OPERATION QISET3386 AM hibernation cycleEveryone on Genesis and Yatune awaited the return of explorers, but it happening after five hibernation cycles after their departure was at least strange given their closest target was over eleven light hibernation cycles away. And on top of that them returning with more ships than they left with. It didn't take too long to identify what emerged from suddenly warping space. Umbaras arrived once again, more numerous than ever. And with the experienced crew retired, it was now up to a new generation to defend Qi from yet another invasion.
Still not fully recovered after hibernation, filled with fear and clear orders, the new crew on the old ships accelerated away from Genesis, flying towards their destiny. Standard tactics followed: intercept enemies, trap them in gravitational well, circle around them while firing everything that can be fired until no Umbara is left alive. First part of the plan worked as expected: gravitational disturbance threw enemies slightly off-course and Groaxians completed their first run around their fleet, swarming them with magnet-accelerated metallic slugs piercing deep inside their armors:
Gravitational waves kept splashing over enemy hulls and fighting Groaxians almost heard the sound of stretched metal in their minds, sensing an easy yet, as always, mentally-expensive victory, but the battle they thought was about to end, was only picking up pace. Apart of the rest of their ships that haven't joined the fight yet heading towards Genesis and Yatune simultaneously, something more unexpected happened. Out of the blue, space around Conglomerate Defense Fleet undulated and rippled, putting an intense strain on every ship as a huge Umbara reinforcements arrived in the system right on top of the defenders. They warped in so close for a brief moment some bright dots marking their movement could've been watched with a naked eye as they dropped from relativistic speeds. Unwillingly utilising this sudden change of local space geometry, Groaxian starships have been sent spinning in random directions, abandoning previously maintained formation. Mass hysteria erupted on boards, fortunately with enough cool-minded individuals to run diagnostic checks and recalculate thrust and engine power requirements to get out of this unfavourable situation.
But the true horror was yet to happen. Contributing to the damage from extreme G-force artificial gravity fields barely managed to offset, thanks to which all the Groaxians haven't been turned into mashed flesh, enemy opened fire with a previously unknown weapon type. Its effects were terrifying: nobody could see a shot, nobody could hear the shot impacting across the hull, nobody knew anything when suddenly head-sized holes appeared all over one of Lensia-class destroyers. Every single one of them looked as if an invisible missile punched right through the armor and had still enough kinetic energy to pierce its way out of the ship. Those unlucky enough to find themselves on their trajectory had large parts of their internal organs crushed and blown out of their bodies a moment before being thrown at the nearest wall. From the ouside the ship began disappearing in a purple cloud expressing terror and suffering while Groaxians inside struggled with communication as all their speaking gasses were escaping together with the air into space. All this lasted a few blinks of an eye until the entire ship fell apart, but not with a bang, but rather with cold metal cracking under the gravity and invisible fire.
Officers carried on their orders, there was no time to cry and no time to run away as the heart of Groaxian civilisation was at stake. Remaining Syzygies, controlled by the fleet admiral from the board of last surviving Lensia destroyer, all pushed outside the leftovers from Curvature Propulsion usage and regrouped into a wide, but solid formation, ready to continue blowing Umbaras out of the void. Ironically, not having fully shaken off the numbness from hibernation helped maintain the order among survivors, because they were still not fully aware of what just happened. Under clear command Groaxians still stood a chance, having gained a bit of a distance from enemies and preparing to respond with fire.
But the enemy was faster and their new weapons, whatever they were, kept on firing. A new wave of panic exploded when a supernova fused in place where just a moment ago last surviving destroyer was supposed to exist. One unlucky hit in the reactor was all it took. Having lost central leadership, Conglomerate Defense Fleet lost its recently recovered momentum. But little did the remaining crews know at that time that the admiral survived the blast. Maintaining the speed of the now-gone spaceship, he kept on drifting in space, sending a distress signal similarily to the few other survivors. And that signal has been received. A young, ambitious officer on the closest Syzygy took almost no time figuring out the entire battle depends on whether the leadership can be restored. But picking up a Groaxian-sized object flying at a space-tier velocity while under Umbara fire was hard to even say, let alone actually do. At least thanks to the signal cybersoul mainframes were able to display predicted flight of the target. They were able to prepare instructions saying which engine to fire and when to close in enough to reach the admiral and match the speed to prevent overshooting, but the key issue lied in the fact that even slight error in calculations could have disastrous consequences. Even an error so small it was placed within the error range specified by cybersoul readers responsible for this design.
