No pillar would protect her from the claws, fangs, and sickles of the zerglings, who were almost on her. She had to know that, even as she fired, and he felt the respect he'd always had for her one final time before her death.

Then the little pack of zerg seemed to explode. Blood, ichor, and flesh went high into the air, raining down in pulpy fragments. It took a fraction of a second for Ethan to realize that one of the small terran vessels had hovered like a hawk just in time to fire dozens of rounds of cluster rockets into their center. Two zerglings managed to escape mostly intact, and, oozing fluid in a sluglike trail behind them, struggled to get to Rosemary. She dispatched them both swiftly, and lifted her dark head.

She seemed to stare right at Ethan.

The small fighter continued to hover protectively above her, and Ethan swore. Valerian had no doubt issued orders to guard his pet assassin. No matter. He'd get her later.

He was distracted by movement in another part of the courtyard. A protoss had suddenly emerged. He realized it was the one he had spoken with earlier, who had seemed to agree to his demands if he would only wait until the ritual was completed. Ethan growled softly. He should have known better—likely the whole story aboutthe "delicate ritual" was a lie to buy time. He wanted to see this Executor Selendis ripped to pieces, too, and with a jerk of his hairless head another pack suddenly pulled itself from fighting the Dominion ground troops to tear off toward Selendis.

She met them halfway, leaping from the courtyard into the fray. Ethan could appreciate good fighting, and he knew what he was seeing was magnificent. Glowing blue blades erupted from Selendis's wrists and she whirled and almost danced as she fought. Her bright armor glinted in the merciless sunlight, the glare bright enough to make Ethan wince and probably harsh enough to be a weapon on its own at close range. Selendis dispatched two zerglings almost instantly, then turned on a third. The hydralisks fired a volley of spikes. Selendis cocked her head, as if listening, then leaped and flipped in midair. Her blades moved so swiftly they were a blur, and Ethan realized that she'd been fast enough to simply not be there when the spines reached her, and had sliced to pieces those she couldn't elude.

He debated sending in the "bigger guns" of his zerg army, but they were having a tough enough time holding off the Dominion attacks. Ethan realized that he was letting his emotions get the better of him. This must not become a personal battle, if he was to win it for his queen. He would leave Rosemary and Selendis to the lesser zerg; even a girl who was an expert with a rifle and a protoss executor would eventually fall.

Even as he turned his head, two battlecruisers began attacking the guardians that were spewing acid on the strange new units that were wreaking havoc on the zerg. He watched them for a moment, enough of a good sport to admire the technology. Small, sleek little vessels with sporty red trim, they came almost to ground before the wings retracted, legs extended, and the ship became a ground unit to be reckoned with. Ethan shrugged. Impressive—but once they were on the ground, the ships were easy targets for the guardians. He pulled two more in and directed them at the robot/vessels.

Valerian was not going to win this one.

Rosemary glanced up only briefly. If she had guardian angels in the forms of Dominion ships sent to protect her, then it was a fallen angel named Valerian who'd sent them. If he wanted her alive, he likely wanted something from her. Well, hell, if he was going to put his resources to saving her, then she was going to do what she burned to do.

She left the comparative safety of the pillar and raced down the steps, slipping and almost falling on zerg guts. She recovered, leaping the rest of the way to land firmly on the hard-baked earth. Rosemary had seen Ethan, flying out of harm's way on a mutalisk. She looked up at the ships overhead, waved, and pointed, then took off at full speed.

Ethan should have been harder to take down, she thought as the ships raced ahead and began bombarding him. The mutalisk screamed in agony, a horrible, screeching sound, and flailed before dropping like a stone. The ships continued to fire on the writhing zerg and its passenger.

Kerrigan saw it happen through Ethan's eyes, and sighed. She'd spent so much effort in creating him, had had such high hopes. As his body was riddled with metal, as he twitched and spasmed in agony, she experienced not a little regret. But there was nothing she could do. The task had been his to complete, and he had failed, and now he would die.

"My... queen..." he gasped in her mind.

She sent him the equivalent of a pat on the cheek, and then, unmoved by his wail of betrayal and shock, pulled out of his brain.

Still, she mused, the experiment had worked. She would simply have to create a new consort at some later date. One that would hopefully survive his first real challenge.

"Damn it!" Rosemary scowled as she ran, hoping there'd be enough left of Ethan for her to personally dispatch. The ships backed off as she entered their targeting range, unwilling to strike her.

He was still alive. She skidded to a halt and caught her breath, picking her way swiftly but carefully to avoid the pools of acid that some of the dead zerg had left as a final attack. Ethan hadn't been so lucky. His mount had fallen into one of these pools, and where he wasn't scorched, the acid was eating through him.

He did not scream, though he must have been in terrible pain. Rosemary respected that. She regarded him for a moment as he writhed in front of her.

"Huh," she said, casually. "I'd have thought a whole bunch of zerg would be coming to you right now, to spirit you away for healing."

Ethan propped himself up on one arm and one scythe-arm. His legs were pools of liquid flesh. The tendons on his neck stood out like cables as he tried to control his pain. But the look in his eyes gave him away. Rosemary raised an eyebrow; she'd never seen such anguish. And she knew it wasn't physical, either.

"Wait, let me guess. Your connection to the zerg has been severed, hasn't it?"

His silence confirmed it.

"Wow. Nice queen you've got there, huh? Drops you the minute you need a little help from her. Looks like you're just as expendable as the next zerg, Ethan."

"No!" The word was ripped from his throat. "She will not abandon me...." The protest turned into a harsh sob. "My queen... Kerrigan..."

Rosemary grinned and made a mock tsk-ing sound of sympathy. "And so you die betrayed. Hooray for appropriate ironies, you son of a bitch."

She lifted her rifle, slowly, so he could watch her, and took careful aim.

A sudden golden-blue blur interposed itself between Rosemary and her prey. Before Rosemary could react, Ethan lay lifeless before her, his head severed from his body, the flesh cauterized by a psi blade. Selendis stood before her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Rosemary shrieked.

"Protecting you," the executor replied calmly.

Rosemary let loose a string of oaths. "Protecting me? You robbed me of my kill! He was all but dead! I didn't need protecting from anything!"

"I did not protect you from what Kerrigan left of Ethan Stewart," Selendis said in that oh so irritatingly quiet mental voice. "I protected you from slaughtering out of hate. We are warriors, you and I. We must sometimes take lives. But we should do so because it is necessary. Not because we enjoy it. It is my fervent hope that after this moment, you will never again have to slay with hatred in your heart."

Beneath the resentment, the anger, the shock of feeling cheated, beneath the hate that did still surge fiercely inside her, a part of Rosemary understood.