Note that this fan fiction is set upon to separate but closely linked alternative realities. The first ‘Now’ is set in the supposed future, while ‘Then’ is set just after the events of Starcraft, and prior to those of Brood War. Neither reality is designed to closely match Brood War story line. The dependency of one reality to the other will grow more apparent with each chapter.
NOW. 10. THE FURY’S VENGEANCE
On the day following his confrontation with Kerrigan, Raynor got up before his wife and set out alone to scout out beyond the outermost perimeter of the colony.
He roared his bike around the low hills and badlands at combat speeds, speeds at which it might feasibly be argued he wouldn’t be likely to spot anything. True, his supposed primary objective was that he was out looking for that girl. He was by no means sure anymore, that his wife was able or willing to find her. That reason meant his probable primary objective was somewhat different.
The anger and frustration he had felt last night had not gone away, neither during the remainder of the meal, nor during their long and varied lovemaking, nor as they lay naked together all night. It was that that had forced him to leave in dawn’s gray light. He sensed that the fury with which he drove his bike around the landscape was a fury he felt should be directed at his wife.
He could understand, he supposed, why she would be reluctant to use her psychic powers. He could see how they were in all probability inextricably associated with murder. However, what he did not understand and could not defend was her apparent reluctance to do anything at all.
He did not believe for a second that anything of her distorted personality had survived the infestation. What he did doubt was his wife’s general character.
He pulled on the brakes and skidded the bike to a sideways halt upon a low plain of brown, cracked earth, sending a curtain of it high from his turning circle. He switched off the engine and let the bike sink to the ground. He popped the canopy, got out, and leaned against the housing as he lit up a cigarette. He stared off into the distance.
Well, he wasn’t finding the girl any with this course of action, and to be honest he hadn’t expected to. The best thing he could probably do was to go home and tell the young man that he’d failed.
No, that wasn’t the thing to do, surely?
Raynor’s train of thought was broken as above him, a Wraith decloaked not a hundred feet away and came in to land close by. Was this Kazansky? No, his plane was most definitely not standard. Was this one of the other pilots? Perhaps Belinda’s young man? No, that wasn’t it…
Raynor began to have a sense of definite unease as the canopy of the Wraith popped open and there emerged, uncoiling her sinuous, graceful body from the cockpit like a snake from a crevice, a young woman. Her hair was platinum blonde and her body was sheathed in a tight-fitting black garment. She walked purposefully towards him, a slight smile upon her lips and a fixed gleam in her eyes. Above those eyes was a laser-sight headpiece.
Raynor felt the chill pressure drop of terror in his stomach. A painful thump hit his heart as he realized that he was unarmed.
The woman paused not six feet away. Her evil intent was obvious. Raynor could do nothing but stand and stare.
‘I am Conor,’ she said pleasantly. ‘You killed my brother. Prepare to die.’
As her hand went for a knife at her belt, she shimmered and faded entirely from visibility.
It was only Raynor’s knowledge of martial arts that saved him then. That, and the fact that his body moved faster than his mind. His knew how to deflect the blow of a knife. An inexperienced knife fighter would draw the knife above their head in an attempt to stab down, in which case he could grab their elbow and their wrist at the top of the swing.
Raynor knew, from the bottom of his heart, that this woman – this Ghost – this seeker after vengeance who he had never seen before – was not inexperienced.
His body knew it, too. His leg shot out behind him, pivoting his body off the attacking line, and his other hand shot out across the front of his body. It made contact with an invisible wrist – the invisible woman gasped in shock. He pulled on the wrist and turned on the balls of his feet, turning her momentum into a downward spiral around him. He lifted up her wrist and hurled her down backwards to the floor. He came down on top of her.
‘Why are you attacking me?!’ he snarled into the face he knew was inches from his own, trying to immobilize the knife hand.
‘You killed my brother, you bastard,’ she hissed from inches away herself. She was far stronger than him, despite her slender appearance. She broke his grip and rolled away. He was on his feet in an instant, trying to anticipate the next attack.
‘I’ve never seen you before in my life!’ he gasped, trying desperately to think. When she was beneath him he’d felt her body against his own, had known exactly where she was. How could she have remained invisible?
‘Liar!’ she said, and he heard a whistle. He jerked backwards, the only move he could think of. Something tore through the front of his jacket.
