I spend my efforts to maximum getting the Former Magistrate of Mar Sara back into the plot.
Canonically, you the player are the colonial magistrate.
Scenario 2: You are in hiding on Tarsonis, after the UED deployed the Psi Disrupter against your Swarm.
I awoke to the worst hangover headache in living memory. Think a combination of deep concert Bass rattling your bones, but only in your skull and upper spine. The high pitched whine of an old tube television ramped up to the point where it sounds like im standing next to a jet engine without ear muffs. I'd make some noises about it drowning out all thought, but my thoughts are running so fast as so concrete it also makes me want to vomit, and with every pulse of warmth under my hand it gets worse.
I do vomit then and with the heave of my retching, the world shatters. Blood and shards of... something... (glass maybe?) stream out of my nose and ears, tearing at me like a pudding made of sandpaper and lemon juice. My world begins to taste purple and smell the nature of consciousness and look like an expanding three dimensional globe of... dendrites. Squiggly little blobs of light with a million strings reaching out in every direction forming sporadic connections to every other ball of violet light.
My light is a nuclear detonation, but beside me stands a sun. It drowns out the shell of other lights around and beneath me and calls to the impossible tornado extending down from above.
The constellation of the shell pulses with a soft power, half a trillion different song meshing together into the unknowable thrum of a cafeteria. All I can understand from it is a fierce fighting spirit. The will to survive, the will to conquer, the will to liberate, the will to defend, there are pockets of each in a patchwork mosaic, but that's all that can be understood.
The Tornado on the other hand pulses in a wave, moving with one mind, one purpose.
Hunger... and...
HATE!!! in suffocating titanic proportions... all cloaked in a static drunken need for... closeness?
Closeness... with
ME!
No, not Me... Closeness with the sun that stands beside my crouched shivering form. A sun that projects my own thoughts across the galaxy. Memories drive themselves like an ice pick into my brain of a metal medical table to which I'm strapped down while cold voices on a speaker order me to
"Control the Xenomorph, subject 24601."
The
Fujita Facility on Vyctor 5. I remember now! I remember... what? Who? No... that's... not me, but... it is? Memories of a life as a girl with blood red hair, jade green eyes, a feminine figure to die for and the thousands of men and women who
HAD died before her scope and psychic power clash with the comparatively boring life of a Brown haired brown eyed barely athletic Navy Nuclear Technician and video game addict.
I knew where I was. I knew WHO I was. Far worse, I knew
WHEN I was. The problem is, I don't know why or what the flying fuck I'm supposed to do about it.
I am Sarah Kerrigan, Confederate Ghost 24601, working under the command of Rebel Emperor Arcturus Mengsk and I have just activated the Psi Beacon to destroy the planet of Tarsonis, capital world of the Terran Confederacy.
I. Am. Fucked.
And in less than an hour... I'm about to be infested. Over the next three months the personal genetic engineer of the overmind, Abathur, is going to torture and twist me into the Queen of Blades. The overmind will die beneath the blades of Zeratul, James Raynor, Arcturus Mengsk and Tassadar when I call them to my side in an endless series of Psionic nightmares. That death will free me from one master to be the bitch of a greater one until James steals my power as part of a plot to awaken the Dark Menace, Amon.
Fuck! That!
Then a new set of lights bloomed into my perception. Where the tornado... the zerg, pulsed with a single mind and dark purpose, this blooming nova was like a chat room. A million minds sharing sensory information, discussing it at the speed of thought and coming to unified conclusions. But unlike the fractious nature of chat rooms, each voice built upon the others like instruments in a symphony. It was George Lucas, Dragon Force's Through Fire and Fury, Appocalypta and a left wing echo chamber all rolled into one.
This was the Protoss.
This was the Khala.
And they could sense my attention.
Before they could see the truth of the situation in my thoughts and become disgusted, the tinny voice of a comm channel buzzed in my ear.
"
I've detected a fleet of Protoss ships descending on the planet" the Hyperions primary AI droned. "
Their predicted landing zone is on the edge of the primary Zerg hive."
