----- In orbit over Char ----
The Praetor stood up from his command chair and stared at view screen. Kerrigan had finally arrived. He knew she would come but he was hoping he had delayed them a little longer then that. He turned to his comm. Officer and told him to contact the three terran Battle Cruisers, but at that moment he saw the terran ships pull back and head to the planet.
"What do the Terran's think they are doing? We need their help now more then ever." Inquired the Praetor irritably.
"The Captain in charge of the Terran spaceforce says there has been a development on the planet and they have been recalled." Reported the Comm. officer.
"Well ask them what's more important. Kerrigan's Brood or what ever may be down there?"
"They seem to think it's far more important then anything the brood can throw at us."
"The Terrans may be making a mistake and we will make sure they remember it when this is done... Charge all weapons, prep the fighters and prepare the Array."
"Aye sir."
The exiles Carriers began to unload their swarms of interceptor's and the scouts began to array themselves in defense positions around the larger vessels.
Kerrigan was fast on the up take. She had her scourges on the move in a near instant, the small, deadly creatures flying to their targets with a single minded determination. The robotic interceptors flew into the swarm and unleashed their cannons onto the small zerg flyers. Many of the simple minded scourges saw these interceptors as a new threat and slammed into them instead, ending their existence in a flare of blood and fire.
When the explosions had stopped, the swarm still pressed on. The cloud of scourges flew into the Protoss fleet. The carriers were franticly trying to build more interceptors while the other ships engaged the scourges. A small pack of the deadly creatures headed for Talra's flagship, the Gantrithor II. The pack was about to make their attack when they stopped dead in their tracks, incased in a stasis field. The nearby arbiter was then ripped to shreds by a swarm it had missed. With the cloaking field gone, a force of unseen carriers was made vulnerable.
At this point the scourges had been mostly dealt with, but the large creatures had now reached the fleet. The Guardians were slow moving but now in range, and with no gravity to pull their shots down they made very effective space weapons. The massive bug like creatures began to spit their acid globs into the fleet. An unsuspecting scout was hit with one right in the cockpit, having been weakened by a scourge, the scout had no chance of survival. The acid burned through the scout and ignited the anti- matter missiles. The scout was turned into a miniature star, for the whole fleet to see.
When the blaze had cleared the Praetor was barely able to keep his anger in check. He turned to face the High Templar on the bridge when a Guardian fired at his ship, the resulting impact knocked the praetor off his feet. Heaving back to his feet he said, "Find the overlord carrying Kerrigan."
The Templar merely nodded and began to concentrate. He became momentarily strained as something tried to invade his awareness, but he had managed to block the presence from his mind. He refocused his efforts and the turned to, "Talra, my lord, I have found the zerg mistress," The templar glided over to the Weapons counsel and began to pinpoint the overlord, "She resides in this Overlord."
"Good, you have done well."
"One more thing. I sensed a very powerful presence while I was searching, I suggest we proceed with caution."
"Noted. Prepare to fire the Psi Array."
The weapons officer began his work and soon the massive crystal wings were locked in firing position. The large crystal wings began to crackle with psionic energy. The Templar could feel the power crackling around him and his power rushing to join the others of the fleet. To someone as intoned with their psionic power, it was a peculiar sensation. The central focusing crystal began to slide out of the modified carrier bay and locked into position. The arrays, now at full power, transferred all of their energy into the focusing crystal and soon the massive weapon was ready to fire.
The Gantrithor II turned slightly to face Kerrigan's Overlord. With the creature dead in his sights, Talra gave the order to fire. The beam of energy cut through space and streaked towards the overload. Sensing the trouble, Kerrigan had incased herself with a cocoon from the Overlord, one that would allow her to survive the Vacuum of space. The Overlord then pushed here out into space just as the creature was hit by the powerful beam. Kerrigan could feel the psionic energy as the beam passed close to her cocoon, it filled her with extreme pain. The doomed Overlord looked at the on coming beam and let out a low groan seconds before it ripped through the beast.
The beam lasted only for seconds, but in the few seconds it had been enough to kill the overlord and a large number of zerg. Unfortunately, for the exiles, the swarm still ravaged onward.
"Why are they still attacking us? They should be destroying their selves!" the Praetor was mad, victory was so close but so far away.
The templar turned to the Praetor, "She's still out there. She has avoided our blow."
"Take us into the planets atmosphere. That should take care of the guardians, and then we only need be concerned with the Mutalisks and Devourers.
