by Jeff Grubb
“Have you heard anything about a Lieutenant Kerrigan?” Raynor snapped. “She was engaged in fighting the Protoss near this location.”
“No, sir,” said the kid. “One of the stragglers said there was a unit fighting Protoss up on the ridge.” He waved in the direction of the Zerg. “If’n that’s true, Zerg got ’em, I’m afraid.”
Raynor took a deep breath, then said, “Get your people on the dropship. Don’t worry about heavy ordnance. Leave it. It’s not like the Zerg or the Protoss can use it. We lift in two minutes.”
Mike came up alongside Raynor and said, “We can still search for her.”
Raynor shook his head. “You heard the kid. There’s more Zerg coming. With Mengsk’s rebels pulling back, the entire planet’s going to be awash in aliens in no time at all. The dropship has no defense, and we’ve got noncombatants on board. We have to get out now and hope we can bum a lift out of the system before everything goes up.”
Mike put a hand on Raynor’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” said Raynor. “God help me, I know.”
CHAPTER 17
ROADS NOT TAKEN
The Confederacy died with Tarsonis. So much of the power and prestige had been locked up there for so long that with its collapse the rest of the Confederacy went with it.
Arcturus Mengsk played coroner, of course, performing the autopsy and declaring that the patient had died of massive Zerg poisoning, compounded by Protoss trauma. The irony that Mengsk’s fingerprints were all over the Confederacy’s murder weapon mattered little to many and was ignored by most. As you might expect, it was not something UNN covered in those days.
Before the last Confederate trooper was digested in a Zerg hive, Mengsk declared the Terran Dominion in order to unite the surviving planets, a shining new phoenix that would rise from the ashes and gather together all of humanity. Only by standing together, the former rebel declared, could we come to defeat the alien menaces.
The first ruler of this bright, shining new government was Emperor Arcturus Mengsk I, ascending to the throne by popular acclamation.
The irony of this last little fact, that most of the acclamation was Mengsk’s own, was also missed by most of the general populace.
—THE LIBERTY MANIFESTO
EVEN AS TIME TICKED AWAY, THEY CIRCLED FOR another twenty minutes, looking for stragglers on the ground. All they found was a lot of Zerg and a lot of land already swallowed by the creep. Finally, listening to the repeated protests of the dropship pilot, they lifted off. Beneath them, the ground churned with Zerg building new structures of gothic flesh. There were flashes of Protoss weapons crackling over the horizon like heat lightning in the summer.
Mengsk contacted the dropship on the way up, a general call to all ships within the area. The terrorist’s face was calm, but it was a stone-faced calm, one that didn’t project across the screen. His eyes were bright and avaricious.
“Gentlemen, you’ve done very well, but remember that we’ve still got a job to do. The seeds of a new empire have been sewn, and if we hope to reap—”
Raynor leaned forward toward the comm-mounted camera and toggled a switch. “Aw, to hell with you!” he snarled.
Mengsk heard that one. The great brow lowered between the rebel leader’s eyes. “Jim, I can forgive your impulsive nature, but you’re making a terrible mistake. Don’t cross me, boy. Don’t ever think to cross me. I’ve sacrificed too much to let this fall apart.”
“You mean like you sacrificed Kerrigan?” Raynor snapped.
Mengsk recoiled as if Raynor had reached out through space and slugged him. His face reddened. “You’ll regret that. You don’t seem to realize my situation here. I will not be stopped.”
Raynor had finally broken through the thick, deep patina that covered the leader of the rebellion and found the man beneath. Mengsk was angry now, and veins were standing out at the base of his neck. “I will not be stopped,” he repeated, “Not by you or the Confederates or the Protoss, or anyone! I will rule this Sector or see it burned to ashes around me. If any of you try to get in my . . .”
Raynor hit the kill switch for the sound and watched Mengsk spit and bellow silently on the screen.
“You got under his skin,” said Mike. “At last.”
“Must have been something I said,” Raynor said, but he didn’t smile when he said it.
In the humming silence of the dropship, Mike said, “I’m sorry about Sarah.” It didn’t sound any better now than it had before, on the surface.
Raynor sat down next to Mike and looked at the deck for a while. “Yeah, me too,” he said at last. “I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”
“I know what you’re going through.”
“What, you’re a telepath now?”
Mike shrugged. “I’m a human. That’s what’s important. It’s been a long war. We’ve all had losses. We’ve all seen things we don’t want to have seen. A smart man once told me that the living feel guilty about still being alive. And no, it’s not your fault.”
“Sure feels like it,” said Raynor. There was a silence in the dropship cabin. Finally the ex-lawman shook his head. “It’s not over,” he said. “The Protoss and the Zerg aren’t going to give a rat’s ass that Mengsk is running things now. They don’t care about human wars or human leaders. They’re battling throughout humanspace. It’s not over.”
