THE BATTLE FOR AUGUSTGRAD
As soon as she reached the fence that ringed the interior courtyard, the other ghosts close behind, Nova knew that the message Mal had received about the attack from the emperor had been real.
She had remained worried that it might have been faked to draw them into a trap, the same way the UED terrorist tip had brought Agent X52735N to Altara. But the palace courtyard was too quiet. Normally there would be a heavy imperial guard presence and regular patrols, as well as palace workers coming in and out. But that wasn’t what really bothered her. There was something else carried by the faint wind, a tingling that left her alert and ready for trouble. She was reminded of the mad chase through the empty rooms in Oasis and the way she’d felt just before that, when the face had appeared at the dusty window: a presence like a flash of bright yellow among the dull gray halos that surrounded the rest of the town’s residents.
Something—or someone—was here, watching her.
Glancing around, Nova saw a spot on the pavement nearby. She crouched next to a strange shape drawn in the dust, its outline faint but noticeable, and let her computer scan and enhance it and then run it through the database. A moment later it came up with a match, a voodoo veve diagram meant to represent the death goddess Maman Therese.
Somewhere deep inside her, something stirred. She saw a giant of a man with a necklace where a small doll hung from a string of beads. But she couldn’t place anything else about him, and the truth dangled tantalizingly close, but just out of reach.
Peekaboo.
Nova whirled around as laughter filled her head. The other ghosts murmured among themselves. She glanced at her HUD’s map and found one fewer green dot, and things clicked into place: the way Bones had appeared at the back of the building in Oasis as whatever she had been chasing had mysteriously disappeared, the smile he’d given to her, and the way he’d still been able to see her when she was cloaked.
My name is Talen Holt, actually. I’m a free man now.
Bones—or Holt, as he claimed to be—materialized for a brief moment on the other side of the fence, his gaunt features and black hair barely visible in the darkness, and his presence bloomed bright yellow across her sight. Then he winked out again and was gone.
How could she have been so clueless? She had never sensed any danger from him, or any suspicious thoughts, and his record had been clean. If he had been one of the ghosts who had been taken during the past few months, someone must have altered the files to conceal that, or perhaps he’d been recruited quietly and then put right back into action without anyone knowing it. The “how” didn’t really matter, anyway; the damage had been done. The entire time, he’d been working to undermine them, positioned right under their noses, feeding everything they did back to the enemy.
He had played her for a fool.
A white-hot rage erupted in Nova. She sensed the confusion of the other ghosts around her as they tried to make sense of what they had seen. But there was no time to explain, and their attempt at making a stealthy approach was over. Holt would give away their position to the others, if he hadn’t told them already, and if Mengsk was still alive now, he wouldn’t be for much longer.
She had to stop him at all costs, even if it brought the Augustgrad law enforcement running.
Power rose up in her as she faced the fence and sent it blasting off its moorings with one violent mental push, sending the laser wire that ringed the top crackling in great arcs of blue fire, then ran through the opening, the five remaining ghosts close at her heels. The effort hadn’t caused even the slightest twinge of pain in her temples, she realized with a start; in fact, she felt stronger than ever. Along with that came a strange feeling of euphoria and invincibility. She felt as if she could crack the very ground in half and take on the entire zerg Swarm at once.
As she ran she sensed that the palace’s auto-turrets were not responding to her presence. How had the terrorists shut everything down? Did they really have someone on the inside who could do something at such a high level without being detected? It seemed impossible, but she couldn’t think of any other way.
Holt’s voice echoed maddeningly in her head: Is that all you can do, November Terra? Tear down a fence? How disappointing. I’d heard so much about you.
He was close. But where? She had to keep him talking while she found a way to uncover his position.
There’s more to me than meets the eye, X72341R.
She could sense his frustration at her use of his number. It’s Talen. And you have no idea yet what you’re capable of, but you will, once you join us.
Not gonna happen. Nova glanced around. A giant bowl-shaped fountain with a statue of Mengsk dominated the center of the courtyard, sprays of water shooting skyward before landing again with a soft hissing sound.
She remembered their encounter in the small dusty room in Oasis, and how his footprints had revealed him to her. It gave her an idea.
