Korhal.

A single transport flew across the skies of Korhal. It was followed by twenty-four F-1 fighters.

Jean sat in the transport. She was alone. Well, the squad of G-1 units behind her didn't exactly count.

“Creator,” A C-1 command unit took control of the Warden AI of the transport. “you should send someone else to investigate or send a fleet. This is unsafe.”

“I have to do this alone.” Jean replied as she stared out of the window.

An hour ago, a message reached Jean, who was residing in the middle of the Warden Fleet. The message came from a Warden Command Unit she hid in the Dominion security network, and it told Jean to go to one of the Dominion’s orbital platforms alone. It had something to give to her. That was it. Jean received no further information.

“Whatever that C-1 wants to give me or show me, it must be important and too sensitive to be passed on to me within the message or to be delivered by someone else.” Jean continued. “Command units can never do anything that can harm me. You know that.”

The Command Unit paused. “Correct, but if a Command Unit is physically compromised…”

“Be quiet.” Uncharacteristically, Jean shut the command unit off.

“Affirmative, Creator.” The Command Unit had no choice but to completely obey Jean’s order at once. When Jean designed Warden units, she installed complete obedience.

The squad of flyers continued. Finally, they reached the platform. Strangely, there wasn’t a single Dominion battlecruiser around that platform, nor was there any fighter or other flyer. Jean suddenly realized it had been quite a while since she saw another Dominion ship on the way here. The platform didn't attempt to contact Jean’s transport either, even though it entered the patrol proximity of the platform.

Jean merely looked at the platform and remained dead silent. She made no attempt to turn the ships around or order a retreat. She just waited for whatever was planned for her.

Suddenly, as the transport and the escort got into firing range, both of the Drakken Pulse Cannons on the platform, as well as the missile turrets, turned around and started unloading.

The transport’s defensive matrix was enabled. It was just in time, because moments after the green shield popped up, half a dozen projectiles clashed with the transport and exploded. Without the matrix, the transport would’ve been in pieces already.

The F-1 fighters scrambled to dodge the shots, but three of them still went down in balls of flames. The rest of the fighters were about to rain down fire on the rogue Dominion orbital defenses when three squads of Dominion wraiths lifted off from the platform. These wraiths immediately turned on the F-1 fighters.

“All F-1 fighters delay the rogue Dominion fighters. Transport, bring me back to the Warden Fleet.” Jean simply commanded as ships and missiles exploded all around her.

The F-1s initiated a Kamikaze on the rogue fighters, who turned out to be happy to take the trade. A dozen wraiths literally smashed into the F-1s on purpose. Both fighters exploded. But when the smoke cleared, all the F-1 were dead and there were still ten or so wraiths. They immediately pursued after Jean’s transport. Their engines were overloaded to a degree that the starfighters would go up in flames in a few minutes even if they weren’t taken down by enemy fighters.

Such a speed came at a high cost. The pilots had blood dripping out of their mouth. This was partially due to speed and partially due to all the stim pack they took. It was nearly impossible for normal human pilots to control fighters this fast. They simply didn't have the reflex. The stim packs temporarily solved the problem.

It was safe to say that neither the fighters nor the pilots were intended on surviving this mission.

And the pilots knew it, but they came anyway.

Because all shall burn in Amon’s wrath…

Jean’s transport continued going. At this point, something was obviously wrong. Her ship has already gotten to above Korhal’s city, and not a single Dominion fighter or battlecruiser tried to stop her. Civilians on the ground looked up in confusion, but their confusion turned to fear as the wraiths chased after the transport, almost blindly unloading missile after missile at the transport.

Finally, a missile found its way to the engine of the transport. Following an explosion, the engine went out. Thankfully, the specially crafted hulls were still mostly intact. The ship got lower and lower and finally reached ground level at a park.

A dozen people were in the way of the ship. Unfortunately, they didn't have any time to respond before the ship crushed them under the metal platings.

Screams and cries immediately covered the park as the survivors were either paralyzed and collapsed or turned and ran as quickly as possible.

The wraith pilot that shot down Jean allowed a proud smile to appear on his face before his fighter disintegrated in mid-air.

Inside the transport, Jean wiped some blood off her face. Behind her, her group of G-1 bodyguards seemed to have been caught in the blast. The shot that took out the engine also broke through the rear plating of the transport, destroying most of the G-1s in the back.

Fortunately, a handful of the G-1s survived. One of the G-1s ignited its plasma blade and cut through a piece of wreckage that blocked it from the outside. The plasma blade cut through the metal easily. With a final push, the G-1 broke free.

But just before it could go back and help Jean, a round of psionic powered bullet went into its core processor, bringing it down.

Jean coughed more blood. She turned around and found several figures approaching. All of them gave off strong psionic signals. Their eyes were purple, so were their armors.

Spectres.

One of the spectres pumped a bullet into a civilian too shocked to run away in time.

Jean didn't know where these spectres came from exactly, but she could take a guess. Tosh got dealt with by Viper, but information of Project ShadowBlade remained. Narud must’ve continued on with the experiments and created more spectres. He had both the technology and the resource. These spectres were probably hidden in covert sites by Narud, sites that weren’t on the Dominion database and Jean was not aware of. Now, before the final confrontation, Narud sent them in to assassinate her.

But it was too late. Jean reached for her belt and pulled out a plasma blade, but even before she could light it up, the spectre put a bullet into her heart.

Jean collapsed. Her plasma blade hit the ground.

“Target Alpha terminated.”

