MAL KELERCHIAN
“She’s coming out of it.”
Nova Terra blinked into a searing white light, turning her face away. Her head pounded like a jackhammer and she felt as if she might be sick. She squeezed her eyes shut again and struggled to remember where she was and what had happened.
(freak)
(better to keep her under than let her do something like that to us)
(what if she’s out of her mind)
(Gehenna’s the only place for her now)
She tried to focus, but nothing made sense. Terran thoughts bombarded her from all sides, and she held up her hands as if to shove them away. Someone gently pushed them back down.
Where?
“You’re in the medical bay on Palatine,” a voice said. “Try to take it easy. Everything’s fine.”
Captain Rourke. “What happened?” Nova said. She dared to open her eyes a crack and found the captain looking down at her.
“You saved everyone’s asses; that’s what happened,” she said. “Some kind of psionic mind blast. Never seen anything like it. Wiped out the entire zerg horde. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Rourke had seen the battlefield, and in scanning her thoughts Nova got a full picture of it in her head, along with the captain’s barely concealed awe at the sight: zerg carcasses strewn everywhere, bleeding from the eyes and steaming in the heat; mutalisks lying where they had fallen in heaps; the overlords with their enormous weight, having popped like rancid eggs against the sharp rocks as they fell, sending sprays of blood and gore across the landscape. It looked familiar; she flashed back to a similar scene, more dead zerg just like these, killed by another mind blast, but she couldn’t place exactly where it was, or what had happened.
Then she remembered her visions of Tarsonis and her parents’ death, things that should have been wiped away long ago—had they been real, and if so, why had they suddenly returned?
Nova tried to sit up, sensed movement, and glanced over Rourke’s shoulder to find Private Godard staring at her, his eyes rimmed with blood, bony alien plates protruding from his temples. She recoiled, but he was gone, replaced with the angular face of Dr. Shaw, head of medical on the Palatine.
“I—I think I’m seeing things,” she said. “Something’s wrong with me. I saw a marine there just now, Private Godard.”
“Godard’s dead,” Rourke said. “He didn’t come back.”
“I know that. I saw him. He was … infested—”
“You’ve had quite a strain on your neural systems,” Shaw said, stepping forward. “A mind blast. Amazing. I’ve heard rumors of abilities like this, but I never thought it was actually possible.” He checked her vitals, shined a light in each eye, and grunted noncommittally. “Of course, there was—” He seemed to catch himself, grunted again, and looked away. But his next thought was as clear to her as if he had spoken aloud.
(murderer)
“I have these … memories … something, about Tarsonis,” Nova said. “Something happened there. My … my parents were killed?”
“I lived there for a time myself. There was a terrible terrorist attack. Killed many people.” Shaw busied himself with something by the bed.
“I think there’s more to it. But I shouldn’t have any memory of that either. The Ghost Academy wiped my entire past when I graduated. I’m telling you, something’s wrong with me.”
“Maybe you should consider it a blessing,” Shaw said, still busy with things out of her line of sight.
“I joined the ghost program to forget, Doctor.” Confusion and the unfamiliar feeling of fear washed over her, prickling her skin. How could she remember anything about her parents? Had any of what her mind had dredged up back on Altara really occurred? She reached out, grabbed his arm, and forced him to look at her. “November Terra is dead. I’m Agent X41822N of the Terran Dominion. I don’t want to be anybody else.”
(don’t touch me, you freak)
“You should rest,” Shaw said.
“No.” Nova shoved herself to a sitting position. “That gas down on Altara, I need to find out what it was. If I—”
“We’re working on that.”
“Then I want to be fully briefed on what happened on that planet.”
“If you’re really insisting on getting out of that bed, there’s someone who wants to see you,” Rourke said. “He’s been pretty persistent about it, actually. Won’t take no for an answer. Says he’s an old friend.”
“Who?”
Rourke shook her head. “I’ll let you see for yourself,” she said.
