Jean stood on a piece of elevated rock.
In front of her, thousands of Wardens and Purifiers stood still as swarms of tiny Purifier and Warden droids worked on them. These specialized droids that didn't exist until a day ago worked efficiently as they generated clouds of engravings on Jean’s metal units. Purple carvings for Purifiers and white carvings for Wardens.
From time to time, a Purifier or Warden would explode. Extinguisher droids quickly moved over and cleaned up the wreckage before another, unruned, unit took the place of the fallen and was operated on. There were some casualties, but they were completely acceptable.
Finally, another phalanx of units was finished. As of now, all the units that were operated on were Purifiers. All her Warden units were equipped with runes.
The runes came with both a disadvantage and an advantage. The disadvantage was simple: Jean’s units now have a timer on them. In the past, they could fight for days in a tough situation without having to be concerned about energy exhaustion, but right now, in a highly intensive battlefield, they could last at most a few hours before their energies completely run out.
But with great price came with a greater reward.
All the Warden Striders that survived the transformation now had three types of runes on them: One was for additional fortitude. Take a S-1, for example. In the past, these cannon fodders couldn’t survive a squad of zerglings. Right now, it would take a zealot to dismantle. Still a cannon fodder, but at least it could dump more bullets into the enemy before being destroyed.
Another set of runes was around its weapons system. These runes had an acceleration effect. Due to the restriction in energy, the acceleration effect was limited, but it still greatly increased the rate of fire of these Strider units, almost doubling it. Right now, An S-3 could fire its shock cannon at the same rate a Viking fires its Gatling guns.
The final set was with the rounds the Striders fired. All Striders fired physical projectiles, which themselves could be modified. The standard gauss rounds had acceleration runes, fortitude runes, and explosive runes. The first two made sure the rounds could hit the enemies as quickly as possible while staying as intact as possible. The last made sure when the bullets reached their targets, they would explode into a million pieces and rip the targets apart.
If a human being was grazed by one of those shots, even if it was in the arm, well...what is the going rate for coffins these days?
Jean had these enhanced units evaluated for CAS. Although evaluating multiple layers of combat abilities with a single number might be oversimplifying, Jean still found the CAS values to be a decent estimation of what her units were capable of.
The CAS on all the Warden striders have been dramatically increased.
S-1s went from 10 to 21. S-2s went from 35 to 49. S-3s went from 80 to 150.
And the S-1s were just the beginning.
F-1 fighters underwent a similar modification as the Striders. Most of them gained fortitude and acceleration runes. A few specialized crafts got some special runes, such as cloaking runes, jump runes, and much more. The average runed F-1 was placed at 120 CAS, a rise from 85.
Yet perhaps the most drastic change was done to Jean’s battlecruisers. Previously, she had two types of Warden battlecruisers: B-1s and B-2s. The B-1s specialized in speed and numbers whereas the B-2s had greater firepower and armor. This time, Jean worked to enlarge those specialties.
B-1s were now identified as support ships. They were completely covered in acceleration runes. The idea was that they would act as a mobile battle group that could be deployed into battle quickly. With the runes, they were almost as fast as the F-1s before the runing occurred. Their weapons had acceleration runes as well, allowing them to rain down fire as quickly as possible. They had little fortitude runes, but ideally, they shouldn’t be exchanging punches with high-damage dealing targets.
Their CAS stabilized around 300.
B-2s were classified as heavy capital ships. They had some acceleration runes, but their exteriors and interiors were filled with fortitude runes. In fact, according to simulations, these runes would’ve made the B-2s nearly impervious in the Starcraft world. It would take entire fleets just to break through the armor. If the enemies tried boarding, well, they would barely dent the hulls of the ship. Even if they get in, there would be nothing they could do against the fortitude runes on the security gates.
B-2 arsenals were filled with runed projectiles. Nuclear missiles, previously tricky to use in space due to their vulnerability to enemy attacks while in flight, now had the speed of a fighter and the strength of a middle sized ship. Missiles were now armed with penetration runes copied from the Shieldbearer ballistas.
