"What do you need us to do, sir?"
The voice came from a young soldier—barely sixteen, perhaps just past it.
"Stay at your post, soldier," Josephine replied.
He could feel the boy's tension; the kid was trembling slightly. No one had forced him to be here. His decision to fight, on this day, in this place, and in this way—was entirely his own.
"For Korhal!" the young man suddenly saluted, voice cracking slightly.
"I'm ready to die!"
"For Korhal!"
"For the beauty of Korhal, for the homeland of our ancestors," Josephine said quietly as he stepped into the command center.
Inside, a massive radar array and starmap dominated the central console, where nearly twenty radar officers spoke in unison, reporting data in rapid succession.
On the glowing radar screen, a Behemoth-class battlecruiser of the Terran Confederation Navy appeared—its bow illuminated by flickering red warning lights, trailed closely by other warships moving in formation.
"If this is only the vanguard, sir..." A major said, eyeing the radar's deep green glow.
"Then how many more ships are coming in behind them?"
"What's that?"
Suddenly, a radar technician shouted.
Josephine turned toward the voice. On the radar feed, dense clusters of red dots filled the screen. The command center's AI assistant was annotating them: Missiles or other small flying objects. Some were likely decoys, designed to confuse and overwhelm visual and sensor tracking. Upon detonation, their high-velocity fragments scattered in vacuum, mimicking dozens of false signal returns on the radar—turning the display into a blizzard of phantom threats.
"Dense incoming wave of long-range missiles and space torpedoes—over four thousand signals detected... and rising."
"But the main Federal fleet is still 1.5 astronomical units away—this must be another formation—Zeta Squadron—"
"One of the warheads is nuclear—"
"Apocalypse-class."
"A hundred warheads—another hundred—three hundred—by the Saints above, four hundred—"
"Engaging interception—"
Every anti-air missile tower and kinetic defense weapon on Canis began firing. In the near-vacuum of space, all was eerily silent. Josephine and his staff could only watch as tens of thousands of defensive fire points lit up simultaneously, bursts of light flaring in a synchronized storm.
"It's not enough."
Josephine's voice, surprisingly, held a trace of relief.
"I just hope that's all the nukes they brought."
In space warfare, nuclear weapons were notoriously inefficient. Without atmosphere, there was no shockwave, and the resulting light pressure was negligible—far weaker than in atmospheric detonations. All of a nuclear warhead's energy was released as radiation and electromagnetic pulse, offering little mechanical damage on its own.
But Josephine watched with grim clarity. At the very epicenter of the Apocalypse-class nuclear detonations, the intense electromagnetic heat began to melt the steel bastions on Canis's surface. They dissolved like sugar cubes in hot water—everything before them shimmering like a warped mirage.
"Goddamn sons of bitches—"
...
Dylar IV — the massive orbital shipyard.
14:34 SCT (Standard Core Time), June 17, 2489.
At the end of the hyperspace jump corridor, hundreds of orange glimmers flared into existence—thruster trails left behind by warships, each stretching thousands of meters in length. A swarm of twin-winged, turbine-powered nanite repair drones spiraled around the flanks and ventral hull of the Norad II, a behemoth-class battlecruiser, clinging to its reinforced steel plating like small fish orbiting a whale shark in the deep sea.
Roughly 1 kilometer to either side of the Norad II flew her escort ships—the Hyperion and the Iron Justice. Each of the three behemoth-class battlecruisers bore distinct paint schemes and hull markings: the Hyperion wore the classic Raynor blue, while the Iron Justice gleamed in the silver-gray of the 33rd Ground Assault Division. The Norad II still displayed the red livery of the Terran Federation, though its bow now featured the golden insignias of House Mengsk and the Korhal Revolutionary Army.
At the moment the fleet emerged from hyperspace, the bridge of the Norad II lit up. Dozens of holographic projection panels and control consoles activated across the deck, LED screens flickering to life with the faces of numerous Revolutionary Army ship captains—nearly 40 of them speaking at once, their voices slightly distorted by the spatial turbulence of the jump corridor.
"Thank heaven, we made it on time after all," Jim Raynor said over the comms from the Hyperion.
"This is Horace Warfield. I'm commanding my fleet aboard the Iron Justice," came the voice of Warfield, clad in a sharp Revolutionary Army uniform. He stood ramrod straight, his solemn expression as rigid as a stone statue.
