Author's Note: Everyone, the next chapter is here! I know, I know, it still took 12 days to write this, but it hasn't exactly been easy on my end. The lack of employment, along with issues in the family, well let's just say it's left me severely depressed about a lot of things. And as we all know, depression is not exactly a good inspiration to write.
I will still do my best to try and update this fic as quickly as I can though. Right now I have no intention of giving up on this fic, so don't expect me to suddenly say this fic will go on hiatus or anything like that.
This will more than likely be the last update before Blizzcon 2011, scheduled to take place on Oct 21. Only after that will we get some more info about Heart of the Swarm, though the latest interviews have shown Blizzard does not seem to have the slightest clue when it's going to be finished.
As with the info about the game Blizzard released at the end of May, if there is anything they reveal that might be compatible with my fic, I will do my best to try and fit it into the fic itself.
Chapter 33
High Orbit Over Bel'Shir
Madison knew his emperor was not pleased with the results of what had happened on Bel'Shir. Although his face did not show it, the general knew Mengsk was enraged at the news.
"General, you should know better than to contact me in the event of mission failure," Mengsk said angrily. "I sent you to Bel'Shir to collect the terrazine gas, and you retreat back to your BattleCruiser without a single drop?"
"With all due respect sir, once that Protoss Archon entered the base, everything changed. Whatever that thing is, nothing my boys threw at it could kill it. Hell, it took the artillery barrages of the Thors just to prevent it from smashing the base perimeter down and killing everyone inside!"
"I don't need your excuses, general. You were sent on a simple resource collecting mission, and you failed."
"You had expected me to succeed without resorting to violence at all. Did you ever consider the possibility that violence was inevitable?"
"Of course I did," Mengsk replied over the communicator. "I reinforced your numbers after Redstone III, remember?"
"It wasn't enough against the Protoss," Madison countered. "Their technology is superior to ours. Add in the fact that they also had the numbers on their side, the outcome of the battle was decided before it even began. Court martial me if you like, but if I hadn't given the order to evacuate there'd be no one left to tell you the mission was a failure."
"Fine, I'll accept that," Mengsk said. "Even I can't expect you to prevail in the absence of material strength. But nevertheless the terrazine is necessary to ensure the Dominion is brought back together again."
"Sir, I may have agreed to the missions at Redstone III and Bel'Shir, but I did so because I wanted to prove the Dominion military is not as incompetent as the media portrayed us as. After all the casualties my boys have suffered, along with the mercenaries recruited, well let's just say they're in no position to fight again."
"They have your leadership, general. You're the type who inspires confidence among them."
"They trust me because I saved their lives, and even then it was only just barely. Hell, I had to pull engineers and construction workers off their duties and give them firearms to make up for the losses suffered when I landed on Bel'Shir! Without them I couldn't have even made the evacuation work!"
"Either way you got them out, so that means they're available to you to go down there and try again."
Madison stared at his emperor on the screen. "Sir, did you not listen to the report I gave you? We got hammered down there! Going down there a second time would be suicide! We wouldn't even have the element of surprise on our side anymore!"
"You also said your scouts had detected large numbers of Protoss ships leaving the moon," Mengsk replied. "Who's to say they didn't leave the area where all the terrazine gas is located after they drove you off?"
"None of my boys are going to want to take that chance. What if you're wrong?"
"We can debate that all day, or you can at least send some scout ships down there and make a quick fly by. If I'm wrong, you can tell me so, and I'll send you more reinforcements so you can take the terrazine by force."
"I don't see how that's possible regardless who's right here," Madison pointed out. "Orbital scans had detected the Protoss were sealing up the terrazine altars. Not sure how exactly they did it, my scouts said it had something to do with the weird jewel crystals on the altar towers. But regardless, whatever they did, it's beyond the comprehension of terran technology."
"They'll have to release that seal in time, general. You said it yourself the terrazine is considered sacred to the Protoss as well. With you off their planet, you really think they're going to keep the seal on indefinitely?"
