StarCraft: Queen of Blades


 * This article is about the StarCraft universe novel. For the character, see Infested Kerrigan.

StarCraft: Queen of Blades is a StarCraft novel written by Aaron Rosenberg and authorized by Blizzard Entertainment, the same company that created the hit video game StarCraft. It is available as a softcover and ebook.

The book takes place during StarCraft Episode II, approximately six weeks after the capture of Sarah Kerrigan by the Zerg, and continues into Episode III.

"Back of Book" Description
Former marshal-turned-rebel Jim Raynor has broken away from the power-crazed Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Enraged over Mengsk's betrayal of the powerful telepath, Sarah Kerrigan, to the ravenous Zerg, Raynor has lost all faith in his fellow humanity.

Yet, in the aftermath of Mengsk's treachery, Raynor is plagued by strange visions of Char -- a deadly, volcanic world haunted by horrifying alien creatures. As the nightmares grow in intensity, Raynor begins to suspect that they may not be figments of his imagination -- but a desperate form of telepathic contact. Convinced that the woman he loves is still alive, Raynor launches a hasty mission to rescue Kerrigan from Char. But deep beneath the planet's smoldering surface, Raynor finds a strange chrysalis...and is forced to watch in horror as a terrible, all-too-familiar entity rises from it.

Before him stands a creature of depthless malice and vengeance...

Sarah Kerrigan: the Zerg Queen of Blades.

Prologue
The prologue began with the Battle of New Gettysburg on a space platform over Tarsonis, where Protoss, Sons of Korhal and Zerg forces clashed. Two Zerg Broods had custody of Sarah Kerrigan; one escorted her Chrysalis, while the other destroyed the forces in front of them. Eventually the Zerg left the planet, using a rift through warp space.

After the betrayal of Kerrigan, Jim Raynor turned against Arcturus Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal. His forced fled the area of Tarsonis, but now Raynor was left without long-term transport.

Raynor launched a raid at Dylar IV, the new Terran Dominion shipyard. General Edmund Duke was waiting for him there in the Hyperion along with a fleet, but his forces used the dockyard's equipment to grapple it. They left with the Hyperion and a dozen other vessels.

Meanwhile, former reporter Michael Liberty was spreading propaganda which was favorable to Jim Raynor to counter Mengsk's false rumors; Liberty referred to Raynor as "the hero of Antiga Prime." Raynor thought that was bunk.

A New World
Jim Raynor and Arcturus Mengsk received visions from the slowly transforming Kerrigan. Raynor's second in command, the young Matt Horner, used Raynor's descriptions of his visions to track Kerrigan's location - the world of Char. Without revealing these visions to anyone, Raynor announced that he believed the Zerg were holding prisoners on this world, and they would try to rescue them.

When their fleet arrived at Char, they found General Duke there as well. Duke's fleet was smaller. Conversation with Duke revealed that Duke was here for the same reasons as Raynor was, and that he had sent troops down to the surface. However, these troops couldn't even defend their own landing point; there were too many Zerg down there.

Raynor sent down shuttles from all his ships to the surface, and his troops searched for the Zerg, which were hiding in tunnels. Raynor led his troops into a large tunnel and used his psychic connection with Kerrigan to navigate. They were spotted by a strange massive eye, and the battle was on. Raynor's troops took losses but eventually reached the Chrysalis. Two Cerebrates attempted to defend it. Raynor was able to "hear" their orders. The Chrysalis burst, revealing Infested Kerrigan. She and Raynor had a short conversation, and she ordered the Zerg to stop attacking the Terrans. Outnumbered heavily, Raynor ordered a retreat.

Infiltration
When Raynor arrived at his base camp with his troops, his shuttles were missing, as Kerrigan had taken control of them in order to board his and Duke's ships. Kerrigan herself boarded the Amerigo.

Raynor was able to warn Horner aboard the Hyperion, who then initiated a blind warp jump in order to escape. The Norad III also made an emergency jump.

