THE GENERAL

Nova swam through a swirling ocean of blackness, clawing for a way out. Faces leered at her through the choking cloud, memories of times long forgotten. She was a little girl playing in the park down the street, sensing which of the other children of Tarsonis politicians and businessmen would share their toys and which would not, which nanny would allow her a treat before dinner and which ones would scold her if she asked for an ice from the local cart. Then some figures in black suits came sneaking into the park, and she ran away into the city and wandered through streets full of traffic and people with empty holes for faces, and was lost.

When she finally found her way home and saw her parents and her brother, her mother looked cross, her pretty, delicate features twisted into an ugly frown. Why did you leave us alone? she said. Your father could have used your help with the hoverbike factory. Her brother, who had a bloody hole in his forehead from the bullet that had killed him, pulled her mother away, saying, We never could rely on her. Might as well forget it. Her foul crimes can’t be purged. Next to them stood the last of the children of the Old Families, crying out for help as zerglings ripped them limb from limb and Emperor Mengsk watched with arms folded across his chest. Nova tried to reach out to them but they disappeared, while Julius “Fagin” Dale laughed, his cruel eyes on her the whole time, drinking in her pain and suffering, and swelling like a bloodworm until he floated away.

When she awoke, she didn’t know where she was and at first could not remember what had happened. Then it all came flooding back: standing in Mal’s room and feeling her legs give out and her mind go dark.

We’ve been drugged.

All her senses on alert, she tried to sit up and found herself restrained. She was chained with metal cuffs to a bunk in the brig, dressed in a green surgical gown. Between thick neosteel bars, she could see the outer room was empty. Who had done this to them? Was Spaulding taking over the Palatine in some kind of coup? And where was Mal?

She pulled against the chains around her wrists and ankles. They were heavy but shouldn’t pose much of a test for her. She tried to teek the cuffs apart, but nothing happened. She felt a thump of blood in her temples that resulted in a low, throbbing ache.

“Neuroleptics,” Colonel Jackson Hauler said, emerging from the hallway outside. He was in full formal uniform, but there were general’s bars on his shoulder. “Normally used for mood disorders, but it turns out they’re quite effective drugs in suppressing psionic abilities, when used in the right combinations. Something we’ve recently discovered. I pumped them into wrangler Kelerchian’s room, along with a powerful sedative to knock you out. You won’t be teeking anything for a while, Nova Terra.”

He stopped about a meter outside the bars and crossed his arms over his chest, peering in at her, a half smile on his face. She saw what looked like a small gas canister hanging on a belt around his waist. Tosh and Dylanna had worn them too, she remembered.

“Surprise,” he said.

Alarm raced through her body, prickling her skin. “It’s you? But I never sensed anything—”

“My psi index was 8.5, even before terrazine, you know,” he said, tapping the canister. “I learned long ago how to suppress my surface thoughts from teeps, something that’s pretty rare with ghosts. One of my many unique talents, actually. Do you know the ghost program’s psychological profile graded me out as ‘high risk’? Imagine that. You have to be labeled as a serious psycho to be flagged by those vultures.”

“You were a ghost agent?”

He shrugged. “For a short period. But I couldn’t be brain-panned. It wouldn’t take. They saw me as resistant to authority and wanted to eliminate me. So I used my talents to escape and change my identity. I buried my own abilities from everyone and rose through the Marine Corps ranks. When we discovered terrazine gas on that godforsaken planet, Demon’s Fair, it was like a gift. I figured that if I could understand why I could do the things I did and use the gas properly, I could become even stronger. Fine-tune my own systems.”

“You were a part of Project: Shadowblade from the beginning,” Nova said.

Hauler nodded. “I reassigned myself and then took on a disguise as a medical researcher. It was all going so well. But then the chief scientist found out I was experimenting on myself and threatened to go to Warfield. He was a straight arrow, that one. I couldn’t afford to have him find out. Things got ugly.”

Nova’s mind was reeling; she couldn’t understand how Hauler had managed to keep all of this hidden from so many people for so long. “You were the one,” she said. “Cole Bennett. The team member who … killed everyone.”

“No.” He shook his head, his eyes flashing with anger. “You don’t understand anything at all. Nothing. I was a successful example of how terrazine could work! My powers had increased exponentially, and with careful monitoring of dosage, the hallucinations were manageable. They just wouldn’t listen. When Mengsk found out about the side effects we were observing in certain subjects, he ordered the project shut down and the evidence destroyed. He wanted us all executed. Do you get that? Murdered in cold blood, for no other reason than to bury the truth.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. Mengsk took Warfield off the project and sent in a squadron of marines, ready to wipe everyone out. But I managed to hold them off long enough to escape, along with a couple of other grunts I took with me. I dropped them off at the nearest terran colony, and then I planted false memories of Bennett’s death in their minds, so when they were scanned, I would be free to assume my Jackson Hauler identity again. After all, I’d done it before. I’m a chameleon. Another one of my unique talents.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I assure you, it’s not. I’m living proof of that.”

Nova shook her cuffs. “Let me up, Hauler, or Bennett, or whoever you really are.”

