StarCraft - Queen of Blades by Aaron Rosenberg

Author:Aaron Rosenberg [Rosenberg, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

But it missed as many as it hit and it didn’t finish off the zerg it wounded—instead it ran on, ignoring the damage it caused, until it reached the far wall. Then, as Raynor watched amazed, the ultralisk charged full force into the cavern, its tusks shattering with a sickening crunch. It reared back, clearly dazed, and repeated the attack, again and again, each time injur-ing itself more, until finally its head collided with a rocky spur, producing a loud crack, and the ultralisk fell to the ground, its skull caved in.

This was insane, Raynor thought as he watched the chaos below him. They weren’t angry—they had gone mad!

He thought about that. Maybe they had gone mad.

Or mindless, at least. This was Zasz’s brood. The cerebrate had controlled them utterly. Raynor had noticed before that individual zerg had little autonomy—even the cerebrates were bound to the Overmind’s will. Kerrigan was apparently an exception. She’d been allowed to retain her free will, and was loyal to the Swarm but could act independently. The other zerg were more tightly controlled. So, if Zasz had done all the thinking for his brood, and Zeratul had just killed him, where did Q U E E N

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that leave these zerg? Without a controlling thought.

No wonder they were going berserk—they were mindless killers and all their restraints had just fallen away, but without a direction they simply lashed out around themselves.

A chill crept through Raynor as he retreated hastily toward the surface, keeping an eye on the carnage behind him. Fortunately the zerg were too distracted to notice him. The zerg’s greatest strengths were their sheer numbers and their ability to act as one, he thought as he exited the cavern and took a deep breath, relieved to be back in the sunlight and open air again. Zeratul had found a way to sever the connection between individual zerg—he had killed one zerg, the cerebrate, and had effectively dispatched an entire brood. If he and his people could learn to do that, to target the cerebrates, they could end this war! They could destroy the zerg for good!

“It can’t be that easy,” he admitted as he walked away, heading back toward his camp. The Dark Templar had vanished, as had the other protoss, and he was too weary and too shaken by what he’d seen to go after them again. Besides, he had a lot to think about.

If all it took to destroy a brood was killing the cerebrate, why hadn’t Tassadar done the same? Sure, the Executor had said he was here to study Kerrigan, but he’d fought the zerg before. Why not just target their cerebrates, render the broods helpless, and then mop them up? In that way the protoss would never lose a war against the Swarm, and the Swarm probably wouldn’t 180

A A R O N

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have ever made it to Mar Sara and the other human worlds.

There was more to it than that.

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