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Starcraft - Hardcover

Zahn, Timothy

 
9780425284735: Starcraft
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0425284735 ISBN 13: 9780425284735
Verlag: Del Rey, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

An action-packed novel that ushers in a new age of adventure in the critically acclaimed StarCraft series from Blizzard Entertainment

Award-winning author Timothy Zahn pens the latest chapter in the stunning StarCraft saga, building on the game’s rich legacy to create an unforgettable new story.

After nearly a decade of brutal warfare, three mighty factions—the enigmatic protoss, the savage zerg, and the terrans, humanity’s descendants in the sector—have entered a cease-fire, but the peace is tenuous at best. When the sudden restoration of an incinerated planet is brought to light, tensions erupt. Neutrality swings back to hostility, and old enemies are accused of developing biological weapons to reignite the bitter conflict.

An expedition of terran and protoss soldiers and researchers is deployed to investigate the mysterious zerg planet and its inhabitants’ intentions. But the lush alien landscape is host to other denizens, creatures shrouded in shadow, and should they be unleashed, they will change the fate of the entire galaxy.

Praise for StarCraft: Evolution

“I couldn’t put the book down. . . . If you love science fiction, solid characters, and great action sequences, you’ll love [StarCraft: Evolution].”—Cinelinx 

“This one is definitely a fun read.”—Analog

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Timothy Zahn is the author of more than forty novels, nearly ninety short stories and novellas, and four short-fiction collections. In 1984, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novella. Zahn is best known for his Star Wars novels (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, Survivor’s Quest, Outbound Flight, Allegiance, Choices of One, and Scoundrels), with more than four million copies of his books in print. Other books include the Cobra series, the Quadrail series, and the young adult Dragonback series. Zahn has a B.S. in physics from Michigan State University and an M.S. from the University of Illinois. He lives with his family on the Oregon coast.

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Chapter One

The war was over.

The nightmares weren’t.

Marine Sergeant Foster “Whist” Cray didn’t mind the dreams so much. Hell, he’d survived five straight years of living nightmares while he was deployed. He ought to be used to fear and panic by now.

What got him about the damn things was the monotony.

The war had been hell on wheels, but at least it had offered occasional changes of scenery. His platoon had been deployed to desert, jungle, forest, grassland, city—­they weren’t so much cities as they were heaps of shattered masonry and twisted pipe by the time his platoon got there, but it still counted—­and once even on a beach.

The enemy had been pretty diverse, too. He’d blasted away at zerg­lings, hydralisks, ravagers, and all the rest of the umpty-­ump hell-­spawned varieties of zerg. Sometimes the overlord or queen or whoever was running that particular assault sent in the nastier monsters, at which point the marines would grab some dirt while a viking or a Thor waded in to deal with them.

But even new enemies meant something different to look at. He’d seen a few protoss, too, usually on the far side of the battlefield where they weren’t doing the Dominion forces a whole lot of good. Once or twice he’d even ended up taking a potshot at one of them when the big alien had been careless enough to get in the way.

But the nightmares were all annoyingly the same.

It was always zerglings and hydralisks. It was always him and Jesse and Lena, standing shoulder to shoulder against the onslaught.

And his damn C-­14 gauss rifle never worked.

It fired just fine. It barked out the usual thud and mule-­kicked against his combat suit’s shoulder just like it was supposed to. But instead of the 8mm spikes blazing toward the charging monsters at hypersonic speeds, they just blooped out in a pathetic little arc that nose-­dived them into the dirt a couple of meters in front of him. He would fire again and again, not accomplishing a damn thing except to make a collection of spikes in the ground. The zerg kept coming, and they were just opening their jaws for lunch when he woke up in a cold sweat.

He never knew what happened to Jesse and Lena. He often wondered if they survived the dream.

Probably not. They hadn’t survived the war. No reason they should survive the dream, either.

Afterward he usually just lay alone in the dark, listening to his heart thudding as he waited to fall asleep again. Sometimes he slipped out of his room in the marines’ new barracks in Augustgrad and took a cup of coffee up to the roof to clear his head in the cold night air.

