PROJECT: SHADOWBLADE

Gabriel Tosh careened through the rough-hewn, rocky corridors of the station, flushed with equal parts power and adrenaline and shame, and tried to calm his pounding heart. He could feel the giant engines throbbing beneath his feet as they hurtled through space. Kath had looked so vulnerable sitting there, so lonely. She used to be the most confident, poised woman he’d ever known. He’d ached to gather her in his arms, but he knew that she would have rejected him at that moment. It was not the time.

He knew how hard it was for a ghost to deal with a flood of returning memories. And Kath’s situation was even more sensitive, considering what had happened to her father and the truth about their investigation into Sector 9.

She had so much to process, so much to understand.

He, however, understood everything. The terrazine, enhanced with just a touch of jorium, had given him a clarity of thought that he could only dream of before, as well as heightened abilities that approached protoss levels. He knew that he had been created for a purpose, to save the ghost program from itself and restore order to the universe. Spectres were the chosen ones and should not be under the control of any government or entity other than their own. If ghosts were superhuman, spectres were close to gods, and with that power came the responsibility to control and influence others, not the other way around.

His grandma would have agreed, if she were still living. Sometimes he imagined he could still hear her voice calling to him. She used to say his psionic abilities were a kind of voodoo, and for many years he’d believed her. Grandma Tosh had been an imposing figure, commanding the respect not just of her own family but of everyone around her as well. Growing up on Haji, he hadn’t had much access to or use for education, and she hadn’t either. But she’d always loved him and treated him well, whether she’d been secretly frightened of him or not, and he could not say the same for most of the rest of the terrans.

You be runnin’ home now, little Gabriel. It gettin’ dark, an’ we be feelin’ a powerful storm.

Gabriel Tosh had not been home in twenty years. He touched the beaded charm hanging around his thickly muscled neck with the tiny doll-like figure at the end of it. A remnant from a lifetime ago, and all he had to remember her by.

As he turned a corner the lights dimmed, flickered, and he faced a small bald-headed boy with large eyes and prominent ears, hands splayed at his sides, a twitchiness about him that wouldn’t stop. Lio. He shook his head to clear it, and the boy was gone; of course, he had never really been there at all. But Tosh knew the lights’ flickering had been a signal. Lio wanted to talk.

He took the next corridor on his left, a short passageway that led to a set of steps ascending to the bridge.

The room was empty except for the many computer screens blinking and whirring, busy running the multitude of advanced programs that Lio had helped them design and that kept the station going with a minimum crew. With Lio’s help Tosh could pilot the gigantic station alone, if need be.

Tosh went to the nearest terminal. Almost immediately the screen lit up.

What were you doing with Dylanna?

“She needed to learn a lesson,” Tosh typed. “Nobody treats Kath that way. This isn’t the academy; we’re on the same team now.”

Too rough, Gabriel.

“Don’t be telling me my business. You run this station, and I’ll worry about everything else.”

The screen flickered and winked out for a moment. Lio’s version of a temper tantrum. He might have left his physical body behind when he entered the AI core after his death, but his psionic presence remained. He had always related better to machines than to people, and he knew it. They were his true kin, his soul.

Typing: “I’m the leader of this group, Lio. You don’t agree with that, you can find some other system to squat in.”

The screen pulsed green again. I like this one. I built it.

“I know you did, and I thank you for it.” Tosh sighed and looked away from the screen, rubbing his thick goatee. If he were to be honest with himself, Tosh thought, Lio had changed. The lack of self-confidence that had plagued him was gone. He was human, and yet he was not, and the physical world seemed to have become a point of curiosity more than anything else. But even in his new form, Lio was an indispensable member of Team Blue, now more than ever. In many ways he was more powerful than any of them. He’d helped save Tosh’s life back when the Dominion had been chasing him down. Lio didn’t need terrazine to expand his senses, and he no longer needed hab either to calm his nerves, now that he existed as nothing more than a pattern of ones and zeros inside a computer network. He could get into places nobody else could, and do things nobody else could even imagine, like pilot a space station single-handedly, infiltrate an enemy’s network and disable it, or eavesdrop on communications. The trick was in keeping him loyal. So far, that hadn’t been a problem, but knowing Lio’s hot temper, that might not last.

