Lab. The Hyperion.

“Ahhh!” Dr. Hanson groaned in frustration as she slammed her fist into a lab table.

It had been two days since the protoss left the planet, but trouble didn’t leave along with the protoss.

Everyday Dr. Hanson would hear reports from her men in the colonies. The number of infested was increasing exponentially. At one point the colonial commander have ordered the few militias they had to patrol across the streets and gun down any infested they spot. Civilians were told to stay home, but this was only a temporary solution. There weren’t enough militias to make sure everyone in the camp is secured. Some of the infested weren’t taken out in time, and they were able to spread the infestation further and further.

The militias soon realized their enemies were increasing as the battle continued.

To her utter hatred, Dr. Hanson heard reports that lieutenant Jean Turner, now in command of Raynor’s Raiders, ordered the Raiders to remain on the Hyperion instead of enter the colonies to protect the survivors.

If she was any less logical she would’ve confronted the woman, but she knew her words couldn’t change Jean’s mind. All she could achieve was waste precious time that she couldn’t afford to waste.

Setting her glasses on one of the lab tables and rubbing her eyes, Dr. Hanson felt her eyelids growing heavier and heavier. She hasn’t slept for two days, and as a completely organic human being she was getting exhausted. But she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t afford to sleep. Every second she spent resting would mean the death of god knew how many of her people.

Suddenly, Dr. Hanson heard some noise from outside. Growling, she stood up on her numbed legs and walked out of the lab.

She saw Raider soldiers running through the hallway. Men and women in full armor ran past her.

“What is happening?” Dr. Hanson didn’t believe Jean suddenly found some kindness in her heart and decided to deploy troops to the ground to take out the infested. If she was going to do that she would’ve done it two days ago.

Most of the Raiders simply ran past Hanson as if they didn’t hear her words, but eventually a marine with white stripes on her shoulder stopped.

“Doctor, the infestation have spread to most of the camp. Commander Turner has ordered all units to prepare for combat.” She looked at Dr. Hanson with a sense of sympathy in her eyes. “We will be terminating the colony down there at a moment’s notice.”

“What?” Dr. Hanson almost bit her tongue in surprise. “But...she can’t…I can still save them!”

Under the helmet, the female marine bit her lips. As someone from Agria, she knew how much Dr. Hanson cared about her people. This woman was willing to die to protect those colonists. Unfortunately she also knew there was nothing that could be done. She agreed with the protoss executor on this. The only cure for zerg infestation was purification by fire. Kill thousands to save millions was a worthy trade.

“You’re from Agria, aren’t you?” Dr. Hanson’s eyes suddenly caught onto the white stripe on the marine’s armor. “These are your brothers and sisters down there too!”

“I am a member of Raynor’s Raiders and those people down there are zerg.” The female marine said with determination. She lost everyone she knew about on Agria. As for now, the Raiders were the only ones she cared about. What happened to the colonists was sad, but sad things happen everywhere everyday. She wouldn’t falter from doing what had to be done just because she was sympathetic. She looked at Dr. Hanson one last time.

“Take care.” She turned and ran down the hall.

Left alone, Ariel Hanson didn’t know how she walked back into the lab.

She was running out of ideas. Unless she could produce a cure in a few minutes, she would have no way of stopping Jean from burning the colony below, with all the infested in it, to ash. But at this point it was clear that she couldn’t come up with the cure in time.

She considered calling Raynor and asking for his help, but the last time she went to Raynor’s room, the man refused to see her. After all, there was nothing Raynor could do, and seeing Hanson would just mean more disappointment for her.

At this moment, Hanson knew the fate of her people was sealed. They had no choice but to die, be revived, and be killed again.

And all of this was because of one girl. If Jean had agreed to send in the Raiders and suppress the infested, then the infestation would be much slower. It would buy her more time to develop a cure. But no. Jean Turner believed the lives of a few hundred Raiders was worth more than that of thousands of innocent.

Deep down Hanson knew blaming Jean everything was unfair. She was a Raider officer, and all she did was do what was best for the interest of the Raiders, but Hanson wasn’t exactly logical right now. She hasn’t had any sleep or much food in the past two days. She was about to lose everything she ever stood for. Her hero abandoned her. She was alone, exhausted, scared, angry, and lost.

