Chapter 4: Korhal I
Mengsk was in his office, furiously pacing. "How could it have gone so wrong?", Mengsk thought. Just a few days prior, he had thought that he had finally gotten rid of the thorn in his side that was Kerrigan. But then she returned, more terrifying than ever before. Char fell rapidly, and the only information he had was from the few transmissions they sent before they all died. There were no survivors to report back.
From what he could piece together, Kerrigan had transformed herself into a swarm and the army moved with devastating effectiveness, wiping out the Dominion forces on Char in under two days of her arrival. Now he had discovered that his hybrid laboratory has been destroyed. The hybrids were supposed to be his trump card against her. Even after receiving the news about Char he had hoped that perhaps a swarm of hybrids might be able to stand up to a swarm of Kerrigans.
Mengsk had been quickly preparing his countermeasures. He had just ordered a bunch of transmitters delivered to Zerg worlds in order to tell Kerrigan to back off or else he would kill Jim Raynor. Those should be arriving soon.
Suddenly, an alarm began beeping in his office. He checked it and his face paled. The Zerg had arrived and were in orbit over Korhal right now. An invasion was imminent. He had the defense systems activated and prepared for the assault.
The Zerg fleet was in orbit over Korhal. Dozens of leviathans were loaded with Kerrigans, all ready to take their revenge on Mengsk. The time had come.
The leviathans all began sending down drop pods, each containing a Kerrigan. The Drakken Defense Network fired at the drop pods, but each Kerrigan was able to protect herself with a psionic shield around the drop pod. The Kerrigans landed around the base operating the Drakken Defense Network. The base was heavily defended as it was critical to the defense of the planet.
The Kerrigans assaulted the base, ripping apart the walls with pure psionic power. The marines inside were torn apart by the whirlwind of claws and wing blades. Tanks and other heavy vehicles were crushed like tin cans. The defenses around the Drakken cannons were obliterated and the cannons were bombarded with psionic blasts, destroying them. Once the defense network was neutralized, the leviathans began sending down drones to build hive clusters.
The Kerrigans regrouped and began to assault Augustgrad. After tearing apart lines of bunkers and siege tanks, they arrived at the gates of Augustgrad. Beams of psionic energy tore at the gates which quickly buckled under the assault. The gates of Augustgrad were broken open and the way into the city was clear.
Waves of Kerrigans began pouring into the city on all sides. The defending Dominion forces were unable to halt the assault and the forces were being massacred. The Kerrigans also made sure to knock over every statue of Mengsk they saw.
Suddenly, a wave of energy enveloped the area. Mengsk activated the Psi Destroyer which launches an attack through the zerg hive mind and any zerg connected to the hive mind will have their body torn apart from the insides. The field caught the Kerrigans off guard and they were caught in it. Surprised by this attack, the Kerrigans quickly retreated out of the range of the Psi Destroyer to escape the insidious attack. As the Kerrigans retreated, the Dominion forces were able to retake lost ground and soon the Dominion had retaken control of the city.
Meanwhile, the Kerrigans examined the situation and pondered their next move. The Psi Destroyer would eventually kill them, but each of them were powerful enough that they could survive for a period of time within the field because of their powerful bodies and regeneration which slows down the rate of decay. The Psi Destroyer was powered by various Power links which were vulnerable.
They decided that they would send in a small squad of Kerrigans to take out a Power link which would disable the Psi Destroyer long enough for the swarm of Kerrigans to launch a full assault on the Psi Destroyer and eliminate it.
A dozen Kerrigans approached the Psi Destroyer and quickly moved toward the first Power link. They could feel the field tearing at their insides and they let out small gasps of pain. However, they endured the pain and continued to advance. There was a small Dominion force guarding the first Power link but they were quickly torn apart by the psionic assault of the Kerrigans. The Kerrigans hastily went up to the Power link and started bombarding it with psionic blasts. Eventually, the Power link was unable to stand up to the assault and it exploded.
After the Power link was destroyed, the Psi Destroyer field went down. Now, thousands of Kerrigans arrived and began advancing toward the Psi Destroyer. The Psi Destroyer was heavily defended. The Kerrigans had to tear through line after line of bunkers and tanks. Battlecruisers came in and started bombarding them. Although the Dominion defenses delayed their assault for a little bit, they were confident that they would have enough time to destroy the Psi Disruptor.
As the Kerrigans came upon the largest concentration of Dominion forces, the Psi Destroyer suddenly came online. The Kerrigans were shocked by this since they had calculated the Dominion would need several more minutes to finish rerouting power to the Psi Destroyer.
They quickly dispatched another group of Kerrigans to destroy a Power link. Meanwhile, the rest of them would stay put and defend against any Dominion attacks and endure the assault of the Psi Destroyer until the field was brought down. They didn't want to get into a fight while the Psi Destroyer was active. Once they disabled the field again, they would be able to recover and then continue the attack.
As the group of Kerrigans began moving toward the Power link, they were met with much more resistance than the first Power link. Although the Dominion guards fell eventually, they were able to hold back the Kerrigans for a bit of time, during which the swarm was taking damage. Finally, they came upon the Power link and blasted it with psionic power until it was destroyed. However, the Psi Destroyer continued to function.
When Mengsk had found out about the changes to the swarm, he realized that the Psi Destroyer might not be as effective as it would have been originally because the Kerrigans could survive for a longer period of time within the field. He realized that they might be able to take out the Power links which were quite vulnerable. It was far too difficult to defend all of the Power links against an assault from many Kerrigans. Thus, he thought of a plan.
