Deadly Assassins/1

A Note from the Author....

I was browsing my vault of unfinished short stories recently, and ended up finding several that I felt had good potential. This is the first one that I cleaned and finished up. For those of you wondering, I did base the title off of my name; I thought it was rather fitting for the storyline. The majority of this story is straight from starcraft history, except for the two big twists that I added when I realized how I could pull this all together. Enjoy the read, and it's not quite as long as it seems.

Deadly Assassins

“It has been arranged,” said a large man with a very serious tone.

The room in which he stood was dark and narrow, with a wall of screens and keyboards at the far end. The ceiling showed specs of illumination where the dimmed lights were placed in a somewhat uniform pattern. The man standing on the other end of the room was in his early twenties. He stood peering at the screens and didn’t turn around; he merely stood there with one hand behind his back.

“Excellent,” he remarked as a puff of smoke drifted from his lips. He lowered the cigar and rotated to face the larger man.

He stood near the door with armor covering his entire body, not leaving anything exposed.

“The Confederacy has been itching to do this, and the information you provided managed to convince them to follow through,” said he as the armor creaked. “The briefing date is set, and all I need now is your equipment.”

The man nearest the screens nodded and motioned towards a table against the left wall.

“There’s your equipment,” was the reply as the armored man approached it and sorted through the contents. “Everything is right there, including your money. All you need to remember is to make the operation as obvious as possible. The Confederacy will try to hide it, but with that bomb you should be able to defeat their purpose.”

The larger soldier glanced up as he twisted the rectangular device in his hands while the other man opened his mouth.

“I was told that you were the best in your field, and I expect you to live up to that.”

--

“You’re clear,” the guard said to me as he returned from the console on the wall.

He handed me my ID card back and I nodded to him as he buzzed me into the restricted zone of the command center. I stepped swiftly into the next room and stopped as the door behind me closed. The red light above the door in front of me turned yellow. I turned to the right as a tray slid out from the wall and I gingerly set my C-10 Canister rifle onto it, followed by both of my glocks. I pressed the small button next to it and the tray went back into the wall, followed shortly by the yellow light above the door turning green.

The hall on the other side was wide and bustling—various military personnel were scrambling through doorways and down other corridors that branched off from this main one. I moved quickly through the crowds of people until I came to a door on the right. I twisted the handle and pushed it open; the dim lighting making it difficult to see during the transition from the operating room-like illumination in the hallway to the darkness of the briefing room.

A long table was the centerpiece of the room. There were around fifteen chairs that stood petrified in their places along it, though one chair had been moved out slightly and there was a figure in it.

“Morning, Jack,” he said to me as he looked up from a document on the table.

“How’s it going Eric?” I asked as I dropped into the seat across from him.

“Eh, so-so,” was the reply as he glanced at the sheet again. “Would be better if they hadn’t interrupted my leave for this shit.”

“Have you heard anything else since you got here?” I queried with a sigh.

“No, they’ve kept me in the dark about it,” Eric answered. “It sounds like this operation isn’t something the Confederacy wants many people to know about.”

“They love to keep secrets,” chuckled I.

I hadn’t known Eric for very long, but I had been on three missions with him in the past two months, and he had proven himself to be a ghost worthy of reckoning. His skills gave mine a run for my money, though he didn’t consider himself to be any better than me. His average stature and approach to situations was deceiving when someone encountered his personality, as he was capable of telling off just about anyone, and could take down even the most impressive foes in hand-to-hand combat.

The door opened suddenly and I twisted around to see the third member of our covert-ops team.

“Jerry!” I cried as I stood up and faced my long-time friend.

He greeted me back cheerfully as I embraced him.

“What happened to Greg?” asked Eric from across the table.

“The leg wound he received on my last operation was worse than the doctors thought, so they called me in,” said Jerry.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he added as he took a seat.

The door opened once again, and we stood to salute the captain as he entered.

“Sit down, sit down,” said the captain as he dropped the case he held in his arms at the far end of the table.

We all took a seat once again, and the captain switched on the screen behind him.

“As I’m sure all of you know, there has been great political unrest in the senate about Korhal IV lately,” he started. “This is due greatly in part to this man.”

A picture of a man at a podium came up on the screen and I stared at his ragged features as I tried to remember the name that I had associated with the face.

“Angus Mengsk,” said Eric suddenly, which sparked my memory and I remembered many of the things that had been in the news recently.

“Yes,” said the captain. “It has been over forty years since we’ve had a rebellious senator.”

“He’s trying to introduce new ideas into society, not be a terrorist,” said Jerry.

“That may be so, but the things he’s saying are directly challenging the Confederacy’s power, and therefore he must be stopped,” the captain continued.

“You want us to assassinate him?” questioned Eric.

The captain merely nodded his head.

“We’ve received inside information about the inner-workings of Mengsk’s security at his mansion, and with that information we should be able to get you in there, kill him, and extract you,” he said.

“How will this help the Confederacy?” I asked. “If Mengsk is assassinated, won’t that cause people to believe that it was us?”

“Yes, but the things Mengsk has been saying lately has been upsetting more than just us. If it was the Confederacy, people would think that we’d use bombs or a more blunt approach to the situation. There are very few people that know of the existence of ghosts since the program is fairly new, and many of them are in our military, therefore sending you will make this much easier.”

