The Protoss fighters approached in utter silence, their engine roar so faint it was barely audible—light as the breathing of a dozing cat. Their method of communication was clearly entirely different from that of the Terran, and thus impossible to intercept.
Agile, gold-and-blue-hued butterfly-shaped and angular Protoss fighters swept at high speed over the heads of the roaring Jormungand Brood that were lifting their gazes skyward, releasing a rain of death composed of searing light beams guided by focused lenses.
Behind the beautiful butterfly-like wings trailed a spreading blaze; thousands of Zerglings and Hydralisks were burned into ash in an instant.
The agile fighter streaking across the sky above Augustus possessed a design of exquisite craftsmanship and a brilliant, harmonious aesthetic—light as an ice-blue butterfly rising on the wind, sharp as a fired arrow.
The blue plasma beams scorched the ground, and the creep tendrils and organic structures of the Zerg—like paste in a boiling pot—began to curl and collapse.
In the Central Park, the wooden planks Terrans had used to assemble long benches carbonized under the burn of the plasma beams. The stone slabs and steel on the ground were struck by Protoss beams, shattered into molecules that scattered through the air amid a dazzling flash; the rippling superwave could be clearly seen even a mile away.
Augustus saw a large swarm of Mutalisks and Scourges flying toward the Protoss formation like a black cloud. Immediately after, the Zerg on the ground temporarily retreated.
"Wah—look at those ships. They're so damn pretty. You think Swann can build those?" Tychus lifted his head, the brutal features on his face showing a blank look.
The last time Tychus had watched with his own eyes as the Revolutionary Army's engineering corps built a bunker amid a sea of Zerg, and seen Swann weld together a high-energy gas-collecting drone by hand, Tychus had since come to believe that engineers could do anything.
"I really don't know about that." Augustus shook his head, signaling Corporal Faraday and Sarah Kerrigan to return.
Augustus then immediately ordered, over the public channel, that all units withdraw in an orderly fashion toward the central high platform of the Mar Sara Spaceport. Under his command, the remaining Revolutionary Army soldiers began abandoning all heavy weapons and supply crates, taking only the remains of their comrades—most of which were already battered beyond recognition.
He dropped to one knee and picked up a blue synthetic-resin soldier's ID tag from the ground, which was covered in red blood and purple-black carapaces. The tag lay atop a layer of Terran and Zerg limb fragments whose owners' blood had long since gone cold.
The tag was smeared with blood; on it were written the warrior's serial number, name, place of origin, and the date he had joined the Revolutionary Army.
Its owner had once been agile and quick, and had loved his homeland deeply, but now he had become a shattered corpse. The young soldier had been torn apart by a ferocious Jormungand Hydralisk as if it were opening a can; his body had already been dismembered into so many pieces that even trying to put him back together would have been quite difficult.
"A Korhalan, from Styrling. His father was an heir to a viscountcy from the old era, and his mother was a noble from the core world Valhalla." Slinging her rifle over one shoulder, Kerrigan walked toward Augustus. She had just hoisted a red Revolutionary Army banner from the other side; it was now stained with patches of acid, showing large black blotches as if it had been scorched by fire.
"You remember him because he was one of those boys and girls taking fencing class on the academy lawn the day you rode past Korhal Styrling Academy on your way to join the Confederate Marine Corps," she said.
"Move it. You waiting around for the bugs to come eat you?" Tychus had long since torn his gaze away from the gleaming Protoss ships.
While urging Augustus on, Tychus bent down and picked up a broken helmet from the ground. "You can't take everyone with you. On this rotten hellhole, plenty of people have already been eaten by the bugs. Let's head back to the Hyperion, have a glass of Kornak brandy or just drink ourselves drunk—everything'll look better."
Augustus silently put away the soldier's ID tag and watched several Revolutionary Army soldiers walk past in front of him.
"Let's get out of this heartbreaking place first, and then mourn the ones who weren't as lucky as we were," he said.
"Augustus, the ship that's taking us back to the fleet has arrived," Kerrigan reported to him then.
"They finally showed up. Otherwise the flyboys would've had to pick up our bodies," Augustus let out a breath of relief.
"Too right. I've always said it: the Air Force does the flying, the Marine Corps does the dying," Tychus said. "Damn."