"Titan-class escort vessel No. 7, hailing flagship bridge—fleet is underway."
"Titan-class troop transport No. 10 reporting."
"Wraith Units 7, 8, and 9 accelerating toward Dylar IV, activating cloaking field generators—whoa! These things are fast as hell. I'm about to burn some serious thrusters! Praise Korhal!"
Augustus stood tall in his charcoal-gray Korhal Revolutionary Army commander's uniform, the tailored fit and cinched waistline accentuating the powerful physique of a man long hardened by battle. He stood at the bridge viewport of the Norad II, his reflection cast onto the synthetic glass—an older, weathered face. Beyond the window stretched the distant starlight, and fast approaching was the Dylar System, its twin suns and four nearly identical sister planets growing larger by the second.
To Augustus's right stood Tychus Findlay, clad in deep crimson power armor. On the scarred surface of his shoulder plate was a pin-up painting of a pink-haired beauty—one of the many loves he'd left behind in Deadman's Port.
On his left stood Sarah Kerrigan, gripping her C-10 canister rifle. Her formidable psychic abilities scanned the thoughts of every Revolutionary soldier on the bridge.
Augustus had yet to assign Mira Han—whom he had encountered by chance at Deadman's Port—to the bridge or command division, nor had he appointed her as a commander of any Revolutionary Army unit. To Augustus, he didn't need time to confirm the obvious: that future uprising leaders like Raynor, or the mercenary queen of Deadman's Port, Mira, were exceptional commanders. Still, promoting someone too quickly was bound to stir resentment.
His meeting with Mira Han had been unplanned. Augustus hadn't deliberately sought her out. Someone as ambitious as Mira would never pass up the opportunity to enlist with the Revolutionary Army.
Moreover, if Augustus appeared too eager, others would not naturally assume Mira was talented. Instead, they would see it as a case of favoritism toward an obscure, underage girl.
When the tremors of the jump dissipated, the main screen on the bridge came alive with data from the warship's sensor arrays—stellar coordinates, planetary details, orbital charts. Among them was information on Dylar IV: population, axial tilt, temperature readings. Dozens of screens surrounded Augustus, as more than 60,000 soldiers of the Korhal Revolutionary Army fleet waited in focused silence for his command.
"Broadcast my message to the entire fleet," Augustus said.
His face glowed in the bridge lighting, but every nuance of emotion was buried beneath the calm mask he wore.
"This is Augustus Mengsk. To all soldiers of the Revolutionary Army, I speak to you now from the flagship Norad II."
"Korhal has fallen. Our displaced compatriots have suffered immensely. It is this shared fate that binds us—unity forged by hardship," he continued. "Now, all the homeless sons and daughters of Korhal carry a single name: Sons of Korhal. We will not yield. We will not compromise."
"Until the decaying rule of the Terran Federation is overthrown and a free, democratic Terran Republic is born—we shall fight to the death."
He raised his voice. "This battle will decide the fate of Korhal, of all Korhalans—and even all Terrans. There is no turning back. Fleet, advance!"
"I stand with the souls of millions of Korhalans!"
The fleet moved forward in a silence heavy with conviction. They were still roughly 1 astronomical unit from Dylar IV, the Terran Federation's massive orbital shipyard. Several elite Wraith fighter units and rapid assault craft had already broken ahead on recon and tracking missions. The images they returned showed an enormous artificial space structure—over 480 kilometers in diameter, comparable to a miniature moon.
This was the largest orbital shipyard in Terran Federation history. Constructed from moldable concrete, reinforced steel, composite alloys, and armored with ceramic plating, its sheer scale and polyhedral architectural design eclipsed anything bound by planetary gravity. Even the behemoth-class battlecruisers looked like mere pinpricks against its vast frame.
As the Norad II surged forward at high velocity, it seemed to be approaching an entire planet, its surface glittering with the illumination of countless signal lights. Dozens of orbital stations and mobile research platforms orbited it like planets around a star.
A massive swarm of Federation fighters poured from the Dylarian Shipyards like hornets from a nest, converging toward the Korhal Revolutionary Army fleet—each of them registering as a red dot on the radar.
It was impossible for a fleet of this scale to approach a heavily guarded military stronghold without being noticed. Unless all detection systems, including radar sweeps, were somehow evaded, Augustus had only one option: a direct assault.
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