25 Unicorn Street, Sunday Afternoon

[on_her_korhal]

The wedding was done with, and she was home. Or at least in that place that she'd been living in for almost a year now, where the bed and the nooks and the crannies had shaped themselves to her curves and the fridge ran over with ice cream.

When she opened the door, the first thing Kerrigan noticed was the static. The ordinary kind, the kind that hadn't been blaring in her mind since she was taken from Char: it was the transmitter.

She raced to get there, sitting down and slamming her first into the machine until it cleared up. "Jimmy?"

Mike	"That's one way to make a man feel welcome," Mike's voice snarked across the transmitter.
Kerrigan	"Michael." She exhaled a sigh; she didn't know whether it was relief or disappointment. "How."
Mike	"Let's just say a mutual friend got me your number," he said. His voice was laced with a subtle undercurrent of concern. "How are you doing?"
Kerrigan	"Crappily," she said. It was the answer she always had at the ready. "But I'll manage. What's going on?"
Mike	"Yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me." Mike's voice had not lost its irony over the past months. "Fleeing from the great Sky Admiral Mengsk, yarrr, praised be his bootstraps. It's paying off, although the cloak and dagger offends my delicate journalistic sensibilities."
Kerrigan	Kerrigan nodded, running a hand up into the mess of tentacles that dared to call itself her hair. "And Jimmy?"
Mike	There was an audible silence on the other end of the line. Finally, Mike spoke. "He's on a mission right now. A tough one."
Kerrigan	That made her sit up. It sent something running down her spine. "Where is he going?" she asked, clipping any sense of tone off of the words.
Mike	"I'm not at liberty to say right now," Mike replied. "It's his own pet project. Listen, I can't keep this broadcast safe for very long--"
Kerrigan	"Stop preparing to lie to me," she snarled, "I can smell it from here. Where is he?"
Mike	"I am telling you all that I can." Mike's voice invoked a kind of patience that was running low on batteries. "Before I break off this broadcast, it's important that I send you some files. Do you have any storage hooked up there at all?"
Kerrigan	"What kind of files?" She was already scrambling around for something, anything to wire into that thing. Rage carried her movements sloppily.
Mike	"It's stuff we liberated from Mengsk's personal database," he said. His words were coming quicker. "Files about the Ghosts. Stuff he's never shared with you. Listen--" The signal was hit by a blast of static. "--time--" And fizzle. "--Sarah." The signal fell quiet.

"Mike?!"

Kerrigan hurled the data device across the room. "Mike! What the hell is going on out there?!" She took a breath. It didn't help. "I should be there!" she yelled, "I SHOULD BE THERE! GET BACK HERE!"

The transmitter betrayed nothing. She felt woozy, her mind swirling with anger and it just seemed to be getting worse. She collapsed backwards.

Do not worry, O Queen. Your will runs parallel to my own, as is your birthright.

For once, something broke through the static in her mind, like a ray of sunlight between the clouds. Except the voice cowed her, and she curled her body, hiding the shame the only way she knew how.

It didn't speak again. It would take her a while to get up.


[ establishy, plz. ]