Moebius Foundation.
As of the moment, the Moebius Foundation was an influential research organization in the Terran Dominion. It had a strange obsession over ancient alien artifacts and had deep ties with a few powerful mercenary groups in the sector. In fact, it even had a tie with Raynor’s Raiders. On the surface it was owned and funded by Valerian Mengsk, but in reality it worked for Emperor Arcturus Mengsk himself.
The emperor poured a large portion of the Dominion’s treasury into the Foundation, hoping it would one day produce a living weapon capable of helping the Dominion to combat the protoss and the zerg threat.
Hybrids.
The emperor doesn’t know it, but the head of Moebius Foundation who he trusted his credits to, Dr. Narud, wasn’t who he seemed to be. Under the form of a respected doctor, Narud was actually a xel’naga in disguise, and he entered the material world to make preparations for his master’s, Amon’s, return.
But despite being a god among men, Narud kept his head low. He was a xel’naga, but his power was limited outside the void. When he first entered the material world, before the brood war, the three races, although maybe not the terran, were at the height of their power. If Narud simply announced his plan to destroy all life within the sector, it wouldn’t take long before the protoss Conclave’s Great Fleet descend upon him and blast him out of existence. Hell even the UED could destroy him.
Narud was slick. With impressive shape shifting ability and a brilliant tactical mind, he carefully navigated through the different factions inside the sector. He had many identities, including a lieutanent who joined the UED, a sergeant of the Queen of Blades, and now this identity as Dr. Narud of Moebius Foundation. With every turn he weakened the power of the three races. The weaker the three races become, the easier it would be for Amon to wipe the floor.
But as Doctor Narud, the xel’naga had another purpose. Just weakening the three races wasn’t enough, and he needed to build an army for his master.
Using the resources of the Dominion, Narud built hybrids. Modeled after Amon himself, hybrids were the result of combination of protoss and zerg. They had a mixture of physical strength and endurance and psionic ability. A single one of them could wipe out a small army of any race.
This was the ultimate weapon, and Jean intended on weakening them as much as possible.
The Moebius Foundation had countless factories building hybrids, but thanks to the memory Jean was aware of the location of several of the major places of production. If she could take these factories out, she could minimize the amount of hybrids she would face in the field of battle in the future.
Of course, these factories must have held a large sum of resources, and Jean could use them to build her own army.
It would be hitting two bird with one stone.
Plus, when the End War came, the Moebius Foundation would use its influence and wealth to build up the Moebius Corps. Mercenaries Moebius hired were lured in by money and were corrupted by the hybrids. Armies and armies of elite terran combatants were turned from a potentially impactful force fighting for the survival of humanity to zealots willing to give their lives to make the world burn just to please their master. They weren’t as powerful as the Golden Armada or the Death Fleet, but lead by hybrids and corrupted spectres and armed with the most advanced technology mankind has ever seen, the Moebius Corps was still a deadly force.
It would be three birds with one stone.
“Delta, prepare to jump to Skygeirr Station.”
The Skygeirr Station was located in orbit of the planet Ketill IV. In the original history, Kerrigan would be introduced to this place by Admiral Stukov, a former UED general who was killed, infested, and captured by and experimented on by Narud in this very station. The admiral escaped and went to Kerrigan, providing her with all the information he needed to launch a siege on the station. The battle ended with Narud being sent back to the void and the station destroyed.
Jean intended on speeding up the station’s destruction.
The Cybros jumped to the sector. Purifier observers were immediately deployed all around the platform. They were able to evade the Dominion fighters and orbital defenses and put the entire station under surveillance.
Intelligence was one of the most important factors in a battle, and Jean was lucky enough to have everything she needed to launch a frontal assault placed on her table.
The Skygeirr Station was guarded by three Dominion Fleets. Each contained fifteen battlecruisers. With the help of the station’s orbital defenses, these three fleets could hold off most enemies.
But Jean wasn’t most enemies. She held the might of the ancient protoss war machines. Perhaps it wasn’t their full might, but it was menacing nonetheless.
In the past, when she was still with the Raiders or the mercenaries, Jean would attempt to infiltrate the station and somehow take the fleets down from the inside, but the time has changed. This time she was the one with the superior firepower, and she intended on using it.
As Jean’s orders were passed to Delta, the Cybros gradually moved toward the space station. It was immediately spotted by patrolling Dominion fighters.
“Admiral Henry sir, a single protoss capital ship is spotted near the station. Its profile doesn’t match anything we have on record.”