Suddenly, her reddened eyes rested on a syringe of zerg virus she used for experiments.

If she could infest herself and then infest the entire ship and all the Raiders, then she wouldn’t be worried about the Raiders slaughtering her people. After all, they would all be zerg. In fact she wouldn’t even need to worry about developing a cure for the infestation.

She would protect her people, whether they were terran or zerg...Plus, she had a girl to kill.

“Commander,” A crew member walked up to Jean. “The infestation is spreading. The colonial militia is losing control.”

Jean nodded. “We can’t afford to take action, at least not now.” If the Raiders act now, unless they were willing to destroy the entire colony with both the civilians and the infested in it, they could only use infantry forces to clear the infested out. They had no way of knowing who was infested and who wasn’t, which meant a perfectly innocent colonist might suddenly turn into a zerg combatant in just seconds. The Raiders might save a dozen civilians, only to be hit in the back by a dozen infested. Under this circumstance, the couple hundred infantry forces had little chance of victory/

The Raiders had no choice but to stand and watch the infestation spread. However, if the entire colony fell, Jean could easily terminate the infestation with the help of bombardment of the Hyperion and fighters. Unlike on Meinhoff, the infested here were only thousands at most. Terran bombardment could effective dwindle their numbers and cleanse their presence.

The crew member nodded. As bad as it was to sit and watch innocent terran being massacred, it would be even worse to have fellow Raiders take the place of the colonists and be the ones slaughtered. Total strangers versus brothers in arms. It was an easy decision.

Jean walked to a hologram map of the colony. Most of the Raider infantry units, including the war pigs and the hammer securities, were positioned around the colony. The five vikings were in an open space close to the camp. They could lift off into the air and, along with the Hyperion, unload on the soon to be infested colony and get rid of most of the infested. The infantry units would then press on and kill everything that survived the initial bombardment.

Suddenly, another crew member walked up to Jean. “Commander, there’s something wrong with the lab.”

“Explain.”

“All the cameras in the lab have gone out.” The woman paused. “Something’s wrong down there.”

Jean’s mind turned. She knew in the normal history Dr. Hanson would infest herself after Raynor sided with the protoss and destroyed the colonies. She wasn’t sure whether she was doing the same thing here, not that it mattered.

If Hanson was infested, then she could just kill her. The doctor was a good scientist, but if her danger overcame her contribution, then Jean would terminate her without a second thought.

Most of the infantry units, even the Warden units, were on the ground, but that wasn’t a problem.

“Maintain a communication channel with me and notify me if anything is changed.” Jean walked out of the bridge. Her guard captain was waiting outside. “Bring your men and meet me in front of my room.”

The captain left without a word. Jean quickly went back to her room.

When she exited her room half a minute later, she was in her white armor. Her helmet was sealed shut, hiding her face behind a layer of white hardened glass. Two specialized pistols were in her hands.

The reaper captain and eighteen reaper guards followed her down the hall toward the lab.

Running by another corner, Jean stopped at the sight of two dead marines on the ground. Their helmets were being smashed open by something sharp. The lab was as important as the armory and the bridge, and some guards were given the mission of protecting it. Even when Jean pulled the majority of the personnel she had to the surface of the planet, there were still two guards at the lab.

Unfortunately, they weren’t prepared against threats from inside. When the lab door opened, they didn’t even turn and look. As far as they knew, anyone that came out of there would be friendly. Usually they were right. This time they weren’t.

The two marines became the prime victims of the infested scientist. Dr. Hanson, in the heart of her hatred, injected herself with a refined sample of the zerg virus. As a result, she was stronger than normal infested and was able to ravage through the unsuspecting marines.

“Sound the alarm and lock down the ship. Do an internal scan and locate Dr. Hanson.” Before Jean didn’t want a battle alarm to make Hanson realize a killing party was on its way and flee the lab, but now she no longer had that concern.

“Yes sir. Shall we pull back the forces on Haven?” Right now the Hyperion was at its weakest point. Most of the combatants were gone, and apart from the guards there were only some crew members left. The Hyperion was a powerful ship, but it was defenseless against enemies from the inside. It’s not like the Raiders had the money to build internal defenses like automated turrets.

