[h1][center]Hammer of Korhol[/center][/h1]


"All troops on board?" shouted Captain Astrovia at the General "We have two, maybe three minutes before that warp conduit is closed"

"Yes Sir, Last round of Medivac Dropships just touched down offloading marines and supplies." Replied the General "we are leaving 5000 troops on the planet captain" he added knowing full well how the conversation would play out.

"I am aware of that General, we are at 110% capacity as it stands. We couldn't carry that many no matter how much we wish we could." said Captain Astrovia solemnly "stow your men and material General, we are leaving this world." after ending the conversation with the General he turned to the navigation officer, "Take me to that warp conduit"

Lieutenant Hunt turned in hear seat "y-yes sir... Do we know if the Hammer can move through a Protoss warp conduit?"

"No Lieutenant, I've never tried but its that or be swallowed by the Zerg, our defense guns and ground forces are hardly holding the swarm back. It will be maybe an hour before this place is overrun us along with it." replied the captain calmly. 

"Aye sir"

The huge battle-cruiser slowly turned itself around firing its titanic engines and pulled away from the grueling ground battle still in progress. Marines and Siege Tanks firing without pause to hold the hordes of Zerg back from their lines. Even as the battle-cruiser fell out of range of the battle the Zerg surged forward sensing that the lines had lost the firepower to truly hold them at bay. Zerglings dove into the trench lines dragging the power armored men to them ground and rending the apart. 

"Give them some cover fire Commander West." said the captain quietly

The executive officer saluted understanding the order, he tapped a few screens on his display before the cybernetic adjutant announced [b]"Nuclear Launch Detected"[/b] Moments later the battlefield was wreathed in nuclear fire granting the defenders a brief reprieve to gather themselves for their final stand. The Hammer of Korhol was passing over scorched no-mans-land in the process of being claimed by the Zerg. 

It took time to reach the Protoss lines and they seem to have prepared for a heavy assault on their warp conduit, Many powerful warships and orbital defense weapons stood between the battle-cruiser and it only reckless hope of salvation. It was an impossible force to directly confront. Captain Astrovia stared at the problem mulling over the threat, his eye twitched struck with an idea that was probably profoundly insane. 

"Lieutenant Hunt, engage tac-jump, exit inside the Protoss warp conduit portal." said the Captain firmly as if he had any idea if that would work, or was something that even could happen given the laws of physics as he understood them. The Lieutenant gave him a panicked look as she was thinking the same thoughts, if it was even something physics would allow. The captain's calm and stern gaze was all the reply she received.

"Uh, Yes... sir.." said the Lieutenant plotting the jump and ignoring every one of the dozen warnings and error messages the computer replied with. "Tac jump In 3...2...1-"

As the tac jump engines fired reality seemed to take a turn through a dimension that humans and the sensors of the ship could not account for. No time seemed to pass as the effects of the ship spinning through dimensions, or possibly reality, were impossible for the humans to understand. The crew simply did not remember their travel.

[hr]

[h2]Unknown Space[/h2]

The Terran Battle-Cruiser simply appeared from the empty void of space twisting and rolling for several minutes as the attitude thrusters arrested their movement. Once the ship had stabilized it sent out a large sensor sweep ping broadcasting their location and drawing in the data of the space around them.

"Status Report!" Captain Astrovia said tiredly but with an edge of tension to his voice

"All systems green Captain, computers are trying to determine our location and... Mother Mercy, there are a hand full of ships and a Zerg Leviathan near by" said Lieutenant Newgate, "Unknown ships, they are not Terran or Protoss ships sir, not anything we have seen before"

The captain frowned, that was not anything he liked to hear. Unknown ships were dangerous, but they are usually some kind of pirate or mercenary scrapheap the Leviathan however, that was a real danger. He needed more information. The Ghosts might know more about the ships if they were some special kind of special forces top secret nonsense, better still they needed to get out of here and make for Dominion space. 

The Captain announced to the adjutant "Call the Ghost team up to the bridge and begin plotting a course to dominion space."

The computer acknowledged his order calling the Ghosts to the bridge but announced an error for the second request. "Location unknown, unable to locate Dominion space..." Captain Astrovia stared at the machine for several long seconds waiting for the system to figure it out. 'well' he thought 'that is a bad sign.' 

"Spin up weapon systems! Scramble fighters! Battle stations!" ordered the captain, obviously preparing for the worst while hoping this didn't turn into a suicide mission against a Leviathan or brawl with a pirate fleet.

"Bring up the hail system, broadcast this message" - "Unknown Vessels, This is the Hammer or Korhol, we request aid in destroying the Zerg"