What a brilliant thought, Nova. That’ll do the trick. I’ll just wash away—
With a single, smooth burst, Nova teeked the spray of water sideways, splattering a wide sweep of the courtyard. About four and a half meters to the left, the water bent and fell around an invisible figure, outlining the shape of his body on the dry stone.
She sensed a thought from him that wasn’t fully formed, the first moment of alarm as he realized what she’d done and why. But by then she had locked onto his position and pushed, hard, her frustration pouring out of her in a blast of teek energy that took her breath away.
Holt cried out—whether it was audible or inside her head, she didn’t know—and she felt him push back, a feeble attempt to block the wave of power that was already cooking his brain. For a brief moment she faltered; how could he have a teek ability like this? As a ghost, Holt had had a PI level of 6. But he was still no match for her. She heard something drop to the stone, and suddenly he was visible again, sprawled out with one leg bent underneath him, and she sensed his bright yellow presence as it throbbed once, and then slowly faded like the afterimage of a brilliant flash of light in a blackened room.
I—I didn’t …
His alarm had turned to surprise, as if he could not reconcile what was actually happening with the outcome he’d been convinced would occur. She felt a connection with him that was both strong and unexpected, an outpouring of emotion that left her shuddering and weak. She realized that whatever else he might have done, he had felt justified in his role and the righteousness of his actions. And he could not understand how it had all come to this.
Then he was just … gone.
“Fekking hell,” Rook said out loud. “What happened?”
He had stepped up next to her, the only one to do so. The entire exchange had taken no more than thirty seconds, and the other ghosts stood frozen in place just a meter inside the courtyard.
“He was a traitor,” she said. “I had no choice.”
Blood was trickling from Holt’s ears and eyes, mixing with the water from the fountain and staining the stone red. Nova watched it run pink. She thought she would feel vindicated at the sight, but strangely, she felt confused, lost, and more alone than ever.
Ever since she had graduated from the Ghost Academy, her world had existed in right and wrong, black and white. Either you were in support of the Dominion, or you were the enemy.
But this? This was an entirely different color, and she could not figure out why.
Her comm unit crackled in her ear, the audio fuzzing in and out. “… briefing … 22nd Division … assault positions …” It sounded like Hauler, but she couldn’t be sure and her computer could not identify the source. Was he saying that Spaulding and the Annihilators were on their way?
“Repeat,” she said, holding the comm closer to her ear with a finger, but it was no good. Whatever person or thing had control of the airwaves wasn’t going to give it up anytime soon. This would cause a great deal of trouble for the marines, since communications were essential for battle. Hauler was probably looking to her for intel in order to direct the troops. If he sent them in now, they would be flying blind, and the chances of success would be greatly reduced. Facing a small, well-armed guerrilla group like these terrorists would almost surely result in a disaster for the Dominion, as the marines would tear each other to pieces trying to fight an enemy that could appear and disappear at will.
But there were other, more pressing problems to address. She could hear sirens in the distance as emergency vehicles approached, probably alerted by the fence blasting off its posts. She couldn’t waste any more time.
She directed the others to follow her and skirted the fountain on the left, heading for the main entrance. She wanted to get to Mengsk as soon as possible, but something told her to move carefully. It was all too quiet, and she wondered again where all the people were. Her suit’s scans of the building showed it to be completely empty, no movement. This time of night, most people would be home with their families, but there should still be more activity, not to mention guard presence. Imperial guards were some of the best in the business, and they would have been running to investigate the sound in the courtyard by now. It was as if someone had removed all traces of a normal, bustling palace and replaced them with a movie set.
“I don’t like this,” Cyborg said. She had moved up to Nova’s side this time, and tension was radiating off her. “I feel … nothing.”
Nova was about to agree, but she realized that wasn’t quite right. She felt a presence that she could not explain, something that wasn’t focused in any particular spot, more like a feeling of energy crackling the air like high-tension wires. It was stronger than the tingling she’d felt when they had first arrived at the palace. Much stronger.
“They’re here,” she said. “Ready your weapons.”
