SHADOW OF THE XEL'NAGA


CHAPTER 1


AS A SMOTHERING BLANKET OF DARKNESS descended over the town of Free Haven, the
rugged settlers scrambled to avoid the storm. Night came quickly on the colony
planet of Bhekar Ro, with plenty of wind but no stars.
Pitch-black clouds swirled over the horizon, caught on the sharp mountainous
ridge surrounding the broad valley that formed the heart of the struggling
agricultural colony. Already, explosive thunder crackled over the ridge like a
poorly aimed artillery barrage. Each blast was powerful enough to be detected on
several still-functioning seismographs planted around the explored areas.
Atmospheric conditions created thunder slams with sonic-boom intensity. The roar
itself was sometimes sufficient to cause destruction. And what the sonic thunder
left unharmed, the laser-lightning tore to pieces.
Forty years earlier, when the first colonists had fled the oppressive government
of the Terran Confederacy, they had been duped into believing that this place
could be made into a new Eden. After three generations, the stubborn settlers
refused to give up.
Riding in the shotgun seat beside her brother Lars, Octavia Bren looked through
the streaked windshield of the giant robo-harvester as they hurriedly trundled
back to town. The rumble of the mechanical treads and the roar of the engine
almost drowned out the sonic thunder. Almost.
Laser-lightning blasts seared down from the clouds like luminous spears,
straight-line lances of static discharge that left glassy pockmarks on the
terrain. The laser-lightning reminded Octavia of library images she had seen of
a big Yamato gun fired from a Battle-cruiser in orbit.
“Why in the galaxy did our grandparents ever choose to move here?” she asked
rhetorically. More laser-lightning burned craters into the countryside.
“For the scenery, of course,” Lars joked.
While the bombardment of hail would clear the air of the ever-present dust and
grit, it would also damage the crops of triticale-wheat and salad-moss that
barely clung to the rocky soil. The Free Haven settlers had few emergency
provisions to help them withstand any severe harvest failure, and it had been a
long time since they had asked for outside help.
But they would survive somehow. They always had.
Lars watched the approaching storm, a spark of excitement in his hazel eyes.
Though he was a year older than his sister, when he wore that cocky grin on his
face he looked like a reckless teenager. “I think we can outrun the worst of
it.”
“You always overestimate what we can do, Lars.” Even at the age of seventeen,
Octavia was known for her stability and common sense. “And I always end up
saving your butt.”
Lars seemed to have a bottomless reservoir of energy and enthusiasm. She gripped
her seat as the big all-purpose vehicle crunched through a trench and continued
along a wide beaten path between plantings, heading toward the distant lights of
the town.
Shortly after their parents' death, it had been Lars's crazy suggestion that the
two of them expand their cultivated land and add remote automated mineral mines
to their holdings. She had tried, unsuccessfully, to talk him out of it. “Let's
be practical, Lars. We've already got our hands full with the farm as it is.
Expanding would leave us time for nothing but work—not even families.”
Half of the colonists' eligible daughters had already filed requests to marry
him—Cyn McCarthy had filed three separate times!—but so far Lars had made plenty
of excuses. Colonists were considered adults at the age of fifteen on this rough
world, and many were married and had children before they reached their
eighteenth birthday. Next year, Octavia would be facing the same decision, and
choices were few in Free Haven.
“Are you sure we want to do this?” she had asked one last time.
“Of course. It's worth the extra effort. And once we're established there'll be
plenty of time for each of us to get married,” Lars had insisted, shaking back
his shoulder-length sandy hair. She had never been able to argue with that grin.
“Before we know it, Octavia, it'll all turn around, and then you'll thank me.”
He had been certain they could grow crops high on the slopes of the Back Forty,
the ridge that separated their lands from another broad basin and more mountains
twelve kilometers away. So the brother and sister had used their robo-harvester
to scrape flat a new swath of barely arable farmland and plant new crops. They
also set up automated mineral mining stations on the rocky slopes of the
foothills. That had been almost two years ago.
