Whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he have saved the life of all mankind.

The Koran (Old Earth religious text, banned by the United Powers League in 2231)

StarCraft: Loomings

Chapter 12: Daughter of Prospero

2215 hours, November 12, 2499 (SCT)

Sara System, Chau Sara

Grid J87

There were many sayings in the English language and before they were banned more than two centuries ago, other languages as well. These sayings being developed was a natural process really. Certain truths became apparent over time and platitudes were a way of conveying these truths on a basic level, such as a means of comparison. That being the case, it was perhaps strange that no saying had been applied to Chau Sara yet. A Core World of the Confederacy, yet universally regarded as a wasteland for the most part.

Then again, that might not be a truth for much longer.

Sitting on the corpse of a hydralisk, Miranda Wilkes knew it, or at least came as close to knowing such a thing as her current mindset allowed. Certainly sitting on the corpse of a creature of nightmare did not speak of a conventional state of mind. True, the soil wasn't much better, intermixed with the blood of terran and alien alike, but why not stand? Her CMC armor provided more than enough structural support and as a captain, wasn't she obliged to stand tall over those she commanded?

In her mind, she wasn't. There were barely any members of the Alpha Squadron force left to command and nothing required seeing to anyway. The xenomorphs had fled, her troops were dead and staring blankly across the battlefield, she didn't even realize the two rhymed. All she knew was that even with the unannounced retrieval of human bodies and incineration of alien ones, there'd still be enough organic matter to turn this area of Chau Sara into an Eden, albiet one built on blood. Still, the analogy was good enough in her mind. Like Adam, she had fallen to temptation and paid the price, even if gender cast her as Eve. She had given in to weakness and was left to wander the wasteland outside Eden as punishment.

Still silent, still reflecting on her sins, Miranda looked up at the night sky-the wasteland as the case was. The seeds of war had yet to bear fruit, even if the tree's apples had already been plucked. Perry was dead and despite clutching onto the small item she held in her left hand, completely hidden by her suit's gauntlet, it was small consolation. Funny how being moral had led to disaster, how being more like the xenomorphs might have guaranteed victory rather than going down the road to idealism. So funny, in fact, that she didn't even hear another one of her kind approaching her. In fact, the first thing she truly heard in over an hour was the following words…

"Ma'am? Are you alright?"

Slowly, as if dwelling in an eternity that only Eden could have provided, the captain turned around, sending the corpse of the xenomorph down further into the ground in the process. The question hadn't been asked in humor, but sitting on an alien body while staring blankly certainly gave such an opening. Then again, she could see that it was a lieutenant that had approached her, probably thrust into a chain of command that her blunder had left open. Humor probably went against his training.

"What do you want?" Miranda asked bluntly, her voice devoid of emotion.

"Um…well…"

"Spit it out boy, I'm not dead yet," she lied.

Part of the woman's mind alerted her to the fact that she was beginning to sound like Colonel Duke, but the rest of her mind couldn't give a damn. The battle was over and she'd fucked up. The end. And either the lieutenant would give her something new, or he could fuck off as well.

"We received orders to move out half an hour ago," the man said, straightening up as he did so. Apparently he'd accepted the concept of sitting on the bodies of the fallen. "We're to report to the dropships, head up to the Dauntless and leave the system."

"What?" Miranda asked, her brain starting to open up to external information. "We're to just pick up and leave?"

The officer shrugged. "That's what Duke said. Or what the commander of Cerberus Squadron said at least. The exact orders were only given to superior officers."

Miranda snorted at this. "Superior" wasn't how she'd describe herself right now. "Foolish" was more like it, especially if she'd been so zoned out that she hadn't heard whatever mystery orders Kurze had given. Still, unlike losing her closest friend, she could at least correct this mistake by rewinding her comm. unit's record and replaying whatever message the lieutenant colonel had sent out. Simple really.

The orders weren't however…

As quick as Adam accepted the fruit of forbidden knowledge, Miranda stood up, armed with knowledge of her own. Well, not just hers, but that the battlefield was now practically empty except for a dropship that the lieutenant claimed was waiting for her spoke for itself. Knowledge was power, but you still had to have enough of that knowledge to make that power effective. And while the captain was anything but confident about her abilities as a leader right now, she still knew the difference between right and wrong. A weakness perhaps, but one that she intended to exploit if such a thing were possible.

"Ah, good evening ma'am," said the pilot of the craft as the two officers entered. "Up to the Dauntless then?"

"No, the Charon," Miranda grunted, taking a seat without making eye contact. "We're making a short detour."

