Yes, it would hold against his first assault. Maybe even the second.

But not the third.

It was time to end this. He had toyed with them enough. Like a careless child treading on insects beneath his feet, Ulrezaj continued to move through the zerg almost unaware of their existence beyond a mild annoyance.

The sun shone with fierce and dispassionate brightness down upon the scene of dead and dying, squirming, shrieking zerg, meditating protoss, and the great dark archon that was about to destroy them all. Its intensity did not penetrate Ulrezaj; his darkness took the light and swallowed it.

And then a shadow fell on the bright, dead ground. And another. Until dozens of small shadows danced on the earth.

And Ulrezaj shook with terrible rage as he realized that a third enemy had joined against him yet again.

Rosemary felt the shock and delight rip through her mind as the protoss saw it.

Ships—so many that the sky was becoming crowded. Terran vessels. "I'll be damned," Rosemary said softly. "The cavalry does come over the hill."

Of course, this cavalry was no doubt commanded by Valerian Mengsk, and that meant trouble of another sort, but she'd deal with that later. She shot the two zerg that were bearing down on her, then raced out into the courtyard and assessed the situation as she swung the rifle into position.

She could see Ulrezaj with her own eyes now, looming toward them. His dark image was slightly obscured and softened by the blue-white shield the protoss had erected, but it was clear enough. At his feet was a vast spread of dead and dying zerg of all shapes and sizes. The hot air, so still when she had first come here as if nothing ever pierced the silence, was now swirling with dust and laden with sound. The shrieks and bellows of the zerg as they hurled themselves at the shield; the deep pulses of Ulrezaj's dark energies as they surged outward; and the more familiar sounds of Dominion vessels. Rosemary heard the reverberating spurts of plasma torpedoes, the explosions of cluster rockets, and the once-you've-heard-it-you-never-forget building, nail-biting hum of a Yamato cannon.

Some of the ships she recognized right off the bat, such as the dropships like the one she herself had piloted not that long ago. There were battlecruisers, of course. She counted four of them. She could peg them anywhere by the sound of the Yamato cannons and the unique hammerhead shape. But they looked different, somehow. And the fighters—she blinked, wondering if the waviness induced by the heat in the air was making her see things. For the first time, she understood the phenomenon of the mirage and the oasis. She was sure the thing was there a minute ago—

And then it reappeared, a zippy little planetside fighter with almost nostalgic-looking turbofans to propel it. Cloaking ability, then. It was small and swift and Rosemary felt like she was falling in love as she watched it dip and dive and unload cluster rockets.

And over there—the piece of military equipment she'd pegged as a type of siege tank had tucked its massive legs underneath it, somehow leaped into the air and sprouted wings. It had now taken flight and was diving and retreating at Ulrezaj while a mutalisk was doing the same thing.

Heh... talk about "air to ground, "she mused. Clearly Arcturus, or at least his military people, hadn't been just sitting on their butts drinking port over the last few years.

And amazingly enough, the combination of zerg and Dominion vessels was obviously giving Ulrezaj pause.

It had been many years since Rosemary considered herself starry-eyed, and she wasn't now. Ulrezaj, from what she understood, could replenish himself easily and effectively at any point. Even as she watched, several of the fast little ships got too close to the dark archon and were vaporized instantly. Even if Valerian had brought the whole Dominion fleet with him, she wondered if they'd be able to best Ulrezaj on his home turf.

Still... all they needed was some time. Some time to pile into the ship, get through the warp gate, and come back with a bunch of protoss ready to...

She shook her dark head. No, they might get through with the vessel, a couple of alysaar, and some crystals. But even a slew of protoss who were masters at the sort of thing she'd witnessed on Aiur wouldn't be able to stop him. He'd wear them down.. .and then restore himself.

They were losing. He was almost here. Rosemary realized that at this moment, she was utterly impotent. She could do nothing. No grenades, no gauss rifles, no weapon or power she could wield as an ordinary human female was going to make a difference. It had been up to the protoss to defeat him, them and their psionic storms. The protoss here had done everything they could, she'd give them that— but it wasn't enough. It simply wasn't enough.

They were losing, and she and Jake would die.

Her brow creased in the stubborn frown that both friend and enemy alike would have recognized, had they seen it. Rosemary lifted the rifle and got the dark archon in her sights. It was a pointless and empty gesture, but if he got within range, she was going to fire on him.

At least she'd go down fighting.

Jake still held Zamara's four-fingered hands in his own. They were growing more and more transparent and felt oddly fragile, as if he were holding an empty eggshell instead of flesh and bone, as if he could crush them with a quick squeeze. Of course, both this eggshell-thin version of Zamara's hands and a more solid one were equally unreal, existing, as they did, solely in his mind.

More solid...

Jake stared at them. It wasn't his imagination—well, of course it was, it all was, but that was beside the point. Zamara's hands were indeed growing more solid within his own.

"What..." He didn't dare hope, but Zamara's eyes shone brightly.

"The crystal," she said, and he suddenly understood.

Normally, the dark templar utilized the khaydarin crystals found on Ehlna for the purpose of storing memories. But Jake had not given them an Ehlna crystal. He had given them a piece of the enormous crystal that had hovered deep beneath Aiur, by all accounts the most powerful khaydarin crystal any living protoss had ever encountered.

And this unique crystal was able to contain more than simple data.

"You...you won't be lost," he breathed. He felt his lips stretch in a grin that, he suspected, bordered on the idiotic.

She hunched her shoulders in a laugh. "It would appear not," she said. "Perhaps, in the future, we will find more crystals like this one. And then the dark templar will be able to preserve memories almost the way we do."

He felt almost giddy with relief and squeezed her hands, the hands that were not real. But they were real. They were as real as the tumble he'd taken that had kicked off the whole chaotic adventure, as real as the guilt that still racked him about the deaths of his friends, as real as Rosemary's kiss before he entered this mental state.

As real as—

"Ulrezaj!" he cried, reflexively tightening his grip.

"I know," Zamara said. Her grief was his own. "I have led him here, to this sacred place of irreplaceable knowledge, to these innocents who have had nothing to do with anything other than study. He has come for me, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey."

"He won't get you," Jake swore. "When—this is done, and you're in the crystal, we'll get you out. We'll keep your knowledge safe." What you died for will not be lost.

"You do not understand," she said, half closing her eyes in a smile. "My knowledge must be preserved—but so must Ulrezaj be stopped."

Jake stared at her, uncomprehending. "What do you mean? Do— do you want to get back into my head? Stop the transference?"

"No, it is too late for that. My essence is already in the crystal." Humor washed through him, shy, almost girlish. He had never thought of her as girlish, but this, too, was a part of her as much as her strength, will, and occasional acerbity. "I simply did not want to say farewell until I had to. Life is sweet, Jacob. Protoss or terran, we share that."