Raynor didn't know whether it was fate, a trigger or pure coincidence, but as soon as he touched the big cocoon in the middle of all the others, it burst, splashing his visor full with Zerg slime. He managed to wipe the stuff off fairly quickly, but as soon as it was done, he immediately wished he didn't.

There right in front of him stood none other than Sarah Kerrigan, former Confederate Ghost, the strongest psychic human he had ever met and now fully infested by the Zerg.

"Oh god, Sarah," he whispered. "What did they do to you?"

Kerrigan still had a fairly humanoid body and her facial features were mostly the same. The first obvious difference were the bony wings on her back, which gave her a somewhat regal look. Her hair was now thicker and Zerg like, very similar to the Terran dreadlock hairstyle. Because they were no longer tied together, they reached all the way down to her waist and even a little further. Instead of the ghost armor, she now had a chitin plating covering her body, which seemed to be as durable as it was flexible. Finally, a little detail he noticed were some high heel appendages growing out of her feet. The perverted part of Raynor's mind told him that she looked pretty hot, but his military and currently dominant mindset was practically going into overdrive.

This wasn't the first time the Zerg infested a human, only this time it didn't turn the victim into a suicide bomb. It looked almost like the Zerg had turned Sarah into some sort of super soldier, a commando unit maybe. Given the vast psi potential, she possessed this was bad news for the Koprulu Sector. She already had been a force of nature as a Terran. Raynor could only speculate what she was able to do now that she was a Zerg.

Before his mind was able to process this any further, Raynor had the loud, booming voice once again, the same one he heard in the dreams he had these past weeks and just recently after he entered this chamber. He could still hear his men fighting the Zerg in the previous one.

"Arise, my daughter!" The voice of the Overmind bellowed. "Arise...Kerrigan."

Daughter?! Raynor repeated inside his head. He had no time to think about those words, as all of the sudden, three other cocoons burst open, revealing six Zerglings. Acting on instinct, he aimed his weapon at the first two and fired. They were dead around five seconds after being born. Just in time he managed to swing his C-14 Impaler around and got two lucky headshots in a row. However, that was also the time his luck ran out. The fifth Zergling managed to jump on top of him and slammed him onto the ground. The sixth one managed to grab his weapon in its mouth and pull it away. That didn't mean he was defenseless.

Strengthened by the servos of his suit, he managed to punch the Zergling off him, sending it flying directly into the wall. As the man tried to get up, he found himself pinned down by the other Zergling. The thing tried to bite his face off and was only stopped by the visor for a moment. That is the monster just smashed with its face through the glass. Feeling the cuts on his face, the rebel leader thought that it was over. But before the Zergling finished him off, it decided for whatever reason to stop dead in its tracks, with the mouth still open. A part of Raynor's brain registered that he couldn't feel the beast breathing onto his face, but he was mostly wondering why the thing hadn't killed him as of yet.

His silent question was answered by the Zergling being yanked away and revealing Sarah standing right in front of him. On one of her new wings was the dead body of the Zergling, impaled through the back of its head. The wing made a shaking motion until the Zerg dropped dead to the ground.

In the meantime, Kerrigan had her eyes closed, her body was leaning forward and she had her hand placed on her forehead as if she was experiencing a migraine.

"Sarah!" Alerted, Jim got up as fast as the bulky armor allowed him to do and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sarah, talk to me! Are you alright?"

"Nngh! Jim…" she managed to press out. The human was taken aback for a second by her new voice or rather the echo inside her new voice.

"It's okay, darling. I'm here. Take it easy." the man tried to reassure the former ghost. Judging by the expression, the infested woman must be going through a lot of pain. At least she still remembered his name, which was more than was seen by previously infested humans.

"Jim...you...urrgh!" She now held her head with both hands. "You need to get away!" She said quickly. "I'm….I'm losing control! ARRRRGGHH!" All of the sudden, the woman began screaming on top of her lungs and released some kind of shockwave, sending the man flying straight through the cavern and back into the one where the battle was still going on. Shooting, however, stopped on both sides, as soon as the shout ran throughout the tunnels. Raynor incidentally landed on a Hydralisk, turning the serpent Zerg to mosh upon impact.

"Commander!" Some of his subordinates tried to get to him but were stopped by a bunch of Zerglings standing in their way. The rebel leader had the unfortunate luck to land right in the middle of the opposing army and every single one of them had one expression on their faces: dinner.

If I die, I take some of you bastards with me! He thought to himself, grabbing his two remaining grenades with both of his hands. Before he could pull the pins, Raynor heard a scream, which he and every Terran in the Sector had learned to fear. An Ultralisk was running towards his position, like a dog who had not seen his owner in a long time. Only the Ultralisk didn't plan to lick him (unless it wanted to lick him to death), it wanted to smash.

