The Last Voyager

6.22

This was the second day since the Revolutionary Army Fleets arrived in the Tarsonis system. Like all the warriors in the Fleets, Augustus Mengsk had not slept for forty-two hours.

Augustus's men utterly routed the Confederacy Fleets defending Tarsonis, along with two other Fleets that arrived at different times to reinforce them, totaling twenty-one battlecruisers. Eleven were destroyed, and the remaining Confederacy warships were forced to retreat briefly.

However, the Revolutionary Army Fleets also paid a heavy price. Augustus lost nine of his twenty-six battlecruisers forever, three were too badly damaged to keep up with the Fleets, and the rest of the ships suffered varying degrees of damage.

Raynor's Hyperion is currently dispatching ships to several battlecruisers that are immobilized due to propulsion damage in order to retrieve their crews.

The Norard II and nine other Revolutionary Army Behemoth-class battlecruisers opened fire on the main facilities of the Tarsonis Vorchen high-altitude orbital platform from both above and below its horizontal plane. Below the bridge porthole in front of the Augustus, a dense torrent of bullets came from the automatic turrets of the orbital platform.

By this time, the warship's shield energy had been exhausted, and the Norad II, like other battlecruisers, was using heavy armor plates to withstand intense gunfire.

Augustus calmly watched everything unfold before him. For the past forty hours, a constant rumbling had been ringing in his ears, the voices of many people on the bridge and the sounds of the Fleets's cannons firing on the main screen never ceasing.

On a rapidly enlarging main screen, a high-altitude orbital defense platform of Tarsonis is sinking into the planet's atmosphere. According to calculations by the Norad II Adjutant, the landing of this orbital platform will be located on a bulging peninsula of the Tarsonis continental plate, triggering a forest fire that will engulf an area equivalent to ten Tarsonis City, and bringing unprecedented earthquakes and tsunamis to the region.

"How's the landing force doing, Sarah? Have the Tychus men returned?" When the time on the main screen froze at 7:30 p. m. on June 22, Augustus looked at Sarah Kerrigan beside him. His adjutant and Umojan were either in the main control room or had already rushed to the front lines.

"Thirty-two of the forty-five landing forces have successfully returned." Standing next to Augustus, Kerrigan had changed into the uniform of Umojan Shadow Guard. These super soldiers, trained by Umojan Psionics mentors, usually wore black, tight-fitting, luminous combat suits.

After she finished speaking, even though she already knew what Augustus wanted to ask, Kerrigan waited quietly for him to ask. This was their current way of communicating; otherwise, Augustus wouldn't have needed to speak at all.

"How many people have returned?" Augustus asked.

"Less than two thousand." Kerrigan slowed her speech, observing Augustus's expression. "Most of them perished on their journeys to and from Tarsonis and the Fleets; the casualties inflicted by the Confederacy forces on the planet's surface are less than twenty percent."

Augustus sighed and said nothing. The troops that Korhal had led were almost entirely wiped out; far too many had died far from home and were buried in the stars.

"Based on intelligence provided by agents of the Umojan and August Security Council, our fighters successfully 'raided' five Confederacy research stations and weapons laboratories, and some of the guards there were redeployed to protect local officials," Kerrigan reported.

"We found a lot of technologies in the databases of the Tarsonis command center and research station, including CMC series Power Armor, Vulture, Arclite Siege Tank, Goliath, Avenger fighters, Kel-Morian Hellhound modified fighters, Wraith, and APOD transport ships," she said.

"From design concepts and prototype data to construction drawings, everything is complete. As long as it is uploaded to the data network in a standardized heavy industrial plant, the foundry can immediately produce these weapons."

"Data is being uploaded from the data disk to the terminal network of Norad II."

The good news eased Augustus's mind somewhat; with each lost warship and each lost soldier, his heart bled, and he couldn't help but feel hatred.

"Hey, Mengsk, I have some good stuff for you." Tychus walked towards the bridge from outside a constantly opening and closing air valve, his crimson Power Armor riddled with more than a dozen holes. It seemed he had fought quite a few tough battles since landing on Tarsonis.

