BATTLE OF ALL COSMIC FRONTS3531-3547 AM hibernation cyclesGroaxian invasion forces had departed from Qi shortly after the decision. Human Space Fleet was sent first, a bit earlier than Ascension Pathfinders, just to stay on the safe side in case of Achernar reinforcements likely being called back to Tizona through the hibernation cycles that had passed since the last siege. The plan was simple: Vaccines and Dargonbreaths would scout ahead and clear any space forces remaining and a bit later Ascension Pathfinders would catch up and deploy troops on the surface of Tizona III with air support from Avengers and even orbital support of Human Space Fleet if really needed.
But what was simple in theory escalated rather quickly. Not expecting any significant resistance, Groaxians simply flew straight towards Tizona through the shortest possible path, predicting disengaging Curvature Propulsion Systems at the same coords as the last time, just to get towards the targeted planet the quickest way possible. And that was a big mistake, because not only had the Achernar called for reinforcements and not only had they arrived on time, but they placed a monitoring group right at where Groaxian fleet was spotted warping in to the system previous time, so the moment interstellar navigation systems deactivated interstellar propulsion radically shifting vision from the red-blue variants towards standard spectrum, Achernar ships were already awaiting the assault force with weapons charged. There were only five of them and only one displayed the capaibility to fire particle beams, but by concentrating their firepower they severely shredded the armor of a Vaccine and near-lightspeed particles scored hits in several critical systems, namely conventional engines, Curvature Propulsion System, cybersoul targeting mainframe and a few Soulgrain Singularity Curvature Fluctuators. Without all these systems, the unlucky ship was unable to fight and unable to flee.
The crew of the damaged Vaccine was occupied by patching holes in the ignition chamber. Thanks to the conventional engines being off because of maintaining a constant conventional speed while encircled by a warp bubble those who didn't die directly from the shots were still alive and there was still something to patch, but the ship wasn't going to fly anywhere soon, besides the conventional speed it had already maintained and a small rotational velocity gained after the impacts, that is. Rest of the fleet was able to rotate against the enemies and fire conventional engines with all their might until sitting at a comfortable distance to blast the enemy into pieces and then blast the pieces too, but the half-destroyed Vaccine was still a problem. Despite of initial misfortune, luck ended up on Groaxian side: because of the sheer advantage Human Space Fleet had over Achernar defenders, the latter fired their engines only a moment after Groaxians to get away from them. Because of that, the problematic Vaccine was left to its own devices, with the next volley still being way more than capable of screwing it over, but the distance from the enemies increased nevertheless. To discourage the enemy from attempting to finish off the starship, rest of the functional vessels turned around (rather rapidly since no significant speed had been gained yet) and began chasing the enemy, disrupting its cruise with micro black hole local gravity anomalies and rapid space curvature fluctuations. Gravitational weapons disrupted only three enemies, though, because two outright did not survive direct contact with weapons beyond their understanding and defensive systems:
Antiparticles were only required to finish off the monitoring squadron, leaving clear space ahead and five new wrecks. Fleet admiral decided to turn back towards stranded Vaccine and guard it while it would undergo field repairs restoring its maneouvrability and combat status. There wasn't much left to do anyways, because Ascension Pathfinders were expected to drop from lightspeed cruise at least half solar watch later, even from their perspective it must have felt like a tiny fraction of a tick.
But as the fleet of Starhunters and Ravens was about to emerge in Tizona, officers on the starships took notice of something registered by warp bubble interference monitoring systems. Something that shouldn't be there. Something Vaccines and Dragonbreaths had missed and Ravens would miss too, but not Starhunters, because due to their size Curvature Propulsion Systems were big enough to cause interference with space at which the thing was located. Stopping somewhere in interstellar space short of Tizona to meet an unknown entity wasn't strictly what Groaxians on boards wanted to do, but it was the only way to avoid potentially lethal interference and matter of the entity getting within warp bubble and getting compressed to plasma splashing against the hulls or something different, but equally threatening. And so Ascension Pathfinders were left stranded somewhere in darkness only to see an Achernar fleet of respectable size, detectable only thanks to the minimal gravitational influence it had over the fabric of space as the ships looked completely dead.
Groaxians expected to get blasted long before they would be able to gain safe distance and turn Curvature Propulsion Systems back on, but nothing happened. Achernar just stayed where they were and no shots had been fired. Not willing to risk, Ascension Pathfinders crossed the last bits of distance separating them from Tizona in a hurry, but the encounter was so unique that Human Space Fleet prepared a jump to the saved coordinates of the enemy, wondering whether they would still be there by the time Groaxians would reach them again. And they were.
