StarCraft II: Devils' Due (14 page)

This is a scrap yard. What do
you
think?

Jim swore and drew his slugthrower, immediately

backing up against a wal . Tychus did likewise. There

was only the faintest blue emergency lighting here and

there, and their eyes weren’t adjusting fast enough.

“Any way we can open that door?” Tychus asked,

his voice soft.

Jim shook his head. He’d spent some time

examining the station just in case something went

wrong. Something, oh, like maybe doors slamming

shut behind them and lights going out.

“From this side? Not without the key code or an

override command. We’ve got to get to the main

control center and reactivate things from there,” he

said, keeping his voice equal y low. In the near

darkness, his eyes and ears strained for information.

“Might as wel head that way. I think I can get us there

from here.” Tychus used to tease him about the hours

he would spend poring over maps. Jim had always

said it would come in handy, and it seemed that now

was that time.

“Besides,” he added, “we’l need to get there

anyway to find out where the logs are. Might as wel

complete the mission while we’re—”

Tychus chuckled, a low, somehow angry sound that

made the hairs on the back of Jim’s neck stand up,

even though he was Tychus’s best friend.

“Oh, Jimmy, you’re stil so naïve. I don’t rightly know

who sprung the trap—we’ve pissed a lot of people off

—but I can tel you who baited it.”

And Jim realized he was right. “The Screaming

Skul s set us up,” he said sickly. “Damn it.
Damn
it!”

“Seems to be a fine time for betrayal,” Tychus said.

“Happened to us twice already. I hope our paths cross

again. Soon.”

“First we’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”

“Wait,” Tychus said. “Whoever sprung this trap has

us right where he—or she—wants us. We can’t go

back to the bay, and we’re in a nice, tight little

corridor. There’s going to be something, or more

likely someone—probably several someones—

waiting for us up ahead. We’re doing exactly what

they want.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Tychus paused. “Got none. Let’s go.”

They moved slowly along the dimly lit corridor. They

were as quiet as possible, although they both knew

that whoever had trapped them so neatly knew exactly

where they were. As they continued, Jim racked his

brain, wondering who the hel it had been, anyway.

Not Butler, that much was for certain. He might have

shaken down the Skul s for information, but he

wouldn’t go in for something this dramatic. No, if he

were behind this, the door would have been closed,

and as soon as they’d opened it, he and Tychus

would have been staring at a face ful of weapons, al

cocked and ready to be fired. Simple, forthright,

lawful. No slamming doors, no darkened lights.

He couldn’t think of anyone they had robbed,

cheated, swindled, or attacked who would do

something this elaborate. So it had to be someone

they didn’t know. The relative of a dead col eague or

enemy, for instance. There were likely plenty of those

around.

They had reached the end of the corridor. The

station was circular, and Jim recal ed that each

narrow passage that led from the bay to the center of

the station opened onto a broader walkway that

circumnavigated the main area. Below them were two

floors. On one were offices, break rooms, and living

quarters for the staff. The control rooms and access to

the inner workings of the station were on the floor

below that. Everything was on emergency lighting,

and even that appeared to have been tinkered with. It

was not completely dark—just dark enough.

“Jimmy, ain’t nobody here,” Tychus said quietly.

Jim was beginning to think Tychus was right. There

should have been fifteen people living on the station,

including Fitz-something, whom they had spoken with

earlier. The place …
felt
empty. His own breathing,

and his increased heart rate, suddenly seemed very

loud in his own ears.

“Yeah,” he said. “Nobody but whoever trapped us.

Come on.”

He was certain they were being watched, and he

knew Tychus knew it too. And he was equal y certain

that whoever was watching them knew exactly where

they were going. But it was the only thing they could

do. Without overriding the power, nothing in this place

was going to open so they could escape. Jim felt like

a rat being put through its paces in a maze, but there

was no alternative.

He led the way, the slugthrower reassuringly solid in

one hand as he reached out with the other, patting the

wal s to make sure of where he was. There should be

a stairway up ahead that would take them to—

He tripped and flailed. Tychus’s strong arm shot out

and clamped down on his col ar, keeping him from

fal ing. Jim looked down at what had tripped him.

It was a body. Male. Even in the dim lighting, Jim

could make out the wide eyes, the gaping mouth. And

he could make out the darker stain against the lighter

color of the man’s shirt.

And the very large hole in the chest.

Someone—or some
thing
—had ripped the man’s

heart out.

“Holy
shit
, Tychus …,” he whispered.

Suddenly, in the silence, a hol ow, echoing voice

fil ed the air: “No, please don’t!” It was male, but it was

pitched slightly higher than a normal masculine voice,

and it was higher even than that due to utter terror.

He knew that voice, but for a wild second his mind

couldn’t remember whose it was.

And then Jim felt as if he’d just been punched in the

gut.

He remembered. Even if he’d tried to forget the

voice, and the man it belonged to, and the memories

it dredged up. Even if he’d tried to forget a lot. Higher-

pitched, yes, but not as high as a child’s, nor with the

timbre of a woman’s. They’d only ever met one

person who spoke like that. Now, stunned and

shocked to the core, they exchanged alarmed

glances. Tychus voiced what Jim didn’t want to

acknowledge but had to.

“The bastard’s got Hiram!”

