Viper wiped a piece of cloth over her sniper rifle once again. This was the only thing that could offer her some comfort in this cold, lonely world.

She was sitting inside a modified dropship. After hearing about the Queen of Blade’s attack on the Moebius Foundation, Viper keenly realized there was little doubt Raynor’s Raiders would be there as well. Jean told her something about her past when they were together, and Viper knew the Moebius have worked well with the Raiders in the past. At this time of crisis, there would be no reason Narud would forget about the Raiders.

Good. Viper smirked and loaded a round of bullet into her rifle.

After losing Jean, Viper made up a list of those who were responsible for her death. Tosh was on the top of the list. The Terran Dominion wasn’t far behind.

Raynor was next in line.

Truth to be told Raynor wasn’t responsible for what happened to Jean, but after what happened a couple weeks ago, Viper wasn’t exactly logical.

After all, if Raynor didn’t betray Jean and side with Nova against Tosh, Tosh’s home base wouldn’t be damaged, and he wouldn’t need to retreat and rebuild his forces. If Tosh was with Jean and Viper when the two Dominion fleets jumped in, everything might be different.

Viper’s eyes suddenly turned bright purple as her mind was filled with hatred, and the circuits of the dropship started sparking from rogue psionic energy. Finally, at the last moment, Viper caught herself. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Thankfully, now she has a chance to make Raynor pay for what he did. That was why she joined this mission. She wasn’t here to fight the Swarm or to earn a couple credits. She was here to settle a personal matter.

She wanted to send Raynor to see Tosh...in hell.

Suddenly, a deep, dark voice echoed in her brain.

Can you feel the pain...now you understand this world is inherently flawed...life contains so much pain...so much hatred...go on...destroy it...end this infinite cycle of misery...and be reborn in blood and fire...

“Eh.” Viper groaned. She has heard about how ghosts who became spectres have a tendency of using extreme violence even when they didn’t need to. Ghosts were deadly, but spectres were mad. Some spectres reported seeing hallucinations.

Plus, she has personally experienced the effect of the terrazine. When she first woke up from the terrazine injection, Viper began hearing the voice. At first she didn’t think of it, but this voice kept on ranting, and she grew angrier and angrier. This anger, along with the physical pain caused by the terrazine, made her lose control to her power and put her on a killing streak.

She killed everyone on that station without any care of who they were or if they deserved to die. Tosh placed spectres as guards around Viper, but for some reason Viper, even as a brand new spectre, was much stronger than the spectres. She could even sense cloaked spectres and dodge their rounds.

Following the voice, an endless wave of power entered her body from an origin she didn’t know about and allowed her to do things she couldn’t even imagine before.

Tosh was good. He pumped at least three rounds into Viper, but the former ghost, consumed by a wave of frenziness, literally took all the hits and still charged up to Tosh and stabbed him in the chest. When the fighting ended, all the spectres and mercenaries on the station were dead.

After that, Viper regained her true self, at least temporarily. She left the station and waited for a few days before finally hearing the news and coming here.

The newly made spectre waited a few seconds as the voice gradually quieted down. She didn’t really mind it. Her sole purpose in life was getting vengeance, and she didn’t bother the voice. If anything, this voice made her feel better from the loss she endured. Plus, the power it granted impressed her.

Suddenly, a signal light on the control panel of the dropship started blinking. Viper opened her eyes and tapped the button. A communication broadcast popped up.

It was Doctor Emil Narud, the head of the Moebius Foundation and her employer.

The boardcast was sent to all the mercenaries that answered to Narud’s call.

“Greetings. The situation is serious, so I will get straight to the point. Three leviathans have warped into the orbit of the planet. Zerg flyers are overwhelming our orbital defenses. They have established multiple hive clusters on the surface of the planet. Scanners indicate at least ten thousand zerg units have landed. This number is increasing every second.”

“Your mission is to destroy the information stored in five different data cores. I am sending you location of these data cores now.”

“What is stopping us from blasting it out of the sky?” One of the mercenary leaders asked. He had a squad of battlecruisers under his command. Sit back, fire a couple rounds of Yamato Cannon, and collect the credits was much better than getting into a hand to hand combat with countless zerg.

