When Raynor and Jean retreated to the bridge again, they were met with a wave of meaningful glances.

Horner buried his face into a pile of documents.

Tychus walked up to his brother and tapped his shoulder heavily while throwing him a congratulating look. Jean didn’t need to realize he misunderstood what the two were doing back there.

That was not surprising considering who Tychus was.

“What’s the situation, Matt?” Raynor ignored Tychus and turned to the young captain.

While Raynor and Jean were coming up with their master plan, Horner and Swann did a full scan of the ship.

“We lost forty percent of our energy. The defensive matrix generator is fried. Armor on the left flank is damaged.“ The zerg tentacles missed, but their spores did quite the damage on the Hyperion. One of them could be shrugged off. Hundreds of them every second couldn’t.

“Swann is repairing the armor and the generator. He bought some spare parts back in Deadman’s Port.”

Raynor nodded, acknowledging the information.

“Tychus?” The criminal was supposed to find a while to turn the piece of artifact to credits.

“I talked with the Moebius boys. They offer to set up an exchange in neutral space.” Tychus inhaled deeply from his cigarette. “I will personally bring a transport there with the artifact.”

Horner frowned. “I am not letting you take the artifact out there alone. If the Moebius Foundation betrayed you...”

“Oh don’t you worry. We had a deal, and a deal is a deal.”

Tychus said confidently. He didn’t want Raider members to get involved with the deal he made with the Moebius Foundation. They wouldn’t be too satisfied by the intermediary fees he implanted for himself.

Horner didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the Moebius Foundation that he was worrying about, at least not completely. A part of him was worrying of Tychus just running away with that piece of artifact or of him taking the credits for himself. The criminal was totally capable of doing something like that.

Nonetheless, he remained quiet. Sharing concerns like this in public would only bring dispute among the ranks.

“You get that done. Just give me a shout if you need help.”

Raynor, as always, gave Tychus his full trust. The latter nodded and left the bridge.

---

The next several days passed without much of a fuss.

Tychus returned to the Hyperion one day after he met the Moebius representatives. The 80,000 credits the Moebius paid added to the near 100,000 credits that the Raiders had.

When a satisfied Raynor asked him whether or not the Moebius Foundation wanted the Raiders after another artifact, the criminal was quite displeased.

“I think I scared them with my price. They’re using their own Moebius Corps teams on artifact extraction missions.” Tychus said. There was a trace of embarrassment in his voice. 80,000 credits wasn’t enough to make something as large as Moebius falter, but 120,000 credits was enough.

“Then why didn’t you lower the price? Something is better than nothing.” Raynor voiced the question everyone on site was asking.

“Ahhh...it’s fine. The Moebius Corps are useless. Sooner or later they will have to come to us, begging for help.” Tychus smirked at the thought of the idea. “If that happens, I can even bring the price up a few notches.”

“I’m not sure if that’s the best…”

Raynor wanted to say something, but Tychus stopped him.

“Trust me on this. I may not be the brightest man here, but I know how to deal with customers.”

Well, now that the artifact missions were at a shortstop, the Raiders were, for now, without an objective. As the ship rested in neutral space and the crew members rested and recovered, Jean decided to use the short but precious amount of time to do something.

The site of a squad of elite marines reminded Jean she reached her destination. They were put in place under Jean’s advice to keep what was going on in the armory as safe as possible. The sentries didn’t stop Jean as she entered the armory. The girl was one of the few people that enjoyed this privilege.

Inside the large factory, Swann was using his robotic limb to alter one of the marine CMC armors. Unlike the standard marine suits, this one was much more expensive, and with great price came great power.

This armor was much thinner than the ordinary CMC armor. Having no need for a pilot or a wearer, this armor could be eighty percent the size of a normal marine. As a ranged damage dealer, the smaller size meant a smaller possibility of being attacked while maintaining the damage output.

The helmet of the marine was T shaped with a dim blue light shining out. Inside, a minimized CPU could hold a standard AI.

A C-14 gauss rifle was carried on the marine’s back. Ammunition enough to fight an entire battle was stored in where the marine himself should go. A large blue combat shield was attached to the left arm of the unit. Usually a combat shield could only cover two-third of the marine, but now it could cover the entirety of the smaller version.

Swann saw Jean and immediately walked up to her.

“You’re done.”

He wiped his hand on his brown coat, trying to be more polite in front of the girl.

“Indeed.” Jean smiled in return. She glanced around and saw the armory was empty except for the two of them. This project wasn’t something every single Raider should know. “How are you doing with your part?”

