Captain (Episode V): field commander of the UED Expeditionary Fleet

The Captain was a human officer of the United Earth Directorate who served within the UED Expeditionary Fleet during its invasion of the Koprulu sector. Charged with carrying out the tactical and strategic objectives set by Admiral Gerard DuGalle and Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov, the Captain regularly attended briefings led by the fleet's two admirals and commanded the ground and naval operations that broke the Terran Dominion and delivered the second Overmind into Directorate hands.

Awakening over Braxis#

The Captain made the long journey from Earth to the Koprulu sector in cryogenic hibernation, waking only when the Expeditionary Fleet reached its destination. The lingering effects of the cold sleep were treated with cryostim supplements, and the newly revived officer listened as Admiral Gerard DuGalle delivered his address to the assembled fleet. The Captain's first orders came from Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov: assault Braxis and take control of its capital city, Boralis, from the Terran Dominion within two standard hours.

The attack suffered temporary setbacks, but help arrived from an unexpected quarter. Lieutenant Samir Duran of the Confederate Resistance Forces contacted the Captain directly, explaining that he had been monitoring the assault on the Dominion and offering his services and skills in return for amnesty. Duran possessed intimate knowledge of the surrounding terrain and revealed an alternate route leading to the rear of the main Dominion base. Stukov accepted, declaring Duran and his men the first colonial conscripts of the United Earth Directorate and instructing the Captain to give the lieutenant full cooperation. With Duran's aid the Captain captured Boralis, earning praise from the fleet's admirals.

The Dylarian Shipyards#

Data recovered from a destroyed command center on Boralis pointed the fleet toward its next objective. DuGalle ordered the Captain to raid the Dylarian Shipyards, where scores of Dominion battlecruisers lay docked, and to seize the warships for the Directorate. The Captain captured the vessels and then turned them against their former owners, defeating the Dominion Armada under General Edmund Duke when it arrived to contest the shipyards. The stolen battlecruisers gave the Expeditionary Fleet a naval strength it could never have carried across the gulf from Earth.

The Ruins of Tarsonis#

The fleet next turned to Tarsonis, where a potent piece of Confederate anti-zerg technology, the psi disrupter, still stood among the world's ruins. DuGalle ordered the Captain to locate and destroy the device with Duran's assistance. Four zerg hive clusters stood between the UED forces and their objective, but the Captain destroyed the zerg structures, rendering the leaderless broods docile. Duran then made his way toward the disrupter to finish the work, only to be stopped by ghosts operating under Stukov's authority, who claimed that the vice admiral intended to destroy the device himself. The disrupter's true fate would not become clear until much later, with fatal consequences for the fleet's command.

The Fall of Korhal#

With its flanks secure, the Expeditionary Fleet moved against Korhal, the capital world of the Dominion. The planet was defended by a large fleet of battlecruisers and an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and there was time to deprive the Dominion of only one of these defenses before the main assault. DuGalle left the choice to the Captain, who was tasked with disabling either the warship fleet or the nuclear stockpile to clear the ground for the attack on Augustgrad. The sortie succeeded, and with the Dominion's defenses weakened the Captain launched a successful assault on the capital itself.

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk attempted to flee aboard the Norad III but was cornered and forced to request a parlay. Before the emperor could be taken into custody, Commander Jim Raynor arrived with a small protoss fleet and rescued him, spiriting the UED's quarry away by dimensional recall.

Pursuit to Aiur#

The UED tracked the fugitives to the protoss homeworld of Aiur, where Mengsk and his benefactors were found preparing to flee even farther afield through a warp gate. The Captain fought an initially successful action to cut off the escape, but the operation was foiled by unexpected intervention. Duran, entrusted with holding the zerg forces on the world in check, failed to do so. The suddenly active swarms poured into the operations area, and in the resulting chaos Mengsk and Raynor slipped through the gate. The Captain was forced to withdraw the UED troops from Aiur as the zerg overran the field.

Patriot's Blood#

The fleet's sensors then detected a fully functional psi disrupter on the surface of Braxis, proof that the device had not been destroyed on Tarsonis as ordered. Duran declared that Stukov had betrayed the admiral and reconstructed the disrupter to sabotage the operation. DuGalle, finding the evidence incontrovertible, authorized Duran to enter the facility and deal with the vice admiral appropriately, and the Captain led a small UED strike force inside alongside the lieutenant.

The force fought its way through Stukov's Elite Guard until Duran reached the vice admiral and shot him. The dying Stukov revealed the truth to DuGalle: Duran was the real traitor, and possibly infested, having convinced the admiral to destroy the disrupter even though it was the fleet's best chance of defeating the zerg and having allowed the swarms to overrun the UED on Aiur. Duran vanished from the facility's sensors, leaving behind a self-destruct sequence and swarms of zerg attackers. The Captain led a desperate fight through the infested facility and prevented the psi disrupter's destruction, preserving the weapon Stukov had died to protect.

Chaining the Beast#

With the psi disrupter scrambling the zerg's communications, the Expeditionary Fleet proceeded to Char and established a base on the volcanic world. There DuGalle ordered the Captain to capture the second Overmind itself. The Captain neutralized the three cerebrates guarding the creature and took the Overmind alive, giving the United Earth Directorate control over the bulk of the zerg swarms and making the fleet, for a time, the dominant power in the sector.

Disappearance#

The capture of the second Overmind marked the height of the Captain's recorded service. The Expeditionary Fleet was later destroyed in the sector, and no account survived of what became of the officer who had won its greatest victories. Whether the Captain died with the fleet or escaped its fate remained unknown.