The Martial Unity

“Did they truly think that they could defeat us?”

In the command room of the Blood Arc, Arastia put to voice what everyone had been wondering. The Scallywag Scoundrels hadn’t even come close to harming the Blood Arc’s energy shields. Why did they think that they could defeat them? They were clearly outclassed in destructive power, and yet they seemed to enthusiastically engage in a rather suicidal attack the very moment they entered the star system.

The crew simply watched the explosions and the subsequent ashes and debris simply float in space as their threat analysis teams rapidly scanned their immediate surroundings to make sure that all threats had been dispatched with. “Your Excellency, we suspect that they were likely misled,” an analyst spoke with a calm tone of voice. “Based on our existing intelligence database, the Scallywag Scoundrels are a pirate group that operates with a modus operandi centered around ambush and an environmental advantage. Given that they attacked us shortly after we entered this star system, they were likely waiting for us to arrive and had aimed to attack us from the very get-go. We suspect that they had been arranged to do so by a third party. One that evidently supplied them with misinformation, or at least incomplete information. Because even for people as irrational as pirates, this was far too illogical a decision.”

Arastia sharpened her blood-red eyes. “The Blood Cult.”

“More likely than not, Your Excellency. We know that the Blood Cult maintains working relations with many of the more established and better-organized pirate fleets in human civilization. They have most likely attempted to use the pirates to gather information on our fleet and have used this moment to try to ascertain the amount of firepower that we have invested into this fleet.”

Arastia knew the analyst was right even without needing confirmation. This was standard operations for the Blood Cult. They couldn’t easily operate in other parts of human civilization, unlike the Society, which was their greatest shortcoming and disadvantage; they used all kinds of indirect methods to get through. They also employed the tactics of spies, since both sides had the same racial makeup, although the Society had hybrids while the Cult was entirely composed of purebloods due to their disdain for mixing with what they perceived to be lesser beings. “Madam, we have detected that the threats have ended,” the analyst remarked with a serious tone of voice. “We do not detect any more hostile fleets or other entities directing their firepower towards us. The coast is clear for us to shift our focus towards the target planet.”

Arastia nodded. “Shift focus to our target immediately. What information have we gathered about Planet Amadeus III?”

“We have detected a slew of explosions and conflicts, both kinetic and thermal, ranging across the surface of the planet and its atmosphere,” one analyst replied, bringing up footage and data from the scan that they had conducted of the planet. “We believe that this is due to the conflict of what appears to be native, indigenous lifeforms and the other human exploration forces that have begun bombarding from outer space.”

The footage featured a slew of disorganized warships from outer space pointing their turrets at the planet’s surface, launching powerful attacks that threatened to wipe out everything on the surface. Additionally, swarms of mechs could be spotted descending upon the surface of the planet while independent pathwalker teams also joined the ground game. This was standard protocol, for better or for worse, when it came to dealing with resource-rich planets that possessed a powerful native and indigenous species of life. The greed for resources vastly outstripped the desire to protect alien lifeforms. Of course, there were many factions within human civilization that disdained this approach, and even took measures to try and prevent the worst from unfolding as much as they could. “We have spotted not just adventurers and mining fleets, but also warships from the xenopluralists,” the analyst remarked, pointing to a stream of mechs and pathwalkers desperately trying to acquire as many specimens and samples as they possibly could. “In addition, we have spotted numerous other adventurer organizations that have joined the onslaught.”

“More importantly, what about the native indigenous lifeforms of the planet?” She asked with a hint of impatience. “What kind of creatures are they?”

It was impossible to know ahead of time due to the fact that this star system was disconnected from the interstellar interweb. It was not possible to transmit data to and from this star system unless one had highly specialized communication apparatuses that could communicate without the establishment of communication gates that connected star systems using wormholes that served as the throughput for the flow of information. BZZZT

A two-dimensional screen lit up, featuring the footage that the Blood Arc had managed to capture from the planet. The screen featured a kind of alien lifeform unlike anything Arastia had ever seen. It featured a strangely humanoid torso with an abdomen connected to two jointed appendages that weren’t too dissimilar from arms. The lower half of the abdomen, however, took an insectile structure, resembling a cross between a spider and a scorpion. The creature had six eyes on its head, which were more spherical than those of a human. The creatures were a strange turquoise in color, while their body appeared to be covered in a layer of what appeared to be fur, based on what they were able to make out from the limited resolution of footage taken from such a great distance. The footage revealed something profoundly interesting about the way that they resisted the human adventurers, colonialists, and resource-extraction forces that had begun bombarding the planet. RUMBLE!!!

The world shook as these creatures launched what appeared to be powerful, gooey fluids from jointed appendages at the rear of their torso, resembling scorpion stingers, that shot through the atmosphere at extraordinary speeds, reaching outer space in a very short time. They watched with amazement as the long, continuous streams of the strange, unidentified liquid seemed to entirely negate both gravity and atmospheric resistance, entering outer space and rapidly reaching the spaceships that were caught off-guard.

Much to the shock of the crew that studied the newfound data of these creatures that they had just run into, the strange fluids immediately hardened into form, creating a fiber with what appeared to be tremendous tensile strength, able to resist the thruster propulsion system of the spaceships that had been bombarding the planet.

The strange image of the planet revealed numerous fibers emerging from the planet, binding onto the hulls of the ship as it seemed not just to stick with adhesive substances, but even bind into the molecular structure of the ships.

“This…” Arastia murmured with an amazed expression. “Out of all the alien lifeforms that we have run into over the past thirteen years, I think this is among the most unique and the strangest we have ever seen. They are somehow managing to defend themselves against the preliminary wave of human fleets!”