“I have to admit. You have grown a lot since we first met.” Jean concluded as Nyon finished the story.
Back when they first met, Nyon was rather cunning, but he was still limited to the mindset of a Tal’darim ascendant. He never considered the idea of taking the throne with a coup rather than with a traditional duel.
Nyon nodded in agreement.
“You have done your part, and now it’s time for me to do mine. The Death Fleet is at your command, Jean. The entire Tal’darim race is willing to strike down anyone you command.”
Jean smiled to show her gratitude. Even after all the battles, the Death Fleet still had over eight hundred capital ships. They would be of great use in the oncoming war.
Amon used the Tal’darim has his sharpest blade against the sector, and now this blade has a new owner.
“Prepare the Death Fleet for war, Highlord, because I assure you, war is coming.” Jean said before Nyon departed. Now that the Tal’darim front was settled, she could return to Umoja and attend to other business.
Meanwhile, Delta was sent on a mission of her own.
She piloted her arbiter toward the planet of Aiur.
Jean has always been hesitant in getting in touch with the Daelaam protoss and the Golden Armada. For one thing, she wasn’t sure how deep Amon’s influence was among the Daelaam protoss. If she made a move too early to warn the Daelaam about Amon and Amon sensed it through the protoss Khala network, then it might prompt him to corrupt the Golden Armada and just wipe the table before Jean was ready.
Plus, the Daelaam were proud, even arrogant. During their golden ages, back during the time of the Protoss Empire, the protoss expanded unopposed in the entire sector. The Great Fleet demolished any foe that might attempt to make a stand. At that time, the protoss saw themselves as children of god and considered themselves superior to all the other races inside the sector. They even established a code to protect those they considered as inferior. After the fall of Aiur, the destruction of the Great Fleet, and the escape to Shakuras, most of the Daelaam protoss tamed their arrogance. Still, it would be the words of a human being against millennials of faith. It was obvious which side would present a stronger argument.
But things have changed. When Jean sent out Delta, the Death Fleet was pretty much under control. The Purifier fleet and the Warden fleet were starting to become a deadly force. The Umojan force was growing every day. The Swarm was rapidly assembling under the Queen of Blades, who killed any broodmother that refused to return to the fold. Dominion Crown Prince Valerian, under the cover of the Umojan Protectorate, was leading a rebel fleet that was growing every day. After news of Raynor’s demise was broadcasted throughout the Dominion by Arcturus Mengsk, those who had a grudge against the dictator ran to the obviously wiser prince. To a sense, Valerian Mengsk replaced James Raynor as the beacon of freedom.
Rumor goes Arcturus Mengsk has already sent out his best assassins after his own son.
Jean was ready to warn the Daelaam. Even if, by any chance, Amon sensed it and took over the Daelaam now, she was sure she could handle it. She chose to send Delta because she was a Purifier, and compared to a human being with zerg essence in her or a Tal’darim or a zerg, a Purifier was easier to trust. Granted, most of the protoss still saw the Purifiers as enemies and rogue robots, but most of Jean’s allies weren’t exactly good guys.
The arbiter approached the planet, but was quickly intercepted by a squad of four Daelaam phoenixes.
While most of the sector was busying beating Kerrigan, the Daelaam protoss seized this opportunity to bring the entire Golden Armada and the Nerazim Fleet to the lost planet of Aiur. Back during the Brood War, Aiur, as the homeworld of the protoss, was under attack by the brunt of the Brood. The Overmind directed billions and billions of zerg onto the beautiful planet. This ridiculous amount of zerg punched through the majority of the protoss fleet and overwhelmed the protoss defenders. When the protoss hero Tassadar killed the Overmind with kamikaze, most of those zerg were no longer under control and went rogue. Strangely, instead of killing each other to the last zerg standing, most of those zerg simply stood by and waited.
The Daelaam came down from the sky with all the fury in the world. On the protoss side, every Daelaam protoss wanted to retake their homeworld. Warriors practiced their skills. Phase smiths worked double time to build more powerful weapons of war. Striders and vessels that were designed to kill most efficiently were mass produced. The protoss came prepared.
The feral zerg, on the other hand, were leaderless. They had overwhelming numbers, but that was pretty much all they had. While the rest of the sector was powered by threats from all fronts and worked their ass off to build more ships and develop more deadly technologies, the feral zerg stayed where they were for four full years.
As a result, they were slaughtered the moment the Golden Armada opened fire.
1600 protoss ships slammed down on the zerg. The feral flyers in orbit were literally melted. Leviathans and Behemoths(capital zerg transport vessels) exploded into a million pieces. Devourers and guardians were deadly weapons during the brood war, but now, four years later?
Heavily armored devourers were picked apart by agile phoenixes and scouts. These ships were piloted by warriors who spent their days fighting the enemies of the Daelaam. After spending years to deal with corruptors and brood lords, the Daelaam ships laughed upon the outdated feral units. Mutalisks were no match for the horde of interceptors. Scourges tried their best, but their attacks were uncoordinated and easily deflected. The Golden Armada lost a handful of interceptors and ships, whose pilots warped away to safety, and took down a hundred times the scourges.
The orbital defenses collapsed within an hour. The zerg fleet, strong enough to push the Protoss Empire to its destruction, crumbled under the newer, stronger Daelaam Golden Armada.
Falling behind has its toll. Falling behind in somewhere as dangerous as the Korpuru Sector for four years? It’s enough to turn someone from a victor to a loser.