Approaching it just like any other battle, Groaxian weapons blazed across the void, nullifying many of Achernar starships, but they all refused to move or fire at all. Seeing this odd behaviour, cease fire order was given and a risky boarding attempt performed. But all the precautions were unnecessary - the ships had stayed at their position for nobody knew for sure how long, dead and deactivated. Engines were non-functional, there was no fuel of any sort, life support systems were dead and no traces of oxygen had been left and the biomass emergency support chambers were all full of bodies of Tempestsaurs Of Achernar who never woke up before nutrition and oxygen recycling systems as well as power went out. A large fleet of derelict shells that would never fly again existed there, frozen in time and frozen in space. They all must have been very old not only because of their technical status, but also because a brief examination revealed their interiors were of a different design than the ships encountered during the War of a Different Time or even, at least according to some speculations based on demonstrated capabilities, Endpoint War. They had some primitive Curvature Propulsion Systems (or at least they appeared primitive based on the few non-fried parts left), but not even broadcasting devices utilising gravitational waves, let alone something more sophisticated.
And yet somehow database backups still contained readable entries in them. All electronic data had long been corrupted thanks to the long-lasting power shortage and overall decays, but the backups themselves, not based on electrical signals, but carefully assembled out of materials and patterns that would yeld decipherable messages in Achernar language when looked at via full spectrum scanners, were still usable and contained some interesting information. According to them, it was a virgin interstellar flight for the Achernar, but they had already knew about Dark Forest already. But soon after leaving Tizona, something went wrong. Based on the reports, a strange object entered their warp bubble, but it did not behave how it was expected. Suddenly space collapsed on the expedition and all stars moved around, engraving weird patters on the sky. Everything, as Achernar described it, turned "upside down" for a brief moment, then came some flashes and strange optical illusions and eventually the object disappeared, leaving stranded fleet with no power and broken everything that could ever break on board. Groaxians exploring their story couldn't do much besides wondering about the likehood of first Achernar explorers coming into contact with some bizarre technology wielded by Dark Forest Lords, perhaps another doomsday device, perhaps something else entirely.
As Human Space Fleet was about to return from its investigation, its refueling detachment, left behind since it was nothing but an uneccessary risk to take it to the possibly dangerous point of curiosity, got into a very tense situation when space around it began shfting and warping at a few different locations, spitting Achernar vessels shortly after. Maybe it was intentional, but their interstellar sync module or something similar was likely to have failed as the squadron appeared completely desynchronized and scattered around.
While heavily spread vessels were out of firing range, at least firing range observed by the soldiers fighitng in the War of a Different Time so far, one from the arriving reinforcements had landed right on top of the defenseless tankers. With Curvature Propulsion Systems not prepared for a quick getaway, following seconds were likely to end really badly for the surrounded squadron. However, the leader of the support attachement for Human Space Fleet was a creative middleman, even more than the average one even though creativity in extraordinary situations had been associated with them as their geneder trait since forever. The middleman was well-aware that truth to be told, seemingly unarmed ships all had a source of ultiamte devastation stored within them - antimatter. After a few moments of rapid acceleration, boosted by reducing weight via dumping some fusion fuel supply for the greater good of surviving the deadly trap, engines were partially turned off. Or rather not turned off in a classic meaning of this term, but rather the matter inputs of some of the annihilation chambers were shut down so that only antimatter would enter it and thus no reaction would occur. Later, overriding all automatic protocols and bypassing whatever safet checks were there to bypass, engineers from the engine control rooms forcefully opened the magnetic nozzles connected to the partially closed annihilation chambers, the ones from which during standard usage generated energy would radiate generating thrust. But that time there was no energy, only antiparticles, freed from their magentic traps and exposed to the vacuum. But since only some engines were shut and thus all Gragzeans still accelerated, dropped antiparticles had lower velocity than the already increased velocity of the ship that left them behind, effectively creating a deadly trail of antimatter behind the escaping ships.
The enemy right on top of the fleet apparently didn't expect such sudden and rapid acceleration from the Groaxians, so before it was ready to fire, refueling fleet was already beyond the effective targeting range of its kinetic weapons, so it tried to follow. But it didn't take long before its hull touched the stray antimatter left by Groaxians alongside its predicted path, the only path they expected it would follow to simply get closer to the "unarmed" vessels. Unfortunately, the antimatter charge was only good enough to blast several holes in the pursuer, but not outright destroy it. Still, it damaged its engines so it was no longer able to generate enough thrust for continuing the chase and other ships were way too far to catch up to Groaxians, by then utilising all of their engines again and not leaving any antimatter behind. Fortunately for them, it didn't take long from that moment for the Human Space Fleet to get back to the outer edges of Tizona and chase the hostile squadron down, easily evaportating it in the hail of antimatter explosions and gravitational anomalies. Commander of the tanker squadron would later receive a personal reward from the Conglomerate itself for the valiant effort of standing against the enemy and all odds.
But at the same time, light hibernation cycles away from the heat of battle, Genesian deep space monitors raised an alarm when a fleet of Achernar appeared over the system. Decades had passed since the last encounter around Groaxian homeworld and yet here they were, boldly warping into the core system. With main forces thrown far away at alien worlds, Conglomerate sent Pikes and Strikers forming the Human Space Fleet of old to battle, hoping particle beams and Phased Curvature Disruption Systems coming from legacy designs would be enough to hold against the unexpected raid. Human Space Fleet quickly raised above Genesian skies and hurried to meet their foes allowing itself to burn excessive fuel just to intercept the enemy as far from any of the three planets as possible, not needing to worry about getting stranded too much as long as they kept enough to slow down to speeds allowing reasonable rescue. But their excessive velocity is what casued the first issue as the old cybersoul mainframes were responsible for a critical error in range calculations, causing Groaxian ships to almost ram into the enemies as the latter pounded at them with kinetic fire.