“Not yet.” He walked up to the bars, taking two of them in his hands and tugging on them. “Solid neosteel, but you could bend these at will, couldn’t you? That is, if you weren’t drugged. Believe it or not, I don’t want to keep you in there, but you’ve given me no choice. Tosh has explained to you what we’re trying to do, and why we want you with us. You would be a valuable ally.”

“I don’t deal with psychopaths.”

Hauler sighed. “How wrong you are, Nova. You’ve dealt with psychopaths ever since you signed on for the ghost program. You’re fooling yourself—Mengsk is the worst there is. He’s responsible for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of deaths, including those children on Shi that were particularly important to you. A corrupt government and ghost program, fringe world famines while he grows fat on his own riches, and the gravest offenses against nature imaginable—he’s run cross-species experiments that would make you sick to your stomach. He has no conscience. Power is the only thing he craves. It’s time for something better.”

“And I suppose you’re the answer?”

“I believe so, yes. It’s time for terrans to live free, to make their own choices, for good or bad. Whether it’s the Confederacy or the Dominion, the Koprulu sector has always seemed to choose corruption and dictatorship rather than true democracy. The United States of America from Old Earth had it right, at least prior to the United Powers League—the people must wield the power and elect their own leaders, and they must have the ability to remove them if necessary.”

“And to do this you’re going to orchestrate a bloody coup? Overthrow the current government through force?”

“Quite the opposite.” Hauler looked saddened, as if the weight of the entire galaxy were on his shoulders, but Nova didn’t buy it for a minute. “There have been a few deaths, I’ll admit that. But I have set a plan in motion that will allow for an orderly transition with a minimum of lost lives. First, we have spent many months working to undermine Mengsk’s authority with strategic attacks. That’s why I have created the spectres, a force powerful enough to enforce their will without bloodshed, and I have forged strong partnerships with enough advanced firepower to provide a deterrent to violence. But the real key is you.” He stared at her for a long moment, as if waiting for her to respond. When she remained silent, he smiled. “You’re a tough one, Nova Terra. But I believe you would be the perfect choice to lead my team of spectres.”

“Gabriel Tosh is leading your terrorist cell, as I recall,” Nova said. She held his gaze. “And I am a member of the Dominion ghost program. I’m not interested in your offer.”

“I thought you might say that.” Hauler sighed and removed a small holoprojector from his belt and opened it. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

General Cole Bennett watched as she first caught sight of the hologram and recognition dawned. Her eyes widened. It was the moment he always cherished, in chess or in any other game, warfare included: that particular time when his opponent realized they were overmatched, outdrawn, outfoxed.

The hologram showed Mal Kelerchian in a cell quite like the one that held Nova Terra, only this one was on Gehenna Station. He was shackled to the rocky wall, and in front of him stood a muscled marine with a mask over his face. The marine held a large combat knife in his hands. At some sort of unheard signal, the marine nodded at the camera, then turned and placed the blade against Kelerchian’s neck.

“At this moment, our battlecruiser is headed toward Korhal. I need you to infiltrate Mengsk’s inner circle and bring him to me. He trusts you, and this trust will be invaluable to us. We need him to broadcast a message to the rest of the Dominion. If you do this, I will release wrangler Kelerchian unharmed. If you do not …”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The answer was right there in the hologram. Nova looked up and met his eyes, and he saw fear in her for the first time. He probed long enough to confirm it; she cared deeply about this wrangler. Bennett suppressed a smile. Tosh had wanted to do things his way, but he’d had his chance. Nova would join the fold, one way or another.

He decided to soften his approach just a bit. “I’m doing this for your own good. What Gabriel told you is right: you are a slave to the ghost program, nothing more than a weapon that they will use up and discard when the time comes. You, along with all other psionic terrans, deserve your freedom. You should be a beacon of light and leadership for others to follow, rather than a merciless assassin. Follow me, and I promise you this will happen.”

Of course, he didn’t mean a word of it. His true goals were much more complicated. But he knew the power and authority he wielded over others. People tended to defer to him, and for good reason; if they didn’t, he simply used his special talents to alter their brain waves. At least for a short time, Bennett could make anyone believe anything he desired.

He waited for the telltale signs of submission to cross her features, watched her eyes move from the hologram to his face, then back to the hologram again. Normally there would be a change in the muscles of her jaw, a slackening, a slight intake of breath that would be held and then let go as the decision was made.

Nova Terra was a formidable woman; there was no doubt about that. He’d always known she would be tough to convince even with his powers of persuasion, because her loyalties ran deep, and she saw things in black and white, rather than shades of gray. There was good, and there was evil, and nothing in between. That was fine with him, because people like that tended to make good allies. Once you had them, you could depend on them.

He used to think of himself that way, but it had all changed long ago. After he had run from the Ghost Academy, with the help of his talents at mind control and memory manipulation, it hadn’t taken him long to assume a new identity as Jackson Hauler, a formerly overlooked noncom who probably would have been destined to fade away into history, but who disappeared one Saturday evening before reappearing and being suddenly “reassigned” to the officers program. It had been a simple matter, really: one quick, messy, but necessary act, then some forged records and a bit of memory tweaking for Hauler’s commanding officer and relatively few friends, and he was reborn as a promising and ambitious officer in training.

