Xava'tor, we hear, and we obey.

Immediately the ships that had been pressing the attack closed in around Ulrezaj's swirling essence as the enormous dark archon changed direction and moved swiftly toward safety.

"It's hurt," breathed Devon Starke, former ghost and now devoted employee of Valerian Mengsk. "The protoss mental attacks were able to hurt it."

It had been difficult, protecting himself against the power of the dark archon's mind—minds? It was hard to tell which—but Starke had managed to do it. He could not read the thoughts of the dark archon perse, not the way he could those of terrans, but he could get bits and pieces. Enough so that he understood that the protoss had utilized a psionic attack that had managed to harm this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of darkness that was moving implacably toward—

And it was then he realized that Jake and Rosemary had indeed made their escape. Starke rubbed his head, which was aching terribly. The combination of battling protoss, zerg, and this monstrous thing that had appeared out of nowhere had been too much of a distraction. Starke had come for one thing, one man, and that man was gone.

"Contact Mr. V," he ordered.

"Sir," the pilot said, his voice strained, "I can't raise anyone. Not even the other ships." "What?"

"Whatever the protoss did somehow short-circuited our communications system. We're damned lucky we're still flying."

Damn it. Starke was used to following orders. He needed to know where to go, what to do—regroup with the others, or attempt to figure out the warp gate, or—

—or follow the dark archon, who was now retreating almost more swiftly than it had advanced.

Starke closed his eyes, willing his body to accept the pain, trading the agony for information.

It was indeed hurt. Wounded, even. Exhausted. It needed to rest. Recover. In... below. Then it would attack again. It would find the preserver and destroy her. There was no place she could hide from—

"Ulrezaj," Devon whispered. He had a name now. Maybe that would help. In the meantime, he knew what he had to do. There was no following Jake Ramsey through the warp gate. But it was clear that this being, this Ulrezaj, wanted Ramsey as badly as Valerian did.

"The dark archon is going to ground," he told the pilot. "Let him think he's shaken us, but don't lose him. When he makes his move, which he will, we will follow him at a distance."

The pilot looked uneasy, but nodded. "Of course, sir."

"In the meantime, I will take a hawk and rendezvous with Mr. V's vessel and apprise him of what has happened." Starke rose and then gripped the arm of the chair as his vision swirled. Such close contact with Ulrezaj, plus uncomfortably close proximity to the—storms, he supposed he would call them, of the protoss had tired him more than he thought.

He sat back down hard in the chair and forced a laugh. "I'll do that in... just a few moments."

Fear skittered along Valerian's mind. He liked Devon Starke. He did not want to think that the man had perished. Beside him, his personal assistant, Charles Whittier, muttering under his breath and looking even more distraught than usual, frantically moved his hands over the controls, trying to raise the ghost. Or indeed anyone, as all the screens were still ominously dark.

"Sir, I-I'm afraid that whatever it was the protoss did may have shorted out communication."

Valerian nodded his blond head, brushing absently at a stray lock that fell into his eyes. "Keep trying, Whittier." He clapped a hand on his assistant's shoulder in what he hoped was a heartening manner. Instead Whittier jumped about a foot.

Valerian folded his arms across his chest, thinking. It was quite possible he'd just lost all his vessels. He'd put every resource available into this, and if they were gone, he'd have to start from the beginning. He thought about the last thing he'd heard from Starke. It's all we can do to stop this dark archon from killing them. The protoss are doing something—I'm not sure what—but it's giving the thing pause.

The moments ticked by. There was no response.

Valerian had sent every ship save his own down to Aiur to capture Jake. None of them had reported in. The best case scenario was that their communications systems were damaged; the worst, that whatever it was the protoss were doing had wiped out his entire fleet.

"This is Captain Macey for Mr. V, are you available, sir?"

Captain Dennis Macey had a smooth, confident voice that sounded like nothing in the universe would take him by surprise. Even now, he sounded so calm one could almost imagine he was bored.

Valerian leaned down and pressed a button. "This is Mr. V., Captain—have you had any contact with your vessels on the surface?"

"Negative, sir, not for several minutes. I'm attempting to raise them, but with no luck."

Valerian was left with only one option.

"Captain, I'll be on the bridge in a moment." He ended the conversation and turned to Whittier. "I'm going down there, Whittier. Prepare my hawk."

"Sir! You can't possibly—what would your father—"

Valerian turned. Gray eyes narrowing, he fixed a gaze on Whittier that silenced the man in mid-sentence. "I came here to find Ramsey. If Ramsey is dead, I need to know. If everyone I set to that task is dead, I need to know. They are my responsibility. Keep monitoring, Whittier."

"Y-yes, sir."

Captain Macey, a tall, taciturn man with skin the color of coffee and eyes that never revealed what he was thinking, turned without surprise as his employer entered and nodded acknowledgment of the Heir Apparent's presence.

Valerian gazed out the huge windows and regarded Aiur turning slowly in space. From this distance, nothing could be seen of the fighting on the surface.

"Starke said that the protoss were doing something—utilizing some kind of psionic attack," Valerian told the captain.

"I don't know that much about the protoss, sir, but I know they know how to ruin a planet. It's entirely possible our ships are—"

"...to Illustrious, come in Illustrious."

The voice sounded exhausted, but it was clearly recognizable as belonging to Devon Starke. Valerian felt a grin spreading across his face. "Devon! Are you all right?"

"Not quite sure how to answer that, sir, but I am alive. And I have quite a lot of news."

CHAPTER 4

ROSEMARY THOUGHT BACK TO THE LAST TIME she'd been in a cell. It had not been all that long ago, though it felt like she'd lived a lifetime since then. It had been right when Valerian had double-crossed her. She'd been about to turn Jake Ramsey over to the tender loving care of the marines aboard the Gray Tiger and collect her payment. Instead, the marines had arrested her too.

She'd been put in a tiny little makeshift cell that she had paced too many times to count. Rosemary recalled kicking the prefab walls in anger—that had not been her smartest moment. She owed her eventual freedom to the very man she'd planned to betray. A smile curved her lips as she recalled the door swinging open and Jake entering. She'd jumped him before she realized who he was, and they'd both hit the floor hard. Jake had not had Zamara in his head very long at that point, and he'd been exhausted by the ordeal. Though he had been the one to unlock her door, it was Rosemary who got them to safety when Jake passed out.

Rosemary realized that not only was she worried about Jake's safety and, yes, that of the protoss in his brain, but...she missed the guy.

She surveyed her current living quarters with a wry grin. No tiny prefab-walled cell for her this time. If this was any indication, the protoss did things on a much classier scale than humans did. The room was spacious, with a large, soft mattress on the floor, tables and chairs (a bit too large for a human frame, let alone her petite one, but tables and chairs nonetheless), and a spacious window that nearly took up half the wall. It opened onto a purple-blue landscape of swirling sands and buildings, the latter only distinguishable in the apparent eternal twilight by faint lights. She had had only three real complaints, some of which were more easily taken care of than others. One was the lighting; it was apparently controlled by telepathy, and Rosemary was sorely lacking in that quarter. She had had to knock on the door and ask her guard to turn the lights on and off. The second was food and water. Rosemary remembered Jake saying that the protoss got all their nutrients from the sun, moon, and stars. She needed something more substantial. Which led to her third complaint—a rather pressing need for a chamber pot.