”Mothership, recall all supplicant units!”

Nyon ordered without hesitation. If he wasn’t getting the artifact anyway, he didn’t really mind who takes it. He would rather spend his attention on thinking how to save himself from the wrath of his own people. Ma’lash wouldn’t be too happy about him losing two pieces of artifacts in a roll.

Nyon didn’t know what he would do, but he did know he needed to save his supplicant army to have even a chance of surviving. With the supplicant army intact, he could still defeat most ascendants if he was to be challenged. Without the army, he would have no chance against a lower ascendant backed up by his own supplicant army. He was powerful, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight an army just by himself.

As soon as the order was given, hundreds of light beams dropped down from the sky and consumed every single Tal’darim in the field. Even the wounded supplicants were brought back. They could still be used as pilots of vanguards or be turned to slayers.

Before Kerrigan knew it, the Tal’darim were gone and the Hyperion was rapidly dropping in altitude. It seemed like a large dot half a minute ago. Now it was covering half the zerg army.

“Raynor! You idiot.” Kerrigan couldn’t help but curse. “Take it down!”

Hydralisks faced upwards and, simultaneously, sent hundreds of spines into the air. A squad of forty mutalisks arrived as well and was immediately thrown toward the battlecruiser.

Just before the glaive worms and grooved spines could reach their target, a green layer of shield appeared and deflected all the projectiles. When the attack wave crashed into the matrix, the zerg attacks faded away while the defensive matrix stood tall.

The battlecruiser fought back. The full power of hundreds of laser batteries was unloaded on the zerg. Hydralisks were the priority targets as the batteries melted their armor and set their bodies aflame. The smell of barbeque covered the field, but no one with a sane mind would grow an appetite.

Mutalisks charged toward the defensive matrix and swung out another wave of glaive worms, but this time their attack took a toll.

A compartment on the battlecruiser facing the mutalisks was turned on. Forty missiles poked out of the pods and darted toward the mutalisks.

The zerg flyers tried to dodge the missiles, but it was too late. They were already locked onto. All forty missiles found their targets. A wave of explosions later, the only thing left in the air belonged to terran.

“Grrrr.” Kerrigan growled. Normally she could easily obliterate that single ship, but her fleet was stuck with the Tal’darim. Nyon retreated back onto his capital ship and joined what was left of the Tal’darim fleet in orbit. They have already warped away a few seconds ago, but their presence was still enough to hold her leviathans in orbit. Even though they are gone now, she still needed time to bring the leviathans to the surface of the planet.

Small hordes of mutalisks and corruptors kept on arriving, but they were continuously blasted out of the sky by the Hyperion. Without the numbers, they were no match for the peak of terran technology.

The few ground units with anti-air capabilities needed an absolute advantage in numbers to even threaten the Hyperion, but just like the mutalisks, they didn’t have those numbers either. Small waves of spines didn’t even cause a dent on the shield.

Kerrigan formed a wave of purple energy in her claws and launched it at the battlecruiser. The blast hit the defensive matrix and was deflected as well, but inside the Hyperion Horner was looking at a computer screen and biting his lips.

“Shield integrity at 41%.” He knew Kerrigan couldn’t be allowed to unload freely. “All laser batteries focus fire on Kerrigan.” The ship’s Yamato Cannon was exhausted after firing nearly a dozen shots against the Tal’darim in such a small period of time.

The laser batteries weren’t as effective as the Yamato Cannon, but one of their most powerful features was their numbers. One kilometer long, the Hyperion had hundreds of anti-ground laser batteries. They focused on the single yellow figure on the ground and started unloading.

Kerrigan jumped back one second before the projectiles landed on where she was and obliterated every zerg around that area. She could take a few dozen lasers, but hundreds of lasers every second could truly hurt her. Even she couldn’t take on the Hyperion by herself.

The string of batteries chased after her and formed a trail of death behind her. Kerrigan jumped back and fired another blast at the Hyperion.

“Shield integrity at 31%.” Horner was in awe. The entire zerg army around the temple took off around 49% of the energy of the defensive matrix, but just two hits from Kerrigan removed 20%.

Kerrigan felt the shields being weakened, but immediately she paid the price of her attack and took the brunt of half a dozen laser batteries. Her chest plating was burned red. Even she couldn’t throw off a random blast and almost cripple the Hyperion. The two shots she just fired required time to be loaded, and she needed to stay still to do that. With the laser batteries coming after her nonstop, staying still meant being hit.

Acting quickly, Kerrigan jumped back and mended her wounds with her psionic energy. She looked around. Almost all the hydralisks were gone. Most of the zerg left were roaches, zerglings, and banelings, and the only thing they could do was cheer her on. Flyers came in all the time, but they didn’t have the numbers to matter. She couldn’t stop the Hyperion by herself without risking being heavily injured.

Frowning, the queen realized she was caught in a dilemma. If she backed off, the terran strike team would likely take the Keystone fragment away. If she kept on fighting, she would be risking herself.

It was a difficult decision, but Kerrigan quickly devised the best course of action. Even if the zerg units she sent into the shrine couldn’t slaughter the zerg, they could at the very least delay them. It wouldn’t take long for her to rally an army strong enough to take down the Hyperion, and once that happens, she would destroy the terran vessel. Without a way out, so what if the terran strike team gets the artifact? They will be stuck on a planet filled with zerg with no way out.

Infestation will be their only fate.

“Pull back, my children.” She turned around and jumped away.

The elite zerg units retreated as well. The Hyperion kept on firing on the fleeing zerg and dropped another several hundred zerg.

“Jean, we have arrived. Where are you?”

