Noris Re-Socialization Factory

"The cleanup of the battlefield, the recovery of the ships, and the detention of prisoners of war have been largely completed. Only a few wrecked Confederacy battlecruisers that cannot be towed back to the dock remain floating on the battlefield in Sigma Rys geosynchronous orbit."

In the Hyperion, Sarah Kerrigan caught up with Augustus, who was emerging from the crew quarters where the soldiers lived.

At this moment, Kerrigan was wearing a fitted dark blue navy blouse and military-style skirt suit, the cinched waist design perfectly outlining her shapely figure. Her long, fiery red hair was piled high on the back of her head, with two strands of hair on either side of her face braided into plaits and intertwined at the ends of the bun.

Kerrigan's hair was neatly combed to one side, further emphasizing her jewel-like green eyes.

"Besides the six captured Confederacy warships that have already been rejoined our Fleets after simple repairs, the other three battlecruisers that were damaged beyond repair are en route to Umojan Fortress, the closest starport to the Sigmaris System, for a year-long repair operation," Kerrigan said.

"The crew members from the original Confederacy warships were dispersed to various transport and supply ships, while those Confederacy soldiers who would rather die than join the Revolutionary Army were temporarily imprisoned in a temporary prison on the satellite Valhalla."

"How is the reconstruction work on Valhalla going?" Augustus just visited the soldiers in the crew cabin of the Hyperion. The young fighters who had entrusted their lives to the revolution showed a shy reverence when they saw him.

The Hyperion left the Sigmaris System a week ago and is currently in a stable hyperspace travel state. It is extremely difficult to fall asleep in this state. Apart from endlessly analyzing star charts and guessing the combat intentions of the UED and the Confederacy, Augustus simply spends more time inspecting his precious warship.

After the Battle of Sigma Rys, the captured Confederacy warships and soldiers greatly compensated for the Revolutionary Army Fleets's losses in the battle. Under Augustus's command, the Fleets still possessed extremely strong combat power and deterrent force.

However, the Hyperion's internal facilities were severely damaged in the battle, with most of the wiring burned out. The energy released by the Solar Core during the battle almost melted the entire engine room of the Hyperion, with the internal temperature reaching nearly 1,000 degrees Celsius, drying out four cooling towers in one go.

This nearly caused the Hyperion to lose power completely, forcing it to activate its backup transmission lines.

"As per your orders, Major Marcus has urgently appointed a large number of shipboard engineers and federal engineering corps members from the former Federation Delta, Beta, and Sigma squadrons. At the current pace, the newly established Vahalla weapons laboratory will be able to resume development of new weapons by next month at the latest," Kerrigan reported to Augustus.

"The Valhalla Prototype Weapons Laboratory will become the cradle of new technologies."

"I am very satisfied." Augustus had already envisioned the appearance of Odin, the Thunder Thor, Minotaur-class Gorgon-class Battlecruiser. After that, all he had to do was continuously send personnel and funds to the Valhalla Laboratory.

"As long as new weapons become more and more powerful, our soldiers will no longer need to make the same great sacrifices as in the past to achieve final victory."

"Good evening, Marshal." At that moment, two Revolutionary Army engineers carrying coils of cables on their shoulders walked past Augustus and Kerrigan.

"Kerrigan, you're getting more and more charming," Annabella Thatcher said.

"Oh, little cutie," Kerrigan said to Annabella, blinking her bright green eyes.

"Good evening, Otto. Where are you headed?" Augustus asked, hands on his hips.

"It's the refrigerator, sir. If you insist on asking why, I have to tell you it's you who ruined it. Thanks to you, we've been eating canned food for a week." Otto was a tall man with dark brown skin, a natural color from the intense sunlight of his hometown Meinhoff.

"Moreover, after we finish, we have to head to the safety control room and the dock control room to clean up the mess; it's a complete disaster there."

"It's all my fault, my good brother." Augustus coughed lightly. "After the war is over, I'll definitely treat you to a big meal."