“The data cores are designed to withstand orbital bombardment. You will need to enter the buildings, plant explosives, and detonate them to complete the objective.” Narud said, slightly frustrated. He spent qute some money on these data cores, but with the upper hand lost and most of the planet lost to the Swarm, these defenses were used against him.

The mercenaries nodded and formed five groups and started moving toward the five locations. Some of the larger mercenary groups, like Mira’s Marauders, took one data core fully to themselves. This meant having to cover more ground and take down more zerg, but Narud promised paying based on the contribution of the mercenaries, and getting an entire core for themself meant getting paid one fifth of the overall bounty.

These groups would force away other mercenaries that tried to join them. Leaders like Mira didn’t want someone else to get a cut of their prize.

Other, smaller factions teamed up and shared both the target and the reward. Raynor’s Raiders was one of such examples. Dozens of other mercenary ships were beside the Hyperion as it started descending into the atmosphere.

Viper piloted her dropship to join the Hyperion. As the transport started dropping in altitude, Viper took out a syringe of purple gas and jammed it into a blood vessel on her arm. She pushed the terrazine into her body.

At the initial contact, Viper’s entire body jerked up in excruciating pain, but a smile crawled up to her face. For a moment, she felt invincible. Purple psionic energy converged in her grip, and she felt like she, just like on Tosh’s battle station, could crush anyone she wanted, whether it was the mercenaries, the Raiders, or even the Swarm.

Almost at the same time, she felt a soft touch on her cheek. Viper tilted her head slightly and saw Jean’s beautiful figure standing right next to her. Her arms were swung around the spectre’s neck. Jean’s lips touched Viper’s.

For a moment, Viper felt happy.

But the happiness was gone in just seconds. Her logic returned, and Viper was returned to the lonely, vengeful spectre who was hell bent on avenging her love.

Viper reached inside her bag, wanting to pull out another dose of terrazine. Her body craved it like someone who has never felt a woman’s touch in decades crave sex. But she controlled this urge.

She had something more important to do.

She had a man to kill.

Dozens of dropships landed at a secured place. The pilots refused to go any further, and the mercenaries weren’t willing to risk it. The capital ships weren’t maneuverable enough, and if the dropships were down, even if the mercenaries could complete the mission, they would be stranded in a sea of zerg.

Hundreds of mercenaries walked out. Among them were over five hundred Raiders in blue armor. Another five hundred were made up of mercenaries from other factions.

Despite having equal numbers with the other mercenaries, Raynor’s Raiders were obviously much stronger. 150 of them had W signs on their helmets. Viper knew this sign all too well. All of a sudden, she couldn’t control her anger. Usually an elite ghost operative like her would be much more logical and careful, but taking drugs wasn’t exactly good for her mind.

Viper walked up to the man in grey armor in front of the blue mercenaries. A dozen Raiders raised their rifles in alertness, but Raynor stopped them.

“How dare you use her legacy after what you did to her?”

Inside his modified armor, Raynor threw up his eyebrows. “Do I know you, miss?” Raynor knew about Viper before, but she was drastically different. For one thing, she was in a blue ghost hostile suit before. Now her suit was shining in purple. She had a braid behind her, and now her hair was scattered behind her back. Plus, it has been a while since he left Jean. He didn’t even know she was presumed dead. Ghosts weren’t that rare among mercenaries either. The transition between the Confederacy and the Dominion left countless of these elite operatives loose in the sector.

Mira knew Jean was taken or killed, but during the brief contact between Mira and Horner, the young captain was too busy trying to get the conversation over with to listen to the mercenary talk about gossips. Mira never had a chance to give this piece of information to Horner and Raynor.

Viper smirked and backed off. Words were useless. Only blood could clean his sins.

Raynor turned his mind away from this odd spectre. He turned on a communication channel with the rest of the mercenaries on this data core. “This is James Raynor. I am assuming command of this squad. Anyone’s got a problem?” Half a dozen groups each fighting with their own method would result in a disaster. They needed a single command, and Raynor was willing to take the responsibility.

