StarCraft II: Flashpoint by Christie Golden explores the aftermath of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and the events leading into the upcoming Heart of the Swarm expansion.

Now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the Blizzard Online Store, and local and online book retailers, Flashpoint gives readers new insight into the early years of Raynor and Kerrigan’s tumultuous relationship.

Here’s a taste:

CHAPTER ONE
2504

“We all got our choices to make.”

Those were the last words Tychus Findlay—criminal, former marine, and traitor—would ever hear from his old friend James Raynor.

Tychus had made his choice first—to betray Jim’s trust and friendship by attempting to murder Sarah Kerrigan, the former Queen of Blades, who now sprawled shivering and vulnerable in a red-black cavern inside the planet Char.

Jim had chosen not to let him.

“I made a deal with the Devil, Jimmy.”

And for that deal, Sarah lay limp and trembling and alive, and Tychus Findlay lay stiffening in the armor that had turned out to be first a prison and then a metal coffin.

Jim lowered his pistol. Smoke still drifted upward from its muzzle, mingling with the steam that curled and coiled at his feet. The bullet meant for Arcturus Mengsk, the man he hated above all others, had instead ended the life of the man Jim had once called his best friend.

What have I just done?

Jim fought back the tidal wave of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. This was no time for rejoicing that the artifact to restore Kerrigan had worked, for berating his own lack of judgment regarding Tychus, for mourning the giant of a man whose rumbling voice would never again utter either jokes or threats.

They needed to get out of this murky, hellish cavern, off this world, and fast.

With Sarah Kerrigan.

His men moved forward as their commander holstered his weapon, clearly intending to bring Tychus’s body with them. Jim barked sharply, “Leave him!”

“Sir?” Cam Fraser asked, confused. “We don’t leave no one behind.”

“We’re leaving him. I ain’t gonna risk any of your lives for the sake of carrying the corpse of a traitor,” Jim snarled. It was a valid argument. But even as he spoke the words, Jim knew it wasn’t the only reason for his decision.

He wanted to leave Tychus behind. Findlay had cut a deal with Arcturus Mengsk. He would have traded Kerrigan’s life for his freedom. Now Sarah Kerrigan lived, and Tychus would rot inside his suit. There was a brutal justice about it that Jim suspected would rack his soul if he thought about it too much. But, perhaps mercifully, there was no time for thinking.

They had come here, to the Zerg base world of Char, to do what no doubt seemed like madness: to make the Queen of Blades human again. They had found her deep inside the volcanic, ashy planet. She seemed completely stripped of her zerg-given abilities and appearance. Gone were the bony wings, the scaly skin that had once covered her toned body. But her hair was still—

It looked like it had worked. And “looked like” was close enough for Raynor, for now.