He lunged forward with his entire body weight. He collided with invisible flesh and grappled desperately. As he’d surmised, her knife arm was at the extent of its swing, and he’d thus caught her arm between their two bodies. He intended to keep it there. The force of his momentum bore them heavily to the ground again. She gasped in agony as his much greater weight landed on top of her. He heard ribs cracking.
‘I’ve never killed your brother!’ he rasped. Something was screaming in his brain. He knew exactly where she was, but he couldn’t see her. How could he see the ground beneath her?
With that thought, the air between himself and the Ghost shimmered, and she flickered into view briefly. Her eyes widened as they stared at each other, though only for an instant, and she vanished again. A phantom muscle popped and groaned somewhere in his brain.
‘Don’t play dumb, Raynor,’ she hissed beneath him. With shocking strength, she thrust her hips up from the floor. He was sent flying off her. ‘You killed my brother on Tarsonis with a canister rifle. I felt the blow myself!’
‘I don’t even know how to use a canister rifle!’ he sobbed. He’d landed badly, and got up with rather more difficulty this time. And this time, she was faster than him. He heard the whistle of the knife, and all he could do was block feebly.
‘Aaaargh!’ He felt a shocking, piercing pain in his left forearm. Plunged through it, between the bones which screamed in violated agony, her knife came immediately into vision, stuck there.
‘Your taunts avail you naught,’ she said triumphantly. The muscle in his brain screamed. For an instant, she seemed to shimmer back into being again, attractive face twisted with a hateful grin. She reached out for the knife, as it shimmered from view, just before she jerked it out against the pressure of the bones. Raynor cried out in pain. He had the momentary surreal vision of the knife hanging in air before it vanished along with the rest. Blood ran from the wound in his arm like water. ‘And now, the final curtain. Know that I do this for my brother and lover; his death shall be avenged!’
The strained and protesting muscle in his brain suddenly popped into some alien position and stayed there. The Ghost suddenly snapped into view with crystal clarity. Raynor’s eyes widened in surprise, and immediately so did hers. No matter – she drew back her knife for the plunge-
And Raynor, working according to the impulses of something he couldn’t identify, pulled the Protoss artifact from his belt with his good hand. He swung it desperately in front of him.
A three-foot flowing ribbon of dark blue swung from the blade and sliced the woman in half from hip to ribcage. The arm with the knife fell away alone. She divided in the middle, eyes set into an almost comical expression of surprise, and the two halves fell to the floor. Blood, released from internal pressure, literally fountained over Raynor. He was momentarily blinded.
When he could blink the horror from his eyes, he found himself standing over a dismembered female corpse, a knife, and a small cylinder of Protoss workmanship. They lay still in a pool of blood.
Raynor just stood and stared.
THEN. 10. MENTOR’S ABANDONMENT
Moving swiftly and purposefully, Tom Kazansky and Magellan strode over the blue metal of the Dark Templar homeworld. Drifting after them like a silent moonlight shadow, strode Raynor, the Dark Templar.
They were heading towards another raised structure; one story in height, it may have been a dwelling. From far away, they could see nothing but the blue metal walls and the darker cladding of the corners. However, with increasing proximity it could be seen that a figure was standing upon the building, facing away.
Raynor cloaked and moved past the others with barely a wisp of air. Exchanging glances, they hurried after his footsteps.
The figure was standing at the edge of the structure, and before it was a crowd of people. It was quite possibly the assembled mass of the whole of Raynor’s impromptu army, two hundred living souls. They were listening intently to the figure’s words. Kazansky and Magellan blended quietly into the side of the crowd. Though they could not see Raynor, they could feel his invisible force of anger hanging in the air. They watched and waited.
The figure talked.
‘Fellow Terrans,’ it called out into the air, waving its fist over the crowd, ‘what are we doing here, wasting out our lives on this alien world? We are starving to death. We are freezing to death. We are surrounded by invisible, inhuman creatures. Our enemies rule the galaxy unchallenged. And for what?
‘We have been abandoned here, my fellow Terrans, left behind by a war that is destined to know no conclusion. Our commander is no more. He has become an alien himself. Which of you has seen out Commander Raynor these past weeks? Where is the victory that he promised?
