As the Tal’darim ground forces scrambled to set up defenses against the unstoppable enemy, their brothers in space were already one step ahead in achieving their goal.

In his carrier, ascendant Guris sat and scanned the zerg leviathans.

Carriers were protoss capital ships with built-in interceptor hangers. Stolen from the Daelaam and transformed by Tal’darim phase smiths, they were the backbone of the Death Fleet. In the hanger, automated probes turned minerals into small mechanical interceptors that were launched into the open when needed. These small unmanned fighters could fire lasers at enemy units. Perhaps a few of them couldn’t do much damage against armored units, but one of the advantages of the interceptors was its numbers. A single carrier could launch thousands of interceptors. Dozens of carriers could create a swarm.

Unfortunately, today the number wasn’t favoring the Tal’darim. Guris quickly realized that when a cloud of purple started spreading out from the literal wall of leviathans.

Only it wasn’t a cloud. It was an army of zerg flyers. A mixture of mutalisks and scourges, at least thousands of them, charged at the insignificant Tal’darim ships with full speed.

“Engage the enemy. For Amon!” Despite already knowing how this battle was going to end, the Tal’darim fought bravely. With a single war cry from Guris, the phoenixes charged head on into the fray. Destroyers turned their firepower to the maximum level. Interceptors started flying out of the lone carrier.

The speedsters of the two fleets were the first to clash.

Mutalisks were fast zerg flyers. They were smaller than corruptors and larger than scourges. Compared to the agility of protoss phoenixes and the firepower of terran vikings, mutalisks relied on their speed and numbers to find out an opportunity to pick the enemies apart. That being said, their glave wurms could cut a marine into two in one hit, and that was just mutalisks from normal broods. These mutalisks were special. They came from the Queen of Blades’ personal brood.

The swarm was a combination of many individuals broods. Each brood had a broodmother as its commander and had its own territory. As the Queen of Blades and the leader of the zerg swarm, Kerrigan had a powerful brood that she had direct psychic command over. This brood ranged from the most basic zergling to the most powerful leviathans, and every unit from this brood had the best essence, the most helpful evolutions, and the most powerful upgrades. A single zergling of Kerrigan could kill three zerglings from the brood of a normal broodmother. Apart from Kerrigan’s almost invincible power and the zerg psionic network, this elite group of zerg units that she had absolute dominance over was another thing that kept the broodmothers loyal.

Likewise, these mutalisks were elite either.

The Tal’darim phoenix pilots immediately found that out. Usually a phoenix could kite and kill half a dozen mutalisks with ease. Phoenixes were even faster than mutalisks, and their agility could make mutalisks look like a fool.

But this time the mutalisks could catch onto the phoenixes with ease. The red ion cannons of phoenixes fired on the mutalisks, but all they did was leave a few marks on the zerg flyers. In exchange, the glave wurms could easily punch a hole in the plasma shield of the phoenixes and send them exploding.

Within the first seconds, half of the twenty Tal’darim phoenixes have fallen, and the survivors were wounded more or less. On the other side, the mutalisk wave was barely hit. There might be a few mutalisks that fell when dying phoenix pilots smashed their fighters into the closest enemies they could see as a last sign of their devotion, but those losses could be easily ignored by the number of mutalisks present.

The destroyers were the next to join battle. The bloodshard crystals projected a bright red destruction beam that jumped from target to target. Usually destroyers were the best against armored units, but that was by no means saying they were weaker in dealing with unarmored ones.

The destruction beam smashed into the mutalisk horde, and the attack bounced countless times in just seconds. With every step the mutalisks moved forward, half a dozen of them were melted.

Countless zerg fell, but Guris wasn’t satisfied. The fact that the mutalisks charged without making any effort of spreading out and dodging the destroyer attacks didn’t mean the zerg were stupid. It meant they were so confident that they didn’t need to preserve units to win this fight.

Just like he imagined, the mutalisks quickly swarmed upon the destroyers and surrounded them from all directions. The destroyers did all they could to open fire, but the red light was quickly covered by the endless purple zerg. Not a single glimpse of red could be seen from Gulis’ carrier.