“What kind of garrison are we looking at in terms of guards?” queried Eric.

“If the information we have is correct than there are about twenty active guards and an extra thirty that can be there in under three minutes if an alarm is tripped,” said the captain.

“And if the information is wrong?” said I curiously.

“If it’s wrong it will make little difference because you’re insertion and extraction times are within seventeen minutes of each other; the first twelve of which is during the shift change so it won’t be hard to get in.”

“So we’ll have five minutes to abide our time waiting for extraction with a full garrison on patrol?” Jerry wondered.

“The drop ship will be close by if there is an issue, or if you take out Mengsk quickly,” answered the captain.

I nodded as I looked over the briefing sheet which Eric had been examining earlier.

“A frontal assault?” I asked as I read the words.

“Yes,” replied the captain. “The mansion is covered extensively on every side as best as we can see, and the front is the easiest entry point. Surrounding the perimeter of the building is a ten-foot hedge wall, which would cause an enormous amount of danger if you attempted to scale it. The front has an opening for vehicles, and there is also a checkpoint a good ways down the road.”

“So why don’t we just hitch a ride on a car already going in?” asked Jerry.

“That was my initial desire, but there are no supply trucks scheduled to be going there at the time we need this done.”

“I know that the time on this is tight, but you three are the best in this program,” the man finished.

The television wasn’t much more than a drone to me as I sat relaxing on the couch. There wasn’t much more that I wanted to do than spend time with Rachel, since I rarely got to see my beautiful daughter anymore. She needed her rest though, as any eight-year-old did. So I had nothing more to do than sit in think in my small living room, a place that would now stand empty for long periods at a time. My decision to join the Confederate Marine Corps had been an enormously difficult one to make, especially having a daughter without a mother that needed to have a father. Six years of petty jobs in various places had taught me that small wages weren’t going to cut it, and after I had tried everything possible, I had one final option. As far as I was concerned the only good thing about the corps was the pay, which was substantial considering the six-month periods in which I was away from my girl. She never wanted me to do it, and it was likely that she still wasn’t happy about it.

That little plan fell apart three days ago however, when one of the majors aboard my cruiser approached me with an offer. When I heard that the amount of money that could come out of it, I had to completely restructure the manner in which I was thinking. The program, codenamed “Ghost” in the military was one of the most secretive things in the military apparently, and the opportunity to be trained to become a Confederate assassin didn’t seem like such a bad idea, since I would get leave every six weeks as well as a substantial amount of money. It would also mean that Rachel would spend far less time with my deceased wife’s parents, and more time with me. The thought of the program caused me to remember what they’d told me during the conversation with the major. It turned out that my parents had lied to me when I took that stupid Confederate standardized test when I was Rachel’s age; the test that identified possible telepathically gifted individuals. As I thought about that I stood and grabbed a piece of paper from the counter in the kitchen. Rachel didn’t know it had come, and probably hadn’t even known what the test had done for her. I read it over once, and wondered if she should know, or if I should give her the chance to live a normal life like my own parents wanted for me. The results of her test were what the Confederacy titled “extraordinary”, since there were a very select few with her capabilities. I still remembered what the major had said to me though, about how the people being placed into the Ghost program were not in a class as high as Rachel. He said that people like her couldn’t endure the mental conditioning that was necessary, and that it could be dangerous.

As I sat pondering all of the possibilities for Rachel a door opened down the hall and I looked to see my sleepy-eyed daughter walking slowly towards me.

“Daddy,” she said with a slightly worried tone.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked soothingly as I got up and switched off the television.

“There’s someone in my closet,” she said quietly.

“Oh really?” asked I amusingly as I snatched her up in my arms and started to carry her back to her room. “Well, let’s just take a look, shall we?”

“Okay,” she replied quietly.

I opened the door into her semi-dark room and stepped in, setting Rachel down on her bed as I walked over to her closet. She glanced at her night-light once before looking back, seemingly not too worried, and I figured she was just looking for excuses to stay up late.

“Anyone in there?” I asked in a joking manner, before I slid open the closet doors and peeked in. “Come out, come out where ever you are….”

After poking around the hangers and checking the floor I closed the closet doors back up.

“It’s empty, sweetie,” I stated as I sat down on the bed next to her.

“But I heard breathing,” she continued.

“I’m sure that it was just your imagination,” I said reassuringly.

Rachel laid back down quietly as she reached under her pillow. She pulled out the crinkled photograph that I had given her shortly after my wife’s death. It was taken in front of our old house back when Rachel was just a baby. I thought back to that house momentarily as I remembered trying to sleep there after her death, and realized I had to get away from the memories, so Rachel and I came here.

I smiled briefly at my daughter as she looked at the picture, and then set it down gently on her chest.

“Are we still going to the zoo tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

“Of course,” I said as I kissed her forehead and got up. “And you better get some sleep so you can be well rested for it.”

“Good night daddy,” she said quietly as I closed the door.