Wait, shit! It's been that long?!? Uncurling from the fetal position I open Kerrigan's eyes and look around me. A storm of purple plasma and shocks of white lightning whirl around me in a dome. Just beyond the edge of my Psi Storm is an endless expanse of creep covered ruins. The buildings are shot through with tentacles and covered in patches of chintonous carapace. Pools of neon green acid smoke everywhere and zerg run back and forth in organized packs like schools of fish.
As I'm looking around in wonder, and horror, Arcturus velvety baritone replies across the command channel. "If they engage the zerg, the insects will swarm them. The Old families could escape in the chaos! Magistrate! Get ahold of Lieutenant Kerrigan! I want a strike force of Ghosts defending that Hive until there is no escape! Commander Raynor and General Duke will provide Overwatch from the Norad 2!"
James voice, dripping with fury and contempt cuts in on the channel the moment the order drops. "First you sell out every soul on this planet, then you ask us to go up against the Protoss?!? Are you insane? We haven't heard from Kerrigan since the beacon went up! We should be looking for her, not demanding she take on that mess without backup!"
Using Kerrigan's muscle memory I touch the comm channel on her visor. "Jim, I'm already at the center of the Hive."
"
WHAT?!?" Both of them, the Magistrate and General Duke explode across the radio and I consider taking it off just to silence them. But the pain of their voices in my ear is nothing to the racket going on in my head.
All those minds..!
"Lieutenant! Report!" Arcturus thundered over the rest of them.
"The Psi Emitter is using my brain waves as it's baseline," I told them. "This was the weapon they were building when you saved me from that research station, Arcturus." The silence on the other side of the line was stone cold, like the grave. "When I turned it on, it overwhelmed me. The influx if Psi energy shattered my inhibitor implants, Arcturus."
"Shit." He whispers across the hot mike.
"I'm going to need medical attention as soon as this mission is done, but as long as I have this well of power to draw on, I should be fine."
"Darlin," James asks softly, "you sure you're alright down there?"
"Of course, she's alright," Arcturus snapped. "Her awakening required the confederacy to rewrite their entire Psi Scale to accommodate it. I could
drop a nuke on her location and she would probably be fine." He waved Jim off, but there was something odd about the timber of his voice when he said that. "Complete your mission, Lieutenant. "
"No." I reply.
There's silence on the other side once more. "Girly," General Duke replied "think about this. Yah, almost done. Yah alreada der. Jus one more push an its all ova. Ya gotta do it to get out anyway, so what if we can't free you after dis? A good leader knows how to negotiate..."
I snort. "Arcturus? You want the Old families dead? Fine. I'll control the Zerg as they trained us to do. I'll turn the flood into a surgical nuke. But I'm taking the Ghost Corp as compensation, and
You are going to send our fleet down to evacuate everyone else who doesn't shoot at you."
"And how do I know you can Deliver?" The shrewd revolutionary asks, and edge to his voice.
Closing my eyes, I dive into the power drawing the Zerg here against the Overminds will. Wrestling a trillion animalistic minds into shape feels like a burning blade in my mind, bit I manage it and the zerg fliers move into patterns that form words. Words first in English and then in Confederate common.
I STILL OWE YOU YOUR FATHERS HEAD. I NEVER DID GET AROUND TO RETURNING IT, DID I?
"Hooollye shit." Raynor and Duke swear.
"You're going to want to call off that Nuclear Strike as well." I tell him, placing a beacon of thought on it's trajectory, causing a flood of Scourge, flying zerg mines to flock toward it. "My tenuous grip on these bugs is by far your best chance, Arcturus. Didn't you just order me to protect this hive? What's the point if you destroy it yourself? Would you really sacrifice your revenge on the old families to assure your revenge on a mere tool? One you agreed to work with because she was enslaved and grateful for the freedom you offered?"
The Nuke exploded, but not in a megacity destroying explosion, only a mere ball of fire. In my mind, I could feel that there was no visceral feeling of success as came from the zerg on successfully tearing something apart. Mengsk had done this himself.
"No, I would not,
Kerrigan..." the man himself grinds out. "But you'd better deliver, or
we will have words."
"On your orders, Emperor!" I reply, crisp and forcefully not mocking.
"Emperor?" James asks. "What in the..." His com access is cut, but in the back of my head I can still hear him cursing up a storm in his orbital command center.
