The Raiders turned on the transmission with the Daelaam fleet once again.
“What is your decision?” Executor Selendis asked with her standard tone. On one hand she didn’t want to fight the terran that fought alongside some of the most respected protoss heroes in her time. On the other hand she wouldn’t falter if Raynor was to go against her.
“I cannot let you kill those people down there.”
“In that case, we shall engage in glorious combat.” Selendis acknowledged without any sort of disappointment, but just before she turned off the transmission, the words of a certain woman stopped her.
“Executor,” Jean said, stepping up so she replaced Raynor as the center of the video. “Might I suggest something.”
Selenis nodded. She had her own pride and wouldn’t spend the time to listen to some random terran woman, but this woman was with Raynor, and just that gave her the right to speak.
“Our true enemy is the swarm. It will be foolish to waste precious warriors fighting each other. If we do so, the only one benefiting will be the Queen of Blades.”
Selendis realized what Jean was saying. The Daelaam outgunned and outnumbered the Raiders. If the Raiders fight, they would lose. Jean needed to keep this fight from happening.
By using their common enemy as an excuse, Jean proposed a peaceful ending that would allow both sides to leave with both their dignity and their lives.
It was clever, but Selendis didn’t want this to end peacefully. Whether for her own preference or for the common good of the sector, she needed to take out those infested terran. However, she was ready to hear the girl out.
“What do you propose?”
“A duel.” Jean said confidently. “50 of our warriors against 50 of yours.”
“If we win, then we have proven we have the ability to deal with the infestation, and you leave this matter to us. If you win, you can have the colonists.”
Selendis thought about it. The girl had a point. This was much wiser than an all out war between the Raiders and the Daelaam. Just as this girl said, if the Raiders could defeat the Daelaam, which she highly doubted, then they surely had enough power to deal with the infested.
“Deal.”
As she agreed, Selendis suddenly realized the Raiders were friend with the Daelaam. Painting the ground red with their blood wasn’t exactly the best way to treat a friend.
“I will order my warriors to use training blades.” Training blades were weapons used by protoss younglings. Their function was similar to psi blades, but they couldn’t do any real damage. If a psi blade runs through a human body, the person dies. If a training blade goes through a human body, that person would know he was hit, but he would still be perfectly fine.
“My thanks.” Jean nodded, returning the favor. “I suggest you turn the emergency warping system of you warriors to maximum power.”
Emergency warping systems were used by Daelaam protoss to teleport their wounded warriors back to safety. Usually these warping systems could only bring the units back a short distance and would only be activated just before the warrior receive the fatal blow, but it still managed to save the lives of many Daelaam protoss. Most of those saved were maimed and crippled, but they could still be put inside a dragoon or an immortal and continue to serve their people.
The emergency warping systems had many settings. At the maximum setting, they could bring the warriors to safety as soon as their shields depleted. The protoss wouldn’t even be scratched.
There was no need to kill any protoss in the duel. If she did, Selendis might still back off, but she wouldn’t do it happily. Ever since the fall of Aiur, protoss lives have been in short supply.
Selendis paused as if she was shocked by how confident Jean was. Did this girl seriously think a squad of terran had any chance of taking on a group of zealots of equal numbers? Nonetheless, she still showed enough respect.
“I am sending you the coordinates of nexus. Send your champions there.”
The transmission was cut off, and everyone in the bridge looked to Jean. Some of them were impressed while others were slightly more satisfied than before. Dr. Hanson, for one, had a small grin on her face, as if thanking the move Jean did to protect her people. As far as she could see, the Raiders had a much larger chance to win a duel than to win an all out war, and victory of the Raiders meant survival of the colonists.
“It was a good idea to send a group of champions instead of our entire army, but who should be our champions?” Horner asked. “It’s 50 against 50. Our men will not have any air support or heavy firepower. Who can win against a group of protoss with just standard weapons?”
It was a well known fact that a single protoss could take down an entire squad of terran. That might change if the terran had air support or overwhelming firepower, but that was obviously cheating in this circumstance. If the Raiders used the Hyperion to provide cover fire, then Selendis would call down her fleet. Neither side wanted to see that happen.
“Well.” In the center of attention, Jean tilted her head. “I have been working on something lately…”
Beside one of the nexus, fifty light beams dropped down from the sky and hit an empty space. Within each light beam, a figure solidified. When the light beams disappeared, the empty space they landed on was no longer empty. Instead, fifty figures were there.
Protoss technology could warp their units to anywhere with a power field as long as they had sufficient support structures. This ability to efficiently reinforce and retreat was another thing that kept protoss units so potent.
All fifty figures were zealots. Two psionic amplifiers on their wrists made up the weapons and the plasma shield generator on their chest composed of the defenses. Their heads were raised high in confidence, as if they were about to take a casual walk rather than be the champions that would participate in a fight that would decide the fate of thousands.
They didn’t even consider the possibility that they might lose. After all, they were zealots. Unless they were hopelessly outnumbered or outgunned, which was not the situation here, they would always be victorious. No zealot would be afraid of participating in a fair fight, and this was certainly a fair fight.
A distance away, ten terran dropships approached. A squad of five phoenixes quickly went beside the transports and escorted them toward the nexus.
The dropships landed at beside the nexus. Fifty figures walked out.
Out of these fifty figures, twenty of them were marines. They were smaller than normal marines, but the protoss zealots didn’t see the difference. Maybe these marines were just shorter than other marines? Just like the size, the strange T shaped helmets of these marines didn’t attract any attention either.
Another twenty units of this small squad were much larger than marines. Two K12 grenade launchers were attached to their arms. Just like the marines, their helmets glowed in blue light.
