With all the evacuation ships loaded onto the Spear of Adun, it was only us in orbit above Shakuras and all the Zerg living there now. If it was up to me, I'd already be high-tailing it out of the system before enough flying Zerg came through that portal to threaten us. The Protoss lady in charge of the Dark Templar had joined the Hierarch on the bridge, where they were politely disagreeing with each other about what to do next. I could 'hear' their disagreement from all the way across the room, but I figured as long as nobody had their laser swords out it was still a polite one. Artanis felt the same way I did – the ship had every living Protoss in the universe onboard now, and if the Golden Armada came to finish us off we'd be trapped between the fleet and the Zerg. But Vorazun, which must have been her name, was out for blood, and she didn't want to leave Shakuras as a breeding ground for Amon's zerg.
Instead, she wanted to blow it up. Which, honestly, sounded really cool. I'd never seen a planet blow up before except in holo-vids, and real life had an infinite special effects budget. Plus, I totally understood not wanting to have to come back and clean everything up again considering what a mess Aiur was in already. Artanis finally gave in, seeing as how it was her planet and all that, but with a twist of his own that made the whole thing even cooler. A planet would make one heck of a bomb, and the more Zerg he could lure in through that warp gate the better.
Making the planet go boom wasn't going to be simple. They had to charge up a big Xel'Naga temple with enough power to make it overload, which would do bad things to the planet's core or something – I dunno, I always found an excuse to walk away when Terry started talking about seismic tectonics or whatever at the water cooler. Friendly guy, Terry, but such a dork.
And because nothing in this crazy scenario was going to be easy, the temple itself also had a safety mechanism that needed to be disabled before it could overload. Three big 'Zenith Stones' that would bleed off the surplus energy unless someone went and made them have an accident.
And of course, the temple itself would have to be defended the whole time. Amon was crazy and super evil but he clearly wasn't stupid – as soon as that thing started powering up every Zerg in sight would be swarming over the defenses. Some turrets would hopefully convince them otherwise.
They didn't waste any time, either. Almost immediately the closest Zerg started charging in. There were only a few of them, but with practically no defenses in place they might still do some damage.
The Dark Templar disagreed very much. Before even a single Zergling could make it to the gun line, they were teleporting around and absolutely shredding the incoming critters into a cloud of paste.
Before another wave could arrive, they took advantage of the lull to go out and attack one of the Zenith stones.
It wasn't exactly meant to fight back, but when you start stabbing holes in a giant rock full of psionic energy, some of that leaks out in weird directions. Nobody actually died, but a few of the Protoss who went out came back looking a bit charred.
Another wave came in from a hive in the northwest, and after beating it back, they promptly scurried out to do the same thing to a second Zenith stone.
Meanwhile, back at base Amon was trying to get sneaky. He'd loaded up a bunch of Overlords with critters and tried to drop them behind us, but Artanis was sneakier and had thought ahead with cannons just in case.
The last zenith stone was protected by fliers, though, and had some Overseers lurking around to stop any Dark Templar shenanigans.
Instead, Artanis snuck a probe out while the Dark Templar caused a distraction, and set down a pylon to warp in Stalkers right near the stone.
They cleared out the air cover without a problem, and gunned down the stone. Now all that was left was to lure enough Zerg onto the planet to make this whole mad scheme worth the effort.
And speaking of air cover, Amon was starting to get serious. His hybrids had finally arrived at the party, with a new kind of flying hybrid I'd never seen before.
Regular hybrids were appearing now too, of course. Only a few of them for now, but according to Vorazun there were half a billion Zerg on the planet by now, and every single one of them was rushing the temple grounds.
It might take half a billion Zerg to get through, though. Artanis was building nearly solid walls of fortifications across every side of the plateau, with probes zooming in every direction to patch holes or set up new lines. It was a little odd when I noticed it – aside from the handful of Dark Templar volunteers who had gone down for the vanguard, he wasn't committing any actual Protoss to the defense. Only robots and automated cannons....and himself, I guess, doing whatever he was up to inside the temple.
More Zerg came, and more Zerg died. There were over a billion of them infesting the planet now, and losing that many troops in one blow would make even Amon have to pause and regroup. But Artanis kept waiting, since Karax had found a solarite cache underneath the plateau that could be used to fuel the Spear.
Having the sheer number of Probes he did started to make sense. When Banelings or Ultralisks or Hybrids punched a hole in the walls, Artanis would have new ones warped in before the next wave could take advantage of the breach.
Zerg air support was getting even thicker, with drop pods raining down from the skies right past the turret lines. It was hard to find a place to land in between the solid walls of turrets and monolith cannons built up, but they tried all the same.
Over a billion and a half zerg had occupied Shakuras by now, and I could see the lines starting to buckle. It was kind of awe-inspiring in a way, and terrifying. Nothing short of hybrids could even make a dent in the Protoss defenses, and where one or two of them had been scary for Terran troops, Amon was throwing them away by the dozens just to swamp the Protoss under monster corpses. Emperor Mengsk – the first one, I mean – had made such a big deal about how valiant sacrifices were all that kept the Protoss from wiping us out. I'm pretty sure all that kept the Protoss from wiping us out was that they didn't care enough to spare the time and effort.
Buckle they did though, because Amon could sacrifice dozens of his hybrids and have hundreds more right behind them. And while the regular Zerg couldn't breach the defenses, they could swarm through and wreak havoc once a hole was opened.
With close to two billion Zerg in the trap, and the Temple itself starting to take hits, that was enough. Artanis beamed all the intact Probes and surviving Dark Templar back aboard the Spear of Adun. It took almost a full minute before he returned too, covered head to toe in Zerg guts. And just in time.
I was able to see it from the bridge. It started as a bright orange glow, the color of molten lava, around where the temple had been. Then it started to spread.
Other patches of ground across the planet were turning orange, growing wider, as flocks of flying Zerg fled frantically into space in every direction...
Then. Well...it exploded. The flying Zerg got to die a few seconds later than the rest, and that was it. Every Protoss on the bridge flinched in unison, and for a moment it felt like someone had punched me in the back of the head from the inside. It faded back to a dull throbbing quickly, but where the headache had come from in the first place I couldn't begin to guess. No one was paying attention to me anyways, so I slipped off to take a nap. Weird dreams were still better than this.
Re: My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er! - Lets Play+Read Starcraft 2: Legacy of the
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