Admiral Henry touched his masculine beard. “Protoss?” He didn’t know who these protoss belonged to, but he knew they weren’t here to congratulate them on their work. As the commander of the station’s defenses, Henry knew what was going on inside. The Moebius lab nerds were breeding hybrids, and hybrids came from protoss and zerg specimen alike. One of his tasks was to send out special strike teams to kidnap protoss individuals from distant outposts.
If the Daelaam protoss and the Golden Armada knew about what they were doing here, they would stop at nothing to destroy this station and rescue the prisoners held within. There was no way three fleets could stop the Golden Armada. Even the entire Dominion Fleet couldn’t say with confidence it was a match for the Daelaam.
But it was too preemptive to order a full evacuation now. Plus, he simply could’ve give up a battle station as important as this one without a fight. Henry turned to his men. “All fleets lifted off and be ready for battle. Establish a communication with the protoss vessel.” Hopefully, this protoss ship was just taking a walk.
“Yes sir.”
But as the forty five Dominion battlecruisers got into the air, one of the crew members at the desk delivered a depressing news to Henry.
“Sir, the protoss denied the communication request. Their ship was still approaching at full speed. ETA two minutes.”
“Admiral, if we are to go to war with the protoss, we need to send out our fighters immediately. If we wait any longer, our fleet will be within projectile range of the protoss. Our fighters will be picked off one by one as they come out of the hangar.” A lieutenant suggested.
Henry glanced at the image of the yellow protoss vessel through a computer screen. He didn’t want to fight the protoss, but he wouldn’t turn and run when provoked either. The Daelaam were trespassing in Dominion territory, and he would be acting in self defense. Without knowledge about the ancient Purifiers, Admiral Henry still thought the ship over there belonged to Hierarch Artanis’ Daelaam faction.
He was afraid of the couple thousand ships of the Golden Armada. He wasn’t nearly as intimidated by the strange looking lone vessel. If he was able to overpower this ship and call for reinforcement from the Dominion Fleet...
“Tell the captains to launch all fighters and engage the enemy. Take it out if you have to, but capture it if you can.” Moebius scientists would be more than happy to have more protoss to experiment on.
In space, the battlecruisers started swinging out their fighters. Yamato Cannons were put online. They could open fire as soon as according coordinates were entered. All the gadgets were in place. The crew members were warming up, ready to go to war against the alien fleet for the glory of the Terran Dominion.
But Jean wasn’t playing by the book.
A Purifier vessel came out of the Cybros and moved toward the terran ships. It stopped right out of terran firing range.
“Take it down.” Henry ordered. He didn’t know what that ship was for, but whatever the enemy wanted, he needed to deny.
One of the battlecruisers started charging up its cannon, but the Purifier was quicker. Its tip shined in a yellow light. Immense power was generated from within the central crystal and was used to alter the very definition of time in the designated area.
The Dominion Fleet, which was previously approaching at maximum speed, was suddenly slowed down. Its engine was still burning, but everything seemed to be put in slow motion.
While Purifier arbiters might not be as menacing as motherships, they were still sufficient to put a time stop on the entire Dominion Fleet. It was extremely energy consuming, but its contribution was worth the cost.
Inside the Cybros, Delta opened her mechanical eyes as she disconnected with the Purifier shell piloting the arbiter and returned to this body. “The Dominion Fleet is controlled. We should proceed with our next step.”
Jean nodded. Delta closed her eyes and issued a series of further orders to her Purifier brothers and sisters.
All 800 mirages were deployed. They were faster than scouts and were better at taking down fighters. They were charging toward the 300 or so Dominion fighters that barely managed to get out of the area of effect of the time warp in time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a good thing for the Dominion.
Wraiths were detected by Purifier observers, which Jean has already deployed to the entire battlefield. Vikings tried their best to shoot down as many Purifiers as possible, but mirages were several times faster and more agile. Their phase armors also changed the equation.
One of the vikings locked on to one of the mirages and fired a pair of lanzer torpedoes. The next second the mirage suddenly accelerated with a speed that could break the neck of a human, or even protoss, pilot, but this wasn’t even slightly problematic to the Purifier shell controlling the fighter. Using the time the acceleration bought, the mirage turned around and gunned the lanzer torpedoes out of the sky with its ion cannons.
“Damn it! This ain’t fair!” The viking pilot complained before being smashed into by another mirage. The viking exploded, but the mirage enabled its phasing armor and continued its hunt without a scratch.
Inside a planetary fortress on the platform, Admiral Henry was ripping his precious beard off, but he was too distracted to realize it.
“What was that? Someone tell me what the hell just happened?” The admiral has seen many war. He has fought against protoss foes for countless times, but he has never seen something like this. How was he supposed to win a fight against someone who could disable his entire fleet in just seconds?