Nobody moved. A breeze wafted air across their faces as the other ghosts moved up to defensive formation around her near the palace steps, unslinging their C-10s and steadying themselves before an invisible enemy. Fighting other soldiers was one thing. Facing a larger, more powerful, and armed battalion was something ghosts could plan for and understood. Even the zerg were visible. But this, she could tell, was unknown territory for them all, and in spite of their training she felt their confidence beginning to fail.
Nova was about to order them inside when the world seemed to explode around them.
Gabriel Tosh watched the six ghosts approach the palace entrance, his skin tingling with anticipation. His recent hit of terrazine had heightened his senses beyond anything he’d ever known. In spite of their cloaking devices, he could see them all as clearly as if they’d been lit up with spotlights, even distinguish between each of them by the color of their auras. Grandma Tosh would have said he was still possessed by spirits, most likely, but he knew the truth: he had been given a gift, and he was destined to fulfill the savior’s role and lead these lost souls out into the light.
It was a pity some of them would have to die in the process.
Tosh looked around at Caleb, Jara, and Karl, who perched like birds of prey upon the top of the steps, looking down at their targets. They had taken out the rest of the guards and what was left of the palace staff, and bodies now littered the corridors. And then they had come out here just in time to witness the end of Nova’s clash with their unfortunate mole, Talen Holt.
Tosh could sense their anger at losing one of their own, and he wanted to temper that to make sure things didn’t get out of control too quickly. But he was angry too: not at Nova, because he didn’t blame her for protecting herself. He was angry at Holt for thinking he could toy with her in that way, and at himself for not acting quickly enough to stop it. Nova was like a wounded animal, dangerous when cornered. She had to be convinced that joining them was the right thing to do.
The others, though, were expendable, if they chose to fight. He looked back down at the courtyard and the ghosts, who had formed a defensive circle. Just beyond them lay Holt’s body, blood running freely through the cracks between the stones. They were wary, and for good reason. They were about to experience Maman Therese’s wrath.
Disable their suits first, Tosh told the rest of his team, and drag them out into the light. But try not to kill them. Let’s show ’em exactly what we can do.
He sent a mental picture to each of them, and Jara and Karl nodded and leapt from their perches, landing silently about six meters away on either side of the group of ghosts. He and Caleb walked straight toward them, unslinging their weapons as they went.
There was no warning of the attack. The ghosts were still standing in a circle when two of them were yanked violently backward with unseen hands as a wave of focused energy washed over them all.
Nova, still standing with the three others at her side, felt her ghost suit crackle with energy and her cloaking device abruptly cut off. Her HUD went dark too, leaving her without a map of the other ghosts’ positions or a good sense of the palace schematics. She tore off her headpiece and threw it aside; it was only a nuisance to her now.
She would have to rely on her own psionic abilities to sense what was coming.
She lay down a suppressing fire with her C-20A, raking the yard from left to right as the other ghosts, who had suddenly winked into existence next to her, did the same, their training kicking in even as she sensed their rising tension and excitement. Cyborg and the Veteran were locked in a vicious struggle behind her, but she didn’t have the time to glance at them because someone was probing at her mind and body, someone very powerful indeed.
LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, GHOSTS. We don’t want to hurt you, but we WILL finish the job if you try to resist.
The voice thundered in her head, and she could tell by the others’ reactions that they had heard it too. At the same time the force probing at her intensified and she could feel it working at her muscles in an attempt to take over her nervous system. She fought back hard, snapping its hold over her, but the other ghosts appeared to be frozen in place, their weapons suddenly silent. She could sense the panic in their thoughts as they struggled against whatever was holding them still, but they were unable to break free.
The rifle fire hadn’t hit anything as far as she could tell. But it was impossible to hit what you couldn’t see. She wanted to scream with frustration. With a single quick, decisive move, the terrorists had disabled their hostile environment suits and left the ghosts at a drastic disadvantage. She had to find a way to make this a more even fight.
Think, Nova.
Their opponents clearly had the upper hand, and yet they hadn’t delivered a killing blow. They were too confident, and confidence led to weakness. The ghosts had one shot to take advantage of the opening.
Cyborg and the Veteran had been physically attacked. So she knew where at least two of the attackers had been just a moment ago.
