The son of Jim Raynor and Elizabeth Raynor was born inside the Hyperion's medical bay. His first cry, infused with psionic waves, triggered a terrifying psionic shriek that paralyzed many of the bay's internal systems and caused considerable commotion.
The Hyperion's on-duty guards and engineers were rushing toward the medical bay from every corridor, many of them momentarily believing that a traitor had appeared aboard the ship.
As more crew members converged on the medical bay, Augustus, through his portable radio communicator, issued orders across all decks, compartments, and crew quarters, instructing everyone to hold their positions. Only Rory Swann and his assistant Victor Kachinsky were ordered to head to the medical bay to repair the damaged equipment.
"Natural birth—it's a boy." The doctor holding the child spoke to Augustus, who had hurried over.
Augustus first looked toward Elizabeth, who was lying on the bed drenched in sweat, and told her to rest well. Then he took the child carefully from the doctor's hands, examining the lively green eyes and thick brows that resembled Raynor's.
The child was surprisingly calm while being held. His eyes were wide open, gazing upward, the ceiling of the Hyperion's modestly sized medical bay reflected in his pupils.
"John. Good boy." Augustus smiled as he spoke. He and Raynor had already agreed long beforehand on what the child's name would be if it turned out to be a boy.
In the Neo-Christian human colonies of the Koprulu Sector, "John" was an exceedingly common name. Even in the small town near Raynor's home, there were more than a hundred people called by it. But to Raynor, it was still the best name he could think of.
"Child, when you were born—"
"Oh—what a cute little baby." Harnack poked his head out from behind Augustus's shoulder, interrupting his chant.
"I never thought I'd live to see this day," he said excitedly. "Back on Shiloh, Jim and I could never get along. When we first joined the Turaxis recruit camp, I nearly stomped his balls flat—good thing I didn't. Guess Jim ought to be grateful to me for that."
"Let me take a look at this little fella—little Jimmy," said Tychus. "This kid, huh… when I'm gone, I guess I'll have to leave my inheritance to my nephew—if there's anything left, that is."
"Hey, my son's not paying your debts." At that moment, the child's father, Raynor, finally showed up—he had spent quite a while fussing over Elizabeth with endless concern.
Raynor looked delighted, unable to hide the smile on his face. Yet because of the earlier incident, he could not quite bring himself to fully smile.
Even Tychus—hard-hearted and convinced that he would never feel a shred of pity for any damned little thing—found himself fond of the child. Their hearts felt an unfamiliar softness, to the point that all of them were trying hard to avoid one undeniable fact—this child was unmistakably a psionic, and judging by the scene at his birth, his psionic strength was anything but low.
"Sarah, John's psionics are astonishing." After gazing into John Raynor's eyes for a few seconds, Augustus said to Kerrigan, who was standing nearby, "This is unusual."
"Yes. For now, a person's psionic potential is determined at birth." When Kerrigan looked at John, he also looked at her.
Human psionics and psionics users shared a kind of resonance among their own kind, particularly common among top-tier psionics.
"John's psionic aptitude has already reached the entry standard for Ghost operatives. That means his PSI level definitely exceeds Level 5—and I believe the final evaluation will surely be higher than that," said Kerrigan.
"A baby still unable to control his own psionic talent—that's one of the main causes of death among psionics," Kerrigan said. "Once the PSI level reaches or exceeds Level 8, if he cannot control his power, then his immense psionic and telekinetic energy will leave an indelible effect on those around him."
A human psionic of PSI Level 8 was an extremely rare existence within that vast species—there were very few of them.
"In my memory, there was once a transport ship carrying cadets from the Ghost Academy that suffered a terrible accident. A female psionic of PSI Level 8 lost control and triggered a catastrophic psionic self-detonation. Among several hundred crew members, more than eighty died screaming in her psychic outburst. Those who survived were left with an indelible shadow in their hearts, spending the rest of their lives trapped in the memory of that disaster," she said.
"However, there have been no reports so far of any psionic above Level 8 killing everyone nearby at birth. Even Level 10 psionics don't cause such incidents. High-level psionics are mostly indistinguishable from ordinary children at birth—their parents can only discover how different they are as they grow older."
"You mean John's psionic level may have reached Level 8." Raynor felt no joy at all over his son being a psionic. On the contrary, in his eyes, this was nothing to be happy about.