"A revolver—the Colt Arms Company, which ceased production over a hundred years ago; very few remain today except for those maintained by private individuals." Augustus took the heavy revolver from Tychus, placing it in a reindeer-hide holster.

"Very expensive, but reasonably powerful," he simply remarked. "Jim just happens to need a sidearm."

"?" Tychus paused for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Okay."

"You're back alive, brother. What about the others?" Augustus his pistol into his waistband.

"Seven or eight good brothers died, they were all real tough guys, no one was captured," Tychus said in a deep voice. "The Tarsonis Police Force guys are a bunch of cowards, but the Resocialized Soldier all have real guns."

"We raided a scientific research station, but there was nothing inside except a few 'fat pigeons' in suits," he continued. "I left a few men to copy documents, and then I went to the Tarsonis maglev track station to scout out the enemy situation."

"The data has been uploaded, check it yourself."

Augustus nodded repeatedly as he reviewed the documents; the bridge deck of the Norad II continued to tremble violently. A scanned blueprint caught Augustus's attention: it was a heavily armored vehicle hovering above the ground, with two symmetrically arranged railguns mounted on its angular body.

The drawing came from a file bag wrapped in thick leather, the cover of which featured the skeleton of a coiled, intertwined serpentine creature, its skull hole being ice blue.

"Rattlesnake—" Augustus recognized it. His eyes lit up, and he began reading the information. "Rattlesnake Tank, a conceptual tank still in the theoretical stage, using magnetic levitation technology, equipped with the Executioner Electromagnetic Railgun and Feind tank armor plates. Its initial positioning is a high-speed, hovering tank that can effectively target heavy armor."

"Wow, this is something new from the Confederacy!" Tychus exclaimed in amazement.

"Leave it to Chief Engineer Rory Swann; he knows what to do," Augustus declared decisively. "Perhaps we can mount the railgun on other vehicles, but battery development is a problem."

"That Kel-Morian dwarf is going crazy with joy," Tychus remarked.

"If you have money, none of this is a problem," Tychus said.

But after a while, Augustus's expression changed. Looking at the list of items Tychus had given him, he said angrily, "Artworks, antiques, a record player from the 1950s after the colony ship crash, high-purity crystal, and a collection of Tarsonis erotic magazines."

"Tarsonis City is home to all the latest cutting-edge technologies in the entire Terran Confederacy. Take a look at what you've brought back."

"There's nothing we can do about it. There are only a few sheets of useless toilet paper in that research station." Tychus didn't seem to care. "There are at least two army groups and a mechanized division in the central city. There's no way we can catch that old woman from the Tagore Family."

"I survived countless near-death experiences to finally land on Earth, it would be a shame not to take something with me." Tychus had his own reasons. "There's an old saying on Earth, 'If you don't take advantage of a good deal, you're a fool.'"

"It's my fault for not managing to win back a few beautiful noble ladies for you. I forgot to ask you what kind you liked—flaxen hair or red hair? Brown skin or fair skin? Or maybe you actually prefer men?"

"Forget it, I never expected you to do anything worthwhile anyway." Augustus felt there was no need to argue with Tychus.

"Marshal, we have made contact with the last landing force that has not yet returned to the Fleets. Their landing point is about a thousand miles off course, sandwiched between two army brigades. In the last communication, the force's commander, Captain Ireland, rejected our proposal to send reinforcements to the ground."

"I remember the Captain Ireland was the eldest son of the Londerstein family." Augustus continue.

"Why not just raze Tarsonis City?" Tychus rubbed the tip of his index finger, which was part of his Power Armor, against his helmet.

The Revolutionary Army Fleets did not target Tarsonis, even though they were initially fully capable of breaking through the blockade of high-altitude and orbital defense platforms to carry out indiscriminate orbital bombardment of Tarsonis. Instead, they only targeted anti-aircraft fire, military facilities, and some government landmarks.

Augustus only deployed a landing force of about 20,000 men to various areas of the planet's surface. The landing force fought in multiple locations on Tarsonis's main planet with the sole purpose of creating chaos in Tarsonis and seizing the blueprints for new weapons from the Confederacy military base command center and research station.

"That's right, but we can't do that." Augustus glanced at Tychus, his cold gray eyes reflecting the magnificent deep sky outside the porthole.

