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Using my suit, I entered the governor's office completely invisible, but once he was alone I disabled the cloak and removed my helmet.
"Hendrik, son… you finally return," my father said, trying to hug me with teary eyes when I appeared in his office.
But my stare stopped him. He froze, confused, while I observed him without expression.
"Hello… governor. The Emperor sends his regards. I would like to discuss certain matters from my missions with you… this must be completely clandestine. As you understand, no one can be in this mansion for our conversation, since I am carrying sensitive information."
"Of course, son… what is happening with the Dominion? I thought everything was calmer now that the UED threat was over," my father said.
"We'll talk when there are no curious ears," I replied, leaving the mansion and activating my cloak.
I waited. Within a few hours all the servants had temporarily left the premises, taking advantage of the rare free time the governor had granted them.
When the mansion was empty, I returned and presented myself in the dining room where we used to eat years ago, when I was still an ignorant child.
My mother and father were there, smiling, incomprehensibly happy. On the table, a generous plate of stroganoff—my favorite—was waiting for me.
"Son… I'm so happy to see you again… I knew you could overcome that program. Now, once more, we can be together," my mother said with her warm voice. A voice that only made my emotional inhibitors work harder to contain my anger.
Without answering, I sat down and ate. Years of eating nutrient bars had distorted my appetite; a real meal prepared by expert cooks was a rare luxury. I wasn't going to let it get cold.
"So, what does the Emperor want? We will always do everything possible to help the Dominion recover," my father said with a warm smile.
I ignored him while finishing my plate. When I put down the utensils, I stared at him.
"You're hiding two children with high psionic index," I said plainly.
The color vanished from their faces. I could feel their panic, their chaotic thoughts, their desperation.
"Hendrik… I know sending you there was a mistake… a very big one… one I still can't forgive myself for. But you must understand it all seemed lost. We were losing horribly. Korhal had been occupied, they almost captured the Emperor… Ghosts can change the course of wars, and you could have been the best of them," my father said, breathing quickly.
"I cannot feel empathy… so don't waste your time trying to create it," I replied coldly. "Do you forget what they did to me?"
"Son… there isn't a day I don't regret the day you left…," my mother tried to say.
"When they kidnapped me, you mean," I interrupted.
"Fine. I've come only to inform you that, officially, you are removed as governor," I said, looking at my father. "Your children will be sent to the Ghost program, and you two will be taken to the laboratories as experiments, due to your high probability of producing psionics."
"What? But—!" my father managed to say before I lifted him with my psionic powers and threw him against the wall.
The impact echoed through the entire mansion. I turned toward my mother, who trembled with a knife in hand, almost acting on soldier instinct but stopping due to her maternal hesitation. I did the same to her, throwing her against the same wall, falling on top of the governor.
I lifted them into the air, unable to move, while I crushed their bones. Their screams filled the room.
Music to my ears.
One by one, I broke their legs and arms. Five years of pain… now they suffered it.
I did not stop until they were reduced to useless sacks of flesh, but alive—now they would suffer something far worse.
With everything silent, I accessed the governor's computer and used my codes. This time, the Emperor's response was immediate. His face appeared on the screen.
"It's done," I said.
"As tends to happen when competent individuals are involved," the Emperor replied before cutting the transmission.
With no one else in the mansion, I gagged my parents and tied up my brother and sister. I loaded them into one of the many vehicles the governor had at his disposal and drove them to the spaceport. I staged the scene as the discovery of a severe corruption case so it would be easier for the Dominion to fabricate a narrative later: notes of desperation, altered records. Nothing a common civilian could question without ending up dead.
After delivering the targets, the changes were quick.
The Emperor himself granted me the position of governor of Tyrador IX once he learned that the Ghost who completed the mission was the governor's own son. He apparently had no doubts of my loyalty since I had passed a very difficult test.
My job as governor was extremely dull. Managing an entire planet was boring, especially when there was almost nothing to do, other than some complaints about terrible working conditions, and occasionally assassinating targets who arrived there or traveling to other planets to kill.
While governing, I had to attend the Terran Dominion's military academy because they wanted me inside the spheres of power to support the throne while simultaneously erasing all my records from the Ghost program and everything that had happened—claiming I had been outside the Dominion for five years hiding from the UED on my parents' orders.
No one had to know I was a Ghost so I could enter Dominion politics and report potential traitors.
I had become one of the Dominion's elite Ghosts, a shadow of the Emperor, and only the Emperor knew of our existence. Using some of his influence, it didn't take me long to eliminate the doctor and the surgeon who installed my implants, fulfilling my promises.
Only one name remained on my list, but it was the hardest to reach, since the bastard covered his tracks well and I could find nothing to mark him as a rogue agent to authorize his assassination… but being the last on my list, I thought more than once about killing him and letting it all end. To see if I'd have better luck in my next life, or if I'd finally get some rest… or if I was destined to burn in hell for everything I'd done. I was no longer the saintly guy who wanted to save lives in a hospital with no resources; I was just a state-approved killer.
