The operation was timed to strike immediately after the Klavostani thunder run. After the Chamarrans had detected the Klavostani fleet inbound, the go signal was given to the OMINOUS forces tasked to intervene in the Farthing Worlds. However, unlike the humans’ lightning raid, the inhumanist forces would find the MEH’s presence in Farthing reinforced by the MEH Navy’s Xena Mobile Fleet - a move the MEH had hoped to discourage any further Klavostani harassments. But the forces of Inhumanity would not be so easily discouraged, as they would soon discover.
Operation Inhuman Protector
Farthing Worlds
Sector B-26
May 18, 3401
The gunskimmers screamed into the system first, painting everything with a full shameless blast of active-aggressive nucleonic sensor arrays, scouring space for any and all signs of the enemy. They found them. The Xena Mobile Fleet had stationed itself in the inner system, in a defensive position near Quilbore - the world the Klavostanis had graced during their quick visit to Farthing. With that ascertained, and with the enemy now fully aware of their presence as they maintained their defensive positions in anticipation of another attack, the gunskimmers transmitted their findings to the others.
And they came. All of them. The sensor arrays the MEHN had installed to prevent another surprise attack, already battered by the thermonucleo-acoustic transmissions of the gunskimmers, were now subject to a crescendo of hyperspatial cascades as two sizable OMINOUS fleets entered Farthing.
The First Ominous Overfleet was the first to arrive. Composed of both Bragulan and Chamarran warships from the Imperial Bragulan Navy’s
Kosmoflott Bragotyomkin, the Hierarchy Spaceforce’s Second, Third and Fourth Battlefleets. Their powers combined was almost thrice that of all MEHN forces present in the system, and was understandably cause for concern for those who had so casually invaded the Farthing peoples and were now, ironically, on the defensive against a superior force.
The Second Ominous Overfleet arrived shortly after. It was twice the tonnage and strength to the Xena Mobile Fleet and was wholly comprised of warships from the Federated Ascendancy’s swift Starfleet, a mixed force of Ascendant humans and Franco-Formics who, despite their differences, were unified under a common cause - that of outrage against atrocity, and a burning desire to bring great justice for the peoples of Farthing that transcended all differences between races and cultures.
But in the face of this righteous force of fury, the MEHN stood resolute - as unmovable as a defiant bull whale that had marked a land as its territory, for their seemingly docile appearances and superficially imbicilic natures belied their military formidability and their ruthlessness. Despite the quaint, unimaginative exteriors of the MEHN warships, intelligence gathered from the Battle of Wolf 359 showed that their ships had grossly disproportionate power outputs and weapons yields exceeding previous estimations and calculations. No one could be complacent against a people capable of doing the things the MEH had done in Farthing.
They hailed the OMINOUS forces
“Klavostani raiders! This is the Multiversal Empire of Happiness Navy. You are in violation of MEH territory and have, just yesterday, attacked and destroyed massive quantities of MEH agricultural equipment. You have only one opportunity, this one, to stand your forces down and leave MEH space. Or else...”
“
OR ELSE WHAT?!” the Bragulans responded with a deafening transmission. Their aggressive-aggressive communications arrays were designed to broadcast messages very loudly, to the point of overwhelming unprepared recipient systems with the audiovisual feedback. In the bridge of the MEH command ship, a very large, very loud and very angry-looking hologram of a Bragulan was now
snarling at the crew’s faces. “
FOOLISH HUMAN SHITS!”
EHW Obliteration
The communications officer managed to dial down the volume just in time, before the Bragulan could continue speaking and deafening them even more. His booming roars became attenuated to merely vicious snarls, allowing the bridge officers to remove their hands from their ears.
“MEH Commander, I am Front-Admiral Nykanor Zyvan Nikhamov of the OMINOUS coalition forces. We are here to liberate the Farthing Worlds and all of its outlying planets. You are in direct violation of Farthing space and have openly attacked the Farthing people. Lower your shields and power down your weapon systems. The OMINOUS will be taking custody of your ships and whatever spoils you have garnered from these planets.”
How dare those aliens try to steal the worlds the Goddess wanted? The MEH commander glared at the beast barking in her holotank. If they had the audacity to think that they could just bully the MEH around, well, they were in for a really big surprise. She got off her command throne and gave the bear a piece of her mind.
