Shadows from the Badlands

Michael's confusion about the politics of the 'locals,' as he had taken to calling the humans of the Koprulu Sector, had only increased as time went on. He was indeed called in for interrogation, being accused of leading the dominion to their base, which many had deemed secure. Only the liberal digging done by ghosts sifting through his mind had kept him from being tossed out an airlock by Matt Horner. The confusion came in that several of the officers conducting his interrogation had openly identified themselves as 'General Whatever, Dominion Fleet' or what not. Several others seemed to belong to a group of Local Militia, again an official state run organization. The last group comprising the least total numbers of troops, had openly admitted to being rebels. When he had asked why the military types still called themselves Members of the military, when they had openly joined a rebel group, they had simply said that they were still getting paid. It confused him to no end.

Added to that, his odd ability to notice the telepathic connections forming in his mind as the various groups tore through him was seemingly growing. He could not openly read the thoughts of the less skilled ones, something which Sarah, who was really the only person on board that was remotely friendly with him, said should be impossible.

"I don't suppose you can help me get rid of them can you?" he had asked, after taking refuge in the corner of the ship she had claimed as her own. "Cuz, you know, I have like, ten of them tossing around my head now, and it's getting a little confusing."

Her only response was a small laugh, and a "Sorry Mikey."

"Oh well, maybe I'll be able to traumatize them the next time Dash'r is around," he said, winking at the red head.

The silence lingered, and slowly the joking atmosphere dissipated. Michael's mood caused by being basically alone on a ship full of people who held a grudge against him, and he wasn't sure why Sarah's had dissipated. He decided to change the subject, hoping to both distract them both, and possibly fish a little information out of her. "So, Sarah, enlighten me, why is it that out of everyone on this ship, your the only one who will talk to me without making me think their plotting my death?"

The abrupt change of subject didn't seem to alleviate the demons that seemed intent on ravaging her. If anything she closed up even more when she responded, "Even if you had come here as a spy, you mean well now, which is enough for me."

Michael sensed there was more to it then that, and tried to dig a little deeper hoping that her telepathy wouldn't give him away, or hoping that it would and she would make it easier on him and just tell him what was bothering her, "So, ignore the past, and focus on someones current intentions?"

She looked him in the eyes, and he knew the game was up. "I appreciate what your doing, Michael," she broke eye contact, and seemed to do her best to look anywhere but him. "You remind me a lot of a friend of mine you know? Even have the same name. He was always trying to get me to talk about stuff like this too."

He said nothing, just waited for her to continue. He knew enough about people to know when to shut up, and when to prod, and right now was definitely the time to shut up.

"The UED did horrible things when they attacked, Michael, and a lot of people died. But it was only a handful of people, most of them didn't have a choice. You haven't even done anything, but even if you did, if you didn't have a choice, then was it your fault?"

He remembered then where he had heard her name. Once, back on the planet where he had met him, Dash'r had mentioned Kerrigan, the current leader of the Zerg. He had completely forgotten about it, and couldn't remember if any details were said. But he understood, she was desperate to not be blamed for her actions, when they were indeed not her fault.

Her rambling continued, "And me, yeah, I didn't realize that you had forgotten the tidbit about me and the zerg until just now, but I can't even atone for what I did wrong, and you didn't do anything and your still trying to help."

"So, I think I got it," Michael said, he had spent a couple minutes processing what she said, and wanted to make sure he wasn't mistaken, "Do you think you could do more if you were back with the zerg? To, as you put it, atone for what you did when you had no control over yourself."

She nodded her head, and he thought he could see tears of shame running down her face. She was so desperate to fix the problems her counter part had made, that she felt she needed to work on a grander scale then she was currently capable of. And then he remembered the sound of her telepathic voice. "Could you?"

"Probably, I can still feel the Zerg, and I could control small numbers of them even before I was infested, but something has already taken control of most of them. I'm still part zerg, they'd recognize me."

"Do you think everyone else would let you if you could?"

"Matt would throw a tantrum," she giggle softly, "so would a lot of others, but Jimmy would let me."

Something wasn't adding up. Until now, Michael had thought that the hybrids were a government bio weapon, something the Dominion had cooked up, but everyone was placing such a big emphasis on them, and he had to know, "Sarah, I'm missing something, this is bigger then the Dominion isn’t it, but someone just hasn't sent me the memo, what is so bad that you'd go all Zerg again to fix it?"

"There's some prophecy, either an old Protoss one or a Xel'Naga one, the hybrids are a lot more dangerous then just a dominion bio weapon, they're gonna destroy everything. I was supposed to stay a part of the zerg, and beat them. The zerg are the only race strong enough."

"That still doesn't make sense, why would the Xel'Naga build an anti zerg weapon, if you and the zerg were supposed to be the ones to stop the hybrids."

Michael could see the puzzle sink in to Sarah's mind. He had a point indeed, either the prophecy was bogus, which Michael was inclined to believe, or they had been misusing a weapon by directing it at the zerg. "How Zergish are the hybrids anyway."

Kerrigan was left with her mouth gaping. "How could we have been so stupid, it's not for use on zerg, it's for use on Hybrids, that's why they built it, and we had it in the base, even if it's only half of it, we could have used it." She smacked herself in the forehead, "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but since we can't think, and you can, I don't suppose you have a few hundred zerg in your pocket for me to play with?"

It was Michael's turn to laugh, "Yeah, Sarah, I do."

With the puzzle solved, between the two of them the plan fell into place. They needed to retrieve the rest of the weapon, as between the Protoss fleet, and the remnants of the human rebels, the only thing strong enough to defeat them would be hybrids. Sarah told him that the hybrids would be waking up in greater numbers then the Dominion realized, scattered across dozens of worlds, if they hadn't already and their flight from the base had prevented them from from finding out. While they held off the hybrids as best they could, Sarah would take control of the zerg swarm that had remained isolated in the badlands for thousands of year. Only one flaw remained, according to Kerrigan, but she refused to tell him what, instead rushed off into the bowels of the ship to sell the plan to the 'Jimmy' as she called him.

Michael returned to his own berth, once again having been banished to the smallest, dingiest room available. He managed to avoid the soldiers in the hall. On board the Hyperion, at least it was the most well behaved, and least likely to disobey order, so he had a fair amount of confidence that he'd wake up.

When he turned from re-locking his door behind him, he was met by two blue eyes, glowing in his still dark room. "Dash'r," he breathed out, before firmly planting himself in his lovers arms, embracing him both mentally and physically.