‘The victory Raynor promised is a phantom. It is destined never to be achieved. While he chases his chimerical dreams of alien, unknowable, unattainable powers, we sit here on Shakuras, starving, rotting, freezing away. And I tell you know that we do not have to make this choice.
“We, Colonial Militia, can seize victory for ourselves on our own terms. I can show you tactical secrets of the Confederacy Covert Ops that will enable us to strike at the Zerg from within. We can evade their most potent defences and strike directly at the base of the Queen of Blades Kerrigan herself with our most potent space-class weaponry. With her gone, the Zerg broods under her control will be literally headless, and we can decimate them at our leisure.
‘My friends, take my lead and I will show you victory. Forget Raynor’s pipe dreams of bizarre powers! How many of you consider it likely he can sneak through the whole of the Zerg Horde and cut down Kerrigan, compared to the chances of our combined might? Come with me, and we will sweep our enemies from the galaxy!’
There were murmurs of approval from the crowd and a few scattered cheers. Magellan thought they might come from plants. Kazansky thought they might come from the speaker’s significant other.
The cheers cut out abruptly.
WHO ARE YOU THAT YOU UNDERMINE MY AUTHORITY THUS? came a telepathic blast so powerful that everyone present winced.
In front of the speaker, the crowd opened up like a rapidly expanded bubble, moving aside in shock as though acted on by forces beyond their control. Within the open circle de-cloaked Jim Raynor, clad in his flowing Protoss cloak and robes, a mask around his face and a hood and turban over his head. His eyes seemed to glow orange with rage, yet they were the only parts of him that could be seen. He waved a gauntleted fist at the speaker.
There was a gasp of shock at his appearance, and the assembled crowd backed away even further. His appearance was certainly… dramatic.
And yet only Kazansky and Magellan, wincing and lowering their heads to their hands, knew that Raynor was making exactly the wrong impression.
IDENTIFY YOURSELF, TRAITOR! sent the only human Dark Templar in existence.
The speaker gazed down calmly from the building’s roof.
‘I am Belinda Lister, one-time Ghost of the Confederate Covert Operations Division,’ she said confidently, ‘and there’s no need to shout. I am as fully capable of telepathy as are you.’
Raynor advanced to the edge of the building and leapt, seemingly without effort. His leap carried him up the entire story height of the building and he landed lightly upon its roof. There were more gasps from the crowd. The Ghost’s eyes opened wide, and she backed away slightly. Raynor advanced on her threateningly.
‘Hey!’ called out a furious, frightened, slightly cracked yell from the crowd. A young man with a red face pushed his way to the front. It was that same young man who, many months later, would be asking Raynor to find that same young woman. ‘Leave her alone!’
There were yells of agreement from the crowd and more than a few angry mutterings. Raynor halted, somewhat belatedly. He caught the upturn of a smile at the side of the Ghost’s mouth. Raynor turned to the crowd – far too late – and spoke normally.
‘What’s going on?’ he called out. ‘Why are you listening to her? Do you want to get yourselves all killed?’
‘She’s got a plan, Raynor!’ shouted out some unidentifiable barrack-room lawyer. ‘Not like sitting here on our duffers waiting for you!’
‘I explained my plan to you all, after the Dark Templar brought us here!’ called out Raynor, holding out his arms in a gesture of supplication. His cloak and robes flowed out beside hjm and fluttered in the chill wind like nightwings. ‘I learn the powers of the Dark Templar, and assassinate Kerrigan! We had an agreement!'
‘No human can have such power!’ the Ghost shouted – Raynor noticed, facing towards the crowd and not to him. ‘Evolution demands it. And not even the deadliest of Dark Templar could hope to assassinate Kerrigan in any case.’
‘And yet, with my plan, mine is the only life that needs to be risked!’ Raynor counted. ‘And I can, and do, wield the powers of the Dark Templar. You have seen me demonstrate them.’ He reached into his robe and pulled out his Warp Blade. He activated it and passed it slowly in front of him, staring at the crowd through the transparent, dark blue, rippling blade. The crowd gasped in unison.
The young man made a start towards the edifice. Raynor deactivated his blade in a hurry.
‘Raynor cannot hope to defeat the Zerg Queen on his own!’ called out the Ghost passionately, raising one slender, bare arm to the heavens. ‘She will see through his psionic defences, rape his mind for our secrets, come and pick us off here as we wait stranded without leadership! We must strike united against the Zerg, or not at all!’