Inside the zerg ball, the glave wurms started flying toward the destroyers that had no mean of escape. A destroyer pilot tried to move her vessel out, but she was immediately pushed back by a dozen mutalisks. The warp drives were rendered useless as well.

The attacks reached their targets. Unlike the phoenixes, the destroyers were larger and had tougher shields. In each vessel, a bloodshard crystal shined and pumped most of its power into the plasma shield. Despite all the upgrades, evolutions, and the advantage in the numbers, the wurms were halted by a red layer of life saver. The vessels shook violently, but in the end all three destroyers held.

The near death experience only made the Tal’darim pilots within the ships more thrilled. Their destruction beams were turned to maximum power level. Mutalisks melted one by one, yet the horde was still covering the field.

Guris took a slight breath of relief as he kept controlling his ship to fight. The longer the destroyers could hold, the more time the Tal’darim forces on the ground had to prepare for the invasion. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he saw some smaller units within the zerg horde.

“Scourges incoming!” He yelled through the comm, despite knowing there was nothing his warriors could do.

Hundreds of smaller figures emerged from behind the larger mutalisks. Those inexperienced with the zerg might underestimate them because of their size, but if they did that they would pay the price with their lives.

Scourges were flying banelings. Just like their comrades on the ground, they could explode on contact and do massive damage against enemy air units. Maybe one of them couldn’t take down a capital ship, but how about ten? How about a hundred? A thousand?

The zerg were always the one with the most numbers.

The destroyer pilots may or may not have heard the order from their commander, but the fact remained that their bloodshard crystals were near depleted.

One of the destroyers was the first victim as dozens of scourges charged at his position. Her weapon focused on the flying banelings and half the scourges were taken down before they could make contact, but the survivors managed to crash into his ship with all the strength in the world.

The destroyer shook more violent than ever as its shield crumbled. The hall of the destroyer was still intact, but the destroyer pilot’s eyes darkened.

“My life for Amon.” She whispered quietly. If there was anything in her crimson eyes, it was satisfaction.

The next second hundreds of glave wurms wiped over the destroyer and ripped it to pieces. The pilot’s body was reduced to a cloud of red psionic energy. Unlike the Daelaam protoss that valued the lives of their people, the Tal’darim didn’t install emergency warping devices on their warriors. In most cases, the price of defeat was death.

The two other destroyers saw the death of their sister. One of the destroyers put all the power to the thrusters and pushed the ship in front with all the force possible. All around the ship mutalisks slammed onto the plasma shield of the ship, trying to keep it in place.

The pilot smiled. That was exactly what he wanted. All the zerg were clumped up, and if there was an explosion here the amount of damage done would be maximized.

The Tal’darim knew destroyer weapons weren’t explosive, but he also knew the bloodshard crystal that powered the destroyer was extremely unstable…

Guris watched as the dense zerg horde was suddenly overwhelmed by a bright red light, which was quickly followed by a wall of destructive energy. Even a distance away, the carrier was impacted by the blast. Its plasma shield shook and protected the ship, but the mutalisks and scourges didn’t share the same luck. Their carapace could stop marine gauss bullets, but they melted like paper against the exploding bloodshard crystal.

When the smoke cleared, a large sphere of empty space was opened up in the closely packed zerg horde. The sacrifice of the destroyer pilot ended the lives of most of the zerg around him as well as the life of a fellow pilot. This wasn’t a game. Explosions couldn’t distinguish between friend or foe.

Guris didn’t have time to be happy or be sad as the blank space was quickly filled again by reinforcing mutalisks and scourges. While the zerg were dealing with the phoenixes and destroyers, the leviathans at the back has been constantly releasing fresh reinforcements. The amount of zerg killed was barely one third of the fresh zerg that arrived.

The carrier pilot looked around. All the phoenixes and destroyers were dead. Apart of the random pieces of wreckage, there was no proof of these warrior’s struggle.

They gave their lives for Amon. Now it was his time.