The last ten units were even smaller than the marines. Jetpacks on their back powered them forward. Unlike the marines and marauders, they had a pair of P-45 gauss pistols by their side. One major difference they had compared to standard reapers was the lack of breathing masks.
After all, machines don’t need to breathe.
Twenty Warden marines. Twenty Warden marauders. Ten Warden reapers.
Jean wasn’t sleeping around in the two days between the end of the battle of Meinhoff and when Dr. Hanson realized Haven was in trouble. The amount of progress a girl could do with her full attention and a strangely enhanced mind was enormous.
She was able to develop Warden AIs for both marauders and reapers. It took a while for Swann to come up with modified marauder suits and reapers suits, but Jean suspected the man was touched by the amount of Raiders that fell on Meinhoff. Perhaps some of the dead were his friend. Perhaps he was simply shaken in general.
Either way, Swann worked hard, and a while ago Jean was able to arm twenty marauders and ten reapers, along with twelve more Warden marines to cover up the losses on Meinhoff.
The first battle of these fresh Warden units was this dual.
As champions from both sides got into battle position, their commanders started observing the situation as well. Selendis observed the dual through an observer that was positioned above the nexus. Its advanced sensor matrix made Selendis feel like she was on the battlefield herself.
In the Hyperion bridge, Jean pressed a few buttons, and one of the many computer screens was suddenly divided into fifty different pieces. Each of them was connected to the scanner of one of the Warden units. Basically, the Raider High Command could see anything their champions saw.
“Go on. Defeat your enemies and seize your glory.” Selendis ordered quietly through the khala. The terran champions looked tough. None of them made a single move. As an experienced commander, she knew this meant these men were extremely disciplined.
Still, she didn’t think this would be a problem. She didn’t sense any psionic signal from these men. If any terran infantry unit could take on protoss zealots in a one on one, it would be the ghosts, and these units were definitely not ghosts.
“Warden Command Unit C001. Terminate all labeled protoss units.”
“Affirmative.” Warden Command Unit C001, AKA the Warden captain that commanded the strike team on Meinhoff, set its gaze on the fifty protoss champions. Warden units didn’t have a “defeat but not wound” setting, so Jean had to give the order to kill. They couldn’t distinguish the protoss champions from normal protoss guards either, so Jean had to specifically label the champions out.
And so the battle has begun.
With an ear piercing war cry, the fifty zealots formed a blur of energy as they charged at their terran opponents. Selendis was proud, but she wasn’t stupid. Even a fool would realize the Raiders wouldn’t just send in a group of recruits and basically give the colonists up. They proposed this duel. They must have some sort of plan.
To save herself from suffering a defeat from a group of terrans because of a careless mistake, Selendis chose her champions carefully. These fifty zealots were the best zealots of her entire fleet. Half of them were from her guards while the other half came from captains of small squads. Any one of them has slaughtered dozens of zerg.
These experienced warriors knew as melee units they needed to get on top of their ranged enemies to win. Perhaps they would take some punishment on the way, but as soon as their blades make contact with terran armors, their victory would be sealed.
The zealots were fast, but terran sensors were even faster. As soon as the zealots made their first move, the Warden units’ sensors caught onto their position. The advanced AI of the Warden captain started turning.
“Protoss zealots detected...”
“Accessing zealot data now…”
“Advantage: Powerful melee capability. Durable shield. Known ability: Charge.”
“Weakness: Lacks ranged capability.”
“Accessing tactics now.”
“Battle tactic accessed…”
The Warden network might not be as efficient as the zerg psionic network, but they could still transmit the message from the captain down to its underlings with little delay.
The twenty marauders were the first to take action. They raised their grenade launchers at the zealots and, after a brief moment of calculating, opened fire.
Forty grenades with concussive shells slammed into the protoss flank. With a series of explosions, all the zealots found themselves knocked off their feet. The effect of the explosions pushed them out of charge mode and put a short pause to their advance.
The leading zealot growled, suppressing the bad feeling in his chest. He had dealt with terran marauders before. Their weapons could indeed slow down the movement of both him and his brethren, but in order for forty grenades to include all fifty zealots in the explosion radius, the projectiles must land in certain locations. Normally, these grenades would only hit the five zealots in the front and knock them out while the forty five zealots in the back charge forward and dismantle the terran squadron.
This was bad, but the zealot had no time to think because the second wave of attack was already here.
The marines stepped backward while continuously firing on the zealots. There were only twenty of them, and supposedly the amount of damage they could do should be nothing when divided over fifty zealots, but Warden units were much smarter than that.
Instead of just blindly lashing out at the zealots, the Warden marines focused on a single zealot. The zealots were forced out of charge mode, and their slowed figures became perfect targets for the Warden AIs.
Within seconds, that zealot’s shield reached a critical degree. The emergency warping system was triggered, and the next second when the shield fell apart, the zealot was already back in the safety of Selendis’ mothership.
“No!” Seeing himself inside the large vessel and realizing he was defeated, the warrior screamed. “I can still fight!”
The zealot felt like he was bullied. This was supposed to be a duel! He imagined charging into the enemy flank and running his blade, training blades or not, through enemy bodies. Even if he would fall, he would fall after taking down half the enemies.
Being knocked over and taken out within seconds after the battle began wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
Selendis’ blue eyes twitched. With her observers, she keenly noticed what happened, and for a moment she suspected the Firstborn might lose this battle.
The way all those twenty marines fired on a single target...Selendis doubted even the best protoss adepts and dragoons could do that. The amount of discipline and calculation this seemingly simple action needed was astonishing.
Suddenly, she grew very curious about the girl behind this duel.
