At a corner of Char, a white Umojan battlecruiser lurked in the shadows.

A certain spectre sat in the bridge, and that spectre’s name was Viper.

A C-1 walked up to Viper. Its metal limbs made an echoing sound as they hit the ground.

“Commander, Dominion General Warfield has sent us a pair of coordinates. It’s a Dominion ship. Warfield wants you to destroy it and terminate every Dominion personnel.”

“Gladly.”

Viper stood up and subconsciously reached for her rifle before realizing this wasn’t a mission where she needed to get all close and personal to get the job done. She relaxed and sat back down. She took a while before giving out several orders.

Jean sent Viper here to Char after receiving reports that a single Dominion ship, which Valerian recognized as his father’s personal ship, managed to make it out of the blockade and jump away. At first she thought Mengsk himself fled, but a rallying speech done by the emperor just minutes later changed that idea. Mengsk wanted to reassure his men their emperor was with them. Unknowingly, by doing so, Mengsk helped Jean recognize his plan.

It was obvious. Korhal was cut off from the rest of the world. Mengsk obviously gave up his ship to make sure a messenger could get out alive. Where would that messenger go? To Davis? It was obvious the good general wasn’t coming back before it’s safe. Most of the other planets has fallen or were too weak to do anything. The Dominion was in conflict against most of the other terran factions in the sector. These factions would gladly sit by and see the Dominion crumble. That leaves just the Char Fleet under Warfield.

Fortunately, Jean had Warfield under her fingers. She sent Viper and a battlecruiser over and told Warfield to inform Viper after the Dominion messengers make contact with him.

C-1 Command Units were more than capable of commanding an attack on the Dominion vessel. However, Jean sent Viper because as good as she was, at this point, she wasn’t able to make the command units as effective as human beings. In a large scale battle between hundreds of ships, that wasn’t a problem. In a situation like this when she couldn’t afford to let that single ship reach the Dominion Fleet, the risk of using C-1 units was too great. That was why Jean sent Viper here. The ghost’s experience with missions like this made her an effective choice.

Thankfully, Warfield was able to keep the royal ship away from the fleet itself. This made chasing away or destroying the ship much easier.

“Affirmative.” Upon receiving the orders, the C-1 turned back to the control panel of the ship. Instead of trying to pilot it like petty human beings, the Command Unit simply repeated the orders.

Within seconds, the entire ship was sprung into action.

This ship was one of the Umojan battlecruisers Jean modified into Warden capital ships. After starfighters and mechanical vehicles, Jean has turned her attention to the metal beasts that made up the bulk of the terran fleets. These B series battlecruisers had Warden AIs installed that controlled the entire ship. These ships could hold human beings, but since they didn't need to leave room for thousands crew members, they could fit in layers and layers of striders and fighters.

This battlecruiser was also a B-1 battlecruiser, designed to optimize speed and agility over armor and firepower. Its counterpart, B-2s, had more armor and firepower.

And now this ship was on the hunt.

On the other end, Nova couldn’t help but frown. Something felt wrong. She knew she should be glad. The Char Fleet was coming home, and with six hundred battlecruisers, the Dominion could easily repel the invaders and the rebels.

But something seemed really wrong.

Nova stood up. She was tired of waiting. She glanced at the Dominion Fleet a distance away and felt questions rising at the bottom of her heart. “The Dominion Fleet is not moving. Establish communication with Warfield again.”

“Yes sir..wait! Multiple unidentified starfighters detected around us!”

Nova charged to the scanner in front of the officer. She could see at least two dozen red dots around the blue dot that symbolized her ship.

“Sir, they are cloaked. They don’t know they have been made.” The officer tapped a few keys and pulled up the image of one of the unknown fighters. Nova frowned. She recognized the starfighter all too well. During the battle of Korhal, these fighters have destroyed hundreds of Dominion positions and killed countless Dominion troopers.

They belonged to the Umojans, and since they were here, it was obvious they somehow knew she was here, and they obviously weren’t here to say hi.

Whoever the mole is in the Char Fleet, he not only cut off the communication between the fleet and Korhal but also knew she was coming and tipped off the Umojans.

But she only told General Warfield…

Nova shook her head and shut that thought out. Now wasn’t the time.

“Bring us to the Fleet!” She ordered. As for the moment, her ship was a distance away from the Dominion fortress because she didn't trust the mole in the Dominion Fleet, who might be quite influential. She also didn't expect the Dominion Fleet to take this long to be ready for action, nor did she think the Umojans might try to attack just under the nose of six hundred Dominion battlecruisers. “Ask Warfield to send reinforcement!”

The royal ship suddenly accelerated and darted past the F-1 fighters and out of the ambush. The F-1 fighters weren’t caught by surprise as they simply turned around and started pursuing. Their laser batteries and air to air torpedoes were unloaded onto the royal ship like they were on sale.

“They must have some sort of detection.” Plan A, sending in twelve cloaked F-1s and blast the royal ship out of the sky with the element of surprise, failed. Viper wasn’t surprised. All she knew was it’s time for Plan B. “Send in the reserves.”

