STARCRAFT™: LIBERTY’S CRUSADE Page 4

  “So you have a theory, man?” countered Rourke.

  “They’re human, but not our type of human,” said the old reporter. “They’re from Old Earth. I figure that while we were gone they got so wrapped up in genetic purity and such that they are nothing but clones now, and that they’ve come after us to clear out the rest of the race.”

  Rourke nodded. “I heard that one. And Thaddeus from the Post thinks they’re robots, and they have some programming that prevents them from defending themselves. That’s why they booked out when the Norad took them on.”

  “You’re all wrong,” said Murray, a stringer from one of the religious networks. “They’re angels, and Judgment Day has arrived.”

  Both Rourke and Maggs made derisive noises, then Rourke said. “What about you, Liberty? What do you think they are?”

  “All I know is what I saw,” Mike said. “And what I saw was that whatever they are, they liquefied the surface of the planet next door, and they could be here faster than the Confederacy could react. And we’re here at ground zero, playing cards.”

  A pall hung over the table for a moment, and even Murray the holy stringer was quiet. Finally Rourke let out a long breath and said, “You Tarsonis boys sure know how to squelch a good party. You in or out for the next deal?”

  Mike suddenly sat up, staring intently out into the road. Despite themselves, Murray and Rourke swiveled in their chairs but could see only the usual handful of marines in the street, some in combat armor, some in regulation uniform.

  “Quick, Rourke. Give me your press credentials,” Mike said.

  The big redhead instinctively grabbed the tags around his neck as though they were a life preserver. “No way, man.”

  “Okay, then let me trade my credentials for yours.” Mike held out his own marine-issued ID.

  “How come?” Rourke asked, already pulling the chain off over his head.

  “You’re local press,” Mike said. “They’ll let you out of the cordon into the hinterland.”

  “Yeah, but anything I put down goes through the censors anyway,” the big man protested, handing over the tags. “Nothing gets out of here.”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to go crazy hanging out here. Pack of cigs, too.”

  “I thought you were quitting, man,” Rourke said.

  “Come on, man.”

  As soon as Mike had Rourke’s cigarettes jammed in his shirt pocket he was up and out of the café, his own press tags still bouncing on the table.

  “They breed them crazy on Tarsonis, man,” Rourke observed.

  “You going to talk or deal?” Maggs asked.

  “Lieutenant Swallow!” Mike shouted. He strung Rourke’s tags around his neck as he ran, his boots kicking up plumes of dust in the street.

  The lieutenant turned and smiled at him. “Mr. Liberty. It is good to see you again.” Her smile was warm, though Mike could not tell if the warmth was heartfelt or the result of her reprogramming.

  She wasn’t in her combat armor anymore, but rather in regulation khakis. That meant she wasn’t on MP duty and it was unlikely she would be actively monitored. Still, she had a small slugthrower on one hip and a nasty-looking combat knife on the other.

  Mike reached up and pulled the cigarette pack from his pocket. Swallow smiled guiltily and pulled one out.

  “I thought you were quitting,” she said.

  Mike shrugged. “I thought you were, too.”

  Mike suddenly realized that he didn’t have any matches, but Swallow produced a small lighter. A tiny laser ignited the tip’s end.

  The lieutenant took a long drag and said, “I am sorry about that thing back on the ship. Duty.”

  Mike shrugged again. “My job is sometimes asking tough questions. Duty. The bruises have healed. You busy?”

  “Not at the moment. Is there a problem, sir?”

  “I need a lift and a driver for out into the hinterland.” Mike made it sound like a simple request. Like bumming a cigarette.

  Swallow’s face clouded for a moment. “They’re letting you out of the cordon? Nothing personal, sir, but I thought the colonel was going to personally kick your backside to Tarsonis after that incident on the bridge.”

  “Time wounds all heels,” said Mike, pulling up Rourke’s tags. “They’re lengthening my chain a bit. Just a bit of background stuff—talking to the potential refugees.”