"Even disregarding the possibility that the Old Families has already fled or taken refuge in underground shelters capable of withstanding a nuclear attack, we do indeed have a chance to wipe out the entire Old Families," he said calmly.

"Send Apocalypse-class Nuclear Missile to the center of the main city of Tarsonis —it's easy to aim because the city's layout consists of overlapping, irregular geometric shapes, and the Sky Tower of the Old Families is right in the very center of the center."

"Right? Just one Apocalypse, and the Old Families and their ugly hearts will be finished. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After today's events, the Confederacy Fleets will definitely significantly strengthen the defenses of Tarsonis. It won't be so easy for us to visit here next time." Tychus nodded.

"But do you know how many people live in Tarsonis's densely populated commercial district and the surrounding residential areas?" Augustus stated a figure. "Nearly two hundred million."

"A billion people will be affected, and then the Revolutionary Army will be truly known as butchers. We are the Revolutionary Army, the insurgents, not terrorists."

"What you've done isn't much different, is it?" Tychus never considered himself part of the Revolutionary Army.

"The Confederacy doesn't care how many people die in Korhal, but we cannot and do not care about the civilians of Tarsonis. That's what makes us different from the Confederacy," he said. "And that's the difference we want all the Terrans to know."

"I would rather let those Old Families live and continue to rot until they are beyond redemption than let hundreds of millions of innocent Tarsonis perish with them," he said. "I am not without choice."

"Your heart isn't black enough, not ruthless enough," Tychus sighed. "If it were your Arcturus, he would have already launched all the nuclear missiles."

"Or you could push the others out and say that your general pressed the red button without authorization."

"I understand that," Augustus, looking at Tychus. "This is a dark age where success requires any means necessary. Sacrificing a dozen people is a serious humanitarian crisis, while destroying billions is merely a political issue."

"So what are you planning to do?" Tychus asked.

"My Fleets will wander like ghosts along the border between the Kel-Morian Combine and the Terran Confederacy," Augustus. "I will be in the shadows while the enemy is in the open. As long as the Confederacy is kept on the run, they will be exhausted. Once the Confederacy begins to relinquish control of the Edge World and shrink the defenses of the core world, we will have achieved initial victory."

"I will dedicate the rest of my life to fighting against the Terran Confederacy until one of us falls forever."

"Don't joke around, you're only eighteen after all." Tychus chuckled, lighting a cigar and inhaling the smoke, letting it circulate in his lungs. "Do you think the Terran Confederacy will outlive you?"

"So, you want to use those monsters on Victor V that the Confederacy scientists call Zerg to fight the Confederacy?" Tychus asked, looking at Augustus's profile.

"They are the perfect weapon for genocide, producing absolutely no pollution, and can be discarded after use. They can even be made into canned food after the battle, or at the very least, used to feed the livestock on the Umojan Beetle Ranch."

"The Confederacy's plan is brilliant. No one will suspect them. In the end, they'll send in the army to deal with the monsters, and the victims will even praise them."

"The truth will come to light one day." Augustus shook his head. "Besides, the Confederacy doesn't know how terrifying the Zerg are; their numbers are far greater than they estimate."

"The Confederacy is playing with fire and will get burned. We must find other, more reliable ways to control the Zerg."

At this time, the sensors on Norad II detected a large number of jump signals. Although Korhal was not the first planet colonized by Tarsonis, it was located in the core of the Terran Confederacy territory, and the Fleets stationed in Korhal could reach it in just two days.

However, Edmund Duke's Alpha Squadron was still nowhere to be found, and Captain Jackson might still be lurking around on the edge of the Koprulu Sector.

"Notify the Fleets to prepare for jump."

"Where are you going?" Tychus asked him.

"The Sara System," Augustus. "Send the coordinates of that system to the entire Fleets."

"What are we going there for?" Tychus understood immediately. "A remote, desolate place—I get it. It's a good place, far from Tarsonis, and one of the main worlds. A good place to become king."

"What do you know?" Augustus ignored him and instead issued an order through the Fleets's command channel, "Everyone back to your positions, strap the wounded to the accelerometer seats."

"It's all over," he said.

"But this isn't over yet," Tychus added.

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