"Oh shit." Was all he could say before the beast used the backside of its gigantic blades and sent the man flying through the entire cavern. He managed to get a glimpse of Sarah stepping through the entrance of the other room, before he lost conscious, due to the impact against the wall.

Hyperion Medical Bay

10:54 Board Time

"And that's all I can remember." Raynor finished his story to Matt Horner, his first officer and right hand on the Hyperion. The rebel leader wasn't wearing much, only the standard medical gown, which itched on some places. The man was also bandaged up around the chest area and on the back, as he had cracked at least four ribs. It was a miracle the man could still speak normally. Or maybe it was because of the painkillers, he wasn't so sure. What he was sure off was that their effect was starting to dim and he could feel his back acting up again. Raynor might be no medical expert, but even he knew that he would be bound to the bed for weeks to come, maybe even months. No one on the ship was really sure because they had no medical expert on board. Some engineers, some former scientists, former Confederate Soldiers, heck they even had a former Ghost on board, complete with the newest equipment available. But sadly, while almost everyone knew first aid, none of them was a real doctor. As such those who got themselves seriously injured often didn't survive to live another day. Or they survived, only to be left crippled.

Matt Horner sat in a small folding chair next to his Commander, worried but glad that the man was still alive. Even though the young man didn't know why exactly Raynor ordered the Raiders to come to this planet in the middle of nowhere, in the end, it had been worth it. At least Matt hoped so.

"So, mind filling me in what's been going on? You didn't accidentally spill coffee over my Jukebox, did you?"

Horner couldn't help but chuckle at the Commander's little joke. "Don't worry, sir. The Jukebox is fully operational and running." Although I really wish to know where that thing came from. The first humans in this sector were prisoners! Did one of them smuggled an entire warehouse with them or something? Horner wondered to himself.

"As for your question...I'm not sure how accurate the information is, but here's what the men told me."

Char, Cave System

12 hours earlier

Seeing their Commander flying and screaming through the air would have almost been comical, if not for the fact that the rest of the humans would be next.

"Commander!"

"Shit!"

"Someone go get him!"

As soon as the man hit the ground, the Raiders opened fire again. Tons of small lead bullets flew through the air, hitting carapace, flesh, and stone. Two Raiders tried to make their way towards the Commander, but they were perfectly cut off, as the hordes of Zerglings made their way towards the Raider's position, closely followed by Hydralisks and a few Ultralisks.

"Fall back to the choke point!" someone shouted. "They're about to overrun us!"

Only reluctantly the Raiders followed the order. They didn't want to leave their leader behind but from the looks of things he was dead anyway. From what they knew the last thing he would have wanted was to get themselves killed over the slight hope that he might still be alive.

Only about a fourth of the remaining men and women managed to retreat, when something bizarre happened. They all had seen the infested woman stepping out of the chambers in front of them. They knew she must have been responsible for the scream, the shockwave and by proxy the most likely demise of James Raynor. The least they were expecting was for her to come jumping over the Zerglings, make a backflip in mid-air, land on the ground with her bony wings outstretched and facing in the direction of the Zerg!

"You're all going to pay!" She shouted the last word and leap at the Zerg front, perfectly slicing to two Zerglings apart with a swing of each wing.

"Holy shit!"

She proceeded to punch a Hydralisk in the face, followed by using her telekinesis to pull a few remaining Mutalisks to the ground. The blood splashed in every direction.

"Damn!"

Kerrigan sliced and diced her way through the sea of Zerglings, using both her wings and claw-hands, until she was in front of an Ultralisk. To everyone's surprise, she grabbed one of the blades with her hands and broke the entire thing off with, grunting at the exercise. The Zerg monstrosity screamed in pain and lashed out to its fellow Zerg until Kerrigan smashed the bladed into the creature's skull.

"Everyone with a boner, raise your hands now."

The former Ghost was far from done. She retrieved her weapon back out of the dead Zerg and proceeded to slash through the enemy ranks with her makeshift weapon.

"I'll give you 50.000 Credits for that!"

The dance of death continued, Kerrigan either using her wings, her weapon or sometimes her psi powers to get rid of the enemy. At one point she even caused the head of a Hydralisk to explode. The spines stored inside lashed out to the surrounding Zerg. Kerrigan remained undamaged somehow. At one point the Raiders noticed something very peculiar: the Zerg weren't fighting back. They were trying to retreat, be it through the back cave or through the lines of the Raiders. As soon as the first Zergling came to close, the ragtag rebel group once again opened fire, speeding up the process of Zerg elimination, until only one was left.

