Author's Note: Ok everyone, at the end of this chapter, there will be something few people would have anticipated because they would judge it to be of no importance. Me, I decided otherwise and will have uses for it later.

All I will say about that part is this: for those of you who have played "Whispers of Doom", I suggest you go back and watch the prophecy cinematic very carefully, and you'll see what I'm getting at.

At MostazalsLord: Your congratulations on Nova and Sarah beating the gestalts were somewhat premature. The battle on New Folsom isn't over yet, and this chapter will continue that battle.

Please read and review!

Chapter 28

Temple Ruins, Aiur

The battlefield erupted with fire as the Siege Tanks shelled the open field before them. General Ridgeway watched as the Zealots scattered to avoid the explosion, and then came under heavy fire from the Goliaths' autocannons.

Nevertheless, he knew these attacks can do little more than delay the inevitable. Casualties have been around the expected levels so far for defending the temple ruins, but there was no way to stop the steady flow in Protoss reinforcements from pouring in. The Vikings all had to be converted to the ground role to fill in the serious shortage of infantry, as too many of them were now back at the casualty clearing stations and being treated by medics. With the Banshees unable to fire at aerial opponents, this left only the Wraiths to defend against the Dropships, sent down by the BattleCruisers to reinforce their defensive position.

As such, the Wraiths were constantly forced to escort the Dropships to prevent them from being shot down by Protoss flyers, leaving no air units at all to deal with the Protoss transports warping their warriors on the battle scene. Ridgeway knew that in equal numbers, the Protoss would prevail as individually they were stronger than the average terran soldier, and as a result overwhelming numbers is required to conduct successful attacks.

However, right now the Dominion soldiers defending the ruins and the Protoss warriors attacking them are relatively equal in numbers. To make things worse, manpower and ammunition were both being expended faster than the Dropships could resupply them with. The steady rate of attrition was rapidly making the current situation more and more untenable. The general told his soldiers there are some things that they just have to have faith in, but fewer and fewer people saw a positive outcome to this anymore. While the attacks have not increased in intensity, the Protoss have shown no sign of letting up their efforts.

The logistics officers at the Command Center have made urgent requests for heavier reinforcements, but when it came to dealing with the Protoss Colossi war machines, only the Thor was able to hold its own ground. This was made even more difficult by the way in which they were sent to the battlefield. With no disruptions to their Warp Prisms, they could simply warp the Colossi to the area, bypassing the transporting phase altogether. On the other hand, most of the special Dropships strong enough to transport the Thors did not have heavy armor, and they came under frequent attack from Protoss Scouts. Rather than risk the precious Dropships this way, the transport officers on the BattleCruisers instead turned to sending the Thors onto Hercules Dropships, as they had much thicker armor and therefore had a better chance to survive air attacks. However the heavy armor came at the cost of speed and agility, and the Hercules ships were slow and lumbering compared to the standard Dropships. This gave the Protoss flyers more chances to shoot them out of the sky, and since Thors were the most difficult ground units to replenish, the Wraith fighters had to focus their main efforts on protecting the Hercules Dropships whenever they were sent down to the planet's surface with reinforcements.

The picture was getting progressively darker and darker for them. Ridgeway may not be an expert on the Protoss, but he knew they were very fanatical warriors. Although they did not possess the rapid healing rate the Zerg did, their rate of recovery from injuries were nevertheless quicker in comparison to terrans. As the old terran myths have indicated in such a scenario, that was what makes the opponent a fiercer warrior in combat, and now it could be recognized in full reality on the battlefield of Aiur.

To compound matters, it seemed as if the Protoss have no understanding of fear in the midst of combat. As far as they were concerned, war and combat was considered glorious, even if they were fully aware it would lead to their deaths. Ridgeway knew some of his boys were tough, but he also knew that even they had breaking points. If the going got too tough, that point would inevitably be reached. In the event of death, the general was well aware there were soldiers that would act heroically, and those that would act as cowards.

