A/N

Idea for this came from Issue 2 of Nature of the Beast. Seems that Nova's going down the route of the ends justifying the means. Gave me the idea to drabble this up.

For All Mankind

For Valerian Mengsk, there were days when all seemed right in the universe. When the people were happy, when aliens were quiet, and where he could simply lie down in a chair and read a book. Then there were days where everything seemed to be going wrong - where people questioned his every decision, where he got a stream of reports of border skirmishes, and where he feared that his control over the Terran Dominion was hanging by a finger.

Today was one of the bad days.

Looking at the drone footage from Tyrador IX, Valerian tried to find a silver lining in all of this, but couldn't find any. Though maybe...maybe...seeing the blasted husks of Ihan-rii structures could be taken as a plus. Protoss were notoriously hard to kill, but even they had a tough time surviving a nuclear module. Less protoss on Tyrador IX meant less Ihan-rii. Less Ihan-rii on Tyrador IX meant that those fanatics were in a weaker bargaining position than they were two months ago, when they'd first turned up expecting to reclaim their homeworld. Heck, if he wanted to play the game of publicity (a game he'd played for over five years by this point), then he could even spin this to his advantage. Valerian Mengsk, Emperor of the Terran Dominion, was willing to make the hard choices and stand up for humanity in this corner of space. That might please half of the media pundits out there. Only he couldn't do that without pissing off the other half. He sighed, rubbing his eyes, wondering when was the last time he'd found time to sleep for more than five hours. Quickly remembering the answer, and just as quickly feeling depressed at the thought, he waved his hand.

The drone footage that was displayed on the wall of his palace office changed. Replaced was a view of the bridge of the Hyperion, and in it, Admiral Matt Horner.

He didn't look happy.

"Matthew," Valerian murmured. He tried to smile. "You've looked better."

He shrugged. "Could be worse."

Valerian frowned. "How worse?"

On the screen, Horner took out a datapad and pressed a few buttons. "See for yourself," he said.

The image of Horner flicked out and was instead replaced by a topographic map of Tyrador IX's equator - the boundary between Dominion and Ihan-rii control of the world. Along it were numerous red and iliac dots, marking the fortifications of the two factions. A timer began to play in the top-right of the image.

Countdown to destruction, Valerian reflected. Or count-up, I suppose.

Count-ups could go to infinity. In his experience, so could fighting.

At the twelve second mark, one of the iliac dots had a mushroom cloud icon over it, and the dot turned black. Then, the timer jumped ahead to the point of 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 20 seconds, where lilac arrows started coming into the red dots across the DMZ. That the Ihan-rii could respond so quickly was terrifying in of itself. But clearly Horner had gone the full mile, as the recording changed to live-action footage.

Fekk me, Valerian thought.

It was from a marine's shoulder camera, registered in the name of a PVT. S. Idaho. Private Idaho was shouting, shooting, and so were a lot of other people around her. What they were shooting at was hard to make out, but Valerian knew what they were - zealots. Zealots moving very quickly across the field of barbed wire and other fortifications separating the DMC forces from the Ihan-rii. The marines were shooting. Tanks were firing. One of the zealots disappeared in a flash of light as a shell landed right on it. But such was their speed, and the power of their shields, that the gauss rifles the marines were firing were only accomplishing jack and shit against them. Valerian knew how this ended...

...except he didn't, because the marines started being gunned down. Idaho flipped around, and at a range of about twenty metres, saw a cadre of adepts. They must have 'ghosted' around the Dominion lines. The marines opened fire, and some of the adepts buckled under the hail of gunfire, but it was too little, too late. Idaho fell, and before she could get up, the camera feed caught the glow of a psi-blade coming down into her chest. The last few seconds of the footage contained various blurs of light, as the zealots overran the marine line, before plunging on further into the base. More shots, more explosions, more screams, then...nothing. Nothing but the grim visage of Matthew Horner, orbiting far away from the carnage below.

"Not a pretty sight, is it?" Horner murmured.

Valerian frowned. "You think I haven't seen footage of soldiers being murdered before?"

"Probably not, but who can tell?"

The contempt in Horner's voice...the man wasn't even trying to hide it, Valerian reflected. Truth was, he wasn't sure why. He wasn't sure if he could ever call Horner a friend, but Matt Horner had been there at Korhal. Matt Horner had helped depose Arcturus Mengsk, as had been his goal for half a decade. But then, maybe that was the crux of it. Horner had dethroned one emperor. Who was to say he didn't have someone better in mind?

"So what's our plan?" Valerian asked - he'd deal with potential regicide later.

Horner stood slightly straighter, and when he spoke, it was crisp, clear, and proper. "I'm formulating a plan with General Gloucester. We should have a plan of counter-attack within the hour."

"That soon?" Valerian asked.

"The Ihan-rii struck over a fifty mile front. Half of the outposts in that front have been taken. I don't want to let them think they can take the other half with impunity."

Valerian nodded. "Fair point. Well, keep me informed."

"Of course sir. Though that does beg two questions."

Valerian frowned. "Such as?"

"The first is whether we have the go-ahead to move to the other side of the DMZ."

Valerian felt a pit open up in his stomach. He'd have to answer that question sooner or later, but right now, he was inclined to choose the latter option. "And the second question?"

Horner looked around the bridge, before whispering, "what do we do about Nova?"

Valerian remained silent.

So did Horner.

It didn't come as much surprise to Nova Terra when the emperor of the Terran Dominion contacted her.

