Training room. The Beetle. Warp space.

Nova punched Jean in the face with her gloved fist and forced her onto the ground with a bloody nose.

One of the reasons Jean needed Nova was because of Nova’s skills in combat, skills that Jean herself lacked. True, Jean was no longer the defenseless girl when she first arrived into this universe. Her specialized suit allowed her to use different types of terran weapons to defend herself. Her enhanced stim pack could make her reflexes much quicker and her body much stronger. Her zerg mutation could give her incredible physical strength, carapace, and mending abilities. Her psi energy could defeat most people with ease. Nonetheless, Jean’s melee skills was far from satisfying.

This was why Jean and Nova were sparring in the training room on the warping battlecruiser.

As the two stated fighting and Jean was getting defeated with ease, she realized that she was right. Without her quick reflexes, her psi energy, her strength, and her mending skills she couldn’t last five seconds before an unarmed Nova Terra.

“I don’t get why you suddenly wanted to learn how to melee.” Nova twisted her wrist as she watched Jean recovering from the punch. “If you, the owner of an entire fleet of battlecruisers and someone with zerg mutations, need to fight someone with your bare hands and nothing else, then we must be in some real trouble. In that case knowing how to punch can’t save you.” Nova was good in melee, but she preferred the more efficient way of shooting or even nuking her enemies.

Jean wiped the blood off her face and stood back up. “It doesn’t hurt to learn another skill.” She charged toward Nova again with her fists raised and ready.

Nova stood still for a second before suddenly dodging to the side and holding her right leg out. Jean saw the move and tried to catch herself, but the inertia was too great for her terran body. She tripped and fell on the ground head first.

“It is hurting you.” Nova observed. “When you fight don’t use the strength of your entire body. Keep an eye on your enemy and leave some room for adjustments.” She held a hand out and helped Jean up. For a moment Nova was admiring Jean’s persistence.

“Again.” After a few seconds of break, Jean suddenly launched her right arm toward Nova. Nova caught it and Jean tried to pull back. Grinning, Nova twisted Jean’s arm behind her back. Before she could respond, Jean felt Nova grabbing onto her neck and locking it in place. In a real battle Nova would’ve snapped Jean’s neck already, but now the two were merely holding the awkward position. Nova was behind Jean and wrapping her arm around the younger woman. Jean wasn’t resisting. In fact, the two were almost gentle as Nova’s forceful grip weakened into a lover’s touch.

The two breathed heavily for a few seconds. They looked like they wanted to do something before suddenly being interrupted by the Beetle AI.

“Pardon the disruption, ladies, but we are going to reach Endion in five minutes.” Nova suddenly found the mechanical voice of the AI so annoying.

Jean backed off for a distance. “I’ll take a bath. Meet you at the bridge.” Nova nodded, disappointed, and walked away.

Jean’s expression turned to infinite coldness as she felt water sliding down her body.

Love was a powerful source of loyalty.

Jean had tried several ways to control people she needed. Previously she used deals to connect with others, but that didn’t work so well with Liam and Mengsk. She then used fear and threats to address Valerian. This seemed to work, but there was no way she could gain Nova’s loyalty by threatening the Dominion civilians.

Then she realized how emotional Nova was after the inhibitor chip was removed.

The inhibitor chips suppressed the emotions of their users to make them the best weapons. When she had the inhibitor chip Nova was a cold blooded killer who cared about nothing besides her mission. She didn’t care how many civilians she killed in her mission. After the chip was removed, however, all those emotions returned,

Nova had had the inhibitor chip when she was a child. She had lived through most of her life not having to deal with all sorts of feeling. When all of a sudden these feelings returned, she had no idea how to respond.

This lack of experience made Nova extremely vulnerable to Jean’s somewhat flirting behaviors. On the hospital bed. Back in the sparring. Jean was doing everything she could to make Nova feel she was in love.

People in love will do anything for their lovers and oversee any potential dangers. Jean abused that to her own advantage. After all, why wouldn’t she? A few romantic moments and potentially some time on a bed with another woman was a small price to pay in exchange for a loyal killer.

Turning off the water, Jean’s expression once again turned to a heart warming smile.

Endion.

After the Purifier rebellion, the Protoss Empire imprisoned the remaining purifiers on the space station Cybros and put the Cybros in orbit of the forest planet of Endion. They developed a statis grid both to disable the robotic warriors and to protect them from potential threats. Once the statis lock was turned on no one could get in or out of the Cybros. A templar garrison was positioned on the planet Endion to guard the statis locks, which could turn off the statis grid.

In the original history Endion would be infested by Amon’s brood during the End War. The zerg would overrun the protoss garrison on the surface but couldn’t get past the statis locks. But Amon was still trapped and would be trapped for quite a while, and the planet was still clear of infestation and defended by a group of Daleem protoss, for now. That was all Jean knew about the place.

Above the planet, the Beetle exited warp space. In the mostly empty bridge, Jean and Nova looked at giant yellow space station in awe.

“I have to admit. The protoss are much more high-tech than us.” Nova was clearly impressed at the Cybros. The giant space station had a yellow ray shield that could block every incoming attack. “Even the best of the Dominion can’t put something this big in complete stasis, but the Protoss Empire did it thousands of years ago.”

“Indeed.” Jean replied explicitly and tapped her watch. A Warden viking appeared out of nowhere and fired two torpedoes at the Cybros to test the water. The projectiles passed through the space station as if it wasn’t there.

“Things in statis can’t be reached.” Nova explained with a lovely smile.

Jean shrugged and put the viking back. “Then I guess we need to do this the old fashion.” She pressed a few scans onto the surface of the planet that revealed the stasis locks. “We need to hack into those locks to disable the stasis fields.” She touched her watch, and all around her twenty Warden battlecruisers appeared. They were obviously mercenary styled on the outside, but inside they were controlled by AI.

There was no communication. No negotiation. No demand of surrender. Jean didn’t find the need to do that. All twenty battlecruisers readied their ATS batteries and opened fire.

On the surface of the planet, a high templar sensed something and looked up into the sky. His eyes widened, and he was about to produce a warning when the sky turned red. A storm of red lasers descended from the sky and landed on the high templar and every protoss around him.

The blue plasma shields crumbled under the bombardment. ATS batteries were designed to do massive damage to ground units from high orbit. The plasma shields of ground units like zealots, dragoons, high templars, and photon cannons melted in seconds from the effect.

A few photon cannons and dragoons fired into the sky with practically no effect. Photon cannons and particle disruptors were great at killing things, but they simply weren’t strong enough to reach capital ships this high in orbit. They just weren’t designed for this purpose. Usually there should be protoss carriers or void rays to counter the capital ships, but Endion had been quiet ever since the Purifiers were sealed here. Nothing had ever happened, and it wasn’t like the Daeleem had ships to spare.

The high templar was the last to perish among his half hundred brethrens. His psi power protected him long enough for him to send a signal to the guards at the other stasis locks.

Not that it mattered.

The Warden battlecruisers moved on to the next guard post. The guards learned about the arrival of a mysterious terran fleet, but all they could do was send out a distress signal to Shakurus. It would take god knew how long for Artanis to react and deploy his fleet, if he wanted to deploy his fleet at all. All the while the laser batteries were pouring upon the guards…