It didn’t take him long to rise through the ranks of the Marine Corps to colonel, and eventually the leader of the Nova Squadron, the black-ops division. After Mengsk’s Uprising, he’d proven his loyalty and usefulness to the Dominion. And then he’d heard about the top secret research project called Shadowblade and terrazine, and he knew he had to act. Colonel Hauler had been “reassigned” to a secret mission and disappeared, and he assumed the identity of Cole Bennett, biomedical researcher on the project. But then that bastard Mengsk had sent the marines to wipe them all out, for no other reason than it suited his political agenda. He had deemed the experiment a failure, and so the solution was to erase all evidence it had ever existed.

They had been so close, so close to success! It wasn’t fair. And yet Mengsk’s men wouldn’t listen. They had a job to do. So Bennett had done what was necessary to escape and had learned a valuable lesson in the process: trust no one but yourself.

From that moment on, he’d had a mission. Colonel Hauler reappeared, refocused and mad as hell. Of course, he had always considered himself, at minimum, a general. And that was where he was ranked within the alternative leadership structure he had built. With terrazine he would finally be able to fulfill the promise that he had always known was inside him. He would overthrow the so-called emperor Mengsk and take control of the Dominion, and he would do so with cunning and a carefully laid plan.

He had worked for a long time laying the groundwork. He had formed alliances with the Umojans, Gabriel Tosh, and other select members of the marine forces. He knew all too well the overwhelming firepower of the Marine Corps; he could never hope to defeat Mengsk in a head-to-head battle. He used the spectres to attack strategic positions, weaken resolve, destroy the people’s confidence in their leader.

His best chance was to use his superior intellect and unique talents to shake the foundations of the emperor’s rule, and then offer himself as an alternative. Tosh would take the fall for the spectres’ attacks, and by the time the people discovered his true goals, it would be too late. Once he had assumed control, he would crush those who had wronged him. People would be made examples of: hanged, maimed, mutilated. There would be a cleansing war, and anyone opposed to him would be silenced. He would rule with an iron fist.

That was the way life worked, and he knew it only too well.

Except something had finally gone wrong. Their first attempt to take Mengsk had been disrupted, and now Augustgrad’s forces were on high alert. At first, General Bennett was furious, but after he thought about it he began to see this as an opportunity. Nova Terra had the confidence of the emperor, and she alone would be able to slip past the palace defenses. She could still deliver Mengsk to them, and the general’s grand plan would remain intact. He would step smoothly into the power vacuum left after Mengsk’s confession and beheading.

It was a workable plan. But if they could not take Mengsk out alive, Bennett would order Nova to kill him on the spot. And then Nova, along with Gabriel Tosh, would take the fall for everything else.

Nova’s gaze was back on the hologram. Now was the time to become firm. She had to understand who was in charge, and what the consequences would be if she refused him. He probed her mind, searching for her mood, and was pleased with what he found. She was certainly frightened for her friend, perhaps even in love with him, which made General Bennett’s job here much easier. She had gone through a wrenching period of understanding as her memories had returned. The idea of regaining her freedom was seductive.

Bennett gave her his most intimidating glare. “I need to know your choice, Nova Terra. The wrangler can’t wait forever, and neither can I. Come with us now, and help me lead a new revolution. Or choose to go down with a sinking ship, and take Kelerchian along with you.”

“I can’t agree to this. I’m a ghost agent for the Terran Dominion—”

Bennett spoke quietly into his comm unit. A moment later, the guard in the hologram slashed the blade downward at Kelerchian’s inner wrist. Blood spurted like a fountain, and the wrangler tried to clutch at the wound, but the cuffs kept him from reaching it.

“He’s bleeding out,” Bennett said. “What are you going to do?”

“I—” Nova’s eyes went from the hologram to the general’s face again, her fear making her skin go pale.

“We can still save him. What are you going to do?”

“Stop!” Nova shouted. “Please.” Tears had formed in her eyes. “I’ll do what you ask. Just help him.”

Bennett smiled and spoke into the comm again, watching as the guard quickly attended to the wrangler’s wound. Showing mercy and a bit of tenderness was required at a time like this. Then it was down to business.

“I’m sorry we had to do that,” he said. “I promise you he will get the best care. A team will be in shortly to prepare you for surgery, but don’t be afraid. It’s only to remove your neural implant. They will use succinylcholine, which will paralyze you for a short time in order to make sure you cooperate, and more neuroleptics to dampen your abilities. The surgery is somewhat delicate, but we’ll have our best people on it. With accelerated healing, I expect you to recover in time for our mission in Korhal a few days from now.”

He turned to go, and then spun back again, as if he’d just thought of something else. “Oh, and Nova, please don’t try to second-guess your own decision. We have eyes everywhere, and if you try to go after the wrangler, I will know it, and I will kill him.” He paused, meeting her gaze to make sure she understood that he was serious. “We could use your expertise, make no mistake. But we will succeed regardless, and if necessary, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your brain.”