With one practiced, fluid motion, Nova spun to face the two ghosts, now lying frozen on the stone, took one leap forward, and kicked out at the spot where she thought a terrorist would be standing. She felt a satisfactory thud as she met resistance, and she fired her C-20A with her other hand at the second spot over the Veteran, lashing out psionically as she landed on the other side of Cyborg and searched for anything she could use.
She saw a blooming of color where her boot had hit and someone cried out inside her mind, and then the two ghosts were free, leaping to their feet before something struck her like a thundering dropship, knocking her sideways and to the ground, her ears ringing and her vision exploding with stars.
When she regained her senses a moment later, she found that the battle had begun in full force. Somehow her attack had broken the terrorists’ hold on the other ghosts. Her C-20A had badly damaged a terrorist’s suit, revealing his partial outline, his blood running freely down his now useless arm. He wore what looked like a hostile environment suit of some kind, all in black, and he had carried an unfamiliar rifle that now lay on the stone at his feet.
Three ghosts had surrounded him and she watched them take him to the ground while the Veteran was laying down suppressing fire. Lethal fought hard with another invisible opponent, taking shots to her body but using them to learn where to hit back. She was small but remarkably quick and intuitive, and seemed to be holding her own for now.
But none of that was as important anymore, because Nova realized with a shock that she could sense their attackers.
Of course she knew that the terrorists must have been able to sense each other in some way, while remaining cloaked for everyone else. But the subtle, glowing auras around each of them hadn’t been completely visible in her mind before. Either her powers were still expanding, or they had chosen to reveal themselves to her now for some reason she had yet to understand.
It doesn’t matter why. Just act.
Nova pulled up her C-20A, sighted at the glowing figure toying with Lethal, and opened fire.
The canister flew straight and strong, and the distance was less than nine meters, but the target must have sensed something because he threw his upper body backward at the last moment, bending impossibly deep at the waist even as Nova teeked the round to follow him.
Instead of hitting his temple and exploding out the other side, the canister shattered his mask and ripped through his nose and upper jaw.
The terrorist clutched at his face and dropped to his knees, spitting blood and bits of white bone and gurgling, his cloaking device interrupted as he suddenly became visible in front of everyone else.
Lethal kicked him in the throat, crushing his windpipe. He dropped soundlessly to the stone.
Two down.
Nova felt a mindless scream of rage tear through her head as another one of the terrorists leapt forward, grabbing Lethal by the throat and holding her still. She struggled but then went limp, her body convulsing once and shuddering before she began bleeding from the eyes and mouth. Nova fired her rifle, teeking the rounds toward their target but still missing badly as the terrorist leapt upward and away, toward the front gates. She saw him engage a group of emergency responders who had arrived, sirens blazing, only to be quickly and ruthlessly killed as they tried to fight back.
A moment later the C-20A was ripped from her grasp and thrown across the courtyard. She sensed someone probing at her mind and looked up to see another figure standing at the foot of the palace steps, his features indistinct, his aura glowing a pale green. He seemed to be watching over the battle, waiting to see which way it would go.
Terrazine’s at work in you, his voice said inside her head. You’ve been exposed on Altara. You can see us.
She sensed the man’s surprise; something else that hadn’t gone as planned, she thought with a small measure of satisfaction.
Who are you?
My name’s Gabriel Tosh. Maybe you remember me.
At the sound of that name, Nova was catapulted back in time.
… in the cafeteria with the rest of her team, Tosh’s thick dreadlocks quivering as he laughed at something Lio said, his arm around Nova’s shoulders …
… a shared kiss between them …
… and fighting for real as a cadet thrust into the middle of the zerg battle on Shi in what was supposed to be a training mission, the last of the Old Families in mortal danger, waiting for Gabriel Tosh to get clear before she unleashed a massive mind blast to destroy the zerg …
… and after a mind wipe, her disbelief as Tosh tried to convince her that the zerg had been purposely put on Shi by the Dominion, and that after the children of the Old Families had been brought to safety, Mengsk had secretly made them disappear and buried the whole thing …
… and finally, getting the news that Tosh was killed in action on a top secret mission …
Nova brought herself out of the flashback with a shake of her head. No, she thought. It can’t be true. You’re dead, and none of that happened.
