"Fine. Assume you didn't. I can't imagine that Hellbringers commander having any other choice." Kerrigan smiled and said, "Any Terran soldier with a sense of shame and morality, after hearing about the great revolution we are undertaking, should devote himself to the revolutionary cause without hesitation and stand among us."
As a psychic gifted in telepathy and one of Augustus's closest people, perhaps Kerrigan was the woman who understood him best in this world, aside from Augustus's own family.
Many believed Augustus was one of those great, noble, flawless individuals—merely lacking the charm tempered by time.
But only Kerrigan knew that Augustus's earliest dream was nothing more than owning a three-bedroom apartment in some small city. Later, his dream swelled a bit: to become a leisurely farm owner and spend his life in a pastoral idyll.
Now, something called fate had been forced onto Augustus, compelling him to become a leader; otherwise, both he and his family would die.
"In truth, he doesn't have many choices left." Augustus shrugged. "Either he works for us, or once he goes back, he'll be executed by the Confederacy or brainwashed."
"Within this year, integrate this unit into our operational order." Augustus said, "Temporarily assign it to Colonel Ilya Kulovski's armored division. No matter how capable they are, Heaven's Devils must be the ones commanding."
"You're really petty," Kerrigan said to Augustus.
"You favor Heaven's Devils far too much."
Augustus paced back and forth in the central command room. "You don't understand. When you tell others that you all want to join me in a revolution, and that failure means death, yet they still follow you—some of them not even caring about politics or changes in government."
"This is a chaotic age. The ones I trust most will always be my family, Heaven's Devils, and the Generals."
"All right, you've already done very well." Augustus sighed. "Sarah, these past days you've done everything perfectly, never making a mistake. I truly don't know what I would do if I lost you."
"This is just my job."
A flicker of secret delight flashed across Kerrigan's face—slightly pale from watching over Augustus day and night—and such an expression was rarely seen on the usually cold red-haired Ghost.
In truth, even a single heartfelt word of praise—or even a superficial compliment—was enough to make the red-haired Ghost smile. And if you told Kerrigan that you truly needed her, she would give everything for that one sentence.
Although Augustus had spoken casually from the bottom of his heart, that was exactly what could move Kerrigan. She had long been accustomed to lies, plots, schemes, and intrigues; she had witnessed the ugliest sides of human nature and the extreme evil masked with hypocrisy. Because of that, genuine words from the heart were all the more precious.
And only Augustus would speak to her this way. That was why Kerrigan was infatuated with him.
"No one could have done better than you." Augustus looked at Kerrigan.
"I know." Kerrigan finally couldn't hold it in and showed a radiant smile.
"You really think so."
For some reason, the moment Augustus saw that smile, Lisa Cassidy on Korhal IV surfaced in his mind. It lasted only an instant, and Augustus himself didn't even notice—but he would pay a painful price for it tonight.
Kerrigan's brilliant smile vanished instantly, like freezing cold sweeping across verdant grass and leaving flowers to wither.
"What's wrong?" Augustus said. "You just smiled, didn't you? When you smile, you're captivating—more so than the most beautiful noble lady of Tarsonis I've ever seen. Seeing you smile at least puts me at ease a little. Too much has happened these past days."
Kerrigan glared sharply and was just about to say something when, on one side of the central command room, a stream of English text suddenly flashed across the wall, indicating that Norad III was connecting a communication.
Without further delay, Edmund Duke's sharp-angled head and imperious eyes appeared on the screen.
"Sorry. It looks like you two were flirting. As a gentleman, I sincerely apologize." Duke's expression was stern, but the words that came out of his mouth were anything but serious. "I may have just missed a good show."
As a Tarsonis noble, Duke had frequented the social circles of the aristocracy in his youth and was quite familiar with the messiness of noble relationships. In his view, young men and women in the heat of passion tended to enjoy doing something thrilling in unusual settings.
"You're still as modest and courteous as ever, General Duke." Augustus was neither angry nor annoyed. "What happened that made you use the emergency line?"
"Well, it's nothing important—at least that's what I think." Duke waved his hand. He also knew that teasing someone of high rank was not exactly the wisest move.
Maybe Augustus was still approachable at this point, never one to fuss. But who could know whether, once he climbed to a higher seat and truly held the reins of power over Koprulu, he might not remember old slights.
"Take a look at this, but don't let it blind you," he said, still with that cutting tone.
The display shifted, and a burst of golden radiance filled the entire holographic screen.
The light was so intense that Augustus felt as if he were staring directly at a golden star; even after a blink, ghostly afterimages and dark spots floated across his vision.
It was an enormous fleet composed of warships emitting gold-and-blue light. Every warship's curves, engravings, and pale-blue plasma shields were exquisite like flawless works of art—graceful arcs perfectly harmonious, and the soft pale-blue glow from crystal resonance spreading outward like cascading waves.
There were at least a hundred Protoss carriers and a hundred times that number of secondary warships. Their silhouettes filled every camera on Norad III, blotting out the light of the Sara system's star and planets, as if they themselves were the celestial bodies illuminating the cosmos. Countless small fighters—like pale-gold moths—darted up and down around the fleet. They swept across the star system like a swarm, beautiful as butterflies yet absolutely lethal.
Ahead of this massive fleet were the retreating Jormungandr Brood and the planet Chau Sara of the Sara system—the latter now completely reduced to a pale-violet world covered in a thick layer of creep.
"That is…" Kerrigan's jade-green eyes widened.
This colossal fleet was undoubtedly the fusion of warfare and beauty. Or rather, it was the very pinnacle of aesthetics—elevating war to the level of art.
"Protoss," Augustus said quietly.
"Not Tal'darim," Kerrigan said.
"They really came," Augustus murmured in a voice only he could hear. "Wherever Zerg appear, the Protoss always follow like a shadow."
At that moment, multiple screens across the central command room lit up simultaneously.
The official communication channels of the Sara system and several nearby colony worlds were still functioning without interruption, and over the past two months they had become increasingly active. Now, the volume of transmissions was skyrocketing, and one term kept appearing in the intercepted messages of the Revolutionary Army:
Golden flashes.
"What are they doing?" Kerrigan muttered, as the Protoss fleet's cylindrical capital ships swept past the outer edge of the Sara system at phantom speed and spread out into the outer orbit of Chau Sara. Their hulls aligned vertically with the planet's latitudinal surface, and the fan-shaped bow doors opened amid the intensifying gold-and-blue radiance.
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