. “Look at them. There’s nothing on either wall that looks interesting, so they must be here to guard the pods. So why are they standing there instead of right in front of us?”

  “Because—” Whist broke off. “Ah-ha. Because they don’t want stray shots hitting the pods.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Tanya agreed. “I’m also thinking that if I head over there unarmed, they might just let me get away with it.”

  “Because if they charge toward you, they’ll eventually end up putting themselves between the rest of us and the pods,” Dizz murmured. “Interesting. You may be right.”

  “And if I am, the trick is to look as harmless as possible,” Tanya concluded. “Erin?”

  Reluctantly, Erin accepted the rifle. “Be careful.”

  “I will,” Tanya promised.

  She stepped forward, then stopped as Whist caught her upper arm. “You’re just looking harmless, right?” he asked in a low voice.

  Tanya nodded. “I’ll be okay—”

  “Because zerg have ways of messing with people’s minds,” Whist went on. “Usually by infesting their target—seen way too much of that, and it’s not pretty. I’m thinking these psyolisks might be a try at bypassing the meat part of the infestation and going straight for the brain.”

  “And you think I might have been taken over?” Tanya asked, a shiver running up her back. If something like that had happened, she would surely know it. Wouldn’t she? “In that case, shouldn’t I have kept my weapon so they could make me fight the rest of you?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they first want to see how far they can mess with you.”

  Tanya looked at the silent lines of zerg, consciously unclenching her teeth. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’m going to look at the pods. If I die really stupidly, I’ll concede you may have a case. If not, we’ll assume I’m still in my right mind. Deal?”

  “Deal.” He released her arm. “Be careful.”

  “Right.” She looked back at Ulavu. Watch yourself, Ulavu, she said. If they attack, stay behind Whist or Dizz.

  I will be fine, he assured her, a strange darkness in his mental tone that she couldn’t remember ever sensing before. Be safe.

  She gave him a reassuring smile. Then, fighting back her misgivings, she started walking.

  A hundred meters, her rangefinder had put it. But now that Tanya was walking alone, with her C-10 at an ever-increasing distance behind her, the pods seemed a hell of a lot farther than that. She kept an eye on both lines of psyolisks as she walked, wondering if and when they would decide she’d gotten too close.

  She was thirty meters away, and looking to her right, when she apparently tripped their invisible line.

  “Left!” Whist snapped.

  She spun her head in that direction even as the background buzz suddenly became a raucous hammering in her brain. The zerg were on the move, the whole line easing forward as if someone was choreographing them. They weren’t charging yet, but rather slithering ahead at the pace of a fast jog. Maybe they were waiting to see what she would do, or seeing if they could knock her out again.

  Or maybe waiting to see how solid a mental hold they had on her.

  If that was it, they were going to be sorely disappointed. Stretching out with her mind, fighting against the buzz, she focused on the nearest psyolisk, visualizing the part of its anatomy where the heart/lung cluster should be…

  With a violent spasm, the zerg reared up and toppled over on its side. Tanya didn’t wait to see it flop to the floor, but shifted her attention and her power to the next zerg in line. From her left the chamber erupted in stuttering thunder as Whist and Dizz opened up with their gauss weapons. Her second target collapsed, and she shifted to the next. This attack was a little off-center, and the psyolisk’s side erupted in a burst of black-laced yellow flame. Scowling, she blinked against the buzzing and focused again, and this time it went down. Others were going down alongside it, and she took a second to check the other side.

  The zerg back there were falling as well. A quick look at her comrades showed Dizz and Whist standing back-to-back, their weapons blasting away, with Erin and Ulavu back-to-back beside them. Erin was shooting more tentatively than the soldiers but seemed to be holding her own, while Ulavu was mainly hunched over, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. Tanya fried two more zerg on the right side, then shifted back to the left.

  The attack front had diminished significantly, but there were still plenty of psyolisks charging doggedly toward her. And they were getting closer. She fried one, then another, then another, watching as more fell to Whist’s gauss rifle bursts. The familiar red haze had settled acr
oss her vision, rage and determination and bloodlust from her power, pain and disorientation from the brain buzz. She fought on and on, killing and killing and killing—

  And suddenly, it was over.

  Slowly, the haze faded. Tanya realized she was panting, her skin under her armor wet with perspiration. The buzzing was gone, too—not just diminished, but completely gone. She looked around her, noting the scattered zerg carcasses. Then, almost afraid of what she would see, she turned back toward her teammates.