Most of the carriers peeled off and headed down to Char while a few of the warships stayed back as a vanguard, they would fall back when the others were safe.
--- Over mind Controll Center ---
Darius stood in his combat armour and surveyed the wreckage. This would be a major set back, this kind of destruction didn't occur every day, and worst of all, the beast was still out there. They needed to begin repairs immediately, but the Space force commander had informed them that Kerrigan had arrived.
A Technician ran up to Darius and spoke, "Sir, we may be able to bring the wrecked Command center's thrusters online. We could move it but then it will blow out the fuel packs and that thing wouldn't be good for anything, but scrap metal."
"Well The beast was weakened; maybe we could kill it now. Alright, get ready to do it."
With that the technician turned and walked towards a group of other technicians. After they talked for some time, they dispersed and reassembled near the wrecked command center, with a contingent of marines.
"Alright," the technician pointed to a marine, "Your gonna go in and we'll keep in touch with you from out here and tell you what to do."
"Why the hell am I going?"
"Cause you're the only on here who actually has some experience with Command center systems, other then us, but were too vulnerable. You can take some others with you"
The marine looked about and point at some marines who were just standing around drinking, "You guys, your coming with me."
"Aww Damn Sarge, get someone else to go with you."
"Shut yer trap or I'll have you lynched for mutiny."
The marine decided against arguing anymore and the two marines headed for the wrecked Command center. Darius watched them from a distance and the two troopers forced the door open and disappeared from site.
Inside the ruined building the marines made there way carefully to the top level. The picked there way carefully between the debris and on there way they came across an odd red stain on the wall. The Sarge stopped and looked at it closer to find broom hidden under a collapsed support beam. The men stood up and looked out of the command center through a massive gouge in the wall. He looked down and found a piece of wood sticking out from the debris. Curious, he reached down and pulled it out of the wreckage and discovered a slightly splintered, broom. He held it in his hand and pondered about it for a moment. He then tossed it aside and went on to the control center.
He reached it and found it in only marginally better condition then the rest of the facility. He walked to one of the panel a brushed aside some of the rubble on it. He looked at it for a moment and then found the activation button.
After it had powered up and he had hit it twice for trying to shut off again, it was running as well as it could on back up power. He clicked the comm. switch in his suit and contacted the technicians outside.
"Alright, so I'm here. Now what?" he asked
"Provided there isn't an excessive amount of damage to the network, it should provide us with the required amount of system access to fire the thrusters. So at the moment it's a simple matter of bypassing any corrupt pathways and we'll have this thing moving."
The marine blinked and then shock his head, damn tech's always looking for the hard way, he thought. He swept off more of the panel and found a button behind glass door. It was the emergency lift off button. He smashed the glass and pressed the button.
The technicians looked up to see the thrusters fire and the command center slowly climb up. One of the thrusters exploded into a fire ball, and the command center lurched to the left, yet still with enough power to keep moving. It moved slowly away from the hole, with more fires breaking out across the building. It gave one more heave, sending it away from the hole and sending it smashing to the ground to the left of it.
A lone voice came from on the comm., the voice of the marine, "Woo Hoo, what a ride. I'll be coming out now, before this thing burns itself to the ground."
The technicians looked at each other and then let a smile cross their faces. Sometimes the simple ways were best.
Around them the Terran forces began to set up around the hole, and a small squad of ghost's were running to the edge of the hole with cords and special equipment. Darius walked up to the squad leader and said, "Go on down boys, and find that critter."
--- In the Atmosphere of Char ---
The Protoss were running, and that pleased Kerrigan greatly. She had wanted to punish that arrogant fool, Talra, for the humiliation he had dealt her at Krashek. Now she had the joy of watching the Protoss flee from her, but she knew her work was not done, she would not be happy until she had reclaimed home world of the zerg and sent the Praetor to his grave. She began to make her move and ordered her forces into the planet's Atmosphere. She made sure her guardians stayed above the protoss fleet, so they could still take shots at them, by trying to hit moving targets with big acid globs. The rest of her forces rushed down and came upon the protoss fleet from above.
The first few zerg creatures were ripped to shreds from weapons fire from protoss scouts that had come up to meet them. The scouts kept on going right into the swarm, weapons firing. The next wave of zerg, came in with a lot more creatures, far too many for that wing of scouts to take down.
The zerg ripped into the wing with fury that was common to the swarm. One scout was hit in the engines and lost control, but it was also very close to the zerg flyers, so it slammed into a devour and both the zerg and the protoss died in massive eruption of fire and blood. Soon the other scouts in the squadron met similar fates and the zerg swarm was able to approach the main protoss fleet, from above.
