Science vessel Columbus
Low orbit above Tyrador VIII

"We can fully track their movements from here," the science vessel's commander said, as he and his Protoss guests watched the Princess of Blades and her minions cautiously exit the docking bay from the camera feed. There was no sign of resistance from any of the security troops so far, though a small ambush was prepared for when the Zerg reach the end of the hallway, which leads to the second of four levels leading to the their objective.

Apparently sensing a threat, the Princess of Blades stopped and gestured to her minions to do the same. Her intuition proved to be correct when a trio of gun turrets hidden under the floor rose and engaged the Zerg, but she reacted just in time to leap behind the safety of her roaches, whose thick carapace easily shrugged off the small-caliber fire. Their acid saliva made short work of the turrets, and the Princess of Blades looked around afterwards to check for any other traps.

"Hmph, is this all the resistance that this ship can offer?" she taunted loudly, fully aware that the ship's crew was likely tracking her movements. Afterwards, she and her minions were on the move again, and she had the good sense to let her roaches take the lead this time. It made for slower progress due to their heavy exoskeletons, but she could afford to trade time for her safety. With the rest of the Swarm busy down in the planet below, there would likely be no other Zerg to reinforce her.

On the other side of a reinforced door, a squad of marines trained their weapons at it as they heard the approaching horde. They had orders to only harry the Zerg force and let the automated defenses bog them down until they can be dealt with more easily - an order which they were more than happy to follow. They were relieved that their commander had the sense to not throw them at the enemy - 'Unlike the idiot who was in charge of the Amerigo...' the squad's leader thought.

A loud crash was heard, and the door bulged. It seems like one of the Zerg used itself as a battering ram, though it would take much more than that to bust down 5 cm of reinforced neosteel. What followed the crash, though, was what would be enough to eventually destroy it: the sound of acid making contact with metal.

"Positions, people!" the squad leader ordered. That acid saliva was a threat in any battle against the Zerg, being capable of eating through even the thickest combat suits and tank hulls - and if it weren't for the fact that roaches were limited to being able to hit only ground targets, even battlecruisers providing close ground support would have been having problems with them. "Remember your orders, men: hold for as long as possible, but don't die. Fall back if you need to, but make sure you make it hurt for them."

Finally, the concentrated attacks from the roaches proved too much for the door to handle, and the acid melted a gaping hole open. Once again, the roaches took the lead, and Nico saw the teleporter pad which would lead to the next level of the ship. She also sensed enemy soldiers waiting in ambush...

Once again, several tiles of the floor rose up, and the automated turrets were quick to engage. This time, however, there were missile-equipped turrets behind the front row of gun turrets, and their payloads were specifically made to deal with heavy armor or thick Zerg exoskeletons. Adding to their firepower was the marines, engaging from elevated platforms with their Gauss rifles.

"Ugh, cowards!" Nico shouted, as her roaches were buckling from the missile fire. Regardless, she made them advance, allowing the hydralisks hiding behind them to eventually get within range. Expertly-aimed needle spines - released at velocities high enough to make holes in battlecruiser armor - knocked out the turrets, and at the same time, the Marines started falling back to the teleporter pad when the hydralisks started firing at them, though no spines connected with any of the marines due to the firing angle they were forced to take. Nico started to give chase, only to be stopped by another pair of gun turrets, and she was forced to dodge the continuous hail of bullets until she personally destroyed them with her brute strength. By then, however, the marines were long gone.

She looked back to her minions: four roaches had fatal cracks on their carapaces from the missiles, and one caught bullets in the only chink in a roach's armor: the eyes. The rest of the roaches were wounded in varying degrees, and even some of the hydralisks sustained injuries during the counterattack. Nico herself was grazed by a few bullets on her arms, although they already started regenerating rapidly. She had the roaches burrow through the steel floor to recover. They weren't capable of burrowing deeply enough to simply dig their way to the next level, but they were still deep enough to effectively conceal themselves. And while it wasn't soil or creep, the metal floor was made of material sufficient enough for the roaches, which were already absorbing what nutrients they could extract and quickly metabolizing them to mend their wounds at a rapid pace. The hydralisks, on the other hand, didn't have or evolve such hyper-regenerative traits, so they stayed on the surface to guard against any more surprises.