“Admiral Nikhamov, I am Admiral Bellatrix Williams, and you are not known to me. Whatever leniency I extended to you and your Klavostani comrades before, may have been in error. If you persist and don’t halt your course, we will burn your anorexic fleet down to the last being.”
She crossed her arms and raised her chin confidently, as though daring her adversary to defy her will. The Goddess’ will. They wouldn’t dare, she was certain of it.
Which was why the guttural chuckle that emanated from the bear genuinely surprised and infuriated her to no end.
“I'm going to have to assume that was a hostile response...” Nikhamov growled before his hologram disappeared, replaced by a floating map showing the enemy fleets moving towards MEH lines.
Admiral Bellatrix Williams took account of the situation. By their Singular Intellects’ estimates, the OMINOUS forces in front her massively outgunned the Mobile Fleet. OMINOUS. She wondered where in Space Hell did they come from. They were clearly different actors from that coalition led by the other humans in the galaxy, those bulimic blowhards so full of pompous rhetoric and righteous rage. The OMINOUS wanted Farthing, to protect those cows and rabbits. Fine. They could have it. For now, at least.
She knew they couldn’t take the OMINOUS, not here and not now, so far away from solar system supportive elements like defense stations and rapid reinforcements hot out of the warp gates. She couldn’t count for them to come and back her up out here either, Goddess Sasha had approved the Turtle Doctrine, which was wise of Her. If the Assault Fleet left Xena to aid her, that would leave the whole system open to any attack - from the human coalition currently massing in the near-spinward, or maybe even from those suspicious rimward robots, those Xylyx. The same went for all the MEHN’s other fleets, which had to stay in their systems to keep them safe.
Admiral Williams gritted her teeth. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, turning tail like this, but making tough calls were part of her job.
“Tell the Food Fleet to evacuate from the system immediately,” she ordered from her command throne. “The Mobile Fleet is to protect the Meat Ships while engaging the OMINOUS in a fighting withdrawal. We’re heading back to Xena to consolidate our forces with the rest of the MEHN.”
“Admiral, the OMINOUS forces are closing in on us...” Captain Machiavelli noted nervously. He had seen the Orks at Wolf 359, he knew all too well what destruction they had wrought, but their entire WAAAAAGH! paled in comparison to what these aliens had here and now. “The Food Fleet has started evacuating, but some valuable cargoes are still dirtside and being extracted. We’re going to cut it pretty close, ma’am.”
“Very well. Initiate full-spectrum massive-aggressive ECM. Have the fleet to form up around us. Defense Pattern Endor. We’ll buy time for the PIE ships to leave with their cargo, but once all the valuables have left the system, we’re out of here.” Admiral Williams commanded. The PIEs were the ships that transported the meat and all other products harvested from Farthing, they were the most valuable things in the system, they were what the Mobile Fleet was here to defend. The other ships, like the ones that transported the Hunter-Eater machines, were not quite as indispensable - the factories could always build more of them. They would try to evacuate as many as they could, but the PIEs had priority, and they were not going stay and wait for the others with the OMINOUS coming down on them.
“Aye, Admiral.” Machiavelli nodded. The
Obliteration’s Singular Intellect relayed the orders through the Mobile Fleet’s network of Metahiveminds and the warships assumed their positions in preparation for combat. The
Obliteration itself began sending out a wall of ECM signals, the same ones that greatly diminished the effectiveness of the Ork onslaught at Wolf 359 and would now shield them and their precious PIEs from the enemy’s sensors and missile attacks.
The minutes went by, and more PIEs and other Meat Ships made their escape. The minutes went by, and the OMINOUS came closer and closer. It was only a matter of time.
Lepus
MEHNET-controlled territory
In a final act of spite, the machines had spilled pollutants throughout the regions of Lepus under their control and set the chemicals ablaze. What they could not take with them, what they could not harvest or process, they destroyed or poisoned, in a feeble attempt to to ruin the world’s environment - for if the Goddess could not have the lush and verdant resources of Lepus, then no one could either.