The pilot remained silent, but followed the orders anyway. Neural resocialization did that to you. It made you obey orders without question, even if your superiors and clutching their left hand as if their life depended on it. It made you obey orders without question even after your superiors took a small object out of said fist and hold it in both hands and bury their face in it.

And you even obeyed orders if your superior murmured something about killing the Cerberus commander…

2241 hours, November 12, 2499 (SCT)

Sara System, Chau Sara

Explorer-class science vessel Charon

Xavier Kurze rarely congratulated himself for a variety of reasons. For starters, situations where he was in a position to were few and far between. Cerberus Squadron did dirty jobs. Small, covert operations of which there were many, courtesy of human nature. Assassinations, extractions...all in a day's work for him. And besides, pride could be a dangerous thing. Not only did it lead to falls, but could also lead to ambition. Cerberus existed in a small niche of the Confederate military and seeking to get out of that niche without approval of the powers that be would see Kurze falling in a very literal sense.

It was easy to portray falling off a building as suicide...

Still, that wouldn't happen. Firstly because the lieutenant colonel knew better to let such a thing happen and that sometimes he'd complete a task where he felt that he'd truly earnt the right to bask in a job well done, even if the contents could only be revealed to a select few. And having executed the orders of Confederate High Command flawlessly, having gathered more data on the xenomorphs in days than their research groups had in years, not to mention keeping the existence of the creatures a secret from those outside Chau Sara, he felt he'd earnt the right to pat himself on the back.

Of course, it hadn't been him alone that had preserved the Confederacy's integrity, or at least what passed for it. The xenomorphs had to be fought for that to be preserved and many had died as a result. Not exactly a tragedy, but still, it would do him good to remember that. Such knowledge would be another safeguard against any surge of dangerous pride. Therefore, having finished reading the report Captain Shiff Arlo had given him, the lieutenant colonel decided to speak his mind.

"You did a good job down there Shiff," said Kurze, looking up from the dossier to where the resoc stood in front of his office desk. "A very good job indeed."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir," murmured all that remained of the Cerberus firebats.

"Anything else you want to talk about?"

"No sir. Nothing sir."

Kurze kept smiling as he leant back in his chair, though it was not as sincere as it had been a few seconds ago. Arlo wouldn't want to talk about anything, his resocialization prevented him from doing that. But after fighting tooth and nail against the xenomorphs in conditions that would have broken the will of lesser men, it was expected that he'd be affected somewhat. Neural resocialization was known to 'shatter' under periods of intense stress and while Arlo's was mild when compared to most other members of the Confederate Armed Forces, that still left a human spirit. One hardened by the profession of a serial killer, but a spirit nonetheless.

"Very well," said the Cerberus commander, sliding the file into one of his desk draws and pulling out another marked Top Secret. "You may go now."

With a salute, Arlo did so. Off to whatever the Confederacy assigned him to. Probably not a desk job for the Council like Collins, a position that Kurze had taken great pleasure in assigning him to, but not the same life he'd led before either. Regardless, it didn't matter. It wasn't Kurze's job to give his men psychological evaluations. It was his job to do what his masters told him to do. And in this case, that job included reading a copy of an electronic file that Confederate High Command had sent him.

He would have got round to it too, if not for the fact that someone entered the room as Arlo walked out...

"Kurze! What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

The lieutenant colonel looked up in surprise, his gaze meeting the gaze of...well, to be honest, the last person he expected to see. Clearly he was in for more surprises.

"Well, until you barged in, I was going about my business," he said, sliding the file High Command had sent him under more sensitive ones. He had a suspicion where this was going.

"Oh yes, I can see that," snarled Captain Miranda Wilkes, placing both of her palms on the desk as she leant forward. "You're just twaddling along up here while you leave Chau Sara to the wolves!"

Kurze was taken aback. He knew who this...person was. It was the girl he'd appointed to replace Captain High Fisher, courtesy of a rampaging ultralisk in Los Andares. It hadn't been a choice made lightly, but in the end he felt it had been the right one. Wilkes might have been inexperienced, but ingenuity was a rare commodity and one he felt would have been useful in a battle against an alien foe. A simple equation of balancing this up with the drawbacks of timidity and compassion, and he'd made his decision.

But looking at the woman in front of him. Pure rage in those gray eyes, the navy blue of dress uniform rather than out-of-place combat armour...clearly Arlo hadn't been the only one who'd come up from Chau Sara with adverse effects. Clearly he'd miscalculated.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" asked Kurze. "Why don't you tell me what the problem is?"

Wilkes laughed softly. "As if you don't know you conniving bastard. You feed us to the wolves-..."

"Xenomorphs, captain."