Madison sighed. "My boys are going to be demanding answers why they're risking their necks for doing this, and there's no way I can use the excuse of telling them I'm just under orders for it. When you're dealing with casualties this bad, they're going to demand better answers, instead of just being kept in the dark."
"Fine, general. Tell your boys once they retrieve the terrazine, I'll let them in on more of the picture of my plans for reestablishing control."
Dylarian Shipyards
General Mansfield looked out of the windows of his headquarters building in the Dylarian Shipyards. The organizing of the Dominion Fleet was progressing quite well as of late. Despite the fact that half the fleet had been acquired by Mengsk's son Valerian, and without his father's approval for that matter, the fleet remained had remained strong. Of course one might question their true strength as the Zerg invasion had not reached here, but the general knew this orbital complex had enough power to give any invader total hell if they tried to assault it.
Even without the planetary defenses, ever since the Zerg invasion began the shipyards had housed no less than 60 percent of the entire Dominion Armada. Enormous efforts of money and material had been poured into the shipyard's reconstruction, a grim reminder of the raid by the UED 4 years ago during the Brood War and had the entire complex utterly destroyed. By the end of the conflict, the Dominion was in no position to conduct offensive or defensive operations of any scale, but for some odd reason the Zerg simply disappeared from sight, allowing the fleet to be rebuilt.
Mansfield himself was not pleased with the way the situation was looking for the Dominion right now, he hadn't been ever since the Zerg invasion began. He was among the Dominion officers who protested against Mengsk withdrawing the fleet to the core worlds and the Dylarian Shipyards, leaving the fringe worlds to fend for themselves. Nevertheless, he eventually conceded that the Dominion did not have overwhelming numbers in the sense the Zerg do, and therefore if spread too thinly, would be unsuccessful in offensive operations against the swarm.
Now, after what Raynor had pulled off on Korhal and the public unrest across the Dominion worlds, Mansfield knew that the emperor would need the actions of the Dominion Fleet to count more than ever. However Valerian's actions had greatly weakened the fleet's strength at the shipyards, and thus orders were issued accordingly: the construction of the Dominion ships here was to be given top priority to make up for the losses on Valerian's crazy adventure.
Of course, the general had been astonished to hear the outcome on Char had actually turned out to be successful. Even though he himself had wanted to drive the Zerg back across the sector, he did not believe it was possible to launch a successful invasion on the Zerg's base of operations in the Koprulu Sector. To make matters worse, he had been under the belief that once the temporary alliance with Raynor was over, Warfield would return to the Dominion with the invasion fleet. Instead, he had joined the rebel's cause, and this made it that much harder to replace the losses at the shipyards.
Nevertheless, the Dylarian Shipyards is the ultimate fortress of Dominion strength. While the fleet strength right now was still insufficient for large scale offensive operations for prolonged periods, it was more than enough in terms of defending itself. Mansfield saw the media reports and of the appalling losses suffered on Char, which meant even if Raynor was crazy enough to mount a suicidal offensive on the shipyards, the result would be total annihilation for his forces, while only able to inflict moderate damage to the Dominion forces here.
For that reason, the general felt the reason for the increased production of the Dominion ships is due to the necessity of world reclamation from the Zerg. There were already reports over the media from Agrian colonists praising Raynor for his actions in purging the Zerg from their world, allowing them to return home, and this in turn was humiliating the Dominion even more, as the media branches are continuing to portray the Dominion fleet as utterly ineffective when it came to taking action, and are incapable of protection anyone but themselves.
Yet Mansfield knew otherwise, it's just that the fleet has yet to have a chance to prove it, and time is starting to run out. Mengsk had assured him that the Dominion will take the fight to the Zerg once the buildup is complete, and the general himself was eager for action.
It was exactly the reason why Dominion activity had increased dramatically their operations on Brontes II. Once a core world of the Confederacy, the planet was now a giant junkyard, littered with the remains of vehicles, ships, buildings, orbital platforms, and just about any other type of equipment a person can name. They had come from terran factions of all over: the Confederacy, the Umojan Protectorate, the Kel-Morian Combine, and even the remnants of the UED had their remains all stored there.
