Deadman’s Port. Liam’s headquarter.

Liam poured a bottle of alcohol down his throat. He had no problem with betraying the girl that once helped her. After all, even if he wanted to protect her the Dominion fleet could just crush his fleet and take the girl anyways. He did what every other mercenary would do in his place. He turned without a sense of regret...and he was rewarded. The Dominion fleet saw no point in destroying the port, and they simply left. Liam lived on as a powerful warlord.

Suddenly Liam felt something was very wrong. The air felt different, and he couldn’t breath. His skin started to burn as if he wasn’t under the cover of a building with computer monitored environment control but in space with no armor. This shouldn’t happen. His headquarter had an air system that could filter out any harmful substances from the space and protect the vulnerable human beings within. All of these systems were controlled by the best AI he had.

AI...

As Liam’s muscle failed and he fell on the ground, he realized something. Jean gave him the AI. He betrayed Jean. As the programmer of the AI Jean could’ve very well planted a back door or a fail safe in case something like this happened.

The girl thought about this from the very beginning. She might not have known for certain that he would betray, but she had precautions, and he, Liam, trusted the AI and fell into the trap like a fool.

Struggling, Liam smashed the emergency button below his table. Put in place in case of abductions or infiltrations, the button should create an alarm and warn the guards of this situation. The guards were armored and should be safe against whatever poison gas or radiation that was in the air. If they could get into the room in time...

And then he realized the security alarm was on the same network as the AI.

Liam’s councious started to fade away. Choking sounds came from outside his door. There were hundreds of staff members and officers in the headquarter, but none of them were armored and all of them were vulnerable to the gas. As the choking sounds gradually disappeared, so did any life in Liam.

In the bridges of all of the battlecruisers in the mercenary fleet, a transmission request from the mercenary headquarter suddenly appeared. The captains patched the transmissions through immediately and stood at attention. The image of their leader appeared on the screen. The captains showed their respect. Liam’s cruel methods and his tendency to kill everyone that disobeyed him gained him respect from these mercenaries.

“Load this AI into your systems and give it full access. That’s an order.” Liam said coldly. His voice was somewhat empty. To the Assistant it wasn’t that hard to fake the now deceased mercenary leader. His image and voice were pre-recorded. Everything the captains saw was made up by the AI.

The captains had their doubts. This order seemed abrupt and strange, but they knew better than to question their leader. After all, it was Liam’s fleet. Why would he do anything that would harm it?

An hour later, all the crew members were choking and coughing to a painful end. What happened on the Hyperion happened here again in much larger numbers. This time the executioner didn’t have access to the armors of the infantry units and the vessels of the mechanical units, but that didn’t stop her from using Liam’s image to order the captains to order all ground units and fighters to exit the ships, load the provided AI to all fighters, order the crew members to load the fleet with all kinds of ammunitions, and then take over the ship and kill everyone aboard with poison gas.

The mercenary fleet under Liam was relatively powerful. It included around one hundred battlecruisers and much more fighters. Liam practically united the Deadman’s Port and all of the mercenary forces there under a single fleet. The mercenary fleet, now the Warden fleet, also held around two dozen nukes. God knew what the mercenaries wanted to do with the nukes, not that it mattered anymore. The fleet was no match for the Dominion fleet, but it wasn’t weak either.

Without a word and not wasting a second, the now Warden fleet left the port and jumped away, leaving Deadman’s Port in chaos..

Meanwhile, Jean was still in the holding cell. It had been around an hour, and her arms were getting ache, not that it mattered to anyone. The five ghosts were still around her, alert. Jean glanced down on her new orange suit. It was as if she had given up all hope of escaping, but Nova wasn’t impressed. The girl was planning something. She coud sense it.

Nova thought about disobeying her emperor’s order and kill the girl now, but that thought disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.

“Why do you fight for Mengsk?” Jean suddenly asked a seemingly pointless question.

Nova rose her eyebrows, surprised. “If you want to turn me to your side you can stop wasting your time.”

“I know Mengsk controls his ghosts by inserting neural inhibitors into their heads. It suppresses their memories and gets rid of disloyal thoughts. A good method,” Jean said slowly. She was really impressed by the scientist that designed this. “for the controller, that is. Controlled, not so much.”

“What are you trying to say?” Nova asked in confusion.

“I am just wondering if your loyalty is a real thought, or a product of terran technology.” Jean provoked. “It makes a lot of difference.”

If Nova was really loyal to Mengsk, then Jean would have to kill her when her plan was done. Otherwise Jean could do something much more effective with an experienced ghost operative like Nova. Of course she didn’t say that out loud. Now was not the time to reveal her strength and spring the trap.

Nova smirked, but before she could say anything she touched her earpiece as if receiving an order. “We have arrived on Korhal.” She said as the ghosts untied Jean and started to put more mobile restrains on her. No one thought she might try something under the watchful eyes of the ghosts, but such restraints were still necessary to remind the prisoner of her state. Plus, if something went wrong it would be a lot harder for a weak girl to run with metal handcuffs. It wasn’t like she was a trained ghost with psi energy to increase her strength.

As Jean was freed, Nova grabbed onto Jean’s shoulder and pushed her forward. “Go on. The emperor is waiting for you.”