StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade

StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade is a science fiction novel by Pocket Books taking place in the StarCraft universe. It takes place during the Terran campaign of the original StarCraft, and is narrated by an investigative journalist, Daniel Liberty (called 'Mike' by his friends), who is assigned to the Norad II - command ship of General Edmund Duke - after grievously offending one of the ruling Old Families of the Terran Confederacy.

There, he witnesses the destruction of the Zerg-infested Terran world of Chau Sara by the Protoss fleet commanded by Tassadar. The Norad II then travels to the sister world of Mar Sara, where he first meets Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan, Marshal Jim Raynor, and rebel leader Arcturus Mengsk of the Sons of Korhal. Still wanted by the Confederacy, Liberty defects with Raynor to the Sons of Korhal and begins working for Mengsk as a Korhal propagandist.

He soon realises that Mengsk is as corrupt, as fanatical and as brutal as the Confederacy he is fighting - he even allows General Duke to join him, but Liberty doesn't give up on him until he abandons Kerrigan to the Zerg on Tarsonis. Raynor, who was beginning to hold Kerrigan in high regard, picks a fight with Duke, then abandons Mengsk. Liberty accompanies him.

The book ends with Liberty's last transmission, his manifesto, being rewound by Kerrigan, now the Zerg Queen of Blades. The manifesto had begun to stir something human within her, but she remains fully Zerg, and begins reexamining the manifesto for tactical information she can use to her species' advantage.

StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade is not treated as canon.