She's lost a tenth of her combat strength. She had to be wary of any further battles, especially now that she's seen what the Terrans were up to: trying to bleed her forces out and slowly whittle them while keeping out of harm's reach themselves. 'Whoever their commander is, he's playing it smart,' she conceded. Still, the casualties were expected. Even though she only had a handful of turrets to show for it, she should still have sufficient numbers to take on the defending force when they decide to fight to the last. Moreover, that same tactic the Terran commander is playing could mean that he doesn't have as many men to fight with as she expected, which means that every marine she can kill is going to be a noticeable blow to the defending force.

The roaches rose from their short-lived burrows shortly afterwards, with even the most serious of wounds on their carapace completely gone. She and her minions then moved to the teleporter pad, with the roaches once again taking the lead. They need to be quicker this time, and give the defenders no time to fall back.

Back in the docking bay, the overlord that dropped the Princess of Blades off has already gone off to link up with the now-concluding conflict around the planetary defenses of Tyrador VIII. This allowed the dropship carrying the small detachment of Raynor's Raiders to unload its passengers in safety, and it left shortly afterwards to transport more troops to the planet's surface, where the main fighting force of the Raiders was already establishing a position in the Moebius Foundation's research campus.

Another would come when Eli, the chosen leader of the group, calls in for evac - or potentially backup, in which case it would blaze in with a squad of marines and marauders to reinforce the group. They didn't yet know exactly what force they were dealing with, although they were certain from the psionic emanations alone that Nico was part of it. They were quick to figure out what she came here for: even though she wasn't a Ghost, she could still learn from the training files of the Ghost Program to unlock and maximize her potential - and without any restrictive conditioning to go through. A psionic of her rating would be a devastating force on her own, even with limiters - just how much destruction could she sow without?

Of course, they only needed to remember Kerrigan to find the answer. It made the mission all the more vital: they had to stop Nico from acquiring the Ghost Program files.

"We'll scout ahead," Eli said, as she and Umi activated their personal cloaking. "Marines, advance cautiously. Honoka, Kotori, we'll relay our findings to you telepathically." The two Shadowguards then silently stepped past the destroyed door leading away from the docking bay.

"Hm, what's this?" the vessel commander wondered aloud when he saw the new force on the security feed. They didn't radio in, nor did he receive any transmission about arriving troops from any channel, Dominion or otherwise.

"Allies of yours, commander?" Maki asked.

"I...don't know..." he replied, recognizing the insignia on the shoulder plates of the marines. 'The Raiders? Here?' He then remembered the distress signal sent out by the Moebius Foundation earlier, when the Zerg Swarm started invading. 'Maybe that's it.'

The Swarm. That was another thing he was wondering about, now that he's shifted his focus from the intruders on his ship. With how effortlessly they swept away both the planetary defenses and the Dominion squadron - 'External variables, was it?' he thought dryly - they had every chance to simply overwhelm this ship if their Princess of Blades wanted to get a hold of the Ghost Program files. 'Perhaps she's trying to prove herself. Perhaps this is simply a personal pursuit, and the Swarm's main objective was really on Tyrador VIII. Perhaps it's both.' In any case, it made this plan he agreed on with the Protoss actually viable.

"James Raynor and his soldiers are certainly allies of the Protoss, however," Nozomi observed, also noting the unmistakable symbol of the famous Terran revolutionary group. The commander's eyebrows shot up in mild surprise...but he then nodded in realization. Raynor and all the assistance he's given to the Protoss in their darkest hours during the first Great War and the Brood War would have been well-known among the Protoss. It was certainly known within the Dominion - Dominion propaganda usually glosses over the heroics and simply paints it as Raynor consorting with aliens to bring down humanity, however. Knowing that his Protoss guests trust the Raiders, though, gave him relief. That's one less potential enemy that they had to consider...

And one more potential ally to fight alongside them instead. If the Raiders sent a team to the vessel, then they probably detected the overlord's approach earlier. Their current force was composed of a squad of marines, with two medics providing support, as well as a pair of what seemed to be Ghost operatives - part of the commander was slightly concerned about the Ghosts, which could mean that either they were defectors, or the Raiders somehow figured out how to train Ghosts...but that question was best left to the future.

"Can we open a channel to them?"

'Wait.'

Eli froze, and Umi followed only a moment later. They had just finished inspecting the remnants of what appeared to be a recent skirmish between the intruders and the vessel's security systems - four dead roaches and nine punctured metal husks where floor tiles used to be - when they started sensing a different psionic signature somewhere on the ship.