But today was special. Today was the sixth anniversary of the end of the war, or at least his part of it. Today the nightmare, and the reminder of the sacrifices of Jesse and Lena and all the others, called for something more.

Usually the roof was deserted, because sane people who weren’t on night duty were in bed at this hour. Tonight, though, someone else was already topside when Whist arrived. The man was short and thin and hunched over a little, leaning his elbows on the low parapet and gazing toward the outskirts of the city. “About time,” he called as Whist stepped out of the stairway.

Hastily, Whist lowered the bottle he’d liberated from the Noncommissioned Officers’ Club, hiding it behind his leg. Hard liquor wasn’t supposed to be consumed outside the club’s controlled environment. “Excuse me?” he called back.

The other man half turned, and in the reflected light from the central part of the city behind him Whist could see the all-­too-­familiar fusion of physical youth and crushing psychological age. A war vet, for sure. “Sorry,” the kid said. “I thought you were someone else.” He beckoned. “Come on—­join the crowd. I see you brought the refreshments.”

Whist wrinkled his nose. So much for keeping the bottle hidden. For a second he thought about turning around and making a run for it before he could be identified, then decided he really didn’t give a damn. “You’ve got a whacked idea of good places to meet people,” he commented, starting across the uneven roofing material.

“I’m here for the view, not the ambience,” the other said, gesturing over the edge of the roof behind him. “A buddy and I were going to watch a night training session. He must have slept through his alarm.”

Whist frowned past his shoulder. In the distance, above one of the collections of rubble that had once been a suburb, he could see ten muted glows buzzing around like unhappy hornets. “What are those?”

“What do you think?” the kid countered with a snort. “Who else except reapers gets dragged out for training in the middle of the night these days?”

“I thought reapers mostly just kangarooed over hills and off cliffs,” Whist said. “When did they start zooming around in circles?”

“Oh, they used to do that all the time,” the kid said. “When the reaper program started, they were given fully flight-­capable jetpacks.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I’m sure it was,” the kid said. “Trouble was, the new recruits also had a tendency to crash. A lot.”

“I heard the packs used to explode, too.”

“More often than anyone liked,” the kid conceded. “Anyway, after the war ended and they suddenly had enough time for proper training, they started phasing in the old equipment design, keeping some of the standard units the same while putting others in the new, improved packs and taking them back to the original mission statement.”

“Minus the random explosions?”

“So we hope, yes.”

“Well, floating around certainly makes them better targets,” Whist commented, choosing his words carefully. We, the kid had said. So he was a reaper, too? Terrific.

Because if marines were the best of the best, reapers were the worst of the worst. Literally.

Or at least they used to be. During the war, under the reign of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, the whole corps had supposedly been made up of hardened criminals whose antisocial tendencies couldn’t be brain-­panned away, and who had opted for crazy-­ass military duty as an alternative to prison or worse. Marines might like the way reapers could swoop down out of nowhere onto a zerg attack front, but no one really trusted them.

The new emperor, Arcturus’s son, Valerian, was purportedly changing all that. Personally, Whist would believe it when he saw it.

“Spoken like someone who’s been one of those targets.” The kid offered his hand. “Lieutenant Dennis Halkman, 122nd Reapers.”

“Yes, sir,” Whist said, stiffening to attention and throwing a salute. A reaper and an officer. This just got better and better.

And if Halkman had been in the 122nd, he’d almost certainly been in the war. Possibly for years.

Which made him a definite anomaly. Typical service lifetime for a reaper was six months. “Sergeant Foster Cray, 934th Marines,” Whist continued, identifying himself.

“Nice to meet you, Sergeant,” the kid said, making no effort to lower his hand or return the salute. “And I should have mentioned that’s former lieutenant. I’ve been rotated into the reserves, and you probably hate officers anyway, so let’s skip the sirs and saluting, okay? And call me Dizz.”

“Yes, sir,”...

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Verlag
Del Rey
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0425284735
ISBN 13 
9780425284735
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
354
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