Docking and Docking

Outside the bridge windows of the Steel Justice were two Behemoth-class Battlecruiser, several miles apart. The armor plating on their hammer-shaped bows reflected the light of the middle-aged sun of the Rope Rock System, and their magnificent, densely packed turrets resembled a forest of swords.

Behind the cruiser's thrusters, the orange-red plasma flames still lingered, along with spatial fluctuations and a curtain-like contrail left by the hyperspace jump. In the distant depths of space behind the warship, a dark brown asteroid loomed.

With the Alpha Squadron's flagship Norad II, ahead, Augustus, standing on the bridge of the Steel Justice, could initially only see dense dots of light as it opened fire alongside its sister ship, the Napoleon.

The flames from the laser cannon turrets mingled with the plasma plumes of torpedoes and missiles in the dark depths of the sky. In the blink of an eye, a bright orange laser beam, several feet wide, approached from afar, carving deep, dark grooves into the armor beneath the bridge. These densest and strongest materials currently in use by humankind rapidly vaporized, like melting ice.

Each attack caused the warship to tremble slightly, and the surface of this city-like steel fortress, bathed in the light of stars and laser weapons, sparkled with brilliant, fleeting bursts of bright fire.

Many battlecruisers built Guild Wars did not have energy shield technology added, so the Steel Justice could only rely on its thick deck to withstand enemy attacks.

"Reinforce decks six and three, and repair auxiliary engine number two. Notify the hangar to evacuate all Avenger and Wraith from the launch bay. Tell the Marines that all their leave is canceled and everyone assemble on the lower deck; we're in for a tough fight."

Amid the buzzing alarms on the bridge, Warfield's second-in-command, Major Charles Chuck Matt Horner, calmly issued orders.

This short, Outer Colonies was one of the few surviving members of Arcturus's Imperial Squad after the war. Though still rude and unruly, he had long since shed his former bravado and matured into a reliable commander.

Augustus's face was frequently illuminated by lasers fired from his own turrets and enemy warships, yet he still had time to straighten his collar, which had become wrinkled from running. Under the gaze of Kerrigan and the others, Augustus's cold gray eyes were fixed on the unmoving figure outside the bridge porthole.

"Charles, are you unable to establish a communication link with the Hyperion?" Augustus asked, looking at Charles.

"The signal is being jammed, our technicians are trying to re-establish the connection." For a moment, Charles thought his old boss Arcturus Mengsk, was standing there, but that young-looking man looked like he was from ten years ago.

It took Charles a few seconds to react. Although the young man before him had the same cold gray eyes and gray hair as Arcturus, he was a completely different person. The Mengsk family seemed to possess a natural leadership quality; in any era, they were pioneers, political leaders, or generals in the army.

"Augustus, how are you doing?" Raynor's face appeared on the main screen of the Steel Justice's bridge. His worry disappeared only after seeing that Augustus was safe and sound.

"We've run into a little trouble." As Augustus spoke, Raynor could still see the deck beneath his feet swaying.

"Jim, turn on the Fleets's broadcast channel."

"Alright, open the entire Fleets's channels. Our marshal needs to give orders." Raynor glanced to the side. "Swann, find a way to make this old ship go faster. You can do it."

"This is Augustus Mengsk, I am aboard the Steel Justice. Now, all Fleets, assemble before me!" His voice rang out across the entire Fleets's channels and received an immediate response.

Jim Raynor's Hyperion accelerated toward the Steel Justice the moment the Confederacy Fleets appeared. More than twenty frigates, destroyers, and Umojan cruisers formed a spearhead formation below the Hyperion, while hundreds of small and medium-sized ships circled the capital ship, with the fore and aft of the warships more than two miles apart.

"Haha—that's a bit like your Arcturus." Charles seemed to still be in a joking mood. "If he hadn't insisted on going to the Edge World to mine crystals, he would be standing in this position now."

"At the time, Dai Du found it unbelievable, but no one could convince him."

"Arcturus has always been like this; sometimes even his mother can't persuade him, only Dorothy can change his mind," Augustus replied.

"What's going on here? I say, Warfield, anyone with eyes can see these bastards are following you around like shadows." At this moment, Tychus, standing to the side, held his Whisper Persuader Heavy Machine Gun but didn't know which direction to fire.