Now a gust of wind slammed into the broad metal side of the harvester, rattling
the sealed windowports. Lars compensated on the steering column and accelerated.
He didn't even look tired from their long day of hard work.
Laser-lightning seared across the sky, leaving colorful tracks across her
retinas. Though he couldn't see any better than his sister, Lars didn't slow
down at all. They both just wanted to get home.
“Watch out for the boulders!” Octavia said, her piercing green eyes spotting the
hazard as rain slashed across the windows of the impressive tractorlike vehicle.

Lars discounted the rocks, drove over them, and crushed the stone with the
vehicle's treads. “Aww, don't underestimate the capabilities of the machine.”
She snorted indelicately. “But if you throw a plate or fry a hydraulic cam, I'm
the one who has to fix it.”
The multipurpose robo-harvester, the most important piece of equipment any of
the colonists owned, was capable of bulldozing, tilling, destroying boulders,
planting, and harvesting crops. Some of the big machines had rock-crusher
attachments, others had flamethrowers. The vehicles were also practical for
traversing ten- to twenty-klick distances over rough terrain.
The hull of the robo-harvester, once a gleaming cherry red, was now faded,
scratched, and pitted. The engine ran as smoothly as a lullaby, though, and that
was all Octavia cared about.
Now she checked the weather scanner and atmospheric-pressure tracker in the
robo-harvester's cabin, but the readings were all wild. “Looks like a bad one
tonight.”
“They're always bad ones. This is Bhekar Ro, after all—what do you expect?”
Octavia shrugged. “I guess it was good enough for Mom and Dad.” Back when they
were alive .
She and Lars were the only survivors of their family. Every family among the
settlers had lost friends or relatives. Taming an uncooperative new world was
dangerous, rarely rewarding work, always ripe for tragedy.
But the people here still followed their dreams. These exhausted colonists had
left the tight governmental fences of the Confederacy for the promised land of
Bhekar Ro some forty years before. They had sought independence and a new start,
away from the turmoil and constant civil wars among the inner Confederacy
worlds.
The original settlers had wanted nothing more than peace and freedom. They had
begun idealistically, establishing a central town with resources for all the
colonists to share, naming it Free Haven, and dividing farmland equally among
the able-bodied workers. But in time the idealism faded as the colonists endured
toil and new hardships on a planet that did not live up to their expectations.
Nobody among the colonists ever suggested going back, though—especially not
Octavia and Lars Bren.
The lights of Free Haven glowed like a warm, welcoming paradise as the
robo-harvester approached. In the distance Octavia could already hear the
storm-warning siren next to the old Missile Turret in the town plaza, signaling
colonists to find shelter. Everyone else—at least the colonists who had common
sense—had already barricaded themselves inside their prefabricated homes to
shelter from the storm.
They passed outlying homes and fields, crossed over dry irrigation ditches, and
reached the perimeter of the town, which was laid out in the shape of an
octagon. A low perimeter fence encircled the settlement, but the gates for the
main streets had never been closed.
An explosion of sonic thunder roared so close that the robo-harvester rattled.
Lars gritted his teeth and drove onward. Octavia remembered sitting on her
father's knee during her childhood, laughing at the thunder as her family had
gathered inside their home, feeling safe. . . .
Their grandparents had aged rapidly from the rigors of life here and had the
dubious distinction of being the first to be buried in Bhekar Ro's ever-growing
cemetery outside Free Haven's octagonal perimeter. Then, not long after Octavia
had turned fifteen, the spore blight had struck.
The sparse crops of mutated triticale-wheat had been afflicted by a tiny black
smut on a few of the kernels. Because food was in short supply, Octavia's mother
had set aside the moldy wheat for herself and her husband, feeding untainted
bread to their children. The meager meal had seemed like any other: rough and
tasteless, but nutritious enough to keep them alive.
Octavia remembered that last night so clearly. She had been suffering from one
of her occasional migraines and a dire sense of unreasonable foreboding. Her
mother had sent the teenage girl to bed early, where Octavia had had terrible
nightmares.
