Despite all the mess, there was one thing was for sure. While having its flaws, the Dominion military included some of the bravest individuals in the sector. Even as half of their fleet was destroyed by a single strike from the enemy, the battlecruisers that survived held their ground. Captains screamed words of encouragement to their men through the ship-wide radios. Pilots that acted as reserves or didn’t have the time to be sent out were shot out into space. Crew members ran around, assessing the damage and doing their best to get everything into battle status. Security forces checked their weapons one last time.

But it was no use.

Most of Jean’s mirages and scouts were deployed. They swarmed on the lonely cruisers. A few Dominion fighters fought back, but they were immediately gunned down. Pilots screamed in the radio channel, only to be silenced instantly.

As the mirages took care of the Dominion fighters, the scouts had another target. In contrary to what their names suggested, scouts were in fact heavily armed fighters designed to take down armored vessels, such as battlecruisers. Their Purifier agility and reflexes allowed them to circle around the battlecruisers and pick off their intended targets one by one, whether they were laser batteries, Yamato Cannons, hangars, or the bridge. Strangely, they left the fusion cores and the warp drives untouched.

The captains immediately found out why.

Power fields were directly projected onto the inside of the battlecruisers by the Cybros. Most cases warp prisms were needed to produce these power fields, but capital ships such as motherships, arkships, and the Cybros were equipped to jump over that part.

Legions of legionnaires solidified in what was left of the terran fleets. Standing several meters tall, they charged at the terran security forces that gathered around them.

Jean wanted these terran ships for herself. Even if they were too damaged to be modified to Warden battlecruisers, they could still be scrapped down for minerals. Blasting them out of the sky made the cleaning up much more difficult.

“Take them down!” Inside the hangar of one of the ships where dozens of legionnaires were formed, a marine captain screamed an order. All around him, dozens of Dominion security forces were fighting back armies of legionnaires. Some of the legionnaires were still warping in while others were already done.

The captain focused his fire on one of the legionnaires already here, but his expression turned more and more desperate as all of his bullets simply bounced off the legionnaires’ armor. The giant mechanical protoss ran toward him. Its yellow blades shined. It was just about to enter charge mode when a concussive shell hit it in the side and paused him, for the moment.

The marine turned around and found a dozen more marines and marauders reinforcing. He smiled slightly and returned to the legionnaire, only to realize the legionnaire has already recovered from the shell. The concussive shell could give a normal zealot headache and force him out of charge mode, but the legionnaire simply paused for half a second before resuming. Its metal body laughed upon the notion of concussions.

The marine took a step back, but it was too late. The last thing he saw was the swipe of a half a meter long yellow blade, and everything went dark.

After beheading that marine, the legionnaire jumped at the reinforcements. All the marines and marauders focused fire on that legionnaire alone. The firing was so intense that the legionnaire couldn’t move forward for a single inch. Its Purifier class plasma shield generator was fried. Its head was blown off, then its limbs. But the legionnaire kept on struggling to move forward. It looked like it didn’t know pain, because it didn’t. It was only when a bullet found its way to the mechanical zealot’s core crystal that the legionnaire finally fell.

The Dominion reinforcements took a breath of relief, only to realize they were the only terran left in the hangar. The endless waves of legionnaire have massacred all the other Dominion soldiers in the hanger, and they were now setting their eyes on them.

“Fall back...Fall back! It’s coming at me! Ahhh!”

“For the...grrr!”

The legionnaire punched countless holes through the Dominion defenses. Marines? One cut and one body would become two. Marauders? A stab through the chest could do the job. Reapers? Charge into them and they will be defenseless. Goliaths? Survive a few rounds of firing and take down the legs, and the entire piece of mech would crumble over and become more defenseless than a lonely probe.

Of course, the Dominion got something as a consolation for their effort. At several ships, Dominion security forces were able to establish a line of defense. All sorts of automated turrets, along with several goliaths, landing vikings, and a group of biological forces, were enough to pause the unstoppable Purifier army for a brief moment.

“Send in the immortals.” Delta, who has been not only overseeing but also living the battle, ordered.

One hundred striders solidified throughout the ships and entered the battle without a single word. Designed particularly to massacre armored targets, these immortals truly lived up to their name. When terran shells rained on them, their barriers protected them from harm. When the immortals opened fire, the terran bunkers and turrets were obliterated.

Through the Purifier data web, Delta saw a rather interesting interaction. A squad of marines threw everything they had at an immortal, but all it did was create several tiny ripples on the immortal’s shield. In return, the immortal went down the squad, blasting them into barbequed meat one by one.

“All ships, fall back behind the guns of the staton! That’s an order!” Henry screamed, but only two of the captains answered. Among those who didn’t answer, some of them were completely quiet while the others, judging from the desperate gunshots and terrified screams, were going to go quiet soon.