While armor damage taken was severe, at least Groaxians could be relieved to see no particle beams of the enemy. Proceeding to slow down a bit while rotating to "dive below" the enemy, they opened fire. While first particle beams pierced through Achernar spacecraft without any issue, Phased Curvature Disruption Systems were used to affect the shape of space around the taken flight trajectory, allowing pilots to easily use it as a slingshot to push the ships with full force at the Achernar who, in the meantime, attempted to gain velocity in the opposite direction to Groaxians. Still, they had no chance against superior technology (still superior despite being very outdated for Groaxian standards) and soon both fleets flew alongisde each other, exchanging fire but with Groaxians dodging the vast majority of the metallic missiles launched at them. At some point enemies attempted to engage interstellar propulsion, but gravitational weapons of Pikes were just enough to counter any space warp they attempted, forcing them to stay within the firing range of Human Space Fleet, leaving them all to perish under superior firepower.
But the unexpected Qi raid wasn't all Achernar had prepared. Another fleet, divided into two squadrons, was spotted by the extensive network of space monitoring drones in Blutgang. Unfortunately for Achernar, by the time of their arrival Executor had been finishing its patrolling tour around the system and it was the perfect occassion to unleash its power and bring the apocalypse towards whoever who dared to disturb the safety of Blutgang inhabitants. And if Groaxians themselves trembled in fear and their brain temperature rose each time they thought about the mighty dreadnought, then Tempestsaurs Of Achernar should already be on the run even before stopping at the system. Not that it would help them. Their end was destined the moment they even thought about entering Blutgang for another time.
For the opening volley the Executor was still too far to count on phasing antimatter bombs directly into interiors of enemy ships, but Soulgrain HyperDisintegrators were perfectly usable. These weapons made no sound Executor's crew could hear and no visual trace said crew could watch. The moment of firing was indistinguishable from the moment of not firing. The only thing that happened was a single flash coming roughly from the Achernar fleet's bearing and sensor arrays informed about losing track of one of the target. It didn't look like a photonic missile hitting a star or a black hole ripping chunks of rock until the entire planet would fall apart, but that's probably what was so terrifying about this weapon. No indicator beyond logs from sophisticated instruments used for measuring parameters of the fabric of space itself, yet targets were surgically removed from the plane reality each time it fired.
What followed after was a pure sluaghter. Propelled to ridiculous speeds, Executor came on top of the enemies, not giving a damn about kinetic missiles and particle beams losing all their kinetic energy in contact with powerful energy shields, used its antigravity flight assistant to rapidly lose much of its speed to align with the hapless Achernar and opened fire with all it got (except Black Hole Generator for obvious reasons). Ships suddenly blowing up for no visible reason as pockets of energy freed from the antimatter after touching matter suddenly appeared in the middle of Achernar engine and other ships magically disappearing as if a powerful entity beyond the common understanding decided to remove all their traces from the universe as if they never had came into existence in the first place was a terrifying performance watched by Groaxians in awe and terror until the deed was done and both Squadrons of Achernar fleet were no more.
Light hibernation cycles away the main battle still raged, too. With Ascension Pathfinders heading directly towards Tizona III, Human Space Fleet turned at Tizona II, because telescopes were able to identify dozens of targets steadily raising above the planet's atmosphere.
Having counted dozens of enemy starships, Groaxians had only one way to be sure they would not overwhelm their forces that might possibly have troubles destroying all of them in time. And so before they could get out of the gravity well of their planet, a powerful anomaly created by Soulgrain Singularity Curvature Fluctuators echoed across the space, with the gravity of unstable micro black holes causing all the ships to not have enough thrust to ovecrome the planet's gravity anymore and collapse on the ground. Groaxians watched as one after the other the starships smashed against the surface with energy so high it turned them into weapons of mass destruction and that alone was still nothing compared to the disturbances created gravitational anomaly caused, shattering large portions of the world below, with earthquakes on an unprecedenced scale and storms a nasty gas giant wouldn't be ashamed of.
And yet the way these weapons were tagrted allowed the planet below to survive. And surprisingly, most of Achernar population survived, too, simply because there weren't many Achernar living on the surface in the first place. Similar population density was detected on Tizona III, too, so the final conclusion was that in the entire system there were very little Tempestsaurs Of Achernar even before Groaxian arrival. This could very well mean War of a Different Time was way further from being over than anticipated, with Achernar fleeing towards a new home of theirs en masse, escaping Tizona both before Groaxian invasion and the inevitably incoming Dark Forest Strike. But even if that was really the case, Groaxians hoped to get the coordinates of this supposed new home straight out of heads of captured battle survivors and whatever they could get access to once on the surface of Tizona III.
And so after the fierce, multi-stage space battle path to Tizona III lied open and the invasion could proceed according to the plan. But questions about the future of Groaxians remained unanswered.
