Interstellar Age

Erich’s warships protected the frontier, forming a thin line between the settled portions of Germanic Space, and the Naraku invasion. Unlike his peers, the Germanic Navy had done an excellent job of containing the threat. No doubt because of their ability to rapidly identify the Queen Ships and annihilate them.

To put it simply, the Naraku had no real answer to the cannons which the Germanic Dreadnoughts were built around. The moment a Queen died, her entire fleet would turn feral, attacking everything in the vicinity, and it just so happened that the Naraku Fleets were far closer to their allies than their enemies.

It was an excellent strategy. One which the Naraku had not anticipated. But one that Tia and Erich had come up with together. An incredible amount of time had gone into researching what could be used to identify a queenship over its normal counterparts.

And fundamentally, it was not something that could be immediately verified. Rather, the battle had to wage on long enough for the first and second waves of drones to be destroyed before a queen ship revealed itself.

After all the queenship was the sole means of production for new drones. Once a Hiveship lost the drones stationed on board, only the Queen ship could replace them. Not every drone in the fleet had to be eliminated, but enough had to be quelled in order for the discrepancy in reinforcements to be noticed.

Once that happened, the Dreadnought serving within the Germanic Fleet which was countering the Naraku Fleet would target and eliminate the newly identified Queenship. Turning what remained of the Naraku fleet against itself and its allies.

This was a strategy that could only be pulled off in real time by the Germanic Navy, because all ships communicated with one another via a computer network that Tia was in charge of. The allied naval forces could not compete, as they required communication between individuals, which required words to be spoken.

In other words, it simply took up too much time to properly identify a Naraku Queenship for this strategy to be viable for anyone other than the Germanic Star-Empire. Not to mention Erich had not shared the technology for his dreadnoughts and their super weapons to anyone else.

Thus, the Dominion, Federation, Cabal, and Theocracy fleets did not have the one punch KO power that Erich’s fleets did. They would instead have to concentrate the fire of multiple warships on the identified Queenship, which would not only take them longer to eliminate it, but would also make them vulnerable to fire from the other Naraku Hiveships.

It was because of these many factors that the Germanic Navy kept the Naraku fleets which entered their territory away from any habited worlds. Which the same could not be said for the Empire’s allies.

Lunaria was currently on Alfheim, looking over the latest reports from the battlefield. The front lines had retreated from the very boundaries of the galaxy itself, to several hundred Lightyears within her own territory. The furthest worlds within Lunaria’s sphere of influence were simultaneously being invaded by the bugs.

Meanwhile, this was the same for her allies other than Erich. Unfortunately for her, it was not a simple matter of sending marines into the worlds under siege. The Naraku surrounded and blockaded the worlds which they assaulted.

Preventing them from being properly resupply and reinforced from off world. In order to do so, the Alfheim Navy would need to break through these blockades before they had a hope of resupplying and reinforcing the besieged worlds.

Because of this, Lunaria was quick to reach out to Erich, not because she was aware of his success in holding his borders, which she was not. But because she understood that his forces were the most advanced and plentiful in the galaxy. Surely he could spare some men to help her.

She was practically begging the man for assistance while he himself looked at the ongoing battles he was currently waging, almost as if he being dismissive of his wife’s pleas.

“Erich, you must have some men you can spare? You do understand what will happen if my frontier collapses? The Narku will devour all life on the worlds and use that genetic material to replace the losses they have sustained against my forces. This will only bolster their strength for the next attack! Can’t you spare a fleet?”

Erich however was adamant not to send his reserves to aid his allies. In order for his future goals to succeed, they needed to be severely weakened. Sending his forces to aid them when they had not even lost a single world yet was less than ideal. And because of this, he refused, citing falsehoods as he did so.

“I’m sorry Lunaria, I’m barely managing to hold the line as is. If I send even a single fleet to aid you, then my front line will collapse, and I will be maintaining the same position. All I can do is send you more war material to support your efforts to replace your losses. I really wish I could do more….”

The truth of the matter was, half of Erich’s Naval Forces were currently at the frontier of defending against the Naraku. The rest were kept in reserve. Either to give his Fleets some reprieve by swapping them out. Or to simply stand by and protect the core territory of the Empire in the event of an emergency.

It would be no exaggeration to claim that Erich was replacing his losses quicker than his enemy. In fact, he was actively building up his forces with full scale conscription in place, and his current industrial output.

For every warship destroyed, and for its crew along with it. Two more would take its place. After all, the majority of the crew were AUXILIA Class Support Droids. Which could fulfill all the roles of human crewman as well if not better than their human counterparts.

Only the officers were human, and they were resurrected back within the core of the Empire, where they were quickly sent back into the fray. Hell, the academy was churning out more Naval Officers than were actively dying out in combat.

And though their training was rushed, their job requirements had been vastly simplified ever since Tia’s robots began replacing human crews. But nobody knew this other than Erich and the higher-ranking members of his empire.

Because of this, Lunaria could only sigh, and accept the “reality” of her situation.

“Alright, I’ll try to divert forces from my reserves to break through these blockades while I still can. But Erich, promise me, if you gain the ability to do so, please send aid!”

Erich lied through his teeth as he promised to do, as Lunaria requested before ending the call entirely. Everything was going as planned.