This was when the Protoss struck. They destroyed all the Terran vessels in the area, even attacking the lifepods. A very angry Raynor was stranded on Char, days away from the nearest world. Raynor found a lifepod from the Amerigo on the ground, who told Raynor he was a scientist abord the Amerigo, and that Kerrigan had stolen the Ghost Program files so she could learn about the conditioning process.

Encounters with the Protoss
Jim Raynor wandered alone from his troops, occasionally plagued by visions from Kerrigan. He encountered Tassadar and his troops leaving their vessel. Raynor and Tassadar had teamed up before, but Tassadar had also attacked his ships. Tassadar immediately headed for a crater where Infested Kerrigan herself awaited. The two sparred, but Kerrigan won the battle. Raynor was able to "overhear" their entire conversation, and it was obvious to him that Kerrigan knew of his presence. Tassadar was forced to flee.

After conversation with Tassadar, Raynor again dreamed of Kerrigan. Now, however, the dreams were pleasant; they showed him and Kerrigan as human civilians. He would have multiple dreams, some of which showed him what Kerrigan was planning.

Raynor continued to travel by himself, trying to track down the Protoss. He saw the black Dark Templar ship land. He even followed Zeratul into Zasz's cave and witnessed the execution of Zasz. This act drove the Garm Brood insane. Daggoth told Kerrigan to deal with the Garm, but she refused, preferring to hunt down the Protoss. Instead, she told Daggoth to destroy the Garm. Daggoth's Zerg then destroyed both Protoss ships, stranding them on Char as well.

While Kerrigan hunted Tassadar, she encountered Zeratul instead. Zeratul delivered a prophecy to her. Kerrigan defeated Zeratul in a duel and he fled.

Uneasy Alliance
A week later, Raynor encountered Tassadar and Zeratul during their first meeting. It didn't go well. Tassadar attacked Zeratul, who continued to speak reasonably. Their battle was interrupted by a Zerg attack. Raynor assisted them, angering Kerrigan. Raynor's dreams of a human Kerrigan began turning violent... During the battle, Kerrigan told Zeratul that when he slew Zasz, the Overmind read his mind, learning the location of Aiur. Zeratul promised to make amends for his mistake, which meant he would stay with Tassadar for the time being.

Raynor's Raiders and both groups of Protoss formed an uneasy alliance. Zeratul was polite to Tassadar and spent a lot of time observing him. They faced fewer Zerg, since most had left to invade Aiur, but Kerrigan and her Brood remained. During their time together, Tassadar and Zeratul finally bonded. Tassadar (mostly) put aside his prejudices.

Raynor and Zeratul discussed his dreams of Kerrigan. They agreed that Kerrigan was torturing him with the (formerly) pleasant dreams, but in a way she was torturing herself with what she couldn't have. Raynor asked Zeratul to break the link, but Zeratul refused; he could sense how far away Kerrigan was through the link, and had been using that advantage already.

Tassadar contacted Aldaris (his former advisor) on Aiur in order to warn them of the Zerg, but too late; the Zerg had already heavily damaged the planet. Aldaris was cold to Tassadar; he expected him to return immediately to help fight the Zerg, but Tassadar said his fight was here on Char. He revealed that he was in contact with the Dark Templar, which prompted a scathing response.

After several more battles with the Zerg, Tassadar consented to performing the Shadow Walk and symbolically became a Dark Templar.

Raynor discussed his understanding of Zerg "speech", only to discover none of his troops had heard the Zerg say anything. Kerrigan's sloppy psychic link was automatically "translating" Zerg thoughts into speech that Raynor could understand, but she wasn't doing this deliberately. Zeratul told him that he could use Raynor's dreams to lure Kerrigan into an ambush, since he could overhear the Zerg battle reports.

During his next dream, Raynor showed Kerrigan the image of the box canyon he was hiding in. Kerrigan was surprised but fell for the trick. The ambush worked. Most of the Zerg troops were killed, and Tassadar used his Dark Templar powers to slay Kerrigan's Cerebrate. This sent her Zerg insane. However, Kerrigan fought on. Tassadar, Zeratul and Raynor would all attack Kerrigan at the same moment, but Kerrigan easily defeated Raynor and was beating the two Protoss commanders when Protoss vessels arrived and opened fire. Kerrigan escaped.

