Hero
One after another, planetary jumpers took off amidst the rising thruster airflow and the sweltering heat of New Folsom, carrying emaciated prisoners.
This is a spacious helipad in the New Folsom Prison, with a signal tower equipped with radar and signal receiving devices. The transport ships and warplanes parked on the helipad have naturally been taken over by the Revolutionary Army, and at this moment, the prison prisoners, lined up in long queues, are quickly boarding the ships to evacuate.
The Revolutionary Army's only and largest transport ship, the Xel'Naga spaceship Eldritch, is anchored in the twisted and dangerous synchronous orbit of New Folsom. Its size is equivalent to a Swarm Behemoth, a spaceship that humanity could not build with its current achievements in engineering and materials science.
Today, the Eldritch serves as a Mothership and aircraft platform, supplying the entire Revolutionary Army Fleets and capable of absorbing tons of firepower when necessary.
"Soldiers, wherever you go, whenever you are, never forget—you are heroes."
Augustus stood beside a small galactic flea that was about to retract its ladder and spoke to the ship's closing porthole.
"In Antiga, in Umojan, in Ma Sara, on the land you once fought and protected, a thousand triumphal arches await you, where flowers bloom and flags fly, where girls wear long, silver-white dresses, and where the people will welcome you as heroes."
Through the porthole, Sergeant Boghoff and the other Revolutionary Army soldiers and revolutionaries imprisoned there looked toward Augustus. These soldiers had all been subjected to inhumane torture by the Terran Confederacy interrogators in the New Folsom prison, in an effort to break these young warriors and force them to betray their beliefs.
Yet even when they were tortured to the point of resembling skinned skeletons and silently weeping souls, they did not bow their heads.
Now these soldiers are all wearing the brand-new Revolutionary Army uniforms that Augustus brought them, with several medals pinned to their coats. Their hair has also been carefully styled, so that these respectable Revolutionary Army soldiers can regain the dignity they once lost in the New Folsom Prison.
Some of them were crew members of the Revolutionary Army Fleets whose ships were destroyed in the Fleets battle and whose lifeboats were captured by Confederacy warships. Others were agents who infiltrated the core world of the Terran Confederacy or key members of the Revolutionary Party who spread revolutionary ideas across the vast Confederacy territory. Their fate after their identities were exposed was not much better than that of the captured Umojan spies.
As the spaceship took off, Augustus placed his right fist flat against his chest. This was not a military salute, but rather a fist salute from the Sons of Korhal, symbolizing respect for warriors.
At that moment, everyone on the spaceship and the Revolutionary Army soldiers standing around made the same fist salute, and Arcturus Mengsk was one of them.
"In Umojan, the best hospitals have prepared all the beds, and the most famous doctors and experts are present, but even they cannot heal both the physical and the emotional wounds at the same time." As the transport ship soared higher, Arcturus Augustus with his usual composure.
Arcturus was a calm and serious man. His smile was like a gentle breeze, but no one had ever seen this man, who seemed to have a body of steel, shed a tear. The tears he spoke of had long since dried when Korhal IV was destroyed by the Terran Confederacy, and he would never shed them again.
"That's the best possible outcome." Augustus nodded, his heart heavy.
Augustus learned that the New Folsom Prison only held those who had survived severe torture, usually less than a hundred out of every thousand.
Not all captured Revolutionary Army soldiers possessed an iron will; they were ordinary people with flesh and blood, and their faith could not ultimately take their place in suffering.
Many succumbed, begging the Confederacy for a quick death, while others defected to the government, betraying their former comrades and inflicting upon them a thousand times the suffering the Confederacy had inflicted upon them.
Many more could hold on for a few more days; they were either insane, mentally unstable, or simply wanted to die. After that, the Terran Confederacy would send these people to resocialization factories to be transformed into obedient Confederacy soldiers, ordering them to point their guns at their own people.
Aside from the Protoss, no one has been able to reverse the process of resocialization. The damage caused by this cruel modification of the brain is permanent. The modified Revolutionary Army soldiers have lost all memories of their past and deeply believe in the false past. They cannot question any order issued by Confederacy officers, and would not hesitate to shoot their former best friends.
