Chapter 5: The Battle of Braxis
The evacuation from Braxis' surface was performed perfectly, but not for lack of difficulty. Artanis had nearly lost some of his people when they got lost amid the snows. Now, however, everyone was safely back and they had the Uraj. As the protoss began heading into orbit, Artanis suddenly looked up with alarm.
"We are detecting an increase in power output from the terran orbital platform. They are activating their weapons and are scanning us. It seems we have been discovered."
"Is it possible to avoid the terrans and leave this planet?" Zeratul asked.
"No, a fleet of terran ships have taken positions in a blockade around us. We are trapped unless we can break through their platform," Artanis said. "It is strange, their configuration profile is unlike any terran group yet encountered."
"What could these terrans want from us?" Zeratul wondered.
"We are receiving a transmission from the fleet's command ship, identifying itself as the Aleksander."
A face appeared on the screen. "Protoss Commander, I am Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov of the United Earth Directorate. We are here to take control of the Terran Dominion and all of its outlying colonies. You are in direct violation of terran space and have openly attacked terran troops. Lower your shields and power down your weapon systems. The UED will be taking custody of your ships and whatever spoils you have garnered from this planet."
The transmission ended, and Artanis and Zeratul began discussing how to respond.
"United Earth Directorate? Raynor spoke of the distant terran homeworld called Earth. These humans have come a long way to make war on us," Zeratul said. "It is troubling that we know so little about them. Kerrigan, might you know more about these terrans?"
"Hardly," Kerrigan replied. "The colonies had long since lost contact with Earth. All we know were from old records, back when Earth was under the United Powers League, not the Directorate. The UPL had an obsession with the divinity of man and rounded up many humans with mutations and cybernetics for being insufficiently pure, and it seems likely that they would despise us, especially considering their current attitude."
"Worrying," Zeratul mused. "It would seem that we have yet more enemies."
"Have faith, Zeratul! You almost sound as if you fear these humans. What are they to such as we? Was it not we who defeated the dreaded Overmind?" Artanis said.
"Yes, Artanis. We did vanquish the Overmind," Zeratul said. "But we did so with the help of humans. Do not be so quick to underestimate them."
"Of course," Artanis said. "Now, the problem remains of how to escape our current predicament. I will lead our ships to try to find a way through this blockade."
Artanis embarked on his personal ship and set out with a squadron of Scouts. After a few passes near the edge of the platform he returned. "The station is heavily defended, with most of its firepower directed toward the skies. Our fleet will be decimated if we force our way through. Instead, let us use our corsairs to disrupt the defenses in a section of the platform to allow us to land ground forces to assault it."
Now, the protoss moved out in force and Artanis watched with approval as the corsairs successfully laid down the disruption webs, allowing him and the rest of the Scouts to swoop in and destroy the missile turrets that were guarding this section of the platform. Behind him, shuttles were coming in to drop off more protoss warriors.
A group of terran wraiths came in from the side to intercept the shuttles. Seeing this, Artanis moved to engage the terran fighters. His focus was sharp as the battle began in earnest, with scores of missiles heading toward his squad. Moving his ship nimbly, Artanis dodged the missiles heading toward him, though he noticed that several of the ships behind him were hit, though fortunately their shields took the blow.
Now, it was his turn to strike back as he fired the antimatter missiles from his ship. The wraiths, not expecting their attacks to miss, hurriedly tried to avoid the missiles, but they were too slow. The fragile wraiths were wrecked after a single hit, and with much of the wraith squadron destroyed, the rest turned to flee. Artanis followed close behind along with the rest of his ships, and soon the wraiths were eliminated.
Turning back, Artanis saw that the ground forces had secured a part of the platform and were still advancing. However, from his spot in the sky he could see that the UED was sending numerous reinforcements. Now, he moved toward a group of UED soldiers and fired at them with the ship's photon blasters. The strafing run successfully eliminated that group of soldiers, but elsewhere terran soldiers were already digging in.
A group of zealots and dragoons were destroyed by the tanks on a ridge where the reavers were unable to attack. As this was overlooking the main bridge to the rest of the space platform, it was a position that they needed to take.
Artanis brought his ship downward toward the tanks, but the turrets on the platform launched a barrage of missiles toward him. This time, several of them hit, beginning to wear through the shield. Still, he forced his way deeper as the ships behind him followed, but the closer he got the heavier the enemy fire became. His shields were dangerously low and several ships in his squad had been destroyed. They took out a single tank but after that they were forced to withdraw.
Even that victory proved to be hollow as Artanis saw more UED forces coming, bringing several more tanks. The protoss were stuck, unable to advance as the terrans began encircling them.
"Artanis, our situation is becoming untenable," Selendis said. "Our forces must retreat."
"Understood Executor." With a heavy heart, Artanis broke off from the attack and covered the protoss withdrawal. They'd inflicted some damage on the platform, but nowhere near enough to render it inoperable. As the last shuttles left, Artanis followed suit. Looking behind him, he saw the terran soldiers already moving into that section of the platform and fortifying it against further attacks.
By the time he returned to the fleet, Artanis's initial optimism had long since faded away. Instead, all he had left to cling to was determination. The fate of the protoss rested on this expedition, and they could not let themselves fall here. However, all options seemed bleak.
"Our assault sustained moderate losses," Selendis said. "In and of itself, it won't cripple us, but the attack accomplished far too little. A few more assaults like the last one and we will be ruined."
