At this very moment, compared with the calm and composed veteran revolutionaries, the young Matt Horner was far more nervous. In his entire life, there had been few moments as dangerous as this one: armed terrorists filled with hatred toward the Confederacy were frenziedly massacring people in the streets, while all around him sat rebels.
"Ah~ Little Matt~" Mira Han, sitting opposite Matt, noticed his nervousness—truth be told, her gaze had been fixed on the evasive Matt ever since the very beginning.
Not even the gunfire outside could make Mira shift her eyes away from Matt's face. If Mira Han were a playful and elegant cat, then the worst part was that she had probably just been struck by catnip.
"You don't have to worry—they won't be able to hurt my beloved Little Matt~" Mira said, overflowing with swagger. "I'll pry open every one of their skulls. Just hide behind me."
Because this was the busiest commercial district of New Canaan, there was still a dense crowd on the streets. The gunmen were recklessly firing into the masses, and screams and cries of agony rose one after another.
"What are the local police and the Tyrador Knights doing?" Augustus kept his eyes fixed on the Tyrador Knights' headquarters across from the restaurant. He noticed that several minutes had passed since the shooting began, yet there had been no movement at all from the other side—not even a single Tyrador Knight had opened the castle gates to rescue the civilians under the terrorists' guns.
It was as if all the knights were absent from the fortress, leaving only a few servants to guard the vast stronghold. By comparison, this group of rebels had to be insane to launch an attack nearby—or else they had never planned to leave alive.
Augustus had initially thought that this terrorist attack would be resolved swiftly, but the inaction of the local law enforcement and stationed troops still managed to redefine his expectations of the Confederacy's institutional incompetence.
"Jimmy." Without any change in expression, Augustus quietly drew a C-30 magnetic pistol from beneath the hem of his long coat.
Raynor and Augustus had been partners for many years. After countless battles fought shoulder to shoulder, their tacit understanding had long reached the point where a single glance was enough for them to grasp each other's intent.
"Maybe the New Canaan city government should award me a Good Citizen Medal—for my contributions to this city." Raynor stepped forward first, moving to the restaurant's entrance. Leaning sideways against the glass door, he tightly gripped the revolver engraved with Augustus Mengsk's inscription.
Out on the street beyond the restaurant, people were still running in the opposite direction of the gunfire. From time to time, finely dressed individuals collapsed into pools of blood—among them even the elderly and children. The sound of shooting was getting closer, almost right in front of them.
At that moment, a man wielding a Fermaro-21 submachine gun and wearing a checkered casual shirt was chasing a young couple. Wearing black goggles, he passed silently and coldly right by the restaurant's front door, unaware that Raynor beside him had already, without a word, pulled the trigger.
From the chamber of the military Colt revolver burst a bullet engraved with the word "Justice." Raynor's aim was precise—one shot went straight through the rebel's head, and the man immediately collapsed like a sack stuffed with cotton.
Right afterward, another rebel clutching a submachine gun passed in front of the restaurant, and Raynor quickly and steadily blew off his head as well.
"There are two more." At that moment, Sarah Kerrigan walked past Augustus and Matt, flicked her long fiery-red ponytail, and said. Lifting her gown to reveal her fair, shapely thighs, she drew a silver-glinting dagger from between her hips.
The deeply stunned Matt Horner had just withdrawn his wide-eyed stare from Raynor when he saw Sarah Kerrigan, with her brilliant flame-red hair, stride out from the restaurant's front.
Out of Matt's sight, Kerrigan moved through the crowd like a fish entering water. With dance-like precision, her feet struck every tile as she advanced swiftly in reverse toward the two rebels who were still firing madly.
Kerrigan first used her mind control to manipulate one rebel's body, forcing him to turn his gun and shoot his own thigh. Then, with her psionic force, she deflected all bullets flying toward her and, under the terrified gaze of her enemy, drove the dagger into his chest.
In the past, Kerrigan had indeed been a Ghost operative who brought death—but now she seldom carried out assassination missions. Even so, Kerrigan remained the most lethal killer in the entire Koprulu Sector.