It hadn't been the first time, but considering what had occurred on Tyrador IX, she was aware it might have been the last. All she could do now was make Valerian see reason, because he certainly needed that right now. Arcturus Mengsk had ruled with a closed fist. Valerian Mengsk ruled with an open palm. Nice in theory, but sooner or later, you still had to punch someone. Or, in her case, detonate a nuclear weapon inside an Ihan-rii base.

She stood straight as the hologram of Valerian flickered into existence aboard the bridge of the Griffin. She'd cleared out the crew, including Reigel. Valerian was going to give her a tongue lashing, she didn't need her XO joining in. She'd got enough of that already, even without reading his mind.

"Hello, Nova," Valerian said.

She smiled faintly. "Greetings. Nice."

"Over the last few years, I've always greeted you whenever I needed your crew to do some wet work."

"And I appreciate it, truly."

"Good for you. In the meantime, my appreciation is running the risk of going the way of the dodo."

Nova had no idea what a dodo was - maybe some mythical creature from Old Earth? Whatever the case, she decided to let Valerian speak.

"Eleven hours ago, Ihan-rii abducted some of our scientists from Elsecaro," Valerian said. "A little tit-for-tat, since they guessed, correctly, that we'd sent in our own Ghosts to retrieve their technology."

Nova remained silent.

"Ten hours ago, I contact you, saying I wanted you to extract them. You get them out if you succeed, and if you don't, I have plausible deniability on my side. Seven hours ago, you arrive at the Tyrador system. Three hours ago, you insert to the planet's surface."

"If there's a point to this, get to it," Nova said.

Valerian frowned, and for a moment, Nova could see the boy's father in him. Arcturus Mengsk. Strong. Proud. Angry.

"The point," Valerian whispered, clutching the hilt of his sword, "is that instead of doing that, you detonated a nuclear weapon inside the Ihan-rii base."

Nova stiffed, before murmuring, "I did."

She could swear she saw a vein about to pop in the emperor's forehead.

"Care to explain why?" Valerian whispered.

""Five scientists Valerian. Getting in was hard enough. There was no way I could get them out, and the Ihan-rii were going to transport them off-site, where they could continue working around their psi-blockers. Since there was no way to retrieve them, I decided to carry out asset denial and-"

"That wasn't your decision to make!"

Nova flinched. Never, in all her years, serving the Dominion directly or otherwise, had she seen Valerian lose his cool like this. Since they were communicating via hologram over a space of light years, she had no means of reading his mind. But right now, she didn't have to. The anger was palatable. The hologram was shimmering, as if Valerian's rage was being carried through the ether. And even when he next spoke, in a whisper, the rage remained for her to see.

"You detonated a nuclear weapon. Over the last hour, the Ihan-rii launched an assault across our positions. Hundreds, maybe thousands of men and women are now dead. You detonated a weapon, and in one second, you've taken us to the brink of war."

Nova smirked.

"Does that amuse you?" Valerian snapped.

"Don't know if you noticed Mister Emperor, but Tyrador Nine was at the brink of war the moment you agreed to give the Ihan-rii half the planet."

Valerian frowned. "Are you questioning my decision?"

"Why not? Everyone else is."

Valerian seemed ready to explode, but to Nova's surprise, the detonation didn't come. Instead, the emperor began to laugh.

"This was a mistake," Valerian began. He met her eyes with his. "I could have come after you, you know. When you and Reigel took the ship. My ship. I could have engaged in pursuit. But I didn't. Because then, in that moment, I came to the realization that I needed you. I needed someone like you, to do all the things that I could never admit to ordering. Assassinations. Infiltrations. Extractions. All for the price of one ship, a few hundred soldiers, and my self-respect." He sighed. "At the time, it seemed like a deal. But now?" The hologram took a seat. "Now I know it was a mistake."

Nova murmured, "you're entitled to think that."

"I am. And I do think that. Rest assured, I'm going to keep thinking about it over the following days and weeks as this shitshow you've unleashed plays out. But while I'm doing that, I'm going to ask...yes, ask, since you clearly don't take orders from me...that if you ever try to pull something like this again, rest assured, I will hunt you down, I will take my ship back, and the best outcome you can hope for is a six by five cell."

Nova frowned. "My crew and I will do whatever it takes to ensure the future of humanity. Our responsibility is too great to do any less."

Valerian went to say something, but no words came out. His eyes widened. He looked aside - Nova could tell he was in his palace office, but she couldn't tell what, or who, he was looking at. But she did hear his words, even if she wasn't sure they were addressed towards her.

"Someone else said that once."

Nova told herself that she didn't care. Instead, she terminated the feed, before taking a seat, and rubbing her forehead.

Valerian could think what he wanted. Leaving those scientists to die hadn't been easy. But it had to be done. They had to die, and so did any Ihan-rii who might have come into contact them, lest a thought be snagged. She didn't have the means to kill all of them with her rifle. Killing them through the power of the atom however? That was doable.

Very doable.

In the silence of his office, Valerian looked at the piece of wall that had once been obscured by the hologram. Nova had terminated the feed. Even if she hadn't, he had no means of tracing her through the connection. The Griffin had been too well designed for that.

He looked out the window, wondering how many of Augustgrad's people had heard about Tyrador IX. What they thought. What they would think. Would they cheer the trumpet that sounded war, or cry against it through discordance? Like everything, he was caught in the centre. Only as men who were much wiser than he had said, the centre could not hold.

He looked at the portrait he'd glanced at when Nova had uttered those fateful words. He asked, "what do you think?"

There was no answer.

The eyes of Arcturus Mengsk just stared at him.