The rapid withdrawal of the Hunter-Eaters gave General Wortwound’s forces the perfect opportunity to strike back, to smash their defense grid and most importantly liberate any and all remaining prisoners before the machines could transport them to the orbiting slaughterships. All over the planet, there was a mood of anticipation, of revelation. They had survived the onslaught, the machines were on the retreat, the slaughterships to Quilbore had been destroyed and now a freedom force had come to defeat the rest of the Food Fleet and drive them back to whatever misbegotten human worlds they came from.
The people emerged from their warrens and tunnels, breathing free air and feeling the sun on their fur. They rose up in a frenzy, smashing their oppressors, breaking the bonds of captivity and domestication. Some smeared themselves with blue paint and proclaimed that though the Hunter-Eaters might have had taken their world for a brief but dark time, the machines had never managed to take away their
freedom.
Church bells rang as people praised the god Firth for their fortune. People took to the streets with radios blaring news reports from the observatories, which watched the departing Meat Ships and the brewing space battle. The freedom fleet was coming, and as it came nearer, it began transmitting - directly to Lepus, directly to the rest of Farthing - messages of hope, great speeches with messages of impending liberation, praises for their patriotism to a ‘Byzon’, and solemn promises to take the people responsible for what had happened on Farthing and stomp their human faces in. Stomp their human faces in so hard
through the backs of their heads. Forever.
Meanwhile, far from the jubilant scenes of warrens and cities, deep in the wasted no-hare’s lands of Lepus, Special Owsla Groups had been dispatched to infiltrate enemy territory. Not only to attack the fleeing Hunter-Eaters or liberate captives from their pens, but to deliver a final strike against those who had unleashed the machines upon Lepus, the people who were responsible themselves. Wortwound had personally given them this mission, making them instruments of the Lapine race’s vengeance on those behind the hare holocaust.
The SOG teams moved fast. The Hunter-Eaters were still disorganized and travelling back to their extraction zones whilst being harassed by regular Owsla units, guerrillas and the obstructions they had set up like roadblocks and minefields. The SOGs would head them off and reach the prize first. The prize being the horrific product of the machines’ great and terrible factory-processors, the precious cargo they were desperate to get off-world before the departure of their fleet. While many of the Lapines would rather burn it all rather than suffer having the machines take it with them, that wasn’t their mission. So they did what they were sent to do, they found the products, administered Wortwound’s weapon, and left the site pronto.
However, their exit routes were blocked by the arrival of the much-delayed Hunter-Eaters. And upon seeing the intruders, the harvesters’ rudimentary Singular Intellects encountered a conflict in directives. They were commanded to evacuate from the planet, yet securing Lapine samples for off-world transport and retaining the captives or recovering any escapees was a mission priority. After consulting the Metahivemind, they found their answer. They would let the Lapine soldiers live.
But they would take the Lapines with them. For processing.
The Special Owsla Groups were mostly reconnaissance teams, lightly armed and not outfitted for direct heavy combat. The Hunter-Eaters would have made short work of them. But reinforcements came.
Hard.
More explosions dotted the blazing wastelands as Mad Peso helicopter gunships came in for strafing runs. The Hunter-Eaters returned, but their attempt at anti-aircraft fire distracted them from the Chook choppers that transported the SOGs’ backup teams. Large, armored forms fast-roped down to the ground and linked up with the SOGs. Heavy weapons teams were set up, anti-tank weapons were passed around. And then, together, they struck back at the metal motherfuckers and ruined their shit.
There were Taurens, wielding surplus Grand Dominion Marine Corps wargear and trained by operatives of Special Forces Group FOXHOUND. These Moontagnards were survivors of the planet Bos and vengeance burned in their hearts. Their instructors were Vulpene elites from the world of the same name, who came to Lepus to support their Farthing allies and stop the machine advance before it was too late. They were aided by Ranoidean mercenaries who clambered atop the Tauren armor and joined them in battle. Together, they laid waste to the pursuing Hunter-Eaters. Impala gauss rifles tore through hyperalloy chassis, improvised explosive devices detonated beneath the hulking machines, crippling some and outright destroying others. For the Tauren Marines, vengeance would not bring back their ruined homes, their lost loved ones, it would not return the things the machines had taken from them. But they could stop the machines from doing the same thing to the people of Lepus. They crushed the remains of the smaller meat-machines with their power-assisted hooves and fought on, like a power-armored stampede plowing through steel, trampling the machines underfoot.
