At this point, a single orbital strike from one of the battlecruisers could cost the Dominion countless credits worth of equipment and personnel.

But Nova would never make such an easy mistake.

“Sir, warp signals appearing! They are identified as Dominion Fleet Alpha Squadron!”

“All ships belay the bombardment and prepare to engage the enemy fleet.” Jean ordered calmly. While just a single orbital strike could obliterate the Special Forces down there, it would come with a great cost. It would take time to go from ordering the hit to the battery actually firing.

It wasn’t much, but the Dominion Fleet would’ve been out of warp space by then. If just a single rebel battlecruiser was focused on bombing the ground, it would be defenseless against the Dominion.

The rebel needed all the ships they had to buy as much time for Tosh and the rebel strike team in the prison as possible. Dominion Special Forces were powerful, but they were a long way from where Tosh and the spectre prisoners were.

“Copy that. All ships enter battle formation.” When Tosh left, he told his captains to obey one of his spectre’s order. The man didn’t trust Jean enough to hand her the command of his ships. Thankfully, the spectre worked well with Jean.

The 38 battlecruisers retreated from bombardment formation and formed a slightly tighter position. They were positioned close enough so they wouldn’t be picked off one by one but still distant enough so Yamato Cannons and other weapons could be fired.

A few seconds later, seventeen battlecruisers appeared a safe distance away. Their red plating shined.

“Jean, two Gorgons and fifteen Minotaurs.” Viper glanced at the scanner and finished reading it in less than a second. “We can’t fight that many ships.”

Just looking at the numbers, the rebel fleet outnumbered Alpha Squadron two to one, but numbers weren’t the only thing that matters in war. Otherwise two fleets don’t even need to fight. All they have to do is sit down and compare the numbers and the side with fewer ships can just surrender.

Dominion battlecruisers were the product of the best of the Dominion. Perhaps Mengsk would turn a blind eye at the corruption of civil funds, but he wasn’t foolish enough to allow greedy officials to take money that should be spent on fleets for themselves. It would be suicide. In reality, inside the Dominion, the punishment for corruption of military funds was death. The only thing debatable was whether or not the accused would get a trail.

Every single Dominion battlecruiser had full armor, all the laser batteries that should be on a battlecruiser, and all the gadgets such as Yamato Cannon, defensive matrix, missile pods, tac fighters, and multiple warp drives. Every ship had not only a substantial number of security forces but also a series of turrets of all sorts. Anyone that tried boarding them would find themselves in a death trap.

More importantly, most of the rebel fleet was made up of Behemoth battlecruisers. These ships were from the days of the Confederacy. In contrast to the Dominion Minotaurs, these Behemoth were infamous for their weakness in battle. During the Brood War, fleets after fleets of Behemoth were wiped out by zerg mutalisks and scourges, which were equivalent to terran vikings and wraiths.

After the mercenaries acquired these ships, they did all they could to modify them. Engines were made to function at twice the speed they were designed to. Countless more guns were added to the vessel’s side. Spikes were added onto the armors. The last bit was for pure intimidation.

But even so, the rebel ships could barely match the Dominion ones, and that was not counting in the two Gorgons. If the two Gorgons joined the fight, their armor would be impenetrable to the rebel batteries. Perhaps a barrage of Yamato Cannons focused at the same position could heavily damage one of the Gorgons, but the newest neosteel armor of these ships made Jean doubt the Gorgons would fall in one round of cannons.

This was a tough one.

Viper looked at Jean, fully expecting her to pull up some plan of victory, but this time she was disappointed.

“There’s no easy way out of this. We need to hold them off the hard way.”

Jean was out of options. There was no way she could do deal with Alpha Squadron the same way she dealt with New Folsom Defensive Fleet. The latter was a local defensive fleet while the former was under the command of Mengsk himself. There was no way she could impose as someone sent by Mengsk and infiltrate the fleet.

She still had the vessels of the New Folsom Defensive Fleet, one Gorgon and 14 Minotaur, but she need to make a lot of changes to them before they could be used in combat. As for now the only thing they could do was act as metal shields.

She considered boarding the ships, but the drop pods would simply hit the Gorgons’ armor and explode. Maybe she could still board the Minotaurs and, assuming she was lucky, the Gorgons, and assuming the drop pods could survive the web of Dominion fighters and anti air guns, the boarding parties would simply be slaughtered inside the ships.

A fleet as large as this certainly has detections, so spectres and wraiths were rendered useless. She had a few nuclear missiles, but they would no doubt be intercepted in mid-air.

It would be a tough fight, but neither Jean nor Viper had a choice. Jean didn’t want to abandon Tosh, at least not when she could save him, and Viper did whatever Jean said.

And fight they did.

The Alpha Squadron acted without even bothering to communicate with the rebels. Minotaurs battlecruisers formed a line while the Gorgon flagship was in the center. Vikings, wraiths, and tac fighters came out of the battlecruisers’ hangers and covered the gaps between the capital ships.

“Launch all fighters. All cruisers advance. Send a transmission to Tosh and tell him to hurry up.”

The fighters on both sides were the first to engage. Mercenary styled wraiths and vikings chased after and were chased by their Dominion counterparts. Dominion fighters were more advanced, but mercenary ones were modified. Dominion pilots were well trained, and mercenary pilots were experienced and ruthless. Both sides had similar numbers, and somehow the battle was even...until the slower battlecruisers came in.

