As Warfield left the room, Amon turned his attention to Nyon.

If Jean could do anything she would, but she couldn’t.

Nyon. Back off, and I will forgive your conspiracies against Ma’lash. You can still be the Highlord. Your rule of the tal’darim will be unquestionable.

Nyon smirked. “The tal’darim don’t take threats.” His loyalty to Jean was much higher than that of Warfield.

Really? Then tell me, Highlord, what will happen if another fraction of feral zerg strikes Slayn?

“You should know better, Amon. Slayn is our homeworld, but for now there are only a small number of guards their. The planet is expendable. Every tal’darim is a warrior, and most of my people are here in the Death Fleet. We can go anywhere and make it a new Slayn.”

Not every tal’darim is a warrior. Amon corrected. There are thousands of younglings on Slayn. Tal’darim too young to even join the chain of ascension. If they die, it could take centuries for a new generation of tal’darim to join your fleet. Of course, if they die the future will be the least of your considerations. The tal’darim will not follow a leader who can’t even protect his own people.

This time Nyon was silent. He was torn between the fear of Jean and the desire to maintain his power. If he retreated he would be betraying Jean. If he stayed he would be risking his own place of Highlord.

Nova was worried. Amon came prepared, and he was dismantling Jean’s fleet piece by piece. The Dominion fleet had already left. If the Death fleet leaves again the Warden fleet and the purifier fleet will be no match of Amon. She looked at Jean, and was slightly comforted to find the calm look on the girl remained. Doesn’t matter. If things really go wrong she could always fight a way out for Jean. If all failed she could at least die with her.

Jean noticed Nyon’s hesitation, and she said something unexpected.

“Go. Return to Slayn and defend your people.” She said. The Death Fleet could very well return to Slayn, pick up the younglings, and then return to join with her.

Nyon understood her, nodded and left the bridge. As the three ascendants left, the only two on the bridge were Jean and Nova.

Your allies are gone. What can you do now with your a hundred or so ships?

“Not gone. They will return to me again when the zerg you sent are destroyed. Believe me, it will not take long.”

We’ll see, but I doubt you can live until their return. Amon’s voice faded. Nova wanted to say something, but Jean cut her off.

“Warp to safe house 2B now!” The Warden fleet and the purifier fleet immediately entered warp space at Jean’s command. It was in the safety of the warp space that Jean could speak. “Our location might be compromised.” She explained.

Nova nodded. “He can just talk to us like this?” She asked. If Amon could just pop up anywhere anytime then this war would be very difficult to win.

“Not quite.” Jean held her hand out, and a small device flowed to her palm. “It’s some sort of communication device. A one time thing.” Closing her palm, she crushed it.

“But how did it get on our ship?”

Jean’s eyes twitched. “Someone brought it in here. One of the tal’darim.” It wasn’t hard to narrow it down to the tal’darim. Their centuries of worshipping Amon couldn’t be altered by one Highlord. There were Amon followers in the Death Fleet. Jean was sure of that. She just didn’t realize someone high enough to get into the tactical meeting might be a servant of Amon. It’s tough to fight a war when your enemy knows your every move.

“But what’s the point? Amon risked one of his deepest spies to deliver a message?” Nova questioned the tactics of the dark one. A deeply place spy can alter the course of war, but Amon basically told Jean the presence of the spy to give her a speech?

“Indeed. Amon was oddly soft. He even promised to let the Dominion and the tal’darim live just to prevent me from doing anything. Such a lie is very uncharacteristic.” Jean sat down on the captain’s seat and tapped her chin with her legs crossed thoughtfully. “Wanna bounce off ideas?”

Nova grabbed a chair and sat down beside Jean. “Sure.”

“Ok.” Jean started. “Imagine you are Amon. You have an invincible fleet and you know the location of your enemy. Why, instead of doing that, you try to stall your enemy for a while?”

Nova computed all the possibilities inside her mechanical mind. “There are twenty five possibilities, but the most likely explanation is that the Golden Armada is occupied on something else., something so important that Amon needs us to stay out of.”

“But what is it?” Jean whispered. “What’s Amon’s goal again?” Jean knew the answer, but she thought better when talking to someone else. She used to do this with a Warden AI, but it was much more interesting with Nova.

“Destroy all life form within the sector.” Nova replied with the backing of the entire purifier data base and info Jean gave her.

“How?”

“By using the hybrids, the protoss and the zerg.”

“That’s it.” Jean clapped her hands in excitement. “There are some feral zerg around, but the strongest and plentiest zerg are under the command of the Queen of Blades. If Amon wants to use the swarm he needs to take down Kerrigan first. If Kerrigan is alive Amon can never control the swarm.”

She wasn’t exactly correct in that she didn’t guess the purpose correctly, but she got the target correct.

“It’s the most logical assumption based on established information.” Nova confirmed.

“Where is the Queen of Blades?” Jean asked.

Nova’s eyes blinked. “Kerrigan is most likely on the zerg homeworld of Char after being defeated by the Golden Armada. When someone gets defeated, they get back to their lair.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Jean stood up.

“I thought Kerrigan is your enemy as well.” Nova reminded. “We should be careful.”

“Not we. I.” Jean said, to Nova’s surprise, and she used reason to put down Nova's objections. “We have been missing the true power of the purifiers.”

“Which is?” Nova questioned.

“The ability to produce theoretically unlimited number of units as long as there are sufficient resources.” Jean explained. “We have been using the purifier fleet as it is in combat. This is not the most efficient choice. I will need you to lead the purifiers across the sector and expand the purifier fleet. Locate resource rich planets. Warp in a nexus, some probes, and some units, and then start mining. Use the probes to turn the harvested resources into purifiers on location. If we have two thousand carriers we can easily defeat Amon, and with enough time two thousand carriers is not a dream. Meanwhile I will work with Kerrigan to delay Amon’s control of the sector.”

“A single executor can do that. I am coming with you.” Nova wasn’t going to let Jean push her away with reasons and risk her life on her own.

“Type II purifiers are simple AIs. They can carry out orders, but their ability in independent thinking is questionable. I need you there.” Jean didn’t give in.

“This is too risky.” Nova continued to object. “The Queen of Blades might order her flyers on you the second you exit warp space. We can warp to some corner and start building up the purifier army...”

She was cut off as Jean covered her mouth with her own. Jean pulled back from the kiss after a few seconds.

Jean knew words and reasoning couldn’t convince Nova, so she did something much more direct...and effective.

“I have to.” Still close to her lover, Jean whispered. “Plus, if you’re really worried about me just build the purifier fleet as quickly as possible. The sooner the fleet is built the safer I am. When you get to a thousand ships…”She noticed the dissatisfied look on Nova and changed the number, “five hundred ships. When you reach five hundred ships you send me a signal.”

Nova signed and nodded.