  To her relief, all four were still on their feet, with all their extremities still attached in the original places. Whist’s and Dizz’s armor looked as if they’d been through a mulcher, with multiple slices and punctures from psyolisk claws—apparently the enemy attack wave had made it right up to their doorsteps. But there was no evidence of leaking blood or emergency suit lockdowns, which implied that none of the claws had made it all the way through to the soft terran flesh inside. She hadn’t checked her own armor, but it probably looked just as bad. Certainly she had vague memories of psyolisks getting up into her face before she or one of the others nailed them. “Everyone all right?” she called.

  Her answer was a tense silence, and three wide-eyed stares. “Are you all right?” she repeated.

  “Oh my God,” Erin breathed. She was standing beside Ulavu, the gauss rifle sagging in her grip. “You’re a…” She trailed off, pointing.

  Tanya looked at the line of zerg carcasses. Apparently, she’d been off-target with more than just that one early attack. No fewer than four of the carcasses were smoldering, with one of them showing little tongues of smoke-laced yellow flame still dancing around the open wound.

  The proper term is pyrokeet, Ulavu said.

  Dizz cocked an eyebrow. “Pyrokeet?”

  “That’s just what they called me at the academy,” Tanya said, grimacing as she walked back to them. So much for the Dominion’s best-kept secret. “It was mostly a joke.”

  “I don’t know,” Dizz said thoughtfully. “Kinda suits you.”

  Do you speak an insult? Ulavu demanded.

  “It’s all right, Ulavu,” Tanya said quickly. The last thing she wanted was an argument on her behalf, especially over something as silly as the stupid nickname her fellow ghosts had given her.

  “Yeah, no offense.” Dizz snorted a sort-of laugh. “Wow.”

  “Something funny?” Whist asked, his voice ominous. Apparently, he didn’t want any arguments, either.

  “No, no, not at all,” Dizz said. “It’s just really great to have you aboard.”

  “Thanks.” Tanya looked back at Erin, searching for a way to change the subject. “You seem to have come out of it all right. Nice going.”

  “Thank you,” Erin said, blinking at the gauss rifle in her hands as if suddenly remembering she was still holding it. “But don’t give me any credit, because I was lousy. It’s luck they mostly left me alone. They were hitting you and Whist and Dizz pretty hard. Oh, and here’s your gun.” Still cradling the gauss rifle, she unslung Tanya’s C-10 and handed it over. “If you, you know, really need it.”

  “Options are always good to have,” Tanya said, frowning as she took the rifle and slung it back on her shoulder. “They left you alone? Really?”

  “Well, mostly, like I said,” Erin said. Her voice had picked up a small tremble, Tanya noticed. The fading adrenaline of the battle’s aftermath. “I was mostly hitting what I was shooting at, I think, at least after the first couple of rounds. I couldn’t have kept them all back, though, without Dizz’s help.”

  A protection that Sergeant Foster Cray graciously offered me, as well, Ulavu said.

  “I’m glad,” Erin said. “I was worried about what would happen to you—I couldn’t even take the time to see where you were or what you were doing.”

  “Yeah, well, between Tanya and me we held down our side of the room okay,” Whist said, an oddly gruff edge to his voice. “Anyway, kudos on your first battle, Erin. Consider yourself graduated from recruit-level competence to officer-level.”

  “Present company excepted, of course,” Tanya said, nodding to Dizz. It was probably just as well Erin hadn’t been able to look behind her, because the psyolisks had gotten perilously close to Ulavu. There were a handful of carcasses near where the two of them had been standing, close enough that it must have taken some impressive shooting by Whist to take them down in time. “Anyway. Shall we go see what all the fuss was about?”

  “What, you think we haven’t all figured it out?” Whist said, his voice tight. “But sure, let’s go take a look.”

  The walk across the cavern was much quieter this time. With the mental buzzing gone, even their echoing footsteps seemed extra loud.

  And in the end, they did indeed find what everyone was probably thinking.

  “There,” Whist said, pointing through the translucent dome on one of the pods. “Right there, where it’s close to the surface. Same red three-line dorsal dotting.”

  Tanya nodded silently. The creature was moving slightly inside what they now could see was some kind of fluid, and when one of its limbs drifted close to the surface they could see it had the same red-highlighted light-brown outer shell as the psyolisks.

  “Only they’re smaller,” Erin murmured. “They’re babies.”

