Novel Full Chapter 973: A forbidden Zone
Chapter 973: A forbidden Zone
They say when it rains, it pours. That is what the Conclave was experiencing at the moment, as they were now trying to withdraw after losing a quarter of their ships without even realizing what hit them. This made it nearly impossible to avoid what they didn’t see coming, resulting in the order to retreat immediately being given fleet-wide by the next person in the command chain.
He was informed just a few seconds after the joint computer network went through the command structure, verifying whether his superiors were alive or dead before it moved to the next name if they were dead or unavailable. When it reached him, he was given all of the privileges, which he instantly used to call for an immediate retreat, because if things continued as they were, the empire’s pincer attempt would succeed and make retreating even harder.
However, despite the decision being a good one, it was very difficult to bring to reality without additional casualties. They couldn’t enter FTL speed due to the constantly active spatial locks that engaged their second level the moment they tried, forcing them to move at conventional speeds as the Terra Empire’s fleets chased and continued attacking them.
The new temporary admiral tried to search for the spatial anchors in their surroundings, but their sensors showed nothing but asteroids, icy meteors, and all other things that would be found in such an area. The empire had perfectly made the anchors match their surroundings in every aspect, even their cosmic signature. All the Conclave could do was attack the nearby asteroids randomly, trying to get lucky, but also as a means to vent their frustration. Meanwhile, their remaining firepower fired back at the chasing imperial fleets, which they had no ability to avoid.
Being limited to a sub-light speed retreat, it was going to take them ten months of constant travel at near-light speed to reach the edges of the Oort cloud, meaning it was no different than a slow, methodical, and example-making slaughter. More imperial fleets started arriving, as they were not constrained by the sub-light speed restriction that was being activated around the retreating Conclave fleet.
With each minute that passed, the amount of imperial firepower in the surroundings increased while the number of Conclave fleet ships continued to decrease. The empire now fired using only basic attacks, no longer using the exotic invisible weapon, both to save it for important battles and to make a very long and painful message to the Conclave as they watched their fleet being mauled, with no intention of letting anyone get away.
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Laser ablation, that is what would have gone through the mind of a National Ignition Facility researcher had they seen this before the formation of the empire. The live footage of what was happening in the Oort clouds left those in the Conclave Central Command speechless, although they were not researchers.
At the moment, in front of them, they were witnessing the imperial fleets having completed forming a ball-shaped pattern with the Conclave fleet at the center, now being illuminated by the constant staggered laser attacks fired by the imperial ships. They were overpowering and returning any attack that was being used by the Conclave fleet as they attempted to fight to the last man because the empire was not taking hostages.
However, no matter how cool and inspiring it looked, the empire went as far as to allow the remaining Shadari missiles to destroy some of its ships just to continue dealing damage. The ships that were destroyed by the missiles continued concentrating their attacks on the fleet, not redirecting a single bullet, laser beam, or anything else to try and destroy the Shadari missiles before they were destroyed. The rain of fire being fired at the Conclave fleet meant anything fired by them would be indirectly destroyed, resulting in only the Shadari missiles getting through that carnage, and they were few in number.
Half an hour. That is all it took for the first face-off to come to an end with a total and complete Terra Empire win, having killed and destroyed everything that the Conclave fleet had brought to the fight, turning all of them into additional pieces among the more than one trillion objects in the Oort cloud.
But that was not all the empire was doing. They had also practically forced all of the fleets that were inside the Oort cloud out of FTL, letting them attempt to escape at sub-light speeds. This would take them more than a month of travel, if not more, depending on how deep inside the Oort clouds they were when the anchors activated, acting as a mud swamp and leaving them as sitting ducks, making it clear that they were next and there was nothing they could do.
BAM!!!!! Someone slammed his hand on the table before he shouted, “We need to find a way to deal with those things stopping the wormholes from opening, or we will have all of our fleets massacred!” A civilization’s leader shouted in anger, not wanting his fleet to be useless sacrifices.
Casualties were expected, but seeing your fleet heading towards what is an assured destruction and not doing anything is nothing but foolishness and weakening yourself.
When the war is over, someone is going to take advantage of their weakening, and he wanted to make sure that person was not him or his civilization’s fleets. He was forgetting that the moment they took action, the control of half of his civilizations and everyone else’s fleets was directly handed over to the Conclave Central Command until the war ended or the time limit was reached, and the control renewal voting failed.
But it didn’t matter, as that was also what was going through the minds of many of the weaker civilizations’ leaders, as they knew their fleets would be easier to deal with than even the one the empire just annihilated in half an hour, making them the ideal first targets for the now-swamped ships in the Oort clouds.
“There is no need to shout when we can discuss it calmly,” the Zelvora leader said, sounding calm, but his face showed the opposite. He was the strongest vocal supporter of the empire before they were forced into this war, and now it looked like they were going to have to sacrifice more than initially expected, making it difficult for him to stomach. The stronger the enemy is, the more the top ten fleets are going to be put to use, which in turn also means greater damage falling on them.
“But I agree with that. We either need to come up with a countermeasure or we need to do something to rescue our stranded fleets. We can’t let them remain in there and be sitting ducks as the empire plucks them one by one.”
No one argued against trying to deal with the Spatial anchors that were the largest problem for them and the strongest weapons for the empire. They only differed in which actions to take, but the consensus at the moment was that the Oort cloud was now a forbidden zone for the free fleets, and all the fleets that were in it were considered stranded, so long as they didn’t come up with a way to destroy the anchors and allow their fleets to escape.
The war had just started, but the empire had already taken the upper hand, which for them was totally unexpected.