On the planet of Xil, a certain Tal’darim executor grinned as the comm with the Raiders was shut down.

Turning around, he waved his hand, and a dozen zealots went to grab onto the bodies of the executed prisoners. These bodies would be put on spikes and left all around the planet for the same reason the Tal’darim kept the terran buildings and siege tanks intact: As trophies.

“My master,” Another comm was opened up. Nyon turned around and found himself looking at one of his underlings via a screen.

“What is it?” Nyon recognized the Tal’darim to be one of the blood hunters he sent out on a special mission. The fact that he is calling him now meant his mission was successful. If his mission failed, he wouldn’t be alive enough to return to report.

Blood hunters were Tal’darim trained in covert combat. They were like the Tal’darim dark templars and were experts in infiltration and assassination, except they were much more ruthless. Rare yet powerful, they usually pledged their allegiance to either the Highlord or the top ascendants. As the Sixth Ascendant, Nyon had quite a few blood hunters under his command. They come in handy in certain circumstances. This was one of such circumstances.

“The warp drive of the terran battlecruiser has been disabled. If we strike now, the terran will have no choice but to stand and fight.” The blood hunter smirked. He could already see the sight of the terran vessel burning and its occupants screaming and dying. “And we will slaughter every single one of them. Their blood shall paint our floor.” That was more of a statement than a war cry.

Nyon grinned. As much as he enjoyed it, he didn’t call the terran battlecruiser to taunt them, at least not entirely. After hearing report of terran presence, he immediately sent out three cloaked corsairs with blood hunters inside. Only after that did he send a transmission to Raynor and do all he could to attract his attention, whether it was by introducing himself or by executing the prisoners.

Meanwhile, the dozen or so blood hunters in the corsairs focused their void energy and constructed a void stasis upon the ship’s warp drive. The drive was completely intact, but it was disabled for the time being. It would be a while until it could work again, and with any luck when the warp drives comes back online, the ship was already in pieces.

Nyon didn’t climb to where he was by raw strength. Sure, his psionic power and ruthlessness helped a lot, but he wasn’t terrible on the tactics either. He counted on the terran commander talking to him, which meant his ship would stay still, and he used that to his advantage. The cloaking field over the corsairs allowed the blood hunters to get close enough to act. Battlecruisers had detectors, but most of these detectors were expensive and couldn’t cover the entire ship and weren’t turned on all the time. Nyon decided to give it a try, and it worked.

As for why he wanted to destroy all the terran thieves instead of just ward him off, well, that had something to do with the Tal’darim society.

Nyon was in charge of protecting the Xel’naga Keystone artifacts. It was an honor, but if he lost the fragments, it would be a huge problem.

The battle of Monylth and the loss of the first fragment already put Nyon over some heat. Sure, Kerrigan’s fleet greatly outnumbered the defenders, but no one, neither Highlord Ma’lash nor a zealot of the lowest rank, cared about listening to excuses. All they knew was that Nyon lost a piece of artifact entrusted to him by god.

That was simply bad. In the Tal’darim society, weakness meant death, and not being able to protect the work of god was certainly a sign of weakness.

In the end, Nyon was able to place the blame on the two ascendants on Monlyth. After all, he wasn’t there in battle. But he knew very well if he lost another piece of the artifact, he would really be in trouble.

Now, a wiser commander like Jean would’ve pulled all the artifacts back behind the control of the Death Fleet and protect it with every ship she had, but Nyon knew, whatever tactical reason he had, he would be fleeing from a battle without even fighting. It would be even worse than being defeated in battle. If he gave that order, then half of his army and fleet would abandon him in search of a stronger leader. The Tal’darim wouldn’t give their lives for a coward.

The Sixth Ascendant knew he had no choice but to protect the artifact fragments by spreading out his forces. Nyon had around 80 capital ships under his command, but there were a lot of places he needed to protect.

Just the four pieces of artifacts were located on four distant planets. He also owned over thirty planets. Each of them provided resources, living space, and occasionally terrazine for his forces, but they also required some protection from jealous eyes both from inside and from outside. He also needed to leave some ships in his palace on Slayn to prevent the other ascendants from doing something behind his back.

In the end, each Keystone fragment received 12 capital ships, including 4 carriers and 8 destroyers.

The artifact on Xil was the furthest from Tal’darim High Command, so Nyon personally led his supplicant army to construct the defenses there.

If this single battlecruiser could make it out alive, then, first of all, it would be a slap to the face for Nyon. Second, this ship would tell whoever hired it what happened and quickly return with a much larger fleet.

Nyon wouldn’t scared of a fight, but it would be a pointless fight in which he could gain nothing from. He would be losing ships and warriors for nothing. Less ships meant less power. Less power might mean defeat and death.

“Ascendant Falgal.” Tossing the thoughts behind, Nyon made connection with the ascendant commanding the fleet. “Move in and kill everyone on that ship. The terran set their eyes on god’s creation, and they shall pay the price with their blood.”

“As you wish, my master.” Inside one of the carriers, ascendant Falgal held her right arm in front of her chest, saluting, before giving command.

Suddenly, one of the supplicant zealots walked up to Nyon.