"Quit your griping, Tychus. I gave you the chance to pilot a battlecruiser, but you couldn't stand the boredom and even drove drunk," Augustus said. "In the end, you begged me to transfer you back to the Marine Corps."
"Later I figured it out. Keeping my feet on solid ground is what makes me feel the most grounded," Tychus said. "A real man ought to drive armor the size of a mountain and flatten cities."
"You'll have your chance, Tychus. Let's set our sights on the distant future." Saying this, Augustus cast one last look at the corpse-strewn battlefield, then followed a group of medics carrying stretchers as he ran toward the launch port.
The Protoss forces had drawn nearly all of the Jormungand Brood's attention. These two races that had suddenly burst into the Terran field of view seemed like natural-born, irreconcilable mortal enemies.
The surviving soldiers of the Revolutionary Army's Guard Division, led by officers at every level, withdrew in an orderly fashion along several runways toward the aerospace port, managing to maintain discipline even under such circumstances.
After fighting the primary assault hive—the Jormungand Brood—of the Zerg swarm for an entire day and night, fewer than one thousand of the more than four thousand participating soldiers remained. The Revolutionary Army officers had been extremely brave; more than half of them had fallen, and there were even cases where a whole battalion could only be commanded by a single lieutenant.
And because Augustus's Guard Division took in only a very small number of new recruits from Korhal each year, the division's actual establishment could only shrink further; the officers and even the soldiers who survived now would rise in rank at extraordinary speed.
At present, only battle-hardened troops in the non-resocialized military could withstand the Zerg charges on the battlefield without breaking, and Augustus's Guard Division was the elite of the elite.
In this unit composed mainly of Korhalan veterans, anyone who showed cowardice in combat or was proven to harbor any doubt toward the meaning of the Revolution or toward Augustus's ideals would be discharged. The Guard Division accepted only true warriors, and aside from those of Korhalan descent, they would accept almost no recruits from other worlds.
During the retreat, Augustus directed the withdrawing units while observing the distant battlefield.
The gold-and-blue Protoss fighters were encircling and exterminating the Jormungand Zerg both in the sky and on the ground. They were light and elegant; even the smallest craft shimmered with an ice-blue glow from their plasma shields. The Protoss fighters darted and wheeled with speeds and turning angles absolutely impossible for Terran aircraft, coldly and ruthlessly hunting the raging Zerg.
If the enemy they faced had been a Terran colonial resistance force, then the latter would clearly have collapsed at the first touch. But when the Jormungand Brood attacked, they did so without regard for casualties or losses, and sooner or later they would overwhelm this Protoss force.
From time to time, butterfly-shaped Protoss fighters turned into streaks of gold-and-blue flashes under the attacks of Mutalisks, Scourges, and flying crabs, and the tremendous shockwaves and radiation produced when those fighters exploded would, in the blink of an eye, destroy even more Zerg.
When Augustus confirmed that the last platoon had stepped onto the high platform where the launch port was located, the long-lost Jim Raynor finally reestablished contact with him.
"Augustus, these Protoss will hold off the Jormungand Brood for us for a while." Raynor's voice came through the earpiece of Augustus's communicator in broken bursts; he should currently be aboard a Revolutionary Army combat skiff weaving against the Mutalisks.
"You really are my lucky charm, Jimmy. Those Protoss don't need our rescue, so how did you end up dealing with them?" Standing at the entrance of the launch port, Augustus watched the last Guards Division soldier go inside, following Tychus, Kerrigan, and the others in.
"Ah—ease up, Jack! I almost puked up the No. 10 rations I ate yesterday. Those Mutalisks can't catch us—" A sudden bout of turbulence and explosions came from the other end.
"It's Matt—Matt Horner, sir." A very small voice came through; it was Matt Horner, whom Augustus had brought back from Tyrador IX.
Over the past few months, Matt Horner had been piloting small skiffs for the Revolutionary Army. Even as a new recruit, his ship-handling skills had already reached mastery, and this was far from his first time flying the Terran Confederacy's light craft seen in multiple fields.
"Sorry, Matt. I won't make that mistake again. Ease up, Matt, no rush," Raynor added. "Actually, the situation back then was a bit complicated."