They fell upon the praetor's fleet with mindless determination. The first zerg creatures were met with pin point blasts from the protoss gunners, ripping into their bodies and sending them hurtling to the ash world bellow. The gunner tried to fire at the second group but they were too quick and easily avoided the fire from the injured Protoss ships. Soon they had closed the gap and began to wreck their havoc on Talra's ships
The Gantrithor II was largely overlooked at first but Kerrigan want revenge and she would not allow the Praetor to escape this time. She dug into her memories of their last engagements and she rembered what his command ship looked like and what it was capable of. She needed to bring that craft down, before it got a chance to use its array another time. She used the eyes of her minions and gazed at the Exile's fleet from many different angles, then, through the eyes of a scourge she saw it running towards one of the last remaining Arbiters. She looked upon the Praetors ship, watched as he tried to hid from here, she felt overwhelming pride at this turn of events, but then her scourge ended it's life and gutted the interceptor bay of a carrier, but she had seen enough.
Now that she knew where her prey was she changed her tactics, and the zerg swarm began to cut a wedge into the Protoss fleet, working its way to the Praetors ship with only one though etched on their mind; destroy that ship. Ship after ship in the Exile's fleet exploded, succumbing to the fury of the swarm, and they still kept coming. Kerrigan could feel victory within her grasp, but then she faltered, she felt a physic presence on Char. A powerful one, more powerful then her or the strongest Protoss warriors she had ever fought. But despite this she also could feel that it was Zerg, and it was under no ones control. No overmind, no Terran trickery, no Protoss, it was its own master, and that was a dangerous thing. She pondered on this; the last time a zerg had been under its own control, she had claimed power. She could not afford something else trying to strip the swarm from her, she knew that she needed to destroy it but at the moment she couldn't, for the Protoss were still alive.
--- Exile's Fleet ---
"Praetor, I am... sensing...something strange." The High templar reported slowly.
The Praetor was about ready to snap at the next who spoke, because of this battle, but the templar had never failed him yet, "Speak." He replied
"There is a Zerg presence out there," the Praetor nearly screamed at him due to his blatantly obvious observation but the templar raised his hand to stop him, "It's not under Kerrigan's control. I think it is too powerful ever be under her control even if she wanted it."
The Praetor fleet his anger vanish to be replaced by more of a curious fear, he turned to his first officer, Rasslen, and he took over command of the battle of the time being. "The Overmind perhaps?" asked Talra.
"No sir. It is the presence I sense before. It is Zerg, I can tell that from its mind, but it is its own master, not a slave. I need not remind you, My Lord, what happened the last time a Zerg became its own Master."
"No, you need not," Talra understood greatly what the Templar meant, for he was currently battling the meaning, "I want you too find me the source of this," he was interrupted by explosion in the ship, "Once you have it, let me know and we will try and kill it. Now we must go back to surviving."
"On that topic, I have an Idea." The Templar sounded mischievous, which the praetor thought, looked odd for some one so powerful.
--- In the Atmosphere of Char ---
Kerrigan was taken by surprise as the shape of the Gantrithor II shimmered and twisted, and then it became normal once more except for one thing. There were three. She knew what had happened, for she had fought the Protoss many times before, but even as she watched other ships moved and shuffled, blocking her view of the real one. As they did this, more phantom ships appeared and shuffled, obscuring her goal even more. Suddenly a fresh wave of Protoss scout's flew out of the Exiles fleet and came bearing down on here nearest overlords, taking out the eyes of the swarm. She could feel her victory slowly slipping by, but she would not accept it, not yet.
The Swarm began to target only the phantom ships and none of the other ships in the fleet. One by one hallucination erupted into blue clouds, while the real Protoss ships ripped into the swarm. But the Protoss couldn't win this way, because the swarm would soon reach the real ship and with their flag ship gone the swarm would then destroy them, but they had a plan. The minds of the Templars in the fleet began to move their phantoms and soon the Gantrithor II was revealed, pointing straight at Kerrigan with its array fully charged.
Kerrigan looked at it and for the first time in her existence, true terror overtook her emotions. She stared at the Praetors ship and could almost feel his arrogant mind laughing at her. No! Not now! She couldn't lose, not now, not when she had come so far. But there was nothing she could do. She watched as the blue-white lance burned a path through the air and hit her overlord. Then her world was plunged into darkness.