The mutalisks and scourges have been constantly bombarding the capital ship, but the shield generator on the carrier was still holding. The entire time Guris had been opening fire on the zerg. The swarm of interceptors he released into the field was obliterated even before the destroyers. They were fast, but speed couldn’t save them when every interceptor was chased after by a mutalisk. Cheap weapons, interceptors weren’t worthy enough to be equipped with plasma shields. One glave wurm, at most two, and the interceptor would be bursting into flames. The only weapon Guris had left was the purifier beam in the tip of the carrier, the photon cannons on the side of the carrier, and the orbital cannons on the bottom of the ship.

A large vessel like a carrier obviously had more means of attack than just the interceptors, especially if the vessel was modified by the Tal’darim. The purifier beam was designed for larger targets like leviathans or battlecruisers, but they could also work against mutalisks. The hall of the carrier was covered by photon cannons. Protected by the plasma shield of the carrier, these static defenses could unleash upon the zerg freely. Orbital cannons were designed to bombard ground units, but when positioned properly they worked against zerg flyers as well.

It was these equipment that kept the entire zerg fleet at bay. Every second the mutalisks were falling by the dozens. One swipe from the purifier beam and every mutalisk in the line of impact would be either melted immediately or severely wounded. The photon cannons were less effective, but when hundreds of photon projectiles were sent flying every second, the number was enough to make up for the lack of quality. Mutalisks were dropping like flies.

One ship holding back against an army. The might of the Tal’darim protoss was fully demonstrated. Granted, the zerg swarm wasn’t using its full might, but the fact remained.

Suddenly, another leviathan jumped out warp space. The twenty leviathans were around eleven kilometers long, but this leviathan was even longer. Four third the size of normal leviathans, the newly arrived ship stood tall.

And it had a reason to. After all, it was the flagship of the Queen of Blades.

Inside the flying zerg city, countless zerg organisms crawled and moved, but in the bridge, standing alone, was a figure in purple.

Kerrigan was a mutated terran. In addition to the purple layer of carapace that covered her entire body, two spine wings grew out of her back. Apart from being intimidating, the wings could be used as weapons. A single strike from them could easily punch through the plasma shield of a zealot. Her hands were turned into sharp claws. Her beautiful ginger hair was transformed into snake-like tentacles. The woman was a monster by more than one meaning.

Kerrigan’s accomplishments matched her look. In the bloody Brood War, a clash between the Overmind zerg, the Aiur protoss, the Terran Confederacy, and the UED, the Queen of Blades was the final winner. The Overmind died via the suicidal charge of Aiur high templar Tassadar. The Aiur protoss suffered heavy losses from the endless zerg brood. The Terran Confederacy fell and was replaced by a battered Terran Dominion. The UED(United Earth Directorate) fleet traveled all the way from Earth to Koprulu Sector, only to get completely eliminated by the zerg under Kerrigan’s command.

The period after the Brood War was Kerrigan’s golden age. After killing Fenix in a swift betrayal, she allowed Mengsk, Raynor, and Artanis to flee. Whether it was because she couldn’t kill them or because she wanted her enemies to live and witness her victory, the fact remained that almost every major player in the sector now was alive because Kerrigan was feeling merciful.

After the Brood War, the swarm retreated to the planets around Char. As the queen took a step back, the survivors of the previous war started to take actions. The Terran Dominion rebuilt on the corpse of the Terran Confederacy and constructed a powerful economy as well as a powerful fleet. The Daelaam protoss desired a day to retake their homeworld of Aiur.

But now, after four years of peace, the Queen of Blades once again reached out her claws to the rest of the sector…

The absolute leader of the swarm glanced at the resisting Tal’darim carrier. She wasn’t annoyed by the resistance. If anything, she was glad to see the Tal’darim ascendant fighting futilely for his god, even though his fate was already sealed. The death of countless elite mutalisks didn’t even bother her the slightest. The swarm controlled and were mining off over a thousand planets. At their resource collection rate, these units could be replaced in at most an hour. To Kerrigan, the units enough to wipe out half of Deadman’s Port worth less than a smile on her face.

