Jean dropped another void shade high templar with a swift strike to the head. A swarm of void shade zerglings charged up, but they were quickly disposed of by her guards. Railguns could tear through zergling carapace like they were paper.
That was when a somewhat distress voice spoke into her ears.
“Jean! I require aid at once! Amon is putting all his forces at my direction.”
Jean turned and found the source of the voice, Narud, in a dire situation. Waves and waves of capital ships that made their way through the breach charged straight down at the Xel’naga turncoat. The two hundred S-3s did the best they could, but their fight came to an end when one of the battlecruisers kamikazed into their lines. The leading C-1 was destroyed, along with half the S-3s. The rest could no longer form the impressive interweb of firing.
“Pull all your forces back to your location! I’ll send reinforcement as soon as possible!” Jean’s eyes twitched, as if she has just made up her mind about something.
Narud didn't think much of it. His void shade units were, obviously, closer to him than the other factions. All his units converged on his location. Thors and goliaths fired into the air with all their armaments. Projectile after projectile smashed into the incoming vessels, destroying their shields and tearing apart their armor. Several capital ships were shot down and slammed into the platform, making the battlefield just a little more rugged.
But Amon kept on pushing. More and more ships have gone through the breach, and they were all directed at Narud. Before long, Narud’s fleet was gone. His army was scattered.
In the dire times, Narud showed the power of a Xel’naga. Energy condensed at his mouth before being shot out at one of the void shade carriers. Even in disguise in the material world, Narud could still threaten the Queen of Blades. In the Void, his homeworld, the Xel’nagas power was menacing.
The battlecruiser was stopped in its tracks. The armor at the point of contact simply disintegrated. The energy beam continued, and before long the entire vessel was burned through. Bits and pieces of scrap metal hit the ground as the ship melted. At least a dozen Allied forces were crushed.
But one battlecruiser was nothing in the greater scale of things.
Three more battlecruisers descended. This time, they had something special.
“Nuclear missile!” Narud exclaimed as he recognized the thirty or so missiles the battlecruisers fired. His heart was screaming. If the missiles made direct contact with him, they would certainly do massive damage.
Where the hell is reinforcement?
“Jean! I need reinforcement now...ahhh”
The nuclear payload made its way to the target. Narud’s void shades did their best, but they simply no longer have the numbers. In fact, at the moment, Narud’s void shades were practically wiped out. Of course, they took down a good portion of Amon’s fleet and army to the grave with them.
But the contribution Narud did to the battle didn't matter when twenty five, five missiles were shot down, nuclear missiles hit the Xel’naga.
Mushroom clouds broke out as the nuclear missiles exploded and turned into millions of Celsius of temperature. The radiation was nothing to the Xel’naga, but the heat...even the Xel’naga couldn’t handle this amount of heat, and there were twenty five explosions.
When the smoke cleared, Narud was half dead. His entire body was burned, and some parts were melted. A dozen of his tentacles were ripped off his body. He became even weaker than the transforming Kerrigan.
He knew only one person could save him.
“Jean...help me…”
No help came.
Another dozen of battlecruisers and carriers slammed down on his position. This time, there were no void shades to defend him. All the ships successfully kamikazed into the lesser Xel’naga in a series of deadly explosions that could be sensed throughout the platform.
Narud. Dead.
A distance away, Jean blasted another Thor apart.
She heard Narud’s cry for help. She just neglected to give help.
Why? Do the math.
Narud’s potential contribution to her cause was already exhausted. His void shade army and fleet were gone. As a Xel’naga, he himself was still a great combatant, but he wasn’t necessarily needed. As long as Kerrigan became a Xel’naga, chances were victory was ensured. His presence helped, but it wasn’t needed.
On the other hand, the cost of saving him was too great. As of the moment, Amon wanted Narud dead, no matter the cost, and he was willing to throw fleet after fleet at Narud to achieve that goal. If Jean tried to shield Narud with her own forces, she would take even more casualties. She just couldn’t afford it. She was willing to lose everything to protect Kerrigan to ensure the success of the mission. As for Narud…
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In that case, why not use Narud as a human(Xel’naga) shield? She told Narud to pull back his void shades so they could do the most damage to Amon’s forces before Narud dies and they inevitably go rogue and try to kill everyone they see. She promised to send help so Narud would fight until his last dying breathe.
It was all calculations.
Speaking of calculations, she estimated that it would be at most fifteen minutes until Kerrigan emerges as a god. Usually, fifteen minutes was just the blink of an eye, but in this battle…
A flash of crimson pulled Jean away from her thoughts and back to reality. A void shade high templar was striking her down zealously. Jean sent three particle disruptor shots into the high templar’s skull, taking him down, but not before the templar landed a strike on her left arm, almost cutting it in half.
Jean’s plasma shield was gone when an army of banelings smashed into her just minutes ago.
The injury was potentially maiming, but Jean merely looked at her wound. Her G-1 guards marched up around her and protected her. This gave Jean the time to regenerate. Bone, flesh, and skin came back. Jean’s body shook violently. Growing an arm in just seconds wasn’t the most pleasant process, but her eyes remained cold.