  “Who grow up to be those,” Dizz said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “So don’t go all maternal on us.”

  “I’m not going maternal,” Erin insisted stiffly. “I’m just saying there’s a difference between killing them in here and killing them out there.”

  “Sure is,” Dizz agreed. “Out there they try to kill you back. So we take them out?”

  “We take them out,” Whist confirmed. “And then we call Cruikshank, tell him what Zagara’s up to, and let the fleet take care of it while we get the hell off this rock.”

  If you expect the fleet and Emperor Valerian Mengsk to destroy this place, why do we need to do so ourselves? Ulavu asked.

  “Call it insurance,” Whist said, eyeing him closely. “Why? You feeling all maternal or something?”

  “Whist, he’s just a—” Tanya began.

  Whist cut her off with a gesture. “I asked if you had a problem.”

  Not with the decision, but with the execution, Ulavu said. I question our ability to destroy this many pods with the resources available.

  Whist pursed his lips. “Dizz, what’s your ammo look like?”

  “I’m on my last mag,” Dizz said. “He’s got a point—that pod material’s pretty thick. It may take a couple of shots per.”

  Whist looked at Tanya. “How about you?”

  Tanya wrinkled her nose. “It would be a stretch,” she said. “If I use my power too much, it takes time to regenerate.”

  We do not want her helpless, Ulavu said firmly.

  “Absolutely not,” Whist agreed.

  For a moment, the marine and the protoss locked eyes. Tanya frowned, wondering what was going on. But then Whist simply turned away. “I guess we’ll have to leave them to the fleet, then,” he said. “Let’s get outside—we probably won’t get a good transmission in here.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Dizz said. “I just said I was low on ammo. We’ve still got options.”

  “Such as?”

  “We’ve got grenades; we’ve got dead zerg bodies, and we’ve got fire.” Dizz grinned suddenly. “You wondered why I laughed earlier when we found out about Tanya? It was at the irony of it all.”

  “What irony?” Erin asked.

  “The fact that we’ve got a fancy ghost who gets praise and comfy beds because of what she can do.” Dizz looked at Whist. “You’ve been trying ever since we met to figure out what crime I committed that got me tossed into the Reaper Corps. The irony? I was a—well, let’s just say I was the old-fashioned type of pyrokeet. I just used gadgets and liquids instead of brain waves.”

  “You’re kidding,” Erin said, sounding stunned. “You were an—?”

  “Yep,” Dizz said, a slight edge o
f bitterness in his tone. “Just like Tanya. Only I didn’t get any medals for it. I got put in the reapers.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. “Okay,” Whist said at last. “So what do we do?”

  “We start by lining up the carcasses along the edge,” Dizz said. The brief hint of bitterness had vanished, Tanya noted, and he was all business again. A man doing what he loved…“Zerg actually burn quite well, and quite hot, with the right encouragement and the proper catalysts.”

  “Do I want to know how you figured that out?” Whist asked.

  “Probably not,” Dizz said. “But didn’t you ever wonder why protoss took out zerg-infested planets by burning them off instead of using tectonics or sunset viruses? It’s because once a bunch of zerg gets hot enough to burn—I mean, really burn—the fire becomes self-sustaining. Way more efficient than blasting fault lines.”

  “Kind of hard on the surrounding landscape, though,” Tanya pointed out.

  “Extremely hard on the landscape,” Dizz agreed. “In here, though, it should be fine.” He looked at the pods, tapping his finger thoughtfully against his lips. “Some of the tree branches from the entrance would probably be useful, too. Maybe grab whatever broken ones are down there.”

  “Or break new ones,” Whist said, pulling out his combat knife. “Ulavu, you heard the man. Go get some branches.”

  As you request, Ulavu said. He hesitated a moment, then took the knife and headed back across the chamber.

  “Shouldn’t someone go with him?” Tanya asked, frowning at the protoss’s back.

  “He’ll be fine,” Whist said shortly. “Now what?”

  “We make up some of that catalytic encouragement I mentioned,” Dizz said. “Starting by taking apart a few grenades and switching them from boom to sizzle. I’ll do that. The rest of you get busy hauling carcasses.”

  Tanya carried the still-smoldering ones first, on the grounds that if anyone should get fetid smoke in their face, it was her. Then, while Whist and Erin continued clearing out the zerg from the main charge, she headed over for the ones near where Ulavu had been standing.