I breathed deeply as I walked back to the couch and switched the television back on. After a minute of watching, I heard Rachel scream. I got up quickly as it intensified greatly, before I heard a gunshot. I ran as fast as I could back down the hall, and as I reached the door into her room I heard glass break. I walked in to find Rachel lying on the floor next to her bed in a pool of blood.

“Rachel!” I cried as I dropped to my knees next to her and picked her up.

The hole in her neck was gushing blood, as was the exit wound on the opposite side.

“Oh Jesus!” I cried as I searched around for something to try and stop the bleeding as tears streamed down her face. I placed my hands on her neck as I looked around, my eyes stopping on the picture that now lay on the floor covered in blood.

“Please no! Oh, dear God, please!” I cried as tears started dripping down my face as well, not knowing how to help my daughter.

“Make i-i-it st-t-t-op daddy!,” she croaked out, making the moment even more horrible for me as I realized the pain that she was in.

I stared at her face in horror as I watched blood drip down her chin and her hands shake; things that I had seen many times on the battlefield, but would never wish on a child. I stared into her eyes and she stared back as she faded away. I watched as her eyes fogged up, and then observed the light of life leave them as her head fell back, dead.

“No….” I cried as tears slipped down my cheeks and I placed my bloodied hands on my head.

After several seconds I looked up in rage. The first thing that I noticed was that closet door was hanging open, which made my heart sink as I ran towards the broken window. I looked out at the neighborhood as several people walked out onto the street in search of where the gunshot came from. I moved back over to my daughter and I lay down next to her, trying desperately to remember if there had been anything in her closest that wasn’t supposed to be there. As those thoughts floated in my mind another horrifying one came to me: I could have prevented it.

My hand jolted upwards and a small shockwave rippled through my arm as the corresponding sound reached my ears. It happened twice more as the pistol in my hands fired; each slug blasting through the cardboard targets in front of me. After having relived that horrible night three years ago in a dream I needed to let off some steam and get my mind away from my daughter. I exhaled sharply as I ejected the empty clip and slammed another in. I had raised it level with my eyes once again when the door opened behind me. Twisting around, I noticed Jerry standing there.

“I see you haven’t changed much,” he remarked.

“You know me, I can’t go a day without getting off a few rounds in here,” I replied with a grin, before turning and picking up my radio. “Johnson, rapid fire.”

“Yes sir,” came the reply as I turned my back once again to the shooting range and shut my eyes briefly.

I drew my second pistol as I reopened them.

“Start.”

I spun around after the word left my lips and opened up as more of the targets moved quickly across the range, some going up and down and others moving across the plane.

Every slug that left my weapons in a glorious flash struck a target at the center mark. After several seconds I ceased, and Jerry and I observed the damage.

“I see you haven’t lost any skill either,” Jerry said with a chuckle as I set both guns down. “You can always tell when they need to make this harder. It’s when you don’t miss a single target.”

“It’s good to have you back working with me again,” I said to him as I turned to face him. “It’s been far too long.”

“Yes it has,” replied Jerry.

“What’s up with Eric?” Jerry continued.

“I’m not real sure,” said I honestly. “His wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and they won’t let him get out of this hellhole to go and see her.”

“That would piss me off,” said Jerry.

Silence followed for several minutes before Jerry spoke again.

“I…never got the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was about Rachel’s passing,” he said quietly.

I inhaled deeply and quickly as horrible memories resurfaced about my daughter.

“It’s ok,” whispered I. “How have you been doing?”

Jerry was silent for several minutes, during which I decided to clean up the range quickly as he attempted to find a way to respond. Judging by the look on his face he knew what he had to tell me, though he wasn’t sure how.

“I’m getting out,” he stated finally.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m done with all of this shit,” Jerry continued. “I’ve spent twelve years murdering the Confederacy’s rivals, and with each passing year they get greedier and have more enemies. I can deal with that just fine, but when we’re forced to spend seven straight months on active duty I have to draw the line.”

“Is it even possible to get out?” I wondered out loud. “I was always under the impression that one of those papers we had to sign before training signed over our soul to these guys.”

“Normally it does,” remarked Jerry irritably. “But I’ve found a way to get away from it all nonetheless. I can’t spend my life like this, that’s what I’ve figured out by now.”

“How are you going to do it?” said I.

“I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but I managed to find a hole in the system that I can exploit without getting my ass shot as a deserter,” he answered.

“Wow,” I whispered as I started over towards the door.

Jerry turned to face me as I reached for the door handle.

“Jack,” he said quietly with a very hopeful voice. “Will you come with me?”

I stopped and turned back to face him. The expression on his face worried me slightly; it was as if he was afraid that someone would hear us.

“I don’t know, since Rachel….” I trailed off as the words left my mouth unexpectedly. “…This is my entire life now.”

“Please,” whispered Jerry, slightly more desperately this time.

As I was about to inquire as to what was wrong, the door behind me opened and Eric poked his head in. He took several seconds to glance back and forth at our faces before speaking.

“The captain wants us to be ready for departure in thirty minutes,” he said finally.

He waited there momentarily, half expecting some reply from one of us and half hoping to hear what we had been talking about before he had walked in. He closed the door after neither Jerry nor I spoke, and so I glanced back at him. His expression had vanished completely and he walked past me before exiting the room. I stood for a moment before I shut off the lights and followed him.