Those who held out until the end were sent to New Folsom Prison, where they would be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with the Revolutionary Army. These people were mostly officers, staunch Pan-Terran Revolutionary Party, combat heroes, and unyielding fighters.
More and more shuttles and transport ships flew into the planet's atmosphere in the rising hot air currents of New Folsom, disappearing into the almost blinding starlight.
Augustus sighed softly, blaming himself for not arriving sooner. Although at that time, the Fleets that attacked New Folsom would most likely have been besieged by a large number of Confederacy Fleets that would have jumped in, losing even more lives.
At this moment, Duke radioed Augustus wanted to destroy New Folsom Prison. His Alpha Squadron was ready to destroy the main fusion reactor so that most of the platform supporting the prison would sink under the lava. Unsurprisingly, this earned him a scolding from Augustus.
Thus, General Duke, who believed he understood the thoughts of the Revolutionary Army Marshal, had no choice but to reluctantly order his soldiers to continue cleaning up the battlefield. The military control zone of New Folsom Prison and the armory near the main base were filled with boxes and boxes of weapons and ammunition, and more than forty Arclite Siege Tank covered by green cloth were quietly parked in the warehouse.
As key contributors to the capture of New Folsom Prison, the Alpha Squadron was honored with the privilege of using these weapons.
"Just like I said before." As more and more transport ships ascended into the air, Arcturus, standing next to Augustus, pointed to the high walls of the prison, the Bunker erected along the roads, and the dense anti-aircraft missile towers.
"New Folsom Prison will be the place where you punish the rebels. You are supposed to be kind to the people, so they see you as a wise ruler. You must also let those who oppose you and betray you know the consequences of their actions."
"Arcturus, it shouldn't be like that—this horrible prison has left such terrible memories for my most precious warriors," Augustus said.
"It's impossible for everyone to love me. Instilling awe is one way to rule, but I don't want to be the kind of person who can't wait to throw anyone in jail at the first sign of dissent," he said.
"My decision to stay in New Folsom is to provide a final resting place for the former rulers of the Terran Confederacy."
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Arcturus laughed, his laughter devoid of any warmth. "The Confederacy built this nightmarish prison with its own hands; they deserve to enjoy it themselves."
"This will be the last and only right I grant them," Augustus.
At this point, the two men from the Mengsk family looked up at the sky at almost the same angle.
"The Confederacy has just angered the most formidable group of people in all of Koprulu." Sako Angelini stood on the other side of Augustus, as if he too were standing beside a powerful and ruthless leader, pointing out the flaws in the situation and wielding his authority.
"Move aside, buddy. You really need to take a shower. You stink like a pathetic worm infected by Zerg." Tychus skillfully used his armored buttocks to push Angelini aside; this trick always worked for him.
"What are you doing?" Angelini thought Tychus had something to report, but as he probed the idiot's brain, which seemed to be filled with rotten skipjack tuna, old Tychus was imagining himself doing a striptease to disgust the powerful Psionics —he had indeed done such a despicable thing.
"This position is the privilege of the old Heaven's Devils," Tychus said.
"This is the first time I've ever met someone like you." Angelini quickly realized that Tychus was a scoundrel and decided that he would have to keep his distance from this man if he were to work under Augustus.
By this time, almost all the transport ships on the helipad had taken off, while the Hercules carrying the Revolutionary Army's engineering corps and data collection facilities occupied the original berthing area.
These enormous transport ships lowered the pull-up doors of their cargo holds and control bays, and at least one hundred T-280 SCV drove onto the landing pad. Under the command of their respective captains, they lined up and immediately began the repair and expansion work on the New Folsom Prison.
According to the plan, New Folsom will build more mines and steel catalyst extraction facilities to meet the growing demand for various alloy steel resources from the Revolutionary Army shipyards and heavy factories.
Using a massive mobile platform floating on the sea of New Folsom Lava Lake, this rusty prison will be transformed into a new Revolutionary Army base and fortress, while the vacant cells will be temporarily used to house the former prison guards and Confederacy soldiers. From now on, this place will also become a nightmare for Confederacy officials.
Adding defensive measures to the New Folsom Prison would be pointless; in the event of war, the highly unstable geological activity and lava lakes would likely inflict more damage on the prison than the enemy.