'Protoss.' The two carefully lowered their visors onto their eyes, and their field of view changed: a grid started appearing onto ever surface of their surroundings, with the still-fresh roach corpses being highlighted briefly before darkening, as their visors confirmed that those bio-signatures were already deceased. The visors were now periodically sending scanning pulses to constantly update their owners of their current surroundings, and the sensitivity of their sensors despite the size are often enough to sense a cloaked entity's presence within up to 20 meters.

"Greetings, Raiders," a soft voice echoed towards them from...somewhere.

'What are they doing here?' Umi wondered.

'This also happened with Kerrigan, if memory serves right,' Eli replied. Elements of the Protoss Expeditionary Force led by the late Executor Tassadar had been able to both detect and pinpoint the location of Kerrigan during the first Great War from her psionic emanations during incubation.

Surely they've tried to keep eyes on Nico since her (re)birth, and are maybe even planning on stop her altogether. 'Then we should have the same general objectives. What do we do?'

'Let's try to talk, then.' Eli decloaked herself, though she ordered her partner to stay hidden, just in case these Protoss weren't in the mood for an alliance. The latter also ordered the rest of the squad to advance cautiously. "Greetings," she called out loud. "I presume the Protoss are also after the infested Terran on this ship?"

"Our goals appear to be aligned, then." A Protoss figure stepped phased into view in front of the teleporter pad, with her dormant shadow scythe on her back.

'The physical differences between Protoss men and women are certainly striking,' Eli thought idly. 'Along with the differences between the...Khalai and Nerazim Protoss, was it?' She'd read about the Protoss and watched them in videos during her time in the Shadowguard academy, as was a standard part of their training: the twilight-colored skin of the Nerazim - mainly due to over a millennia of development without the direct light of a sun thanks to their exile to Shakuras - made them easily distinguishable from their gray-skinned kin. Added to that are the differences between male and female Protoss: in the illustrations and videos she's seen, all the Protoss were males, with lean but sturdy figures and rugged features. Until today, she'd never seen a female Protoss, much less in person.

The figure who stood before her and her partner could be described as shapely: aside from the obviously smoother skin and the more rounded face, she also had a surprisingly curvy body which was emphasized by her armor and robes. 'Especially around the chest area...who knew that even Protoss...'

'Eli.' The blonde was shaken from her thoughts by the stern tone of Umi's thoughts. She nearly forgot that her thoughts were basically an open channel to her partner as well... 'Just what kind of shameless thoughts are you entertaining in your mind right now?'

'I-It was just surprise! Nothing more, alright?' Eli cleared her throat and placed her free hand on her mouth to cover the growing blush on her face. 'Shouldn't you be just as surprised to see a female Protoss for yourself for the first time?'

'Nobody would think such indecent thoughts as mere 'surprise'...'

"You two seem to have quite the mental spar going on," the Dark Templar spoke up again, this time with a hint of amusement in her voice. Umi decloaked in surprise, seeing that her supposedly covert communications with her partner seemed to have been compromised. "Worry not, for I was only able to tell from your golden-haired friend's expressions, and you revealed a trace of your presence with your emotion.

"Now, I shall be quick: I am Nozomi, Prelate of the Dark Templar." Nozomi stepped forward and bowed. "I am here on a mission with my comrades to stop the Princess of Blades."

"That's how she's called, huh?" Umi remarked. "Fitting,I suppose."

"We're special agents attached with Raynor's Raiders to neutralize the Princess of Blades," Eli introduced herself and her partner to Nozomi, as the rest of the Raiders' group caught up. More introductions were exchanged, and the marines were relieved to find actually friendly Protoss. So far, their encounters with them weren't exactly on good terms.

"Since the only direct route towards the supercomputer room is the one the Zerg are already taking, our best course of action would be to simply follow at a safe distance, and trap the enemy between our forces when the time is right," Umi proposed.

Nozomi nodded. That was exactly what she and the ship commander had in mind when they discussed this earlier. "Then we shall meet again at the lowermost level of the ship. Stay safe for the meantime."

"Of course." Eli smiled confidently, eliciting a similar expression in the Dark Templar - although Nozomi expressed it with her eyes alone, but it was understandable enough for Eli. The former then disappeared in a puff of smoke, while the Raiders stepped onto the teleporter pad, with Eli and Umi once again cloaking and taking point.

A/N: Exactly a month since the last update.

Right, then, you know what's coming. Everybody's gonna meet up soon, and things are going to get a little messy.