The night air was brisk and cool, just as many summer nights were outside the capital city of Styrling on Korhal IV. The one thing I had not been used to seeing was absolute darkness around me, since most of the time on the planet I spent in and around the cities. One would never think that it could be so dark four miles outside of the capital. I propped myself up on one knee as I watched the drop ship speed off into the distance, likely looking for a good spot to set it down and wait. I flipped my visor down quickly as Eric’s voice echoed through my helmet.

“Okay, we’re on the clock; let’s get our asses moving,” he said as I flipped on my HUD and switched off the safety on my rifle.

The three of us started moving shortly thereafter as we headed towards the dim lights just ahead. The outer perimeter of Mengsk’s mansion was bustling with guards that were still on duty.

“Three minutes until the shift change; cloaking on,” I said as I hit the button on my suit and watched my arms and rifle become translucent.

Eric and Jerry, who were both in front of me, disappeared also so I switched on the heat vision and their bodies re-appeared in a multitude of bright colors.

Ahead of us was a remarkably large and decorated building. It was easy enough to tell that it was the mansion since most of the Confederacy’s senators lived very lavish lives. A nine foot hedge surrounded it, which minimized the amount of the three story building that we could see, though there were no lights on upstairs.

“Two guards to the left,” I said as the two-man patrol rounded the corner of the hedge wall nearest us, and we halted to be certain that we didn’t make a sound.

I trained my rifle on one of the men’s heads, as did Jerry so that should either so much as glance over in our direction they’d both be dead within half a second.

“Clear,” Eric stated as he began moving once again.

As soon as we reached the hedge Jerry and I stopped aiming at the two men, and focused our attention on the foliage blocking us.

“I’ll check it out,” I whispered as I spotted a small hole in the wall.

Moving extremely slowly I managed to push the smaller branches away from me to open it further and I moved through it on my stomach. Nearly a minute later I reached the other side and stared through to a large courtyard. There were still no visible lights inside, though another guard with a hound stood only twenty feet away from me. As soon as I saw the dog I froze, though it turned its head and emit a low growl. The guard spoke quietly to the dog as he turned his head towards the hedge where I lay, and shined his flashlight on it. I held my breath as he began to walk towards me with the dog in the lead. Its growl got a bit louder as I slowly reached back and removed my eight-inch blade from my belt. The hound stopped just in front of me and it sniffed the base of the hedge, inches from my face. After a moment it bared its teeth and I knew I could wait no longer. I thrust the knife out and it pierced through the dog’s neck, silencing the bark that it was about to emit. At the sight of the blood and squeak that the dog emitted the man opened his mouth to yell for help before a round tore through his temple. Blood splashed across my visor as he was thrown to the ground silently. I looked over and saw a bright red color beside me, knowing by the shape that it was Jerry.

“Good timing,” said I as I quickly moved out of the bushes.

He followed me as Eric crawled through next. I scanned the courtyard briefly to be certain that it was clear. Eric and Jerry quickly shoved the two dead bodies into the hedge where we had come through, and then we proceeded carefully to the double doors. I stared at the lock briefly before Eric walked past me and placed a key into it.

“Handy to have guards carry keys,” he said as he turned it slowly in an attempt to keep quiet.

He pulled it open as Jerry and I slipped in quickly. I switched my night vision on over the heat vision, making the features of the pitch black room a bit clearer.

“Clear,” I stated as I pulled up a map on my HUD. “The quickest route to Mengsk’s room is through the foyer.”

The other two acknowledged my statement as we moved to the door directly across from us. I opened it slowly as Eric aimed his rifle down the hallway behind it. He nodded and Jerry and I moved through it. As we rounded the next corner we heard voices and halted as two people walked through the doorway leading into the kitchen. Both members of the kitchen staff headed away from us before I inhaled again.

“Jesus, Mengsk has his own cooks,” Jerry remarked.

“Good to see our taxes are spent wisely,” I chuckled.

We walked into the foyer as the two people opened the front door and headed out. As they locked the door the three of us scanned the balcony up above us for movement. I stared at the two staircases on both sides and then looked at Eric and Jerry.

“Jack, take the left, I’ll take right,” ordered Eric.

I obliged as I moved slowly up the stairs and scanned the second floor.

“It’s clear,” Eric said, beating me to it.

Jerry came up shortly thereafter as I spoke.

“Mengsk’s room is down the hall, be as quiet as possible so that we don’t wake his kids on the way,” Jerry said.

“Seven minutes left,” said I as we started down the central corridor.

We moved as quickly and as silently as was humanly possible, cutting communication as we went past Mengsk’s son’s and daughter’s rooms.

“Shit,” whispered Jerry suddenly.

“What?” I asked.

“My cloaking device isn’t working,” said Jerry.

I turned off the heat vision and noticed that he was entirely visible. There was a sudden noise behind us and I turned around frantically. One of the doors opened and an eleven-year-old girl stepped out into the hall while rubbing her eyes. Jerry stood frozen as she started to come towards us, though she never looked up. As she reached the door into the bathroom she opened it and looked up. Our eyes met as she stared right through me to Jerry.

She screamed and my heart sunk as she took off towards her bedroom.

