Korhal.

It has been over a week since the fall of the Korhal Defensive Fleet. Since then, Emperor Mengsk put the entire planet under martial law. Dominion forces were deployed all across the planet. Mengsk’s personal guards. along with Dominion Special Forces, secured the Royal Palace and the area around it.

When Jean ordered a brief assault to test the depth of the defenses, the three battlecruisers that carried out the mission were welcomed by large caliber ground to air defenses. One ship was destroyed and the other two retreated, wounded.

The defenses were proven to be plenty and well placed. Even without the fleet and the orbital defenses, Korhal’s skies weren’t open to hostile ships, at least not without a fight.

But Jean was in no rush. For the past week, the Swarm has ravaged across the rest of the Dominion. Fleets were overwhelmed and destroyed. Armies were slaughtered. Colonies fell. After the zerg left, rogue terran forces under Valerian went to those defenseless territories and claimed them for the Crown Prince. Those who were willing to die for their emperor were already gone at the hands(claws?) of the zerg, and those left were easily turned.

The Umojan Fleet continued to engage Korhal’s defenses. Jean made sure to pull back the wounded ships and ordered them to be fully repaired before throwing them back into the battlefield. This minimized Umojan losses. The Dominion, on the other hand, couldn’t really move their orbital defenses.

Plus, Jean’s primary purpose wasn’t to take out Dominion forces and defenses, although that certainly helped. Her fleet had the entire planet surrounded and cut off any supply from the rest of the Dominion. She knew Korhal obviously has quite the ammunition storage, but the Dominion were facing hundreds of capital ships from all directions at all time. The amount of rounds for orbital cannons was plummeting. After a week of nonstop combat, she doubted the Dominion still had the resource needed to repel the inevitable full scale invasion.

For the entire week, the Umojans have been reinforced. Umojan factories cut most of the production of civilian products and transitioned to constructing military weapons. Brand new Warden units were shipped to Korhal in the thousands. Jean was getting ready to strike.

She just needs one thing...and that thing was the Swarm. When dozens of leviathans jumped in, Jean knew it was time.

The Swarm quickly replaced the Umojan Fleet and Valerian’s fleet to blockade the planet. Mutalisks and scourges replaced vikings and wraiths.

Jean met up with Valerian and Kerrigan once again through the holograms.

“My forces will focus on a single landing zone. I have sent both of you the coordinates. My fleet will clear the orbital defenses and bombard the Dominion defenses first, and then our transports will deploy the ground units. Bunkers and siege tanks will lock the area down and hold off the Dominion until further reinforcement arrive. Afterward, we will push forward under air support. As long as we can take care of the orbital defenses, we can have absolute control of the air.”

Valerian nodded in agreement. “I will deploy 25,000 men and 1,000 transports and set up a defensive position 20 kilometers beside yours.” He pulled up a hologram map and pointed at a location. Jean nodded. Valerian’s forces had their way of fighting and Jean’s Warden units had theirs. They each had different commanders and styles. Letting them fight side by side could be conflicting. It would be best if they fought relatively separated but were still close enough to help each other if needed.

Kerrigan suddenly cut it. “Another thing. My Swarm can stay in orbit, but there is no way I will stay back and do nothing.” She paused. “I’ll be going in with the landing parties.”

Jean tilted her head in consideration. Since she herself wouldn’t get her hands dirty, and since Viper was too precious to risk, her landing party didn't really have a spearhead. Someone as powerful as Kerrigan could minimize the loss of her forces. Plus, the Queen of Blades, especially when she was backed by an army as strong as the Wardens, wouldn’t be so hard to kill.

“Very well. Good luck with your...hunting.”

Kerrigan smirked.

Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk stood inside his throne room. A group of generals stood in front of him with their heads lowered in obedience. Elite ghosts lurked in the shadows and eyed everyone in the room in alert.

“Your grace, we still can’t make contact with General Davis. We are continuing to lose contact with our outer garrisons and companies. Twenty three major planets have fallen to the zerg. Minor planets...countless.”