‘With my plan, my own life is the only one to be risked! You others can live out your lives in peace! It’s the sensible, logical thing to do!’ called out Raynor desperately.
And yet, as his gaze turned to his opponent, he realised that his men would, in common with their fellows throughout the ages, have logic furthest from their minds.
The woman speaking against him had feathery, very light blonde hair down to her shoulders. Her light eyes of indeterminate colour blazed with passion in her beautiful face as she held the crowd within her long, slender arms of flawless skin. Her lithe, trim figure was clad in a tight, sleeveless vest, black combat trousers and heavy boots. A canister rifle was slung across her shoulders, its ammunition hung from her belt. Though only just seventeen, she looked every inch the woman, every inch the leader, every inch the expert warrior.
Raynor looked every inch the alien Dark Templar, and in a blinding flash he knew that his men’s once complete trust and belief, fading the moment he left them to train with Zeratul, had finally evaporated when faced with a leader who was attractive, convincing and above all, one of them.
Catching him looking at her, the girl winked – so rapidly that Raynor could hardly believe he’d seen it. Had he imagined it?
‘So warriors, make your choice!’ she called. ‘Do we stay here, or fight!’
A roaring, wordless cheer accompanied by a sea of fists punching the air was her answer. She dived headfirst from her stage and was immediately caught and mobbed by the crowd.
Raynor stood on the stage, hanging his head, bereft, defeated and alone. Raising his head, he saw the crowd, still bearing the Ghost upon their shoulders, heading for their landing ground in a body.
Amongst them, he saw Zeratul – standing utterly still and upright, staring at Raynor, whilst Terrans flowed around him like an island in a stream. It seemed, that only Raynor was able to see him.
Zeratul, sent Raynor to his mentor. My people have turned against me! What can I do?
I cannot help you, human, thought Zeratul with resounding finality. I have taught you all I know of the skills of the Dark Templar. You have all you need to defeat Kerrigan, if this is possible. As for how you deal with your own people and your own life, alas, I cannot advise you on that. Fare thee well. Otherwise, I look forward to our meeting in the next cycle of existence.
Zeratul turned away into the streaming crowd and vanished utterly.
In despair, Raynor walked slowly to the edge of the edifice and lowered himself carefully down. There would be no more displays of psionically-enhaced strength today. Most of the crowd had already dispersed, no doubt back to their spaceships to prepare for the upcoming attack on Char. The only ones standing still and remaining were Tom Kazansky, and Magellan.
Raynor couldn’t face their stares. Head down, he shuffled past them and headed for his battlecruiser. Despite all, they still fell into step behind him. But still…
‘Jeez,’ grated Kazansky in contemptuous tones, ‘you really screwed up.’
Raynor waved a hand at him weakly. ‘Just…’ But he was too demoralised to even finish the sentence.
Some time later, he was sitting dejectedly in his cabin upon the Battlecruiser Hyperion, his one-time flagship. He supposed, as far as he knew, that this battlecruiser along with the rest of his fleet was heading to Char to attack Kerrigan’s defences at whatever weak spot that the Ghost had supposed. He didn’t know for sure. He couldn’t face sitting on the bridge in his customary position of command on a mission in which he had been so comprehensively shouted down. They would rush to their death, and he was helpless against it.
He knew that he was being defeatist – if not pathetic – but could not muster the will to snap out of it. Soon after take-off he had hurled his Protoss robes and his Warp Blade focus from him in a fit of rage, and shoved them into a metal chest. Clad in only his standard combat gear, he merely felt naked. He hit bottom.
However, a gentle bell ringing aroused his curiosity.
He walked over to the mirror-black panel of the ship’s intercom. According to a message, the inhabitant of Cabin 1942P wanted to see him.
He wondered whom it could be.
A few minutes later – Raynor, despite his dejection, was predisposed to deal with immediacy with any new situation that presented itself – he found himself outside the door of cabin 1942P and pressed the signaller with some trepidation. Inside the cabin, a gentle two-tone sounded.
The cabin door slid open soundlessly into a dimly-lit interior.
‘Ah, Captain Raynor,’ called out a musical, liquid voice. ‘Please come in.’
Feeling very confused, Raynor walked into the cabin. Its door slid shut again behind him.