“Get her!” cried Eric as he turned back to face the door to Mengsk’s room.

Neither Jerry nor I hesitated as we ran down the hallway as she shut the door. I didn’t even bother to try the knob as I heard her lock the door, and Jerry quickly kicked it down. Her scream intensified as he moved into her room, and she got into the corner as she screamed for her brother’s help. I heard another door open down the hall and I watched as another boy came rushing in. I had expected it to be Arcturus, Angus’ eldest son, who was already involved in some pretty big issues for his age concerning his father’s politics. It wasn’t him however; it was his younger brother, who was sixteen. He held a bat in hand and charged towards Jerry. I slammed into him quickly, knocking him off balance and removing the makeshift weapon from his hands. I placed them into a lock behind his back. An alarm went off suddenly and I looked to Jerry. After he glanced at me briefly he stared at the girl, before he took out his pistol. My eyes widened as he fired a round into the child’s neck. Numbness fell over my body as I watched the gun fly upwards from the recoil. The son got away from me and charged towards Jerry as he screamed in horror at what had happened. I couldn’t believe it myself as I watched my friend turn towards the boy with an expressionless face and fire another round into his forehead.

“Come on!” cried Jerry as he ran past me and back into the hall.

For some reason that I couldn’t understand, my ears blocked out his words as I ran for the girl that lay on the floor choking. I didn’t know why I felt such a distracting emotion in a most crucial time, though I frantically placed my hand over her throat in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Tears streamed down her face as she attempted to cry. It was useless. I could do nothing but sit there and watch as her voice faded off and her eyes looked deep into mine. I watched in horror as she continued to choke, and as her face began to lose its color I saw Rachel. I wasn’t holding Mengsk’s daughter any longer, but rather my own as she lay bleeding and dying on the floor. A tear slipped down my cheek as that memory returned to me, before I heard shouting in the hall. I forced myself to get up and I left the room before seeing several guards storming up the stairs. I fired several times as I took out the first three, forcing the others to halt in confusion. I turned and glanced at the doorway into Mengsk’s room, which was open. I switched my heat vision back on as I rushed in, scanning the room. Lying in the bed was a woman who stared blankly up at the ceiling. I ignored the wound in her forehead as I searched around and found more blood on the floor. A broken window on one side of the room caught my attention, and as I ran over to it I noticed a ladder leading down into the courtyard we had entered through earlier. At the bottom was Jerry, along with Eric.

“What the hell happened?” I asked frantically as I hit the bottom.

“The fucker had a God damn shotgun!” cried Jerry as he held his bleeding shoulder.

“Who?” I asked.

“Mengsk!” Jerry shouted. “My cloaking device got disconnected and now the entire op is fucked.”

“The hell it is,” said Eric as he glanced around. “He’s in the basement.”

Eric pointed to the small window on the ground at one side of the courtyard. It was open, though no light could be seen inside. The alarm in the background shut off suddenly, and voices could be heard both upstairs and on the other side of the mansion.

“Jerry, get your ass into those bushes and get your cloaking device working again,” ordered Eric. “Jack, come with me. We’ve got to get to Mengsk before he manages to get away from the compound.”

I acknowledged him and watched Jerry move quickly over to the hedge wall. Eric and I moved over to the basement entry as the voices got closer, and so I glanced around the corner and stared down a walkway that lead to the front of the mansion. Nine solders were stalking towards us, each of them with rather frantic looks on their faces.

“Eric,” I said as I watched them get closer and closer. “Move around to the front and hold there in case Mengsk manages to get his ass out of the house. I’ll go after him and see if I can’t kill him.”

“Alright,” he replied as he too glanced around the corner and quickly started walking towards the soldiers, cautious to not alert them to his presence.

As I kneeled down by the window I heard a frantic voice, as well as the sound of things hitting the ground. The first thought that came to me was that he was trapped. I slid down into the extremely dark basement and flipped my night vision on. That theory faded as I stared at the doorway that led to a small staircase. I turned as something hit the ground and shattered to my left. He was looking for something. As the sound of his rummaging ceased I noticed something that disturbed me: he was sobbing. I flipped on my heat vision after I was incapable of spotting him.

There was still darkness in front of me as my heart skipped a beat.

“Don’t fucking move you son of a bitch,” said Mengsk from behind me as the muzzle of a shotgun pressed up against my cloaked back.

My mind struggled to figure out how I had managed to be tricked by him, and how he was able to know where I was.

“Drop the rifle,” said he as I stared at it, wondering just how good Mengsk’s reflexes were.

I obeyed as my fingers let it slip to the floor. I stood silent as he stopped sobbing.

“You killed my family you mother fucker!” he cried, causing me to flinch at the loudness of the voice.

“You killed your family,” I replied. “The moment you got up onto that podium and announced that Korhal was not part of the Confederacy you and your family were dead.”

“Confederate son of a bitch!” he shouted. “I swear to God I will find out who you are. I will hunt down your entire fucking family, and torture each of them, since I can’t do it to you.”

“I have no family,” I whispered as I shoved my foot into the man’s knee, severely dislocating it.