Faced with unexpected opposition, the Hunter-Eaters’ Singular Intellects defaulted to their original objective - total retreat to the transports that would take them to orbit. They withdrew from the engagement and headed back to the extraction zone. But before they could even come close to it, the last of the transport ships carrying their precious cargo departed, lifting off for orbit. It was then that the Hunter-Eaters were informed by the Metahivemind that the Food Fleet was leaving now, that the processed cargo had priority over them, and that there was no more time to extract the remaining machines on Lepus.
But that wasn’t the only surprise left in store for the abandoned machines. No, the Owsla had a last parting gift for them. Several, in fact.
Farthing Space
The combined forces of the OMINOUS stormed towards the Xena Mobile Fleet, and at its fore was the combined Bragulan-Chamarran overfleet. The contrasting warships of both the Bragulan Navy and the Hierarchy Spaceforce moved as one, blocky radiation-spewing battleships side by side with the sleek and graceful golden cruisers, working seamlessly with each other. Their cohesion came from months of preparation, training and exercise, and now they were here, ready to be tested in war.
Mismatched
Chernovyi battlecruisers,
Imperator’s Fist, and
Rampant battleships formed the hammer whilst gunskimmers, paleocruisers,
Predator cruisers and
Wayward Escorts flanked them. Long range missile and fighter support came from the
Dominion supercarriers that loomed behind them, accompanied by
Friend of Bragule warcruisers that looked positively puny in comparison to the massive Hierarchy flagships. They closed in on the Mobile Fleet and an entire overfleet’s worth of active-aggressive sensors opened up on the wall of MEH jamming, attempting to burn through the copious amount of ECM and acquire their targets. Countless missile tubes were armed in anticipation. The second they reached weapons range, they would fire. All of them.
In comparison, the warships of the Ascendant Starfleet were nearly uniform in shape and appearance - like sharp dagger-like hulls glinting menacingly in the blackness of space. These blade ships approached from a different direction altogether from the Bragulan-Chamarran force, coming from a vertico-diagonal vector that would intersect with the bears and the cats’ path, with the MEH fleet at the heart of the intersection. Not having the same exhaustive extent of inter-operations training as the Bragulans or Chamarrans, the Ascendants operated separately, but while the fleet they brought to bear was slightly less than the combined urso-feline force in numerical strength or firepower, it was nonetheless every bit as formidable - the Federated Ascendancy was a first-rate military power in the Spin Zone, with cutting edge weapons technology and battle-tested doctrines that had to compete with some of the most advanced navies in the galaxy.
As the Bragulans and Chamarrans lit up their targeting systems, the Ascendants took the cue and began accelerating towards the enemy. Ascendant warships were nimble for their sizes, well-shielded, poorly armored, and absurdly overgunned against comparable ships. These 'glass cannons’, as they were called by some, were now moving to go up close and personal with the Mobile Fleet as quickly as possible, where their agility and disproportionate firepower could compensate for their fragility. Even their
Inflexible dreadnoughts moved with surprising alacrity that belied their size.
To the Bragulan commanders who had observed the Ascendants in action during the last exercises in the OMINOUS staging grounds, the Starfleet’s warships reminded them of another navy’s agile dagger-shaped attack ships - those of the United Solarian Star Force, to be exact. Knowing what they knew about their eternal enemy’s formidable capabilities and how they used it fully to so thwart the Imperator’s designs in the K-Zone, Bragulan commanders were thus able to have a good idea on how to best utilize the Ascendants and their talents against the MEH. This time, the dagger-ships would be thwarting someone else for a change.
Finally, the Bragulan-Chamarran fleet reached weapons range. Missile weapons range. Countless launchers unleashed their payloads at the Xena Mobile Fleet. Thousands of missiles streaked through space, guided by their own internal sensors as well as data from their launcher-ships. They entered the MEH’s defensive envelope and were immediately assaulted by jamming and countermeasures, trying to degrade their targeting systems and data-links, and as they went deeper they were then engaged by a flurry of point-defense turbolasers and other counter-weapons. Most of the missiles were annihilated, the MEHN’s very composition was designed to defeat massed missile combatants. But considering their sheer numbers, even a puny percentage of those that got through would still be innumerable in number. The MEH’s vaunted electronic countermeasures were indeed formidable, but against the raw power of the overfleet’s combined sensors, even an Interstellar Slaughter Device’s jamming could be overcome.
