“Highlord, we shouldn’t be distracted by a few insignificant thieves. We can take them out after we wipe out the Swarm and retrieve the artifact.” Alarak said viciously. His idea sounded reasonable, but it was actually a trap. If Ma’lash didn’t do anything about the mysterious protoss fleet and allow it to do whatever it wanted, then he would take heavy losses at home. If he abandoned the quest and went back to Tal’darim airspace to protect his planets, then he would be failing the mission Amon gave him.

Ma’lash took pride in being the most dedicated servant of Amon. Alarak intended on using this against him. Loyal? Fine. Ma’lash could prove his loyalty by sacrificing his own forces.

“Don’t try to fool me, Alarak.” Ma’lash tilted his head threateningly. “If this protoss fleet is not dealt with, then sooner or later we will all be under attack. It is in our best interest to take this fleet out.”

“As you wish, Highlord. We should dispatch a fleet of our own to deal with them and keep our main forces dedicated to the fight against the Swarm.” Alarak suggested. Despite his opinion against Amon, he agreed with Ma’lash in that the destruction of Tal’darim planets wasn’t good for any of them.

“But who should we send?”

All of a sudden, the Tal’darim from all three sides realized this could be an opportunity. Whoever was sent to chase down the intruders would have a perfect opportunity to sabotage their enemies. For instance, if Alarak led the fleet, he could step in when his or Ji’nara’s planets were threatened and be “too slow” when Ma’lash’s territory was attacked. Even more, almost all of the Tal’darim combatants were on the mission against the Swarm. The fleet sent back to Tal’darim airspace would be the strongest power for quite a while. Once again, if Alarak led the fleet and he decided to take some risk, he might attack a planet that belonged to Ma’lash with his supplicant forces. As long as he left no survivor and jammed the communication in time, no one would ever know this happened. Even if Ma’lash had suspicions, he wouldn’t have the evidence to pin Alarak down, and everything he did could be seen as an attempt to eliminate potential threats.

“Highlord, my fleet is beaten up while fighting the Swarm. It will be best if I return to Slayn...” Zenish suggested, but he was immediately cut off.

“Third Ascendant Zenish. You are one of my best warriors. Your presence is needed at this important moment.” Ma’lash stopped Zenish without a second thought. Zenish was allied with Nuroka. Ma’lash would be a fool to send him back.

After saying no to Zenish, Ma’lash turned his attention to Guraj. The female ascendant served him loyally, and if he sent her back, she would no doubt eliminate the combat potential of all of the other ascendants, but Ma’lash knew others would reject this idea. At this time of crisis, even the Highlord couldn’t risk alienating all of his high ranking commanders.

“Highlord,” Suddenly, Ma’lash heard someone speaking. He looked up and saw Nyon. “Highlord, I am willing to return to Slayn and hunt down those pathetic intruders.”

The Sixth Ascendant said confidently.

All the other ascendants, even the cunning Alarak, saw this hostile fleet as a chance to attack other ascendants, but Nyon saw differently. He saw this as a chance to get out of the Death Fleet and therefore evade the mission of hunting down the Swarm.

Something was wrong with the battle against the Swarm. Kerrigan’s attack just seemed...off. It was as if she wasn’t even trying. Sure, she played a slight trick and made the Death Fleet underestimate the Swarm unit count and used it as an opportunity to launch a surprise attack, which almost broke through the Tal’darim defenses and put the artifact fragment into the possession of the Queen of Blades, but that didn’t change Nyon’s opinion.

Something just felt wrong. It was strange to think the Queen of Blades was stopped this easily. This was someone who played almost all the factions in the sector against each other and rose from an infested terran to the controller of billions of zerg. What she did was...mediocre at best.

The other ascendants, even the brute Guraj, might have sensed something was off at the first part of the battle, but their confusion was gone after Kerrigan launched the counterattack. As far as they could see, the situation was simple. Kerrigan played a trick and failed, and now she was forced to fall back, regroup, and make another attempt later. Now was the perfect chance to launch a counterattack and defeat the Swarm once and for all.

But Nyon sensed something was not right. Maybe it was his experience with Jean, maybe it was something else, but Nyon learned never to underestimate anyone. He learned to always plan for the worst. Attacking into Swarm territory now would be a whole lot of risk and little reward. Even if the Death Fleet was victorious, most of the fame would be granted to Ma’lash.