Speaking of ballistas, Jean was able to make duplicates of them in the form of giant, a dozen meter wide crossbows that she had mounted aboard her B-2s. Simulations suggested a single arrow from these crossbows could rip clean through a battlecruiser from the Starcraft world. A dozen of them could destroy a fleet. Unfortunately, these specialized arrows were extremely expensive. The runes on each of them alone were enough to arm an entire B-1.
B-2 battlecruisers landed at 550 CAS. In contrast, Jean herself was still at 259. A B-2 could easily kill her if she chose to take it straight on.
Within just three days, Jean’s armies have at least doubled in strength, and that was just the Wardens.
Jean tried a completely different approach with the Purifiers. For the Wardens, she used runes to enhance certain of their qualities, but with Purifiers, she focused on another part of the runes: the ability to draw energy and use them in the field of battle, whether it was forming shields, sending out attack blasts, or merging them together to create Formations.
The protoss have always been a race that revolved around using high level energy. In the past, it was psionic or void energy. Unfortunately, the nature of Purifiers meant that they couldn’t use the mystical energies like their Khalai or Nerazim counterparts. In a sense, the Purifiers were like the Wardens: they used physical strength, high-tech gadgets, and numbers to overpower the enemies.
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This led to an interesting situation: Purifiers could easily be replaced by Wardens. There wasn’t really anything making legionnaires and instigators different from Warden Striders, phoenixes and scouts different from F-1s, and carriers and motherships different from B-1s and B-2s. Sure, there were some tricks exclusive to the protoss like interceptors and warp-in mechanisms, but the fact was the two armies were more similar than different.
Fortunately, unlike psionic or void energy, runes don’t discriminate against machines. In fact, they work better on machines than living entities.
A conversion system was added into every Purifier unit. There, Khaydarin crystal energy were extracted, purified, and transformed into rune energy. During battle, the Purifiers would use these rune energy liberally to combat their enemies.
The original Purifier unit structure was completely scrapped. Units like legionnaires, instigators, and energizers were outdated by the new technology Jean received. They were replaced by a single type of units: Purifier Swordguard.
Purifier Swordguard were slant, two meter tall mechanical beings. Every single part of their construction was designed so rune energy could flow through as easily as possible. In terms of their primary weapons, they could form powerful energy blasts at will and send them at their enemies. Testing shows that a single blast from them could scorch through a zealot in one hit. They had the ability to condense the rune energy and form melee weapons. Studies have shown that rune blades were fiercer than psionic or plasma blades. In fact, due to their nature, they cut through any sort of physical obstacle of any depth like plasma blades cut through butter. Only energy shields could stop them.
Swordguards no longer have plasma shields, but for a good reason. Plasma shields had to be turned on all the time, which meant the energy consumption was off the roof. They were also built like a sphere. Whatever strength the shields had were evenly distributed across a surface. Meanwhile, attacks likely came in from a single point. In simpler terms, the enemies could break through with a relatively small force because the defensive forces were too spread out.
With Swordguards, Jean tried a different style of defending. Instead of a layer of shield that automatically covered all sides, Swordguards had the ability to form an energy barrier in a moment’s notice. The shape and size of the barrier was adjustable. If it was a single bullet, then they could create a small pyramid. After collision, the bullet would simply slide off to the side and miss the Swordguard. It was so much smarter than forcing the bullet to a complete stop or evaporating it like the plasma shields did.
Within days, fifteen thousand Purifier units have been modified into Swordguards. Hundreds of thousands more were on the way.
Purifier phoenixes, mirages, and scouts were combined into a single type of flyer: Purifier Cruiseguard. Cruiseguards were rune energy powered flyers. Their primary weapon was a pair of high speed rune cannons, each capable of shooting a way through any foe with a wave of constant barrage. Like the Swordguards, Cruiseguards were able to form shields at command.
Estimations placed them slightly more powerful than runed F-1s. F-1s were faster, but Cruiseguards were tougher and had more firepower.
3,000 units were ready for war.