"Duke likely caught up with you two weeks ago, but hasn't launched an attack. Not only were you completely unaware, you've also undoubtedly revealed the location of your assembly point."

"It now appears that Alpha Squadron has been closely following us, and they have been keeping their communications channels constantly silent. Perhaps our communications have already been intercepted." Warfield's face was ashen; he realized this was a huge mistake of his.

Although Edmond Duke has always presented himself as a hot-tempered, reckless man lacking strategic vision, his rise to his current position is not solely due to the prestige of the Duke family, the Old Families of Tarsonis, or his unusual and rare courage to forge ahead in everything he does.

While Warfield was still charging into battle on the ground, Duke was already leading the Fleets on patrol in the Koprulu Sector. In terms of Fleets warfare, Warfield, a Marine, was, after all, an amateur.

"It sounds like Edmond has been playing you for a fool, but after all, their people have spent half their lives in space," Tychus, unusually offering words of comfort, though his voice sounded quite excited.

"I've wanted to punch that old man's face for a long time—openly and honestly, without violating military discipline or going to jail."

"He thinks he has the victory in the bag, but we still have the Hyperion and other warships, so the current strength ratio is two to two." Warfield wasn't flustered by this; he had experienced far more dangerous situations.

As if in response to Warfield's words, three more battlecruisers of the same class appeared on the radar image on the Steel Justice star chart platform, accompanied by more than two hundred escort warships and various types of ships. The lieutenant colonel's dark face immediately turned green.

"That's hard to say." Tychus lit a cigar as usual, exhaling smoke into his armor as he spoke. "It's five to two right now. If you say a few more words, we'll be out of luck."

"Mengsk, what's your plan?" he said, then looked at Augustus. "We can't just stand here and wait; getting beaten up isn't something I enjoy."

"Charles, could you get close to the Alpha Squadron's flagship, the Norad II, and try to dock?" Augustus.

"Frankly, without the other side's cooperation, this is incredibly difficult," Charles said calmly. "It depends on the skill of our pilots, whether they can surgically cut into the enemy Fleets and control a giant warship a third of a mile long to be parallel to the enemy ships and aimed at the port amidst the enemy's dense barrage."

"Unless Duke also has this intention."

"Then please tell me whether the pilot of the Steel Justice is capable of completing this mission," Augustus.

"Of course, we have the best pilots in the entire Confederacy," Charles said on the Steel Justice's command channel. "15 degrees to starboard, full speed ahead, immediately charge the main guns, all gun crews aim at Alpha Squadron flagship Norad II. All crew members, put on your spacesuits and fasten your seatbelts."

"Prepare for impact!"

"Waiting for an impact?" Tychus looked out the porthole in confusion. By comparing the positions with the stars and other warships, he could see that the Steel Justice was heading towards the Norad II at an extremely high speed.

As the Steel Justice sped forward, Avenger fighters swept past beneath the warship like arrows released from a bow, their departing jets leaving icy blue contrails that resembled fading starlight.

Don't tell me you want to ride bumper cars.

To Tychus's surprise, Duke's ship, the Norad II, did not make any tactical evasive maneuvers. It seemed that this battle-hardened Fleets captain did not believe that the Steel Justice could approach his bridge under the firepower of his own Fleets, or perhaps he preferred to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

"How arrogant, Duke."

"I will command the combat forces—I will personally defeat Edmond Duke on the deck of the Norad II," Warfield said before turning and leaving the bridge.

"He was unaware that Duke's Fleets was following him." After Warfield left, Kerrigan walked up to Augustus and whispered, "I can see the hatred he harbors for the Confederacy, but Warfield isn't loyal to you or your father right now; he's just utterly disillusioned with the Confederacy government."

"Don't doubt Warfield, he will always be my friend." Augustus then said to Charles, "Major, you are in command here."

"In any case, this is my duty," Charles Augustus. "Although I would much rather be charging into battle with a gun."

"I almost forgot what you used to do."

"When old friends come, of course we must treat them well," Tychus said to Charles before leaving with his heavy machine gun.

"This is how the Revolutionary Army treats its guests."