However, as the old saying goes: one man's trash is another man's treasure. It didn't take too long before the Dominion concluded that while the hundreds of quadrillions of tons of scrap contained outdated equipment, most of it could be sent to the Dominion recycling plants. From there, it could be sent to the processing plants where the material was used to build up the Dominion's military strength. Indeed, Dominion efforts had increased exponentially on Brontes II after the news of the Zerg invasion. Prior to it, the cargo ships were only transporting about 10 million tons of supplies per week for their purposes. When the news of the invasion was received, activity had increased to almost 16 million tons per day.
Even so, the Dominion had assigned Brontes II as a low priority world, and despite its role as a salvage yard, the Dominion military had given very little thought about providing better protection for the cargo ship transports. Over the years, it had led to numerous cases of raiders and pirates, though they were usually just a nuisance and not a threat.
Nevertheless, Mengsk had not been blind to threat of the Zerg during the 4 years of peace after the Brood War. Although not as top priority, efforts had been made to build recycling plants and processing facilities using the very scrap in the junkyards on Brontes II. Everyone in the Dominion knew that as long as the Zerg had the numbers on their side, they would remain a severe threat no matter how many of them the military killed.
Thus the facilities on Brontes II were part of an attempt to increase the output of the Dominion military. However, as everything in the facilities came from salvaged parts, they were of a lower quality compared to the ones built on the Dominion core worlds and took somewhat longer to build. Nevertheless, only months prior to the Zerg invasion, these facilities had become operational, and despite the Zerg defeat on Char, the Dominion industrialists and engineers on the planet were still working around the clock to produce the ships, vehicles, weapons, and other equipment for the Dominion, many of them loaded onto cargo ships and sent directly to the Dylarian Shipyards.
To that end, there had been much stress placed on the ammunition factories at the orbital complex, as the scrap yards on Brontes II did not have an excess of that when the Dominion industrials searched for salvageable parts. Indeed, with so many ships and vehicles being produced from the Dominion core worlds and sent to the shipyards, the facilities were gradually becoming overwhelmed, unable to produce the required ammunition to go with the imports fast enough. General Mansfield had made repeated requests for the core worlds to also increase their output on munitions so they could keep pace with weapons production, but this was simply not possible in the case with Brontes II. As such, almost 60 percent of the total ammunition facilities at the Dylarian Shipyards were devoted to supplying munitions there, while a further 30 percent were devoted to ionized plasma production for the shipyards' ultimate defense weapons: the Ion Cannons.
They were among the pinnacle of Dominion engineering, although they had been assisted by Raynor in that aspect, ironically enough. When the rebel commander had broken away from Mengsk, the emperor had intended to forbid his escape by using the Ion Cannon. Unfortunately, Raynor had destroyed it, and thus he and his bandits were able to escape Tarsonis. However after the formation of the Terran Dominion, Mengsk had ordered engineering teams back to Tarsonis immediately, despite the continued fighting between Protoss and Zerg forces battling across the planet. It had been his hope that the Ion Cannon the Confederacy had built could be repaired and brought to serve the Dominion, but Raynor's actions had made that impossible. However, enough had been salvaged in order reverse engineer a copy, and Mengsk had made huge efforts ever since for just that.
This of course had been kept in utter secrecy, as Raynor had destroyed the Confederate Ion Cannon before it even had a chance to fire. As such, no one knew the extent of its destructive power. Although construction technology had evolved greatly over the past 4 years, there had remained much hesitation regarding the testing of the newly constructed Ion Cannons, some of the largest of them positioned right here in the Dylarian Shipyards.
