”You intrigue me…” Sensing the sharp increase in the ghost’s psionic power, Kerrigan whispered. “yet the result is the same. Your allies on the ground have been slaughtered. The terran fleet in orbit is beaten back. My underlings have this place surrounded. There’s no way out. You’re strong, but you’re not strong enough.”

The queen of trickery was trying to weaken her enemy. This was surprising. In the past Kerrigan practically ran over any enemy she faced. The fact that she felt tricks were needed meant Viper was threatening her, at least to a certain degree.

“All shall submit…” Viper whispered. She was quiet, but her voice echoed through the sky due to the void energy it held. Suddenly, without another word, she launched herself at the Queen of Blades. Her psionic blade, used by ghosts, was in her grip. The color of the blade was turned red due to the extensive use of void energy.

Color wasn’t the only thing the change in power source caused. The void blade was much more violent and uncontrollable.

Kerrigan took a step back. Her right hand moved back as it formed a purple orb. As Viper got closer, Kerrigan smashed that psionic orb forward.

Viper formed a red shield in front of her. The orb hit the shield and both were reduced to basic psionic energy.

Now in front of Kerrigan, Viper swung her blade, and Kerrigan took a step back with a small cut across her bare chest. The deadly void energy burned through her armor and generated a long cut.

She was injured.

With a slight advantage, Viper became even more aggressive. Kerrigan’s spine blades slashed down from above, but the ghost was ruthless. She didn’t even bother to defend herself. Instead, she simply jumped forward and hit Kerrigan in the chest before her spine blades could come down. Viper’s void blade went for Kerrigan’s throat.

The Queen of Blades growled and backed off. If she stood her ground, then maybe she could kill this strange spectre, but she would be wounded or killed as well. That would be dumb. She was the Queen of Blades, not a common zergling. She had much more value as a commander rather than as a front-line combatant.

Kerrigan was pushed back even further, but this reminded her. She had an army. She didn’t need to show off her power and put herself at risk by going into a one on one dual with a potential threat, especially when she didn’t need to.

“Come, my children…”

Viper growled as swarm units made a move on her. Hydralisks spat spines. Roaches had acids. Zerglings and banelings formed a flood. Two ultralisks started their charge. Thanks to the zerg psionic network, all the smaller zerg units got out of their way just before the giant legs landed and escaped the fate of being crushed.

Viper screamed. A zergling jumped into the air, and she severed it in midair. A baneling rolled up and was frozen in its path and sent back rolling into a crowd of zerglings. Before the baneling could regain its course, Viper crushed it, and the resulting explosion melted dozens of zerglings.

“Death comes to all!” With a loud cry, Viper’s eyes turned from purple to red, and void energy condensed above a part of the zerg army. Immediately, crimson lightning was rained down on the Swarm units.

Roaches and ultralisks could survive a blast or two, but zerglings, banelings, and hydralisks had no such luck.

One of the ultralisks managed to get by the void storm. It charged, attempting to crush his puny foe. Viper was aggressive as well. Just like what Kerrigan did to get to Raynor, Viper used void energy on her legs and sent herself flying. Unlike psionic energy, void energy was much more hard to control, and Viper’s ankles cracked, but she didn’t let it stop her.

Viper landed on the ultralisk’s skull. The beast lifted its head, trying to shake Viper off, but it was too late. Viper ignited her void blade once again and jammed it into the ultralisk’s armor. The weapon, powered by the foreign energy, cut through the armor much easier than any traditional weapon, but the ultralisk’ armor was simply so thick. Plus, the major organs of ultralisks were scattered across its body, which meant Viper couldn’t just locate and destroy the beast’s brain.

It’s fine. Viper solved this problem by cutting the entire ultralisk into two. Her blade sliced down while her body followed. In the end, Viper literally went through the ultralisk down the middle. As the two pieces of bodies fell to the two sides, the ghost emerged from the smoke.

The purple blood of the ultralisk covered her suit and her skin and made her fearsome.

Unfortunately, zerg didn’t give a damn about if they were fighting an unarmed human being or a xel’naga. They kept on charging.

Viper continued her killing spree. None of the zerg laid a finger on her, but Kerrigan could see she was getting more and more exhausted. Void energy came with a price. The terrazine Viper inhaled was in such a great number that it almost established a direct link between her and Amon. She was powerful psionically, but her physical body wasn’t enough to hold this power. Despite killing everyone, she was falling apart on the inside.

Just like Kerrigan imagined, as Viper dropped another roach, she suddenly stumbled. She quickly caught herself, but a hydralisk used this opportunity and sent a spine through her shoulder.

The hydralisk was immediately ripped into two, but the damage was already down. Unlike Kerrigan, Viper couldn’t use void energy to heal herself.

This was a fight Viper was doomed to lose.

But suddenly, Kerrigan tilted her head slightly and received a report from one of her broodmothers.

“My queen, one of the terran battlecruisers is descending on your location. It seems to be the flagship.” Broodmother Zagara looked out of the window of the leviathan she was in. A distance away, a Moebius battlecruiser, under the cover of a green defensive matrix, was forcing its way through layers and layers of mutalisks and corruptors and was on its way toward the planet below.