Mengsk remained silent. He knew Davis as well as Davis knew him. The general was a good, and ruthless, commander, but she wasn’t a martyr. He shouldn’t be surprised. If he was in her place, he would do the same.

As for the fall of the planets...it wasn’t something he could prevent.

“And the Char Fleet? Warfield has 600 ships under his command. His sole task is to tame the zerg, and now the zerg is here! Where is he?”

“Your grace, we can’t contact General Warfield either. The rebels must have jammed our frequencies.”

Mengsk shook his head in disbelief. Jammed? The communication device between him and the top commander of his forces was literally the best among the Dominion. The zerg and the Umojans are good, but even they can’t do the impossible.

“Your grace,” Nova suddenly spoke up. She was of lower rank than most people in the room, but as Mengsk’s sharpest blade, she had a say in this. “Maybe General Warfield can’t be contacted, and maybe he was taken out by the rebels before the assault on Korhal, but maybe he simply doesn’t want to be contacted.”

A few generals were taken back by the suggestion.

Mengsk seriously considered the idea. “Are you saying Warfield betrayed me? He let the Swarm past his guard on purpose?”

“General Warfield will never do such a thing!” One of the generals complained. Warfield wasn’t the most liked general in the Dominion, but he was a righteous man. To think he would betray mankind for the zerg was outrageous.

“Then how do you explain everything that has happened?” Nova rebutted. “The Swarm is here at Korhal! The capital world of the Dominion! Where is Warfield? Not a single ship from a fleet of six hundred is here! It’s been a week since the ships defending this planet burned in the skies! Do you really think Warfield hasn’t heard about this?”

The general was about to say something else when Mengsk raised his hand and shut down all complaints. He turned to Nova.

“Nova, bring a squad of Special Forces and go to Char. Find Warfield and bring him and his fleet here. If he, or anyone, resist that order, kill them. I’ll send a squad of fighters as escort.” He paused. “You need to get to Warfield. Take my royal ship.”

Nova was slightly shocked. The Swarm put the entire planet under blockade, not allowing anyone to come or go, but Mengsk could always leave if he really wanted to. His royal ship was the fastest and more durable ship in the Dominion. Its speed and plasma shield could keep the ship alive against hostile fighters and its advanced warp drives could bring the ship out of danger before hostile capital ships arrive.

Add a squad of fighters for escort, the royal ship could easily find a weak spot in the blockade and break through, saving everyone in the ship from total destruction. Even if Korhal fell, the head of the Dominion could live on.

By giving over the royal ship to Nova, Mengsk was abandoning his own path to survival.

All the generals frowned as well. With the royal ship here, they could get off Korhal if things really went bad. Without the ship, if Korhal fell, they would be buried along with the Dominion foot soldiers.

But Mengsk has made up his mind. He didn't want to live. He wanted to live as the emperor. If he used the royal ship to flee, then he would lose his empire. If he managed to get Nova out and bring the Char Fleet in, then he might be able to take down the Swarm and secure his empire. He could still be emperor.

It was a great risk, but Mengsk rose a rebellion against the Terran Confederacy. He wasn’t afraid of taking risks to satisfy his ambition.

“Yes sir.” Nova departed at once.

Suddenly, Mengsk’s personal hologram device started beeping. He turned on the device, and an officer saluted.

His words brought chills to Mengsk’s heart.

“Your grace, the terran fleet has launched its attack.”

The emperor turned and glanced out the window, where the cloud seemed to have been broken. Countless giant metal beasts descended upon the city. Usually, he would enjoy the sight because those metal beasts belonged to him, but this time, he was afraid.

The inevitable attack was finally here.

Outside, the Umojan and the Valerian Fleet descended upon the designated landing zone on Korhal. Hordes and hordes of F-1 fighters dove down on the orbital defenses and lit them up with missiles and laser cannons. Yamato Cannons slammed onto Drakken Pulse Cannons. Missile turrets were destroyed in groups.

Terran security forces did their best to counter the enemies in the air. Goliaths and thors unloaded their anti-air weapons. Controlled by AIs, missile turrets unloaded everything they had as quickly as possible before they were destroyed. F-1 fighters were fast, but they still took heavy losses. Every second, multiple F-1 fighters would erupt into flames or lose control and hit the ground. In both cases, some of the fighter wreckage landed on top of Dominion units. If the fighters in question were vikings or wraiths, they might take even more losses when diving into a position as heavily defended as this one.

