Inside a dropship, Jean put a mask on her. As soon as it made contact with her face, it started to merge with her skin, changing her facial features. Within just seconds, she looked completely different. She was still a blonde girl, but even Viper couldn’t recognize her.

Jean knew a lot of people has seen her face, whether it was Nova, Mengsk, Raynor, or Tosh. All of them thought she was dead and she wanted them to keep it that way. What she was about to do might make her face all over the papers, and she didn’t want the name ‘Jean Turner’ to be spoken again anytime soon.

The mask was a piece of high tech gadget she created from zerg changelings. It took her a lot of time and resource, but it was well worth its cost.

After all, she was going to meet the leaders of one of the strongest terran factions in the sector.

The dropship came to a stop at an open airfield inside the Umojan senate-house on Umoja, and Jean, alone, walked out. She was met by an officer and two marines in white armor and blue helmets.

“Miss Cassidia. The ruling council is waiting for you.” Cassidia was Jean’s alias.

“Then let’s go.”

Even behind the walls of the senate-house, Jean could still hear the angry voice of the mob that has gathered on the outside, protesting the lack of action by the Umojan Fleet. The Umojan Protectorate was largely made up of people who fled the oppressive rule of the Terran Dominion, and most of them had a grain of salt against government manipulation of media and suppression of protests. If the Umojan officials used force to disperse the mob, they would crumble over from within. They had no choice but to set up a perimeter and simply allow the people to say what they wanted to say.

To Jean, this was good news. The tougher the situation is for the Umojans, the more likely she could get their support for her project.

Within five minutes, Jean and the officer walked into a large room where dozens of men and women were seated. A man by the name of Jorgensen was at the top. He was the minister of the Protectorate and the man Jean hoped to convince.

“Miss Cassidia.” The minister said openly. Bureaucracy existed within the Protectorate, as it did in any political system, but none of these politicians were in the mood for the art of words. They needed a solution and they needed it now. Reports of infestation on almost every planet across the Protectorate came in every hour. Some were put down. Some weren’t. The Umojan Fleet ran around like headless chickens. They could kill millions of infested above ground with ease, but whenever they reach a planet, the local infested would disengage the Umojan settlement and burrow. Clearing them would take time, and the infested at other planets would unburrow and start attacking. The Umojans tried to split up their ships, but one or two battlecruisers couldn’t stop millions of infested. The zerg could simply take the laser batteries to the face and still kill every single terran on the ground and then burrow.

It was a pointless war. The number of infested grew exponentially despite all the fighting, and the Umojans took heavy damage. Apart from the casualties, mining and manufacturing activities were disrupted. Fear and anger crippled the social system. Ammunition storage was dropping. They were on the jaws of defeat.

The Umojans were known for their advanced technology, but they didn’t have the resource to use it to its full potential. A handful of shadowguards, Umojan ghosts with high tech weapons and other gadgets, could do very little against all the infested. They could call down nukes, but that wouldn’t change anything. They considered taking out the source of infestation, but Stukov was on a Warden battlecruiser in a pair of secret coordinates. Jean knew he was one of the vulnerabilities of this plan, as if he died then all the infested would go feral, and she made precautions. Umojan ravens had a similar fate as they couldn’t really do anything. Advanced scanners provided passive detection, but the Umojans simply didn’t have an efficient mean to kill all the millions of underground infested.

The Umojans have had quite the progress in developing warbots, including eradicators, but these warbots were expensive and rare, and even dozens of them would simply be swarmed over by the infested.

This was no time fo political crap.

“You told us you have a solution to the zerg infestation. What is it?”

Jean smiled politely, making her seem more honest. She tapped something and sent a file to the hologram projector inside the room. Jorgensen nodded at an officer, who turned on the projector.

”I propose a joint defense system. Your biggest problem is having no way to defend the infested from attacking your settlements. Well, this should solve your problem.”

“N-11 neural toxin. Capable of killing any living being not inside a fully concealed armor. This includes the infested. Pump them into the atmosphere, and all the infested will die while your people, inside the cover of their armors and homes, will be safe and sound. The toxin will disperse just minutes after the initial deployment, leaving no permanent damage to the environment.”

The Skygeirr battle station was heavily defended in more than one way. The Dominion forces and ships were just the first layer of defense. The surface of the platform held several poison gas reserves that could send neural toxin into the surrounding with the press of a button. This was designed specifically to slaughter large number of smaller, weaker zerg units. Unfortunately for the defenders, they were attacked by a group of enemies completely impervious to these gas. An army of machines. The Dominion deployed all their toxin into the environment, only to poison some of their own men who forgot to shut their helmet.

After taking over the station, Jean got these devices as well, and now she was selling them to the Umojans. Capitalism at its finest.

The senators looked at each other. Poison gas would be a quick way to take care of the infested. They knew that, but their technology departments failed to develop a type of poison gas strong enough to kill the zerg units. After all, the zerg were the masters of biology and bio-virus. They have heard reports of the Dominion science departments coming up with a way, but it was put under top security clearance and even the best shadowguards couldn’t get to it. How this random mercenary, Jean contacted the Umojans as a mercenary, came to hold this precious technology as possession was a mystery.