Mansfield looked out towards the smaller orbital platforms. The shipyards had a total of 5 Ion Cannons, and each of them were positioned on a separate platform, spread across shipyard perimeter to provide their defensive capabilities to the Dominion military here. In a pinch, the platforms could also be moved about much more quickly compared to the huge construction platforms the shipyards contained. Although it seems unlikely that any invading force would be foolish enough to group all their ships together, making it an ideal Ion Cannon target, that possibility was never factored out, and so Dominion engineers were trained to position the Ion Cannon platforms together and fire in the same direction in the case of such an event.
Although they had never once seen action, Mansfield knew the Ion Cannons were a force to be reckoned with. At some 3500 feet long and 700 feet tall, these were smaller in comparison to the Ion Cannon built by the Confederacy. Nevertheless, they were certainly cheaper to build, and thus Mengsk had ordered them into production once his engineers concluded it was theoretically possible to reverse engineer the Confederate Ion Cannon.
So far the Ion Cannons have only fired in their test firing trials, but they had proven themselves more than capable of dealing with just about any invader who is foolish enough to attack the Dylarian Shipyards. From the scrapyards on Brontes II, the Dominion salvage teams had managed to put together pieces of the Leviathan-Class BattleCruisers, ships that had been in service since before even the Guild Wars. Although greatly inferior to the Minotaur-Class BattleCruisers the Dominion use today, the aging ships were still used for target practice by the Dominion military. Some of them had been restored to be used as targets for the Ion Cannons, and the results had lived up to the expectations when some Dominion generals questioned if they were capable of defending entire worlds as the Confederacy intended with their Ion Cannon.
A single shot from just one of those Ion Cannons had produced more carnage than most people had expected. A Leviathan-Class BattleCruiser didn't stand a chance. In fact entire groups of them stood no chance, as a single volley was capable of destroying more than 20 of such BattleCruisers. Based off that, most Dominion engineers calculated that when fired directly against a single BattleCruiser, the firepower of the Ion Cannon would blow it to smithereens. Mengsk had judged this to be the perfect weapon for defending the Dylarian Shipyards, and great efforts were made to produce more of them here.
However, Mansfield knew that producing the weapon is one thing, using it is quite another. The power requirements for the Ion Cannons were astronomical, and unlike factories and support facilities at the Dylarian Shipyards, each of the 5 Ion Cannons required its own power generator. This meant it was impossible to produce large quantities of Ion Cannons to be ringed around the complex itself and have them all functional at the same time, so importance was stressed upon Dominion ships to defend the Ion Cannons. The early firing tests had also shown that due to the tremendous energy the Ion Cannons generate, they also had an extended cool-down cycle. While the Dominion designs were superior to the Confederate design in that the cannons are able to fire off their deadly volley once every 10 minutes compared to every hour with the case of the Confederate Ion Cannon, the fact remained that during the cool-down cycle the Ion Cannons are vulnerable to attack. Although it was unlikely any invading fleet would still be willing to take up the fight after witnessing their destructive power, that possibility could not be factored out.
This of course produced much resentment towards the Dominion Viking, Banshee, and Wraith pilots assigned to defend the Ion Cannons. Unlike rockets, the ionized plasma from the Ion Cannons could not be programmed. Thus upon firing, it was impossible for the Ion Cannons to distinguish friend or foe, as a single volley would destroy everything unlucky enough to get in its path. While the Dominion has the strongest fleet in the sector, collateral damage was still something that should be avoided if possible.
As such, efforts fell to the planetary defenses on Dylar IV. Mengsk had been dissatisfied when word from the armaments industry reached him in that building these Ion Cannons proved to be extremely expensive and therefore could not be done on a mass scale. However the Dominion Emperor's obsession with these weapons remained, and orders were instead issued to build them on a smaller scale if it could be produced in large numbers. This had led to an anti-orbital version of the Ion Cannon, some of which were manufactured right here in the shipyards themselves, before being sent down to the planet itself. Similar to the Zerg Spore Cannons that the Dominion had been aware of a few years before and were capable of destroying capital ships from orbit, Mengsk ordered that the Dominion develop a cannon of similar ability.