"Sir?" Duke questioned. "She seems to be coming through on her word. The Zerg have disengaged my forces and are attacking confederate positions in coordination with my unit commanders. Shall I reroute the exposed troops to render reinforcement? Or keep them in reserve in case of betrayal?"
"You should shoot them in the back" I reply before Mengsk can take control of the situation "and then burn the corpses with firebats the moment they've finished their job. I have plenty of units, and plenty more streaming in through portals. Any Zerg you don't kill while I have them is another you'll have chewing on your face the moment I become to exhausted to continue. And it'll be worse if you're fighting side by side."
"The woman has a point, general." Arcturus grounds out. "Do as she says. Mengsk Out."
Sadly, I can't keep an eye on the man directly. He's the same black hole of a psychic presence spoken of in the novels and has retreated to his command room aboard the Hyperion.
"Alright, honey. Those are some orders I can get behind." Duke Drawls. "You be careful down there, yah hear? I'm happy enough to trade one politician for another, but nobody was happy about this alien infestation. If you can be the weapon the big boy's planned all along, you're more valuable to me than Arcturus, ken?"
"I understand, Edmund." I reply, surprised and feeling an odd welling of emotion from my Kerrigan side.
"Duke Out!" He barks.
I sit there for a moment, watching him wave his hands wildly over a holo table. It's almost hilariously meta to watch the man I'd ordered around as a sprite voxel literally playing starcraft before me. But alas, I have things to do. Since I'm not the Queen of Blades (and have no intention of ever becoming so) directing the swarm is akin to trying to work on a car while wearing oven mitts. Fans of Alexi Stukov in SC2 Co-op Commander are probably familiar with the tactics I begin to employ as I seat myself Lotus position atop the Psi Beacon.
Converge on X location at maximum speed, kill via trampling only. Kill marked targets, ignore everything else. Rinse and repeat as I find new targets or existing targets fall. It's a struggle to keep the Zerg from just attacking everything in a flood of teeth, claws and acid and even more so to keep them from attacking the Sons of Korhal. I don't even
try to stop those engaged by the protoss, but I don't aid them either. On my own, I could control two, maybe three dozen zerg. Less of the more advanced ones and less if they didn't like what I wanted them to do. My current ability is solely determinate on the Psi Emitter and it's nuclear battery.
Besides which, there are still two far more important jobs to do before I run for the hills. Nova Terra and and the rest of the Ruling families of the Confederate nobility.
Luckily for my limited command ability, I find Nova Terra already in orbit aboard an evacuation ship alongside Wrangler Kelerchian and Annihilator Squadron. The 16 year old noble girl turned gutter rat is holding tight to her kitten and using the beasts simple mind as a means by which to block out the carnage taking place on the planet below. It's a good tactic, and one I'll probably employ when all is said and done.
Marking her location, I grab a Guardian and have it fire on their engines. When the begin to gutter out, I direct the beast away to die on the plasma lances of the Protoss and contact Jim.
Continuing to root out and target various noble families and their guardians I project an image of my...er, Kerrigan, into Raynor and Horner's minds.
*Hey boys.*
"Sarah! How?" Raynor splutters before catching on. "Oh, dammit, you know I don't like it when you mess with my head, darlin."
"Hey, Sarah. Nothing like Orna 3, is it?" Matt remarks, giving me a weak grin from the other side of the command table.
*
It's simpler, I think.* I told the pair of them. *
Arcturus hates me, but he needs me. So long as that remains true, I'm safe. Which is why I need you two to do something for me.*
Jim straightens. "What is it, Sarah?"
*
Arcturus goal is to kill the noble families so that he's the last survivor of the confederate aristocracy. Because the core worlds are used to being dominated by the aristocracy they won't resist too much when he declares himself Emperor Of Man. As far as they're concerned, it will just be business as usual.* Matt nods sadly, propaganda similar to this were how the boy had gone from being a merchants son on Tyrador 9 to fleet captain of the resistance. Raynor however is taking it poorly. His mind is a rioling mess of rage and his expression somewhere between a lemon sucking grimace and shit sniffing.