  “Evacuees, sir,” corrected Swallow.

  “My point exactly. Have to get a line on the brave people of Mar Sara in the face of the threat from space. You interested in shuttling me around?”

  “Well, I’m off duty, sir . . .” Swallow hesitated, and Mike touched the cigarette pack again. “I can’t see the harm. You sure the colonel is down with this?”

  Mike beamed a winning, wise smile. “If he isn’t, then we get turned back at the first checkpoint, and I’ll introduce you to my card-playing buddies at the café.”

  Lieutenant Swallow wangled transport, an open-topped, wide-bodied jeep. Rourke’s tags got them through the checkpoint, a bored MP swiping the card through the reader and getting a green light for the “local reporter.” The authorities didn’t seem to be horribly worried about people getting out into the hinterlands, particularly those with a military escort. They seemed to be more concerned about people getting back in.

  Mar Sara had always been only borderline habitable, in comparison to the formerly rich jungles of its sister in farther orbit. Its sky was a dusty orange, and most of its soil varied between hard-baked mud and stringy scrub. Irrigation had made parts of this desert bloom, but as they passed outside the city Mike could see fields already blighted by lack of water. Watering cranes stood like lonely scarecrows over the brown-tinged crops.

  Such crops needed constant attention, Mike noted in his recorder, and the displacement of the population was as deadly for them as an assault from space. The abandonment of the agricultural areas was a sure sign that the Confederates expected the Protoss to return.

  They came across their first concentration point for refugees (sorry, evacuees) about midafternoon. It was a fabric city erected in one of the fields, a single Goliath walker overseeing the entire complex. Another bored MP didn’t even bother to listen to Mike’s full story before swiping Rourke’s card through the reader and, being informed that Mike was a local, let him in.

  Swallow parked the jeep at the feet of the Goliath.

  “Let me talk to the ref . . . evacuees alone,” Mike said.

  “Sir, I am still responsible for your safety,” Swallow responded.

  “So watch from a safe distance. People aren’t going to open up too well when one of the Confederacy’s own is standing there in full kit.”

  Swallow’s face clouded, and Mike added, “Of course, anything I get will go through your people before it gets transmitted.” That seemed to reassure her enough to keep her near the jeep while Mike went out to soak up the local color.

  The evacuee station was only a few days old, but its facilities were already stressed. It appeared to have been built and supplied for maybe a hundred families, and it currently housed five hundred. Already the overflow of the population was being bundled into square-bodied buses for transportation to other, farther sites. Trash was piling up around the fringes, and there were lines at the water buffaloes for purified water.

  The evacuees themselves were just getting over the shock of being dispossessed. Most had been rousted from their homes and managed to take only what they could lay their hands on. As a result, unneeded and sentimental items were being abandoned or traded away for food and warm bedding. Now, at rest for the first time in days, the evacuees had time to take stock of their situation, and assign blame.

  Unsurprisingly, the Confederacy came in for most of the blame. After all, they were the only ones on hand, with their Goliath walkers and combat-suited marines a very visible presence. The Protoss, on the other hand, were a rumor, the only proof of them reports from the Confederacy itself. Mar Sara had been on the other sid
e of the sun, so its people missed much of the light show that had destroyed their sister planet.

  Mike cataloged the evacuees’ plight and listened to the complaints. There were stories of separations and of valuables left behind, reports of farms and homes commandeered by the Confederate forces, and all manner of complaints, major and minor, against the military forces that had replaced all the civilian authorities. The local magistrate had become a refugee himself, leading one pack of refugees to another concentration point. No one was willing to stand up to the Confederates, but the refugees were angry enough to complain to a reporter about it.

  Yet under the complaints and bluff talk, there was noticeable and definite fear. There was fear of the Confederate forces, natch, but also fear that arose from the realization that suddenly mankind was no longer alone. The Mar Sarans had seen the reports of the destruction of Chau Sara, and they were afraid that it would happen here. There was a lot of anxiousness in the camp, and a great desire to be someplace—anyplace—else.