Finally, the motherships and carriers were combined into the Purifier Capitalguards. Throughout the battle of Lance City, motherships and carriers have proven to be ineffective. Sure, their size made them brilliant kamikaze units, but Jean didn't build her capital ships just so she could drop them on top of her enemies. In a firefight, their size became burdens, especially when their plasma shields could effectively protect them again incoming projectiles. Even the firepower they provided were questionable. The interceptors were especially the case. While they did a good job in intercepting enemy projectiles, that was about it. Their threat against enemy targets was next to none.
Purifier Capitalguards were 1,500 meter long, about the size of a carrier but a mere child in front of a mothership. That was the perfect size to have the functions of a capital ship and make sure energy could be distributed to every corner of the ship effectively. Unlike the fancy layout of carriers and motherships, the Capitalguards were metallic and clean. The only light they gave off was the purple glare from the rune energies. Jean had no need for fashion.
Capitalguards were powered by an entire system of purification units inside the ship’s hulls. Every second, a massive amount of energy was generated and spread out across the ship. Their shields were an enhanced version of those of Swordguards and Cruiseguards. Instead of a single shield, they could create dozens of shields of an size simultaneously. If the attack proved to be too much for a single layer of shield to handle, the Capitalguards could enable multiple layers of shields and divide the impact among them evenly.
In terms of weapons, the Capitalguards have the ability to generate and fire hundreds of small caliber rune cannons anywhere on the ship. On normal ships, cannon rounds were fired from gun barrels, but in the case of Capitalguards, this process was skipped. The ship had the ability to condense rune energy outside the ship and just send them flying at the direction of the target. This dramatically increased the efficiency of the Capitalguards.
In terms of the main cannon, the Capitalguards could do the same thing it did with the smaller caliber cannons: condense energy and fire them out. The only difference was that the main cannons needed more time before they could be unloaded. In exchange, they were much more power. Simulations suggest they could one-shot a battlecruiser from the good old world of Starcraft.
Jean’s current Capitalguard count was 3. They simply took way too much time to build up.
CAS: 600. 50 above a runed B-2 battlecruiser. The Capitalguards were Jean’s most effective card. She doubted most Voyagers on the mission could handle Capitalguards easily.
Footsteps approached from the side. Jean turned and saw Delta walking over. Just like all the Purifiers, Delta was modified with rune energy. Last she checked, Delta’s CAS stabilized around 400. It would have been a little surprising if Jean didn't know the amount of tricks Delta just gained and what she is now capable of.
“Here’s what you wanted.”
Behind Delta, a handful of Swordguards pulled something over. Jean glanced at it. It was a piece of five meter tall stone with glaring red runes all over. She could feel a dangerous sensation from the stone. It was the Ancient One’s last resort, the one that he wanted to use to wipe out all the invaders, as well as Lance City itself. Thanks to Jean’s skill with words, this last resort now belonged to Jean.
She tapped her watch and stored the stone.
“How long will it take to modify the rest of the Purifier units?”
The Purifier legion under Jean’s command had over 500,000 units. Only 20,000 of them have been modified into Swordguards, Cruiseguards, or Capitalguards.
“At least 15 days. That is time we don’t have.” Delta quietly told Jean a piece of information.
“That is...unfortunate.” Jean’s eyes flickered.
“We can’t afford to lose the Empire of the Moon.” Delta suggested. “Our forces have grown, but sending them into battle and replacing the casualties will be costly. The plan was to use them as a surprise card against the other Voyagers. It will be unwise to show how powerful these units have become if we can have an army of cannon fodders.”
Jean has shown her Warden units before, and the assumption was that the other Voyagers were aware of them, but chances were none of them knew how powerful these units have grown to be. If Jean could trick the other Voyagers into underestimating her forces, when the time comes, she could really catch them by surprise.
Jean nodded before making her decision.
“I will take all the modified Purifier units and most of the Wardens back to Throne’s City. You take 3,000 Wardens and stay here to oversee the modification of the rest of the Purifiers.”
“Affirmative.”