Hiram Feek was not a member of the Heaven’s

Devils official y. He was a civilian, the designer of the

CMC-230-XE suit. He was fiercely intel igent and

good-humored, and he had proved his loyalty

repeatedly to the unit that had unofficial y adopted

him. As far as Tychus and Jim were concerned, the

“little person,” as he preferred to be cal ed, with the

large brain was as much a Devil as anyone who had

been official y in the unit.

And he was being held by the person—or people—

who wanted Jim and Tychus.

Jim opened his mouth to say something—what, he

wasn’t sure. Probably to stupidly repeat what they

both knew, perhaps somehow to negate it. Tychus

clamped a meaty hand over Jim’s mouth. “Do not say

a word,” he hissed. He removed his hand.

“They’ve got—”

“I know, Jimmy boy, I know.”

Hiram’s voice came again. This time in a shril

shriek of torment. Jim winced. Tychus muttered

something inaudible under his breath.

“We gotta do something. He saved our lives—more

than once!”

With an almost physical pain, Jim recal ed when the

diminutive engineer had visited him while Jim sat in a

military stockade for a month, serving time for

assaulting a noncommissioned officer. Feek had

quietly informed him that Colonel Vander-spool had

sabotaged the Devils’ hardskins. He had instal ed a

“kil switch” in the Devils’ CMC-300 armor. At any

point, if he found the Devils too troublesome,

Vanderspool could press a button and trigger the

emergency lockdown mechanism. The suit would

freeze in its tracks, along with the soldier inside it.

Feek had discovered the lethal switches and

unobtrusively deactivated them. White-hot anger

surged up at the recol ection. Vanderspool had

earned—more than earned—what had happened to

him. What Jim Raynor had done to him.

He’d kil ed Vanderspool himself.

“We gotta help Feek,” he repeated, his voice

shaking, his skin clammy with sweat. “He saved us,

Tychus.”

Tychus hesitated, then nodded. Jim knew that he,

too, was remembering Feek, and that sickening

revelation about the depths of Vanderspool’s

inhumanity.

“I—I know he did, Jimmy. It sounded like it came

from below us.”

Slowly they stepped over the body. Jim’s boot

slipped a little on the puddle of blood. It was only

starting to congeal. The murder had been recent.

They made their way to the stairwel . They would be

vulnerable here, more so than when they had been

pressing against the wal , but there was nothing they

could do about it. Quickly they descended, Jim

wincing at the noise their boots made on the metal.

There was light up ahead. Hiram Feek was

sobbing. Jim’s gut twisted at the sound. Feek might

have been an egghead, but he had courage. What

was going on? What were they
doing
to him?

The sound abruptly ceased.

“I didn’t break in a prison camp,” came a weary

female voice. “I won’t break for you, you bas

—
uhhnnnghh!
”

Who was this? Terror pulsed through Jim with each

heartbeat as his brain struggled to link this voice with

a name, a face. Prison camp … who had they known

who—

“Oh, God,” Jim whispered. “Hobarth. Captain Clair

Ho-barth.”

They hadn’t known her wel —not like they had

known Feek—but she had played a pivotal role in

their lives and military careers.

They had last seen her emaciated and weak, an

escapee of Kel-Morian Internment Camp-36. She had

brought with her intel that enabled to the 321st

Colonial Rangers Battalion to infiltrate the camp and

liberate the POWs. Raynor had been so inspired by

her that he had spearheaded the attempt—and been

captured in the process. This gutsy woman had given

them their name: the Heaven’s Devils.

And now she, like Hiram Feek, was here. Being

tortured by an unseen captor. Why? What had she

done? There had to be a connection, but Jim’s mind

was like a numb hand trying to grasp it. It wasn’t

clicking.

“This is personal,” Tychus rumbled, cold anger in

his voice. “Two people we knew and liked. That can’t

be pure coincidence. And it’s
really
starting to piss

me off.”

Hobarth started to moan, low and deep, the gut-

wrenching sound of mortal pain. It rose to a sudden,

sharp scream.

Jim held his slugthrower in both hands, pointing the

muzzle down. Tychus emulated him. Jim jerked his

head; they were just about to come out into the area

where Feek and Hobarth were being kept.

Were being tortured.

“Fel ow Confederates, I cannot tel you what joy it

brings me to see so many of you turning out here

tonight.”

What the hel …? That sounded like a politician’s

speech. Both men frowned, puzzled and alert.

“Not the best idea.”

It was not the voice of anyone they recognized, but

Jim took an instinctive dislike to it. It was … cold. Oily.

Superior.

They heard the scrambling of feet, the clatter of

something landing on the floor, and a strange-

sounding clang, as if metal were striking metal.

“Cybernetic arm,” came the speaker’s voice.

Recognition flickered over Tychus’s face. The big

man went pale. His eyes widened and his lips

pressed together tightly. Jim was as shaken by his

friend’s reaction to the words as he was by the whole

situation.

“You know this guy?”

“I sure as hel hope I don’t,” was Tychus’s cryptic

reply.

“Ready?”

Stil pale, sweat gleaming on his forehead, Tychus

nodded.

“One, two—”

With perfect timing born of long experience, both

men leaped around the corner …

… and saw not two living men engaged in hand-to-

hand combat, but a hologram of the fight.

A man clad in a long duster leaped up and landed

heavily on his victim’s left hand.

He didn’t want to remember the poor bastard

getting attacked. Thoughts of Feek and Hobarth