As soon as her arm was back, she was jumping back into battle already.
The four fleets in the air were still getting trimmed down. The nuclear arsenal of the Warden Fleet was completely depleted. The Purifiers were down to their last shells. In the Tal’darim lines, the Highlord was already sacrificing the life force of his own supplicants to regenerate his health, shield, and energy. As for the Swarm...zerg corpses were enough to cover the entire platform.
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Next to Kerrigan, Viper and Zeratul waited. 100 G-1s were beside them, motionless. They could clearly hear the battle going on from all around them, but not a single enemy was about to reach their location, at least not now.
“We should be fighting with the others.” Viper complained, loading and unloading her rifle for the fifteenth time. “Not stay here and watch.”
“Patience is a virtue, young one.” Zeratul comforted. To him, who was hundreds of years old, Viper was no more than a child. “Our task is critical to the victory of this battle.”
“I know that.” Viper groaned. “It’s just...I don’t enjoy staying back while my friends fight and die.” She suddenly got excited when a void shade appeared a short distance away, within rifle range. She was less excited when half a dozen legionnaires dissected the void shade zealot before she could even raise her weapon.
Zeratul glanced at Viper.
“You and Commander Turner...you are close?”
Viper frowned. “Yes. What about it?”
“I...I wish to warn you.” The elder Dark Prelate hesitated. “Commander Turner...she might not be who you wish she is.”
Viper almost couldn’t believe her ears. Did Zeratul just try to turn her against Jean?
“Explain.” She demanded while gripping onto her rifle. If Zeratul said one wrong thing, she wouldn’t mind painting the ground with protoss blood. In fact, the only reason Zeratul was alive now was because Jean needed his aid.
Zeratul continued.
“Jean Turner...I have done some examination on her past after our encounter. She is not the kind who would return your love.”
“What do you know about her?”
“I know she started as an officer in Raynor’s Raiders and proceeded to become the most powerful figure in the sector. I know she left the Raiders after Raynor could no longer offer her any help. I know she joined the Umojan Protectorate but then left it to burn in the face of the invincible Golden Armada. I know she has a habit of using people and then abandoning them when they have outlived their usage...”
“That’s enough!” Viper was so god damn close to drawing her weapon. Behind her, the G-1s silently readied their arms. They were all equipped with independant AIs capable of thinking on their own. Zeratul’s words have already suggested he might have betrayed Jean, their creator. This was enough to change his identity from ally to hostile.
But Zeratul didn't think it was enough.
In fact, he was horrified when he found out all those pieces of information. What he said was just the surface. All the people abandoned by Jean have a tendency of dying. Raynor was abandoned, and he was somehow killed by a random Dominion missile. The Umojan Protectorate trusted Jean, and they were burned alive on Umoja when the Golden Armada set the entire planet on fire. Other cases were numerous. Zeratul didn't have enough evidence to prove a connection between Jean and all those death, but he did realize Jean was benefited through all those cases.
If what he feared was true, then Zeratul realized he might be facing an entity even more dangerous than Amon. Amon wanted the death of the sector, but he was a Xel’naga trapped in the Void. His ability to influence the sector was limited. Jean, on the other hand, was an inhabitant of the Korpulu Sector. She had powerful fleets and even more powerful allies. Her past doings have shown that she had no problem taking out innocent lives to get to her goal...but what was her goal, exactly? Until this point, all she did seemed to have the ultimate objective of destroying Amon. This was brilliant, but what then? What happens after Amon dies? Will Jean just return to the sector and make herself Queen? Zeratul didn't take down Amon just so another murderous dictator could rule the sector.
If Zeratul confronted Jean on this matter, the girl would ease his doubts. To Jean, killing Amon meant completing the mission, which meant leaving this universe. What happens in the sector no longer mattered. The sector could be happily ever after and she wouldn’t care. It was no longer important to her. Zeratul’s fear of her becoming the new menace of the sector was meaningless.
But Zeratul chose to go straight to action, and rightfully so. Jean wasn’t exactly ok with being questioned. In most cases, if someone confronted her and that someone might be a threat, Jean would just terminate him or her on the spot. Zeratul knew that as well, which was why he did the otherwise clever but currently foolish thing to go straight to action.
Viper stared into Zeratul’s green, glowing eyes. She was torn. Zeratul was a skilled fighter. Taking him down would not only mean losing him as a fighter, but the process itself could also be costly as Zeratul wouldn’t just sit back and die. Letting Zeratul live wouldn’t be a good idea either as the dark templar literally tried to turn her against Jean. This was just unacceptable.
But what made Viper angrier was a sense of fear. Zeratul’s words made sense. All the events he said really happened...but it was impossible. Jean would never abandon her. Never!
Just as Viper and the G-1s were about to corner and exterminate Zeratul, the dark templar suddenly ignited his blade. Viper almost pulled her rifle on Zeratul when she sensed something coming in from the side.
They were protoss, they were void shades, and they were cloaked.
Void shade dark templar.
And a lot of them.