The Praetor stood up from his command chair and stared at view screen. Kerrigan had finally arrived. He knew she would come but he was hoping he had delayed them a little longer then that. He turned to his comm. Officer and told him to contact the three terran Battle Cruisers, but at that moment he saw the terran ships pull back and head to the planet.
"What do the Terran's think they are doing? We need their help now more then ever." Inquired the Praetor irritably.
"The Captain in charge of the Terran spaceforce says there has been a development on the planet and they have been recalled." Reported the Comm. officer.
"Well ask them what's more important. Kerrigan's Brood or what ever may be down there?"
"They seem to think it's far more important then anything the brood can throw at us."
"The Terrans may be making a mistake and we will make sure they remember it when this is done... Charge all weapons, prep the fighters and prepare the Array."
"Aye sir."
The exiles Carriers began to unload their swarms of interceptor's and the scouts began to array themselves in defense positions around the larger vessels.
Kerrigan was fast on the up take. She had her scourges on the move in a near instant, the small, deadly creatures flying to their targets with a single minded determination. The robotic interceptors flew into the swarm and unleashed their cannons onto the small zerg flyers. Many of the simple minded scourges saw these interceptors as a new threat and slammed into them instead, ending their existence in a flare of blood and fire.
When the explosions had stopped, the swarm still pressed on. The cloud of scourges flew into the Protoss fleet. The carriers were franticly trying to build more interceptors while the other ships engaged the scourges. A small pack of the deadly creatures headed for Talra's flagship, the Gantrithor II. The pack was about to make their attack when they stopped dead in their tracks, incased in a stasis field. The nearby arbiter was then ripped to shreds by a swarm it had missed. With the cloaking field gone, a force of unseen carriers was made vulnerable.
At this point the scourges had been mostly dealt with, but the large creatures had now reached the fleet. The Guardians were slow moving but now in range, and with no gravity to pull their shots down they made very effective space weapons. The massive bug like creatures began to spit their acid globs into the fleet. An unsuspecting scout was hit with one right in the cockpit, having been weakened by a scourge, the scout had no chance of survival. The acid burned through the scout and ignited the anti- matter missiles. The scout was turned into a miniature star, for the whole fleet to see.
When the blaze had cleared the Praetor was barely able to keep his anger in check. He turned to face the High Templar on the bridge when a Guardian fired at his ship, the resulting impact knocked the praetor off his feet. Heaving back to his feet he said, "Find the overlord carrying Kerrigan."
The Templar merely nodded and began to concentrate. He became momentarily strained as something tried to invade his awareness, but he had managed to block the presence from his mind. He refocused his efforts and the turned to, "Talra, my lord, I have found the zerg mistress," The templar glided over to the Weapons counsel and began to pinpoint the overlord, "She resides in this Overlord."
"Good, you have done well."
"One more thing. I sensed a very powerful presence while I was searching, I suggest we proceed with caution."
"Noted. Prepare to fire the Psi Array."
The weapons officer began his work and soon the massive crystal wings were locked in firing position. The large crystal wings began to crackle with psionic energy. The Templar could feel the power crackling around him and his power rushing to join the others of the fleet. To someone as intoned with their psionic power, it was a peculiar sensation. The central focusing crystal began to slide out of the modified carrier bay and locked into position. The arrays, now at full power, transferred all of their energy into the focusing crystal and soon the massive weapon was ready to fire.
The Gantrithor II turned slightly to face Kerrigan's Overlord. With the creature dead in his sights, Talra gave the order to fire. The beam of energy cut through space and streaked towards the overload. Sensing the trouble, Kerrigan had incased herself with a cocoon from the Overlord, one that would allow her to survive the Vacuum of space. The Overlord then pushed here out into space just as the creature was hit by the powerful beam. Kerrigan could feel the psionic energy as the beam passed close to her cocoon, it filled her with extreme pain. The doomed Overlord looked at the on coming beam and let out a low groan seconds before it ripped through the beast.
The beam lasted only for seconds, but in the few seconds it had been enough to kill the overlord and a large number of zerg. Unfortunately, for the exiles, the swarm still ravaged onward.
"Why are they still attacking us? They should be destroying their selves!" the Praetor was mad, victory was so close but so far away.
The templar turned to the Praetor, "She's still out there. She has avoided our blow."
"Take us into the planets atmosphere. That should take care of the guardians, and then we only need be concerned with the Mutalisks and Devourers.
