The Martial Unity

The emergence of the array of hundreds of interlocked hexagonal ablative breachers shook the humans out of the cold horror that paralyzed their bodies. The many officers of the various space forces, planetary defense forces, and astronaval patrol forces braved the blood-curdling fear they felt with gritted teeth and acted in accordance with military protocols and their training.

”Activating long-range directed-energy weapons systems!”

”Orion Gamma-Ray Laser charging!”

”Particle Accelerator Beam Weapons activated and on stand-by!”

”Target locking… target locked!”

”FIRE!”

VMMMMMM!!!!!

The many directed energy weapon systems in the Arima III System weren’t weak nor for show. The Arima III System was a star system that was home to three planets, each a tier-three terraformed planet, including planet Sarantel, each with their own defensive space force and space patrol fleets.

It meant that their net firepower was truly remarkable, at least by human standards.

VMMMMMM!!!!!

Beams of light, gamma radiation, and antiproton beams flew at the speed of light or near it, traveling for a minute. While cutting-edge wormhole-integrated long-range weapons systems existed, they were simply too high-end to be present in a recently-constructed frontier state. Superluminal weapons systems were far too extravagant to be ubiquitous across human civilization for the time being.

The cruel part was that superluminal surveillance technology, at least at the local level, did exist, allowing the human authorities within Arima III to be able to witness the grand unfolding of the invading army while they waited for their attacks to reach their target.

It was unlike anything they had ever seen in their entire lives.

Behind the massive breachhead emerged the Web of War. Its first nexus was centered around a massive webnought that stretched thirty kilometers in length, with guns that were larger than almost any human spaceship present within Arima III. Its surface was covered in webs that weren’t static, but were rather an active, living part of the machine that not only held all the components together, but also contributed to the functioning of the systems.

Around the massive webnought were numerous webship equivalents of human battleships, each with arrays of massive gun barrels on either side and at the forefront of the massive vessels. Progressively smaller vessels also accompanied the heavyweight vessels, along with countless other small crafts.

Just this one nexus of the Web of War alone would have been enough to overrun all military forces within the Arima III Star System, and they could see that there was so much more. Then, finally, the light, gamma radiation, and antiproton beams reached their target, blasting into the shield array of the bright, shining ablative breachers.

Silent explosions of light flashed upon contact while the heavy impacts reverberated through the strange shining matter that composed the shield. The ablative breachers trembled a little from the impacts.

The attacks didn’t stop.

An onslaught of silent flashes of light marked each impact, as hundreds and hundreds of beams of electromagnetic radiation and antimatter blasted into the shining surfaces of the hexagonal shields.

And yet, the breachhead of the invading army wasn’t so much as even fazed.

The ablative breachers continued to move forward, making way for the rest of the Web of War to enter the Arima III System. More and more nexuses in the grand web of the invading army entered human space unfettered.

It was as if they weren’t even being attacked.

”What the hell is this?!” President Jarkathar’s eyes were bloodshot, almost completely red with stress. ”Why aren’t the sieges doing any damage?!”

He watched with mounting horror as the silent explosions of light, flashy as they were, did literally nothing to stop the invading army from even slowing down, let alone inflicting any damage on the strange, glowing matter of the ablative breacher array.

No matter how many attacks struck this strange glowing matter of the ablative breachers, it didn’t so much as display even an ounce of damage.

It didn’t matter if the firing weapons tried converging their attacks on roughly one point, a tall order for a distance of one light-minute, or launched their sieges in bursts rather than continuous waves; they couldn’t so much as even scratch this strange material.

”What the hell are those shields made of?!” The commanding officer of one siege platoon gritted.

”This much output over several should have caused some damage even to invintium plates!”

”Are they made up of some Transcendent-grade esoteric?! How can they have so much of it?!”

Director Lavyn, still on call, tightened his expression as he received an emergency report from the forensic analysis division of the Jarkathar Intelligence Bureau. It was a report that detailed the preliminary analysis on the strange, glowing matter composing the ablative breachers.

”This is really, really bad…” he whispered as he read through the report with a grim expression.

”What!” President Jakarthar barked at him with an expression of terror even as his guards prepared a heavily-armored emergency escape pod. ”What did you learn?! Tell me!”

”According to our forensic analysis division, those battering shields are not made up of esoteric matter,” the director grimaced.

The president’s eyes widened at those words. ”What?! That’s impossible! Regular matter can’t withstand this much concentrated power! Each of these beams has the power to vaporize cities and islands concentrated into thin beams! Even invintium would show some signs of damage! Invintium doesn’t even shine like that, and it’s the strongest non-esoteric metal!”

”They’re not made up of invintium, sir. According to our forensic intelligence analysts, those shields are made up of regular protons!”

That made the President do a double-take. He was no scientist, but even he knew that that was absurd. Protons repelled each other with extreme force because they were of the same charge. In fact, this was the reason that heavier elements with a greater number of protons in their nuclei were unstable and radioactive. Not even the strong nuclear force could hold too many of these particles together.

And yet, the scientific analysts working in a state intelligence agency weren’t incompetent. It was easy to measure the electromagnetic field that the protons created and compare it with the mass to figure out its composition. It was precisely because the conclusion was so irrefutable that it shook everybody who learned of this truth.