“Wave one, deploy.” As the fighters caught the attention of the Dominion, Jean ordered in her flagship.

Fifty battlecruisers started splitting drop pods toward Korhal’s surface. Most of the orbital defenses were busy fighting the battlecruisers and the fighters, but from time to time a pod would still explode into a world of fire from a stray missile. All the units inside were terminated.

Still, thousands of drop pods hit the ground in the designated area. One of the battlecruisers took a Drakken Pulse Cannon round to the face as it launched the drop pods and dozens of pods were off the target, but they were insignificant in the real battle.

As soon as the pods landed, experienced Dominion marines and marauders converged on the pods, ready to gun down any emerging enemy soldiers, but they were slightly taken back to find that they weren’t exactly facing soldiers.

The sound of metal hitting metal rang out across the battlefield. Warden striders emerged from the pods and started blasting almost immediately. S-1 striders gunned down marines and marauders. They didn't have an advantage in firepower or armor, but they did have overwhelming numbers. Due to the nature of machines, a single pod could pack ten of these S-1 striders, and Jean launched over three thousands pods in the first wave. All of them were cheap S-1 striders.

The relatively few Dominion soldiers between the pods were overrun by the sea of metal. With the obstacles gone, thirty thousands S-1 striders formed a sea of death. Marines and marauders collapsed as the autocannons gunned them down. Some resisted, but they barely shot out a full magazine before dozens of autocannons spat fire on them. Neither combat shields nor marauder armor did anything to stop the numerous rounds.

Thankfully for the Dominion, goliaths and siege tanks turned the table a little. Siege tanks shells landed among the S-1 flank and reduced dozens of them to pieces with every single shot. Goliath rounds tore open cheap S-1 platings. Unfortunately, the Dominion vehicle platings weren’t enough to keep the vehicles alive from hundreds of autocannons blasting at the same time. As the biological forces were overwhelmed, the vehicles were surrounded from all sides and beaten down.

Three thors held their ground. They were the real MVPs of the Dominion. Autocannons bounced off their layers of plating while they could take down a S-1 with a single blast.

Six F-1 fighters dove down on one of the thors. The thor’s rear armor transformed, and a dozen javelin missiles appeared. Almost as soon as the F-1s unleashed their torpedoes, the thor unloaded its missiles.

The torpedoes hit the thor, exploded, and did very little. The javelin missiles, on the other hand, went directly for the F-1s. The F-1s’ laser batteries started blasting and managed to shoot several of the missiles out of the sky, but the missiles were still able to explode on top of and around the F-1s.

Four of the six fighters were ripped apart. The rest got out of the explosion range in time.

A dense wave of gunshots approached from a short distance away. Mengsk knew he couldn’t let the intruders gain a foothold on Korhal, at least not without much loss. He decided to send half of his elite guards, Sons of Korhal, to the position of the breach and try to wipe out the boarding parties.

Sons of Korhal, named after the rebel group Mengsk built up against the Terran Confederacy, was an elite army that could stand toe to toe with Dominion Special Forces. Mengsk kept half of them at his royal palace as the last line of defense and sent the rest of them here.

Elite marines and marauders started beating back the S-1 striders. Their skills, cooperation, and gadgets largely mitigated the S-1 numbers. Siege tanks and goliaths took down S-1s by the dozens. A couple elite ghosts sent several EMPs into the S-1 lines and sent them crumbling to the ground. These cannonfodders weren’t equipped with anti-EMP modifications.

Inside her ship, Jean watched as the unit count of the S-1s dropping from 30,000 to 27,000 to 24,000 to 19,000. The Dominion had around 5,000 men in that area initially. Most of them were slaughtered, but Dominion reinforcements were here as well. Over 3,000 Sons of Korhal and 10,000 security forces beat back the first wave of landing party.

At this rate, the Warden S-1s would be gone in half an hour. Thankfully, that was just the first wave.