“Oh, God,” were the last words that ca out of a planetary defense station soldier’s mouth before his space station was destroyed.
With the appearance of new wormholes from all directions around the planet, a courtesy of the stealth mapping vessels sent out by the Empire, as the million avatars acted as a giant distraction.
This ti, the Empire sent more than just avatars. It brought ships to accompany them and help clear the route. The defensive force, designed under the expectation that they would know the direction the enemy was coming from ahead of ti and prepare accordingly, was having a hard ti dealing with ships and attacks coming from every side. With each passing minute, the number of defense installations was decreasing at an increasingly rapid rate.
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Conclave Central Command
The air in the Conclave Central Command, once thick with arrogant confidence, now crackled with raw panic. The grand circular chamber, surrounded by leaders of each civilization in the Conclave, was now witnessing a first since its construction.
“Recall my fleets back now!” the hologram of the Gorga Pri-Leader shouted, his normally stoic, rocky visage contorted in rage. As he slamd his fist onto the real-world table, his hologram mirroring the action, he continued shouting, “My capital is under siege! They are pouring out of the very sky!”
“That is strategic suicide. If we do that, we will now be on the receiving end of the empire’s attack, negating any benefit we had of being the first mover, and the empire will now have the ability to deactivate the spatial locks and reinforce their forces...” the temporary leader of the operation tried to reason with them, understanding the panicked actions of the leaders were going to be the death of this operation.
But before he could even finish his explanation, another civilization’s leader interrupted him, shouting, “I don’t give a fuck how this operation goes on anymore since nothing has gone according to our plans! We attacked them knowing they would activate their spatial anchors, but you didn’t consider that they could forcefully stabilize space and make it impossible for FTL travel!
The plan said the spatial locks would prevent the empire from receiving reinforcents, but they circumvented the problem and sent soldiers to our star systems directly! I don’t care about any of the ramifications! My capital is on the verge of burning! We are losing orbital platforms by the minute!”
Just after he said that, he turned his head to the Zelvora and Trinarian leaders before he shouted, “YOU vouched for them and brought their ideas into the most important parts of our worlds! They are using the VR towers that you scanned and said were safe as bridgeheads, playing us for fools! Every node, every tower, every wormhole gate in their highway for comrce project was nothing but a way of creating an invasion map for them, as we gave them access to our most secure worlds the mont we installed them! WHAT ARE YOU GOING to DO ABOUT THIS?”
“How dare you?” the Zelvora leader asked, making it clear that he was not in the least a fan of these accusations.
Although this would have normally been enough to cause the leader who accused him to apologize or risk being their lifeti enemy, that was only under the condition that everyone had the assurance that they would live to see tomorrow, and angering him would an risking that. Now, with the empire’s actions, that possibility was getting narrower, and holding back any words wasn’t going to change that. Everyone was on a short fuse from the start, and it was proven by another leader shouting at him.
“Why are you threatening us? Is it because you actually knew beforehand and were working with them? Also, why are they not attacking you?” another leader shouted when the previous leader’s accusations were not t with an answer.
“Withdraw the ships that are currently attacking the captured star systems for reinforcents at least! You are wasting our ti, and ti is not on our side!” another civilization leader shouted, not caring for the question that was asked to receive a response, as his situation was more urgent.
Despite his civilization not being on the list of those on the receiving end, he was still feeling nervous, as he was one of the weakest and knew the empire not targeting him was only because they could do so at any ti and squish him like a bug. He wanted as many of his forces back as possible before that happened to mount a fight.
“We can’t withdraw them, and we are in a situation where we need more fleets to extinguish another major problem!” the operation’s temporary leader shouted amidst the commotion, causing everyone to turn and look at him. Knowing that they would only be silent for a few seconds, he imdiately got to explaining himself as fast as possible before soone else interrupted him.
“We just received news that the planets under Dreznor’s control have been attempting to send material reinforcents sowhere, but we managed to destroy the so-called transport ships before they could do so. We can say with high confidence that these were most likely planned to be sent to Proxima Centauri, where these remote-controlled soldiers, ships, and operations are taking place.
The mont they gain that access, it will an they will have infinite access to raw materials from captured Dreznor planets, enabling them to produce their remote-controlled soldiers in unlimited quantities and fight until we are on our last knees. So that is the last thing we are going to do, or we are dood to lose or drag this war out.”
“You are not going to bring back my fleets in the empire despite one of them having already been destroyed, you are not going to allow to bring back my fleets fighting against Dreznor in order to bolster my defense, so what do you want to do then? Just sit and wait for the empire to co and kill ?” a leader shouted, shaking from nervousness as he could see the battles taking place in space from his large office window all the way from his palace.
“Is this because the empire is not yet attacking you?” Another one took his place, because for so twisted logic, the empire had targeted only the Elara and Feyn in the top ten civilizations, leaving the rest alone. Among the top fifty, thirty-nine of them were also being attacked by Avatars, with an even smaller number being attacked from those below that.
“If we can’t do those two, then why don’t they send their fleets to co to our aid? That is the easy solution without having to compromise our placent of forces and give the empire an advantage,” a leader of a lower civilization, whose forces were being ground down faster than they could reinforce them, asked in a desperate shout as he pointed at the Zelvora and other top-ten leaders who were not yet attacked. His civilization didn’t have wormhole technology, so they were limited to the available forces and were at the rcy of those with wormholes to help them send reinforcents.
“The empire is precisely expecting us to do that so that our remaining forces are tied up, and only then will they attack us. We can’t take that risk, so I will not be doing that,” the Yrral Coalition leader said with a stoic face, as if his situation was more urgent than those who were being attacked. He even added, “We are the production base, and if the empire attacks us, the production of weapons and other things will slow down or co to a complete halt.”
One after another, the leaders who were not attacked ca up with one excuse after another to not use their remaining fleets for reinforcents. At this mont, all of those fleets were being remobilized back to the important star systems that had VR towers, while at the sa ti trying to shoot and destroy the VR towers, wormhole nodes, and everything that the empire had installed in their territories in preparation and as a preventative asure.
It was a reasonable action, but it didn’t appear as such to those who were under attack.
The most scared one among the top ten was the Zelvora, whose abilities relied most on ntal and psionic powers, aning their strongest weapons were pretty useless against the avatars. Surprisingly, despite killing all the imperial citizens found in the space stations responsible for the wormhole lanes at the start of their attack, the empire hadn’t attacked them, increasing the suspicion falling upon them. With their previous defense of the empire’s actions and advocating for them in the Conclave Council, they were being seen as potential traitors the more ti passed.
CRACK!!!!! It was at that mont that an irreparable crack started appearing within the Conclave, and there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it from happening. They were fighting against humans, the most cunning of creatures in the Galaxy, and they had brought their A-ga to this fight they were dragged into.
Divide and Conquer – Sun Tzu. The most obvious tactic was now being put to use in such an obvious and visible way, but even if the enemy saw it coming, there was nothing they could do about it. The only solution to the dilemma the empire was placing upon them was to beco selfless, risk their potential safety, and co to the rescue of those being attacked.
There was a possibility that the empire was not attacking them because they had limited avatars to use and could only spread them so much before they beca easy to deal with. But in the Conclave, where everyone was only in it for themselves, expecting one of them to do it was like expecting a cal to go through the eye of a needle.
Shit had finally hit the fan. In just two hours since their surprise attack against the empire took place, the situation had turned around on them, and they were now on the receiving end. It really was David fighting and holding his ground against Goliath, who had attacked him by surprise.
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