*
There are, however, a few nobles he's going to spare.* I bring up an image i grab from a marine piloting an SCV in the void and a series of coordinates marking both Raynor's command center and the ship. *
In this ship are the Confederate Annihilator squadron and the young girl Nova Terra. Yes, of THAT Terra family. She's one of 6 survivors. Her direct family were wiped out six months ago when her powers manifested as a P10. My old rank. We both killed our entire families, but she also deconstructed the top 5 floors of her city tower and killed everybody on the next thirteen in the explosion.*
"So she's dangerous." Horner surmised coldly. "Do you want us to kill her?"
*
No.*
"
What?" Raynor asked, shocked. "You just told us how she's a mass murderer and that Mengsk wants all of her type dead! I hate the idea of killin kids, but in this case why the hell not?"
*
Because it was a complete accident on her end and she wants nothing more than to receive a mind wipe so she can atone for everything she's done.* I reply simply. *
Unfortunately, I can't just leave her be, because Arcturus is going to use that to make her my replacement. I'd rather have her in custody instead, and there's no one else I trust to carry this out.*
Horner straightened with pride at that pronouncement and James rubbed his chin, going over it thoughtfully. It's almost surreal being able to listen in on all of his plots, self arguments, justifications and daydreams. A few eternal seconds later, he comes to a decision and nods his head.
"I can do that, Sarah."
*
Treat her gently, one of the worst parts about killing people as a ghost is being inside their heads when they die. And untrained as she is, she saw a lot of death in Tarsonis Gutter district.*
"You sure you don't want us down where you are, Darlin?" Jim asks, looking at 'my eyes'.
*
I'd appreciate if you could send me a drop ship.* I reply. *
I'll try and keep it from being shot down, but I'm not sure I can promise myself that. Otherwise, just keep the evacuation going steady. I'll get in contact with anyone I can and direct them where to go, but controlling humans is far harder than controlling zerg.*
"You can do that?" Horner asked, looking worried. I can see all sorts of nightmare fantasies playing out in his mind.
I make my mental projection shug. *
Sure. You project your thoughts of what to do into their heads and let them act them out. It doesn't work on anyone intelligent, willful or lazy enough to resist though. Directly controlling someones nervous system is something of a pipe dream, even for me. It's easier when you know what to look for, but if you're the serious follower type, you do what the telepath tells you just like it's a nervous tic. I'm told the thoughts don't quite feel right. Try to fight your target for control and you fry them instead.*
Matt grimaces and nods. "Understood. On my way, Ms."
*
Don't worry, Matt, I think she'll like you. It's good to know there are people so genuine as you two.*
With that, I disengaged from their minds and got back to work scourging Tarsonis of any confederate loyalist too stupid to accept Mengsk and Dukes surrender broadcasts. James and Matt punched in the coordinates for a micro hop moments later and offered the crew of the troop vessel assistance. Matt was planning to use sleeping gas on the Annihilators once they were on board, but Nova peaked into their minds instead and stunned her earlier rescuers before dragging Operative Kelerchian along with her into the escape pod to be retrieved by Raynor and his crew.
Over the next day and a half many battles happened across the planet. Jim and Matt acted as my agents, picking up dozens more refugees who I'd identified as having Psionic potential and several thousand other crew. Disillusioned confederate soldiers, Mercenaries, genuine refugees with useful skills, and anyone who knew where to find a ship my two heroes could deploy SCV's to repair. Before long, they had their own motley fleet of confederate citizens. Over a million souls following their orders and doing the best they could.
One million out of the planetary population of nearly a trillion.
One hundred and fifty billion made it off planet by any ship they could beg, barter or steal. Four hundred billion died to the teeth and claws of the Zerg, a number that would have easily doubled had I not taken control of the swarm. Psy storms and purifier beams from the Protoss, Nuclear missiles, Yammato cannon and artillery taking down buildings between the terrans; another hundred billion died in the apocalyptic crossfire between the Dominion, Confederacy and Conclave.
The remaining three hundred and fifty billion will never forget the horror of this day.
And me? I'm saved, not by a dropship from Jim or a war band sent by Mengsk,.. but Tassadar and Fenix, as they lead the glorious charge into the heart of the swarm to *Slay the Cerebrate!*