The pain delayed his reflexes enough for me to move out of the way as he squeezed the trigger and a loud blast erupted from the shotgun as it flew upwards in Mengsk’s hands form the recoil. He screamed in pain as he dropped to the ground and let go of the weapon. I got up behind him quickly and kicked away the shotgun, swiftly drawing my pistol and aiming it at the back of the senator’s head.

I quickly noticed that he had goggles on, which I presumed utilized heat vision. I cocked the gun, not wanting to delay the mission’s final objective any longer, before there were several shots behind me and something heavy slammed into my back. Mengsk scrambled away as I hit the ground. I rolled onto my back and fired two rounds out the small window near the ceiling; both shots implanting into the guard’s face that had fired at me. I turned and fired at Mengsk as he ran through the doorway and up the stairs.

“Fuck,” I whispered as I got up slowly.

I flexed my shoulders to be certain that no bullets managed to get through my Kevlar beneath my armor. Luckily only one round had even gotten by that, and the Kevlar had stopped it effectively. There were more voices above and I headed to the door as the guards outside tried to spot me, though none of them were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of me like the first one had been.

“Mengsk got away from me,” I said over my COM. “He’s moving to the first floor.”

“We’ve got company incoming,” said Eric. “Two trucks are pulling through the front gate—it looks like reinforcements.”

“Damnit,” I said as I moved cautiously up the stairs.

“And those guards are following you through the basement,” Jerry added.

With that information I moved back down the stairs and quickly slammed the door shut before locking it. There were several shouts from behind it as someone kicked it, though I ignored them as I went back after Mengsk.

“I count twenty-five heavily armed men approaching the front door—you’ve got company,” Eric informed us. “Do not allow Mengsk to get to them, or we’re going to have a messy situation on our hands.”

I acknowledged him as I moved much more quickly up the stairs. As I reached the top I noticed Mengsk run around a corner not far ahead of me, and I fired once at him. The bullet hit the wall milliseconds after he passed it. I suddenly heard a voice ahead of me.

“Get out of here! There’s a fucking ghost in here!”

“Son of a bitch,” I said as I walked into the mansion’s foyer once again.

All twenty five of the soldiers were standing there as Mengsk went for the door. I took aim for the man as he pulled on the door handle, but paused as it didn’t open. There was a brief muzzle flash on the staircase across the room and a soldier who had been shifting position happened to move between Mengsk and the slug. He dove to the ground as blood was splattered against the walls, immediately alerting the other soldiers.

“Take out Mengsk!” cried Eric as he reloaded on the stairs.

Figuring he had snuck inside with the guards, I quickly moved through the group of men as they fired up at where Eric was. He dove to the floor to get away from the slugs as the man in front of me shifted back a step, and ran into me. He knocked me off balance and I hit the floor as the man turned to look at the floor on which I was sitting.

“There’s another one!” he screamed as he fired, though I had already moved beneath him and shot him in the head.

“Protect the Senator!” cried another as several of the soldiers surrounded him and moved away from the door that Eric had locked behind them.

I slammed my rifle butt into one of the soldier’s faces before blasting him in the stomach, showering the man behind him with blood. He subsequently opened fire, the rounds peppering the body of the man I had shot in an attempt to hit me. I quickly swept his legs out from under him as I planted another round in the left eye of the man standing next to him. The six soldiers with Mengsk finally broke free of the crowd that I was stuck in the middle of, and I was forced to follow them. I fought my way through the men, leaving a wake of dead and dying behind me as I passed Eric who was trying to take down as many of the soldiers as he could.

“Follow Mengsk!” said Eric.

I obeyed as I switched off my heat vision and went after the group that was continuously firing to keep their rear clear. I turned back and watched Eric fire several more rounds before there was a strange sound. A slug that seemed to come from no where suddenly managed to hit the cloaking device on the back of Eric’s armor, before blowing out the front of him. I watched as his cloak disappeared and the men that had been firing randomly finally had a target. He looked down at the blood dripping from his abdomen before the thirteen men still standing all opened fire at once. I watched in horror as my teammate’s body was ripped apart. Nearly seventy bullets tore into him as his head split and he was blown back against the wall in a shower of blood.

I stood frozen in place as the men cheered at his death. I stared at the scattered remains of him as they then started glancing around for me. After a moment I started back after Mengsk, whilst trying to get in contact with Jerry.

“Jerry,” I said shakily.

“I finally got my fucking cloaking device working again; I’m heading through the courtyard doors.”

“Eric’s dead,” I stated as I carefully glanced around the corners as I went.

“What?” Jerry cried.

A stray slug managed to hit his cloaking device…he didn’t have a chance,” I replied.

“Christ,” said Jerry angrily.

“Mengsk is heading to you,” I remarked as I got my thoughts back on track with the mission. “Stay in that room and see if you can make them turn around. The only other safe way out that they’ll have is through the basement, and I’ll be waiting for them there.”

Jerry acknowledged the plan and I switched on my HUD to see his locator moving in the lounge that we had entered earlier from the courtyard. I switched it off again shortly thereafter.

“Are you sure?” asked Jerry suddenly.

“About what?” I questioned in return.

“About him coming this way first,” Jerry answered. “He’s not even in the hallway.”