ATA laser batteries covered the field. Under the highly advanced computer AIs, not a single battery hit a Dominion fighter. Every single one of them either missed or hit a mercenary ship. The power of these batteries meant a few shots could kill a fighter.

Mercenary cruisers moved forward in an attempt to retaliate, but an officer in Jean’s flagship suddenly cried out.

“Dominion Yamato Cannons charging up!” She was so frightened she forgot about addressing Jean.

“Enable defensive matrixes now!”

Jean’s order was given quickly, but the mercenaries weren’t the most obedient soldiers in the sector. In a normal situation they could still listen to and follow their leader’s orders, but in the midst of combat most of the crew members were attracted to the battlefield. A few men manning the communication device were staring out the window at the cluster of fighters in front. After all, rules and disciplines weren’t exactly familiar to these killers for hire.

Only a few battlecruisers activated their defensive matrixes on time when the Yamato Cannons arrived. Some of the battlecruisers didn’t hear the order. Others heard it, but they didn’t even have that piece of equipment in the first place.

Following three explosions, three Behemoth battlecruisers and one Minotaur fell apart.

During the battle against the Tal’darim, the rebel fleet had overwhelming firepower, and they massacred the Tal’darim destroyers and carriers, but now the table was turned. The Dominion fleet had the upper hand, and the rebels were the ones being beaten down and stomped on.

“All ships push forward. Ready Yamato Cannons.”

“Sir!” A surprised voice cut off Jean’s command. A normal captain would be pissed off, but Jean wasn’t normal. She merely turned to the crew member with a patient look.

“What is it?”

“One of the Dominion Gorgons is gone.”

It took Jean a while to realize what was happening. The Gorgon warped away. Why? It obviously didn’t flee. It was obvious it warped away for tactical purposes...which meant…

“Sir, warp signal inside our lines. It’s the Gorgon!”

“Damn it.” Viper silently cursed. “Jean?”

“All ships fire on that Gorgon ASAP.”

Jean ordered, but she knew it was likely useless.

A short ranged jump into the enemy fleet was a quick way to engage the enemies in a close quarter combat, whether it was by short ranged batteries or by launching drop pods. But there was a reason this wasn’t a standard tactic. If a battlecruiser wanted to jump inside a fleet of enemy battlecruisers and launch drop pods, the first thing it needed to do was make sure it survived long enough. Normally, the firepower of an entire fleet could obliterate a single ship in just seconds.

But if that one battlecruiser was a Gorgon and the fleet was made up of outdated Behemoths and Minotaurs…that would be a completely different story.

The moment the Gorgon appeared, thousands of orange blasts landed on it, but all of them simply bounced off the enhanced armor of the vessel. The damage they did, if any, was ignored.

The Gorgon retaliated. It was in the middle of the mercenary fleet, which meant all of its guns, not matter the direction they were facing, could open fire and hit a target.

“Sir, we are taking heavy damage! We need to fall back now!”

“Where’s reinforcement? Our guns aren’t working!”

“I didn’t join so I can die for you, Isaacs! Do something or I will get the hell out of here!”

Mercenaries were ruthless and would risk their lives for money, but this was too much. In the past, no matter how deadly the situation was, there was always a way out. But this time it was different. The captains have did everything they could, some of them even sent out suicide bombers, but all of these attempts were futile.

Almost all of the captains were getting ready to bolt. Dominion personnel could fight until their last dying breath, but mercenaries were completely different. They could fight recklessly when they were at an advantage or even when the situation was eve, but when defeat was imminent, they had no incentive to fight until the end.

All they were waiting for was an order from their leader to make this retreat legitimate.

“Hold your line!” A normal commander would have reconsidered his position, but Isaacs, still under the effect of the mind control, merely glanced at Viper. When she didn’t say anything, he held his ground. This might shake his authority and weaken his rule over the mercenaries, but he didn’t care. He would gladly give up everything, including both his power and his life, for Viper.

The captains were slightly taken back. All of them complied, but what was really going on in their heads was unknown.

The Gorgon was wrecking up quite the damage, but what was more important was what it did to the overall situation.

The sudden jump from the capital ship occupied almost all of the attention of the mercenary battlecruisers. As the mercenary ships were forced to shoot at the Gorgon, the Dominion ones pushed forward and started slaughtering mercenary fighters.

Without support and hopelessly outgunned, mercenary fighters were practically defenseless. When they tried to pull back, the Dominion fighters chased after them relentlessly.

Hundreds of fighters came out of the mercenary ships’ hangers. Two dozen returned.

“Tosh, where are you? We need to pull back now.”

Seeing the casualty report, Jean turned on the transmission with Tosh and demanded. They needed to retreat now. Even if Tosh agreed to leave now, she might need to sacrifice a few ships to make sure the rest could get to safety. If Tosh insisted on waiting longer, Jean would be forced to leave him. Spectres were good, but dying wasn’t.

“That’s fine. I’ve got what I came for. Bring in the transports now.” Above a field of dead Dominion marines and beside a destroyed Dominion siege tank, Tosh replied. Mercenaries that survived the attack were opening the spectre cells. Men and women in orange prison jumpsuits came out. They weren’t in the best state, but their white eyes showed their identity as psionic warriors.

A distance away, gunshots came closer and closer. Dominion Special Forces were slaughtering their way past whatever mercenary unlucky enough to be in their way.

But they were late to the party.