“My master, terran forces are approaching the planet.” He sounded surprised. His mind might be clouded with the need to torture, maim, and kill, but he was intelligent enough to know only fools would attempt to land on a planet defended by a much stronger army. “They are heading for the compound the first group of terran thieves brought.”

“What?” Nyon frowned as well. “Doesn’t matter. Order the fleet to press the attack. Bring a squad of phoenixes here and cut off the escape route of the terran.”

The zealot waited there for a few seconds, as if not sure if Nyon was done. As Nyon gave him a confused gaze, the zealot finally made the decision to do something that he shouldn’t have done. “Shall we send some warriors to the compound? We can slaughter any terran that touches the ground.”

Nyon smirked, and the zealot felt like there was a giant rock on his chest. His head immediately bowed down. Nyon glanced at him for a while before finally enlightening the warrior.

“Idiot! If we massacre the first group terran, then the rest will simply turn and run. Terran dropships might be equipped with warp drives. If they flee and our phoenixes aren’t in place, then some terran might return to their homeworld. They will return with an entire fleet. We need to make them feel like they have a chance. When the phoenixes arrive, we can press the attack and execute every single one of them.”

“We don’t fear the presence of an enemy fleet. If they come, we will kill them all!”

Nyon sighed. “Just deliver the order.” He should’ve known it was a bad idea to teach a brute to think.

Meanwhile, dozens of dropships and nearly a dozen vikings moved toward the mercenary compound on Xil with full speed.

After the battle plan was made, Raynor, Horner, and half the Mar Saran elites were left on the Hyperion. The lone battlecruiser couldn’t take the Tal’darim fleet head on, and it didn’t need to. The ship’s job was to kite the Tal’darim ships as long as possible and keep them from slamming down on the Raider ground forces and obliterating them. The Mar Sran marines were there in case the Tal’darim somehow got a few boarding parties on the ship.

Jean and most of the Raider ground forces, including the mercenaries, the Warden units, the mechanical units, and half the Mar Saran units, would land on Xil and construct a defensive position. They would be severely outnumbered and outgunned, but they did have a defensive position.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it was necessary. If the Tal’darim had the manpower to board the ship, the Raiders would be massacred. The Hyperion would be taken down from the inside.

In one of the dropships, Jean, the reaper captain, and six other reaper guards waited for the ship to land.

“Sir,” One of the reapers suddenly spoke up hesitantly. He was looking at Jean.

“Yes?”

“Are we really going to do this?”

Jean opened her eyes and looked at the reaper. Her eyes were ice cold, as if waiting for an explanation.

“There are hundreds of us, but there are at least thousands of Tal’darim down there. Each protoss can take down at least ten of us. We will be slaughtered down there!” The soldier tried to be polite at first, but as he spoke he slowly lost control. “I didn’t sign up on a suicide mission!”

The man was a mercenary. He was fine with taking some risks, but charging into certain death wasn’t part of his plan. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. The vast majority of the landing party weren’t mentally prepared for the battle before them. Already dissent was rising among the ranks.

Jean wasn’t surprised. Not every Raider was a programmed killing machine.

Time for a pep talk.

“Adjutant, open up a communication channel with everyone on this mission.”

“Affirmative.” The adjutant, connected to Jean’s armor via a radio, replied.

Immediately, the radio of every single Raider combatant was turned on. Everyone could hear what Jean says.

“All Raider units on this channel, listen to me!” Jean announced loudly.

Bickering mercenaries gradually quieted down. Shaking militias found a way to distract themselves. Dropship and viking pilots diverted some attention away from piloting and onto listening. The only units unmoved were the Warden units.

“Some of you may have heard about what is happening. Some of you may be wondering why we are heading toward a planet full of aliens that want us dead. Well, I’m going to tell you everything.”

“We have been stuck in a dire situation. We are being attacked by twelve Tal’darim ships, each of them filled with protoss zealots ready to rip us apart and feast on our blood. Our only way out, the Hyperion, has temporarily lost its power to jump. It will take time for the warp drive to come back online.”

“But time is something we don’t have. If we sit behind and do nothing, when the warp drives come back online, we would have already been reduced to piles of flesh aimlessly floating in the vacuum of space. Either that, or we would be captured, tortured, and slaughtered by the Tal’darim.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to see that happen, so I’m going to do everything I can to stop it.”

“Our mission is to land on the planet below and establish a defensive position. The Tal’darim will come at us with all they’ve got, but if we can seal the entire place down with bunkers, siege tanks, and commander centers, the Tal’darim will be walking into a slaughterhouse. Even if they don’t attack into our fortress, our presence itself is enough to pin most of the protoss ground forces here.”

“If the Tal’darim are here, then they aren’t boarding the ship, and without a large amount of boarding party, the Tal’darim can’t get past the defenses on the ship. As long as the Hyperion stands, we still have a way out.”

“We still have hope.”

“Will we get out of this alive?” The reaper guard that first questioned Jean asked.

Jean turned and looked the man in the eye. “I don’t know.” She whispered. “But I can promise you one thing.”

“Whether you live or die, you will not do it alone.”

“Trust each other! Rely on each other! Every one of us will be fighting side by side! Together, we will survive!”

The radio went silent for a while. Suddenly, the pilot of the dropship Jean was in turned around.

“ETA one minute, sir.”

Jean nodded.