The damn war academy was a headache. There were tons of high-ranking officers' children full of ego who wouldn't stop pointing out my distinctive features. I was about to accept genetic therapy to change my hair and eye color, but I kept them as they were just to annoy people. Many times I had to travel outside the Dominion for several months to hunt down dissidents hiding in other states.
While all that was happening, Raynor was back at it. A former officer of the Sons of Korhal, now a rebel, had started moving again after years of silence following the defeat of the UED. I kept waiting for the order, excited at the idea of hunting down the most wanted rebel in the Dominion… but the order never came. Only "more important" jobs from the Emperor, like assassinating some Umoja politicians who resisted the idea of the Terran Dominion providing them "security".
So I was away for months, and when I returned I found the Dominion in chaos. Apparently, someone had managed to leak some kind of propaganda about what happened on Tarsonis: that the Emperor had used a device to lure the Zerg so they would massacre the planet. Knowing the Emperor and his goals… it's probably true, but whatever. Better than a long war, especially with aliens trying to kill us while we were busy killing each other. What mattered was that I suddenly had mountains of work killing thousands of rebel leaders demanding justice for that information.
Backed by several Ghost squads, we launched purges on many planets vital to the Dominion's war machine, since the damned crown prince had taken half the fleet to Char in a suicide attack against the Zerg. Luckily, it worked, almost purging the planet and leaving behind giant walls of piled corpses.
Another mission to eliminate a bunch of politicians from the Kel-Morian Combine kept me away for almost two years, part of an attempt to take political control of the Combine. And while that happened, I received reports of the Zerg moving again. From almost being destroyed by the Dominion, they came back strong. The Queen of Blades had returned. And I never received any orders to come back… until it seemed too late.
Korhal was in danger from the Zerg. Almost immediately I dropped everything and launched toward the capital with my operatives under my command, trying to move every Dominion ship we had nearby to try to save Korhal. But when we arrived, Augustgrad was gone. Hundreds of millions of Zerg had ravaged the entire governmental district. Even with millions of the Dominion's best troops, it wasn't possible to stop the tide. Apparently dozens of worlds had fallen and weapons and ship production had been cut, allowing all this to happen… but what surprised me most was how fast they cut communications so nobody would know anything. It felt too… suspicious.
Descending onto the planet with my squad, we found only enormous piles of charred flesh, rubble everywhere, massive war walkers torn apart, thousands of shattered combat vehicles, millions of scattered CMC armors as far as the eye could see with their dead users inside. Battlecruisers that had been blown apart in orbit had fallen across the city, and Zerg were everywhere. Only a few stragglers remained, most had already moved on. We fought our way toward the palace and found only a throne room destroyed by an explosion. Reviewing the recordings, I found that Mengsk had almost killed the Queen of Blades with an ancient artifact, but the rebel Raynor showed up to save her ass and… some kind of psionic overload triggered the blast.
Among the rubble, only the Emperor's brooch remained, a golden wolf, symbol of the Dominion. "A souvenir," I said, pocketing the brooch. There was a new Emperor now.
With the change in leadership, I had to wait and see what would happen, to check if there would be any changes that could let me strike my target. But the new Emperor looked like a coward… weak… he talked more about giving power back to the people even while we had dozens of worlds occupied by Zerg, talked about giving Ghosts their freedom, and switching conscription to voluntary service. He preached pacifism while Protoss fleets were wiping out survivors of the Zerg invasion to purge their presence. Then came reforms that hit me personally, since I was removed for negligence from the governorship of Tyrador IX because I was never available and hadn't sent an administrative report in years. Apparently, the new Emperor had no idea who I was, because he cut our funding, leaving the Dominion's best Ghosts without command or orders. Looks like the old Emperor hid our existence extremely well.
I isolated myself for a few months, planning how to kill the assistant director since I had nothing to lose by killing him, until surprising news arrived… apparently a Dominion general had uncovered conversations between the Emperor and Raynor's rebels and had sabotaged the communications using her authority. And not only that: she also made millions of men abandon their posts on Korhal to protect civilians and evacuate them instead of defending the palace.
She was gathering the entire old Dominion guard for a rebellion, mainly recruiting me, since I was a commander expelled from the Dominion fleet for reasons similar to my governorship removal and because I had enormous personal funds after squeezing Tyrador for years.
And although I respected Mengsk, and even if he was addicted to power, at least he was the bastard we needed to protect us from the threats of the Zerg and the Protoss that kept ravaging terran worlds while the new Emperor struggled to control the power he had given the people.
So I joined them for the simple reason that it made my final strike easier… and well, to return the favor to Mengsk,For letting me kill the surgeon and the doctor.
I handed over all my funds to the cause, financing dozens of battlecruisers, hundreds of thousands of CMC armors, and many more Gauss rifles.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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