He sent her a mental image: running through the desolate Shi landscape, zerg closing in, knowing that he could not get clear in time—and the sudden wave of pure energy that had washed over them as the mind blast occurred, zerglings dropping dead and bleeding from the eyes as he was thrown into the air.
It happened, all right. You destroyed ’em all with a psionic blast that left me changed. You did something to me. You were a part of it. I don’t know why, but I was different after that. I remembered everything the academy tried to wipe away. Nobody could read my thoughts unless I let ’em. And I was stronger than I’d ever been. Could see everything clear as day. And what I saw, what they did to ghosts, what Mengsk did to those kids … I had to run, or they would have killed me.
Why didn’t you tell us?
I tried, but you’d all been wiped right after that zerg battle; you wouldn’t believe me. But me, it didn’t take. I sat through the whole thing. I couldn’t stay there anymore, so I went AWOL, and they told you I’d gotten myself killed somewhere like a fool. Meanwhile they were hunting me down. You understand? They do whatever they need to do to get their way. Mengsk dropped those zerg on Shi to destroy the last of the Old Families, then we followed straight into hell. When we ended up saving the day, he just wiped us all and killed them anyway. It’s all a big experiment to him, a game.
That can’t be—
It’s true. I’m standing up for what I believe in now. That mind blast opened up my eyes. The Dominion made us all slaves. You call us spectres terrorists, but Mengsk is worse than any of us.
Spectres?
That’s right. Now stop this before you get the rest of your ghosts killed, Nova Terra.
She realized that the action around her had ceased. She was trembling, caught in the overwhelming emotions of memories that continued to leave her shaken and confused. She remembered little Lila and that same term, spectres, on Altara, and it left her cold. What Tosh was saying could not be right. The Old Families had already been all but destroyed; Tarsonis, leveled. Nova’s own family gone forever. Those who had been left were no threat to Mengsk. He couldn’t have done such a thing.
No. She shook her head. Whatever else had happened to Gabriel Tosh since she’d last seen him, he must have lost his mind. Tosh’s venom against the Dominion was like a disease. In order to stop the plague from spreading, she had to cut off its head.
“I am Agent X41822N,” she said out loud, as if to show everyone where her allegiance lay. Or maybe it was for her own benefit. “Nova Terra is dead.”
She glanced to her right, focusing her mind on the six-meter-tall statue of Mengsk and the fountain, and ripped the statue from its moorings, throwing it at Tosh with all her strength.
The statue, the size and weight of a siege tank, hurtled through the air and hit the steps of the palace with a tremendous, shuddering crash, bouncing upward through one of the supporting pillars and into the huge front doors, crushing stone and plascrete as it buried itself a meter deep inside the palace walls.
Dust rose in a great cloud as debris rained down around her. Using the cloud as cover, she held her breath and raced forward as someone fired at her from behind. She sensed the whining rounds enough to avoid them as they ticked off the palace facade, and then she teeked the statue aside to expose the gaping hole in the palace walls where the doors had been.
Tosh had disappeared back inside the building.
Mengsk was still inside somewhere too. She had to remember their mission. Find the emperor and protect him at all costs.
Nova leapt over the shattered steps and ran inside the front entryway as the dust began to clear, away from the live rounds still whining off stone outside. She found herself in a huge, echoing vestibule filled with columns and marble. Even inside, all the auto-defenses were down. The guards’ area sat empty about six meters from the doors. Scanning for dangerous spots, she felt and saw nothing, but drew her sidearm as insurance as she raced forward, trying to recall where the emperor’s office was located. If memory served her correctly, it was in the center of the building, beyond several layers of meeting rooms, offices, and a dining hall. The safe room would be close.
She ran through another large empty room lined with expensive oil paintings, took a left at the end of a short hall, and stopped. Bodies littered the thickly carpeted floor of the next room, all of them bleeding from the eyes and ears and mouth. Flicking hell. It was a massacre, and her stomach soured at the sight. She had seen plenty of dead bodies, but there were innocent civilians among the dead here.
I don’t like it either, Nova. If you hadn’t gone showing up when you did, we would have been in and out of here without so many killings, but you forced our hand.
She scanned left and right, trying to find the source of the voice in her head, but the room was empty and all the doors leading from it were closed.