Rourke led Nova into an adjacent medical unit. The wrangler she’d rescued from Altara was sitting in a chair, staring into space. He was wearing a medical gown and the same old leather duster over it; she knew, even without needing to read Rourke’s reaction, that he’d insisted on having it on and wouldn’t even let them clean it. Nova wasn’t sure why, but that didn’t surprise her in the least.
When he saw her enter the room, he stood up, dusting off his knees as if they were having a drink out on the patio rather than recovering from battle. “Had the strangest damn dream,” he said. “I was wrecked on this backwater hell and Nova Terra was kneeling over me, and her face was just like an angel, and I thought I was dying. Now here you are. It’s been a long time, Nova. Rourke, leave us be.”
Captain Rourke opened her mouth, shut it again, and nodded. Clearly she thought he’d lost his mind, but had decided it was easier not to argue with a wrangler and a ghost. Nova caught a brief half-thought from her as Rourke studied the man’s face and found it attractive in a rugged, rough-hewn sort of way, the thought blooming into a gentle heat in spite of her efforts to conceal it. Then she closed the door softly behind her before Nova could read anything more.
“Sit,” the wrangler said. He swept an arm in the general direction of the chair.
“I’d rather stand.”
“You always were a little ornery.” He chuckled. “What’s the matter, Nova? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Damn right you do.” He stuck out his hand. “Mal Kelerchian, wrangler extraordinaire. I saved your ass a few years ago back on Tarsonis. I guess now we’re even.”
Nova crouched in a crumbling apartment with Mal Kelerchian hovering over her, his wrangler’s force field keeping debris from crushing them as the walls fell in upon their heads …
The flash of their past history was gone as quickly as it had come, like lightning fading from the sky. Nova tried to gather herself, her stomach churning. “You … recruited me for the ghost program,” she said. She took his hand, and his touch was like an electric shock coursing up her arm.
“Well I’ll be,” he said, holding her hand a moment too long before releasing it. “They told me you were having memory flashes. Seems like the boys who wiped you clean need to go back for a little refresher course.” He waved away the medbot that had moved in for a periodic check as if he were swatting at a fly, banishing it to the corner where it settled, slumping as if dejected. Then he motioned toward the chair again. “Now, will you please sit?”
This time she did, and Kelerchian settled himself on the edge of the bed. He kept staring at her and smiling back, and the feeling was more than a little unsettling.
“You okay, after what you pulled down there?”
“I’ve been better,” she said. “How about you?”
“Some scratches and bruises, minor concussion, nothing life-threatening. Guess I haven’t used up my luck yet, or I’d be a Rorschach pattern on a slab of granite right now. Somehow I managed to get back to my ship before I passed out. Must have hit my head pretty hard.”
He had kind eyes, Nova thought. There was a gentleness hidden underneath the overly gruff, slightly awkward exterior. “You were good to me, back when we first met, weren’t you?”
“I’d like to think so, but there are plenty of people who might suggest that assigning someone to the ghost program is akin to cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, you wanted to go. Wanted to forget everything, who you were, what you did.” He sighed. “Now here you are, remembering after all.”
Sometimes forgetting what’s behind is the only way to look ahead.
“It’s bits and pieces,” she said. “They come out of order and out of control. I can’t make sense of it. It’s like my senses have been heightened, somehow. And I’m having these hallucinations. Something happened to me down there on Altara, Mal. I think I was exposed.”
“Exposed to what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it has to do with that gas leaking from the site of the explosion.”
She thought he might tell her she was crazy. Instead, he just nodded. “From what I could see before all hell broke loose and the evidence blew to kingdom come, someone was mining that stuff. It’s something like vespene gas; that much is for sure. But it doesn’t seem to be fuel. So what were they planning to do with it?” He spread his hands. “That’s the question.”
“What were you doing on that planet, Mal? I know about the missing ghost. But what else is going on here?”
