StarCraft II: Devils' Due (15 page)

hammering in his head, he recognized this man, too,

and his heart spasmed as memories—unwanted and

unwelcome—slammed down on him.

“It’s Ryk,” whispered Jim.

Ryk Kydd. The only one besides the two of them

who had survived; the rich kid who had become an

assassin but somehow had never lost a sense of

innate decency. Feek, they cared about; Hobarth, they

knew; but Kydd had been one of
them
. Now they

stared, watching sickly as Kydd’s face contorted in

agony. The attacker sprang back, lithe as a cat.

“One down,” the man said, grinning. Now Jim could

see his face clearly: lean, angular, a thin, cruel mouth

framed by a trimmed goatee. “Three to go.”

“Jimmy?” The voice belonged to Tychus. It was

trembling, uncertain, and the sound of it issuing from

Tychus’s throat shocked Jim to his core. He kept the

slugthrower raised, but despite the danger, he

couldn’t help but glance over at Tychus. His gut

clenched at what he saw.

Tychus Findlay was utterly terrified. He turned a

face greasy with sweat to Jim and swal owed hard.

“Jimmy … w-we’re in trouble.”

“I see you recognize me.” It was the same voice

as in the hologram—the hologram that was currently

pinning the holographic Ryk Kydd to the floor with a

dagger through the hand.

Jim whirled, the slugthrower out in front of him,

trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

To Jim’s unspeakable relief, Tychus appeared to

have gotten his terror under control—for the moment

at least.

Who the hel
was
this guy, who could rattle the

normal y unflappable Tychus Findlay so badly?

“Maybe. One thing’s clear: you’re one sick puppy.”

Tychus’s voice betrayed none of the fear Jim knew he

was experiencing.

“And you’re not? The pot is, I believe, cal ing the

kettle black. Your reputation precedes you, Tychus

Findlay—as, obviously, does mine.”

The two people in the hologram continued to

struggle. By now their comrade in arms was being

forced to fight with two ruined hands. But he was not

giving up.

Jim knew what he was watching. And knew why the

stranger wanted them to watch it.

He wanted them to see Ryk Kydd’s murder.

He gritted his teeth, closing his hands more tightly

around the gun to steady their shaking. He didn’t want

to watch, to give this bastard the satisfaction of

knowing that his sadistic little light show had gotten to

them. The voice seemed to come from different

places. It was hard to get a bead on him, and the

flickering light of the hologram kept drawing his eye

back.

“Who is this guy, Tychus?”

For a moment Tychus didn’t reply. Jim risked a

quick glance, saw the big man close his eyes and

swal ow. “Goes by the name of Ezekiel Daun.”

“Wel , we’re gonna kick Ezekiel Daun’s ass,” Jim

said with assurance he did not feel.

The holographic Daun now had his implacable

cybernetic hand clamped around Kydd’s throat and

was lifting him off the floor. Kydd’s feet kicked

frantical y as he slapped ruined hands futilely against

the cybernetic arm. Daun was grinning. Enjoying

kil ing Ryk, as he was enjoying watching Jim and

Tychus witness the murder.

“Somebody wants you dead,” Daun said. “That’s

fine by me. But he didn’t stipulate
how
you were to

die. Nor how long it should take. That was left up to

me to decide. And we got
all night
.”

Tune it out, Jimmy
, Raynor told himself.
Focus.

Where is he? How’s Tychus handling this?

The latter question at least had an answer. Tychus

was stil afraid, but he wasn’t letting it get in the way of

escaping.

“He’s set this al up very careful y,” Tychus muttered

to Jim, a hint of his old self creeping into his voice.

Jim felt a brush of relief as his friend continued to

regain control. “Which means that he’s going to want

us to watch it al . Bet those voices of Feek and

Hobarth also came from a hologram of their …

murders.”

Jim swal owed.

“He won’t do anything until he shows us that Ryk’s

dead, and maybe not until he forces us to watch him

kil Feek and Hobarth too. Stil , we’d best haul ass.

Where is the central control area?”

“If we’re at six, then it’s at eleven,” Jim replied,

using antiquated references that were stil useful for

military purposes, if not their original.

“What’s at the other hours?”

Jim tried to think, tried to shut out the sound of his

friend being strangled.

“How’s it feel now, Ark? Having trouble getting air

in? Feeling the blood pressure build up? Do you want

to swal ow?”

“Nothing at seven,” Jim continued, forcing the

words out, clinging to the calmness thinking provided

him. “Eight is the crane-operating station.”

“Those manual y control ed?”

“Usual y, unless specifical y set otherwise. At two,

we’ve got—”

“That’s enough hours in my day. We need a

distraction. I got an idea.”

They moved quickly, Jim’s shoulders itching,

expecting at any moment to feel a bul et or a metal

spike between them. But he believed that Tychus was

onto something. This Daun wouldn’t have set up such

a complex little display if he hadn’t wanted them to

appreciate al the effort he’d gone to. They had time.

The question was: how much? And if it would be

enough.

They approached the crane-operating station. In the

center, Jim watched, sick to his stomach, as Ryk

Kydd struggled, then went limp.

“Damn it, not yet!” cried the holographic Daun.

“Tychus? Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast,

because I think we just ran outta time.”

“Already on it.” Tychus, his face close to the

controls, was trying to figure out which was which.

Then he muttered, “Hel , let’s just do this thing,” and

punched one.