Having no better option, that one Syzygy broke the formation and set for a rescue mission while the rest of the fleet was expected to accelerate as much as possible towards the enemy to cover the critically important ship. The only problem remaining was that the engines weren't powerful enough to gain speed as quickly as needed and proposed experimental usage of Curvature Propulsion was rejected as warping space right in the current position could likely kill admiral and other survivors drifting outside of the relative safety of a spaceship. Not being able to pick up pace in time, the plan failed and first invisible shots dented through the hull of a few Syzygies, including the rescue one. While not enough to outright destroy it, it was enough to slightly affect the trajectory and this tiny influence was what caused the ship to miss the survivors. Turning away was not an option because the fire went on so the manoeuvre requiring the ship to come full stop for a moment was out of the question. Rest of the fleet couldn't perform the rescue either, because their engines have been fired for a while already, giving them too much of a velocity to turn away before closing in to the enemy and retaliating.
New plan assumed main fleet firing at the enemy until it stops shooting at "rescuing Syzygy" and as such gives it a chance to turn around and attempt admiral pickup once again, but suddenly every ship received an unexpected message from the latter. Turned out in the meantime he redirected additional power from his space suit to the emergency communication endpoint, cutting on life support but allowing extensive communication with the rest of the fleet. All the officers assumed he was in charge again, having their minds cooled down a bit. All Syzygies maintained formation and flew over the enemy at insane speed, firing as they passed their ships. In the meantime it was determined that the new gun of the Umbaras excelled at precise strikes, so continuing to fly in one coherent formation was no longer an option. According to the new tactics, all ships were supposed to turn away and face the enemy once again, but start decelerating and accelerating at different intervals to break from the formation and each crew had to approach their foes at slightly different angle. The plan was executed flawlessly and soon surviving Groaxians looked around their enemies like a swarm of Daelmis flying over Thoania, searching for prey. The amount of hits scored by Umbara spacecraft dropped significantly while they ineffectively tried to focus on the most threatening target, which changed every Groaxian turnaround. No Syzygy has been lost till the end of a firefight.
However, Conglomerate Defense Fleet couldn't be everywhere. When it caught up to the enemies approaching Yatune, armies of Umbara had already been landing all over several key cities on the planet.
But this time Qusmont (and every other city) was prepared. Arrays of underground connections between rebuilt section of Humanity's legacy were filled with outposts ready to suddenly start firing from the most unexpected spot. Rebuilt, and with even expanded infrastructure for more Groaxian comfort, skygazers shined brightly in the blue skies of Yatune, garrisoning several squads of Conglomerate Guard each and mobile barricades positioned around them. Habitats hosting most of the planetary population also came with upgraded walls, meant to protect not only from toxic environment, but also from someone intentionally attempting to destroy them. First Umbaras landed only to perish in a concentrated plasma fire from multiple directions. Their blood splattered all over the grass as they died one by one, struggling to locate Groaxian fireteams. Cannoniers fired from the top levels of skygazers, shaking the ground all around landing pods. But the thing is, they kept on landing. More troops poured from them, too many to kill all before giving them a chance to return fire. The bold move to enclose landing spots with mobile barricades failed as the mental cooling mobile defense platforms were too slow to reach all the places in time. In a few instances they still managed to occupy nearby hills, burning invaders with heavy laser fire.
Just like in the battle taking place well above Yatune's atmosphere before the invasion, what looked like a relatively easy task got massively complicated when Umbaras deployed something yet unseen: something that looked like a miniaturized version of their ships, except it did not fly, but could walk or glide on the ground instead. And it came equipped with guns. Lots of guns. Big guns.
First fusion missile missed the target, but the second one exploded right on top of one of the skygazers, while the third cut it in half, making the entire tall building collapse, burying every soldier fighting there together with itself. Pulse laser fire kept sweeping across nearby infrastructure, blowing up building after building. Catched by surprise, but combat-ready and willing to defend Yatune at all cost, Conglomerate Guards briefly regrouped across all fronts and focused fire on the new enemies. Some of the barricades set near landing spots could not oppose the sheer firepower of these metallic beasts, with few surviving vehicles escaping at full speed, but some survived for long enough to get Guardian fireteams to move into place to support their efforts against machine-reinforced Umbaras. A bunch of others abandoned their formations and started circling around enemies, utilising nearby hills and forests as cover, discovering their "miniature spaceships" were less maneouverable, but could glide faster than defense platforms could drive. This information has proven crucial in for one of the barricades, because by the time Umbaras attempted to glide over it, hammering every Groaxian involved in the ground, the barricade was no longer a barricade one could run over, having transformed into an irregular groups of vehicles circling around and firing away. On top of that each individual enemy vehicle was not that sturdy as it appeared, making it a hard-hitter, but also rather easy to blow up with concentrated laser or kinetic artillery fire.