“Fuck!” I cried as I took off running until I came to the staircase leading down into the basement. “Get down to the basement level!”

As I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw that the door was open and could see a soldier standing by the window as another was pulling himself through it. I quickly fired a shot and took down the man that was standing as he turned to see me, and as I moved through the doorway I sensed it, but it was too late. I turned as Mengsk squeezed the trigger on the shotgun. His trick was effective as he moved quickly from his hiding spot. The point-blank blast tore through my armor and into my Kevlar, and for the first time in a long time I felt the burning sensation as several of the small slugs ripped into my side. I flew backwards onto the ground as he rapidly moved out the window. I could do little more then lay there as the pain surged through me, and I turned my head slowly as my vision fogged. As I watched my target escape I exhaled deeply and reached for my stimpacks to try and calm the pain.

“Jerry, Mengsk is outside,” I said through gritted teeth.

Silence followed my statement so I spoke again.

“Jerry?”

There was a sudden clattering sound near me and I turned back towards the window. A small cylinder was now rolling around on the floor after it had fallen through. I cursed as I forced myself to sit up through the pain. As I subconsciously counted off the seconds in my head I realized I was too late to get out of the way, and so I laid down flat on the floor as the grenade detonated. I grunted as a piece of the shrapnel sliced into my already wounded side, moving in a good ways before lodging in my kidney.

“Damnit!” I cried in pain as I writhed around holding my side.

I suddenly heard cries outside.

“He’s dead! He’s dead!”

A small amount of gratefulness flowed through me as they shouted about my death. I switched off my cloak as I started to crawl towards a large shelving unit in search of something to wrap around my wound. The small amount of stims that I had weren’t doing much, since few ghosts ever got hit on the job. There was a sudden sound on the staircase leading into the basement and I froze, before laying down behind a counter. Footsteps entered the basement level and I listened to them move around before they stopped. Several seconds later I understood that whoever it was had found the trail my side had left behind me as I had gone. I silently drew my sidearm and carefully attached the silencer. As I aimed it at the place above the counter where the man’s head would first appear, I closed my eyes and waited as the footsteps came within several feet of me. I opened my eyes and fired all at the same time, using my ears to tell me when the man was where he should be. The quiet shot went through the oblivious guard’s head as he took the last step forward. He fell in absolute silence to the ground where he bounced up slightly once, before coming to rest a foot away from me. I let my hand drop down to my side on the floor before I turned my head to the opposite side. Through the small openings in the shelves I could see the daylight approaching slowly but surely.

I had never before failed a mission, which was always something expected of ghosts since to fail a mission most often meant death, and if it didn’t it was that much worse.

I felt little more than defeat at the idea that my job had become my life, and now even that had been taken from me, just as Rachel had been. I was bleeding out, and I knew that I didn’t have much life left in me. I had heard nothing but silence for ten minutes before I tried to contact Jerry again.

“Jerry?” I asked over my radio. “Are you alive?”

Only static responded and I lowered my head back to the floor softly. I heard something rustling besides me and I suddenly noticed something on one of the shelves that had not been there before. It was a bomb.

“Yes, I am alive,” Jerry muttered before he materialized in front of the bomb.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked in confusion. “How long have you been in here? And what the hell is that?”

“I’ve only been here for a few minutes, and I’m doing only what must be done.”

Jerry’s rifle was slung over his back, and one arm held a small box at his hip.

“I’m sorry that it had to happen like this, but I didn’t want any interference from you or Eric,” he muttered.

“No,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ, you killed Eric.”

Jerry nodded as he set the timer on the bomb for five minutes. He set the box on the shelf next to it, and then drew his pistol before attaching the silencer. As I glanced at my own pistol on the floor near me, he moved swiftly and placed his foot over it before kicking it away.

“I thought that you should know before I killed you, that I was the one in your house that night. Your daughter’s mind was so unstable that it would have been too dangerous to train it or to even let it develop its powers unchallenged. The Confederacy has never let children with those capabilities live. I had been cloaked in her closet. I didn’t mean for you to have to see it.”

Anger welled within me suddenly as I everything that happened flashed back before my eyes and I saw the events for what they really were, not what I had thought them to be.

“You son of a bitch!”

I moved suddenly as his grip on the pistol tightened, and he fired a round into my shoulder. I cried out in both anger and pain as I swept his feet out from under him. His grasp on his pistol loosened as he struck the floor. Pain from both of my wounds shot through me as I screamed and slammed my boot down onto Jerry’s wrist. He released the gun with a grunt before he bent his other arm and shoved his elbow into my knee cap. The armor took most of the blow, though my knee bent backwards slightly and I slipped onto the floor as well. He picked his gun back up as I struggled to move. The adrenaline wasn’t enough to help me through the pain.