Although Mansfield's post was the Dylarian Shipyards defenses, he had been kept informed of development of the defenses on Dylar IV itself. Given the vast military strength within the shipyards themselves, there was every bit the possibility that whoever was foolish enough to attack Dylar IV would bypass the shipyards completely and go down to the planet itself. Although the anti-orbital Ion Cannon Defense System should be sufficient to deal with any threats in that aspect, the fact remained that these cannons were only meant to deal with ships hanging in orbit, as well as battle-groups attempting to enter the atmosphere. If the battle-groups were able to land however, then the cannons would become defenseless. It had left the need of a planetary garrison to be greatly desired, and the strength of the Dominion garrison currently stationed on Dylar IV was greatly understrength. Of course, the officers down there were not worried, as they were confident that anyone who is stupid enough to attack Dylar IV would face the might of the Dominion Armada, and none would be able to reach the planet's surface.
Mansfield, however, was still somewhat skeptical. All of the Dominion ships were useless without a fuel source for their engines and energy reactors. So far, the fleet's main source of vespene gas came from the huge Dylar IV Space Station, almost as large and built next to the Dylarian Shipyards as a refueling depot for the Dominion Armada. Although stocks of vespene were also housed in the shipyards themselves, their levels were insufficient to allow the fleet to conduct large scale military operations. Indeed, when Valerian had acquired half the Dominion fleet for the invasion of Char, the Dominion ships had taken almost a third of the total vespene supply at the refueling station.
Unlike the shipyards, the Dylar IV Space Station was much less heavily defended, and more reliant on distress calls to the shipyards in times of need. Most of the Dominion efforts to better protect the station itself had been in the form of camouflage and deception, building dummy installations over the space station to make the Dominion's enemies seem the whole facility was nothing more than a minor scrap station, its cargo ships running back and forth to the shipyards containing merely spare parts for the Dominion ships. The same was true of the cargo and tanker ships bound to the station from Brontes IV, the facility's primary source of vespene gas. As Brontes IV and Brontes II were located relatively close to each other and the latter is a military scrapyard, it would be easy for one to mistake it for the other.
Nevertheless, the station itself was the shipyards' Achilles heel. The vespene stocks at the shipyards themselves were only sufficient for defense, and just barely enough for military operations down on Dylar IV itself should it get attacked. Although efforts had been made to disguise the Dylar IV Space Station into something else and thus far no one has discovered its true purpose, the fact remained that no plans had ever been made for an alternative source of vespene to supply the fleet in the event the station itself was cut off or destroyed. Mansfield had known of this weakness shortly after he had taken up his post at the shipyards when the Zerg invasion began, but had been continuously overruled by his superiors when he had requested better protection for the station itself.
As such, he could only hope that the Dominion's enemies will be unable to see the importance of the station if the Dylarian Shipyards were ever attacked. The station's walls were all scan-shielded, as were the cargo and tanker ships leaving the facility to the shipyards, but that didn't mean no one would simply decide to blast their way into the station to find out what it contained. Of course, that would require someone to actually be crazy enough to attack Dylar IV, and the Dominion made little attempt to hide their military strength there.
For himself, Mansfield continued to observe as the Dominion buildup continued in the shipyards. Mengsk had yet to have given him a specific time on when the Dominion forces will be moving out Dylar IV to deal with the Zerg infestation on the other worlds, but the general knew that Mengsk wouldn't abandon them to the Zerg. The news branches are still portraying him as a coward who had abandoned the people he had sworn to protect, and Jim Raynor has the people's savior, so it was obvious that action had to be taken to rectify this.
New Folsom
Jim walked along the New Folsom roads of the prison complex with a group of scientists and engineers. When the prisons were liberated, the Raiders had moved into the complex. Some of them moved the surviving Dominion troops into prison cells, while others went to seize the munitions factories and processing centers for the neosteel production. As Nova had predicted, most of the former were crammed full of munitions meant to supply the Dominion fleet, and that now fell into the Raiders' hands.