The initial hits were spread out, so despite the volume of the missile salvo, the MEH ships were able to absorb the damage dealt. Had the missiles been more concentrated, had the jamming not prevented them from focusing on more specific targets, they would have had losses - lots of them. But for now, the damage had been distributed, and thankfully a large number of missiles had resorted to home-on-jam guidance, hitting the
Obliteration, which was by far still the toughest warship in the entire battle, and surrounded by an entire fleet’s worth of point defenses as well. It took the blows, endured them like a mountain in a whirlwind, and rolled away - deciding that it could not take any more.
The efficacy of the MEHN’s jamming systems had been noted from Chamarran observations of the Battle of Wolf 359. One of the ways to overcome it was through sheer brute power, of which the OMINOUS in its numerical superiority had in spades, and this was the preferred method of the Bragulans too. But there were other ways to counter it as well. Ways Bragule had devised to rebuke the Solarians for their technological treachery.
A considerable number of the vegemite-encrusted nuclear weapons launched by the Bragulan warships, as well as the enhanced warheads of the Chamarrans, had been laced with a special designatory vegemite derivative nucleo-molecularly engineered to linger on as fallout particulates. Upon interaction with energy fields - such as those found on warship shielding - these phlogistonic isotopes would emit a particular kind of delta hyper-radiation. That OMINOUS fire control sensors would be programmed to recognize. That other missiles would home into.
The next salvo was launched. This time, the vegemite designator ‘flares’ allowed for much smoother target acquisition. As did the Chamarran realization that the jamming subroutines used by some in the Mobile Fleet were similar, if not the same, to those of older-generation Klavostani Navy ships. While the first salvo was a probational one, to test the waters and assess MEHN capabilities, the second one was the real haymaker. But before the missiles could reach their targets, the MEHN warships turned tail and broke for the hyperlimit at full burn. The Bragulan-Chamarran massive missile swarm had the advantage of acceleration on their side, having built up inertia in their thousands of kilometers flight path towards their targets, while the MEH ships were only beginning to accelerate. They could not hope to outrun the missiles.
But they could still outsmart them.
As the Food Fleet’s precious PIEs, laden with so much meat products and other processed agricultural goods, made their escape, the lower-priority slaughterships - the ones that transported heavy equipment, Hunter-Eaters, factory machines, and others - were sent towards the opposite direction. Towards the incoming missiles. With their Singular Intellects and Metahiveminds screaming in all hyperfrequencies to catch attention of the inbound missiles. Their sacrifice spared the Mobile Fleet from the second salvo, allowing the warships to gain more distance. They red-lined their engines, went straight for the system’s hyperlimit, put as much power as they could to their jamming systems and their rear shields. While they had managed to evade the missiles, they still had the OMINOUS fleets coming towards them.
The Ascendants reached the withdrawing Mobile Fleet and a running gunbattle quickly ensued. Angry green grasers stabbed at the MEH warships, peppering the shields of those at the rear of the formation, and in return the MEH sent back just-as-angry and also-green turbolasers. The nimble Starfleet ships used their agility to evade the salvos of MEH counter-fire, conical subcapitals jinking and side-strafing in wild lateral movements while the larger warships banked and arced off to angles inconceivable for warships of their size, twisting and turning to bring their guns to bear for another reciprocal barrage. The MEH ships took it in stride, absorbing the blows and intensifying their forward batteries. The agile Ascendants, although as adroit as they were, were not quite untouchable and the turbolasers managed to strike some of them, mostly with glancing hits or proximal flakbursts, but the direct impacts sent those struck reeling from the surprising potency of the weapons. A
Glorieux-class battlecruiser and three
Pike-class heavy cruisers withdrew to regenerate their shields, otherwise suffering minimal damage from the bleedthrough, and fresh ships moved to take their place and continue harassing the enemy.
Upon seeing the effects of their powerful weaponry, the MEHnoids decided to concentrate their firepower on the closest Ascendant attack ships. While, in total, the Ascendants outgunned the MEHN vessels, qualitatively the Mobile Fleet’s combatants were individually larger and more powerful - each one of them could take far more damage, and deal a whole lot more too, than any single ship of the enemy. They would lash back at their pursuers and strike down as many of them before making their escape.
