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934 - Operation United Front
🕑 Added 2025-06-26 09:48:26 +0000 UTCAs each day passed and the situation continued to deteriorate, the Bilakis civilizations intensified their propaganda, fanning the flames and pushing the blame squarely onto the Empire. Their efforts bore fruit—attacks against imperial citizens surged, and frustration among the Empire’s own population skyrocketed. Yet, the Empire maintained its silence, adhering strictly to its established rules without offering additional guidance or action.
To many, this inaction felt like indifference. And eventually, some imperial citizens decided they’d had enough.
Seeing that the system offered no real protection beyond procedural punishments, they began to retaliate. What began as an isolated incident of someone using a cane to fight back and ending up killing his Bilakis attacker, quickly escalated into full-blown clashes within VR, massive, chaotic fights between citizens of the two civilizations. In several high-profile cases, combatants pushed things to the brink, sometimes even killing each other brutally, with the only saving grace being the ability to control pain sensitivity, so these fights were brutal, but no one felt actual pain..
By the time a full month had passed, VR had become a volatile battlefield. While public tensions simmered near breaking point and risking roping in other civilizations, the Conclave—quietly working behind the scenes—had completed their regrouping. Their forces were now prepared for a second wave of deployments, aiming to reclaim lost territories and uncover the true orchestrators behind the coordinated attacks.
…………
On the bridge of the Elara flagship, the Stellaris, the air hummed with the quiet energy of a fleet preparing for war. The communications officer, a young woman whose face was a mask of professional calm, turned to her admiral. “All fleetwide systems are green and ready for deployment, Admiral. We await your command.”
“Inform the Conduit of our readiness,” the admiral ordered, his eyes scanning the final systems report on his command console. “Prepare for the jump the moment the gate is open.”
His fleet had been assigned to the Yaren system, one of Kumakar’s own territories, and one of the most recently targeted. Politically, it was a masterstroke of Conclave diplomacy. By assigning one of the top ten powers—the Elara, forever tied at number ten and locked in a cold rivalry with the Feryn—to liberate a Bilakis world, the council was sending a message of unity. It was a show of force and a promise of support, a declaration that an attack on one, even a lesser member like the Bilakis, was an attack on all.
Deep within the Stellaris’s armored core, in a chamber shielded from every conceivable form of external sensor, a man floated weightlessly in a tank of translucent, nutrient-rich fluid. Wires, like silver veins, connected every part of his body to the ship’s central command. He was the Conduit, the living key to the wormhole, a being whose location in every fleet was a closely guarded secret.
His body convulsed, a silent tremor that rippled through the liquid. His eyes, which had been closed, snapped open. They were no longer Elara's eyes. They were voids, empty black sockets from which pinpricks of white light, like distant stars, began to glow with an ethereal intensity. The wires pulsed, pumping a torrent of raw energy into him, a current that would have vaporized any normal being. The space in front of the fleet began to distort, to tear. A miniature wormhole, no larger than a fist, appeared before the Stellaris. It grew with terrifying speed, expanding into a shimmering, colossal gateway that dwarfed the flagship itself.
The fleet did not hesitate. They started moving, a silent, disciplined procession plunging into the swirling vortex of the wormhole. Seconds later, the gate collapsed, leaving only the silent, star-dusted void behind. In the tank, the Conduit went limp, his eyes fading back to their void look as he drifted into a deep, restorative unconsciousness.
This was the Elara’s answer to wormhole travel. The technology they received from the trinarians was the same as what everyone did, but the method they used was unique, just like everyone, with the tech used in different ways to access it, depending on their species’ affinities. As for the Elara, they used a living being with a very high affinity for spacetime as the final component, the catalyst that allowed a machine to do the impossible.
…………..
The moment the Elara fleet emerged into the Yaren system, they were met with a graveyard. The shattered remains of the system’s defense fleet orbited the planet, a silent, glittering field of debris so dense it made planetary departure a suicidal endeavor without military-grade shields.
“Full-power scans, now,” the admiral commanded, his voice cutting through the stunned silence on the bridge.
The fleet’s sensor arrays linked, becoming a single, massive eye that swept across the system, painting a detailed picture of the devastation. The enemy had retreated just hours before their arrival, a calculated withdrawal that left behind only ruin.
“Admiral,” the communications officer reported, her voice tense, “we have contacts hiding within the asteroid belt. Energy signatures and ship-making match the reported invaders. It appears to be a rearguard, waiting to see how we react.”
“Send a contingency group to deal with them,” the admiral ordered without a moment’s hesitation. His mind was already racing ahead, calculating the political capital to be gained from this operation. A successful liberation would not only fulfill their duty to the Conclave but also grant him significant personal prestige. A promotion was all but guaranteed. “The rest of the fleet will proceed to the planet. Begin cleanup and planetary scans. Assume they have ground forces, and assume they have blended with the local population. I want no mistakes, no losses. Be thorough.”
As his orders were disseminated, the fleet split into smaller, purposeful groups. One contingent of destroyers and frigates broke away, its trajectory a casual, sweeping arc that seemed to be part of a routine patrol. But its heading was precise. It was moving directly toward the asteroid belt where the invaders lay in wait. The rearguard, confident in their cover, remained motionless, watching the approaching ships, believing themselves to be just another cluster of rocks in a field of millions. They were a silent predator, unaware that a far larger one was closing in on their unsuspecting prey.
Comments
Jade
TYFTC!!!
Sol_Invictus(Hail the Terran Empire)
TYFTC!!