The next morning she had awakened in a too-quiet house to find both of her
parents dead in their bed. Beneath wet sheets twisted about by their final
agony, the bodies of her mother and father were a quivering, oozing mass of
erupted fungal bodies, rounded mushrooms of exploding spores that rapidly
disintegrated all flesh. . . .
Lars and Octavia had never returned to that house, burning it to the ground
along with the tainted fields and the homes of seventeen other families that had
been infected by the horrible, parasitic disease.
Though a terrible blow to the colony, the spore blight had drawn the survivors
together even more tightly. The new mayor, Jacob “Nik” Nikolai, had delivered an
impassioned eulogy for all the victims of the spore plague, somehow rekindling
the fires of independence in the process and giving the settlers the drive to
stay here. They had already lived through so much, survived so many hardships,
that they could pull through this.
Moving together into an empty prefab dwelling at the edge of Free Haven, Octavia
and Lars had rebuilt their lives. They made plans. They expanded. They tracked
their automated mines and watched the seismic monitors for signs of tectonic
disturbances that might affect their work or the town. The two drove out to the
fields each day and labored side by side until well after dark. They worked
harder, risked more . . . and survived.
As Octavia and Lars passed through the open gate and drove around the town
square toward their residence, the storm finally struck with full force. It
became a slanting wall of rain and hail as the roboharvester ground its way past
the lights and barricaded doors of metal-walled huts. Their own home looked the
same as all the others, but Lars found it by instinct, even in the blinding
downpour.
He spun the large vehicle to a halt in the flat gravel clearing in front of
their house. He locked down the treads and powered off the engine, while Octavia
tugged a reinforced hat down over her head and got ready to jump out of the cab
and make a break for the door. Even running ten feet in this storm would be a
miserable ordeal.
Before the robo-harvester's systems dimmed completely, Octavia checked the fuel
reservoirs, since her brother never remembered to do so. “We'll need to get more
Vespene gas from the refinery.”
Lars grabbed the door handle and hunched his head down. “Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Rastin's probably hiding inside his hut cursing the wind right now. That old
codger doesn't like storms any more than I do.”
He popped open the hatch and jumped out seconds before a strong gust slammed the
door back into its frame. Octavia exited from the other side, hopping from the
step to the broad tractor treads to the ground.
As she ran beside her brother in a mad dash to their dwelling, the hail hit them
like machine-gun bullets. Lars got their front door open, and the siblings
crashed into the house, drenched and windblown. But at least they were safe from
the storm.
Sonic thunder pealed across the sky again. Lars undid the fastenings on his
jacket. Octavia yanked off her dripping hat and tossed it into a corner, then
powered up their lights so she could check one of the old seismographs they had
installed in their hut.
Few of the other colonists bothered to monitor planetary conditions or track
underground activity anymore, but Lars had thought it important to place
seismographs in their automated mining stations out in the Back Forty foothills.
Of course, Octavia had been the one to repair and install the aging monitoring
equipment.
Lars had been right, though. There had been increasing tremors of late, setting
off ripples of aftershocks that originated deep in the mountain range at the far
side of the next valley.
Just what we need—another thing to worry about , Octavia thought, looking at the
graph with concern.
Lars joined her to read the seismograph strip. The long and shaky line appeared
to have been drawn by a caff-addicted old man. He saw several little blips and
spikes, probably echoes of sonic thunder, but no major seismic events. “Now
that's interesting. Aren't you glad we didn't have an earthquake tonight?”
She knew it would happen even before he finished his sentence. Maybe it was
another one of Octavia's powerful premonitions, or just a discouraged acceptance
that things would get worse whenever they had the opportunity.
Just as Lars formed another of his cocky grins, a tremor rippled through the
ground, as if the uneasy crust of Bhekar Ro were having a nightmare. At first
Octavia hoped it was merely a particularly close blast of sonic thunder, but the
tremors continued to build, lurching the floor beneath their feet and shaking
the entire prefab house.