"Whatever!" Wilkes reached for something in her pocket, bringing out a single comm. unit. "You can be as literal or figurative as you like, but you can't take back these words!"

Kurze had no idea what she was talking about, but listening to the recording on the comm. unit, it became clear. The words the warrior woman in front of him was referring to were the same words he'd given the Alpha Squadron commanders more than an hour ago...

Alpha Squadron commanders, be advised. By edict of Confederate High Command, all matters regarding these xenomorphs are under class-seven seal. Do not speak of the existence of the xenomorphs or in any way relay the events surrounding their appearance on Chau Sara. Failure to comply with these orders will result in immediate termination. This conversation never took place. We were never here.

"There's more to it of course," Wilkes murmured, putting the comm. unit back in her pocket. "But that's all I needed to hear back on Chau Sara. You don't care that there's still xenomorphs on the surface. You don't care that you're ensuring that everyone who died down there died for nothing. You don't care-…"

"Oh for flick's sake Wilkes, of course I don't care!" Kurze exclaimed, astonished as to how extraordinarily stupid someone who hadn't been brain-panned could be. "Why would I? If I actually cared about Chau Sara or its population, I couldn't do my job! Hell, I'd be just like you!"

The girl seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. Thoughtless rage might have been motivating her, but it was effective enough to keep her on the attack.

"Right now, Kurze, you don't want to be me," she said slowly. "But that doesn't mean I want to be like you. If I were, I wouldn't-…"

"What, make a big fuss about nothing?" the Cerberus commander laughed.

Stunned silence filled the room. Good. It gave him an opening.

"Wilkes, I don't know how much of a brain you possess, but I humbly request that you use it," said Kurze, rising from his seat as he did so. "Even if we did defeat all the xenomorphs, what then? You think everything would be business as usual?"

Wilkes remained silent.

"These are aliens, captain, and hostile aliens at that. And while terrans can be hostile too, they can be rather stupid also. If word of an alien invasion got out…well, what do you think would happen?"

Wilkes met Kurze's gaze, which was difficult considering that he was pacing around her. "I can't speak for us all, commander. But I'd expect that it would unite us. Put an end to our own strife and-…"

"Or, the more likely scenario would occur," Kurze interrupted, not in the mood to listen to naive bullshit. "Chau Sara is, or was a Confederate planet. People here about aliens down there and they'll think our government is connected."

Which it was, of course. But no need to tell her that.

"Besides, the xenomorphs obviously came from somewhere and we need to be prepared for anywhere else they may strike," the lieutenant colonel continued. "Chau Sara will thus be kept isolated. A testing ground, if you will, to see how more expendable forces fare against the aliens. They can fight and die by their own merits, giving the Confederacy the information needed to save the rest of humanity."

Wilkes snorted. "You think you can just write off a planet and think no-one will care?"

Kurze laughed. "Of course they'll care Wilkes, if only out of faint curiosity and vague sympathy. But you know how the world works. People believe what they're told. And once they're told the truth about how a Sons of Korhal force was defeated on Chau Sara, they'll assume that the Alpha Squadron dregs we leave on the surface will be part of a suppression campaign. A lie perhaps, but all good lies stem from a grain of truth. Surely you can appreciate that."

He was facing her now. The moment of truth. Cold eyes locked with each other, yet for entirely different reasons.

"I notice that I'm not one of your so-called dregs," Wilkes murmured eventually.

"No, you're not," Kurze admitted. "You're a good commander, if somewhat naive. How Duke keeps the Alphas quiet is his own business, but he's got enough sense to ensure confidentiality on his own part, not to mention the ability to make sacrifices. Regardless, Chau Sara is now under complete lockdown, so no-one can verify any rumors anyway and given how backwater the planet is, I doubt that anyone could be bothered."

Wilkes smiled. "I think you might want to change that line of thought, sir."

Kurze raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

Funny how dynamics could shift. In an instant, Wilkes was now in control.

"Call me a dreg if you want," said the captain slowly, "but don't call me naive. Once, yes, but I know that four-hundred thousand people live on that backwater planet and they don't deserve to be sacrificed for the sake of an experiment. I can't fight the Confederacy, Kurze. But I can fight the xenomorphs. And if the only Alphas left on the surface are dregs, then they need so-called good soldiers to lead them."

"Lead them to their deaths," Kurze pointed out.

"We're all dead sir. We were all dead the moment we stepped foot on that planet. And when true human nature reveals itself, when the right thing happens, you'll realize that you were dead to the universe long before that."

And with that, she turned and walked out.