"Well, well, my son's been wanting to try Tarsonis ' Pintadi raspberry pastry and cream cheese," Otto said before turning a corner. "It looks like it'll be another year before I finish my work."

"Anything is fine," Augustus.

"How about it? Don't forget to buy the beautiful lady a drink, gentleman?" Even though Annabella was wearing heavy work clothes and smelled of sweat and machine oil, it couldn't hide her youthful vitality and natural beauty.

"You should thank us properly, shouldn't you?"

"It's a deal," Augustus assured him, vowing that he would remember it.

Augustus wasn't always stern; he was kind and respectable, yet still commanding. In any case, anyone in the Revolutionary Army who dared to Augustus would find that the Marshal was not at all frightening.

He was neither a capricious man nor an authoritative teacher. If he hadn't devoted himself to the revolution, Augustus might now be a landowner in some remote and beautiful world, a fascinating and respectable man.

If it were Arcturus, he would also be approachable and kind, and everyone who met him would be impressed by him. Most of the Mengsk Family members are like this, but Arcturus is much colder at heart than Augustus; at least he would never have the inclination to chat idly with his subordinates.

"The engineering team has a lot of complaints about you; you almost broke the Hyperion apart," Kerrigan a laugh.

"All I can say is that I hope they are living fulfilling lives." Augustus sighed, knowing that once the Hyperion was repaired, he would do the same thing again if given the chance.

Engineers in environmental work suits occasionally walked by in the corridor, hurrying towards the compartments that Chief Engineer Rory Swann had asked them to go to, to repair the pipelines and electronic systems damaged by the Solar Core overload.

This was a massive undertaking, and all the engineers were exhausted and worn out by the heavy workload. The Hyperion was riddled with problems, and if the warp drive hadn't been unaffected, even a simple time jump would have been a challenge.

Even so, the engineers still had to constantly worry that this old ship, which had been tormented to the point of near collapse, might develop some other problems.

It was only thanks to the miraculous engineering corps of the Revolutionary Army that Augustus was able to maintain such a large Fleets.

In response, Rory Swann and Viktor Kaczynski, though furious, didn't jump up and slap Augustus in the face. Although, in the former's words, it was like this. "When my men and I handed this thing over to you, it was perfectly fine, with beautiful curves and an engine that sounded like a blaring horn. You idiot! You've ruined the whole thing!"

But Swann's swearing stopped there; he had no time to complain about his extravagant boss, as he had plenty of work to do. Admittedly, Augustus paid a hefty salary to recruit Swann and his men, but the value they created was ten or even a hundred times their wages.

Swann was a hot-tempered leader, a man who loved to bury himself in hard work. Since working tirelessly amidst machinery was Swann's hobby, he almost never stopped.

"Thank God, Swann understands my predicament." Augustus shrugged and said, "That's why I say Swann is the best engineer of this century, bar none."

"As soon as you praise him like that, Swann immediately stops complaining," Kerrigan said. "Tychus is right; a boss who understands people is the most formidable."

"Is it time?" Augustus raised his hand to check his watch at this moment.

"The sub-dimensional space route should be open by now, let's go to the bridge." He turned on the Hyperion's internal communications channel.

"The 9th and 11th Battalions of the Guard Division, assemble in the control room on the lower deck of the Hyperion for a final check of your Power Armor and Gauss Rifle; they are your second life."

"Damn it, where is Tychus? I haven't seen him for a full twenty hours. Where has he been gallivanting off to again?"

Twenty minutes later, the Hyperion leaped out of the sub-dimensional spaceway, followed closely by more than forty-five Revolutionary Army battlecruisers, which formed a neat formation to protect the flagship in the center.

These unparalleled behemoths are adorned with arrays of red lights and sensors, countless portholes shimmer with light, and hundreds of Fleets and fighter jets leap out of the iris of the subdimensional spaceway exit one after another, creating a dazzling and pleasing aesthetic amidst a space-distorted blue light.

The starlight poured down on the flagship of the Hyperion, and this unfamiliar yet beautiful starry sky appeared before Augustus's eyes.