“Dylanna and Kath will be okay; don’t worry,” he typed. “We have too much riding on this to fail. I won’t allow it.”

For a moment he thought Lio wouldn’t respond at all, but then the screen flickered again.

Incoming call. It’s him again.

“Put it through.”

The monitor on the wall flickered and glowed, and a familiar face came into view. “About time you answered me. I was beginning to wonder if you were still alive.”

“Had to settle in our new addition and take care of some business, General. Everything’s on schedule.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The explosive charges and zerg did not completely destroy the remains of the refinery on Altara.”

“That don’t matter,” Tosh said. “The terrazine vein was almost bled clean. With someone there watching, we’re covered, but the Dominion won’t find anything useful. There’s enough terrazine and jorium to keep us in business for a long time. And the trap worked; Lio sending that message out like it was from Mengsk himself, bringing Kath right to us. We got what we wanted.”

“There are other pieces of this to consider.” The general waved a hand at a dimly lit map in the background that showed Dominion strongholds and trade centers. “Beyond adding to the ranks of our spectres, our attacks have been gathering attention and weakening support, as we planned. And Michael Liberty may be a pawn we can use to spread our message when the time is right. But the incidents on Altara have changed things.”

“How do you figure?”

“Mengsk himself has taken a greater interest. My sources tell me that every available ghost agent is on the way to Altara. And Nova Terra and her wrangler are leading the investigation.”

“So what? It’s almost time to recruit her anyway. We’ll just speed up the process a little.”

“Our allies are getting a bit concerned. She’s not like the others, Tosh. She’s far more dangerous.”

“And that much more valuable, once she’s been turned.”

The general appeared to consider this for a moment. Tosh waited him out. The truth was, he was ready to go after Nova anyway. He and Lio had never been able to locate Delta, who had used her precog abilities to remain deeply hidden, but now that Kath was here, his plan to reunite the remaining members of Team Blue was almost complete. He was sure that he could convince Nova of the importance of their mission, once he had a chance. The truth of what Mengsk had done to the last of the Old Families on Shi would push her over the edge, and he and Lio had proof of all of it.

But she would have to be handled in the right way. They had a history, he and Nova. He had loved her as much as he had loved Kath in the time that came after everything had gone to hell. Even if Nova had suffered a mind wipe and didn’t remember the two of them, he certainly did—and once terrazine had the chance to do its work, she would remember it too.

Ultimately, she would come to understand everything. But if there was one thing he knew about November Terra, it was that she could not be forced into anything. It would have to be her choice.

The screen nearest him flickered and glowed green: You want to take her on to prove yourself. That you’re better than her.

Gabriel Tosh pretended to ignore Lio. But maybe there was a little truth to what he said too. These days, Lio was usually right.

“All right,” the general said finally. “Our ultimate goal is to expose Arcturus Mengsk as the traitor and fraud that he is, but the best chance to do that is to have Terra in the fold. I had hoped for a little more time to prepare, but we have been sneaking around like snakes in the high grass for long enough. We have more than two dozen spectres under our leadership; our army is building; and our Umojan friends have supplied us with the proper firepower.”

“Music to my ears, General.”

The general smiled, but the expression was not pleasant. “I think it’s time to make a very public statement to strike fear into the heart of the Dominion and show Mengsk that he has lost control of his empire—and bring Terra to us in the process. You know what to do.”

Tosh nodded and cut the transmission. The general was right; it was past time, actually. What they had planned would draw the ghosts away from Altara, allow the spectres to destroy all remaining evidence of their operation there, and give them a chance to bring in Nova.

He put his lips to the mouthpiece of his portable bottle of terrazine, took a deep drag, and lit up like an exploding star, every nerve singing. They were already unstoppable, but with Nova on board and Team Blue together once again, they would put things right once and for all, and everything would be as it had been back at the academy, where he had spent the best years of his life.

He was ready. Project: Shadowblade was moving into the final phases. It was time to show the Dominion what they could do.