"What did you dream about?" Augustus smoothed Kerrigan's fiery red hair, kissing her forehead and her flame-like lips.
"I dreamed that I lost you," Kerrigan said. "They dragged me away from your side. I could no longer see you or the light. I fell once more into darkness."
"What are they?" Augustus pressed his face against Kerrigan's burning cheek. "The Confederacy? The Zerg, or the Protoss? Don't be afraid. I am right here beside you—always, always—until eternity, until the end of the world."
"I don't know. They were boundless shadows," Kerrigan sobbed.
"Never," Augustus said, holding Kerrigan in his arms and making a gentle vow—in the name of God, of Jesus, in any name that could calm Kerrigan: "I will never abandon you, Sarah. No one can take you from my side—no one. No matter what the enemy may be, they can never take you away."
"How could it be like this?" Kerrigan said to Augustus. "I love you, Augustus."
"I love you too." Comforting Kerrigan, Augustus spoke in a calm tone as he described a beautiful future to her: "When we overthrow the Confederacy's tyranny and establish a system founded on compassion and equality, we will get married."
"The wedding will be held in the great cathedral of Tarsonis, beneath the stained glass windows… There will be millions of flowers, and all Terrans will bless our union," he said.
"We will have several children, from among whom I will choose my successor."
"I hope I won't be one of your many wives," Kerrigan said, no longer crying and having already returned to her usual composure. She had always been confident in Augustus's charm and suspected that, once this man began to indulge himself, there would be plenty of shameless, wanton women fighting to become his mistresses.
"I don't need that many," Augustus said.
In the time that followed, Augustus rarely had the chance to enjoy Kerrigan's tender teasing and charm. They kissed passionately again and again, feeling each other's warmth, until Kerrigan rose to put on her clothes.
Kerrigan did not avoid Augustus's gaze; it was only then that she realized the long black evening gown she had taken off the night before was utterly unwearable—some of the fabric had been completely torn apart by Augustus.
"What should I do about this?" Kerrigan held the shredded black gloves in her hands, feeling only regret about it. "These were expensive."
"A new dress has already been prepared," Augustus said, picking up his personal terminal. "Faraday, send out that new dress."
With her hearing sharper than that of ordinary people, Kerrigan could hear Corporal Faraday on the other end solemnly assuring Augustus that he would deliver it as carefully as if he were transporting tens of millions of tons of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the latter still stubbornly believed that every task the Marshal of the Revolutionary Army assigned him was meant to help him advance further in this great revolutionary campaign.
"But that was the most expensive thing you ever gave me," Kerrigan said to Augustus.
"I'll give you a few more," Augustus replied, knowing full well the mischievous meaning behind the expression of a Kerrigan who had just crossed from girlhood into womanhood.
"I thought you might stay in bed a little longer," Augustus said, admiring Kerrigan's beautiful body—her perfect abdominal lines and long, elegantly proportioned legs.
The wonderful memory of last night surfaced once more in Augustus's mind—the memory of those strong, athletic legs wrapped around his waist, legs capable of easily kicking a Marine's neck in two or twisting their throat apart.
Kerrigan was absolutely the most dangerous woman Augustus had ever met—in every sense of the word.
"All right," Kerrigan said calmly, going to take a shower. Judging by the teasing look in her eyes, she seemed more than willing to let something else happen with Augustus in the bathroom.
Augustus waited at the door for the person delivering the dress. The one who arrived, however, was not Corporal Faraday, but Mira Han, her face wearing a playful smile.
"How does it feel?" asked Mira, who wore her pink hair in a single ponytail, both hands tucked into the back pockets of her black leather pants as she blinked at him.
"What do you mean?" Augustus said with a smile, taking the new long dress and coat from Mira's hands.
"Of course, the feeling of conquering a red-haired woman," Mira said knowingly.
"This isn't conquest, Mira," Augustus told her.