The voices were the only reason I wasn’t dead in the seconds that followed, along with the noise from the basement door flying open. Mengsk’s guards flooded into the room and Jerry fired at them several times before he glanced back at me. He ducked down as he fired a poorly aimed round at me, though I shifted slightly and it went into my cloaking device. Jerry then proceeded to cloak himself as several guards charged him. I grabbed my own weapon in time for two of them to come around the corner. I took them both out with head shots before I switched on my heat vision sensors. I moved slowly over to where the downed guards were and took a rifle, before I dared to peek around the corner. Breathing slowly and cringing in pain, I moved slightly so that I could see around the counter. I saw nothing, and so I quickly looked up above the counter so that I could see the entire room. The basement was empty of heat signatures, and as I realized that I spun around as fast as I could. I wasn’t fast enough unfortunately, and Jerry’s Canister rifle smashed into my face. I hit the ground with my rifle pointed at him. He brought his knee up and pinned the rifle to the ground at my side as I fired. Silently cursing my weakened reflexes through my spouts of pain, I attempted to think of another method of escape before he stomped his foot down onto my already bleeding shoulder. I screamed in excruciating pain as he repeated the action, before he kicked my injured side as well. My vision was going dark and I had little will or strength left to fight for my life. To my surprise he didn’t draw a gun; he brought me instead over to the bomb. The timer was nearly to one minute by now, and his voice shook with semi-contained anger.

“You shouldn’t have joined this program, and I was very surprised to hear the major tell me that you decided to join the Ghost program even after we murdered your daughter. This pathetic excuse for a government doesn’t deserve to have people like us to protect it. Mengsk is the person that people should be following, not some fucking communist government operating under the illusion of a democracy. People cannot fight for a government that they fear, and should never need to.”

“If you think that Mengsk is so great, why the hell would you participate in his fucking assassination?” I asked with what anger my defeated body could muster.

Jerry laughed as he tied me to the shelves while the timer hit forty seconds.

“Angus is no more fit to rule this society than the Confederacy.”

The ghost then raised his pistol to my forehead before he lowered it again.

“I suppose I’ll let you use the last thirty seconds of your life to think about it,” he muttered with a faint grin. “Give Mengsk my regards.”

With those final words Jerry disappeared in front of me. I watched the window near the ceiling open as he exited the mansion, before I did just what Jerry had said. As the blackness enveloped me, I thought about all of the people I had murdered to do my job. I heard their screams ringing through my head before I saw Rachel. She was standing before me with a look of disappointment on her face. Deep down I’d never thought about what she would and would not have wanted me to do after she died. The mental conditioning of the Ghost program removed the majority of my emotions about her. Now, however, I felt everything, and I felt horrible that I had filled the past years of my life murdering to further the corrupt plots of a twisted government. It’s not how I had wanted to spend my life.

As I thought about those grim and saddening thoughts, I never noticed as the timer reached one. My final thought was of Rachel in a perfect world, a world free of the Confederacy, of the Zerg, of the Protoss, a world where we could have lived together in peace.

--

The door creaked open slowly, and the man, heavily clad in scarred armor stepped into the dreary room. He removed his helmet and slung his Canister rifle around his back. The man that had stood before him three days ago now sat in a chair before the wall of monitors, observing what was happening on each of them. Once again he made no movement as the door opened and closed. He waited for several seconds to hear footsteps behind him.

“I see that I was right to put my trust in your talents,” the seated man said.

The ghost continued to approach the table still separating the two men, before he arrived at it and stopped. Jerry placed his helmet onto the table as well as the box he held in the other hand.

“Of course you were,” Jerry replied in a very prideful manner.

The man’s chair twisted around, though his face was still hidden by the shadows, even when he stood and approached the table.

“I did everything as we had discussed. Including eliminating my team.”

“Very good,” the man said as he reached the table and his face was illuminated by the light hanging over it. “The operation has had the effect I intended, the public presses are calling it an act of terrorism from renegades, though the underground news is that it was clearly the actions of the Confederacy. Here is the rest of your money.”

Jerry accepted it and checked it over to be certain it was the full one hundred thousand that they had agreed upon before and after the operation.

“If I may ask one thing,” Jerry mentioned as the man across the table started to open the box.

“Yes?” asked the man as he glanced inside the heavily bloodstained box.

“Why did you want your father dead?”

Arcturas comprehended how to answer his question in a short period, rather than the long explanation he had used on himself to reason that it was completely necessary. He closed the box back up, not needing to spend much time looking at his fathers decapitated head.

“My father’s work has been very successful over the past few years, and it has also been a necessary step in the Confederacy’s downfall. He has, however, been corrupted by the Confederacy’s politics, and for him to become the leader of the inevitable rebellion, let alone the leader of the next Terran government, would have defeated the purpose. Angus has sparked that rebellion, and the only way to provide fuel to that spark and initiate the fire is to give the people a reason. Show them that the Confederacy is afraid of them and what they can do by making their assassination of the first legitimate rebellious senator in Confederate history obvious. My father’s purpose was served, and it is now time for me to take the reins and finish what he was so brave to start. He will be honored greatly when the Terran worlds are under a government free of the Confederacy’s bonds and lies.”

Jerry listened intently to Arcturas Mengsk’s words, absorbing and believing them. He had felt the rebellion inside him from the first day that he heard Angus Mengsk speak of his objections to the Confederacy’s methods. He though of Arcturas as his equal, being of a similar age and carrying the same ideals. He respected the man fully, and he did not intend this operation to be the last time he worked for Mengsk.

The mission he had just participated in was only the beginning, and there was surely a brighter future on the horizon.