Where are you, Tosh? Come out and fight like a man.
I don’t want to fight you. I just want you to listen, as friends.
You’re no friend of mine. Not after this. She passed the bodies, moving out a door on the opposite side of the room, toward the heart of the palace. She was close now, and moved more carefully. If Tosh was going to make his move, it would be soon.
Casualties of war. Mengsk and his Dominion are corrupt, Nova. You just can’t face the fact that you’ve signed your life away to a man like that. And you don’t remember what they did to us, because if you did, you’d put down that gun and join me.
After the dining hall, she entered a reception area that looked like the front room for Mengsk’s main office. The desk was empty, but she could see female legs sticking out from behind it and a pool of blood. A door behind the desk was closed.
The floor shuddered slightly under her feet, and she sensed a commotion outside the palace walls.
The marines have landed, Tosh, and the emergency law enforcement response is coming in. There’s no way for you to escape. Give it up now and I’ll let you live.
His chuckle filled her head. You really got no idea what’s happening, do you? It’s a revolution and no squadron of marines is going to stop it.
I and the other ghosts will.
You’ll join me sooner or later, when you’ve accepted the truth, just like the others. I have Kath back on Gehenna Station, and Lio’s with me too. You’ll round out our old team.
Nova stopped dead in her tracks, her mind filled with more memories of the past: her fellow academy recruits, brothers and sisters in arms, fighting side by side for the Dominion.
Kath wouldn’t betray the emperor, she said. And Lio’s gone for good. He’s … dead.
No. Lio’s entered the data stream, but he’s not gone. He’s become something … different. More powerful. Let me explain, Nova.
It’s too late for that. She skirted the desk, glancing down at the body of the secretary as she passed. So many deaths.
Then she tore the door from its hinges and entered the inner chamber.
It was larger than she’d expected, with tiled floors, leather couches, and an expensive rug, one wall dominated by a wet bar. There were no windows here in the center of the palace, making the room and what lay beyond it more secure.
The heavy metal door to the safe room was behind the emperor’s desk, normally hidden by panels that had been slid aside. It looked slightly battered, but it was intact. Mengsk was secure.
Then why did she feel a strange sense of disappointment at the sight?
Nova sensed the attack coming a moment before it occurred, and it gave her just enough time to dive forward into a tucked roll, the blow missing her heart by centimeters and tracing a burning river of fire across her shoulders as it glanced off. She came up to her feet and turned to see a woman, uncloaked and in the spectres’ now-familiar black garb, standing in front of her, mouth fixed in a rictus grin.
The woman held some kind of canister. “Breathe deep,” she said. “And see the light.”
And then she sprayed the contents of the canister in Nova’s face.
Nova felt the strange gas worm its way inside her body once again, the taste of coppery blood thick on her tongue. She felt like retching, but at the same time she realized she wanted it, had been craving that taste ever since the zerg battle on Altara. Explosions of color began to pop before her eyes like tiny fireworks and the room faded away, voices coming in at her from all sides like the whispering of a great, hushed crowd; someone else seemed to be shouting at her from a distance, but she could not make out what they were saying.
Bloody hands reached out for her through the fog, grasping at her ghost uniform and leaving streaks of gore. She swiped blindly with her arms, trying to fend them off, but the hands broke like wisps of smoke and then reformed in tendril-like swirls to pull at her once again. As she recoiled from the hands, faces began to take shape within the fog, and she realized with a shock that these were all people she had killed during her time as an enforcer for Fagin, and later as a ghost assassin, running down AWOL members of the marines, traitors against the emperor, UED leaders and spies. Everything seemed to rush back at her at once, all her top secret missions that had been fed to her through the ghost program or directly from Mengsk himself.
The fog lifted …
She crept up creaking and rotted backstairs in an Agrian slum, rain drumming on the metal roof and dripping through cracks onto her head, her weapon out, listening to the noises from the apartment above. Her target, a former noncom accused of selling information on new Dominion weaponry to mercs during the war, was eating dinner, his voice rising occasionally in a curse at his wife, who was rushing back and forth to serve him cheese and potted meat, but could never move quite fast enough for him. Nova could smell the food in the air, rancid and close; she could even sense the taste on the man’s tongue from reading his thoughts. She sensed another terran in the apartment too, but he was linked to an alpha wave sleeper and posed no threat, so she continued moving silently upward.