"But I'll remember that night forever—never in my life will I forget it."
"But you look rather weak," Mira said. "I heard Tychus Findlay can handle eight people in battle without even catching his breath."
"Livestock and humans can't be compared," Augustus said. "And I can still run ten kilometers as usual. You don't know how formidable Kerrigan is—she almost never feels tired. Kerrigan surpasses twenty women."
"Maybe she just wants you exhausted so you won't have the energy to touch other women," Mira said with a snickering laugh.
"Did you use any contraception?" she asked, as startlingly direct as always.
"No," Augustus admitted. "I hope Kerrigan can conceive my child."
"That sounds so perverted." Mira covered her mouth in surprise.
"A little," Augustus said, shrugging.
"Speaking of which, what would that child's hair color be? Judging from Valerian's blond hair, the gray hair of the Mengsk family might not be a dominant gene. By then your whole family might end up dyed red and gold or something," Mira said.
"And psionic talent is hereditary. The descendant of a high-level psionic is almost certain to be a psionic as well. The Mengsk family has never had psionics—meaning that the one who will rule the Mengsk dynasty in the future would also be a psionic."
"…" Augustus had a complaint stuck in his throat that he couldn't voice. Sometimes he simply couldn't keep up with Mira's bizarre train of thought.
"What I intend to build is a republic, not some Mengsk dynasty." He shifted to answering a much more serious question. "Is it only you who thinks this way, or has such thinking already begun spreading within our revolutionary ranks?"
"Ah, only a few of us think that way. Lundstein believes that once you overthrow the Confederacy and establish a new regime, you won't be able to relinquish power to the parliament; the authority of the new government will only be concentrated in you and a small number of people. And Harnack simply wants you to become emperor so he can have you directly appoint him as Marshal," Mira said.
"But what do you think?"
"You're asking this out of curiosity, or for some other reason, or did someone instruct you to do it?" Augustus did not answer the question directly. For a long time, he had been advocating republicanism, with no sign whatsoever that he would become a dictator in the future.
"I was just asking casually. I don't expect to get any answer from you." Behind Mira's flighty personality was a quick and clever mind and a deep heart; she saw through things far more clearly than many who fancied themselves intelligent.
"Then I will tell you—I have never thought about becoming any emperor or dictator," Augustus said. "If the new Terran Republic no longer needs me, then I will lay down my armor and return to the fields."
"How could that be? If the world didn't have you, everything would stop running; the sun wouldn't rise or set anymore." The most unfathomable thing about Mira was that one could never know which of her words were jokes.
"I'm not mocking you—I'm serious."
"Do you have something else to say?" Augustus waited for a while. Seeing that Mira still hadn't left, he realized she must have something more she wished to tell him.
"Did I disturb you two?" Mira asked.
"No." Augustus glanced back.
"Go on."
"The people we left in the Sara star system sent word over a month ago. On Mar Sara's sister planet, Chau Sara, Zerg have been discovered. It is an unrecorded strain, and its numbers are enormous. Currently, the Confederacy's army on Chau Sara is truly engaging the Zerg—the Confederacy has locked down the information. None of the news releases from the Sara star system can be sent out, so the Confederacy's citizens don't yet know what has happened," Mira told Augustus.
"How could this be." Augustus recalled what had happened at the Umojan Cerberus polar research station and realized that the Overmind had already been drawn to Kerrigan, turning its gaze toward the Koprulu sector. Human genes held little attraction to the Overmind, but Kerrigan was an exception.
Although humanity had encountered the Zerg long before the true invasion of 2499, the Chau Sara incident also meant that the outbreak of the Zerg calamity in the Koprulu sector was very likely to be brought forward by at least four to five years.
However, for the Revolutionary Army that had always sought to overthrow the Confederacy's rule, the chaos brought by the Zerg might not necessarily be a bad thing.
'They've come too quickly. I hope it is only a single brood force.'
Time had become even more urgent.
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