To his considerable surprise, the cabin was lit by candlelight – or at least, its interior lighting had been set to register that way. The wasteful practise of burning animal fat for lighting had been abandoned ages ago. The cabin showed every appearance of being luxuriously outfitted – though of course aboard a military vessel this was only an appearance. Tapestries seemed to hang upon the walls, and books seemed to line its shelves. Holograms, without doubt.
Before him, two couches were arranged around a low coffee table of brown glass, ninety degrees apart. The one he could see, to the side, appeared empty. The other, which had its back to him, must be seating the person who spoke.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ said the warm, musical voice, and its author got up from the couch and faced him.
Raynor caught his breath.
It was the Ghost, Lister, but she looked very different from her impassioned speech on the planet’s surface. She was wearing a dress of fantastically racy cut. Two strips of material ran down from a mere tape around her neck over her small breasts to a flared skirt, barely long enough to cover her hips. The whole was of white satin, setting off her smooth, pale skin as the candlelight reflected their shimmer. Apart from high-heeled, white slippers of transparent, glass-like material, this was all she wore.
Raynor understood, for the first time, the expression of having one’s breath taken away.
‘Please, come sit beside me,’ she said with a smile, indicating the couch to her left. Moving as though in a waking dream, watching her from the corner of his eye, he moved over to the chair and sat down very carefully.
‘Have some champagne,’ she said, moving over to the table and bending down whilst facing him directly. His gaze tracked down directly from her throat to past her navel. Picking up the bottle while keeping her eyes on him all the time, she poured two measures into long, fluted glasses. She handed one to Raynor, who took its stem between thumb and forefinger.
Putting down the bottle, she ran her hands over her incredibly brief skirt and sat down in the other chair, crossing her impossibly long, slender legs. From this action and how she sat, it was obvious to Raynor that apart from a brief white thong and the dress, she was entirely naked.
‘I hope this mission to Char finds you well?’ she said pleasantly, sipping her champagne.
Raynor leaned forward. ‘I’m sure your intentions are entirely honourable, Miss,’ he said with some sarcasm, looking directly her in the eye, ‘but I cannot help but feel, when you invite me to your apartment dressed like that and offer me champagne, that there’s some kind of hidden agenda operating here.’
She raised her feathery eyebrows and twitched her mouth up. ‘You have to ask?’ she said, indicating her nearly-naked body with the merest gesture.
Raynor smiled, very slightly and very grimly. ‘Lady, don’t take me for a fool. Your advances are very… flattering. However, you are an extraordinarily attractive seventeen year old. I am a balding Space Marine, pushing thirty. Please don’t insult my intelligence. Now what was it you wanted, exactly? Forget this crappy femme-fatale business, and let’s discuss terms.’
The Ghost looked actually surprised. She took another gulp of her champagne, looked at the glass and realised it was empty, and leaned heavily towards the table and grabbed for the bottle with none of the poise and grace she’d displayed before. She filled her glass rapidly and completely unconsciously of her surroundings, absurd dress and mannerisms forgotten. To Raynor, this made her a thousand times more attractive than she’d been before, but she was also entirely irrelevant to him. Cradle snatching didn’t strike him as honourable leadership practise by any means.
‘Terms? What are you talking about?’ she said, and hiccuped. She wiped her hand across her mouth, smearing her lipstick heavily.
Raynor smiled grimly. ‘Cut the crap.’ He got up, putting his untouched champagne down upon the table. He strode over to the exterior viewer of the cabin and stared out at the stars, mentally calculating exactly where they were going and how fast. Somehow, his dejection was quite gone. ‘The stunt you pulled earlier today was to try to get something, so much was obvious. Now this wining-dining is to try to clinch the deal. Let’s just leave it out, shall we. What are you after? A command position? Name your terms and we’ll discuss it.’
He felt her coming up behind him, and stop very close. What he heard was precisely not what he’d been expecting.
‘Don’t you like me?’ he heard her ask in a tremulous voice.
He spun round, to find himself gazing into large, hurt, colourless little-girl eyes and a trembling, blurred mouth. ‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Weren’t you impressed by my… stunt… as you put it?’