At the landing she paused, listening to the chatter for a moment before kicking the door in and sweeping the room with her C-10, her barrel fixing upon the man behind his kitchen table, shirt stained and his belly straining from years of neglect, bloodshot eyes startled into blind panic. A tiny robot pet monkey screeched and cowered behind a chair, a child’s toy that had seen better days, its fur worn through to metal, its joints rusty and servos whining and clacking. The room smelled powerfully of mold and cigar smoke.
No, his wife shouted, do not shoot; he is innocent! But Nova had her orders, and when her HUD identified the target, she did not hesitate.
The explosions tore a hole through the man’s chest the size of a fist, knocking him backward out of his chair and onto his side, blood pumping as he clutched at himself, gasped, and then died. His wife screamed senselessly over and over again, and Nova was inside her head and felt her agony of despair at the certainty that she could not survive without him, even though he hit her when he was drunk and liked to pinch and bite her in bed.
The monkey scrambled across the room. Movement in the doorway. Nova swiveled the barrel of the C-10 to cover the small boy who shuffled out into the light, rubbing his face with one hand, clutching the monkey’s paw in another. His blond hair stuck up all over his head and his eyes went from sleepy to wide with shock.
Nova’s finger had tightened on the trigger, a hairs-breadth away, and she relaxed just enough to stop the gun from firing. Daddy! the boy screamed suddenly, running across the room, Daddy, what’s wrong? Why you bleeding? Then, looking up at his mother, Daddy hurt. Get the doctor, Mommy, hurry! But the mother wasn’t looking at him anymore; she was rushing at Nova and beating her with her fists, clawing at her headgear, and sobbing, a wild ball of hissing teeth and nails that would not stop until Nova put her down on the floor with the butt of the gun cracking against her temple.
The little boy screamed again as she backed out of the apartment to the landing, activating her cloaking device and taking the stairs three at a time, sensing something was wrong with the setup but not knowing what, the rain cold on the back of her neck as she burst out into the muddy streets and disappeared, leaving them behind as she always did, a ghost fading away into the night, death in her wake.
The little boy that lingered in her mind morphed into Lila, the girl from Altara, her face pale with terror, and Nova’s stomach clenched. She turned to run, but Fagin stood in front of her. That’s the kind of man you work for, baby, Fagin said, leering at her. Sending you to do his dirty work, executing people without giving them any chance of being saved. You know that guy you killed wasn’t a spy; hell, you read him—he couldn’t pull something like that off if you handed it to him on a platter. He was the brother of an old Confederate general, a low-level teep, and Mengsk wanted to send a special message by having a ghost take him out. Tying up loose ends, you know? The war’s over, you crush your enemies. It’s all a chess game to him. And now that little boy’s gonna grow up without a father. He stepped closer, reaching out a bloodied hand to her and tracing a finger down her arm. You thought I was bad. What would your own momma say to that, huh? Her baby killing people without a fair trial, with no chance to prove themselves. That’s not how the Terra family did business, is it? Or maybe it is. Maybe killing’s in your blood.
Nova swung her fist through the air where he’d been, swirling the fog that had eddied in while she wasn’t looking, but hitting nothing at all. Fagin was gone.
When she came out of the flashback, she found herself on the floor, the woman in black standing over her, canister still in one hand, Nova’s gun in the other. The entire attack had lasted only seconds, but Lila’s scared little face lingered in her mind.
The woman had fiery red hair. Dylanna Okyl. Nova remembered her. They had a history together from the academy, on two different teams that had clashed during training exercises and then joined up to fight the zerg on Shi.
Am I buying all this now? Is it that easy?
She knew one thing: she hadn’t liked Dylanna then, and she liked her even less now.
She could see Tosh in the doorway behind her. He was uncloaked too, his dreadlocks longer and thicker than she remembered, his body heavier, more muscled under the black suit. There was something else different about him, but it took her a moment to figure it out. She realized that his eyes had turned a milky white since the last time she’d seen him. The effect was unsettling, as if he’d been blinded in some kind of accident, but he moved more surely than ever.