“Sir, it seems to be some sort of usage of the protoss khaydarin crystal. That ship over there drew energy from its crystal and, somehow, slowed the time in where our fleet is.”
“How’s that possible? Seriously, stopping time?” Henry asked, and realized the stupidity of his action when he saw the blank face on his men. “What can we do to bring our ships back? Our fighters are getting slaughtered out there.”
Outside, in the time the short conversation occurred, the Dominion fighter count was decreasing exponentially. Extremely rarely would a mirage be destroyed, but the Dominion had dozens of times the casualties.
If Henry knew the mirages were simply war machines that could be mass produced by minerals alone and not a single real enemy was killed in the battle, he would be reacting much violently.
The officers looked at each other and no one wanted to deliver the bad news. Henry groaned, and finally a brave soul answered the question.
“Current terran technology can’t disable this effect. I’m afraid...I’m afraid we need to wait until this effect disappears by itself.” He saw the red eyes of the admiral and immediately continued. “It shouldn’t take long. There’s no way that ship by itself can hold enough energy to put an area as large as this into stasis for long. Whatever attack the protoss send toward the fleet will be slowed down as well. When the effect ends, our ships will be unharmed and will be enough to obliterate that protoss ship.”
Henry stood there silently as he watched the last of the fighters get slaughtered.
“What is going on?” Suddenly, a woman in a lab suit walked into the command room.
“Dr. Amanda.” Admiral Henry walked up. “The station is under attack, but don’t worry, everything’s under control.”
Dr. Amanda was Dr. Narud’s right hand woman. She was tasked with commanding the science research here in this station, but Henry didn’t want to have much to do with her. The woman was a maniac. He has seen her spend hours dissecting a hydralisk without eating or resting. He has seen her somehow prevent the bodies of dead protoss from fading away and dissecting the remains. He has even seen her experiment with protoss nerve cords, attempting to add them to human beings. The bone-chilling screams of the human specimens, usually criminals that would otherwise be straight up executed, as they were experimented on shook even him.
“Under control?” Amanda smirked and glanced at the screen, where the satellite camera showed clouds and clouds of terran wreckage, but she wasn’t looking at the wreckage. She was looking at the ones that put the wreckage there.
“These protoss...that’s impossible. These protoss don’t match anything in our database!” She turned to the Dominion Admiral. “Take them alive. I can learn a lot from them.”
Henry coughed, choked by surprise. “I don’t take orders from you.” He replied coldly as he recovered. “Remember, I’m only here because…”
“Sir, scanners indicate the protoss trick should be over soon.”
Henry turned back to the control panel, only to see the Cybros getting even closer to the Dominion Fleet. Its rod-like structure was facing where the Dominion Fleet was.
“Oh…” He suddenly realized something.
The time warp ended, and the Dominion Fleet was functional again. The Dominion personnel onboard didn’t feel like something has happened, but a few crew members frowned at the unit status indicator, which showed all the fighters wiped out in what felt like seconds. The captains of the ships looked out the window, and their mouths were hung open when they saw the destroyed fighters and the yellow enemies.
What felt like a second for them was actually several minutes in the outer world.
But Jean didn’t leave any time for the Dominion ships to contemplate what happened.
“Purification beam online. Deploying now.” Delta ordered. Dozens of Purifier shells piloting the ship started pushing buttons, and two second later the destruction beam, already charged up beforehand, was unleashed onto the Dominion ships.
For a moment, a bright light covered the field. Even the terran satellites couldn’t see what happened, but as the smoke cleared, the result was devastating.
Half the terran fleet was wiped out. Ships were melted. Men were slaughtered. A Dominion battlecruiser was on the edge of the beam, and half of its body was gone while the other half was floating aimlessly in space. Men unlucky enough to survive the initial contact were sucked out into the vacuum of space, where they would experience a creatively painful death.
Even if the Dominion ships did turn on their defensive matrixes, which they didn’t, they wouldn’t stand a chance against the purification beam of the Cybros.
Normally, equipped on motherships and, in this case, the Purifier flagship Cybros, the purification beam was used to destroy planets. A single strike could purify an entire planet and kill every living being on it. They weren’t as ideal against enemy ships, but they were equally dangerous. In most cases, the enemies could either fight back and destroy the threat or simply escape, but Jean cutely used the time warp to keep the Dominion Fleet in place.
This was similar to the idea Jean gave to Nyon against the Daelaam defense fleet, but this time Jean was more straightforward.
Inside the command center, Amanda shut her mouth. Even an amateur like her understood the situation didn’t allow her the luxury of making demands.