"I know," Artanis said. "We have the mobility to strike where we please, but to clear out the entire platform would require far too much sacrifice in terms of lives as well as time. If we fail to break through soon, the UED would be able to prepare their reinforcements and crush us."
"All paths seem closed, but surely there must be another way," Zeratul said. "If the direct approach will not work, then we must try something else."
"But what?" Artanis exclaimed. "What else can we do here? There is no way for us to sneak out of the encirclement. If we try to escape we will be torn apart. Perhaps a few ships will survive but the fleet will be decimated."
"We have received an incoming transmission from the space platform," Selendis said.
"Is it another demand for our surrender?" Artanis asked wearily.
"No, this one seems different," Selendis said, opening up the transmission.
A face appeared, not of a high ranking officer, but instead of what seemed to be an ordinary looking man.
"Hey, so I heard that you protoss are attacking this place. Now, I worked here for a long time and I'd rather the UED bastards don't get ahold of this station in one piece," he said.
"I'm gonna send you the blueprint of this platform. I've marked the location of the power generators. Each one powers a section of the platform and destroying it will depower all of the missile turrets in the section. So if you destroy all the power generators then this platform will just be a useless hunk of metal. Also, I know one section of the platform just became unpowered because of an electrical short, probably one of those UED jarheads screwing something up. Some of my fellow technicians have been sent to go fix it up. Don't worry, I know they won't be working too diligently so you'll have plenty of time to take advantage of the opening."
The man looked away for a moment before turning back. "I got to go now, the guy supervising me is coming back and I need to wipe the records of this transmission. One other thing, could you avoid attacking the areas where the prisoners are being kept? None of us are going to be a threat to you."
The transmission ended, leaving the protoss with the map of the platform and all of the information the technician provided.
"That was rather unexpected," Zeratul said. "But it seems we have gained a great boon."
Kerrigan seemed amused. "It looks like the UED hasn't quite secured that platform just yet. And now some of the Dominion soldiers are helping us out of spite. After we had just got done attacking the Dominion too. They must not know about what we just did. Well, this is a lucky windfall for us, to have the Dominion bail us out."
Artanis looked a bit uncomfortable being reminded that he was being saved by the humans he just fought. But the potential that this opportunity presented stirred up great hope in him. It was a way to win, and he would take it.
"Gather our forces, we will achieve a decisive victory," Artanis said. "Set the course for the first power generator."
The detachment of protoss ships moved out. They flew toward the platform, heading toward the region that had been rendered ineffective by the power outage. As the fleet flew by, the missile turrets below remained silent until they reached the next section. This deep into the platform, the terran defenses were sparse, especially since many of their standing forces had been diverted to the area the protoss had first attacked.
Artanis watched as the strike team of ground troops moved in. Ignoring the missile turrets, they only needed to eliminate the few terran patrols that were in their way. With swift efficiency the protoss reached the generator and destroyed it.
Now, the protoss aerial force was able to fly over the area to reach the next section. This time, the way ahead was guarded by a few bunkers and tanks. While the ground forces regrouped, Artanis led the ships to the bridge leading to the next section of the platform. The corsairs disabled the missile turrets with disruption webs, and then the scouts attacked from behind, destroying the tanks and beginning to harass any reinforcements coming to the area while the ground forces pushed in.
As they approached the generator, they found that it had been reinforced with wraith fighters and some new type of ship the protoss had never seen before. After the dragoons destroyed the missile turrets surrounding the generator, Artanis led his ships in. While taking out the wraith fighters wasn't difficult, the new unknown type of ship proved to be more trouble. They were sturdy enough to take a hit while also firing much more missiles, making it difficult to dodge. Several of the scouts fell prey to them before the UED ships were eventually overwhelmed.
By now, the UED was aware of the attacks and quickly mobilized their forces to respond. Artanis found the way ahead reinforced by the UED troops. The protoss advance halted and Artanis kept an eye on the enemy lines as he flew just outside the range of the terran turrets. The UED forces also focused on the protoss in front of them, content to wait since all the defenders needed to do was stall.
Soon, Artanis received word from the team of dark templars deployed at the other section of the platform. While the terrans were focused on him, the dark templar had struck the defenders from the back and disabled the generator there. Now, there was just one section of the platform left.
The UED commander was no fool, and it was obvious what Artanis would be targeting next. The remainder of the UED garrison was concentrated on one section of the platform, guarding the last power generator. Seeing this, Artanis chose to return to the fleet once more.
"Only one generator remains," Artanis said. "But the defenses around it are formidable. However, by now we have crippled most of the platform's weapons, leaving just the one section left. Our fleet can now go on the offensive directly and engage what remains of their missile turrets. With that section having been damaged already in our earlier attack, our fleet should be able to prevail."
The main body of the protoss fleet finally moved, engaging the platform's defenses with the main weapons of the fleet. Meanwhile, the platform's defenders fired back with a barrage of missiles. The shields of the protoss fleet were being whittled away, but not fast enough.
Finally, the fleet was able to focus its weapons on the final power generator, destroying it and causing the last of the platform's defenses to fall silent. It was over.
"The space platform has been disabled," Artanis said. "We must leave before the rest of the UED fleet arrives."
With the barrier to their escape eliminated, the protoss fleet made their escape, leaving the orbit of Braxis and making a warp jump, leaving the incensed UED fleet behind.