The research facility of Astras was one of the protoss factories that produced ships for the Daeleem fraction. Its coordinates were classified to protect it from enemies, but Ma’lash was able to discover the location in a raid.

The first line of defense was the secrecy of the factory, but the Daeleem were smarter than relying on hope that the enemies couldn’t discover the factory. One carrier was positioned upon the facility. The capital ship made sure any enemy would be stalled long enough for reinforcements to arrive. The ground forces consisted of zeolets, dragoons, and immortals. High templar Zeldi led the defenses. She was an experienced commander and a powerful warrior, appointed by Hierarch Artanis himself.

The ship Ma’lash gave Nyon had cloaking abilities. Ma’lash wanted Nyon to show his strength, not die pointlessly by a round of interceptors. With a small gap, the ship sneaked onto the planet surface and unloaded 350 zeolets, 100 slayers, 2 vanguards, and 5 havocs.

Assistant computed the data she saw. “The facility is heavily guarded. We need to infiltrate the facility. The carrier in the air made sure any large enemy movement will be stopped. A Khaydarin monolith is the second layer of protection. It can fire energy beams that can do mass damage to enemy ships in orbit. We can dodge both by sneaking inside, but we can’t dodge the Daeleem forces within. According to intel there will be over 800 Daeleem warriors within. There will be immortals and reavers to support the zeolets and dragoons. There is going to be a hard life.”

Nyon held his hands into fists. “My warriors can take care of them.”

Assistant looked at him. “No they can’t. They’ll be outnumbered and slaughtered.” She didn’t give a damn about Nyon. Assistant’s conscious was coded after Jean Turner, who was practically the example of not giving a damn about anything.

Nyon frowned, slightly angry at the Assistant’s merciless comment, but he realized the Assistant was right. His forces would find themselves surrounded. The Daeleem protoss was a worthy component. Linked via the Khala and armed to the teeth, these warriors could match the best of the tal’darim. “What do you suggest?” He asked.

“We go in head on.” Assistant replied, not even joking. Nyon looked at Assistant in confusion.

Two zeolets stood guard at the entrance to the facility. They were fierce warriors, but none of them thought there might be any potential threats. A large force couldn’t get past the carrier undetected, and no one would be stupid enough to strike the compound with a small team.

That changed when a dozen slayers blinked on top of them. Their phase disruptors ripped open the zeolets’ shield and destroyed their bodies. Luckily for them the emergency warping system brought the zeolets’ bodies to safety a second before the killing blow. They would likely live off as either immortals or dragoons.

Nyon walked through the slayers and charged into the facility. He knew despite how his warriors sniped the guards quickly the facility would know that something was wrong. He couldn’t waste to waste even a second.

As the tal’darim forces walked past the gate, they found themselves in a hallway whose width only allowed several zeolets to pass at once. On the opposite side, hundreds of Daeleem forces charged out with all the rage in the world.

The two forces with equal will, training, and equipments clashed together. Psi blades clashed with psi blades. Psi blades stroke on plasma shields. Phase disruptors on both sides smashed into shields.

But a few seconds into the engagement the Daeleem realized something was off. Every zeolet in front was smashed with several phase disruptors rounds while their tal’darim counterparts were only hit by at most 1 round. The thing with combat in short quarter was that ranged weapons couldn’t pass through the allied forces and hit the enemies. Even with the advanced technology of the protoss their ranged weapons needed a clear sight to fire. This was why even though hundreds of slayers and dragoons were in the hallway only a few could fire. That limited the output of dragoons, but that wasn’t exactly the case with the slayers. Somehow they managed to sneak a few shots via small insignificant gaps. These shots missed the tal’darim zeolets but hid the Daeleem, severely weakening their shields.

Despite the difficult, the Daeleem fought bravely. They did their best to dodge the blades of the enemies and, whenever one zeolet in front fell and was warped away, another zeolet would take his or her place.

The tal’darim, however, did a very different thing. One of the tal’darim zeolets was hit by a psi blade and his shield fell. Instead of standing and fight till death like normal tal’darim would, his body turned into a surge of energy and entered charge mode. The only difference was that he charged behind instead of forward. A second later the zeolet appeared in a blank space that was relatively safe. Out of danger, he used his own psi energy to replenish his shield. Another tal’darim zeolet with full shield took his place in combat.

As time went on, dozens of Daeleem were wounded and wrapped out of combat while most of the tal’darim were intact. It was most because there were a few zeolets that were either too honorable to retreat or too slow and were lost. Nonetheless, as time passed and the battle dragged on, the zeolets that first fell back started to have their shields back and were fighting again. The advantage of the Daeleem were shrinking every second.

High templer Zeldi noticed the threat, but she was stuck in an awkward situation. It wasn’t like she could attack the facility with her carrier. She groaned and warped back from the carrier to the facility. As soon as she entered, several zeolets walked up to her.

“High templer. The intruder is a small group of tal’darim forces. They are outnumbered, but our warriors can’t use our numbers in the halls.” A zeolet explained via telekenisis. “The tal’darim are cowards. They have no sense of honor, but their demise is near..” He stated angrily.

“And yet this group of cowards has few loses.” Zeldi stated for a fact. Her hundreds of years of battle experience with most of the possible forces in the sector warned her things were not as good as it appeared. She used her psi energy to sense the battlefield, and she realized her warriors were decreasing every second while the majority of her enemies were still intact. She knew she couldn’t stay back anymore. She walked to the frontline with two psi blades ignited. Several zeolets followed her loyaly.