The Raiders eyed Kerrigan with mixed emotions. All of them recognized her, seeing as all of them formerly served under Mengsk until he turned out to be a split-tongued bastard. Everyone had at least heard stories of Kerrigan's exploits and some were even somewhat acquainted with the woman. Jim Raynor hadn't been the only one who was angry after Tarsonis. Many were friends with the soldiers that were lost that day. And now one of them had metaphorical come back from the dead, standing in front of them. Normally a reason to cheer, right? The only problem, she was infested. Yet at the same time, she just saved their sorry hides. No one knew what to do. Shoot her? Let her be? Take her into questioning?

"Jim!" Kerrigan exclaimed, running to where the rebel leader landed. Snapping out of their stupor, the Raiders in the front row followed her, until they were only a couple of steps away. The infested woman had open the Commander's visor and was seemingly checking his pulse. When she let out a sigh of relief a few others copied her motion, just realizing they had been holding their breaths.

The former Ghost pressed a sequence of buttons, completely ignoring the fact or maybe even not noticing that around twenty to forty fully automatic weapons were pointed at her. Some of the Raiders simply didn't want to take any chances. After one final button press, the suit armor opened, making it possible for Kerrigan to carefully retrieve Jim out of it.

"Shouldn't we do something?"

"I heard she can dodge bullets."

"Do you think she is going to infest him?"

All the talking stopped, as soon as Sarah had taken Jim in her arms, bridal style (a few marines snickered) and faced the Raiders directly. A few more weapons were raised, but no one dared to shoot.

Kerrigan regarded Raynor's troops with a neutral expression. Their faces were hidden through closed visors, but her telepathic abilities had already told her that the men and women were torn about what to do in this particular situation. None of them was really a leader of any kind. They were soldiers, simple as that. Give them a gun and an enemy and everything were fine. Give them a complex question about morale, twisted loyalties, Stockholm Syndrome or algebra and you pretty much lost them.

"I suggest we all leave these caves this instant," Kerrigan stated, her new voice sending shivers down the soldier's spines. "Unless one of you wants to end up on the dinner plate of the Zerg."

As if to make her point clear, a nearby wall collapsed and a group of Zerglings immediately made a beeline for the Terrans. Luckily this was only a small group. None of them came even close before they were all killed.

"Alright, boys and girls!" One of the Marines stepped up. Kerrigan assumed him to be a lieutenant. "Let's move out, before we end up as minced meat. Two lines, the wounded in the middle. And you." The man pretty much failed to keep his fear out of his voice, when he addressed Kerrigan. "Stay with me. You do anything, there'll be hell."

Kerrigan resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she focused on carrying Jim to safety while doing her best to ignore both the stray thoughts of the Marines, as well as the ominous presence, which she could feel ever since she was trapped in her cocoon. There were more than just one actually, but this particular one that called her "daughter" earlier overshadowed everything else. And it was watching her every step, like a military drone hovering above the battlefield.

As it turned out, the Raiders couldn't go back the way they had entered. And that was not because of the slippery slope at the end of the tunnel, but because a part of the tunnel had collapsed. The dead remains of a few Zerg could be found underneath the rocks.

"Looks like they tried to surround us, but caused the tunnel to collapse in the process."

"Man, lady luck must be really on our side today."

"Don't celebrate just yet. We still need to get out of here. Hey, you. You should know your way around, right?"

"No," Kerrigan replied dryly. "I have been trapped inside the cocoon up until a few-URRGH!" She almost dropped Raynor, when she collapsed on her knees. The Marines around her immediately raised their weapons at her sudden movement.

"You will obey the Overmind, hatchling! How dare you defy his orders?! Kill the Terrans immediately!"

"You can shove your orders up your ass, you stinkbug!" Kerrigan shouted. Her eyes glowed yellow for a few seconds, before returning to normal. Carefully she stood up, making sure she still held Jim secure in her grasp.

"What's going on?!" The man from earlier shouted, panic slowly making itself apparent in his voice.

"The Zerg…" Kerrigan breathed heavily. "They're onto us. We need to move, quick."

"Why should we trust you?" a female trooper ask. "For all we know, you might just lead us to them."

"Quit the bullshit, Sanchez." The current leader of the squad spoke. "She could have killed us earlier, but didn't. She actually fought against the Zerg and not with them. She could have kicked our asses, but did not! Now get a move on scumbags or I'll present you personally to the Zerg in form of an Umojan Stew!"

The expedition continued through the dangerous caverns, but luckily without any worth mentioning incident. The Zerg couldn't properly attack the Raiders, as the caverns were too narrow. Digging seemed to be a bad idea as well for the insects since the tunnels appeared to be unstable.

After two hours of running through narrow tunnels, avoiding lava pits and finding dead ends, the Terrans finally managed to get out of the cave system. Once outside, the leading man contacted the Hyperion.