Plus, the xel’naga artifact couldn’t be modified to be able to be warped away directly. It could only be transported physically via a transport, whether it was a warp prism or a shuttle, and zerg mutalisks were patrolling every piece of space around the planet. The Tal’darim fleet was wiped out, or about to be, and a few transports couldn’t make it out alive. Just because the Tal’darim added a phase cannon on the warp prisms and called them war prisms didn’t mean they were actually combat units.

Finally, after a few minutes, the Queen of Blades got bored of mutalisks and scourges continuously bashing themselves against the plasma shield of the carrier. A smirk on her face, she held her fist tight and field an almost infinite amount of strength running through her body..

“That’s enough. Finish him.” She said through the shared zerg psionic network, and all the queens in the leviathans immediately heard the order. A few seconds later, Kerrigan’s flag-leviathan blinked and disappeared. The next second it popped up right next to the Tal’darim carrier. Normally the capital ships in this sector had only one or two warp drives. Warp drives were expensive and too many jumps could be energy exhausting. Unfortunately, Kerrigan’s leviathan was literally a product of an endless amount of resources. A dozen warp drives inside the eighteen kilometer ship meant the leviathan could jump whenever it liked.

Guris was wondering why the zerg flyers that packed his ship like a cocoon suddenly backed off, but the literal city that just appeared in front of him answered his doubts.

His 1.5 km long carrier was like a child in front of the leviathan twelve times larger.

The swarm had corruptors and devourers present, but Kerrigan wanted to end this quickly and decisively. To the queen, killing the carrier was like crushing an ant. She could toy with him as long as she wished, but when she really wanted to kill him, it would be annoying if it took very long or the ant managed to sting her before dying, so maximum effort was immediately used.

Hundreds of tentacles, half a kilometer long each, reached out from within the ship. Usually leviathans used either the bio-plasmid discharge or the spore cannons and spore crawlers implanted to attack, but this time it was much more brutal.

The tentacles slammed into the carrier. The red plasma shield was almost depleted, but the first few dozens of tentacles were still deflected. However, those deflected returned with twice the speed. Within seconds of the attack, the plasma shield was shattered, and the leviathan was reaching into the hall of the ship.

Guris groaned. It was always an unfair fight, but a defeat was, nonetheless, a defeat. In the Tal’darim world, the defeated could only end in two ways. They could either be put into a vanguard and spend the rest of their limited lives fighting and dying for the Highlord to redeem their sins, or they would never return to their people in the first place.

Weakness was a sin, and the punishment for it was death.

At the last seconds of his life, Guris turned on his comm again.

“Dyges, my fleet is obliterated. My warriors have been massacred. My end is near! Are you prepared for combat?”

The ascendant on the ground remained silent for a second. “I have gathered all the warriors on the planet, but I don’t think we can hold this.” He sensed the zerg fleet from Monlyth. Twenty elite leviathans was deadly even to the entirety of the Death Fleet. A couple thousand zealots and slayers weren’t exactly sufficient.

Guris’ eyes shined in determination even though he could hear the body of his ship crumbling. The interface panel toward him half the carrier was already gone. Finally, he spoke.

“The work of god can not be taken by the Queen of Blades. If that happens, even Ma’lash can’t retake it.”

“Even if every Tal’darim on Monlyth perished, as long as the artifact is safe, it will be worthy.”

Not giving his comrade another chance to speak, Guris turned off the comm and reached inside the crystal that powered his ship. If he could ignite it, like the destroyer did, then at this distance the explosion might just injured Kerrigan’s ship.

His plan never worked.

The crystal received the order to explode, but before it could muster the strength, the hundreds of leviathans tentacles grabbed onto the carrier at once and started pulling it toward different directions. Whatever material the carrier was made of, it wasn’t built to withstand this. With a screeching sound that couldn’t be passed on in space, the carrier was ripped apart. Even the crystal was crushed and reduced to a pile of useless energy.

The pilot of the carrier was nowhere to be seen.

Kerrigan didn’t even set her eyes on the debris. Instead, her eyes were laid on the planet below.

It was as if she could see the artifact on the planet from inside the leviathan.

The queen smirked.