Starcraft

POCKET STAR BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney

POCKET STAR BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney

An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS A Pocket Star Book published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination orare used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. © 2007 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. StarCraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the properties of theirrespective owners. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6057-9 ISBN-10: 1-4165-6057-2 POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Visit us on the World Wide Web: http://www.SimonSays.comThis book is dedicated to Marco Palmieri and Chris Metzen, with heartfelt appreciation for their support and enthusiasm, and to all the players who have kept the Starcraft flame alive.

Prologue

TIME WAS NOT LINEAR. FAR, FAR FROM IT. Time wrapped in on itself, converged and entwined and embraced events and feelings and moments, then danced away into separate gleaming, shining, preciousstrands that stood alone and resonant before merging again into the vast stream. The Preserver rested and dreamed, and time wove itself in and around and through her. Memories fluttered through her mind like gossamer-winged insects: a word that shattered centuries, a thought that changed the course of a civilization. Individuals whose insights and aspirations and even greed and fear turned seeminglyinalterable tides of destiny into something new and fresh and hitherto inconceivable. Moments where everything teetered precariously on a crumbling brink, where something as intangible as an idea would send everything hurtling into oblivion or pull it back to safe, solid ground. Each thought, word, deed, life was a mere drop in

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C H R I S T I E

G O L D E N

the vast ocean of time,constantly merging and separating to merge again. The concept would challenge some minds, the Preserver knew; but her mind had been destined to hold such contradictions as things being separate and having no separate identity. Grasping such elusive concepts was what she was born for. Over all these thoughts of words and lives and ideas floated a terrible urgency and fear. Time was not linear; timewas shifting and changing. But there were patterns that floated to the surface, their interwoven strands so clear and strong that even the dimmest minds could grasp them. Inevitability? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Again and again the pattern appeared in the swirling waters of time and destiny and luck, submerging and manifesting with a cold precision that made even the Preserver quail. All the knowledgeshe held was precious; every memory, every sound, scent, sensation, voice, word, thought. All were vital to her people. But this knowledge, of the pattern that had happened so often before and was about to happen again—ah, this was what made the Preserver more than important to her people. It was what made her indispensable. She opened to what was out there, every second that ticked by in itsnonlinear, unique majesty challenging her to close in on herself, to not expose herself to the pain of the debris caught in the swollen river.

F I R S T B O R N

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She could not allow herself such luxuries. Not when the horrific knowledge of what had come before, and what was certain to come again, polluted the waters of time in her psyche. She summoned her energy, and sent forth the cry....