On the Eve of the Storm: Jedi and Stormtroopers

On Korhal, the capital planet of the Terra Empire,

searchlights from orbital defense platforms sliced its nightside sky into fragments.

Augustgrad, once a thriving city, now huddled beneath the protection of an artificial force field like a wounded beast.

The barrels of thousands of antiaircraft towers pointed skyward, their charging coils flashing a dangerous blue.

The Empire's warships were scattered thinly across orbit—

mostly aging Behemoth-class Battleships and hastily armed transports, together forming a flimsy defensive net.

Compared with its defenses at their height, Korhal's orbital defenses were now a sieve riddled with holes.

"Charge all point-defense systems to 120%!"

Anxious shouts filled the ground command center's communications channel.

Technical officers stared at several glaring gaps in the holographic map. The sector that should have been held by the Third Fleet contained only a few frigates barely capable of moving.

Valerian had taken not just warships, but their most capable crews.

Down on the surface stood Augustgrad's palace.

The palace complex rose from the city center like a forest of black steel.

Banners of the Mengsk Family hung from its towering spires, snapping in the fierce wind ahead of the storm.

The outer walls were coated against radiation and plated with anti-surveillance lead alloy, giving them a sickly metallic sheen under the searchlights.

Twelve walls fitted with electromagnetic nets formed concentric circles, with a killing ground between each one—

automated turrets, spider-mine arrays, laser fences, and the more traditional trenches, bunkers, and machine-gun positions.

The Royal Guard, clad in CMC-660 Heavy Armor, patrolled the defenses like machines. Marks on their shoulder plates recorded how many traitors they had executed.

Some veterans' shoulders were covered in dense clusters of notches.

Two twenty-meter statues flanked the palace's main gate:

on the left, Arcturus Mengsk raised the Terran Dominion's flag; on the right,