Although life must surely be precious to the Protoss as well, it would seem to Ridgeway that they were far more willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, even if they knew their deaths would accomplish absolutely nothing. On the other hand, he had seen cases during his early military days were even the strongest willed soldier had been reduced to cowards as the horrors of battle had simply proved too much for him to bear. With the Protoss, they did not mind death one bit, and rather had looked forward to the afterlife, and that gave them an advantage which Ridgeway knew the terrans could never counter. As he had learned in numerous battles during his military years, the willingness to die for the greater cause was a powerful advantage in its own right.

Of course, courage and valor alone aren't enough to win battles, but the Protoss weren't blind to that. Their technology in most ways were superior to that of the terrans, and with them being hard pressed to replace their losses, Ridgeway knew how the battle would most likely end.

Those thoughts were interrupted, however, as an enormous explosion shook the battlefield. The general looked up to see one of the towering Colossi crash down onto the ground, crushing Stalkers and Immortals in the process.

"Have the Thors focus their artillery barrages on the Colossi!" Ridgeway ordered, as he continued to fire rounds from his gauss rifle against the attacking Zealots.

"Eat hot lead!" The Thor pilots shouted, as their mechanical walkers opened up with their 250mm strike cannons. The ground shook with the fury of war, as some of the Colossi staggered backwards from the blows.

But to Ridgeway's shock, some of the Colossi simply vanished in a puff of bright smoke. The same was happening to many of the Zealots, Stalkers, and Immortals as they were struck by terran gunfire.

The general squinted to look harder at the scene, before scowling in anger. The Protoss were deploying their robotic Sentries to the scene. Although smaller than the Zealot, these drones were very deadly, as they were producing hallucination copies of the Protoss units on the ground. Now the terrans had to deal with the Protoss toying with their heads, and determine which units were real, and which were hallucinations.

Under normal circumstances, this was not much of a problem as the sheer amount of firepower at their disposal made it unnecessary to identify the real units from the fake ones. Here however, ammunition was a critical factor, and must not be expended needlessly. The real Colossi were already taking advantage of the hallucinations their Sentries had produced for them, using the time to get within firing distance and opening up with their thermal lances on the Thors.

"We need the Ravens sent here immediately!" Ridgeway ordered.

"They'll be deployed from the BattleCruisers right away, general. Just hold on," came the reply.

The general then opened his communications link with the engineering corps. "It's been almost 3 hours already! What is the status of the excavation?"

"We're more than two thirds of the way done, sir. The orders were to excavate as many of these as we can from the ruins, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

"Well how much more time are you going to need? My boys are getting slaughtered out here! They're not going to be able to hold on much longer! If we don't get off the planet soon, we're not going to be leaving at all!"

"We're going as fast as we can, general. Give up about one more hour and we should be able to get all that we need."

Ridgeway turned to his marines, almost all of them near a state of collapse from sheer exhaustion. "All right everyone, I know we've all been through hell already, killed far more Protoss than we had expected from their unwelcoming reception. The engineers need just a little bit more time to get what they need. Once they get it, we'll all be on board Dropships for some well-deserved R and R, so let's all be alive to see that moment."

Dominion Base, Bel'Shir

Ridgeway, however, still had it somewhat better compared to General Madison on the moon of Bel'Shir. Here, the Dominion general found out quickly that stealing the terrazine from under the Protoss was all but impossible. Although the amount of the terrazine present on the moon was far greater in comparison to what was discovered on Mar Sara, it didn't change the fact that the Protoss were the first to discover it. As such, they had set up shrines at every possible location where there were large concentrations of terrazine.

Madison had hoped to acquire the substances from the minor locations, but unfortunately there simply weren't enough to meet Mengsk's demand in the operation. Yet trying to negotiate with the Protoss proved futile. The Tal'darim, as they liked to be called, simply attacked their miners and engineers on sight, accusing them of trying to steal their "Breath of Creation" just as Raynor did.

