Above the terran compound, the Hyperion appeared after doing a short ranged jump.

The squad of twelve phoenixes backed off before the Hyperion even attempted to shoo them away. As much as they wanted to kamikaze into the one-kilometer long battlecruiser, the phoenix pilots received strict orders to fall back. Nyon needed every unit he had to hold off the swarm, and any sane commander would use this opportunity to escape this soon-to-be slaughterhouse. Only madmen would try something else.

Horner was certainly sane.

“Jean, the Swarm is here! We need to get out of here ASAP!” Horner’s face appeared on a computer screen in Jean’s command center. “Get your men into the dropships and get back on this ship now.”

“Wait, we are leaving? Without the artifact?” Jean wasn’t as satisfied as Horner imagined.

The captain sighed. “The Zerg Swarm is converging on the planet. Tal’darim forces will protect the artifact at all cost. We don’t have the men to take it.”

“The Swarm will be fighting the Tal’darim. If we can cut in between...”

“We will be attacked by both sides. I will not be risking the life of another Raider on a piece of rock!” Horner demanded loudly. The captain was all about tactics, and this decision was tactically unwise. It might as well lead to the destruction of the entirety of Raynor’s Raiders. He had zero tolerance for that.

“The artifact fragment is not meaningless. The Queen of Blades wants it so badly she launched not one, but two, full-scale attacks on heavily defended Tal’darim fortresses. Whatever it is it must be important. If we miss this opportunity, we will never have the manpower to take this back from Kerrigan. She will protect this with everything she’s got.” Jean insisted calmly even in this urgent situation. “We need to get it right here right now. Don’t worry, I will not risk a single terran life.”

“What do you mean?” Horner rose his eyebrows. He suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.

“I will bring the Warden units with me into the temple and seize the artifact. Every Raider soldier, mercenary or not, will be sent back to the Hyperion. I will do this alone.”

“That’s out of question! Get your units ready for evacuation now. That is an order.”

But Jean was persistent, and she had a reason to be so. In short term, if the artifact fell, the Raiders couldn’t get the payment from Moebius, and they couldn’t replace the heavy losses they took here on Xil. They wouldn’t be able to get sufficient forces to complete the next mission. The Raiders would fall.

In long term, if the artifact fragment was in the hands of Kerrigan, Jean wouldn’t have any chance of taking it back, which meant she couldn’t use the Keystone to purify Kerrigan and destroy most of the zerg Swarm. In a conventional engagement, Raynor’s Raiders would be slaughtered.

If she failed this mission, she would be executed by the so-called Supreme One. Jean wasn’t afraid of death, but something inside her mind demanded her to keep fighting and keep surviving. Dying was against that objective.

She knew she needed to act.

This was risky, but fear literally wasn’t present in her mind. She could be tortured for three days and her mind would still be filled with plans of escape.

“With all due respect, captain, please trust my decision.”

Horner groaned as a crew member behind him shouted a warning about incoming vessels. He turned around to Raynor. “Sir, talk some sense into Jean!” If this was in the Dominion he could have Jean arrested for disobeying a direct order from her superior officer, but this was Raynor’s Raiders. Jean knew as long as she had a right reason Raynor and Horner will hear her out.

Raynor was staring out the window of the bridge. Hearing Horner’s words, he replied without even moving.

“You need to have more faith, Matt.”

“Sir, the zerg...“

“Calm down Matt, think about it. When has Jean ever failed us?”

Matt Horner couldn’t help but nod. Every decision the girl made was the best one possible. She was the calmest and most logical person he has ever seen. She never gets angry. She never gets irrational. He, Matt Horner, might make a mistake. James Raynor might make a mistake. But Jean never did and never would.

Raynor continued.

“We trusted her before, and we should trust her now. Plus, she’s right. Kerrigan is after the artifacts, and the more she wants it the more we need to get it first.”

Horner nodded. “Yes sir,” He turned to the crew members. “Ready all weapons. Deploy scanners around the main warp drive. Prepare for battle.” The scanners were to prevent the blood hunters from striking again.

On the surface of Xil, Jean turned to her reaper guards.

“Return to the Hyperion with the rest of the forces.”

“What?”