But before they could focus their fire on the Ascendants, the Bragulan-Chamarran force finally reached beam and mass driver range. Golden lances of exotic energy scythed the slowest of the MEH ships, beamcannon fire from the
Rampant battleships and
Predator cruisers, while emerald bolts made out of relativistic acidbullets from paleocruisers and gunskimmers slammed against their targets. This sudden multiplication in the amount of people shooting at them greatly complicated MEH firing solutions. Everyone was shooting at them, and there were only so many MEH ships to shoot at to the point that ships from the two OMINOUS fleets were often firing at the same MEHN targets, while for the MEHnoids themselves the amount of enemies they had to engage had practically tripled.
Inevitably, a number of MEH warships succumbed to the crossfire. Two
Tartarus megacorvettes were torn asunder, literally carved to pieces by the grasers of an Ascendant
Inflexible dreadnought. Two
SWATs were diced by beamcannons from Chamarran
Predator cruisers, while another two were also exploderized by time-on-target K-bolters and bragnukes from a composite wing of paleocruisers and gunskimmers. In defiance, wings of Dominator fighters Demonic bombers laid waste to one of the offending gunskimmers and pursued the rest before they themselves were engaged by the point-defense coverage of a
Wayward Escort - its Meercat missiles were designed to intercept small and nimble targets such as enemy fighters and missiles, and though insufficient to down a true warship, the MEHN bombers proved to be neither as agile as most fighters or as tough as fully fledged warships.
The scattered survivors of the fighter/bomber wings had to run a gauntlet of HIT space superiority fighters, SNT multifighters, Grizzly Gugafez gunboat-missileers and Chamarran attack drones. A massive dogfight ensued as the smaller nimbler fightercraft of the OMINOUS danced with their larger, better-shielded and armed counterparts. There was a number of friendly-fire incidents as MEH ECM systems played havoc on the smaller sensors of the fighters and attenuated the command-links of the Chamarran drones, but despite their rapid acceleration the larger Dominators and Demonics had poor maneuverability and quickly became entangled in the furball, where they were chewed up in up-close and personal combat. Then, to top it off, a vengeful gunskimmer group descended upon them all, and only an active-aggressive warning blared on all allied frequencies saved the OMINOUS fighters, allowing them to dodge on time before the gunskimmers saturation-nuked the MEH fighter/bombers into slag. Having exacted their revenge, the gunskimmers went off to engage the Mobile Fleet’s remaining megacorvettes, delivering more K-bolts and bragnukes into the faces of their
Cruelties and
SWATs.
A leading flotilla of mixed
Patriotic Glory paleocruisers and
Predator non-paleo-cruisers came under heavy fire from MEHnoid
Acclamation megafrigates and a
Vindicator Slaughter Device, which crippled the nearest Bragulan fossil-ships and battered the other warships down. Again, the
Waywards rushed to the rescue, using specialized missiles to blanket the stricken vessels with obscurative vegemite-based chaff while using their sensor arrays, which were originally designed to track missiles, to call down fire support from the
Dominion supercarriers and
Friend of Bragule warcruisers. The MEHnoid megafrigates were hammered by the missile bombardments and vented plasma as they limped away, but the
Vindicator weathered the long-range missile attack and continued attacking the cruisers, intending to finish them all before making a run for it. It was a mistake, a squadron of
Sabre and
Morghann medium-light cruisers dove in and strafed the Slaughter Device, pinning it down and weakening its shields while designating it for a missile strike from one of the larger Ascendant warships.
The strike never came, as the
Vindicator had to contend with a pair of
Imperator’s Fist battleships - the
Fist of Impending Vengeance and
Fist of Righteous Comeuppance - coming to the aid of the struggling smaller ships, like a mother bear rushing to her cubs to clout the face off anyone who would dare threaten them. The
Vindicator attempted to break off and run, but a combination of heavy anti-ship missiles, K-bolts and point-blank Atomic Death Rays destroyed its engines and melted its command tower off. Rescue ships were sent to tend to the crippled paleocruisers and assist the other damaged
Patriotic Glories and
Predators. Chamarran Spacewarriors were evacuated from the damaged cruisers and sent to board the debilitated Slaughter Device, and the sounds of brutal close quarters combat rang through the fleet networks, a minor slip had allowed both sides to hear the short and vicious battle for the MEH ship. The crackle of beamfire, cat-hisses and fatman-shrieks, MEHbot circuits popping and soon cries of mercy and surrender. The Mobile Fleet had abandoned it, and all the other wrecked and ruined ships, in their retreat.