“I wish I knew.” He stood up again and walked to the door, looking out the window. She could sense he was worried about people overhearing them, and that it had to do with top secret orders directly from Emperor Mengsk. She tried not to read any deeper into his thoughts, but she was finding it more difficult today than usual.
(stop prying, Nova)
When he turned back, he was smiling again. “I can feel you in there,” he said. “Gives me an even bigger headache. Right now I’m on enough analgesics to numb a zergling. But you probably felt that too.” He sat back down on the bed, leaning forward as if to impart a deep secret. “I’ll tell you what I do know. It’s not one ghost who’s disappeared. It’s at least a dozen or more. They all vanished without a trace. It’s been going on for over a year now, but the ghost program has kept it hush-hush.”
“What about their neural implants?”
“Every single one of them went dark shortly after they disappeared. They’re either dead and cremated, or their implants have been disabled. We can’t track them.” Kelerchian rubbed his palms against his coat, a nervous habit she suddenly remembered well. “Agent X52735N was sent to Altara to investigate rumors of a UED terrorist cell before she disappeared, with support from the 22nd Marine Division.”
“The Annihilators?”
“You got it. Just like old friends, eh?”
“I don’t—”
“No memory of that part? They were with me when I pulled you out of the Gutter way back when. Let’s just say we had our issues, but Ndoci’s long gone; Captain Spaulding’s in charge, and he’s a major now. Anyway, the ghost vanishes, Spaulding claims to know nothing about it, and Mengsk sends me on a priority one to find out what the fekk happened. When I landed on Altara, I walked through Oasis first. One hell of a town they got there, let me tell you. Full of addicts, criminals, and worse. Not surprising that nobody wanted to talk to me, but most of them didn’t even seem to know there was a refinery halfway around that godforsaken place. So I flew over the site for a look-see. I got an eyeful—the refinery was operational, complete with a work crew that looked like they were packing up for a fast getaway.”
“You think they had a role in the ghost’s disappearance.”
“Considering they attacked me when I landed, I think that’s a good bet. These guys were well trained and well armed, probably ex-military. I fought them off for a while, but in the process we must have damaged the refinery core, because it went up like a nuke.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.” Kelerchian scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I’ll tell you something else. About five minutes after I arrived on the scene, I had a splitting headache, the kind I get when telepaths are around. There was definitely some psionic activity going on at that place. At first I thought maybe the missing ghost was nearby, but I didn’t see any sign of her, and she didn’t make an effort to reach out to me telepathically.”
“Maybe she was unconscious,” Nova said.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. This was a headache of legendary proportions. Something else was going on.” Kelerchian shrugged. “The only time I’ve experienced anything anywhere near like that was being around you when you pulled one of your teek stunts. But even those weren’t quite up to this level.”
“I’d like to think I didn’t cause you too much pain back then.”
“I suffered in silence. We all have our sacrifices. You’re different, kid. I can’t put my finger on it, but you’ve changed.”
“I’ve grown up.”
“It’s more than that. You’re less closed up, I guess.” His eyes held real warmth. “I always liked you. Rich girl growing up in one of the Old Families of the Confederacy, dealt about the worst hand possible by a hostile universe, but you wouldn’t go down without a fight. You were a beauty and you had spirit, even down in that Gutter with the hab addicts and crab dealers. I saw it from the beginning, and I guess I was right, because look at you now.” He shook his head. “The most impressive ghost I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re different too, I think.”
“How so?”
“You were … larger before, weren’t you?”
Kelerchian threw back his head and laughed out loud. “I guess I’ve dropped a few pounds. It was all that rehab and muscle stimulants after the injuries from the battle on Tarsonis, got me back into fighting shape. I fit into that wrangler suit a little better these days.”
“Maybe it’s good to remember some things. It’s great to see you, Mal.”
“Good to see you too, kid.” He smiled. “Good to see you too.”