The Dominion cargo ships that had arrived only hours ago to pick up the weapons and ammunition were forced to surrender, and all of their transports were now being loaded into the Minotaur-Class BattleCruisers. The crews on the other hand were not pressed into the Raiders, but were rather given a choice in the matter of whether they wanted to join or not. Should they choose the latter, they would simply to allowed to stay on New Folsom, although not in prison cells, until the next transport ships arrived, where they would be picked up and returned to the Dominion.
Of course, the crews weren't stupid. They knew that choosing that option would result in certain execution by Mengsk's hands, so all of them chose to join the Raiders as well. Most knew it was pointless try and play the role of the inside man in acquiring intelligence for the Dominion on the Raiders' status, Jim had made it clear that he had factored in the possibility of rallying Dominion troops to his cause ever since the media broadcasts on Korhal had caused riots and revolts across the Dominion worlds. He knew that not everyone would show blind loyalty towards Mengsk, but Jim knew that these riots also allowed the possibility that the emperor would send agents to infiltrate his Raiders. As such, he had warned the cargo crews that they would be subjected to a mind check by his ghosts to ensure there would be acts of double-cross.
Virtually all of the members willingly agreed to this, most likely because they knew Nova was a Raider now, and even if by some miracle they could fool the other ghosts, there was no way to fool her.
To some extent Jim felt guilty about the mind checks. While he knew it was necessary, it also set the impression that everyone in the Dominion is essentially one of Mengsk's slaves, incapable of being reasoned with or influenced by an outside source. The scientists and engineers he was walking along with right now he was much more hesitant on the mind checks, as many of them only did exactly why he did when he began this revolution: protect terran lives.
"We're glad for your help, Commander Raynor," one of the scientists said. "New Folsom's prisoner treatment was absolutely horrible. If it weren't for our technical knowledge, we'd be long dead."
"It just shows the corruption of the Dominion," Jim replied. "It's far from the paradise your emperor claimed it to be."
"Many of us were skeptical of the emperor's claims that you're just some mercenary who's only purpose is to spread havoc across the sector, although none of us could really do anything about it."
"I only wanted people to live free, not enslave them like Mengsk did."
"Then why bring the former Queen of Blades along for your revolution? Not all of us are blind to that, you know. Some of us do know that the Queen of Blades was once the ghost Sarah Kerrigan. We heard the news about what happened on Char, but it just seems wrong."
"What you saw of her as the Queen of Blades was nothing more than the Zerg working through her against her will," Jim explained. "That influence is gone now, and Sarah is fighting for the same cause I am when she and I first met: restoring freedom to the Koprulu Sector. I know you don't trust her, but she helped my boys bust this prison complex wide open. If it weren't for her you'd still all be locked up in your cages right now, at least give her that benefit of the doubt."
"We are, commander. Most of the other prisoners are already praising her for what she did today, although they weren't aware with her affiliation with the Zerg."
Jim shook his head. It seems like people were never going to let this matter go no matter how much Sarah tried to make up for everything she did, when it wasn't even her fault in the first place. "Sarah called me down here because after busting the higher ranking prisoner cells open, some of you had informed her of an underground production facility beneath the prison complex, and she wanted me here to see it for myself."
"That's where we're taking you right now, sir. The ships and vehicles you've seen on the surface only required the knowledge of a few scientists and engineers, not dozens of us. When you see the underground factory, you'll see what Mengsk had really kept us here for."
Author's Note: All right, so like with Qwerty-Man's fic "Flight to Freedom", I too have included the shipyards as the Dominion's ultimate bastion and all that. Don't worry though, I have a slightly different idea about what will eventually take place here.
Furthermore, what you have seen here is only a teaser of what will eventually shift back to the shipyards once more. That won't be happening for many, many, many more chapters, and when it does I'm sure you'll want to come back to this chapter to re-check what I had written on the shipyards in the first place.
Well anyways, I hope you guys have enjoyed this recent chapter. Please read and review and I'll see you next time.