Finally, they reached the hyperlimit. They had endured the crucible, battered but not broken, still intact and ready to fight another day. For Admiral Bellatrix Williams and all of those under her command, it was a bitter taste of things to come. They were not defeated, but they had not won either. They had merely survived. Amidst the torrent of grasers, beamcannons and K-bolts, under a rain of missiles and swarming fighters, the Xena Mobile Fleet engaged its hyperdrive and flashed out of Farthing.
BSS Fist of Consummated Retribution
Admiral Nykanor Nikhamov picked the radio microphone up. “Broadcast this on all channels,” he said to the communications officer. The bear signalled that he was on air and Nykanor held the microphone to his mouth, pressed the transmit button and spoke. “Glourious comrades of the inhumanist OMINOUS forces. Today we have won a great victory together. We have driven the hegemonistic human hordes and their chitinous masses from fair Farthing, and saved the innocent peoples of these worlds from mankind’s depravities. Man will rampage through these worlds, spread his poison spores into their atmospheres, and consume their peoples no more!”
In response to this, the other warships of
Kosmoflott Bragotyomkin replied with one, repeating message. ‘URRA!’
Afte the cheers died down, Nykanor continued.
“Yet we have lost comrades here. Our victory today has been paid for with blood, as will our victories in the days to come. And let us remember the suffering the inhabitants of these peaceful worlds have endured under the yoke of humanist oppression, and the reason why we have come to the edge of space to aid them. Let us never forget. Let us never forgive. For on this day, the end of the Multiversal Empire’s reign of terror on Farthing is only the beginning of our great and noble mission. Our work is not yet done. The boot of freedom has many more faces to stomp on, forever. It is not over yet. There will be no escape for them.”
Nykanor finished his speech and sat back on his chair. He sighed. As they say, the OMINOUS had won the battle, but not the war. Not yet, at least. The
Consummated Retribution had dropped anchor over Lepus, along with several other OMINOUS warships to assist in planetary operations. The rest of the fleets had formed up in a defensive position to secure the system from any counter-attack. They had taken the system and now it was theirs, yes, but they had to keep it theirs too.
“Admiral, the overfleets are in position,” a subordinate said, interrupting Nykanor’s train of thought.
“Da. Inform the Eoghans and the Refugees that they can enter the system now,” Nykanor nodded. The Refugees were among the newer additions to the OMINOUS force and were still testing out their coordinative abilities with other navies, so it was decided to give them a relatively low-risk mission, namely escorting the Eoghan troopships that would deliver mongoosoid ground soldiers to the Farthing Worlds. Then, with a wry grin, Nykanor added, “Let’s drop some naval infantry to Lepus too. We might as well let our boys be the first ones there.”
“Da, Admiral. Commando forces already on Lepus report pockets of MEH-machine resistance, requesting for orbital support. Shall we engage?”
“Hmm... nyet.” Nykanor declined, remembering what Battlemistress Sesh discussed with him over dinner several nights ago. Namely that the natives on Farthing might not appreciate indiscriminate nuclear bombardments and the resultant fallout effects, for some reasons unfathomable to him. “Forward the requests to the Chamarrans. Let’s see how the cats do bombardments their way.”
“Da, Admiral.”
As the subordinate went to relay orders, Admiral Nykanor took the moment to muse on some idle things. He had just participated, and commanded, in one of the largest naval engagements involving the Imperial Bragulan Navy in recent years, and soon there would be even larger engagements. With that in mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening back on Bragule. With the bulk of the Space Fleet’s ships in the antispinward, he could not help but worry that some may use this moment to take advantage of Bragule’s altered military disposition...
But Nykanor decided that, as they were halfway across space from Bragule, there was not much they could do if it ever came down to that, and the best thing he could do was to savor the victory they had won here today. He pulled out his pipe and proceeded to smoke leisurely.
"
- PeZook
” concluded another SI, whose defective core was in the shape of a purple cube from beyond. No one sought to understand him, for they knew they would fail.