Just as the Terran Confederacy's government propaganda declared, any federal citizen with psionic potential was obligated to join the Ghost Program and be trained to become a "promising" Ghost operative. If their parents were neither great nobles of some colonial world nor owners of interstellar corporations wealthy enough to rival nations, then they simply had to accept that reality.
Of course, at least Raynor no longer needed to worry about Ghost Program handlers from the Confederacy coming to seize his child by force—because they were now the largest band of rebels in the entire Koprulu Sector.
"Don't worry. This isn't a bad thing." Augustus looked at Raynor seriously. "I believe a powerful psionic should indeed be taught the skills to control and use his psionic power—but he should never become a cold-blooded killer."
"Their abilities should be put to better use, such as establishing a department composed of psionics to supervise the administration of an entire nation," he said.
"Since you consider me worthy to be John's godfather, I should take responsibility for protecting and guiding him. I believe this child's future achievements will not be inferior to any of ours."
"No doubt about it—he'll grow up to be a real man."
"I believe it too." Raynor nodded. "Augustus, from the moment I first met you in the barracks, every promise you've made has always been fulfilled."
"Trusting you has never been wrong. Whenever we've lost our way, following you has always kept us on the right path."
"Haha." Laughing heartily, Augustus handed John over to his father.
"Jimmy, I'd bet good money this has nothing to do with your genes," Tychus suddenly interjected just as Raynor was getting sentimental.
"If you had even a scrap of psionic talent, your shooting would at least be half as good as Ryk Kydd's."
"Damn it—" Raynor, holding his son, immediately shot back,
"I'm a sharpshooter, damn you."
...
SCT 2491.1.17.
Umojan Protectorate, Galban System.
With a flash of white light, a fleet composed of over a dozen battlecruisers and more than a hundred destroyers, frigates, transports, and supply ships jumped into the airspace of the Umojan Protectorate Defense Force.
A blue-and-white Umojan Voyager beacon was quietly drifting in the darkness of the Galban System's deep space, infinite starlight gathering behind it to form the mirrored image of a distant nebula.
From the observation window of the Hyperion's bridge, Augustus could clearly see the cone-shaped beacon bathed in stellar light through the bow-mounted sensor camera. Dressed in a dark-gray military overcoat and a long-brimmed captain's hat, his hands clasped behind his back, he stood upright—like a spear planted between his coat and the shirt beneath.
"Detected Umojan Defense Fleet, coordinates Z2, Sector Four, offset three units," a Revolutionary Army technician standing before the control console reported loudly.
After flickering with static snow and corrupted data, the main bridge screen displayed a fleet only one-tenth the size of the Revolutionary Army's force. These Umojan warships looked entirely different from the rough, patch-welded vessels of the Kel-Morian Combine or the heavily armored behemoths of the Terran Confederacy.
They featured streamlined hulls combined with aerodynamic design and longer keels; the silver-white platinum-iridium alloy plating made the bridges and inward-curving flight wings of the Umojan ships and starfighters glimmer with a silvery sheen under the starlight.
Compared to the Terran Confederacy, Umojan warships possessed more advanced propulsion systems and anti-gravity technology. Each carried fewer technical crew and engineers, as every ship was equipped with higher-grade AI assistance, intelligent weapon-recognition systems, and automated production and reload factories.
The gap between the Confederacy and the Combine versus the Umojan Protectorate in the field of artificial intelligence far exceeded their economic differences. Even when those two regimes obtained several Umojan ships through unspeakable means, their scientists were still unable to achieve breakthroughs in AI research based on the captured technology.
Compared with the Confederacy and the Combine, the Protectorate's military industry encompassed the most cutting-edge technology of all Terrans in the Koprulu Sector. Umojan warships and starfighters boasted the most advanced multi-symmetric wings and high-energy particle weapons—some secret models could even use anti-gravity weapons to annihilate their enemies in an instant.
The Umojan vessels and their escorting starfighters looked as if they had come straight out of a science-fiction film about interstellar war. Their beautiful sky-blue undercoating, gleaming platinum-iridium alloy emblems, and the glowing crest of the Umojan Protectorate were far more eye-catching than their gun barrels.
Stylish and striking, the appearance of the Defense Fleet's warships made their models and replicas best-sellers in toy markets throughout the Koprulu Sector.
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