Aldaris and the new Executor, Artanis, arrived. Aldaris attempted to arrest Tassadar, but Artanis read Tassadar's mind and refused to do so. Zeratul departed, announcing he would go to his ship, the Void Seeker. He noted that he had hidden the vessel with powerful illusions (Daggoth had been tricked into attacking illusions).

Shortly thereafter, Matt Horner reappeared in the Char system. He was late, due to trouble warping so suddenly.

Differences from Canon
StarCraft: Queen of Blades deviated from the StarCraft storyline on multiple occasions.

Char was described as being in a system with one visible sun, but both suns are visible in the between-levels artwork; the two suns are also discussed in StarCraft Maps of the Month.

During the early Zerg missions, Raynor did not directly confront Kerrigan, only contacting her from his Command Center. In the novel, the Chrysalis was underground, and Raynor personally led troops to find her and a number of Cerebrates (the latter were not on the same map as the Chrysalis).

Infested Kerrigan traveled to the Amerigo in order to "upgrade" her psionic abilities. This is demonstrated by giving her access to Psionic Storm. However, on the Amerigo in the novel, Kerrigan was powerful enough to fry human minds and protect herself from Gauss rifle spikes by using telekinesis to take control of them and then hurl them back with lethal force before she unlocked her abilities.

The sequence of events around the death of Zasz were very different. In the game, Tassadar and Zeratul had seemingly formed an alliance by this time, but were hiding from the Zerg. Kerrigan detected them with her newfound powers after leaving the Amerigo with the knowledge of the Ghost program. Tassadar lured her into combat with an illusion while Zeratul slew Zasz.

Zasz's Garm Brood was then destroyed by Zerg commanded by the player Cerebrate (this would be Kerrigan's personal Brood). In the novel, Zeratul slew Zasz before he even met Tassadar, the Garm were destroyed by Daggoth's Tiamat Brood, Kerrigan faced Tassadar many times before being fooled by the illusion (which happened after the death of Zasz) and used lines that occurred earlier in the game (when Zasz was being set up for assassination), and only later did Tassadar and Zeratul form an alliance.

Later during the Zerg missions, Kerrigan destroyed a substantial portion of the Protoss base and slew many Dark Templar while holding aggressive conversations with Zeratul. Tassadar and Zeratul both escaped, but Tassadar was left with very limited forces hiding on a space platform over Char while Zeratul would later be captured. Later, Aldaris would sent the new Executor and Protoss troops to arrest Tassadar, but the new Executor chose to join forces with Tassadar instead. The Protoss then fought the Zerg (multiple Broods), sparred with General Edmund Duke's forces, and rescued Zeratul. In the novel, the Zerg lost the battle heavily rather than winning. The Protoss were then immediately "reinforced" by Aldaris and Artanis. Zeratul wasn't captured in the novel and so didn't need rescuing.

Zeratul is repeatedly referred to as Praetor, rather than his correct rank, Prelate.

Many aerial Zerg units, such as the Mutalisk and Devourer, were described as making melee attacks. The Devourer did not even exist at this point in time.

Characters in StarCraft: Queen of Blades

 * Lieutenant Abernathy – captain of the Chandler and a top ground commander
 * Lieutenant Deke Cavez – a top ground commander
 * Daggoth – senior Cerebrate and leader of the Tiamat Brood
 * General Edmund Duke – leader of Alpha Squadron
 * Matt Horner – Raynor's young and idealistic second-in-command
 * Infested Kerrigan – a rising power in the Zerg Swarm
 * Jim Raynor – former colonial policeman now leading a band of rebels
 * Tassadar – former Protoss Executor and High Templar
 * Zasz – Cerebrate in charge of the Garm Brood
 * Zeratul – Dark Templar leader

Excerpt
Starcraft: Queen of Blades (Starcraft). Simon & Schuster. Accessed 2007-12-27.