On the other hand, if he returned home...he was literally the ally of the intruder he was sent to hunt down. If the two could work together and coordinate their movement, they could end up with quite the reward.

Nyon stepped out without hesitation.

“Sixth Ascendant. Your bravery is admirable.” Ma’lash wasn’t willing to give up such a good opportunity, but he quickly realized he couldn’t really use this to his advantage, not with all the ascendants from the other sides watching. Plus, the more time he wasted here talking, the more likely the Queen of Blades could get away from the original coordinates where she came out of warp space. It would be difficult to hunt her and her piece of the artifact down if that was to happen. The Highlord continued.

“Bring your supplicants. Your fleet has to stay here and strengthen our forces against the Swarm, but you can choose two fleets of ships to come with you.”

This was to limit Nyon’s threat. Twenty four ships were more than enough to hunt down three intruder ships. Even if the intruders hid some of their ships, Nyon should be able to handle them. With only twenty four ships, if Nyon betrayed Ma’lash, he wouldn’t have the manpower to do too much damage.

Nyon obeyed and backed off, and Ma’lash turned to the other ascendants.

“Prepare for warping! Today is the day the Queen of Blades dies!”

Outside, millions of Tal’darim cheered.

Meanwhile, at a distant edge of zerg airspace, a small Umojan fleet was moving.

“Admiral Thorn, we have located another zerg infested planet.” An officer at the bridge saluted and reported to his commander.

“You know what to do.” Admiral Thorn replied casually. If it was a few days ago, when the expedition fleet just departed, he might speak a few words of encouragement or something, but after dozens of almost identical missions, he no longer felt special about these tasks.

The crew members acted expertly. Lieutenants shouted out orders. Before long, a wave of wraiths were launched out of three of the leading battlecruisers. They cleared out whatever overlord or mutalisk the zerg had in orbit. When the threat was cleared, four defenseless and expensive ravens finally came out of the protection of the terran capital vessels. It didn’t take them long to create a scan of the entire planet.

Everything about the zerg was sent into the bridge, including the location of their hive clusters, where most of their forces were, and where most of the resources were.

Three battlecruisers came down from orbit and dropped a dozen nuclear missiles onto the planet’s surface. All of them landed in areas with high zerg density. The millions of degrees of thermal energy melted every piece of zerg in the wave of the blast. Just the nukes alone took care of most of the zerg on the planet. Unlike Stukov’s infested forces which had the tactical support of Jean Turner, the zerg on this planet didn’t expect this attack. Most of the hive cluster’s units were non-combatants. The only broodmother, the vast majority of the queens, most of the flyers, and all of the stronger, more evolved units were sent to Char to join Kerrigan’s armada. Those that were left were too weak to be included. Even worse, the local zerg were crowded together so they could use their numbers to defend the incoming threat.

The lack of command and the terrible tactical decision made these zerg suffer a vastly different fate than Stukov’s forces.

Following the bombardment, one of the battlecruisers landed on the planet’s surface and unloaded five hundred Warden units, including Warden SCVs, Warden marines, Warden marauders, and the newest version of Warden siege tanks and Warden goliaths. Covered in the Umojan white painting and being distinguished by blue “W” symbols on their chest plating, these Warden units moved across the planet, tracking down and exterminating the zerg that survived the flames. The ravens provided whatever intelligence support this strike team needed. Within an hour, every significant zerg unit on the planet was gone. There were still thousands of drones and zerglings scattered throughout the planet, burrowed, but they were insignificant.

As the combat units were on the extermination mission, the Warden SCvs started putting together a base next to a location where the minerals were the richest. Bunkers and missile turrets were created. Both the missile turrets and the automated turrets mounted on the bunkers were linked to the Warden security network. When the Warden combat units returned, they reinforced the position with siege tanks and other units inside the bunker.

The Warden units would be here for quite a while. The only reason why Thorn and the Umojans were here was to do as much damage to the zerg as possible and try to limit their unit count. The best way to do that was by taking down their mining planets. Without the resources, the Swarm couldn’t gather up the numbers that made them so terrifying.