"Contacting Hyperion. Captain Horner, can you hear me? This is Lieutenant Rodriguez."

"Rodriguez, this is Captain Horner speaking. What is your status?"

"We have...completed the objective, but suffered casualties. Around a third of us are wounded, one of them being Commander Raynor."

"WHAT?! What is the status of the commander?"

"I'm not sure, sir. He got smashed against a wall by an Ultralisk. He's breathing, but as I said, he's also out cold. I'm not sure if he'll survive the trip back to the shuttles."

"Roger Rodriguez. I'll be sending the shuttles to your coordinates. Lieutenant, you mentioned you completed your objective. Does this mean you've freed the prisoner the Commander spoke off?"

"Y-yeah, we did sir. Though you might you want to get the Quarantine Bay ready, sir. She's been...exposed to the Zerg for a long time."

"...I see." Horner eventually answered. Rodriguez could only imagine the confusion the Captain must be going through. Hell, the Commander didn't even tell anybody where he got the intel about the prisoner.

"Do we have a name for the person?"

"Yes sir. It's Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan."

Hyperion, High Orbit around Char, Medical Bay

11:22 Board Time

"Imagine my surprise, sir. I have personally never met the Lieutenant, but like everyone else heard about what happened back on Tarsonis."

"So she's really here? Aboard?" Raynor asked in disbelief.

"Yes, sir," Horner replied a bit nervously. "She has been...very cooperative. Though that could mean anything. Sorry, sir."

"Don't be." Raynor waved off. He could hardly believe it. Sarah was still alive, saved his troops from the Zerg and was now on board the Hyperion! For all accounts, he should be happy. If not for one particular detail. "You suspect she's somewhat of a sleeper, right?"

Horner nodded reluctantly.

"I understand." Raynor sighed. "She's the first infested Terran still showing any signs of free will," he said dryly. "For all, we know she might just be pretending to be on our side for now, in order to get us and by proxy other worlds infested."

Matt nodded once again. His commander had taken the words straight out of the younger man's mouth.

"But that's not all sir. The guards in front of her cell all reported that she is talking to herself. She says things like: 'I won't let you control me. Get out of my head. I will not obey.' Repeatedly. It almost looks like she's fighting a mental battle with another telepath. Even more worrisome is that so far she has not touched any food or water we provided her with. And she hasn't been sleeping at all."

"Damn." Raynor breathed out. He massaged his temples, trying to process the information. That's when he remembered something. Something that certainly explained a part of the weird dreams he'd been having for these past weeks.

"I just remembered...Mengsk scientists speculated that the Zerg have some sort of...what's it called?"

"Hive Mentality?" Horner offered. "I read the reports in the archives. The theory is that it works similar to a beehive or an ant farm. That there is one queen at the top, pulling all the strings. Some say it's one big Overlord controlling everything, since there have been sightings of Zerg going rogue, after a decent amount of Overlords were shot down."

"Yeah, it went something like that." Raynor nodded. "So, Kerrigan is fighting off whatever is trying to control her."

"And if she loses this battle?" Horner asked worriedly.

Jim looked out of the window, frowning. The red planet Char stared back, seemingly taunting the rebel leader.

"Simple, we won't let it happen," Raynor said as a matter of fact.

"Uh sir, I hate to break it to you, but I doubt we can defeat the Zerg forces with our own."

"I didn't say anything about kicking some Zerg ass, Matt. Whatever this thing is, it needs its Overlords to relay its orders. Which mean it has a limited range and capability to ordering the Zerg." Raynor looked straight at the man. "All we need to do is avoid the Zerg until we find a way to reverse what the virus did."

"Reverse what the virus did?" Horner echoed. "Sir, we have no one with the right expertise to find a cure. Not to mention the equipment and resources we would need to stock up…"

"Well, then we better get started. By the way, Matt, remember the idea you mentioned a few weeks ago? I think we'll have a better chance of finding someone when we have some sort of HQ planet."

"Sir?" Matt needed to think for a second, before remembering what his Commander was talking about. The young man's face lit up immediately. "Aye, sir! I'll have a list of planets for you available in an hour."

"Good man."

Horner wanted to say something until his communicator started beeping. "Horner here. What? Now of all times? I see. Alright." The man deactivated his communicator.

"That was Jimenez. I asked him to keep an eye on Kerrigan, just in case. He wishes to see you immediately."

Jimenez was the former Confederacy Ghost on board the Hyperion. His abilities were invaluable to the Raiders since he was their only Ghost. Raynor could see why Horner sends the man to watch over Kerrigan. As a telepath, he might be able to relate to her in some way.

"Alright, let's get down there. OW!"

"Maybe I should call him to get up here, sir."