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 stairs, 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.
Suddenly a soft blue-white radiance sprang up around the Alys'aril. The zerglings, running full tilt, slammed into the barrier and were knocked back. Some of them did not rise. The others kept hurling themselves at it in vain.
A psionic shield. The protoss who served in this.. .this library were not warriors, not the way the templar were on Aiur. But they had will, and they had mental power, to protect the structure.
Ethan swore. He should have seen this coming. Angrily, he summoned the guardians toward the glowing, radiant dome of energy that engulfed the temple, and had them attack.
Closer to the Alys'aril, Ulrezaj paused, mildly amused as he felt a slight brush against his thoughts and realized that the alysaar wer erecting a field to protect themselves. It was...almost endearing, how they kept trying. Endearing, but foolish. Well, he would let them think they had succeeded for a moment or two; he found it entertaining.
The earth, already dry, turned utterly dead as he moved inexorably across it. Like a slug leaving a smear of slime, Ulrezaj left a blackened trail to mark where dark archon energy had obliterated the soil beneath him. He reached out with his mind and touched the protective shield the alysaar had erected. Grudgingly, he realized that it would actually hold against his first assault. They were stronger than he had expected; stronger mentally than he had been, before he had secretly approached the forbidden Wall of Knowledge in his youth and learned about the powers he now wielded almost effortlessly.
Yes, it would hold against his first assault. Maybe even the second.
But not the third.
It was time to end this. He had toyed with them enough. Like a careless child treading on insects beneath his feet, Ulrezaj continued to move through the zerg almost unaware of their existence beyond a mild annoyance.
The sun shone with fierce and dispassionate brightness down upon the scene of dead and dying, squirming, shrieking zerg, meditating protoss, and the great dark archon that was about to destroy them all. Its intensity did not penetrate Ulrezaj; his darkness took the light and swallowed it.
And then a shadow fell on the bright, dead ground. And another. Until dozens of small shadows danced on the earth.
And Ulrezaj shook with terrible rage as he realized that a third enemy had joined against him yet again.
Rosemary felt the shock and delight rip through her mind as the protoss saw it.
Ships—so many that the sky was becoming crowded. Terran vessels. "I'll be damned," Rosemary said softly. "The cavalry does come over the hill."
Of course, this cavalry was no doubt commanded by Valerian Mengsk, and that meant trouble of another sort, but she'd deal with that later. She shot the two zerg that were bearing down on her, then raced out into the courtyard and assessed the situation as she swung the rifle into position.
She could see Ulrezaj with her own eyes now, looming toward them. His dark image was slightly obscured and softened by the blue-white shield the protoss had erected, but it was clear enough. At his feet was a vast spread of dead and dying zerg of all shapes and sizes. The hot air, so still when she had first come here as if nothing ever pierced the silence, was now swirling with dust and laden with sound. The shrieks and bellows of the zerg as they hurled themselves at the shield; the deep pulses of Ulrezaj's dark energies as they surged outward; and the more familiar sounds of Dominion vessels. Rosemary heard the reverberating spurts of plasma torpedoes, the explosions of cluster rockets, and the once-you've-heard-it-you-never-forget building, nail-biting hum of a Yamato cannon.
Some of the ships she recognized right off the bat, such as the dropships like the one she herself had piloted not that long ago. There were battlecruisers, of course. She counted four of them. She could peg them anywhere by the sound of the Yamato cannons and the unique hammerhead shape. But they looked different, somehow. And the fighters—she blinked, wondering if the waviness induced by the heat in the air was making her see things. For the first time, she understood the phenomenon of the mirage and the oasis. She was sure the thing was there a minute ago—
And then it reappeared, a zippy little planetside fighter with almost nostalgic-looking turbofans to propel it. Cloaking ability, then. It was small and swift and Rosemary felt like she was falling in love as she watched it dip and dive and unload cluster rockets.