Even as he turned his head, two battlecruisers began attacking the guardians that were spewing acid on the strange new units that were wreaking havoc on the zerg. He watched them for a moment, enough of a good sport to admire the technology. Small, sleek little vessels with sporty red trim, they came almost to ground before the wings retracted, legs extended, and the ship became a ground unit to be reckoned with. Ethan shrugged. Impressive—but once they were on the ground, the ships were easy targets for the guardians. He pulled two more in and directed them at the robot/vessels.
Valerian was not going to win this one.
Rosemary glanced up only briefly. If she had guardian angels in the forms of Dominion ships sent to protect her, then it was a fallen angel named Valerian who'd sent them. If he wanted her alive, he likely wanted something from her. Well, hell, if he was going to put his resources to saving her, then she was going to do what she burned to do.
She left the comparative safety of the pillar and raced down the steps, slipping and almost falling on zerg guts. She recovered, leaping the rest of the way to land firmly on the hard-baked earth. Rosemary had seen Ethan, flying out of harm's way on a mutalisk. She looked up at the ships overhead, waved, and pointed, then took off at full speed.
Ethan should have been harder to take down, she thought as the ships raced ahead and began bombarding him. The mutalisk screamed in agony, a horrible, screeching sound, and flailed before dropping like a stone. The ships continued to fire on the writhing zerg and its passenger.
Kerrigan saw it happen through Ethan's eyes, and sighed. She'd spent so much effort in creating him, had had such high hopes. As his body was riddled with metal, as he twitched and spasmed in agony, she experienced not a little regret. But there was nothing she could do. The task had been his to complete, and he had failed, and now he would die.
"My... queen..." he gasped in her mind.
She sent him the equivalent of a pat on the cheek, and then, unmoved by his wail of betrayal and shock, pulled out of his brain.
Still, she mused, the experiment had worked. She would simply have to create a new consort at some later date. One that would hopefully survive his first real challenge.
"Damn it!" Rosemary scowled as she ran, hoping there'd be enough left of Ethan for her to personally dispatch. The ships backed off as she entered their targeting range, unwilling to strike her.
He was still alive. She skidded to a halt and caught her breath, picking her way swiftly but carefully to avoid the pools of acid that some of the dead zerg had left as a final attack. Ethan hadn't been so lucky. His mount had fallen into one of these pools, and where he wasn't scorched, the acid was eating through him.
He did not scream, though he must have been in terrible pain. Rosemary respected that. She regarded him for a moment as he writhed in front of her.
"Huh," she said, casually. "I'd have thought a whole bunch of zerg would be coming to you right now, to spirit you away for healing."
Ethan propped himself up on one arm and one scythe-arm. His legs were pools of liquid flesh. The tendons on his neck stood out like cables as he tried to control his pain. But the look in his eyes gave him away. Rosemary raised an eyebrow; she'd never seen such anguish. And she knew it wasn't physical, either.
"Wait, let me guess. Your connection to the zerg has been severed, hasn't it?"
His silence confirmed it.
"Wow. Nice queen you've got there, huh? Drops you the minute you need a little help from her. Looks like you're just as expendable as the next zerg, Ethan."
"No!" The word was ripped from his throat. "She will not abandon me...." The protest turned into a harsh sob. "My queen... Kerrigan..."
Rosemary grinned and made a mock tsk-ing sound of sympathy. "And so you die betrayed. Hooray for appropriate ironies, you son of a bitch."
She lifted her rifle, slowly, so he could watch her, and took careful aim.
A sudden golden-blue blur interposed itself between Rosemary and her prey. Before Rosemary could react, Ethan lay lifeless before her, his head severed from his body, the flesh cauterized by a psi blade. Selendis stood before her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Rosemary shrieked.
"Protecting you," the executor replied calmly.
Rosemary let loose a string of oaths. "Protecting me? You robbed me of my kill! He was all but dead! I didn't need protecting from anything!"
"I did not protect you from what Kerrigan left of Ethan Stewart," Selendis said in that oh so irritatingly quiet mental voice. "I protected you from slaughtering out of hate. We are warriors, you and I. We must sometimes take lives. But we should do so because it is necessary. Not because we enjoy it. It is my fervent hope that after this moment, you will never again have to slay with hatred in your heart."
Beneath the resentment, the anger, the shock of feeling cheated, beneath the hate that did still surge fiercely inside her, a part of Rosemary understood.
"I'll give you a piece of my mind later," Rosemary said, then winced at how literally that could be taken. "For now, we've got to stop the zerg—and then Valerian."
Selendis nodded, and together the executor of the templar and a terran assassin sprang into the fray.
CHAPTER 22
JAKE BLINKED AWAKE, TEARS WET ON HIS FACE. For a moment, he was disoriented. He felt as though he had forgotten something very important, lost it or misplaced it—and stared blankly up at the protoss faces peering down on him. And it was then that he realized what had happened.
Zamara was gone. She was no longer anywhere to be found in his mind or thoughts. For a second, he thought he would be sick, so overwhelming was her absence. Four-fingered hands, strong but gentle, closed on his arms, slipped under his body and eased him to a sitting position.
"She's gone," Jake gasped, reaching to clutch Krythkal's robe. "She—"
"We know," came the thought in his head. At least he could still understand them. But he felt like an amputee. God, were humans really this...alone?
Krythkal lifted his hand. Resting in his palm was the crystal that Jake had given him before the ritual had begun—the crystal that he, Rosemary, Alzadar, Ladranix, and all the others had found deep in the labyrinthine heart of Aiur. Then, it had been luminous, clear... clean. Now Jake stared at the crystal fragment. Its hue was now dark, yet still glowing somehow with a sullen purple-black hue. Something swirled inside it, and there was the occasional spark of brightness that surged forward only to submerge again.
Jake took it gingerly. He had always had difficulty holding the crystal before. It had emanated a power that gradually would hurt if he held it too long. But that pain was somehow cleansing, scouring. Something too strong for him to hold or wield, yes, but not hostile.
But now, as it lay in his hand, it felt...wrong. He could think of no other way to describe it.
"I...blacked out," Jake said, staring at the crystal. It felt cold, and a numbness began to spread across his palm. "What happened? Did she...did she do it? Did she manage to trap Ulrezaj in there with her?"
"It is difficult to tell," Krythkal said, his mental voice rich with sympathy. "Ulrezaj did disappear. The Dominion and the zerg are fighting one another now. The zerg appear to be losing that conflict.We felt—something at the very last moment. A surge of power from the crystal, from Zamara, reaching out...before we were unable to sense her anymore."