  And there was something else there as well, Mike discovered as he moved among the uprooted populace. The sudden knowledge of the Protoss was followed by a wave of mysterious sightings. Lights were reported in the sky, and strange-looking creatures on the ground. Cattle were found slain and mutilated. Add to that the blanket admission that the Confederacy was definitely herding the populace out of certain areas, as if they knew something they weren’t telling people.

  The stories of aliens and undiscovered xenomorphs on the ground came up again and again. No one had actually seen them, of course. It was always a friend of a friend of a relative in another camp who saw them, or at least heard of them. The stories were more along the lines of bug-eyed monsters than creatures in shining ships, but then, if someone had seen the Protoss ships, the military would be all over the report in minutes.

  After about two hours (and the last of Rourke’s cigarettes), Mike padded back to the jeep. Lieutenant Swallow was as he had left her, alert, standing next to the driver’s side.

  “We have enough,” he said. “Thanks for the chance to get out here. We can go.”

  Swallow didn’t move. Instead she was staring at something.

  “Lieutenant Swallow?”

  “Sir,” she said, “I’ve been watching something curious. May I share it with you?”

  “And this curious thing would be?”

  “You see that woman over there, the red-haired one in the dark outfit?”

  Mike looked. There was a woman, young, dressed in what looked like night-camo pants, dark shirt, and a multipocketed vest. She had brilliant red hair that was bound in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She looked quasi-military, though not from any unit that Mike had ever seen. Maybe some planetary militia or law-enforcement organization. Marshals, that’s what the locals called the lawmen, but she didn’t look much like one. Mike suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen anything of the local law since the marines landed, and had just assumed they had been sucked into the general evacuation.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “She’s suspicious, sir.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “The same thing you’ve been doing, sir. Talking to people.”

  “Well, that’s definitely suspicious. Shall we go talk to her?”

  The red-haired woman rose from her most recent conversation with an elderly man and crossed the compound. Swallow strode off toward her, Mike in tow.

  As they closed, Mike noticed something else suspicious about the woman: she looked significantly less dusty than the rest of the refugees. And less worried.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Swallow said.

  The red-haired woman hesitated in mid-stride and looked around. “Can I help you?” she asked. Her jade-green eyes narrowed just a hair, and Mike noticed that her lips were just a tad too wide for her face.

  “We have a few questions,” the lieutenant said, perhaps more bluntly than Mike would have liked.

  The wide lips pursed, and the woman asked, “And who would be asking these questions?” A cold wind seemed to pass between the women as she spoke.

  Mike interposed himself between the two. “I’m a reporter for the Universe News Network. My name is Michael . . .”

  “Liberty,” finished the red-haired woman. “I’ve seen your reports. They get things right more often than not.”

  Mike nodded. “They’re always right when I finish them. If something went wrong, I blame my editors.”

  The woman gave Mike a piercing stare, and he was positive she could turn those green eyes into sharp blades that could carve deep into his soul. “I’m Sarah Kerrigan,” she said simply, to Mike, not to the lieutenant.

  Okay, thought Mike. Not local law at all.

  “And where are you from, Miss Kerrigan?” asked Lieutenant Swallow. She was still smiling, but Mike could now feel a bit of tension in that smile. Something about this Miss Kerrigan rubbed the lieutenant the wrong way.

  “University of Chau Sara,” said Kerrigan, looking intently at the officer now. “Part of a sociological team stationed here when the attack came.”

  “That’s a convenient origin,” Swallow said, “considering that no one can check on it right now.”

  “I’m sorry about your planet,” put in Mike suddenly. He intended simply to blunt Swallow’s tacit accusation, but for the first time he realized that he was sorry for the destruction he had seen from orbit. And embarrassed, because he hadn’t really thought of it earlier.

  The red-haired woman swung her attention back to the reporter. “I know,” she said simply. “I feel your sorrow.”

  “And what are you doing here, Miss Kerrigan?” Swallow was being as blunt as Anderson’s favorite letter opener.