‘Yes, oh yes!’ said Raynor, misunderstanding completely. ‘You tore me down precisely as many pegs as I deserved. I swear, now and forever, I’ll never make the same mistakes of leadership as I did then. ’
‘But you haven’t made any mistakes, Jimmy!’ she said earnestly, eyes filled with an awesome force that filled Raynor with some sickening horror, some nameless dread. One compounded to the nth degree as her long, slender, bare arms came up and entwined themselves around his neck. She gazed up at him with longing and admiration. ‘You’re the greatest leader I’ve ever seen. You don’t know how much it means to me just to impress you!’
‘Oh no… You’ve gotta be kidding…’ moaned Raynor, and by this point, their two psionically active minds were so close he at last began to realise something of the truth. ‘You mean you did that whole thing… made up that entire battle plan… just to impress me?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ she gasped, pressing her long, slender, nearly-naked body against his.
Raynor had had enough. He opened his mind fully and read the whole of hers – as far from being closed or defended at this moment as it was possible to be – in the blink of an eye. She gasped in shock at the sensation, She however, was merely overwhelmed, by the towering power… the overwhelming force… the magnificent obsession…of her crush.
‘No!’ gasped Raynor, and shoved the girl off him with excessive force. She flew off him and fell heavily into one of the chairs. It toppled over and she collapsed upon it, dress and limbs in disarray. Raynor was past noticing. He advanced upon her like a bear.
‘You did this… all of this… for a crush?’ he grated, with clenched fists.
‘No! No!’ she cried passionately, tears spilling from her eyes. ‘I did it all for love! I love you, Jimmy?’
‘You little idiot,’ he said venomously, standing over her collapsed, trembling, barely-clad form. ‘Thanks to your stupid teenage melodrama, two hundred men are now flying into an almost certain death. Wasting their lives!’ The tears and pain and loss he saw upon her face might have caused his sympathy or pity, but right now his fury was a force which knew no barricades. 'I hope you’re happy.’
‘But no… no… that wasn’t what I wanted!’ she moaned piteously, head in hands. ‘All I wanted was for you to love me!’
‘Well it’s what you got, kid,’ he said viciously. ‘Welcome to the pleasures of leadership. Enjoy them while they last.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s the last chance you’re ever gonna get.’
He turned upon his heel and strode towards the door.
‘Wait!’ cried the Ghost. ‘Where are you going?’
‘It’s too late to turn back now,’ he shot. ‘I’m going to the bridge. To lead the attack on Char.’
He strode from the room, leaving the young girl collapsed weeping on the floor.
A very short time later, Raynor strode onto the command bridge of the Hyperion clad in his full commander’s uniform. His gaze was like thunder, and none dared to meet it or challenge him. Silently, the commodore twitched nervously, and got out of the command chair very rapidly as Raynor approached like the storm. He slammed himself down into it like the Fall.
Kazansky and Magellan, off to the side, exchanged a brief nod and walked up to the command post. They positioned themselves behind the chair in their positions as of old.
Nobody, especially not Raynor, acknowledged their presence, but they visibly preened.
‘Report on hitting Char’s detection range, helmsman,’ said Raynor in chill tones.
‘Hitting one detect out from Char in t minus eleven minutes, Commander,’ she responded with military precision.
‘Acknowledged,’ said Raynor, and said nothing else.
There was a silent sweep of air as the door to the bridge slid open. A Ghost walked through it. She wore their tight-fitting black uniform, festooned as it was with bandoliers, canister rifle ammunition and targeting equipment. A laser sight headpiece kept her feathery blonde hair pushed back.
Belinda Lister looked very different indeed from a short time before. Her makeup was gone, her jaw was set, and a cold and permanent look was in her eyes.
She walked to the command chair, presented herself before it with a crisp salute, and stood at attention.
Her gaze locked with Raynor’s.
‘Special Operative Lister,’ said Raynor in a voice as cold as ice. ‘Do you have the plans showing the weak spots in Char’s defensive screens?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, producing a disk from her pouches.
‘Good work. Helmsman, set a course for the indicated area, and Comms, transmit the following message to the fleet.’
‘This is it, people,’ said Raynor over an intercom to the entire fleet he had at his command, of Battlecruisers, Wraiths and so forth. ‘This is our long-awaited hit back at the Zerg. For better or worse, we’re going in. On my mark, head for the following co-ordinates at maximum velocity. It should take us through the weakest point in the planetary defences and to where we can do the most good.