The general cursed Raynor for his actions here on Bel'Shir. Thanks to the rebel commander's actions, the Protoss had the impression that all terrans are thieves, out to steal anything that is considered holy and sacred to them. To make matters worse, the orbital scans had indicated the whole of Bel'Shir was full of ancient shrines and holy temple ruins. This suggests that the moon was some sort of cathedral or other religious sanctuary to the Protoss. As a result, it also meant that there was no part of Bel'Shir his men could land on that wouldn't be considered violating sacred grounds, which would already be enough to anger the Protoss present. Factor in the venturing out to some of their most holy altars and stealing from them, Madison could easily see why it sent the Protoss into a rage so quickly.

Unlike at Redstone III, he knew this mining operation would be much harder in comparison. The jorium was relatively simple to obtain, as the substance was hidden within the mineral crystals. To an extent the same could be argued about the terrazine, but there was no way to build a refinery over it without destroying the Protoss altars, and that couldn't happen with the Tal'darim watching. Rather, their miners would have to go to the altars and personally extract the terrazine from it, but this was no easy task as all the altars were deep in Protoss territory.

Most of his boys were already deeply frustrated by the fact that they were venturing out there practically to get themselves killed, and they don't even know for what cause, and to that extent Madison could understand them. He did not want to waste the lives of his soldiers over this, but like them, Madison also began to wonder just what Mengsk had planned. Mengsk may have told him on Redstone III that it had something to do with Project Shadow Blade, but nothing more specific than that. Madison had been left out of the loop when it came to such a project, so he knew nothing of the details. Still, if the Dominion emperor ordered him on another resource retrieval mission that involved dealing with Zerg and Protoss, which in turn would spell death for more of his boys, he would demand answers about what Mengsk truly had in mind.

Right now, however, the battle was the important matter at hand, and the situation had been unfavorable to his Dominion forces since they had touched down on Bel'Shir. For starters, despite the additional substances it had, terrazine still had the same basic properties as vespene. This meant the gas was highly explosive, and although this would have been great to lure the Protoss near it and then set it off, Madison knew that wasn't an option. If an altar was destroyed, it would cut off its terrazine collecting ability, which had been reported by the engineering corps was superior compared to the terran refineries. Thus it became vital that the altars must receive as little damage as possible, and this in turn ruled out the possibility of BattleCruiser fire support at all, as their yamato cannon and plasma torpedo attacks would inevitably hit the altars in their attempts to neutralize the Protoss.

To make matters worse, scans had indicated that the Tal'darim in this area had access to large numbers of ships called Void Rays. According to other Dominion reports, these ships had some sort of laser that increases its damage output with time, making in the perfect weapon to destroy heavily armored targets. As almost a third of the reinforcements Mengsk had provided him were Thors, Madison had hoped to use these mechanical walkers to hold off the Protoss during the terrazine extraction, but this was not possible in the presence of so many Void Rays.

On the ground, the situation was more promising. The mercenary market was still hot, and many of the marine reinforcements came in the form of War Pigs. Although mercenaries, Madison knew these marines had more combat experience compared to those in the Dominion, since they were mostly homicidal convicts at some point. He now planned to use these War Pigs to deal with the Void Rays, as they were ineffective against lightly armored targets. The Goliaths would protect the War Pigs from any ground assault units, since they were much harder to replace.

But it was the threat of the Colossi that most worried the Dominion general. Their thermal lances were indeed a force to be reckoned with, capable of burning even the strongest infantrymen to ashes within seconds and roasting ground pilots alive in their vehicles. Thankfully the golden machines were so tall that they could be targeted by the Vikings, and the Colossi had no defense against air attacks. However despite the heavy beating these Tal'darim Protoss may have taken during Raynor's visit here, their air power was still substantial, and Madison's forces were insufficient in both manpower and material for a prolonged battle of attrition.

Thus the only way left to weaken the Protoss forces and dwindle their numbers down to acceptable levels required the usage of tactical nuclear warheads on their base. However the orbital scans had indicated that there were only two giant stone ramps that gave entrance to the base by foot, and while there were no Photon Cannons near them to detect cloaked ghosts, the number of Protoss warriors were substantial. Only the most skilled Dominion ghosts would be able to sneak their way in and deliver a successful strike, and it was in times like these that the services of Nova Terra were most needed. Unfortunately, she had turned against the Dominion and was now part of Raynor's Raiders.