Since the previous minute, such tremors and shaking had become increasingly frequent. The surface of this steel behemoth, armed with heavy armor and cannons, was covered with black marks, and the molten deck was re-condensing in the cold space.

As the sixth armor of the ground-attack laser cannon group, which was close to the port side, was completely penetrated, the explosion ignited the oxygen in the crew rest cabin. A scorching and brilliant flame burst forth, and the crew members who were sucked into space suffocated to death within a minute. Their bodily fluids boiled due to the lower boiling point caused by the low pressure, and eventually turned into frozen corpses.

By the time the engineers arrived and began repairs, the flames had already died out due to the extreme depletion of oxygen, and the air was filled with the stench of burning and toxic gases, making it impossible to breathe.

The Steel Justice swayed forward, and alarms could be heard in all the passageways. Charles kept ordering engineers to repair the various compartments or to evacuate the crew to safer compartments over the radio.

The Korhal Revolutionary Army's fighter jets sped through the dense barrage of bullets, launching a seemingly suicidal attack on the Confederacy Fleets. These jets included both civilian airships converted into ships with no armor and only small-caliber laser cannons, as well as Avenger and Wraith from the Terran Confederacy.

Civilian spacecraft converted into fighter jets have no chance of survival once hit, but their advantage lies in their large numbers and high speed, numbering more than two thousand.

Piloting these fighter jets were young people from Korhal IV, known as the most desperate generation. They all came from families with multiple children, and before boarding the warship, they had all dug their own graves on Korhal's satellite, Canis, and buried their wills.

And so, these people had a name that belonged to all of them: the Fireflies of Canis.

Courage and unparalleled will could not protect these "Sons of Korhal." As they approached Norad II, they were shot down in droves, turning into bright orbs of light.

The pilots of the fighter jets either vaporize instantly along with their aircraft in the laser beam, or die in agony long enough to make even the strongest person scream before the flames burn away the air.

These people were told that their deaths would bring about the rebirth of Korhal IV, so they bravely faced their deaths.

Meanwhile, Umojan's "Wraith" version of the Edge Fighter attracted more attention from the Confederacy Fleets with its classic inward-curved wings and plasma thrusters. These faster and more agile fighters relied entirely on the pilot's reaction and state-of-the-art optical reactors and intelligent auxiliary programs to evade dense barrages.

In the research and development and manufacturing of small combat aircraft, especially unmanned carrier-based aircraft, Umojan surpasses the Terran Confederacy.

In the space battlefield where dazzling light and death intertwine, the battlecruiser Steel Justice, battered in several places and with its tail flaming, still charged toward the Norad II under the cover of the Hyperion and its accompanying Fleets.

At this moment, the interior corridors and elevators of Dock 2 were filled with rows of Marines in silver-gray Power Armor running forward.

The paint scheme on these Marines' armor has changed from that of the Confederacy era, now featuring an eagle and wolf head emblem, which has become a symbol of these traitors.

Wearing the same Power Armor, Augustus, along with Warfield, Tychus, and Kerrigan carrying a C-10 rifle, walked from the docking bay to the passageway leading to the docking port. White warning signs on the wall told Augustus beyond the airlock in front of him lay space.

The violent tremors continued, Augustus felt as if he were standing on a boiling furnace.

At one point, the tremors seemed to subside for a moment, and then Augustus felt the warship accelerate again.

"Activate the gravity generators on your power boots, grab onto the walls, handrails, and anything else you can hold onto!" Warfield shouted over his command channel.

"Prepare for impact!"

Augustus immediately gripped the armrest tightly, his other hand gripping Kerrigan's hand tightly.

Accompanied by dazzling spots of light unseen by Augustus, and the ear-piercing screeching of armor rubbing against armor and earth-shaking tremors emanating from the main structure, Augustus realized that the Steel Justice was closely following the broadside of the Norad II, grazing the enemy ship's armor, like two bars of soap emitting a piercing scream.

"All personnel, prepare." Warfield said as the Steel Justice came to a complete stop and came to a standstill, watching the slowly opening dock hatch.

"Come on, come on, I can't wait." Tychus chewed on his cigar.

"The show is about to begin."

Send first, then correct the typos.

Thanks to my good brothers for the monthly tickets.