But even those two battlecruisers failed to carry out their orders. One of the ships tried to activate the warp drive, and it was immediately detected by the observer web. Delta recalled all the units on the ship and ordered the scouts to deliver a killing blow. Dozens of antimatter missiles were sent into the fusion core of the battlecruiser. The resulting explosion tore the ship open and killed everyone aboard.

The other ship fell as well before the order could be completed. A squad of immortals blasted its fusion core to pieces before it could do a short range jump and were recalled before the explosion went off.

Henry’s hands slowly hit the armrest of his seat.

It was over. Three fleets. Forty five battlecruisers. Tens of thousands of Dominion men and women were lost in just minutes. Men were still screaming for help inside the radio, but those voices were on a timer, and they were decreasing exponentially.

He has never felt so hopeless before. The loss of men was bad, but the defeat itself was worse. Even if he could somehow survive this, Mengsk wouldn’t let someone who lost forty five ships to one to take any key position. In the best case scenario, he would live off the rest of his life as a retired general. In the worst case, he would be suicided.

“Sir, we haven’t been beaten yet!” One of the officers saw the look on his commander’s face and knew this was bad. If the commander lost his spirit, what could the men do? “We have sent out a request for reinforcement to the Dominion a while ago. This place is a fortress. If we can hold on until reinforcement arrive...if the worst comes and we can’t hold the station, at least we can evacuate the important personnel and research information. There is still a way to make up for all this.” He left one line out. If Mengsk knew Henry’s lack of morale cost him all his research, the admiral’s two options would become one.

Henry was woken up by those words, and he nodded gratefully at the officer before turning to his men.

“Take all research personnel to the last line of defense. Mobilize all forces according to the emergency protocol. I want every gun manned and every bunker filled. Bring all the orbital defenses online. If those aliens want to get a piece of us, they will need to go through hell to get it.”

It turned out the good admiral overestimated his power and underestimated that of his enemy.

A couple minutes after the last battlecruiser went silent, the Cybros engaged the battle station. Orbital defenses opened fire. The orange battery blasts formed chains of ripples across the yellow barrier, with few results. Missile turrets emptied their load and tried to contribute to the situation as much as possible.

“Shields to maximum power. Project power fields immediately.”

Hundreds of power fields were projected onto the station. Thousands of light beams came down from the sky. Purifier ground forces charged at the Dominion security forces that approached them.

Screams and cries for help covered the Dominion radio channel.

“Sir, area J7 has been lost! A battalion of marines have been wiped out! The protoss are flanking our forces!”

The Dominion command center did its best to, well, command. A hologram projector projected the battlefield in a 3D fashion so the commander could see the situation as vividly as possible. Officers made contact with individual squads of units and reported what they heard to Admiral Henry, who then issued orders that the officers then passed down. Unlike the Purifiers, with their tactical data web, the terran units needed to use the inefficient way of words to communicate. This made them naturally inferior in terms of chain of command.

Admiral Henry tapped several points. “Order all units at J6 and J8 to fall back to K6 and K8. Deploy the seventh reserve battalion to position K7. Hold the ground.”

“Yes sir!”

Across the field, hundreds of man and women in red armor fell back. Yellow legionnaires charged after them, occasionally catching up to a few unfortunate victims with every charge and slicing them to pieces. Sometimes the victims wouldn’t be killed immediately, and they would scream as their bodies were ripped apart but their minds were still conscious.

When the forces reached the second line, half the battalions was already gone.

Dozens of legionnaires tried to make a run for the second line, but they were faced with heavy resistance. Four siege tanks dropped shell after shell into the center mass of the group. Marines and marauders in reserves pulled their trigger like hell. Two automated flamethrower turrets popped up from the ground and set the legionnaires a flame.

A ghost fired a round of EMP into the middle of the legionnaires, slowing them down and weakening their shields.

Legionnaires were essentially AIs. They weren’t the smartest soldiers. They were literally incapable of feeling fear. At first they tried to charge into the wall of terran, but after losing half a dozen legionnaires, Delta noticed the situation here. One of the benefits of being an AI was that she had the CPU to control multiple battlefields at once.

Under Delta’s orders, the legionnaires backed off.

“Screw you! Alien scum!” One of the marines shouted. His eyes were red. He lost most of his squad at the hands of these protoss aliens. He saw his own brother being severed into two right in front of his eyes. He heard his screams, but there was nothing he could do.

The marine squad captain didn’t stop that man. He was out of breath himself.

But Delta was literally a machine of war. She had the knowledge and tactics of Jean and the CPU to perform the calculation and control needed to maximize the power of the Purifiers in combat.

Within just half a minute, three mechanical orbs joined the legionnaires. Their form shined in explosive energy.

Two minutes later, positions K6, K7, and K8 almost simultaneously fell to the Purifiers. All the Dominion personnel on site were killed in action.

Not a single man fled. Their sacrifice took down six more legionnaires and wounded one of the disruptors.

The Purifiers pushed on, crushing everything and everyone in their way.