Madison sighed at the thought, knowing her skills would be just what he needed to make the mining mission a success with the least amount of casualties. The ghosts he had at his disposal were far less capable, although in theory they would be able to make the successful nuclear strike on the Tal'darim base as well. For that reason, the general had kept them away from the frontlines and the midst of combat so that if push came to shove, they were all to be ready for such an emergency measure.

"General, the Protoss will be attacking our defense line again soon," a War Pig's voice announced from over the radio.

"Be sure to conserve your ammo, go for one shot one kill if possible," Madison advised. "Right now they're just probing us, trying to see what defenses we've got. When they launch their full scale attack, we'll need all the firepower we still have to give them hell."

New Folsom

A Firebat exploded in an enormous fireball, his gasoline tank struck by one of Sarah's well placed shots. To her flank, Nova channeled her psionic energy to telekinetically blast three Marauders back, before unloading with her C-20 Canister Rifle. Although many of the infantrymen were killed in their withdrawal, enough reached the safety of the sandbagged firing positions at the defensive line. The troops from Jim and Warfield had managed to liberate several more military cell blocks, but while there were heavier vehicles such as Siege Tanks and Diamondbacks for them to access, there was currently no hope of them using it to assist in the raid. The Dominion Thors had positioned themselves within artillery barrage position of the vehicle compound, and any movement there meant certain death for the prisoners in commandeering the vehicles.

"Jim, keep your men firing on the gestalts! Hold them back!" Sarah shouted into her radio. "Nova and I will deal with the Thors!"

Channeling her psionic speed energy, Sarah broke into a sprint towards one of the mechanical walkers. The pilot saw the threat approaching and opened up with the 250mm cannons, but it was exactly what Kerrigan had wanted. She focused her energy and formed a psionic barrier, stopping the shells in mid-flight. Taking the hint, Nova immediately used her telekinetic skills and hurled one of the shells back at the Thor, causing it to stumble back slightly. The lull gave the blond ghost the time to hurl more of the shells back, as Sarah let loose a psionic storm. The raw energy released wreaked havoc on the walker, and while not blown apart like the smaller vehicles, it was still more than enough to cause it to collapse to the ground, unable to get up ever again.

Sarah had no time for celebrations, as she was forced to sprint quickly away from the incoming flames of a Hellion, having been lucky enough to avoid the storm. However Nova was by her side, and she used her pyrokinesis ability to channel the flame away from Sarah, and turn it towards some of the Vultures at the frontline, laying down their Spider Mines to prevent the Raiders from moving forward. The intense heat from the flames cause some of the mines to detonate, and within seconds, the whole of the New Folsom securities position shook with explosions.

However, once again this did not succeed in dealing with the gestalts, as their psionic powers shielded them from the explosions. As soon as they died down, the hybrids again opened up with their Gatling guns, as Marines, Reapers, and Marauders were torn apart by them. Some of the Marines were already starting to fall back slightly, realizing they just weren't ready to deal with these new soldiers.

"Retreating is not an option! Push forward marines!" A voice shouted. Sarah turned around to see Lieutenant Franklin a few feet away, rallying the Marines to his position, while providing fire support from his C-14 Gauss Rifle. The red haired ghost smiled. He had indeed changed his views about her after what had happened on Agria.

"Sarah, we've got more Thors incoming!" Nova shouted. One of them had already gotten into position, ready to open fire with its 250mm cannons for an artillery barrage.

Sarah's eyes widened at the position it was about to fire on. Without given him any indication, she telekinetically lifted Franklin into the air and pulled him towards her position, behind the wreckage of a burnt out Siege Tank. Seconds later, artillery shells plastered where Franklin once stood, turning the position into nothing but a smoking crater.

"That's twice you've saved me now," the lieutenant commented, as the Thor began firing at their hiding position with its Thor Hammer Cannons.

"Don't mention it," Sarah replied. "Now, we've got to get the Thors out of here. They're too heavily armored for Banshee strikes like earlier, so we'll have to put them down the hard way."

