Days later, above the planet Xil.

“Moebius wants us to go after a artifact on this dead world called Xil. Apparently they sent in a specialist team, but they lost contact with them two days ago. Their bad luck, I guess, figure we’ll get hazard pay for this one.”

“What could’ve wiped out a specialist team?” Jean asked herself. There were countless answers.

“Before they went missing, the Moebius team reported artifact radiation emanating from that big old hunk of rock over yonder.” The screen before them showed what looked like an ancient alien temple. They bought a big damn laser drill to burn the way in.”

“Laser dill? That thing’s a monster. If the Moebius team had access to that kind of hardware, I hate to think about what could’ve wiped them out.” Raynor reasoned with a concerned look

“We’ll find out soon enough.” Jean stated. “Am I still in command?” She asked because in the last two operations she held command because either Jim Raynor had to go into the field or it was a small task that didn’t need too much commanding. This time the Raiders were taking on some unknown and potentially menacing enemy. Raynor might want to lead this time. He is, after all, the leader of the Raiders. Jean was just a lieutenant.

“You did great last time.” Raynor grinned. “Keep it up.” He knew himself wasn’t the best commander, despite being extremely experienced in battle. He was too emotional. He would be a great soldier but not the best commander because sometimes a commander needed to be cold calculating. He saw that in Jean, and he trusted she wouldn’t disappoint him. He turned and left the bridge.

“Very well.” Jean smiled. “Captain Horner, bring us…” She didn’t finish her sentence because some warping signal appeared in the space before the Hyperion, and three ships exited orbit.

They were protoss for sure, but unlike the daleem protoss, these protoss had a familiar red theme. Judging from the fact that they were holding a piece of the artifact, Jean had an educated guess on who these ships belonged to.

Tal’darim. The image of tal’darim warriors, while facing absolute defeat, fought and died to the last man to protect the artifact from the overwhelming zerg swarm left a deep impression in her. They were only able to grab the last piece of artifact because the tal’darim had a more pressing matter. They were lucky on Monylth, but here on Xil they had to face the tal’darim alone.

A transmission request popped up on the screen, and Jean nodded at a staff to patch it through. It was a protoss in red fierce armor. He seemed enraged by the presence of the Raiders.

“More terran thieves? The mysteries of this place is forbidden. You’ll pay for your transgression with your lives!” He claimed as if it was a fact. After all the first group of thieves were wiped out with absolute ease. They didn’t stand a chance.

Jean recorded his opinion and turned off the transmission. She knew who her enemy was and that was enough. There was no point to waste time arguing with these fanatics. She looked at the three void rays. These protoss ships were similar to nerazim void rays that was recorded in the Hyperion database. “How will the Hyperion do against these ships?” She asked Horner, who was much more experienced in space combat than she was. She was better at commanding ground battles.

“The Hyperion lacks energy for its Yamato cannon and has no storage of defense drones. We only have one short range jump drive for tactical jumps. We only have a dozen tac fights available. The electric field generator is offline.” Horner explained. “If these protoss ships are anything like the void rays all the Hyperion can do is keeping them busy.” The Hyperion was a very powerful warship with multiple high-tech weaponry, but the Raiders couldn’t afford to use them. The mission on Agria didn’t prove to be profitable. The artifact they retrieved from Monylth got them some credits, but most of them went into the ground units and operation Supersoldier. It was fine. Jean wasn’t planning on wiping out the protoss fleet.

“Send the ground units to the laser sight. I’ll be commanding in field.” Jean ordered. Staying on the battlecruiser meant her command might be disturbed by the exchange between the Hyperion and the three void rays. Going down there might be dangerous, but she had a few tricks that should keep herself alive. Horner nodded, and Jean went to the hanger to enter a command center.

The command center landed at the position that previously belonged to the Moebius team safe and sound. 20 dropships unloaded 240 units. Most of them were marines, others were marauders and medics. No firebat participated because their melee flamethrowers were useless against protoss psi blades. All of the men were armed with AI guidance systems. During the days before the mission and after the conversation Jean had with the two scientists, the three had been putting the system together. They were successful in the coding and found enough credits to arm these 240 units.

Jean examined the defense position. There were two ramps that protoss ground units could walk in. Potential protoss flyers could come in from all sides. A laser drill faced the temple gate.

“Cover the ramps with bunkers and position infantry units within. Build turrets around the cliffs. Factory, start producing siege tanks.” Swann updated the siege tank info to all factories so Jean could build them in field. “Double time. The tal’darim are not blind. They’ll come at us very soon. Adjacent, get the drill working and break through that gate!”

The entire site started working. SCVs worked as fast as possible and produced bunkers and turrets in key locations. Some workers gathered minerals and vespene gas from nearby. There was a reason the Moebius team chose to land here. This place had some resources available, and Jean knew she would need everything she could get to hold off the protoss. The two factories that landed from the Hyperion worked to assemble siege tanks, upload AIs, and put them into position.

When the tal’darim protoss arrived twenty minutes later, they were met with 8 siege tanks and 20 bunkers. Each of the bunkers had eight man. All of the firepower had AI support and coordination.

The tal’darim saw the defenses, but they chose to ignore it. They have had some experience with dealing with terran. They were weak and vulnerable. Their puny weapons couldn’t even penetrate the plasma shields while the tal’darim warriors could cut the terran metal armor open with a single strike. Even the metal buildings they hid in, the bunkers, couldn’t stand against multiple psi blade strikes. Their will was weak. Cut them in half and these terran will scream in pain while any other enemy on the chain of ascension will continue fighting until the end. And so the tal’darim charged toward the vulnerable terran...