“I think it’s over for me,” said Mike, “I’m not a warrior. I’ve played at it, but I’m a newsman. I don’t belong on the battlefield. I belong behind a keyboard or in front of a holo camera.”
“The universe has changed, son. What are you planning on doing?”
It was Mike’s turn to take a long pause. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Something to help out, I suppose. Can’t help myself there. But it has to be something other than this.”
The dropship had limited range, but they managed to flag down a lift out-system on the Thunder Child, an old Leviathan-class cruiser that only four hours and one mutiny earlier had been in the service of the Confederacy. Now it and most of the human ships were pulling back out of combat, leaving Tarsonis to the Zerg, the Protoss, and whatever poor fools who thought underground bunkers were a good idea.
The comm officer of the Child met them at the gangway. “I have a message for you from Arcturus Mengsk.”
“Mengsk!” spat Raynor. “Is he looking for me to rip him a new orifice?”
“It’s not for you, sir,” said the comm officer. “It’s for a Mr. Michael Liberty. Emphasis on the Mister. You can take it in the communications room, if you want.”
Raynor raised a tired eyebrow. Mike waved him to come along. The former planetary marshal, former rebel captain, former revolutionary settled himself in a chair out of view of the comm console’s camera. Mike toggled the reply switch and waited for the message to come through space from the Hyperion.
Arcturus Mengsk warped into view on the screen. Every hair was back in place, and every action mannered and rehearsed. It was as if the earlier incident had not happened.
“Michael,” he beamed.
“Arcturus,” said Mike, not even giving him a smile.
Mengsk looked down briefly in sorrow, as if thinking carefully about his next words. Once it would have worked, but now it was a shallow, emotionless mannerism, one that the rebel leader clearly had rehearsed. Michael almost expected him to come around and sit on the edge of the desk. “I’m afraid I can’t express sufficiently my regrets about Sarah. I just don’t know what to say.”
“Captain Raynor had a few choice words,” said Mike, his own eyes now blazing.
“And someday, I hope that Jim and I can talk about it.” Mengsk’s smile was forced and strained. Something had happened, and the great bubble around Mengsk had been shattered. “But that’s not why I called you. I have someone who wants to talk to you.”
Mengsk reached off screen to flip a switch and a new face replaced that of the future emperor of the human universe. A balding head domi
nated by a pair of bushy eyebrows.
“Handy?” said Mike.
“Mickey!” said Handy Anderson. “It’s good to see you, buddy! I knew that if anyone in the stable survived this mess, it would be you! You’re the lucky coin, always turning up when needed!”
“Anderson, where are you?”
“Here on the Hyperion, of course. Arcturus had me shuttled over from a refugee ship. He’s been telling me how great you’ve been through all this. A real trooper. Why no reports for a while?”
“I sent reports. You changed them, remember? Said Mengsk had captured me? Ring any bells?”
“A small bit of editing,” said Anderson, “Just enough to make the powers that be, God rest their eternal souls, content. I knew you’d understand.”
“Handy—”
“Anyway, I hear you’ve done a bang-up job. And I knew you’d want to know that, despite the present situation, you can have your old job back.”
“My old . . .”
“Sure. I mean, the people who wanted you dead are now no longer in the business, one way or another. I was talking with Arcturus, here, and we could make you the official press liaison to his government. He thinks the world of you, you know. Apparently you grew on him with your winning personality.”
“Anderson, I don’t know if . . .” Mike said, tapping his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Just listen. Here’s the deal,” said the editor-in-chief. “You’d get your own office, just down the hall from Arcturus’s. All access, all the time. You do the trips, cover the dinners, get the awards. Lotsa perks. Lotsa security. It’s a cush job. Hell, I can get a stringer to type up your reports for you. I tell you—”
Mike thumbed the sound off. Anderson kept talking, but Mike was no longer looking at him.
He was looking at his own reflection in the smooth surface of the screen. He was leaner than when he had last been in Anderson’s presence, and his hair was more rumpled. But there was something else as well. It was in his eyes.
His eyes seemed to be looking beyond the console, beyond the walls of the ship itself. It was a distant look, a hard look, a look that he once thought of as being one of despair, but now realized was determination. He was seeing a bigger picture than the one he was immediately involved with.
A look he had seen before on Jim Raynor’s face, when Mar Sara died.
“How long will he go before he notices you’re not listening?” Raynor grunted.
“He’s never noticed before,” Mike said. He sucked on his lower lip for a moment, then said, “I know what I want to do. I should start using my own hammer.”
Raynor sighed. “Try that once more, in English.”
“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” quoted Mike. “I’m not a warrior. I’m a newsman. And I should start using my newsman tools for the good of humanity. Get the story out. Get the real story out.”
Mike hooked a thumb toward the screen. Handy Anderson had finally noticed that he wasn’t being heard. The balding editor-in-chief tapped the screen and mouthed an unheard question.