The new power supply was built underneath the Psi Destroyer while the Power links were kept on the outside as a distraction. In reality, the Power links were not actually important toward the functioning of the Psi Destroyer. When the first Power link was destroyed, the Psi Destroyer was intentionally turned off the lure the Kerrigans into a false sense of security. Now, they were deep within the field of the Psi Destroyer and they didn't have a plan to easily disable it.
When the destruction of the Power link failed to disable the Psi Disruptor, the Kerrigans were shocked. They quickly decided that they needed to retreat. However, at this moment a large Dominion army had come up behind them. The Dominion forces that had been in front of them was also preparing an attack. They were caught in a pincer between the two forces.
Ordinarily, such a army would have not posed a threat to them. However, the continual exposure to the Psi Destroyer had greatly weakened the Kerrigans. The Psi Destroyer had inflicted serious internal injuries and many of the Kerrigans had started coughing up blood. Their carapace had started breaking apart and their bodies were weakened structurally. Furthermore, they would be unable to regenerate from any wounds that were inflicted on them.
The siege tanks started firing a barrage of explosive shells at the Kerrigans. The weakened carapace armor of the Kerrigans began breaking apart after several hits from the tanks. Soon, many of the Kerrigans had their bodies filled with shrapnel as they laid sprawled out on the ground in pain. A fleet of battlecruisers passed overhead and started bombarding them. Even the marines were able to kill the Kerrigans as the sheer number of bullets peppered the bodies of the Kerrigans and eventually perforated them.
The Kerrigans fought back of course and managed to start tearing apart the Dominion army. Psionic lighting started frying the advancing marines and battlecruisers were ripped out of the sky. They refrained from engaging in melee combat however as their claws and wings had been weakened enough to make it risky to attack.
Despite putting up strong resistance, the waves of Dominion forces were overwhelming the Kerrigans as Mengsk had sent almost all of his forces to the Psi Destroyer to wipe out the group of Kerrigans. Mengsk knew that the Psi Destroyer was critical to the defense of Korhal and thus no effort was spared in protecting it.
The bombardment from the siege tanks, the continuous attacks from the marines and the bombardment from the battlecruisers combined with the continuous damage to the Kerrigans from the Psi Disruptor began killing the Kerrigans, who found themselves unable to find an opportunity to regenerate from their wounds. The Dominion forces, despite taking massive casualties, managed to kill the massive force of Kerrigans.
The Swarm was reeling from this massive loss. Never before had it lost so many of its members in such a short amount of time. In their arrogance and haste they fell into a trap and suffered because of it. The remaining Kerrigans reconvened to find a new solution to destroy the Psi Destroyer.
Their original tactic had been a huge failure. So, the Kerrigans tried to think of a different way to approach the issue. Finally, one had an idea. They would put a thousand Kerrigans on a leviathan and send it on a crash course with the Psi Destroyer, much like Tassadar had done with the Overmind. The Kerrigans would channel their psionic energy through the leviathan and detonate it in a massive explosion when it hit the Psi Destroyer.
The Kerrigans agreed on the plan and sent a thousand of their own on the mission. It was successful and the Psi Destroyer was completely destroyed. Mengsk's weapon was eliminated, albeit at a massive cost.
Now, the Kerrigans once again resumed their attack on Augustgrad. Going back through the destroyed gates, they were able to sweep away the remaining opposition.
Mengsk was becoming desperate as his decisive trump card had been destroyed. He had one last tool, the artifact. He had it configured to be like it was on Char and it would charge up energy before unleashing it in a massive energy nova to destroy the Kerrigans.
The Kerrigans sensed the buildup of energy from the artifact and they recognized what was happening. They redoubled their pace and began tearing through the bunkers and defensive lines surrounding the palace. When they approached the palace, Mengsk unleashed the Odin, now newly repaired and refurbished. The Odin fired upon one of the Kerrigans, the powerful explosive shells even managing to drive the Kerrigan to her knees. However, the rest of the Kerrigans began blasting the Odin with psionic blasts and soon even the massive Odin fell into a smoking pile of ruins.
Finally, the Kerrigans entered the palace. Mengsk was in his office, desperately hoping for the artifact to finish charging, but it was nowhere close since his forces were so ineffective at stopping the Kerrigans. When the first Kerrigan entered, she immediately leapt toward the artifact and blasted it off the pedestal. The artifact fell apart into its component pieces and deactivated.
Mengsk was seized and dragged to the center of his office. Around the city, the last stragglers of Dominion forces were killed. Now, every Kerrigan began descending upon Augustgrad for Mengsk's death.
The first Kerrigan stomped down on Mengsk and her sharp stiletto heel speared itself into Mengsk's abdomen. Then the next Kerrigan came up and stepped on Mengsk as well. Mengsk died in a pool of his blood as every Kerrigan in the swarm came and stepped on him. By the end of it, Mengsk's body was an unrecognizable mush.
With Mengsk finally dead, the Kerrigans got back into the leviathans and left Korhal as they set out to fight Amon.
Author's Note: This story will continue on to Legacy of the Void. Many of the places where Artanis intervened will be replaced by Kerrigan fighting Amon's forces. Overall, Artanis will be doing a lot less in Legacy of the Void because the highly effective Kerrigans will be supporting the whole war effort.