Lars tensed his powerful muscles to ride out the temblor. They both watched the
seismograph go wild. “The readings are off the scale!”
Astonished, Octavia pointed out, “This isn't even centered here . It's fifteen
klicks away, over the ridge.”
“Great. Not far from where we set up all our automated mining equipment.” The
seismograph went dead, its sensors overloaded, as the quake pounded the ground
for what seemed an eternity before it gradually began to fade. “Looks like
you're gonna have some repair work to do tomorrow, Octavia.”
“I've always got repair work to do,” she said.
Outside, the storm reached a crescendo. Lars and Octavia sat together in weary
silence, just waiting out the disaster. “Do you want to play cards?” he asked.
Then all the lights inside their dwelling went out, leaving them in pitch
blackness lit only by flares from the laser-lightning.
“Not tonight,” she said.

THE QUEEN OF BLADES.
Her name had once been Sarah Kerrigan, back when she'd been something else . . .
back when she'd been human.
Back when she'd been weak .
She sat back within the pulsing organic walls of the burgeoning Zerg Hive.
Monstrous creatures moved about in the shadows, guided by her every thought,
functioning for a greater purpose.
With her mental powers and her control over these awful and destructive
creatures, a transformed Sarah Kerrigan had established the new Hive on the
ashen ruins of the planet Char. It was a gray world, blasted and still
smoldering from potent cosmic radiation. This planet had long been a
battlefield. Only the strongest could survive here.
The vicious Zerg race knew how to adapt, how to survive, and Sarah Kerrigan had
done the same to become one of them. Raised as a psi-talented Ghost, a
telepathically powered espionage and intelligence agent for the Terran
Confederacy, she had been captured by the Zerg Overmind and transformed.
Her skin, toughened with armor-polymer cells, glowed an oily, silvery green. Her
yellow lambent eyes were surrounded by dark patches of skin that could have been
bruises or shadows. Her hair had become Medusa spines—jointed segments like the
sharp legs of a venomous spider. Each spike writhed as plans continuously burned
through her brain. Her face still had a delicate beauty that just might lull a
human victim into a moment of hesitation—giving her enough time to strike.
When she caught a reflection of herself, Sarah Kerrigan occasionally recalled
what it had been like to be human, to be lovely—in a human sort of way— and that
she had once even begun to love a man named Jim Raynor, who was also very much
in love with her. Human emotions and weaknesses .
Jim Raynor. She tried not to remember him. She would have no scruples now
against killing the burly, good-natured man with his walrus mustache, if such
was required of her. She did not regret what had happened to her, since she had
a more important mission now.
Sarah Kerrigan was much more than just another Zerg.
The various Zerg minions had been adapted and mutated from other species that
they had infested during their history of conquest. Drawing from a sweeping
catalog of DNA and physical attributes, the Zerg could live anywhere. The swarms
were as much at home on bleak Char as they had been on the lush Terran colony
world of Mar Sara.
A truly magnificent species. The Zerg swarm would sweep across the worlds in the
galaxy, consuming and infesting every place they touched. Because of their
nature, the Zerg could suffer overwhelming catastrophic losses and still keep
coming, keep devouring.
But in the recent war against the Protoss and the Terran Confederacy, the
almighty Overmind had been destroyed. And that had nearly spelled the end for
the Zerg swarms.
At first, their victory had seemed secure as the Zerg infested the two Terran
fringe colony worlds of Chau Sara and Mar Sara. Their numbers grew while the
rest of the Confederacy remained oblivious to the danger. But then a Protoss war
fleet—never before seen by humans—had sterilized the face of Chau Sara. Though
the unexpected attack obliterated the Zerg infestation there (and also
slaughtered millions of innocent human colonists), the Terran Confederacy had
responded immediately to this unprovoked aggression. The Protoss commander had
not had the stomach to destroy the second world of Mar Sara, and so the Zerg
infestation grew there unchecked.