After deciding to go along with Project Warden, Jean and Raynor went to their engineer and told him their plan. Neither of them could actually wield a hammer, and they needed someone who had both the skill and the loyalty for the job. Swann was the only choice.

Swann, obviously, didn’t say no. Ever since a few days ago, he started working on the AI units. Half the Raider’s bank was opened to the engineer, and with sufficient support, Swann showed Jean why he was given the position he held. The man had little education, but he didn’t let that stop him.

“Here, 40 mechanical marines. Warden marines.”

He repeated with the more formal term. “You give me forty AIs, and they can seriously kick some ass.”

Swann was obviously proud of his work.

Jean nodded. Swann was a good engineer, but he wasn’t exactly good with computers. In fact, none of the Raiders had the talent needed to build AIs. Even their adjutants were purchased, not build. After all, why would someone spend years studying in a certain category of science and then suddenly decide to abandon the bright future ahead of him or her and join the rebels? Scientists were always on demand, whether it was by the Dominion or the Umojan Protectorate. No one would choose the poor, pathetic Raiders over the safe and comfortable Dominion. The few scientists the Raiders had, Stetmann and Swann, didn’t really receive any formal education and were forced into their position.

Luckily, Jean recently found herself more capable than she first imagined.

For some reason, when Jean tried to learn anything, whether it was tactics or something else, she could easily understand it. If she didn’t know better, she would think she already learned that information before and was only reviewing it after not using the information for a while.

How good was she? When she arrived here a few days ago she knew nothing about computers. Now she could sit down in front of a computer and break down the code of an adjutant piece by piece and use that as a template for new AIs. All that transformation was done in days.

Jean didn’t know why that was the case, but she had no intention of getting to the bottom of it. Instead, she merely abused the fact to her advantage.

In the end, Swann was in charge of the mechanical modification of the Warden units while Jean dealt with the programming of the inner AI.

Both done their part.

Jean took out a hard drive from her pocket and attached it to the center CPU of one of the Warden marines. The data was passed on into the heart of the mechanical unit. A soul was formed. A minute later the marine’s T styled helmet, previously dim, shined in blue light.

Swann and Jean took a step back as the marine straightened up. The AI gained full control of the Warden marine suit. As soon as that was done, it started to act according to its programming.

Jean took a step forward.

“Lieutenant.” The Warden marine saw Jean and immediately recognized who she was. In the background, a line of text appeared in its CPU.

Lieutenant. Jean Turner. Level Four authority.

Swann took a step in front and attracted the marine’s attention while Jean moved back.

“Chief Engineer.” Again, the Warden recognized Swann.

Chief Engineer. Rory Swann. Level Three authority.

Jean nodded. “One step forward.”

The Warden marine took one step forward.

“One step back.”

The unit complied.

“Enter battle position.”

In the surface, the unit straightened up its combat shield with its left arm and reached its right arm behind its back, pulling out its gauss rifle. Normal terran biological units needed both arms to hold against the recoil of the gauss rifle, but the mechanical limb of the Warden marines was much stronger. Its legs pressed onto the metal floor and stabled its form so it could withstand the most impact without budging.

Out of sight, the sensors of the marine scanned all 360 degrees of around the unit. This way, it could never be surprised. Things like a zergling making a jump on the marine from behind would be eliminated.

The marine was designed to be ideal.

“I can’t wait to see these bad boys in action.” Swann tapped one of the deactivated marines in pride. There was nothing more satisfying for an engineer than to see his own work shine.

Jean wasn’t as impressed. “We need more than forty marines to win a war. Can you produce any more of these units? Any other type of units? Maybe marauders, goliaths?”

Swann threw his hands up.

“I’ll need more credits and a lot of time to develop new models. You also need to upgrade the chips you’re coding. AIs for goliath will be much more advanced than AIs for marines.”

“I will work on that. Meanwhile, I will make a report to the commander and plan out an infield experiment to see how these Warden units do in a real conflict.”

Jean smiled.

“Now, if you don’t have anything else…”

“Wait!” Swann suddenly remembered something. “I have something for you.”

Jean rose her eyebrows and followed Swann to one of the shelves. The metal door opened, and Jean found herself staring at a brand white armor.

“What is it?” She asked, pretending to be intrigued.

“Your new armor.” Swann said as if it explained everything.

And it did, to a degree.

This world was a dangerous place. In most cases, the commanders were capable of keeping themselves alive. Sure, the commanders should never be the one charging in the front, but that didn’t mean the commanders were always safe.

Sometimes, under desperate situations, the guards might not be in place, and there might not always be a line of bodies the commanders could put between themselves and the enemies. If that happened and the fight was dragged near the commanders, then they would need to have some way of fighting. Even if they couldn’t take down an army, they shouldn’t be shot down by a random bullet.