"Can you throw them into the lava?" Franklin asked.

"Not with multiple ones in the area. I'd be a sitting duck for the other Thors. The one guarding the access to Siege Tanks has already been taken out, so we just need to deal with the one guarding the Diamondback access. Once we do that, the prisoners can swamp the remaining ones with captured vehicles."

"What about those hybrids?"

"Nova and I will deal with them ourselves. Look, I'll go into that Thor's line of fire and create a distraction, and try to lead it towards the one guarding the Diamondback access one. The second they're no longer focused on you, get your marauders to fire every explosive round they've got at it. Nova and your marines will provide fire support for the gestalts to keep them busy."

Franklin nodded, and without another word Sarah bolted away from their hiding position. As expected, the Thor immediately saw her as the main threat, and began firing its cannons at her.

"Bring all the Siege Tanks into position!" Nova shouted, firing her rifle at the gestalts. "Take down that Thor!"

As Sarah ran, she heard the sounds of artillery fire. Turning her head for a split second, she saw the massive walker stumble about a little from the Siege Tank attacks. The Marauders had complied as she asked, firing their punisher grenades without pause at it. Further away, the Goliaths added their fire with their autocannons. With so many targets firing at it, the Thor inevitably succumbed to its firepower.

Franklin ducked for cover as bullets whistled past him. The gestalts were simply not letting up their fire. Of course, thanks to the Siege Tank support, none of his boys would have to face those monstrosities in melee combat, something he would not look forward to.

Nova sprinted to his side, firing from her attached grenade launcher. "Your boys have the newer heavy gauss rifles right?" Off his nod, she gestured to them. "Then get them to use their attached grenade launchers on the hybrids. They must not be allowed to turn their attention to Sarah."

For Kerrigan, the Thor guarding the access to the Diamondbacks proved to be somewhat smarter than the previous ones. The pilot saw right away the dangers of using an artillery barrage on her, so instead he used only the Thor Hammer Cannons. This had forced Sarah to run from cover to cover, and frequently as they were blown apart. However, she knew that as she got within range, she would be able to turn the tables.

The pilot's eyes widened as he felt the entire fighting mech move against its will. He glanced down from the cockpit, only to find that Sarah had focused her psionic energy to such an extent that the pure inertia she was releasing was overwhelming. It was so strong that she was telekinetically pushing the Thor backwards. As the Thor was not meant for point blank range combat, none of its weapons could hit the ghost when she is standing right next to it. He desperately tried to move the Thor away, but Sarah's grip on it was fiercer than he had anticipated. Moving forward along with the Thor, Sarah continued to channel her psionic powers to push it back until finally, there was no more ground left under it, and it fell into the lava depths.

"I can see why all these monsters are focusing their fire on you," Franklin commented, as Sarah joined him and Nova. "Being able to take on a Thor by yourself and walk away without even a scratch? That shouldn't be possible no matter how capable the individual is."

"They'll be time for congratulating later," Sarah replied, before speaking into her radio. "Jim, we've got more prisoners liberated. As I speak they're commandeering the Siege Tanks and Diamondbacks."

"Then all that's left is the Thor compound," Jim's voice came over the radio. "We take that, the main compound will fall. How is the situation with the gestalts?"

"They're not giving up. We could force them back now that we've got heavier firepower, but they'll still be able to take a terrible toll before then. If you can force the Dominion security away from them, Nova and I will deal with the gestalts ourselves."

"I'll send down some War Pig reinforcements for that then. For now, have the Raiders and Warfield's men push towards the Thor holding complex."

Xel'Naga Shrines, Ulaan

"Master, I have found it," Duran said, communicating with the Dark Voice in the telepathic state. "The Void energy signature from Zeratul made it very easy."

"What is its condition?"

"Surprisingly, still well preserved, despite no one has been around it for a while."

"Bring it back to your testing area," the Dark Voice ordered. "We may yet find usage for it in the future."

"As you wish, master," Duran answered. He then looked down very thing that could be used in his experimentation: the severed left wing of the Queen of Blades.