But simply killing the zerg on sight didn’t mean anything. If left unchecked, a single zerg drone could be turned to an entire hive cluster in just days. The best thing to do would be leaving outposts at the planets they conquered and shut down the zerg expansion before they could become a threat.

But Thorn didn’t want to just leave Umojan squads behind conquered planets. Unlike mindless zerg and zealous protoss, terran soldiers didn’t really want to be stationed in the middle of nowhere for god knew how long and be constantly worried about getting attacked and wiped out by aliens. Plus, if these middle of nowhere were in fact inside zerg space, those men might straight up hop on a transport and desert. If Thorn gave strict orders for them to do so, there was no telling what these men would do.

This made Thorn flinch from his plan. The Terran Dominion could control desertion by killing everyone who deserted. The righteous Umojan Protectorate couldn’t do the same thing.

That was when Jean stepped in. Once again, she reminded him of the presence of the Warden units.

Warden units were machines. They won’t get bothered by fear or loneliness. They could be the best sentinels of the Umojan Protectorate in the heart of their enemies. Even if they were hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded with no way out, they could still put up a good fight until the end.

Under Thorn’s command, the manufacturing systems inside the Umojan fleet worked full time on constructing Warden units. These newly built units were almost immediately sent down to newly conquered planets.

Jean was only glad that happened. The Umojans weren’t stupid, and they certainly had their computer engineers review the Warden codes, but she also knew there was no way they could find anything. She was right, as shown by the fact that she was still a partner of the Umojan Ruling Council acting as an advisor in one of its fleets rather than a prisoner.

This also meant all the Warden units were still under her control. A single order from her could turn them from the faithful watchdog of the Umojan Protectorate to their destroyers.

Suddenly, another officer walked up to Thorn and Jean.

“Admiral, our scouts have reported back on the motion of the Queen of Blades.”

After entering zerg space, Thorn sent out countless light fighters as scouts to keep an eye on the activities of the Swarm. The Umojan’s whole mission was based on the knowledge that the Queen of Blades was busy fighting the Tal’darim.

The moment Kerrigan comes home would be the time the Umojans get the hell out of there.

Thorn’s expression changed. He took over a tablet and turned on the transmission.

“This is Admiral Thorn. Soldier, report.”

“Admiral, the Swarm is back!” The pilot on the other side was a female wraith pilot. Her tone was full of fear. “I see at least sixty leviathans. Oh my god.” She exclaimed.

The pilot turned tapped a few keys and connected Thorn’s pad with the wraith’s camera. Jean poked her head out from behind Thorn. She could sense the admiral’s hand grip tightly onto the pad he was holding.

There were countless zerg. Leviathans. Corruptors. Mutalisks. Jean couldn’t even see an end to the swarm simply because the amount of zerg almost covered every inch of the camera. Leviathans blocked out the sun. Every single one of them was kilometers long, and just a single glance on these beasts could send chills down a man’s spine. Thorn’s reaction was only reasonable.

Beside Thorn, Jean was confused. They were ready for war, which was odd because they should’ve just came back from a fight from the Death Fleet. They should be bruised and battered and licking their wounds. Jean’s mind turned.

It seemed like the Queen of Blades was smarter than she pretended to be.

“Come back here at once, soldier. We are leaving.” Thorn turned off the pad as the soldier saluted. The commander turned to all his crew members. “Recall all fighters. We are leaving. Our work here is done.” There was no way the tiny Umojan fleet could challenge the Swarm. With only sixty battlecruisers, the Umojans could be wiped out by a couple leviathans.

“And the Warden units?” An officer asked.

“Leave them. Their presence will distract the Swarm and buy us some time. We don’t have the time to go back and pick them up either.”

Jean suggested. If the Umojan Fleet went back and picked up all the Warden units and brought them back, it would add thousands more units to the Warden unit count. It would be good, but from another perspective, if these Warden units were abandoned, Jean could convince the Umojan Ruling council to spend more funding and build more Warden with the zerg threat as the reason. Plus, with all the enemies at hand, the Swarm would likely be too occupied to claim those lost land, and the Warden units might be able to live long enough and establish bases and built more units.

Jean was a greedy girl.

Thorn glanced at Jean and nodded. As the Umojans prepared to leave, Jean went outside the bridge, found a corner, made sure she wasn’t watched, and turned on the communication with Delta.

“The Death Fleet is in trouble.”