With the sky cleared, the Golden Armada proceeded to the surface. There were too many zerg, and trading precious protoss warriors with them was stupid, so Hierarch Artanis ordered the Golden Armada and the Nerazim Fleet to plow over most of the zerg count before deploying the warp prisms and warping in ground units.
For three days, fire and death rained down from above. Observers, completely unopposed in the skies, covered the entire planet and delivered the location of every single zerg unit on the ground to the protoss pilots in the air. All the pilots had to do was bring their ships to a piece of marked area and then pull the trigger.
Twenty hydralisks? What the hell. Blast them. Ultralisk? Here is a three orbital strike combo. Enjoy. Lurkers? Get a destroyer over there. Swarm queen? Don’t see them around anymore. Phoenix, chase them down and deal with them. A horde of zerglings? Send in a dark templar.
The greatest zerg casualty was when one of the motherships purified a province which held one tenth of the entire zerg population on the planet. When the light beam disappeared, even the corpses were reduced to ash.
Finally, with minimal losses, Aiur was back in protoss hands once again.
Hierarch Artanis didn't hesitate to move most of the infrastructures back to Aiur from Shakuras. He also welcomed the Nerazim back to Aiur. Matriarch Vorazun of the Nerazim protoss was still considering that offer.
That being said, Artanis was aware the final victory was still a distance away, and the Golden Armada wasn’t invincible in the sector. He deployed countless patrols across the planet and did his best to bring the industries back online so they could produce military vessels and weapons as soon as possible.
Back to the situation.
“I demand to see Hierarch Artanis.” Delta established communication with the phoenixes. The Purifier data net contained protoss language.
“State your identity.” One of the pilots demanded. She could see Delta through the transmission, but she thought she saw a protoss wearing some sort of weird armor rather than a mechanical protoss. She was relatively young, only one hundred years old or so. The Purifier rebellion was way before her time.
“I’m with the Purifiers.”
“Purifiers?” The four pilots immediately readied their weapon system. They have never experienced the rebellion itself, but they did learn about it from the teaching of other protoss, who labeled the Purifier protoss as deadly robots hell bent on destroying the protoss race rather than proud templars in metal bodies who were tired of being treated as expendable weapons.
Delta saw their alertness.
“I am here for peace. I have an important affair to discuss with your leader.”
The pilots remained silent for a few seconds, probably talking to their superior officers, before returning to Delta.
“Follow me, Purifier.”
The four phoenixes guided the arbiter to one of the starports. Putting her ship in auto-pilot in the air, Delta warped out of the ship and onto the ground.
She was welcomed by a protoss executor, followed by two high templars and two lines of zealots.
“Purifier, follow us.” Selendis declared. Both her and the Daelaam behind her were on high alert, ready to draw their weapons. The two high templars had two feedbacks locked and loaded.
Delta followed Selendis.
The party walked past fields and fields of construction sites, where probes were setting up pylons and power fields, and assembling other structures. Delta saw a dozen photon cannons being assembled with lightning speed. Within an hour, they could be thrown into battle. Dozens of zealots were sparring with each other or meditating.
Finally, the party walked into a heavily guarded building. The security was heavier and heavier, and finally, Delta walked into a meeting room, where she saw Hierarch Artanis for the first time.
Artanis was young, at least by protoss standards. At 262 years old, he was certainly not the most experienced protoss in the Daelaam world. However, he was open-minded, and the protoss has already paid a heavy price due to the stubbornness of older members of the old High Council.
Now, the open-minded protoss leader was looking at Delta, intrigued.
“Welcome, Purifier.” Artanis tilted his head. “Might I ask of your origins?”
No wonder Artanis was curious. The Purifiers were imprisoned in the Cybros above the planet of Glacius. They were not only in a stasis field but also secured by legions of templar. A while ago, Jean broke these Purifiers out with the help of the Tal’darim and reprogrammed them to her side. As far as Artanis knew, the Purifiers were compromised and likely destroyed.
Delta had it all planned out.
“Our people were woken from stasis by an army of rogue protoss. Their armor and their psionic energy were different from those of the Protoss Empire, and they tried to attack us.”
“The Tal’darim.” Artanis remembered when he investigated what happened to Glacius, a few recorders caught image of Tal’darim protoss slaughtering Daelaam defenders.
“But the Tal’darim made the mistake of letting too many of us out at once. We managed to purify the Tal’darim intruders. Afterward, we traveled across the sector, hunting down and purifying Tal’darim forces.”
Artanis nodded slowly. It was a reasonable story. The Tal’darim weren’t exactly cautious, and it was possible that some of them accidentally destroyed or turned off the stasis fields, releasing the Purifiers. The Purifiers might not be in their best form, but they were literally machines of war. Plus, the Cybros was their homefront.
“Then why are you here?”
“During our attacks of the Tal’darim, we took some of them prisoners and interrogated them for information. They spoke of a dark god they serve, Amon, and how he has control over the Khala and therefore over every single protoss.”
Of course, that was a lie. For one thing, Amon didn't have a reason to tell the Tal’darim about his plans for the Daelaam. However, Artanis didn't know that.
The hierarch's response was still unclear when Selendis, who was listening on the side, ignited her blades.
“HERETIC! You dare speak ill of the glorious Khala?”
With a single command, the door of the chamber burst open, and dozens of zealots charged in with their weapons raised...