Jean learned that the hard way. Back on Agria, she was forced to leave the safety of the command center and fight her way out of the zerg onslaught with nothing but a small gauss pistol. That was an extreme case, but the point still stood.

Generally, the protoss and the zerg didn’t face the same problem. Every zerg could fight, even the broodmothers. In fact, the broodmothers were powerful both physically and psychically.

As for the protoss, every protoss commander started as a zealot and moved his or her way up the ranks. Every protoss commander could easily rain down a storm of death or draw his psi-blade in time of trouble.

But the terran...the human beings had neither the psionic power of the protoss nor the physical strength of the zerg. All they had were their tools, and a while into the war the commanders started to keep a set of armor around them.

These armors were usually stronger than their standard counterparts. Sometimes they carried special gadgets. Most of the terran commanders kept the armors in the storage when they didn’t need it. As far as Jean knew, even Matt Horner had a pair of modified armor he kept in a compartment in the bridge. It was just that she never saw him wearing it. Raynor also had a set of grey armor he wore when he entered battle.

Some commanders preferred keeping their armor on at all times. In a way, this made them feel safe. That was one of the reasons why Raynor wasn’t surprised that Tychus stayed in his giant blue armor all the time. In his armor, Tychus could melee zerglings and win. Without his armor, the man could be killed by a single shot to the head by a revolver.

Before this day, Jean never owned an armor. She was just a lieutenant, and there were dozens of people of her rank among the Raiders. The Raiders weren’t wealthy enough to make a specially designed armor for her either. In fact they could barely afford to maintain the established weapons.

Now, things changed. With the recent successes, Jean was becoming more and more important. As one of the most important commanders in the rebel faction, Jean deserved some extra protection.

The change in financial situation among the Raiders also helped.

“Wow.” Jean said in slight awe as she scanned the armor from top to bottom.

The armor was completely white. Even its mask was white. Just like other CMC armors, it covered every inch of its user. A cartridge before the armor’s chest supplied the power. It didn’t have a weapon on, but that could change anytime.

“What about the weapon?”

“This is just the basic template. I can add any weapon you want.”

There could be a lot of variations among the specialized armors. Warfield, for example, had a large gun attached to his arm. Tychus had a chaingun and shredder grenades in his storage. Swann’s armor and Stetmann’s armor was specialized according to their specific favors. Swann’s armor favored his engineering ability and allowed him to throw down turrets when needed. The nanobots in Stetmann’s armor allowed him to heal friendly units.

Swann wasn’t sure what type of category Jean favored. Sometimes this could be important. If he gave Stettman a sniper rifle and gave Raynor nanobots, the result would be...intriguing.

“What are my choices?”

“I’ve got gauss rifles, gauss pistols, commando rifles, grenade launchers, shredder grenades...” Swann walked to a drawer and pulled out an entire pile of weapons. “I can also make prototype weapons if you need something special.”

“What do you suggest?”

Jean knew better than pretending to be good at something she wasn't actually good at. Sometimes consulting the professional could be fruitful.

Swann thought about it.

“Well, if it is up to me, I suggest you use this.”

He pulled out a pair of pistols from one of the closets.

“If you don’t mind, I don’t think you are great with rifles...or just overall guns.”

Jean nodded. That was true. She didn’t have much experience with handling a gun.

“Since that’s the case, giving you larger weapons like rifles and grenade launchers may not be the best choice. Guns are not the bigger the better, but the pistols don’t require much experience.”

He glanced at the pistols, as if worrying his words may insult Jean. Not everyone could acknowledge their weakness.

“Of course, I can also give you things like grenades to supplement your pistols.”

“That should be enough.” Jean smiled thankfully and joked. “If I need to get in that armor and use my pistols, then...well, I don’t think two pistols would be any different from a chaingun.”

Swann smiled as he realized the chaingun reference was done to Tychus. The criminal wasn’t exactly welcomed among the Raiders, and Jean’s remark of him permanently in his armor earned a smile from the engineer.

As Jean was about to leave Swann to do his job, the projection of an adjutant suddenly appeared in the armory.

“Lieutenant Turner. Chief Engineer Swann. The commander wants to see you in the bridge.”

Swann groaned. “Now what?”

“The command received a transmission from Dr.Hanson from the planet Meinhoff.”

“She needs help from the Raiders.”

“Well,” Jean looked at Swann. “At least you’ll have a chance to see these units in action.” She gestured at the Warden marines.

Swann shrugged.