A squad of corruptors performed a suicidal charge, but their count has been reduced by half on the way to the capital ship. The rest smashed into the defensive matrix and shook it, but that was it.

“Stop them at all cost.” Kerrigan ordered. She was confused. Why would the terran launch an attack now? They might be trying to take down the data cores now that most of the strike teams have failed, but why would they send a single battlecruiser? Shouldn’t the entire fleet be pushing forward? She looked at Viper. She was still resisting, but she was getting weaker and weaker. No commander would risk an entire ship for a single ghost operative.

Doesn’t matter. She had an entire fleet above her. Three leviathans, along with hordes and hordes of corruptors and mutalisks, were more than enough to hold the terran back.

She was disappointed. In space, corruptors and mutalisks were faced by a wave of terran missiles. At first the zerg responded like they always did. Armored corruptors were in the front to tank the damage whereas more fragile mutalisks were behind. Scourges covered the two sides. Their plan was simple yet efficient. The corruptors would take all the terran projectiles and give the scourges and mutalisks a chance to do damage.

But the terran commanders took that into their consideration.

Most of the missiles simply exploded, but one of them was special. As it went off, it released millions of degrees of celsius of heat into the surrounding.

Everything, corruptors, mutalisks, and scourges, were melted. The zerg were adapted to extreme environments, but no amount of adaptation could save them from this. Everything in the blast radius of the nuclear missile perished.

This blasted a hole through the zerg wall and allowed the terran battlecruiser to pass through. As the ship descended into orbit, it unleashed most of its batteries at the zerg units around Viper.

“This is a rescue mission.” Kerrigan realized. As unlike as it was, the terran commander was willing to make a seemingly inefficient trade. She turned back to Viper, who was still fighting. “Kill her now!”

Swarm units went into a frenzy as they fought for a chance to be the first to die. The Queen of Blades herself fired an energy blast at the ghost.

“Grrrr.” Viper growled. The blast hit her in the chest and added to her already severe injuries. She was getting exhausted. She couldn’t keep this up much longer.

Kerrigan leaped into the air once again. This time her landing zone was right on top of Viper. The ghost tried to concentrate her void energy, but she wasn’t strong enough. Her entire body was going numb. The simple act of forming a void shield used to take her less than a second. Now it required several seconds to be formed. Under this circumstance, these seconds might be the difference between life and death.

But even at the brink of death, Viper was looking at Kerrigan with blazing eyes, filled with nothing but anger and hatred.

Suddenly, Kerrigan was hit in the middle of her jump when an orange bolt smashed into her, tossing her back. It came from one of the laser batteries from the battlecruiser.

Twelve Moebius vikings came out of the hanger of the battlecruiser and unleashed twenty four lanzer torpedoes on the Swarm. The blast cleared the area. A single modified dropship came out of the hanger under the cover of the fighters.

A hunter killer that survived the onslaught fired a spine into the air, but it was deflected by the armor of the dropship. The transport landed in front of the semi-unconscious ghost. Two Moebius marines came out and carried her into the ship.

The dropship lifted off and turned around. Its afterburner was ignited, and the dropship returned back to the battlecruiser without many obstacles.

A distance away, hundreds of mutalisks regrouped and came back, but they were too late. With the fighters and the transport back inside the hangar, the battlecruiser jumped away.

Inside the flagship, Doctor Narud watched as the signals of the strike teams disappeared one by one. Only two of the strike teams completed their mission, which meant three of them didn’t.

This meant Sarah Kerrigan has gained access to the coordinates to the Keystone Fragments.

At this point there were only two more pieces of fragments, and Narud was considering having the Tal’darim deliver it directly to him. Previously he made Raynor fight the Tal’darim because he wanted Raynor to think he got the artifacts with his own effort and therefore trust it and use it. If Narud just gave Raynor the artifact and told him, "hey, this is a magical weapon that can suck the power out of the Queen of Blades," the man might get suspicious.

But now he could no longer risk it. Kerrigan would no doubt go for the Keystone fragments, and the Swarm was endless. He wasn’t sure if the Death Fleet could hold it off, especially since he specially ordered Highlord Ma’lash to place the fragments at some distant planets, outside the protection of the Death Fleet. If Kerrigan hit these places…

“Pull the fleets back. We have lost this planet.” The xel’naga in disguise passed down an order to his lieutenants. He stood up to walk out of the bridge, attempting to contact the Tal’darim, but one of his men stopped him.

“Sir, what should we do with the ghost? She has already slain half a dozen of our men. We had to knock her out.”

Narud paused. He ordered the daring rescue because, from orbit, he sensed the psionic emission of Viper. He was not as powerful in the material world as he was in the void, but he was a powerful psionic user nonetheless. From what he sensed, this single ghost, while wasn’t as powerful as him or Kerrigan, was still a deadly warrior. More importantly, she was a ghost. At this phase of his plan, some missions required stealth, and she would be the perfect candidate.

It would be a pity to let her die down there. Plus, Narud felt the familiar feeling of void energy from the ghost. Just like him, she was also a servant of Amon. They could easily work together and complete their common goal.

“Keep her in a cell for now. I’ll go talk to her later.”