Most of the carriers peeled off and headed down to Char while a few of the warships stayed back as a vanguard, they would fall back when the others were safe.
--- Over mind Controll Center ---
Darius stood in his combat armour and surveyed the wreckage. This would be a major set back, this kind of destruction didn't occur every day, and worst of all, the beast was still out there. They needed to begin repairs immediately, but the Space force commander had informed them that Kerrigan had arrived.
A Technician ran up to Darius and spoke, "Sir, we may be able to bring the wrecked Command center's thrusters online. We could move it but then it will blow out the fuel packs and that thing wouldn't be good for anything, but scrap metal."
"Well The beast was weakened; maybe we could kill it now. Alright, get ready to do it."
With that the technician turned and walked towards a group of other technicians. After they talked for some time, they dispersed and reassembled near the wrecked command center, with a contingent of marines.
"Alright," the technician pointed to a marine, "Your gonna go in and we'll keep in touch with you from out here and tell you what to do."
"Why the hell am I going?"
"Cause you're the only on here who actually has some experience with Command center systems, other then us, but were too vulnerable. You can take some others with you"
The marine looked about and point at some marines who were just standing around drinking, "You guys, your coming with me."
"Aww Damn Sarge, get someone else to go with you."
"Shut yer trap or I'll have you lynched for mutiny."
The marine decided against arguing anymore and the two marines headed for the wrecked Command center. Darius watched them from a distance and the two troopers forced the door open and disappeared from site.
Inside the ruined building the marines made there way carefully to the top level. The picked there way carefully between the debris and on there way they came across an odd red stain on the wall. The Sarge stopped and looked at it closer to find broom hidden under a collapsed support beam. The men stood up and looked out of the command center through a massive gouge in the wall. He looked down and found a piece of wood sticking out from the debris. Curious, he reached down and pulled it out of the wreckage and discovered a slightly splintered, broom. He held it in his hand and pondered about it for a moment. He then tossed it aside and went on to the control center.
He reached it and found it in only marginally better condition then the rest of the facility. He walked to one of the panel a brushed aside some of the rubble on it. He looked at it for a moment and then found the activation button.
After it had powered up and he had hit it twice for trying to shut off again, it was running as well as it could on back up power. He clicked the comm. switch in his suit and contacted the technicians outside.
"Alright, so I'm here. Now what?" he asked
"Provided there isn't an excessive amount of damage to the network, it should provide us with the required amount of system access to fire the thrusters. So at the moment it's a simple matter of bypassing any corrupt pathways and we'll have this thing moving."
The marine blinked and then shock his head, damn tech's always looking for the hard way, he thought. He swept off more of the panel and found a button behind glass door. It was the emergency lift off button. He smashed the glass and pressed the button.
The technicians looked up to see the thrusters fire and the command center slowly climb up. One of the thrusters exploded into a fire ball, and the command center lurched to the left, yet still with enough power to keep moving. It moved slowly away from the hole, with more fires breaking out across the building. It gave one more heave, sending it away from the hole and sending it smashing to the ground to the left of it.
A lone voice came from on the comm., the voice of the marine, "Woo Hoo, what a ride. I'll be coming out now, before this thing burns itself to the ground."
The technicians looked at each other and then let a smile cross their faces. Sometimes the simple ways were best.
Around them the Terran forces began to set up around the hole, and a small squad of ghost's were running to the edge of the hole with cords and special equipment. Darius walked up to the squad leader and said, "Go on down boys, and find that critter."
--- In the Atmosphere of Char ---
The Protoss were running, and that pleased Kerrigan greatly. She had wanted to punish that arrogant fool, Talra, for the humiliation he had dealt her at Krashek. Now she had the joy of watching the Protoss flee from her, but she knew her work was not done, she would not be happy until she had reclaimed home world of the zerg and sent the Praetor to his grave. She began to make her move and ordered her forces into the planet's Atmosphere. She made sure her guardians stayed above the protoss fleet, so they could still take shots at them, by trying to hit moving targets with big acid globs. The rest of her forces rushed down and came upon the protoss fleet from above.
The first few zerg creatures were ripped to shreds from weapons fire from protoss scouts that had come up to meet them. The scouts kept on going right into the swarm, weapons firing. The next wave of zerg, came in with a lot more creatures, far too many for that wing of scouts to take down.
The zerg ripped into the wing with fury that was common to the swarm. One scout was hit in the engines and lost control, but it was also very close to the zerg flyers, so it slammed into a devour and both the zerg and the protoss died in massive eruption of fire and blood. Soon the other scouts in the squadron met similar fates and the zerg swarm was able to approach the main protoss fleet, from above.