The reaper captain was surprised. Usually, guards were the prime choice for this type of extremely dangerous missions, especially since Jean herself was going in. Guards had higher pays and much more privileges compared to ordinary troops. They were also safer most of the time. This came with a cost, though, as guards were supposed to put themselves between their commander and enemy firing. If necessary, they were required to literally take a bullet/spine/laser for their leader. If Jean wanted him and his men to go into the temple with her, they would have no choice but to comply. If they said no, Jean could execute them all and no one would question it. With great privilege comes great responsibility.

The reaper captain was ready to go in. He even had an evacuation plan in mind. At the first sight of trouble, he would call for transports. When the ships come, he would literally drag Jean onto the dropships if necessary. Jean would be the first to board the transport. He would be the second. When all was said and done, even Jean couldn’t blame him for saving her life.

But what Jean said was even better.

Still, deep down the captain felt a sense of guilt. His job was by her side, and now he would be sent away while she charged into danger. If he was twenty years younger he would’ve been touched and swore his life for her, but he was experienced, and his heart was cold. He wasn’t foolish enough to give his life just because he got emotional.

The man nodded slowly. “Yes, sir.”

Jean turned back to the radio connected to the entire army. “All units, move to the dropships and prepare for evacuation. Hand your bullets to the nearest Warden unit of the same type before you enter the transports.”

“We’re alive!”

“Screw you, Tal’darim scum!”

“All hail Raynor!”

“Shut up dumb ass. It’s lieutenant Turner that’s commanding us!”

“All hail Turner!”

The entire camp was sprung into chaos. Men and women shouted and cheered on the radio. Even the captains gave up on restoring order in the ranks. Some of them even joined their men. This was certainly a moment worth celebrating. They were almost surely a bunch of dead men, but now most of them were alive and kicking.

Hearing the voices from her men, some of them praising her, Jean quietly switched to another channel as she walked out of the command center.

“All Warden units on this channel. Converge on my location.”

Every Warden unit that survived the previous engagement against the Tal’darim walked out of their bunkers or trenches and toward an open space in front of Jean. Three Warden Command Units directed them through the Warden data web. Originally Jean programmed five Command Units, but two of them were destroyed in battle.

Warden units were much stronger than ordinary terran units, but they weren’t invincible. A psi-blade through the central processor could easily end them. Their efficiency helped, but they still took quite some losses.

9 reapers and 13 marauders formed two lines in front of the 52 marines. There used to be 103 Warden units. Now there were 74.

“Follow me.” She ordered explicitly before turning around and walking toward one of the dropships. Ordinary human soldiers needed to be inspired. Machines didn’t.

“Orders comply.” The three Warden Command Units replied simultaneously, and all 74 Warden units walked forward in unison. They quickly entered five of the dropships.

The rest of the soldiers saw the movement of Jean and the Warden units. When they heard about what Jean was doing, they were impressed.

Holding back the Tal’darim showed her skill with the tactics and ability to command. Heading into danger by herself when she could’ve stayed behind in safety demonstrated her courage. Intelligence and bravery were a large part of the ingredient for a good leader.

Some of the men even volunteered to join her, but Jean refused their offer.

First of all, a handful of volunteers couldn’t do much. Second, the Raiders lost most of their rounds in the fight against the Tal’darim, and she needed to focus all the ammunition to a small group of elite combatants. Finally, there might be something she only trusted the machines for. Men might gossip or tattle tell. Warden AIs wouldn’t.

Before long, five dropships lifted off and headed toward where the Xel’naga temple was.

---

The rest of the Tal’darim fleet formed a tight formation in the skies of Xil. The Swarm leviathans gradually descended from high orbit and engage the protoss. Mutalisks engaged phoenixes. Corruptors formed groups of ten and tried to isolate and overwhelm the protoss capital ships, but the Tal’darim pilots stayed close to each other. Facing an enemy as strong as the zerg Swarm, even the Tal’darim pilots decided it was best to work together with their fellow people.

The twenty leviathans stayed behind and launched countless spores at the Tal’darim. Tal’darim carriers responded with destruction beams mounted on the tip of their vessels and photon cannons placed around the ship.

