“My queen, all the protoss forces on Char are eliminated. You are victorious.” The deep voice of a queen praised Kerrigan on his victory.

“Indeed...wait, where’s Jean?” Kerrigan said casually before suddenly realizing it wasn’t the soft girl speaking. She didn’t want to admit it, but she enjoyed having Jean behind her back. It felt...safe.

“Jean Turner left the command station after the protoss fleet warped away.” A queen reminded. “Should we go after her?”

Before Kerrigan could answer she sensed a communication request from Jean’s psionic presence. She opened the comm. Jean’s voice appeared in her head.

“My queen.” Jean was as calm as ever. “By now I am on a ship ready to warp away at a moment’s notice.”

“You don’t trust me?” Kerrigan said with a hurt expression.

Jean didn’t respond. Kerrigan allowed her presence because the threat of the Golden Armada was much more pressing. Without the protoss threat Jean might become the new threat. There was no saying what Kerrigan would do, but Jean knew better than trusting the queen of blades on her honesty.

So she changed the topic. “Amon had lost the majority of the Golden Armada, but he has other pawns. Feral zerg. Hybrids. What was left of the Daelaam. More importantly he is hiding in the void. I will need your help in taking him down once and for all.”

“Then why don’t you come back and join us? It is rude to run away on a lady.” Kerrigan joked.

“I will contact you again after I reach out to my other allies. Until then.” Jean turned off the comm. Kerrigan felt her psionic presence disappearing out of her range of sensing.

Smirking, the queen of blades turned and walked away from the land that buried the best of the Daelaam protoss.

On the other side, Jean turned to two pieces of information she received. One was a comm request from Valerian and the other was one from the tal’darim.

First one, General Warfield and the Terran Dominion successfully pushed back the feral zerg. By pushing back Jean meant the feral left Dominion airspace as soon as the Dominion fleet retreated. Jean wasn’t surprised. Amon wanted to hold her allies back, and the ferals had reached their purposes as soon as the Dominion fleet returned. Further combat would be an unnecessary waste.

However, what almost surprised Jean was Warfield’s hesitation in joining forces with her again. In fact, it was not just Warfield. It was also Valerian.

“You have to understand, Jean. The zerg invasion was terrifying. Planets were wiped out. Innocent slaughtered. When the cloud cleared, the people demanded to know why the Dominion forces weren’t there to repel the zerg invasion the second those aliens appeared.” On the computer screen Valerian seemed so torn apart. Being an emperor wasn’t easy. Being an emperor that cared about his people was even worse. “I can’t just tell them the Dominion fleet is sent to fight an alien god, can I?”

“Why not?”Jean asked, confused. From her point of view the truth was enough. The Dominion fleet was indeed sent to fight an alien god.

“Because this is not our fight.” Valerian tried to explain to the girl who knew no emotion. “The people will protest and force me to keep the fleet in the Dominion. Amon is too distant for them. The common people don’t know about xel’nagas and cycles. They only know their lives were threatened by the zerg, and they are scared.”

“Then it is your duty to put the objections down.” Jean’s emotion side was literally gone. She could approach people’s emotions from a logical point of view, but she couldn’t feel them. She was literally treating the people and their thoughts and actions like it was a math calculation. She calculated what would happen if she did this and what would happen if she did that. Therefore she couldn’t understand why Valerian refused to put down his people and establish absolute control over the Dominion. A dictatorship was more efficient.

One thing Jean didn’t realize was that she was getting further and further away from her normal self. When she first arrived she couldn’t feel emotion, but she could remember what emotion felt like. But as more and more time passed she gradually forgot about what it felt like to laugh and to cry. She was being turned to a machine.

“I will do no such thing. The people have a right to speak.”

“What do you mean? Your propaganda is no longer required. You are already the emperor of the Terran Dominion and you already have absolute command of the fleet.” Jean questioned.

“Wait, what?” Valerian paused.

“Weren’t you pretending to be caring to your people when you were a prince to gain support?” Jean said matter of factly. “You didn’t have power then, so you needed a good image in the eyes of the public to get support. I understand that, but you no longer need to hide behind a nice image now.”

Valerian’s eyes widened in anger. “I don’t need to pretend to be a good person, and I never will!” He was slightly beaten down. Is this how the world saw him? A hypocrite? “We’re done here. I wish you luck against Amon, but the Dominion fleet will not be able to join you.”

“We had a deal.” Jean reminded. “I carried out my part. You didn’t.”

“I am sorry, Jean.” Valerian turned off the comm.

Jean wasn’t shaken. She tapped the computer before her a few times, and a signal was sent to the Dominion. “No.” After she was done with that she sat back in her seat. ”I am sorry. For you.” She made a deal with Valerian, but she also had a back up plan in case Valerian betrayed her. This seemed to be happening a lot to her recently. Twenty hidden Warden AIs were being stored among the CPU database of the Dominion fleet, and she had just sent over another two hundred units. With a single command she could turn the Dominion armada over to herself, and that was exactly what she just did.

The Dominion had guys good at computer, but none of them could combine the power of psionic energy, the efficiency of a mutated brain, and the aid of thousands of AIs. Dominion firewall fell without giving out a single warning.

Now that that was done, Jean turned to the second piece of information. It was from the tal’darim.

“Jean. Highlord demands you presence.” First Ascendant Alarak seemed proud on the comm.

“What does Nyon have to say that can’t be said on the comm? I’m busy.” Jean was still planning on checking out Nova, meet with the Dominion, or rather Warden, fleet, and then converge with the tal’darim and the swarm. The combined forces should be enough to march into the void and end Amon once and for all. She didn’t know Amon was on Aiur.

“Something important.” Alarak explained. “Transmissions can be intercepted.” Jean wasn’t convinced. “It is something about Amon. He is setting his eyes on another target. Highlord wanted me to inform you. He himself is continuing his investigation.”

“Reasonable.” Jean nodded and set the course of her ship to Slayn. “I am on my way.”

On Slayn, Alarak closed the comm and turned to Ji’nara. “Prepare the trap, First Ascendant.”

“As you wish, Highlord.”