Char.

On a creep covered hilltop, Sarah Kerrigan stared into a distance.

For nearly a week, through the psychic connection with the tens of thousands of overlords and overseers, she could see the Terran fleet assembling. Countless capital ships, in all three colors, were readying for war. Red dominion battlecruisers made up most of the combined fleet. White Umojan battlecruisers were fewer in numbers, but just from the looks of it, Kerrigan could tell they were much more technologically advanced. A couple blue battlecruisers were mixed among the group. They belonged to Raynor’s Raiders. While they didn’t have the number of the Dominion and the Umojans, the Raiders were willing to fight to the death for their belief.

Everyday, new ships would warp in within the sight of the overseers and enter the fortress. The exact number of ships inside the fortress was unknown, but Kerrigan counted over eight hundred already.

Just as Kerrigan watched, her vision suddenly went dark. An Umojan wraith on patrol mission gunned the overseer she controlled down.

As Kerrigan connected to the seventh overseer and sent it toward a suicidal run at the terran position, her thoughts started to turn.

This shouldn’t be happening. Kerrigan knew the movement of the Dominion was what made the attack possible in the first place. Without the Dominion, the Umojans and the Raiders wouldn’t stand a chance against even her personal fleet, much less the entire Swarm.

But there was no reason for the Dominion to strike. Mengsk didn’t order an attack when the Swarm was at its weakest point, when it was tied up with the Death Fleet. If he launched a full scale attack rather than a simple covert mission to steal the artifact, Char would’ve fallen by now and the Queen of Blades would be a homeless refugee.

Why now?

As cunning as the Queen of Blades was, she had no way of knowing what went on with Valerian Mengsk and Jean Turner. She knew the Raiders have got all the pieces of the Keystone and probably has assembled the Keystone by now, but the Keystone wasn’t invincible, and without an army behind his back, Raynor and his men would be wiped out before the artifact could be activated. She never expected the Dominion Fleet to back Raynor up.

The combination of the Dominion fleet and the Raider artifact could potentially end her.

Kerrigan quickly realized the cause didn’t matter. If she held here, she could live to find out what happened. If she was killed, then none of it would matter anymore.

She closed her eyes again. The overseer was gunned down by a Raider viking. She kept on trying to gain more information by sending in agile, discreet scouts, but none of them were able to get past the terran patrol starfighters and get important information.

“My queen.” Zagara encroached from behind. Her claws made a screeching sound as they tapped on the ground.

“I hope you bring good news.” Kerrigan ordered without turning. As she herself was doing the thinking, she sent Zagara to summon all the other broodmothers in the Swarm. She dismissed them and ordered them to return to their planets and replenish their heavily damaged brood just a few days ago, and she was now forced to bring them back again. These broods weren’t at their peak power, and sending them into battle would lead to heavy casualties, but Kerrigan no longer had the time to worry about casualties. If she, the Queen of Blades, was killed, then the Swarm would lose its purpose.

As long as she was still alive, even if 99.999% of the zerg was eliminated, there was still a chance for the Swarm.

But Zagara disappointed her queen.

“My queen, I have contacted the broodmothers. Strangely, I can’t sense half a dozen broodmother’s presence in the psionic network.”

“What?” Kerrigan frowned. Sure, the zerg psionic network had its limitations. It might be difficult to contact a broodmother across half the sector. However, it wasn’t that troublesome to get to a broodmother who was also in zerg territory.

“Are you saying the terran are blocking our psionic signal?”

“I don’t believe so, my queen. I can still contact other broodmothers that are off Char.”

“Then what is it?” Kerrigan suddenly grew impatient. She didn’t have time for this. The terran could attack anytime.

“I believe the lost broodmothers are hunted down and executed by the terran.”

Kerrigan suddenly realized something. She closed her eyes, and thousands of overseers positioned around the platform committed a suicidal charge at the terran fortress. Missiles, torpedoes, and batteries hit the overlords’ carapace. The overseers didn’t have any method of self defense, and they didn’t need to. Their mission was to scout, and that was it.

Overseer after overseer were ripped apart in midair. Purple blood rained down on the metal terran floor. Eventually, one of the overseers got above the fortress.

It combusted when a pair of missiles hit it, but Kerrigan has already seen all she needed to see.

The terran fortress wasn’t exactly empty, but it was much emptier than she expected. Instead of the giant fleet of eight hundred battlecruisers and around that number of support ships, Kerrigan only saw fewer than fifty battlecruisers, and most of them were of older, Behemoth, models.

All the Umojan and Dominion vessels, as well as the essence of the Dominion fleet, were gone.

Where did they go? Combined with what Zagara just told her, Kerrigan got to the answer with ease.

The terran pretended to be focusing their forces within the fortress, readying for a frontal attack on Char. This forced Kerrigan to keep all her ships and ground forces in a defensive formation around the planet’s surface.

But in reality, the terran fleet went from planet to planet, taking out individual zerg broodmothers and wiping out their broods. Perhaps some of the broodmothers even obeyed Kerrigan’s orders and prepared to move to Char. When they were attacked, away from their planetary defenses with what was left of their brood, the broodmothers were defenseless.

“My queen, what should we do?” Zagara questioned.