It appeared that the Conglomerate Guard had this intense battle under control, but all changed when an entire squadron of enemy combat vehicles gathered at the outskirts of Praafshire and started gliding towards the habitats while firing their fusion missiles at one arbitrary spot in the structural shell. Additional squads were redirected to pick them all off before they could cause any significant damage to the city, but it was too late. A total of twenty tanks smashed against the already heavily damaged wall, ripping an enormous hole through it. Concentration of methane in that district started dwindling while the air slowly filled with oxygen. Barricade quickly erected as an inside defense line did not held for long, either, being completely overrun. Through the opening Umbara infantry started pouring like liquid water out of Groaxian awakening from hibernation, bringing death and destruction. Conglomerate Guard Grand Master responsible for Yatune's defense hesitated when asked by officers about redirecting some of the forces to Praafshire, afraid this will give Umbaras an upper hand on the other fronts, too. But before the emerging discussion ended, first reports of civilian casualties and oxygen finding its way to the air filtering systems came in, which quickly ended the debate with approval of sending a contingent of best Guards from Qusmont to help stabilise the frontline and push the enemy back.
Main focus was obviously to destroy the machines gliding through the city and its inhabitants. Enough laser and kinetic fire would do the job, but the time required to bring them all down was unacceptable. A faster solution was needed if Praafshire was to see another solar watch. And to achieve that officers commanding the elite forces decided to utilise the properties of methane. Having air circulation systems already switched off to prevent the spread of oxygen, soldiers were able to collect enough methane and pump it all into the section which seemed to be the next target of the enemy. Its internal walls survived first few fusion missiles, but to the distress of fighting Groaxians, they were less durable than initially calculated. If the enemy would succeed at shooting them down before coming close, then all the methane gathered would explode preemptively without taking the enemies out. There was no choice and no time to waste. The bravest among the defenders received an order to shift the enemy's focus at themselves. Everyone understood what that meant. But an order was an order. The chosen ones were chosen for a good reason, after all. Before fusion missiles killed most of them, many succeeded at entering combat trance and they took out many Umbara's foot troops in a brutal plasma firefight. And these few missiles that were fired at them and not at the trap's wall was all it took to make the crucial difference. Umbaras glided through it with full force, opening fire at next sections of the city. A wall of flames erupted all around them, reinforced by crossfire from supporting Groaxian units. Umbara offensive broke down and surviving Conglomerate Guardians drove their opponents well outside Praafshire's perimeter.
Loss of the battle of Praafshire was a beginning of an end for the second Yatune invasion. Groaxians mounted a powerful counterattack at the weakened enemy positions, splitting their frontiline in two, which reasulted in total disaster and breakdown of Umbara formations. Rest of the fronts soon followed. Umbaras still weren't able to take control over Yatune. In the meantime, high above the skies, out there in interplanetary space, Syzygies destroyed the invasion fleet heading towards Genesis before it could unload its army. All that was left was the last squadron of enemies, so far staying far in the outskirts of the system.
Encouraged by the battle turning in their favour, space warriors tasked with protecting the civilisation from Dark Forest approached the few remaining ships burning every last atom of excess fuel to gain as much speed as possible before the battle would begin. This was to compensate for the fact that with the destruction of all Lensias, the option to gain higher relative velocity as a result of slowing enemies down with precise gravitational strikes no longer existed. Encountered ships were also armed with the scary invisible weapon, but there were simply too few of them to cause any significant damage. Trying to decrease relative velocity, Umbaras attempted to fly away from Syzygies, but Conglomerate Defense Fleet was able to pick them off one by one without much problems while maintaining steady course behind them.
A short firefight later Syzygies emerged victorious with only a few additional holes in their armors. Qi was about to set behind main Conglomerate HQ. Despite victory and total annihilation of the enemy, nobody at the HQ was in a mood for even taking a short break despite staying restless for the past few solar watches. And it was precisely thanks to the "total annihilation" part. "What a price have we paid in this battle" and "what have we become" were the two questions nobody had to ask out loud yet probably everyone would still think about at the same time even if not for the Transcedent Speech.