A pale blue planet seemed to have suddenly appeared, bathed in the radiance of another incomparably enormous, deep yellow gas giant, more than a thousand times the size of Earth.

The star in the Noris system is a bright and dazzling point of light, its distorted temperature palpable even at this distance. It is a young main-sequence star, volatile in nature, constantly emitting intense light, heat, and terrifying radiation.

It was so bright that it appeared dangerous and blinding.

Noris VI is one of its many satellites, possessing a thin atmosphere and covered by cold, dark oceans.

This satellite is even larger than Earth, with a frigid climate and dark oceans inhabited by bizarre behemoths. Towering mountains rise on its only continent, their majestic peaks visible even from outer space. These mountains are so high that a person without any equipment would succumb to oxygen deprivation halfway up.

Among the many planets of the Terran Confederacy, Noris VI was not a planet incorporated into its territory through colonization. From the moment it entered the Confederate Congress's desk, it had already existed as the main base for the Resocialized Soldier Program.

As expected, the soldiers produced by Noris VI would not only be enough to make up for the huge losses suffered by the Terran Confederacy in the First Total War, but would also provide a "good" place for refugees who were causing unrest in the Confederacy's core world due to homelessness.

In Noris, shimmering with a cold, bluish-green light, a massive, top-shaped starport in its synchronous orbit handled an astonishing amount of cargo, with numerous Confederacy transport ships still taking off and landing in its vast harbor when the Revolutionary Army Fleets arrived.

The Revolutionary Army Fleets was attacked by a Confederacy Navy Fleets as soon as it entered the star system. Space stations and sentry turrets in the system fired rows of orange-red bullets into space, like the bright red fangs of Viper.

A thrilling battle ensued, as the Confederacy garrison in the area had apparently received news of Delta Squadron's defeat in the Sigmaris System.

More than sixteen Terran Confederacy warships guarded Noris VI, equivalent to a full squadron. A barrage of missiles rained down on the Revolutionary Army Fleets, and blinding laser cannons crisscrossed the starry sky. Revolutionary Army ships were frequently struck and turned into fireballs.

"Attack," Augustus ordered.

Large numbers of the Revolutionary Army warships accelerated toward Noris VI, like a barrage of arrows, the flames from their giant cannons turning the entire starry sky into a sea of light.

"What's going on? I heard we won't be able to disembark until tomorrow." Tychus Finley was wearing Power Armor, and the pattern on his shoulder armor had been changed to a woman wearing black stockings and with bright red lips.

"You've got it wrong," Augustus replied.

Arcturus Mengsk and Harnack Hank walked up from the other side of the bridge, both wearing crimson Power Armor with golden wolf head insignia, while Harnack's Heaven's Devils emblem indicated his special relationship with Augustus.

"The Confederacy's defenses in this system are unusual." Arcturus carried an AGR-14 rifle on his back, a reliable weapon from one of his fallen comrades.

"I suspect that there are many ugly secrets that the Confederacy is unwilling to reveal about Noris's resocialization plant. For us, it's no secret that the Confederacy is turning clean Confederacy citizens, not death row inmates, into soldiers, but we've always been hampered by a lack of substantial evidence."

"You're right," Augustus nodded.

"The Confederacy is unwilling to give up Noris, not only because it has factories capable of producing tens of thousands of Resocialized Soldier. The Confederacy has brainwashed those who are completely unaware of their tragic fate, turning them into killing machines. No one with a conscience or morals would accept such a practice."

"Only we can save the people here," Arcturus said.

"Warfield." As Augustus spoke, Warfield's serious face appeared on the Hyperion's main screen.

"Our fleet numbers are overwhelmingly superior. I order you to defeat Noris's Confederacy Fleets as quickly as possible. Attack immediately, show no mercy," he said.

"Now, commanders, I need a victory."

Go and win it!

I'm suffering from severe insomnia, and my head is spinning while I'm writing this. I feel like I'm about to die.