  Kerrigan replied, “Same as everyone else here, Corporal . . .”

  “Lieutenant, ma’am,” interrupted Swallow, sharper now.

  Kerrigan managed an amused smile. “Lieutenant, then. Trying to find out what’s going on. Trying to find out if there’s really a plan for evacuation or if the Confeds are running a huge human shell game, here.”

  “What do you mean by that?” snapped Swallow, but Mike was already rephrasing the question.

  “Do you feel there is a problem with the current evacuations?” he put in.

  Kerrigan gave a snorting laugh. “Isn’t it obvious? You’ve got bands of people shunted out of the cities and into the hinterlands.”

  “The cities are not defensible,” Swallow noted.

  “And the wilderness is?” Kerrigan shot back. “It seems the Confederacy has mistaken activity for progress. They’re content to move the refugees around like checkers on the board, without any real plan to evacuate.”

  “Such plans are in the works, I understand,” Mike said calmly.

  “I’ve read the official reports, too,” Kerrigan said. “And we both know how much truth there is to them. No, the Confederacy of Man is just chasing its tail right now, moving people around in the hopes that they’ll be ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Mike asked.

  “Ready for when the next attack comes,” Kerrigan said dryly. “Ready when the next thing goes wrong.”

  “Ma’am,” Swallow said. “I must tell you that the Confederacy is doing as much as is humanly possible to aid the people of Mar Sara.”

  Kerrigan interrupted hotly. “They are doing as much as is humanly possible to protect themselves, Soldier. The Confederacy has never given a damn beyond the limits of their own bureaucracy. It particularly has never given a damn about its people, and most of all it’s never given a damn about anyone not on Tarsonis.”

  “Ma’am, I must inform you . . .” Swallow began, her smile as brittle as glass.

  “I must inform you that the Confederacy’s history damns it as surely as its current actions do. It’s willing to write off the Sara system, just like it wrote off the colonies in the Guild Wars and Korhal itself.”

  “Ma’am,” Swallow said. “I must warn you now that we are in a military zone,
and dangerous talk will be dealt with swiftly.” Mike noticed that Lieutenant Swallow’s hand had drifted to the grip of her slugthrower.

  “No, Lieutenant,” Kerrigan responded, her eyes blazing, “I must warn you. The Confederacy is leading you to the slaughter, and you won’t realize it until the knives come out.”

  Color flushed along Swallow’s face. “Don’t make me do something you’ll regret, ma’am.”

  “I’m making not you do anything,” Kerrigan hissed. “It’s the bastards in the Confederacy that make people do things. They reach inside you and twist you apart until you’re their plaything! So the question is: Are you going to follow the programming they gave you, or not?”

  Mike stepped back, suddenly aware that the two women were about to come to blows. He looked around, but it seemed that the rest of the camp was paying them no attention.

  For a long moment the two women stood, their eyes locked. Finally, Lieutenant Swallow blinked, stepped back, and pulled her hand from the gun butt.

  “I must assure you, ma’am,” said Lieutenant Swallow, her face now ashen, “that you are in error. The Confederacy is only thinking of its people.”

  “If you must assure me, then you must,” Kerrigan said, snapping off the words. “Will there be anything else, or am I free to engage in an illusion of freedom?”

  “No, ma’am. You can go. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “It’s nothing.” Kerrigan’s sharp green eyes softened for a moment. She turned to Mike. “In answer to your next question, you’ll find some answers at Anthem Base. It’s about three klicks west of here. But don’t go alone.” She shot a look at the lieutenant.

  And then she was gone, striding across the compound and quickly losing herself among the tents.

  “The woman was under stress,” Swallow said through clenched teeth. She reached up with one hand and pulled a stimpack from her belt.

  “Of course,” Mike agreed.

  “Its not surprising for people to lame their rescuers for their problems,” she continued, pressing the pack against the knobby flesh at the back of her neck. The stimpack hissed softly.