Inside one of the paths of the temple, Jean fired her specialized gauss pistol twice and dropped a zergling. The bullets went directly into the zergling’s yellow eyes and came out the other end.

The Warden strike team was going for the gate when they were intercepted by the assault party Kerrigan sent. Just like with the battle between the Tal’darim supplicants and Kerrigan’s elite Swarm units, neither the Warden AIs nor the zerg felt the need to chat. Both sides fired the moment they noticed each other.

Marauders put themselves in front of their comrades. The Warden Command Units calculated that the well-protected marauders could take more damage compared to marines and reapers.

Marines and reapers stood behind and spread out in a formation so that banelings and other zerg melee units couldn’t take out multiple Warden units in a single hit. Their armors were lighter, and they couldn’t take as much punishment.

The two hundred or so zerg units were consisted of over a hundred zerglings, fifty banelings, and fifty hydralisks. They were facing several dozen Warden marines and a dozen or so reapers and marauders.

The battle didn’t go well for the terran. Warden units had brilliant software. Their shots were precise and their moves were as efficient as possible. Unfortunately, the zerg, literally bred for war, weren’t weak on that compartment either.

On the other hand, the zerg completely outdid the terran on the hardware. The zerg units present had the most upgrades, the best evolutions, and the most experience in combat. The most basic zerglings, for example, had metabolic boost, adrenal glands, shredding claws, and hardened carapace. They were the best of the best.

Warden units, as good as they were, were created from ordinary units. Warden marines were simply normal marine gadgets modified to fit an AI inside. This was the same with Warden marauders and Warden reapers. The modification allowed Warden units to fight even when their armors were fractured, but it didn’t enhance the armors themselves. A single zergling could still rip through an CMC armor in a close quarter combat.

Jean knew that was a problem, but she had limited resources. She had the technology to make marines strong enough to take on a supplicant zealot in a one on one fair fight, but the number of resources that required was outrageous. She needed an army, not a small squad of special forces troopers.

Now this has become a problem.

Warden units opened fire. They were positioned so that every one of them could unload freely and every bullet could hit the enemies. Marauders hit the zerg units in the front with concussive shells and slowed down the entire horde. When the zerg finally got closer, a difficult thing to accomplish while being affected by concussive shells, KD-8 charges from reapers knocked them back and rendered their previous struggle useless.

Unfortunately, the hardware started to factor in. Even though they were charging into a hail of bullets, the zerglings in the front still stayed alive for a few seconds. This was impossible if the zerg were from a normal zerg brood or if the terran were from Dominion’s elite.

Hydralisks were taller than zerglings. This allowed them to fire over the zerglings and hit the terran marines. Groove spines slammed into the marauders and marines and ripped them apart.

Warden AIs don’t scream. They literally couldn’t. Yet Jean could see the devastating effect of just one round of hydralisk spines on her forces through a line of data projected in the helmet of her armor.

A few more shots like these and the Warden squad she fought so hard to build would be gone.

She knew she needed to act.

Warden units retaliated, but against hydralisks with muscular augments and ancillary carapace, the amount of damage they did was insignificant.

A couple of banelings were mixed among the zerglings. Warden units targeted them before zerglings and banelings, but there were simply too many zerg.

Two banelings smashed into a Warden marauder and exploded. The marauder immediately lost one third of its armor. Its AI was still functional, to a degree, but another half a dozen groove spines changed that.

Jean tapped on her watch, and the next second 4 ARES, 89 sentry bots, and 24 eradicators appeared in front of her.

Jean was always a fan of keeping a few tricks up her sleeves. She knew she wasn’t special. The several victories under her name, Agria, Monlyth, Meinhoff, and Haven, didn’t mean anything. If she was shot, she would still die. If she was beheaded, she would still die.

She was able to logically assess her own weakness, and she developed countermeasures. The Combat Assistant was one of them, but it wasn’t enough.

In Deadman’s Port, after Jean helped Viper take down Orlan’s mercenaries, she took the liberty of commandeering the warbots. Viper welcomed that decision with open arms. She and Jean were close, extremely close, but neither of them was the type that would completely trust someone else just because they slept together. Viper has seen what Jean could do to the warbots, and she didn’t feel safe with these AIs around. She knew Jean would likely never do something to her, but she still felt uncomfortable. Jean removing these warbots was good for the interest of both women.

Jean put these warbots into her watch as a last resort. She wouldn’t use it unless she absolutely needed to.

The warbots immediately changed the equation. Four ARES blocked the path and fired with every weapon they had. Napalm burners incinerated zerglings and banelings alike. Hydralisk spines did very little against the hardened armor of these ARES warbots. The 120mm cannon and T82 missile pods, on the other hand, were faced with little opposition. Tougher carapace didn’t make the zerglings and hydralisks invincible to missiles and cannons.

Sentry bots and eradicators added to the terran firepower.

The Swarm was finally beaten back. They had the advantage in numbers, but they were stuck in a tunnel where most melee units had to sit back and wait. The hydralisks were ranged, but they were no match for the combined power of terran warbots and Warden units.

Dead zerg bodies covered the floor. The zerg kept on pushing forward, and they were continuously beaten back. Eventually, every single zerg unit in the tunnel was down.

As the Warden units execute the wounded zerg units, Jean turned to her earpiece. Horner was calling her.

“Jean, we have arrived. Where are you?”

“Just a few minutes away. All Warden units, advance.” The girl returned the warbots into her watch and ordered her Warden units to keep moving toward the exit. She had no intention of explaining to Horner and Raynor how she managed to make an army of warbots appear out of nowhere.

The strike team ran for the exit.