The Revolutionary Army's engineering corps' primary mission was to establish an orbital defense system, hollow out New Folsom's only satellite to build an unprecedented super shipyard, and directly utilize New Folsom's abundant resources to construct battlecruisers.
Given the sheer scale of this project, even at the fastest pace, it would take five years to build, meaning it wouldn't be operational until 2499.
Augustus intend to use the horrific instruments of torture in New Folsom Prison to torment Confederacy soldiers, but the prison guards and Confederacy agents who had tortured Revolutionary Army fighters were not so lucky.
"Many of the Confederacy soldiers guarding the prison turned against us at the last minute, claiming they knew nothing about the tragedy inside the prison," a communications officer reported to Augustus.
"Lieutenant Colonel Nolan is asking you how to deal with these Confederacy soldiers."
"If they are willing to join the Revolutionary Army, then I swear I will treat them the same way I treat all the Revolutionary Army," Augustus said after thinking for a moment.
"Both treatment and equipment will be in accordance with the standards of their respective units, with absolutely no deductions. I guarantee with the honor of the Mengsk Family that I will never allow any former Confederacy soldier to serve as cannon fodder to draw enemy fire. When all the war is over, I will send them home."
"However, I need to pass a mind-reading test to confirm whether their surrender is feigned."
"Yes, sir," the communications soldier replied.
With the outbreak of the First Total War, the continuous warfare caused the death rate of the Confederacy army to rise dramatically. Even with the support of patriotic fervor, the number of soldiers who volunteered was simply not enough to support the Confederacy in protecting its vast colonial world.
Under such circumstances, the Confederacy conscription department had no choice but to forcibly conscript soldiers. Deception was no longer effective, so they forced eligible adult men to go to the battlefield.
This naturally caused a huge uproar in the Terran Confederacy, because although the Terran Confederacy treated everyone equally on the surface, they would not conscript large numbers of people from the prosperous core world to avoid destabilizing the economy, which would cause the wealth of the Old Families to shrink dramatically.
At the height of the war, the Terran Confederacy even sent the entire population of the colonies destroyed by the Zerg to resocialization plants, and then declared that the world's population had perished in the protracted war.
Therefore, Augustus knew that ordinary Confederacy soldiers had done nothing wrong in the war; they were simply people who had been dragged onto the battlefield by the tides of time. Many Confederacy soldiers even believed they were fighting for justice and honor, but the Confederacy was merely using them as cannon fodder.
As for the most elite Confederacy troops, most of them remained in the core world to guard the rear and the property of the nobles, while those fighting on the front lines were mostly resocialized soldiers who could not think for themselves and militia from the Edge World who were determined to fight to protect their homeland.
"Although the quality of new recruits has declined in recent years due to the shortening of basic training time, they are still well-trained professional soldiers, not local militia," Arcturus said pointedly.
"Absorbing these Confederacy soldiers would greatly enhance our strength—they are simply turning to a wise ruler."
"You're right, Arcturus." Augustus nodded, turned and walked toward a shuttle in the center of the tarmac, not intending to linger any longer.
"The UED is also ordering surrendered Confederacy soldiers to fight for them, but they would definitely prefer to join us, whom they know better, than Earthlings," he said.
"If the Earthlings' offensive is swift enough, they must have already plundered a large population from Brontes Prime to expand their army."
"Marshal, this is an urgent communication from Jim Raynor's flagship on his Fleets to Char." Kerrigan approached Augustus at this moment, and after the latter nodded slightly, a triangular stand that had been unfolded projected Jim Raynor's bearded face.
"This is Jim, this is a message I sent back from Char, what's that line again—To Marshal Augustus Mengsk." This is a video recording.
"We had a fight with the Zerg as soon as we arrived in Char, but we didn't suffer any major losses," Raynor said.
"The Protoss say that the newborn Overmind has completed its fusion, but its mind is still immature and in a state of chaos. That's what I wanted to report to you. Fenix and I are preparing to teach that monster a lesson." He concluded, "Everything is fine here, except for the endless volcanic ash burrowing into my boots and the overwhelming, howling insects."
"I hope it's the same where you are."