Nova’s back still burned from the blow she’d taken, and she felt wetness dripping down her waist. “That wasn’t Fagin in my head,” she said. She was still shaking from the vividness of the hallucination. “That was you. How do I know you aren’t just planting memories of what you want me to see?”
“I don’t need to operate like that. If you saw it, those things happened.” Tosh stepped closer. “There’s more for you to remember,” he said. “So much you should understand about yourself. Mengsk needs to answer for his crimes. Help us get him out of that room. Come with us, and be free forever.”
“You’ll never make it out of here.”
Tosh chuckled, his voice throaty and deep. “You don’t know what I can do, Nova. The terrazine gives me power I never dreamed of before. You’ll be questioning everything, the way I did at first, trying to come to terms with your memory coming back. It’s a hard thing for a ghost, I know it. You’ve been brainwashed so long you don’t know what real is anymore. But I’m here to tell you that this ain’t the way to peace. Not living in palaces like these, building bigger armies, and stabbing people in the back while your lieutenants are running torture camps on fringe worlds and bleeding the colonists dry.” He shook his head, the dreadlocks swaying like snakes. “Not turning your most gifted recruits into machines made for killing, and then using them up until there’s nothing left but a shell you throw away like garbage.”
No. Nova closed her eyes. I wanted this. She thought about joining the ghost program and how the idea had seemed like the perfect escape. Many terrans with psionic gifts were dragged kicking and screaming to the academy, but not Nova Terra. To her, it had been a chance for oblivion and a way to finally silence the voices inside her head that would not let her rest.
The voices were back again now, and they had been joined by many others. Voices that had been silenced by the repeated memory wipes, but were now clamoring to be heard.
She opened her moist eyes and found them both watching her silently, as if waiting for an answer. “You think this is any better? Look around. You’re murdering people in the name of revolution, but they’re still dead. You think they care who did the killing?”
Tosh sighed and looked down as his remote console beeped in his hands. “Lio says the marines are through the front door,” he said. “We don’t have much time. With your help we can get that safe room open.” He fixed his strange gaze upon her face, and she felt him lock onto her mind, probing gently, looking for clues to her true intentions. We could’ve taken you out just now, but we want you with us. You’re the key to our plans. I remember what a great team we made. We can do it again, only this time, it’s gonna count for something.
Dylanna looked back and forth between them, her entire body shaking. Nova saw her knuckles had turned white where she gripped the gun. “She’s not gonna change her mind,” Dylanna said. “I can feel it. We don’t need her.” She turned back to Nova, her eyes glittering. “She murdered some of our own. I say we take her right now, while we have the chance.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Nova said, climbing to her feet. Every single movement was an effort. She motioned to the gun. Blood dripped from the fingers of her right hand to the floor. “You have something that’s mine. I want it back.”
“I’ll give it back to you,” Dylanna said, “but you might not like my delivery method—”
The building shook, sending a glass statue on the desk toppling to the floor, where it shattered. “They’re coming, and we’re going in there, with or without you,” Dylanna said, motioning to the safe room door. “Now get out of the way, slike, or I’ll cut you down.”
ENOUGH, Gabriel Tosh thundered in their heads. This ain’t the way it should be, turning us against each other. Come on, Dylanna. I won’t fight her. There will be other chances.
“But we’re so close—”
“I can’t let you go,” Nova said, holding Tosh’s gaze. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Do what you have to do,” he said. He glanced up at the ceiling and smiled. Then he activated his cloaking device, turned, and left the room, and all that remained was the afterimage of his aura slowly fading from her eyes.
“See you again soon,” Dylanna said. She tossed the gun at Nova’s feet. “Don’t try to follow us. You won’t like what happens.” She turned, winked out, and was gone.
Why aren’t I going after them? Nova wondered. But she couldn’t will herself to move. She was suddenly so very tired. The emperor was safe, and that was what she had come here for, wasn’t it? She had completed her objective, and the thought of continuing the fight overwhelmed her. Who knew if she could stand a chance against both of them at once?
Maybe Tosh is right. Maybe I just can’t face the truth.
Blood kept dripping from her wound as she put her back to the neosteel door, slid slowly down to the floor, and waited for the marines to come.