They fell upon the praetor's fleet with mindless determination. The first zerg creatures were met with pin point blasts from the protoss gunners, ripping into their bodies and sending them hurtling to the ash world bellow. The gunner tried to fire at the second group but they were too quick and easily avoided the fire from the injured Protoss ships. Soon they had closed the gap and began to wreck their havoc on Talra's ships
The Gantrithor II was largely overlooked at first but Kerrigan want revenge and she would not allow the Praetor to escape this time. She dug into her memories of their last engagements and she rembered what his command ship looked like and what it was capable of. She needed to bring that craft down, before it got a chance to use its array another time. She used the eyes of her minions and gazed at the Exile's fleet from many different angles, then, through the eyes of a scourge she saw it running towards one of the last remaining Arbiters. She looked upon the Praetors ship, watched as he tried to hid from here, she felt overwhelming pride at this turn of events, but then her scourge ended it's life and gutted the interceptor bay of a carrier, but she had seen enough.
Now that she knew where her prey was she changed her tactics, and the zerg swarm began to cut a wedge into the Protoss fleet, working its way to the Praetors ship with only one though etched on their mind; destroy that ship. Ship after ship in the Exile's fleet exploded, succumbing to the fury of the swarm, and they still kept coming. Kerrigan could feel victory within her grasp, but then she faltered, she felt a physic presence on Char. A powerful one, more powerful then her or the strongest Protoss warriors she had ever fought. But despite this she also could feel that it was Zerg, and it was under no ones control. No overmind, no Terran trickery, no Protoss, it was its own master, and that was a dangerous thing. She pondered on this; the last time a zerg had been under its own control, she had claimed power. She could not afford something else trying to strip the swarm from her, she knew that she needed to destroy it but at the moment she couldn't, for the Protoss were still alive.
--- Exile's Fleet ---
"Praetor, I am... sensing...something strange." The High templar reported slowly.
The Praetor was about ready to snap at the next who spoke, because of this battle, but the templar had never failed him yet, "Speak." He replied
"There is a Zerg presence out there," the Praetor nearly screamed at him due to his blatantly obvious observation but the templar raised his hand to stop him, "It's not under Kerrigan's control. I think it is too powerful ever be under her control even if she wanted it."
The Praetor fleet his anger vanish to be replaced by more of a curious fear, he turned to his first officer, Rasslen, and he took over command of the battle of the time being. "The Overmind perhaps?" asked Talra.
"No sir. It is the presence I sense before. It is Zerg, I can tell that from its mind, but it is its own master, not a slave. I need not remind you, My Lord, what happened the last time a Zerg became its own Master."
"No, you need not," Talra understood greatly what the Templar meant, for he was currently battling the meaning, "I want you too find me the source of this," he was interrupted by explosion in the ship, "Once you have it, let me know and we will try and kill it. Now we must go back to surviving."
"On that topic, I have an Idea." The Templar sounded mischievous, which the praetor thought, looked odd for some one so powerful.
--- In the Atmosphere of Char ---
Kerrigan was taken by surprise as the shape of the Gantrithor II shimmered and twisted, and then it became normal once more except for one thing. There were three. She knew what had happened, for she had fought the Protoss many times before, but even as she watched other ships moved and shuffled, blocking her view of the real one. As they did this, more phantom ships appeared and shuffled, obscuring her goal even more. Suddenly a fresh wave of Protoss scout's flew out of the Exiles fleet and came bearing down on here nearest overlords, taking out the eyes of the swarm. She could feel her victory slowly slipping by, but she would not accept it, not yet.
The Swarm began to target only the phantom ships and none of the other ships in the fleet. One by one hallucination erupted into blue clouds, while the real Protoss ships ripped into the swarm. But the Protoss couldn't win this way, because the swarm would soon reach the real ship and with their flag ship gone the swarm would then destroy them, but they had a plan. The minds of the Templars in the fleet began to move their phantoms and soon the Gantrithor II was revealed, pointing straight at Kerrigan with its array fully charged.
Kerrigan looked at it and for the first time in her existence, true terror overtook her emotions. She stared at the Praetors ship and could almost feel his arrogant mind laughing at her. No! Not now! She couldn't lose, not now, not when she had come so far. But there was nothing she could do. She watched as the blue-white lance burned a path through the air and hit her overlord. Then her world was plunged into darkness.