Eventually, the Zerg minions had wiped out the Terran Confederate capital of
Tarsonis. And Sarah
Kerrigan, human Ghost, a covert psi-powered operative, had been betrayed by her
fellow military comrades and infested by the Zerg. Recognizing her incredible
telepathic powers, the Overmind had decided to use her for something special. .
. .
But then, on the nearly conquered Protoss home planet of Aiur, a Protoss warrior
had killed the Overmind in a suicidal explosion that made a hero of him and
decapitated the Zerg Hive.
Leaving Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, to pick up the pieces.
Now the control of the vicious, swarming race lay in her clawed hands. She faced
the tremendous challenge of transforming the planet into a new nexus for the
perfect Zerg race. The swarms would rise again.
Under her guidance, a few surviving Drones had metamorphosed into Hatcheries.
Kerrigan's Zerg followers had found and delivered enough minerals and resources
to convert those Hatcheries into more sophisticated Lairs . . . and then into
complete Hives. With the numerous new larvae generated by the Hatcheries, she
had created Creep Colonies, Extractors, Spawning Pools. Before long, the organic
mat of Zerg Creep spread over the charred surface of the planet. The nourishing
substance offered food and energy for the various minions of the new colony.
It was everything she needed to restore the wounded, but never defeated, Zerg
race.
Kerrigan sat surrounded by the light. Her mind was filled with details reported
to her by the dozens of surviving Overlords, huge minds that carried separate
swarms on missions dictated by their Queen of Blades. She did not relax, she
never slept. There was too much work to do, too many plans to lay . . . too much
revenge to achieve.
Sarah Kerrigan flexed her long-fingered hands, extended the rapier-like claws
that could disembowel an opponent— any opponent , from the treacherous rebel
Arcturus Mengsk, who had betrayed her, to General Edmund Duke, whose ineptitude
had led to her eventual capture and transformation.
She looked down at one claw, thinking of how she could draw it across the throat
of the jowly iron-edged general and watch his fresh hot blood spill out. Though
they had not intended it as a favor, Edmund Duke and Arcturus Mengsk had made it
possible for her to become the Queen of Blades, to reach the full power and fury
of her potential. How could she be angry with them for that?
Still . . . she wanted to kill them.
In the Hive around her, Zerglings moved about, each the size of a dog she had
once owned as a young girl. They were insect-shelled creatures shaped like
lizards, with clacking claws and long fangs. Zerglings were fast little killing
machines that could descend like piranha onto an enemy army and tear the
soldiers to pieces.
Sarah Kerrigan found them beautiful, just as a mother would view any of her
precious children. She stroked the gleaming greenish hide of the nearest
Zergling. In response, it ran its claws over her own nearly indestructible skin,
then dusted her with the feathery touch of its fangs, a caress that might have
been fondness. . . .
Hideous Hydralisks patrolled the perimeter of the colony, some of the most
fearsome of the Zerg minions. Flying, crablike Guardians soared overhead, ready
to spew acid that would destroy any ground-based threat.
The Zerg swarm was safe and secure.
Sarah Kerrigan wasn't worried, and certainly not afraid, but she was careful.
She moved about restlessly on powerful muscles, though she could see everything
through the eyes of her minions if she chose.
Along with her remaining human ambition and the emotional sting of betrayal, she
also felt the relentless conquering urge that came from her new Zerg genetics.
In aeons long past, the mysterious and ancient race of the Xel'Naga had created
the Zerg race, their perfect design relentless and pure. Kerrigan smiled at the
delicious irony of it. The Zerg had been so perfect they had eventually turned
on their creators and infested the Xel'Naga themselves.
Now that the leadership of all the swarms was in her own hands, Kerrigan
promised herself that she would lead the Zerg to the pinnacle of their destiny.
But when she sat back in her Hive and watched the swarming creatures going about
their business, gathering resources and preparing for war, the Queen of Blades
felt the tiniest remnant of human sympathy stirring in her heart.
She felt sorry for anyone who got in her way.
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