The Martial Unity

“Approaching destination.”

“Initiating warp drive disengagement.”

“Initiating negatron pump deactivation.”

“Preparing for arrival.”

In the command room of the Blood Arc, the crew began preparing for their impending arrival at the target. Arastia stood beside the commander of the crew with a serious expression as she stared at the streaking stars out the front window wall.

The Blood Arc rapidly approached its destination. “Prepare the pathwalkers to remain on standby,” Arastia remarked with a serious expression. “There are already other forces in Planet Amadeus III, we have been anything but speedy about this mission. There’s no telling what the state of affairs there is.”

“Understood, Your Excellency.”

The announcement went out, summoning each of the pathwalkers to immediately get to standby, in case they could be deployed at a moment’s notice. Arastia expected that they would run into many existing forces already attempting to extract resources from Planet Amadeus III, running into resistance from both other competitors and whatever native lifeforms there were on the planet.

Soon enough, their journey ended.

“Local gravity well detected.”

“Initiating deactivation of the warp drive.”

“Deactivating negatron pumps.”

THWOOM!

The massive fleet carrier exited FTL, slowing down to quadruple-digit mach speeds, before slowing down even further. The stars that streaked to their eyes in FTL travel now returned to stationary twinkling dots in the sky.

Two new bright sources of light emerged in their eyes.

The two white dwarf stars of the Strehegeld Star System. They revolved around each other in the distance at the center of the star system, resembling shining marbles, given how far away they still were in the distance.

The Strehegeld Star System was a star system that was estimated to be born in the aftermath of a massive ancient supernova, leaving huge amounts of debris across the star system that revolved around the binary star system, as well as the other planets.

“Conducting short-range scan and preliminary threat analysis.”

“No manmade structures in immediate vicinity.”

“Carbonaceous asteroids detected in the immediate vicinity.”

“Preliminary threat analysis concludes low acute threat. However, manmade energy signatures were detected in the distance.”

“Radar feed has captured an unusually large density of spaceships in the vicinity of target Planet Amadeus III.”

Arastia’s eyes sharpened as she studied the feed from the sensors. Planet Amadeus looked like a planet with various shades of gray and blue. It didn’t look like the kind of planet that one would expect to host a lot of life, but the data also revealed something interesting.

“We are detecting energy signatures consistent with laser beams and antimatter, many of which are being launched at the surface of the planet,” an analyst informed her. “Our preliminary conclusion is that human adventurers and military forces have gotten dragged into a conflict with the native lifeforms of Planet Amadeus III, while many have also commenced conflict with each other in order to prevent each other from getting access to the esoteric resources of the suspected infected world.”

“Get closer to Planet Amadeus III,” Arastia instructed with a strict tone of voice. “We must launch the Tide of Samsara against the planet and destroy the virus before we even think about engaging with the native lifeforms of the planet. These adventurers are extremely foolish for simply attacking the native lifeforms of the planet without such a measure at hand.”

Of course, the alien virus did not call for help easily. On Gaia, it took being pushed to the very brink of destruction by the Emperor of Water for it to ultimately push through with its SOS calls. Not to mention, getting authorization to actually use the Tide of Samsara superweapon was extremely difficult, since it ultimately came down to the discretion of the Emperor of Water himself.

“Of all the human presences detected, thirty percent belong to organizations or polities with which the Blood Humanist Society has a peace treaty.”

“That’s good, send them a greeting and a statement affirming our commitment to the peace treaty,” Arastia replied seriously. “Assume that the rest are hostile and initiate defensive systems.”

“Defensive systems activating.”

“Fermionic repulsive shield activated.”

“Space-warping field activated.

VMMM

Outside the ship, layers of energy and warped space began to weave together a powerful defense of the giant Blood Arc. Although the ship was naturally extremely durable, it was still a massive target that could be heavily damaged. The powerful defenses of the Blood Arc would ensure that not even sustained firepower would be able to harm the spaceship very easily in case of a sudden attack.

As the ship drew closer and closer towards its target, Planet Amadeus III, it also drew closer and closer towards the range of fire of the existing adventurer and space force presences in the Strehegeld System.

“Incoming attacks detected!”

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

A series of precise and accurate lasers struck the energy and space shields of the Blood Arc. The attacks sent powerful ripples across the shields of the ship. Yet, they didn’t so much as even inflict a single ounce of damage on the ship itself. A fleet carrier was a powerful vessel, after all. It could not be underestimated. “The attacks emerged from a fleet of heavy cruisers belonging to a known pirate group who call themselves the ‘Scallywag Scoundrels,’” the analyst team offered. “They have a bounty on their head worth seven billion alliance credits and are said to be very dangerous, equipped with powerful nuclear-powered warships.”

Pirates often camped out in the region of space beyond human territory, where adventurers often explored. After all, this region of space had no human establishment and no human security measures.

They were all on their own in this regard.

Arastia’s blood-red eyes sharpened frostily. She didn’t know what possessed the pirate fleet into thinking that they could defeat the Blood Humanist Society, but she had no intention of being gentle with them.

“Annihilate them. Record all the evidence needed to acquire the bounty.”

“Understood, Your Excellency.”

The Blood Arc mobilized its laser turrets, turning them towards the distant pirate fleet that immediately began breaking up at the very first sign of retaliation from the giant fleet carrier.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The powerful fleet carrier unleashed an onslaught of destruction, threatening to annihilate its enemies in one fell swoop.