The rest of the mercenaries exchanged several looks before nodding in agreement. Raynor was not only famous for being a man with a plan but also for someone who has never turned against a friend before. This was rare in their line of work. The mercenaries simply couldn’t think of a better choice.

“Matt, send a few SCVs and siege tanks down here. Establish a defensive position around the transports.” Raynor spoke to Horner in the comm. A small group of mercenaries obeyed the order and stayed behind. Raynor turned to the rest. “The rest of you move out. We've got a job to do.”

The Swarm was efficient, but they didn’t know where the data cores were. Moebius buildings were designed to shield them against overseers. The zerg units had to be split around all the Moebius buildings. While most of the planet has fallen to the Swarm, some of the Moebius forces were still resisting. Dozens of defensive positions, made up of bunkers and siege tanks, delayed the unstoppable zerg push.

The Queen of Blades did all she could. Besides from tossing armies of elite units into the meat grinder, Kerrigan got her hands dirty as well. She personally took down at least three positions just by herself and slaughtered hundreds of elite Moebius soldiers single-handedly.

But that was it. The Swarm was inevitably delayed, and teams like the one Raynor was leading were given the opportunity to assault the data cores.

“Dadadada”

Raynor’s gun muzzle jumped, and a zergling collapsed with an exploded skull.

Behind him, hundreds of Warden marines rained down a hail of death onto the oncoming zerg tide. Their AIs were turned to full capacity. They didn’t miss a single shot.

The zerg resisted. Hunter killers fired back with their grooved spines, piercing the Warden marines and destroying their CPU, rendering them destroyed. Zerglings leaped into the terran lines, attempting to create some friendly fire. This worked, to a degree. A couple mercenaries fired blindly at the zerglings and missed and hit other friendly marines instead. Others were forced to back off, therefore messing up the formation.

But this distraction was halted in front of the Warden units. These machines, calmly and coldly, predicted the motion of these zerglings and gunned them down.

Viper has been silent the entire time as she continuously eyed Raynor from the back. She occasionally sniped a few zerg, but she wasn’t as serious as the rest of the mercenaries. Suddenly, she sensed something, but she didn’t say a single word about it.

The terran lines kept on moving, but all of a sudden three green, round figures came out of the ground, right in the middle of the marines and marauders.

“Baneling!” The horrified scream of one of the mercenaries sent sweat down the back of almost everyone present.

Mercenaries and Raiders alike tried to spread out and minimize the damage, but it was too late. All three banelings exploded, spreading corrosive acid across a significant portion of the strike team.

“Ahhh!” Ear piercing Screams immediately covered the radio channel as men were literally melted alive in their armors.

Raynor was lucky. His CMC armor was modified and provided additional protection, but his men weren’t as lucky. One of the banelings was right in the middle of the Raiders, and it took killed at least fifteen Raiders and wounded twice that number. Eight Warden marines were damaged beyond repair.

Warden marines have had the history of seeing burrowed infested terran before, but a couple cannon fodders were in no way comparable to the best of the Swarm. Warden marines weren’t really detectors. They were merely more observant and saw some signs on the ground, whether they were traces of strange mud pattern or something else. The banelings left no such mark.

Viper sensed the baneling mines from miles away with her enhanced psionic power, but she didn’t say a word. If anything, she wanted the strike team to fail. At the moment, with hundreds of Raiders and mercenaries around, she could at most pull her gun on Raynor for a single shot before she was gunned down. Even if she had luck on her side and killed Raynor, she would be dead as well. She wasn’t afraid of dying. In fact she was planning to commit suicide and join her love after everything was done, but she couldn’t die now. Tosh was dealt with, but the Dominion was still standing, and she wouldn’t rest until everything and everyone related to Jean’s death was turned to ashes.

She needed to weaken these men as much as possible, whether through the zerg or through other, more unethical means.

Raynor did his best to recover from the ambush. The wounded were escorted back to the transports. The dead were left behind after their dog tags were taken by their comrades. Their next of kin or brothers in arms would receive their part of the bounty. When all was done, the team, now with dozens of men less than before and much more pessimistic about the mission, turned to a much more spread out formation and continued moving forward.