“No.” Jean turned around. “I will deal with her.”

Despite her deformation, Dr. Ariel Hanson has never felt better.

Throughout her life, she has been burdened by the responsibility to protect her people. Living in a world full of aliens and conspiracists, the defenseless colonies could only sit back and hope someone would be kind enough to protect them.

Not anymore.

Even on the Hyperion, Dr. Hanson could sense thousands of her people, more healthy than ever, on Haven, and that number was continuously increasing. This time they would no longer be the hunted. This time, they would be the hunter.

She knew that as soon as she punched two holes in the face of two Raider marines. The hardened glass of the CMC armor crumbled under her newly grown claws. She could see that one of them was from Agria, and was, therefore, her people, but she didn’t feel a sense of guilt.

The good doctor thought, no matter how twisted she has become, she was still saving her people, but in reality, the infestation has already changed her. Her loyalty was to the swarm.

The sound of alarms penetrated the ship. Dr. Hanson smirked and kept on walking. She knew she was doomed. Even mutated, she had no chance of massacring the dozens of crew members who were probably armed now that the alarm came off. Now she realized her plan before infesting herself, the plan of taking over the ship and kill Jean Turner in the process, was a foolish one. But the zerg part in her forced her to do as much as she could for the swarm. In this case, it was to do as much damage to the Hyperion as possible.

Turning around another corner, Dr. Hanson found herself staring at three Raider crew members.

“Zerg!” The staring went both ways.

The crew members didn’t have their armors on, but they were carrying gauss rifles. They were taken by surprise, but they didn’t let that surprise overcome them. Immediately they opened fire.

Hanson jumped into the air with incredible speed. She could feel the bullets fly by below her. The crew members tried to move their guns up, but they weren’t equipped with CMC armors, and the weight of the gauss rifles and the impact of recoil was too much for normal human beings to handle with ease. It took a few seconds for the rifles to get into position, and those seconds were all the infested needed.

Hanson landed on top of one of the crew members and broke his neck on impact. A female crew member desperately swung her rifle at the infested, only to miss and be stabbed in the chest by five sharpened fingers. The last crew tried to fall back, but he never had the chance as Hanson stepped on the first dead crew member and leaped onto the third.

In a melee situation, terran units were always weaker than zerg ones.

Pulling her claws out of the chest of the third crew member and dropping the bloody heart of the man on the ground, Hanson suddenly heard a gunshot which was immediately followed by a sharp pain in her back.

The pain didn’t completely disable the infested doctor. She turned around and faced Jean.

The battle instincts told Hanson to either strike now or turn and run to fight another day, but the hatred boiling in the woman’s chest suggested otherwise. For the moment, the hate was even strong enough to suppress the instincts that were carved into her body.

“You!” She shouted. Her voice was no longer that of a soft woman. Instead, it had been turned to the ear-piercing screech of an average zerg. Her face was deformed, and a set of sharp teeth replaced her cute lips. Overall, this creature had few resemblances of the doctor it once was. “You made me into this monster! It’s all your fault! I’m gonna rip you apart...”

“Bang.”

Without another word, Hanson collapsed with a hole in her forehead. At this close of a distance, the mutated carapace did nothing against the bullet of a P-38 gauss pistol. Even without the hole, the bullet had enough momentum to turn the brain of the infested to liquid.

Standing back up, Jean nodded at the reaper captain, who returned the pistol he just fired back into his holster. While Dr. Hanson was doing her talking, Jean made a sign for the reaper captain to take aim. The captain was blocked by Jean and Dr. Hanson didn’t see him. There might be some zerg with the capability of sensing enemy presence with psionic power, but Dr. Hanson wasn’t at that point yet.

When he was ready, the reaper captain told Jean through the radio. Jean knelt down and gave a clear line of sight for the reaper captain. The entire process went flawlessly. The infested that killed five armed men and women was taken down by a single bullet.

The girl walked up Dr. Hanson and emptied the entire clip of her handgun into the body’s head and chest before turning and leaving.

She was never a talkative person.

As she walked, she touched her earpiece.

“Commander, it has been confirmed. The colony is completely infested. We’ve lost it.”

“In that case, send in the battle groups. Destroy the colony.”