Hundreds of zerg overlords, fatter than normal overlords due to the ground units inside them, charged toward the protoss lines. As they got closer, interceptors and lasers picked them off one by one. Pieces of what was left of roaches, hydralisks, and zerglings floated around the empty space.

But some of the overlords survived. They got closer to the Tal’darim ships. Close enough to matter.

One of the Tal’darim carriers’ shield and armor was compromised on the lower desks. The photon cannons were taken out and the destruction beam couldn’t cover that angle. Three overlords flew through the opening and dropped twenty elite roaches down inside the ship.

Twenty supplicants, fifteen supplicant zealots and five supplicant slayers, rushed to the opening, but they weren’t enough. Followers of a lower leveled ascendant, they were much weaker in quality compared to the supplicants of higher ascendants like Nyon and Falgal. Even in equal numbers, the Tal’darim were barely capable of maintaining the lines with the best of the zerg Swarm.

Things changed when two more overlords entered the ship. Fifteen more roaches were enough to turn the tide against the Tal’darim.

“Loyalty until death!” The last supplicant zealot collapsed with a hole in his chest.

The ascendant pilot was sitting in the cockpit commanding the several kilometer long vessel against the zerg. He received news about zerg landing parties obliterating his supplicant army and heading for the bridge, but there was nothing he could do. All the Tal’darim ground forces were on Xil, and his supplicant army was short in both quality and quantity.

The two photon cannons in front of the door leading to the bridge bought him some extra time, but when ten hydralisks came in and launched three rounds of grooved spines, the cannons fell.

The ascendant growled as the door to the bridge was constantly battered in.

A human pilot would’ve panicked, but he was a Tal’darim, and every Tal’darim was a zealot. He might be a pilot, but he has been a zealot for centuries. His experience with the art of the blades exceeded ninety percent of terran ghost operatives. All the warrior did was quietly ignite his crimson bane blade.

With a screeching noise, the door was ripped apart from the center. A hydralisk lowered the claws it used to breach the gate and slid its body inside, but just before it could fire another spine, the ascendant was on top of it.

A crimson psionic orb washed over the door and fried every single zerg down the hallway. Roaches were able to tank most of the damage with their armor, but light armored hydralisks didn’t share the same luck.

When the psionic orb faded away at the end of the hall, all the hydralisks were dead and most of the roaches were injured, but the zerg kept on pushing. Wounded roaches ignored their shattered armors and torn claws and pushed forward. The hydralisk body that was blocking the door was ripped apart by one of the roaches.

The ascendant acted quickly. Weapon in hand, he launched himself into the air and landed on top of the roach. Before the beast could realize what happened, a crimson weapon was already pushed through its head. The armor held for a brief second, but the ascendant stabbed down with all his strength and jammed the red blade down the roach’s body through the middle.

As the unfortunate roach fell apart in two separate pieces, the roaches behind saw the ascendant, and the next second three piles of acidic saliva were projected toward the ascendant.

The warrior raised his shield and deflected all of them. He growled and held his palms together once again, and three of the roaches imploded. The fact that they were wounded meant it took less void energy to mind blast them. He launched forward once again, and ten seconds later all the roaches in the hall were in pieces.

His shields depleted and his body slightly wounded, the ascendant growled victoriously. Not every Tal’darim could say with confidence that he has slaughtered over twenty elite zerg units. If he could get back to Slayn, he could remake his entire supplicant army just with this experience.

But as the final roach collapsed, the elite protoss warrior found himself staring down at an entire hallway of hydralisks, roaches, zerglings and banelings.

During the time he took slaughtering two dozen or so hydralisks and roaches, the zerg kept on sending reinforcements. He took down twenty zerg, but two hundred took their place.

“Long live Amon…”

Twenty banelings ran into him.

In her ship, Falgal couldn’t help but frown as one of her four carriers lost contact with her. Before she could do anything, the crystal that powered the ship went offline. Something took it out from the inside. Without an energy source, the photon cannons, destruction beam, and interceptors were disabled. Plasma shield disappeared. In this circumstance, losing the shield meant taking hundreds of spores, glaive worms, and corrosive acids with the haul of the ship itself. In just seconds, the carrier was no more.

That was just the beginning. The Tal’darim fleet was being picked apart piece by piece.

Defeat was imminent.