The station shuddered. Jim almost lost his footing,

staying erect only by grabbing on to the console as

Tychus was doing. The hologram, merciful y, winked

out; its holoprojector had probably toppled over.

There was an angry cry from above them, and the

sound of bul ets firing. Tychus hit another control, and

another, grabbing a joystick and yanking it about

wildly in various directions. Then Jim realized what he

was doing: he was using the cranes to slam into the

station. As distractions went, it seemed to be

working.

Unless, of course, one of the cranes actual y broke

through a bulkhead of the station, and al the air ran

out.

The shots went wild, then stopped. Daun was trying

to get to a better position.

Jim turned and bolted for the main override control

panel. As such an important part of the station, it had

more blue emergency lights activated than most of

what they had seen until now. Jim perused it quickly.

As the seconds ticked by, his tension rose. Doors,

where were the doors? They—

“Damn it!” He pounded his fist on the console in fury

and frustration.

“For fekk’s sake, what now?” shouted Tychus from

across the room.

“He took the master key. Nothing can be overridden

without that. Nothing!”

A pause. “Oh.”

Jim knew he was perilously close to losing it. The

unexpected betrayal of the Skul s; Tychus’s sudden,

almost overwhelming terror; being forced to watch the

torture and murder of a man he had cared about, who

was a brother in arms, a
friend
, damn it; and this

horrible sensation of feeling like a trapped animal—

“We can’t get out! Don’t you get that, Tychus?” he

said, his voice rising in panic.

“I certainly do,” came Daun’s voice. Another crane

slammed into the station, rocking it hard. There were

groaning and crashing sounds as pieces of

equipment came loose and toppled over. Tychus

turned toward the sound of the voice and fired

repeatedly.

Daun’s laughter came, echoing and triumphant.

“Nowhere for the Heaven’s Devils to flee or fly,” he

said mockingly. “Your friends suffered. And so wil

you.”

Jim, too, turned, firing and reloading. He ran out of

ammo for the slugthrower and quickly switched to his

beloved Colt. Though he used the revolver only rarely,

simply firing the thing heartened him. It was a lucky

weapon for him, and a smile tugged at his mouth as

he took aim and fired.

The station was fil ed with the sounds of gunfire and

laughter. Something on the other side of the level

caught fire and added a glowing orange flicker to the

blue emergency lighting. Sparks hissed and sizzled,

and acrid smoke started to fil the air.

Click click click.

The sound of a Colt out of ammunition.

Jim lowered it, sickened.

Was this how it was to be? What a rip-off.

Betrayed, trapped, and gunned down by a lunatic. It

was such … a stupid, anticlimactic end.

His duster flying out like wings on either side,

Ezekiel Daun dropped down from a catwalk. He

landed beautiful y, in a crouch, smoke swirling about

him, and rose slowly. He had been intimidating in the

hologram. But now, with orange and blue light dancing

about his tal frame and catching the gleam of both the

metal ic hand and the metal ic gun, he looked to Jim

like an incarnation of Death. He kept the pistol trained

on them, and they raised their hands slowly. Jim

realized that both he and Tychus were shaking.

In his cybernetic hand, Daun held the control er of a

hologram. “You’re being recorded, Mr. Findlay, Mr.

Raynor. I have crafted an extensive library of my work,

so I am able to sit down and watch whenever I feel like

walking down memory lane. So far, this has been

quite the little cinematic presentation. Feek was the

only other who gave me a worthy show, I think. Ho-

barth was weak from her old wounds and Ryk Kydd

went too fast to be properly appreciated.”

Anger cut through the fear as Jim envisioned this

man torturing Hiram Feek and Clair Hobarth. He clung

to the anger. It cleared his mind of the crippling

sensation of mindless terror.

“But I think I’d like to see a bit more from the two of

you before I close the curtain,” Daun said. “Maybe a

little … dance routine?” He aimed the gun at Tychus’s

feet.

“Who the hel are you, and why are you letting our

own cranes attack the station?”

The voice came from directly above them, and it

belonged to the formerly highly bored Fitz-something.

Now he sounded angry and not a little frightened. Jim

realized that Daun had not factored the tech into his

plans. He had kil ed everyone on the station, but he

had not expected Fitz—who would, of course, have an

override key—to leave his post. Daun had likely been

tripped up by the very “comm problems” he had

created.

Daun snarled bestial y and lifted the gun. Two shots

rang out, and Fitz’s lifeless body toppled down,

landing with limbs askew, right at Jim’s and Tychus’s

feet.

They acted as one.

Jim and Tychus sprang to either side of the stil -

twitching corpse, quickly holstering their guns. They

grabbed Fitz’s body, lifted it up in front of them, and

charged Daun. The enemy fired at the center of Fitz’s

body. Jim and Tychus were behind the corpse but

slightly to either side. The bul ets passed between

them.

They were on him now. Daun kept firing, but the

shots went wild. Snarling, he dropped the gun, drew

back his gleaming metal ic arm, made a fist, and

swung it at them. He punched directly through Fitz’s

sternum. The bloody silver fist protruded, covered in

gore, from the tech’s back. Stil Jim and Tychus kept

coming, using their momentum to push Daun’s arm

through even farther and trap it there. The bloody

metal ic limb stil clutched and reached ineffectively as

Daun went down under them.

Tychus raised a fist and slammed it down, but

somehow Daun jerked to the side just in time. Tychus

grunted as his knuckles met metal flooring. He drew

his fist back for another punch. Meanwhile, Jim was