By the time the Spear of Adun reached Shakuras, the crew realized that they were too late. Amon’s forces had already overtaken much of the Nerazim homeworld. Many of the cities on the planet had already been overrun.
Karax received a transmission from the surface. Vorazun appeared on the screen. <”Praise the gods! You have all made it alive.”>
“Matriarch Vorazun, what has happened here?” Tassadar asked.
<”Shakuras has fallen! The warp gate linking this world to Aiur has been reopened.”>
“But that’s impossible,” Lyra interjected. “I thought we destroyed the warp gate from Aiur’s side.”
“Amon must have had some warpsmiths rebuild the warp gate,” Tassadar guessed.
<”At any rate, countless Hybrid and Zerg pour from the other side! They’ve obliterated our cities. Decimated our Shadow Guard. We are trying to evacuate the remaining population, but I am uncertain whether we can hold long enough to get them safely away.”>
“We will give you the time you need, Matriarch. My Templar are inbound!”
While everyone was preparing for Shakuras’ defense, Tassadar explained to Vorazun that Amon had corrupted the Khala and enslaved those still connected to it.
Tassadar left Zeratul to explain the whole situation to his Matriarch before he left the bridge to explore more of the ship. Lyra and Karax followed.
Their exploration led them to a chamber with a lone Preserver gently floating toward them. Karax warned his friends that she was still connected to the Khala. Tassadar and Lyra deployed their blades in anticipation of a fight or to simply sever her nerve cords.
The Preserver introduced herself as Rohana who assured everyone that she was not corrupted.
“Not yet anyway, you know that you are trying to hold off the will of an ancient, godlike entity, right? It’s just a matter of time until you fall to his influence,” Lyra said.
“Preservers of my station have trained to control the Khala’s every ripple.”
“If Amon knows how to control Protoss through the Khala, he might have been the one to create it in the first place. If that’s the case, then even if you could control the Khala, Amon knows every secret about it. There’s a lot of risk in allowing you to stay connected, regardless of how useful you believe the connection to be.”
“What you speak is the truth: Amon did create the Khala. However, through it I have gained the memories and personalities of Protoss prior to my submission to stasis. In this chamber you will be able to make all military allocations.”
“Fine, but the moment you start to waver, I will cut your nerve cords myself,” Lyra warned. She and Tassadar retracted their blades. They took a look at the assembly panel that Rohana summoned before them.
Lyra and Tassadar discovered that they could choose the melee warriors and ranged warriors that they wanted to bring with them to their next battle.
Artanis soon entered the chamber and was briefed on what happened a minute ago. Since he was Tassadar’s military advisor, Artanis decided on what to send into battle. He anticipated fighting Zerg and Hybrid soon so he chose to deploy the Nerazim Centurion and the Khalai Dragoons for their next deployment.
With the decision reached, Lyra, Tassadar and Artanis returned to the bridge.
Once ready, the Daelaam deployed forces to Talematros, the capital city of the Nerazim.
Vorazun briefed Tassadar of their dire situation. Most of the city was overrun by the Zerg. The launch bays, that hold the Shuttles that the citizens were using, were sealed shut by infestation. The planetary warp conduit would allow the ships to safely escape the planet but Lyra figured that it was only a matter of time before Amon’s forces tried to take it out.
Lyra took the Dark Templar who were available and started cutting their way through some nearby Zerg infestation.
Vorazun claimed that there were some vaults nearby that contained the last of the city’s energy reserves.
As Lyra and the Dark Templar started opening the first vault, she felt a disturbance in the air. When she looked behind her she saw what appeared to be an opening into some unknown realm before a monstrous form emerged from the rift. The creature, known by Vorazun as a Void Thrasher, began assaulting the warp conduit.
While the Dark Templar were assaulting the main body of the monster, Lyra focused on draining its life force. The Void Thrasher saw Lyra as the bigger threat and tried to unleash deadly energies around her location. The creature had no way to counter her teleportation magic as she appeared in another location next to it and continued to drain it.
Once the Void Thrasher was slain, Lyra and the Dark Templar continued their trek to the launch bays.
The Dark Templar opened the first vault to reveal the energy source. It turned out to be a crystal that was strangely familiar to Lyra. She knew that she had seen the crystal before but she couldn’t recall where.
Since she wasn’t in a position to be thinking about that at the moment, Lyra continued toward the launch bays with the Dark Templar.
While Lyra assaulted the hive cluster ahead, Artanis set up a Pylon in the center of a four-way intersection in front of their Nexus Point. Once the necessary defenses were set up, he used that point to rally his forces by assembling a force of Centurions, Dragoons and Dark Templar.
Suddenly, a Void Thrasher emerged from a rift northeast of Artanis’ defensive emplacement. Using his Warp Gates, Artanis quickly amassed a decent army to deal with the Void Thrasher.
As his forces engaged the monster from the void, Karax mentioned getting more support systems online on the Spear of Adun. Karax was able to unleash a small bombardment against the Void Thrasher, greatly weakening it. The Protoss had a much easier time eliminating the creature.
With the area clear, the first launch bay was freed from infestation.
Meanwhile, Lyra unleashed the life force from the first Void Thrasher that she had been carrying around and decimated the hive cluster before her. She and the Dark Templar had little trouble dealing with the rest of the hive cluster.
A third Void Thrasher emerged near Lyra’s position. She and her group engaged the creature in the same way as the first one, saving its life force for later.
The second launch bay was freed soon after the Void Thrasher’s demise.
Lyra fought her way further, while opening another vault that contained the familiar energy crystals. and soon realized that she had gone in a circle and ended up back at the intersection where Artanis had his defensive setup.
Thankfully, Artanis waited for Lyra to return from her battles before engaging the Zerg southeast of the defensive position.
Lyra unleashed the destructive life force that she had been carrying around to devastate the Zerg near the third launch bay.
As if on cue, a fourth rift opened nearly on top of the Protoss. Lyra drained that creature as well while the other Protoss finished it off.
Since the remaining Zerg were in no position to challenge the Protoss, Lyra let the others clear the way while she opened the last vault of energy crystals.
Artanis’ forces managed to free the last of the launch bays just in time before one last Void Thrasher appeared.
Since she didn’t want the energy going to waste, Lyra unleashed the energy she recently drained and obliterated the Void Thrasher in a chaotic wave of stolen life energy.
Vorazun was grateful for the assistance of her fellow Protoss for helping her people escape from the doomed world. However, now that their people are safe, they had to be sure that Amon’s brood would not be able to establish themselves on the planet. Time was running out and options were few.
Lyra had a feeling that a drastic decision would be made soon.