By the time Kerrigan withdrew, the police and the Tyrador Knights finally arrived late. They would certainly interrogate the surviving rebels harshly, but they would never believe that a red-haired woman had effortlessly wiped out that group of terrorists.
"Where'd you learn that craft?" Raynor teased as Kerrigan walked back into the hall.
"Tal'darim," Kerrigan replied crisply.
"Well done," Augustus said to Kerrigan and Raynor.
"Jimmy, it seems that during the time I couldn't see you, your marksmanship has improved greatly."
"I've long been the best sharpshooter in the Revolution," Raynor laughed. "Even snipers can't shoot as precisely as I can. I'm no longer that kid from Shiloh."
"I'm Sharpshooter Jim—the savior of humanity."
"Let's go. We need to leave this place quickly," Augustus said right after. "Even though we have legal permits for these weapons, I don't want to be endlessly questioned by Confederate police."
"Let's go, Matt. We'll take you home first."
"I heard you say they were also rebels," Matt asked Augustus in confusion as he followed him out of the restaurant.
"Why did you do that?"
"The reason's obvious," Raynor said, as if it were only natural.
"They were firing at unarmed civilians."
"And we don't do that," Augustus said to Matt.
"The Korhal Revolutionary Army is completely different from these so-called rebels. We uphold our own justice. We are the protectors of the people. Our resistance is for all the people—we will never slaughter the innocent. That is the difference between us, the Confederate government, and the other resistance forces."
...
After a long period of investigation and certain levels of contact by the revolutionaries' psionics into the political stance of the Horner family of New Canaan, Augustus was able to confirm that this small local family were both Korhal sympathizers and held a considerable degree of anti-Confederate sentiment.
Thus, after sending Matt Horner—who burned with revolutionary zeal—back to the Horner family, Augustus, under the identity of a revolutionary officer, engaged in a long conversation with his parents and promised that in the future, he would see to it that Matt entered Umoja University and that all his tuition would be paid in full.
Afterward, Augustus was very courteously and gracefully informed by the head of the Horner family that they would need some time before deciding whether to send their young second son into a colonial rebellion force whose fate was unpredictable.
It was precisely because of this that Augustus was able to stay on Tyrador IX for a while longer, experiencing the local customs and the unique tourism industry. Yet the main duties of the Korhal Revolutionary Army had not been neglected—a considerable number of professionally trained agents from Umoja and the backbone members of the Pan-Terran Revolutionary Party had infiltrated various colonial planets and moons of the Tyrador system under a wide range of forged identities. The revolutionary ideology began spreading throughout the system along their paths.
In early April of that year, during this brief period of leisure, Augustus came to a restaurant located in the XC District of New Canaan, carrying a strange kind of feeling, to attend a date with the legendary Ghost operative, Sarah Kerrigan.
At that time, nearly two years had passed since Augustus and Kerrigan had first met on Korhal IV, and the opportunity for their acquaintance had come when that Ghost operative had severed the head of Augustus's father, Angus Mengsk's decoy.
The XC District of New Canaan lay far from the city center. As the oldest district—originally just a fishing village—it was home to a large population, including both a middle class able to maintain a relatively decent life and impoverished laborers.
The XC District also possessed the very first and largest spaceport on all of Tyrador IX. Every day, hundreds and even thousands of contract workers and cheap laborers from other planets were delivered to the starport by massive transport ships. After passing through quarantine and health inspections, these people would be sent to various resort destinations, where through labor worth far more than their wages, they would earn enormous profits for their employers.
The glamorous lives of Tyrador's nobility and ruling class were built upon the suffering of these people, while the Terran Confederacy's regulatory agencies turned a blind eye—after all, they too were beneficiaries of this "26th-century slave trade."
Bankrupts, the unemployed, and vast numbers of war refugees from various Confederate and allied colonial planets poured into the Core Worlds, bringing with them brief flashes of prosperity to certain regions—and persistently high crime rates.
This urban district was a jumble of all sorts, yet the areas near the starport remained relatively stable in terms of security. Large numbers of capable Tyrador police officers and armed security personnel meticulously guarded their employers' property, and it was rare for criminals to rob shops in broad daylight.
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