Not that they cared. They weren’t police or scientists. They were leaders. As long as this technology could solve their problem, they would use it no matter where it came from.

“Unfortunately, according to my research, these toxic gas can only kill infested civilians and infested marines. Other infested units, like infested vehicles and ships, as well as aberrations, can still persevere. This means we need a more direct mean of attack to complement the toxic gas.”

“We can deploy our own ground units. As long as the toxin takes care of most of the infested…”

“With all due respect, Minister Jorgensen, Umojan units have been proven to be ineffective against the infestation.” Jean quickly cut him off. “In fact, human soldiers have emotions like fear and hatred, and these emotions keep them from effectively terminating infested units.”

“Human soldiers?” One of the senators noticed what Jean said. “Are you suggesting we use AI forces instead? But our eradicators…”

“I am not talking about eradicators. In fact, eradicators are not designed for frontal combat. Their peacekeeper guns are single targeted and their AIs aren’t suitable for large scaled depulication and deployment. I am talking about another type of much more efficient warbots.”

She tapped something on her device.

“Warden warbots.”

...

“These Warden units, they appear to be...quite capable.” One of the Umojan senators finally said after standing there in awe for nearly a minute after Jean showed her and the rest of the ruling council information on these so called Warden units.

The Umojan Protectorate was technically a militia organization. They had a standardized fleet and a professional army, but their combat strategies were limited to attacking and retreating. Warden units, on the other hand, were literally killing machines. Everything about them was modified to make them fight more efficiently.

Jean was right. Biological marines might fire more rounds than necessary due to fear, but Warden marines would fire the minimal amount of bullet required and stop as soon as the enemy was down. Siege tank drivers might miss a shot or fire inefficiently, but Warden AIs installed into siege tanks could make sure every cannon round lands in the middle of all the enemies, therefore doing the maximum damage when they explode.

Marines and siege tanks were just two of the examples. Every unit within the Warden army supplemented each other. With the Warden units in place, along with the poison gas, the infested would never do as much damage as they did at the initial outbreak.

“Very well.” Jorgensen nodded in satisfaction. “Now, name your price.”

Jean approached Jorgensen as a mercenary. Everything about this was a deal. She helped them solve their problem, and they would give her something in return. After seeing Jean’s worth, Jorgensen was asking her what she wanted in return.

Jean smiled. Truth to be told, all she came here to do was use Umojan resources to advance the Warden unit count, but saying she didn’t want anything would be suspicious. A mercenary wouldn’t just go to a bunch of world leaders and save them from destruction by providing them precious information just to want nothing in return. Every action has a purpose, and if she didn’t want anything, Jorgensen would realize she has already got what she wanted.

“How about 50000 credits?” She asked casually.

Information and codes of Warden units were sent to manufacturing centers all over the Protectorate. A large portion of the Umojan Fleet was deployed to protect these centers from infested attacks, not that the infested, under the command of Stukov and therefore, would’ve attacked these Warden producing facilities anyways. Resources were shipped into the factories and were turned to fresh mechanical soldiers ready to kill. They would then be shipped to planets all over the Protectorate, where they would carry out patrol and guard duties.

Meanwhile, all of the Umojan settlements started installing N-11 gas deployment systems. All the Umojans around those settlements were told to keep a fully concealed CMC armor around them at all time. Houses and other buildings could be completely sealed from the outside both manually and with the order of a computer. If the infested broke through the Warden line and got into the streets, the central computer could seal all the buildings, issue a warning and recall all the pedestrians, and send gas into the streets, terminating all the zerg.

All of those systems could be controlled by the commander of the settlements as well as a central Warden AI. Throughout the infestation, there has been cases where the commander, whether because he was infested or due to other reasons, wasn’t there when the attack happened. To prevent the loss of communication to the commander from causing the complete breakdown of the entire defense system, Jean suggested the installment of a Warden Command AI in all of the settlements. These AIs had less authority than the commanding officer, but when the time came, and when Jean decided her cover was no longer needed, the identity of the commander would change almost immediately.

As the Warden units were put in place, the infestation was gradually put down. Some of the infested launched several attacks on terran settlements and were forced to pull back after taking massive losses. The rest laid dormant, but dormant meant not having access to fresh combatants. Faced with no way out, they remained underground and went quiet.

The Umojans thought the infested simply gave up and were waiting for a better opportunity to strike, so they maintained the Warden count at every planet and replenished whatever ammunition or unit that was lost, but only Stukov knew what was really going on.

Jean no longer needed the infested to exert a massive amount of pressure on the Umojans to force them to adopt the idea of someone who they knew nothing about, but she did need the Umojans to keep the Warden units they already have, thus came the dormant infested. As long as the infested remained on the scanners of the Umojans, Jean didn’t need to worry about her units being replaced.