Kurze didn't try to stop her. If Wilkes wanted to kill herself, fine, but for now, he'd let her have her moment. Chau Sara was dead to him and no help would be coming. Not from the Confederacy, not from 'high above' (as much a delusion as her own views of morality), not from anything or anyone. And although the former lieutenant had been a good asset, she was just that-an asset. An expendable one and could easily be replaced. After all, life was cheap.

Shrugging, Kurze returned to his desk and his file. The one marked Top Secret. The one that held some interesting information on devices known as psi emitters and their connection to the xenomorphs. Or at least what used to be the xenomorphs. High Command had apparently decided on a new name, as if to legitimize the threat they faced.

They'd decided to call them the zerg…

The long night has begun.

Above Chau Sara, the Dauntless enters warp space to rendezvous with the Norad II, as per the orders of Colonel Duke. He has his orders and he'll follow them. He doesn't care that he's leaving 400,000 people to die.

In the depths of the Swarm, surrounded by a living fleet of bio-warships, the Overmind contemplates. It has suffered a defeat on Chau Sara and it realizes that. Humanity has proven itself to be a greater foe than it imagined. But no matter. The Swarm is eternal. The Swarm will never die. And having spread to many worlds throughout the Koprulu Sector, the Swarm is everywhere.

On the bridge of the Hyperion, Arcturus Mengsk undergoes similar contemplation. Chau Sara has been a major setback for the Sons of Korhal, but not an irrevocable one. First Contact has been made on a Confederate planet. He knows that the Confederacy has possessed knowledge of the xenomorphs for over a decade. Now he has proof. Now all the Sons of Korhal have to do is exploit this truth to their own ends.

And onboard the Charon, Kurze sits and reads, ignoring the dying planet below him. Not out of malice, not out of hatred, but simply because he doesn't care.

The dark is everywhere and these individuals dwell in it. But even in the darkest night, there are those who dream of dawn.

On the Norad II, Michael Liberty writes his latest column for UNN, or at least tries to under current censorship. He hasn't heard about Chau Sara yet. But he soon will. And in the war that is to come, he will be a voice of truth in a symphony of lies. It's in his nature.

In the depths of space, an alien warship patrols a space lane. Not terran, not zerg, but something else. Something that will soon come across zerg probes and discover the threat they present to all life. And despite the future edicts of this race, of the Firstborn, Executor Tassadar will endeavor to save as much life as he can. He is of the protoss. It's in his nature.

On Chau Sara's sister world of Mar Sara, a marshal greats the dawn. He doesn't know about Chau Sara's state, but if he did, he'd make all haste to get there. But he needn't worry. Mar Sara will soon meet a similar fate. And when that happens, James Raynor will be there to meet it head on.

And onboard the Charon, Miranda Wilkes boards a dropship to take her down to the planet, to cross the River Styx of space to the afterlife. Not to the Elysian Fields, but to Tartarus. The realm of the damned. But despite Chau Sara being such a place, her soul will be saved in the process. Clutching the identity tags of Robert Perry in her hand, she knows she has to earn salvation. She knows she has to do the right thing, even if no-one will ever hear of it.

But that doesn't matter. She knows something the Confederacy doesn't.

She knows that for all the powers of the dark, the light will never be extinguished. While the dark is everywhere, the stars shine brightly and will continue to do so. And even now, the Saran star casts light down on that which has fallen into darkness. A new morning is coming. And while the dark continues to encroach, the lights still burn. Hope stands strong.

And that's what matters.

The End

A/N

Well, it's finished. One reboot, two sidetracks to other StarCraft stories and it's finished.

Concerning this chapter specifically, not much changed from my initial conception. I'd originally planned the last section to focus entirely on the Overmind having one of its rants, but later felt (as in when I actually started writing the chapter) that it would be too similar to such sections beforehand. I wanted to convey a broader scope of the individuals about to be thrust into the Great War, giving a greater sense of scale of the going-ons in the Koprulu Sector. Of course, I threw an OC into the mix as well in such a section, but still, someone had to be a personification of the prequel campaign's player character.

Anyway, as I said, this story is now finished and at this time of writing, will be one of the last multi-chaptered StarCraft stories I do for quite awhile. Those two sidetrack stories I mentioned were other stories set in this universe (Operation: Claws and The New Order and while I have quite a few more stories in the final stage of drafting, none of them are ready to be written. Other stories are however, and it's them I intend to focus on, the first of which being my Warcraft story Denial.

All in all, I've had fun writing in this universe and will continue to do so. But it isn't the only universe I can write for and hopefully I'll be able to convey that. And if not, I can always return. I certainly intend to at least. And after all, StarCraft II is on the horizon...