Three more squads of F-1s, previously positioned in key positions by Viper, converged toward the ship from all directions. One of the squads was put between the Dominion fortress and the royal ship as a body shield. As they charged head on toward the royal ship, all the ships opened fire.

The royal ship retaliated. A triple layered defensive matrix surrounded the ship. Four twin cannons blasted orange bolts of plasma, forcing the F-1s to dodge.

Another round of missiles was launched, and this time the royal ships were too close to dodge all of them. Countless missiles and lasers slammed into the defensive matrix, but the matrix survived, and so did the ship.

“We’re down to 80% shields! 78%! 76.” The percentage kept on dropping as more and more shots landed on the ship.

“Sir, I can’t reach Warfield!” The communication officer has been attempting to contact the Char Fleet since the ship was under attack, but he didn't receive anything. “I tried to go directly for the Fleet, but they’re compromised as well!”

Not being able to reach Warfield from Korhal was easily explainable, but not being able to reach him this close to his ship...there was only a couple ways to explain this. Combined with the fact that their track was given to the enemies…

“Warfield has betrayed the emperor.” Nova concluded, somewhat too late.

“Sir, we don’t have the firepower to get to the Dominion fortress and arrest Warfield.”

Nova remained silent. She had her orders to bring back the fleet and terminate anyone who stopped her, but she knew if she pushed forward, she would no doubt perish before she could complete her mission. The shield level was already down to 57%, and it was dropping quicker and quicker.

If she remained, she would die pointlessly.

Finally, she made up his mind.

“Abort this mission. Engage jump drives.”

A few seconds later, the royal ship jumped into warp space. Missiles and plasma bolts flew through where the ship was moments ago and dotted toward the F-1 fighters on the other side. It took a few seconds for the F-1s to sort this mess out.

Nova and her team survived, but her mission failed miserably. Half the Dominion Fleet was still stranded on Char, and Korhal was already at its last days.

“Hold your ground! For the emperor!” A Dominion officer screamed as his position was overwhelmed by a swarm of S-1s and S-2s. A shrapnel grenade exploded beside him and ended his duty.

Lead by Kerrigan, the Warden horde started moving out of the initial landing zone and engulfing surrounding territories. Dominion forces fought bravely and didn't give off an inch of ground without a fight, but despite frequent small victories throughout the planet, mostly in urban battlefields where the Warden units were more clumsy than biological Dominion soldiers, the Dominion was losing the war. When a day’s fighting was over, when the Dominion cheered over killing thousands of striders, Jean simply replaced those striders and kept on attacking.

Casualties were sky high when Valerian found Jean.

“We can’t keep this up anymore. Too many people have died. There are over a million Dominion soldiers on Korhal. We can’t kill them all.”

“We can, but I have an idea.” Over the two weeks of attack, the combined fleet has slaughtered over one hundred thousand Dominion soldiers. If Jean kept this going, eventually she could seize victory, but she wouldn’t complain if there can be a better idea. In a sense, killing Dominion soldiers was like killing her own future assets.

Hours later, Umojan battlecruisers unloaded thousands of projectiles toward Korhal. Instead of hitting the ground and exploding into a ball of flames, these missiles exploded in midair and sent countless pieces of modified paper across the planet.

These papers detailed the crimes of Arcturus Mengsk against humanity, including using the zerg against the Confederacy, abandoning his own people(Kerrigan) to the zerg and therefore creating the Queen of Blades, and allowing the zerg to expand freely when he had a chance to strike them down. They also contained promises from Valerian that granted full pardon to all Dominion soldiers as long as they laid down their arms.

It worked like magic. As prosperous as the Dominion was, it was only there for a handful of years. Most people who served the Dominion didn't do so out of blind, unconditional loyalty. They did so because they had no other choice. The Dominion offered protection, and most people joined to keep themselves and their families safe in this age of chaos. Others joined to fight the zerg. When the combined fleet came, most of the Dominion forces resisted because they were given such orders and because they didn't want to risk having their families slaughtered in the war.

But Valerian’s promises changed things. Self preservation now acted as a reason to give up resistance, especially since it was obvious defeat was imminent. On the back of the papers, Valerian kindly mapped out the current situation and how Mengsk’s fall was imminent. Only fools would fight for a lost cause, especially when they could live by dropping their arms. Valerian was known for being an honest person. His promise meant something.

Those who opposed the zerg changed their mind as well. Valerian used the Swarm against the Dominion, but his father also used the zerg against the Confederacy. In comparison, Valerian only used the zerg against the Dominion fleets while Arcturus ruthlessly unleashed those beasts on the civilian population of Tarsonias. It was obvious who was better. In case people didn't understand all the sides of the problem, Valerian mapped them out as well.

The Warden forces pushed forward, ignoring the Dominion soldiers who surrendered. Within just hours, they covered more ground than they did for the past week. A few Dominion garrisons that remained loyal to their emperor were easily wiped out.

Seeing the battle was lost, Arcturus pulled whatever forces he had left back to the Royal Palace and attempted to make a last stand.