A brief knock on the door, and Dr. Shaw stuck his head in. “Captain Rourke says you two are wanted on the bridge ASAP. I told her you should rest, but she’s insisting.”
Kelerchian and Nova exchanged glances. Hauler. “We got time to change out of these damned hospital gowns?” Kelerchian said. “I’m feeling a little vulnerable.”
“Maybe,” Shaw said. “If you hurry.”
I like him, Nova thought as they made their way through the narrow winding corridors to the bridge, both of them wearing their suits once again. It was a remarkably strange feeling to half remember someone, running into an old friend and knowing you shared something in the past, without all of it coming through; it was like watching a movie with key scenes missing. But she knew enough to feel familiar with him.
It was even stranger to like someone after being alone so long and trained to depend on nobody other than yourself. She’d spent so much time going from mission to mission, living only to serve the Dominion before having her memory wiped and starting all over again. It was a ghost’s role, and she was good at it. Feeling close to another person only made you weak, and that was something a ghost could not afford. She knew that she was known as a ruthless killer, a machine created for only one purpose. Men who might find her attractive on the surface (and there were plenty, as she knew well from the casual thoughts that slipped through) did not even think about approaching her. She preferred it that way. No strings, nothing to lose or regret, and no danger of reliving the pain that always came when you began to care about something or someone and it was taken from you.
When they reached the bridge, they found Hauler, Ward, Harvey, and several people Nova didn’t recognize, although within moments she had sensed their names, ranks, and what they had had for breakfast, among other things. They were science team members assigned to the investigation of the gas samples that had been isolated from the planet’s surface. Terran thoughts were bombarding her from all sides now, even with her neural inhibitor, and she found it more and more difficult to screen out the noise.
“It’s about time,” Hauler said. He turned to the waiting men. “Report.”
A man named Karl Lee, the leader of the team, explained the latest findings. “It’s an unknown substance,” he said, bringing up a molecular hologram that he manipulated with his fingers. “We’ve isolated its structure, and it’s naturally occurring and quite similar to vespene gas, along with some unusual organics. But the purpose of mining it remains unclear. It’s not as flammable as vespene and it doesn’t seem to hold any other properties that might make it valuable, except one.” He turned to the tactical officer, who brought up a map of space on the viewscreen. “I’ve marked where the zerg mass first appeared on our scans, and right here”—Lee pointed to an abrupt change in its trajectory—“this is the exact time the explosion occurred. You can see they immediately changed course for Altara.”
Nova remembered how she had felt when she had last entered the bridge and sensed the zerg approaching. “Like a psionic beacon,” she said. “That gas was sending out some kind of signal.”
“What kind of gas brings the zerg out of hiding?” Kelerchian said. “They haven’t been seen around here in four years.”
“I don’t give a damn why they came,” Hauler said. “All I care about is that we wipe them out and they don’t come back.”
“And what about that little army that attacked me at the refinery?” Kelerchian said. “Was that a Kel-Morian operation?”
“We don’t have a record of anything being mined on Altara,” Hauler said. “Probably squatters. Or leftover UED infantry like on Abaddon.”
“The Dominion sent that ghost to Altara to investigate rumors of a terrorist cell.”
“If they were there,” Hauler said, “they’re gone now. And so is the ghost.”
The communications officer, who had been listening to a comm channel, turned from his station. “Excuse me, sir, but there’s a top secret transmission coming in from Korhal. Emperor Mengsk would like an audience with Agent X41822N and Mr. Kelerchian immediately.”
Hauler grunted. “We’ll take it in my quarters,” he said.
“My apologies, sir,” the officer said. He looked terrified. “The emperor was quite specific that they attend alone.”
“Well, ain’t that just a bitch?” Hauler said drily. “Tell you what: I’ll go make you all a cup of coffee and clean your quarters while I wait. Maybe book you a massage. You get your asses back here ASAP.”