"At the time, my ship was five hundred meters up in the air, at least several thousand yards away from those Protoss trapped on a street, and the voice of the Protoss commander on the ground just appeared directly in my head."
At this moment Raynor was strapped tight into the seat of the combat skiff that was twisting and dodging in midair, with nothing he could do except pray it wouldn't crash.
"It wasn't that they infiltrated our comms equipment—they just appeared directly in my head. Like a crack of thunder; at the time I even thought we'd been hit."
"Psionic language." Walking toward the interior of the launch port, Augustus glanced at Kerrigan beside him; at least the current Kerrigan couldn't do anything like that.
"Yes. Ever since John, I've learned more about this sort of thing. According to what the other side said, he was a high-ranking Templar of the Protoss Empire, a Son of Aiur, an Apostle of the Khala. Those were a bunch of titles I didn't understand, but strangely enough, I could grasp their meaning. Templars are warriors among the Protoss."
Raynor's skiff was flying amid at least a hundred Mutalisks, at times forced to dodge incoming acid with evasive maneuvers. A single mistake by the pilot would mean instant death for everyone aboard.
"Then he said there were several thousand Hydralisks right ahead of us, and told us to get out of there immediately," Raynor said.
"The answer was obvious. I was going to save them—I certainly wasn't going to run." As Augustus boarded a shuttle, Raynor's voice was filled with heavy static.
"Then I led my men in an airdrop right over their heads. When we landed, we stomped a whole bunch of Zerglings flat; one shot per Hydralisk, and a single pistol round blew up an Overlord," Raynor said.
"My men fought side by side with those Protoss, and with the subsequent support from Protoss fighters, they sent the Jormungand Brood fleeing in panic."
"I admit I exaggerated a bit, but the truth isn't far off from what I said. Even the high-ranking Templar of the Protoss—I'd bet he was someone important—was surprised by our 'courage' and our selfless 'sacrifice.'" he said.
"Before that, those Protoss had always thought Terrans were a selfish and greedy species. They never imagined there were people like me—like us—among Terrans, people this brave."
At that time, Jim Raynor was still a young man with a strong sense of justice and boundless hot-blooded energy. Most importantly, Raynor was pure—Augustus sent him to save people, and he really went with the sole intent of saving them, without harboring any other purpose.
That alone was enough to astonish those Protoss.
"I imagine that high-ranking Protoss Templar must have found it quite funny when he learned you were going to save them." As Augustus spoke, the shuttle he was riding trembled once and then began slowly lifting off.
"…He didn't. You have to understand something: Protoss don't have a damn shred of humor. They can't even tell when you're joking," Raynor said. "The Protoss expressed their thanks for our rescue and believed we were warriors worthy of respect."
"Looks like you already tried it, Jimmy," Augustus said calmly.
"You should leave Mar Sara. Everyone has already evacuated—there's no need to hold out here any longer," he said.
"Mar Sara is completely done for." Raynor let out a long sigh. "Originally, I'd even thought that after retiring, I'd bring Elizabeth and John back here—just like the things you and I used to do on Mar Sara—be a little sheriff."
"Matt, get us out of here," he said. "Before that, we'd better notify our Protoss allies."
"Sir, I'm not sure our comms equipment can reach the Protoss. Their communication methods aren't the same as ours." Matt's voice sounded distant from Raynor.
"Whether you have to shout through a loudhailer or whatever—just do it." Raynor yelled, "Damn it, these Mutalisks are everywhere."
"Jimmy, see you on the Hyperion," Augustus said.
Outside the shuttle window, a hundred roaring orange-red contrails were shooting skyward. Several squadrons of A-17 Wraith fighters were escorting the evacuation ships, but in Augustus's eyes they were already just a few receding black dots.
Amid the shuttle's vibration, the brightly lit Mar Sara Spaceport was growing farther and farther from Augustus.
Because the spaceport had an independent nuclear fusion power plant, it was still able to maintain normal power supply even after Mar Sara City fell, its lights remaining bright.
As the shuttle kept ascending and passed through sparse clouds, those lights gradually turned into blurry points—then went out one after another as Zerg flooded into the spaceport, like office buildings emptied of people.
Mar Sara sank into deep darkness.
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