“Confirm it. Destroy the body.”

“Yes sir.”

The leading spectre said into the comm as he turned and left. The two other spectres walked into the transport, located the energy core, and dropped a pack of explosive on it with a timer of one minute. They were eager to die, but now was not the time.

Jean wasn’t the only target.

As the spectres got far away, the transport exploded.

---

At the same time as Jean was taken down from the skies, Narud’s spectres went to work all over the planet.

---

“Who are you? No...wait! I can pay you a lot of credits...ah!”

A high ranking officer in Mira’s Marauders screamed as a spectre pushed a plasma blade through his heart. Dozens of bodies of mercenary marines, marauders, reapers, and ghosts laid around him. Half a dozen spectres walked away.

---

“Piu”

A Dominion general about to walk into his vehicle collapsed. Half of his head was gone. His security detail went crazy and looked around for the perpetrator, but they couldn’t find anyone. Kilometers away, a spectre dropped his modified gauss sniper rifle and departed.

---

In front of a Dominion radar station, a man walked toward the two sentries at the door.

“This is a restricted area.” The pair of Dominion sentries frowned at the man, but before they could say anything else, the man grabbed onto them both. Immediately, his psionic energy infiltrated the two sentries’ minds and took over. The sentries groaned slightly before being completely controlled.

They stepped back and allowed the man to enter.

Minutes later, an explosion took the entire station down.

---

“What is all that fuss? Don’t tell me that Mengsk boy has got a riot in his hands. If you ask me, he’s too soft.”

In the bridge of her flagship, Mira Han rambled on. After the alliance was created, she brought her mercenary fleet to Korhal. Her fleet was in orbit. This made her unaware of all the assassination and chaos on the ground. A few of her operatives on the ground reported hearing gunshots, but they had no idea what was going on.

The bridge was silent. Officers looked at each other, but not one of them was able to stand up and solve the female mercenaries’ doubts. Suddenly, with a light click, the blast door opened. Mira turned and found one of her most trusted lieutenants walking in. She remembered sending him to Korhal to buy some supply for the mercenaries.

He froze.

“You ok? What is wrong with you.” Mira asked casually. She subconsciously didn't think the lieutenant might be up to no good. They were in the middle of her private fleet. Make a move on her, and the assassin would be dead in two seconds.

Except the man had no problem with making that trade.

The man didn't answer. Instead, he reached into the storage chamber of his CMC armor and pulled out something.

“For Amon!”

The explosion tore the entire bridge to shreds.

---

“Sir, we have had reports of over two dozen attacks on our officers!”

“Sir, three of our radar stations are down!”

“Sir, Commander Cassidy’s personal transport is reported to have been pursued after and attacked by a group of our fighters! The transport has already gone down! There doesn’t appear to be any survivor!”

“Sir, Commander Han’s flagship is assaulted! The bridge is taken out! We don’t know if Commander Han survived!”

“Sir, General Warfield’s command center was attacked by a suicide bomber! The general’s fine but the casualties are still counting!”

“Sir…”

Valerian Mengsk groaned as bad news kept on rolling in. Suddenly, a wave of gunshots exploded. The officers snapped and turned to Valerian. This wasn’t a good sign when dozens of attacks have already happened and two commanders of major armies were likely dead.

Valerian stayed as calm as possible. He made contact with the security officer at the front door. When the call went through, the gunshots were gone already.

“Report.”

“Sir, a group of hostile covert operatives attempted to break in. We dealt with them. It’s all clear now...uh!”

Valerian slightly backed off. Just as he was about to deploy some reinforcement, a familiar voice came in.

“Now it’s all clear, junior.” Viper glanced at half a dozen dead spectres in front of her, as well as a Dominion Sons of Korhal elite marine with purple marks on his neck. Moments ago, the spectres took down most of the guards and only kept the officer alive to deceive anyone asking what happened into thinking it was clear. It was aimed to help the spectres get in. Thankfully, Viper wiped out the spectres.

Valerian nodded. He trusted Viper. The female spectre has saved him many times.

“Thank you.”

Viper shrugged and turned off the comm. Suddenly, she closed her eyes. A wave of emotions, anger, fear, rage, flew through her body.

She closed her eyes. The emotions weren’t completely new. What seemed like years ago, on Char, when she thought Jean was dead and all was lost, that feeling happened. That day, she almost killed Raynor and nearly wasted the Queen of Blades.

But things have changed. Jean is alive, and Viper will gladly follow Jean to the end. She had no need to descend into darkness.

When she opened her eyes again, they were pure.

Valerian didn't know what was going on in Viper’s head, and he didn't have the time to care either.

More bad news came in.

In the orbit of Korhal, a large protoss fleet warped in.

Red psionic energy. Golden hulls. Golden Armada.

It wasn’t the entire Golden Armada, but Dominion satellites still counted 300 capital ships. The Dominion, on the other hand, was in a mess. Mira’s Marauders were crippled after losing its leader. The Dominion Fleet was ready to fight, but moments ago dozens of fighters suddenly went rogue and attacked the flagships of the different fleets. Three generals died. Five more were wounded. The command structure was in pieces. The Dominion Fleet was struggling in fighting back.

When Golden Armada warp prisms sailed toward Korhal’s surface, Valerian could no longer wait. Daelaam zealots would inflict massive casualties on the civilian population of Korhal. Even if they were defeated, the damage they caused would be too much to bear. He wasn’t Jean. He couldn’t sacrifice his own people for the final victory!”

“Get me Kerrigan and Nyon now!”