“I want to get as far away from Arcturus Mengsk as possible,” said Mike. “And then I want to start telling the truth about all this. Because if I don’t, people like him are going to determine what really happened.” He jerked a thumb at the screen. “Him and Arcturus Mengsk. And I don’t think humanity could survive those lies.”
Raynor smiled, and it was a road, earnest smile. “It’s good to have you back,” he said.
“Its good to be back,” said Mike, looking at the far-eyed stranger reflected in the monitor. He shook his head and added, “I could really use a cigarette.”
“So could I,” said Raynor. “I don’t think there are any on this tub. But look at the bright side: at least you still got your coat.”
POSTBELLUM
BATHED IN LIGHT, THE MAN IN THE TATTERED coat stands in a room of shadows. The smoke from the last of a series of cigarettes snakes around him, and the ground at his luminous feet is scattered with butts that look like fallen stars.
“So what you’re seeing,” says Michael Liberty, the luminous figure speaking to the surrounding darkness, “is my own private little war, fought on my turf, and with my weapons. Not cruisers and space fighters and marines, but just words. And the truth. That’s my specialty. That’s my hammer. And I know how to use it.”
The figure takes another long puff, and the final coffin nail joins the others on the floor. “And you people, whoever you are, need to hear it. True and unfiltered. That’s why the holo transmissions: they’re harder to fake. And I’m spreading this as far as I can, over the open wavelengths, so everyone knows about Mengsk, and the Zerg, and the Protoss. And knows about men and women like Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, so they and others like them may not be forgotten.”
Michael Liberty scratches the back of his neck and says, “I went into the military thinking it was just another bureaucracy filled with craven cowards and corporate stupidity.
“Well, I was right, but I was also wrong.”
He looks at the viewers with unseeing eyes. “But there are also people really trying to help others. People really trying to save others. Save their bodies. Save their minds. Save their souls.”
His brow furrows, and he adds, “And we need more people like that, if we’re going to survive the dark days ahead.”
He shrugs again. “That’s it. That’s the story of the fall of the Confederacy, of the Zerg and the Protoss invasions, of the rise of Emperor Mengsk of the Terran Dominion. The battles are still being fought, planets are still dying, and most of the time, no one seems to know why. When I find that out, I’ll get you that information, as well.
“I’m Michael Daniel Liberty, no longer of UNN. Now I’m a free man. And I’m done.”
And with those words the figure freezes in place, trapped in its prison of light. He is caught with a tired smile on his face. A satisfied smile.
Around the hologram the lights come up, luminous bulbs that have been bred specifically for the purpose. The walls pulse and sweat, and thick, viscous fluid drips from weeping sores along that wall to keep the air moist and warm. The cable of the human-constructed hologram projector merges in a gooey lump into the organic power constructs of the main structure. The connection between the two worlds was once a colonial marine, but now serves a higher purpose for its new masters.
On semiorganic screens around the perimeter, the better brains of the Zerg discuss what they have seen. They are morphic constructs, bred only to think and direct. They too serve their higher purpose within the Zerg hive.
In the projection room a hand reaches up and touches the rewind button. The hand was once human, but is now transformed, the product of the Zerg’s mutagenic capabilities. The flesh of the hand is green and dotted with chitin-like extrusions. Beneath the surface of the skin strange ichors and new organs twist and slide. Once she was human, but she has been transformed and now serves a higher purpose. She was once called Sarah, but now is known as the Queen of Blades.
The other organic minds, leaders of the Zerg, make noise in the background. Kerrigan ignores them, for they say nothing, at least nothing that matters. Instead she leans forward to study the weathered face in the holo, the face with the deep transfixing eyes. Deep within her restructured heart something stirs, a ghost of a memory of a feeling for this man. And for other men. For those who would sacrifice all for their humanity.
As opposed to merely sacrificing their humanity itself.
Kerrigan shudders for a moment as the old feeling washes over her, that now-alien feeling of her once-human nature. Yet as quickly as it appears, the emotion is suppressed, so that none of the other Zerg notice it. At least that’s what Kerrigan assumes.
Kerrigan nods. She blames the reporter’s words for the uncomfortable emotion. It has to be the report itself, not the memories it brings, that disturbs her. Michael Liberty always was a master of words. He could make even a queen long for her days as
a simple pawn.
Still, there is much in Michael Liberty’s broadcast, and much that is not realized by the nonhuman minds that are now her compatriots. There is much valuable data here. Much that can be divined from Michael Liberty’s words. What he says and how he says it.
The projector chimes, signaling the rewind complete, and the inhuman hand presses the play button, then raises a finger to her very wide lips.
Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, permits herself a small smile and concentrates on the man wrapped in light. She wants to see what else she can learn from her new enemies.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Grubb writes novels, designs games, and creates worlds. He lives in Seattle.