Kerrigan was pissed off, but her tactical side sensed an opportunity. If the main terran fleet was attacking the broodmothers, then it wasn’t here on Char…

“Assemble the Swarm.” Kerrigan turned around and commanded. “We’ll attack the terran platform while its empty. The fortress will be defenseless.” Her eyes turned purple. “Slay everyone aboard and infest them. These fools need to be taught a lesson.”

Kerrigan was cautious. She only ordered the attack after she lost contact with another broodmother. This meant another broodmother was under attack, and this meant the fortress would be empty for a while.

When the terran receives the cry for help and returns, the fortress would have fallen already and every human being inside would be infested.

It would be too late. The terran would be forced to make a decision, whether it was attack or retreat. If they retreated, then the Swarm would have the time to recover. If they struck, then the expedition fleet would be fighting with only a small amount of ammunition and supply available. Without the ability to maintain a long term firepower, they wouldn’t stand a chance against the endless Swarm.

Fifteen leviathans formed a wall as they advanced toward the terran entrenchment.

The battle with the Tal’darim destroyed two leviathans of Kerrigan’s personal fleet and mortally wounded three more, reducing her leviathan count to fifteen.

Mutalisks and corruptors were spread out. Some of the scourges cowered behind heavily armed corruptors and used them as meat shields to tank the damage while others moved to as scattered as possible and tried to dodge the enemy firepower.

Their movement was discovered by terran scouts almost immediately. After all, how the hell was she supposed to move fifteen several kilometer long floating cities without being seen?

When the Swarm reached the fortress, the terran were ready.

Orbital defenses went online. Drakken cannons took aim at corruptors, ready to blast them out of the sky. These large caliber batteries could obliterate a corruptor in a single shot. There were only six of these massive, expensive weapons installed, but they were enough to dramatically impact the battle.

Missile turrets were less ambitious. Their target was the mutalisks and scourges.

Security forces converged on the fortress. Siege tanks entered siege mode while thors enabled their punisher cannons, allowing them to fire high impact projectiles that could blast enemy fliers out of the sky. They weren’t as menacing as Drakken cannons, but it was fair to say that the thors were well worth their cost.

Dominion and Umojan Engineer Corps have set up auto-turrets all around the platform before the zerg even approached. These turrets were of smaller caliber than other terran guns, but they were more plentiful in numbers.

The fleet was scrambled. Nearly a thousand fighters, mostly red and white, lifted off into the air and joined a small fleet of fifty or so battlecruisers. The terran commander must have known that the fleet was insignificant compared to the zerg Swarm, because the battlecruisers and fighters were kept within orbital defense range.

Kerrigan smirked. The platform was well defended, and if the terran had its entire fleet here, then the zerg didn’t have a chance of breaking through, but the terran commander have made the foolish choice of using his fleet to decimate the other broodmothers.

There was no way General Warfield would make such a foolish decision. Kerrigan has fought against Warfield many times, and she knew how cautious the general was. Whoever took command of the combined fleet, either Raynor or someone on the Umojan side, must be a fool.

“Push the attack.” She ordered.

Leviathans charged forward at full speed. Kerrigan knew it was now or never. If she missed this opportunity, she wouldn’t stand a chance when the terran fleet returns, so she ordered her underlings to act regardless of the casualties.

Drakken cannons blasted hole after hole on the leviathan’s armor, spilling purple blood out from the wound. Apart from the blood, random, unfortunate zerg units stored in the leviathans fell out. These giant zerg beasts screeched in agony, but their speed didn’t slow down.

The zerg were anything but defenseless. Spores were launched at the platform while a part of the zerg turned toward the small terran fleet. The rest dashed at the platform at full speed.

The terran resistance was fierce. Drakken cannons and missile turrets kept on firing, taking out zeg after zerg. Corruptors were blasted out of the sky. Mutalisks were shot down by thors and missile turrets. Drop pod after drop pod was projected at the platform, and half of them never made it to the surface.

But eventually the zerg were able to establish a foothold. They had reinforcement, and the terran didn’t. As time passed, there were more and more zerg and less and less terran. Orbital defenses were destroyed. Siege tanks and thors were ripped open. The terran fleet lost most of its fighters.

Kerrigan watched as what was left of the battlecruisers jumped away. It wa a wise decision, considering if they departed half a minute later, they would be in pieces already.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. Something was wrong. She connected to a zergling and was shocked to realize despite slaughtering every terran unit on the ground, not a single human being was killed.

All of the casualties were...machines.

Siege tanks and thors didn’t have pilots. She controlled the zergling and leaped on top of an abandoned thor and saw a “W” sign. The orbital defenses weren’t controlled by human beings either. Strangely, they seemed to be monitored by some sort of AI.

Her mindless zerg underlings didn’t find a problem with that. Even low level queens didn’t seem bothered. After all, the terran have had a history of using AIs and machines to fight their battles. However, Kerrigan knew something was terribly wrong.

She has never seen a terran faction that used AIs and machines only to defend positions, especially those as important as the space platform. Why would someone do that? AIs were risky and somewhat unreliable. Even the most trusting commander wouldn’t give a location as serious as the fortress to AIs only.

The Queen of Blades was seriously getting annoyed of this feeling, the feeling of losing control.

Suddenly, she came to a horrifying realization.

Why would the terran commander use AIs…

...because they’re expendable.

“All units, fall back!”