Chapter 23 : Mother System 2
After the holographic screen disappeared, I saw the 3rd Legion ships move toward the 5th Legion and prepare to jump into the mother system.
"Gladia, état ?"
[All systems green. All weapons ready. Shield charged. Engines on-wait.]
"Alright, prepare our interceptors and activate the stealth system. We will jump once ready. Randomize our jump coordinates so we don't get intercepted."
A drone operator in the command room made his report after Gladia's.
"All units are on position. Ready to warp jump."
"Good. Gladia, initiate the jump.
It is now time for us to be on the offensive."
Once everything was ready, Gladia activated the warp jump. The space around the ship distorted, everything went black and after only a few seconds it went back to normal, except that we were now in the mother system and the whole view outside the windows completely changed.
We ended up at a good distance from the two Void legions, and the moment we went out of the warp space our sensors immediately detected an important Scylla fleet rushing straight at them.
"Gladia, did we get spotted ?"
[Not yet. Our camouflage is still active, the enemy don't seem to have noticed us.]
While the Singularity dimension looked almost the same as our home galaxy except for the reddish tint in the outer space due to the Singularity energy, the mother system was different.
There were no planets, suns or any other stellar objects but only the Scyllas' mega-structures floating in space ; they were a kind of heavily-armed artificial moons. The outer space was crimson red, as if we were inside the fog of my Red Mist skill.
I directly opened the map to see everything our sensors could detect. It seemed that the Scyllas had more than a hundred mega-structures placed in a circle around an unknown object.
"Gladia, do you know what this is ?"
I pointed my finger at the unknown object on the map, right in the center of the Scylla defensive formation.
[I don't, our sensor detected something but they were unable to identify it. Its size seems to be almost the same as a dwarf star.]
"I see…what about those mega-structures ? Do we have enough firepower to destroy them ?"
[We do, but I would recommend you to avoid fighting them head-on, if possible. They are all heavily armored and equipped with powerful anti-spaceship armaments.]
"Hm… to reach the center of the Scyllas formation, we have two choices.
We can either join the Legions from the start, fight with them by supporting their ships with our interceptors and use the Legions' ships as a shield to penetrate further inside the Mother System.
Or we could go for the furtive way and try to bypass those mega-structures detections."
I thought for a moment, before asking my subordinates.
"What do you guys think about it? Both plans are good, but both have different risks.
If we join the fight now, we might get focused by the Scyllas ships once they see us in the battle formation. This is what happened during the previous battle ; we had to defend against sustained fire from multiple destroyers until our shields were almost depleted.
On the other hand, if we try to infiltrate their formation but we get detected, we won't have any support and we'll be on our own."
Alpha Zero, who was now staying in my shadow, answered first.
'I. Follow. Your. Orders. Master. No. Matter. What. They. Might. Be.'
The boundless loyalty of the reapers always surprised me.
When I asked about it to Alpha Zero, he told me that when they got created, they received a single and inviolable order from the ancient beings before entering their cryo capsules : to follow the one who will awake them, no matter who he might be as long as he is not a native from the Singularity.
That is why Alpha Zero and the whole army present on the flagship were so loyal and obedient to me since the very first day I freed them from their slumber.
Alice, who was standing next to my seat said.
"I will follow any of your orders, Leader. But..."
Seeing Alice hesitating, I told her.
"You can speak freely Alice."
"I think going the stealthily way is a better choice. We might be able to sabotage some of their structures and hide before they can find us. We are good at hit&run tactics, this is what we do the best."
Douglas also gave his opinion.
"Leader, I think we should join the fight with the Void legions, use their firepower to pierce the scyllas defense and advance further into the mother system. We have a lot of interceptors and our ship has a lot of firepower on its own, we could be a decisive factor for the next battles."
As I expected, they both preferred to fight their own way. While Alice liked the covert ops missions, Douglas was more straightforward and preferred to use our flagship firepower.
"I see. I've already made a plan to severely hurt the Scyllas leaders once we reach them. After the analysis we did on the Templar clone that Alpha Zero brought back, we found a way to bypass these clones' defenses and destroy their soul-stones.
However, we first need to reach them and from what I see they only sent their rifters and a few low-ranked scyllas to fight against the legions.
I don't know what they are preparing, but if it is important enough so their leaders have to stay back and not join the fight, we can't let them end."
I got up from my seat, and gave my orders to Gladia and the operator drones in the control room.
"Redirect all the power to our engines and camouflage modules, reduce our energetic signature as much as you can and activate the cloaking system to its maximum output. We are going through their perimeter. If we get found out, immediately send out interceptors and be ready to switch to battle-mode."
After giving my orders, I turned back to Alice and Douglas and told them to prepare.
"We will enter their defensive perimeter and you two will lead the platoons who will be teleported to those mega structures. Our goal is to provoke enough mayhem inside their lines to force their attention on us.
If they spread their ships and send a fleet to chase us, it will thin out their main battle group and make it easier for the Legions to advance.
Once we achieved our initial goal, we will progress alongside the Void legions. This is the best way for us to arrive at the center of the system unscathed, while still progressing fast enough to reach the core of the mother system before the Scyllas finish what they are doing."
"Roger."
"Roger."
Both rifters nodded, and left the control room to prepare their platoons for combat.
Once everyone received their orders, we started moving.
"Gladia, go !"
The Lance of Kar-goth became progressively invisible, and plunged into the red fog of the Singularity's Mother System.
___
"What do you think about the Void heretics' invasion, brother ?"
"This is only a desperate try, they are struggling for their lives. Once we destroy their fleet and our Revered Mother wakes up, the Void will be ours."
Two scyllas in their Templar form were patrolling the headquarters of a mega-structure.
They were casually talking together while patrolling a building that seemed to be the headquarters.
Being far from the front-line where their main fleet was fighting the two Legions that managed to reach the mother system, these scyllas were relaxed and could do nothing but wait for the good news.
After conducting their routine patrol and checking all the rifters in their sector, they decided to return to the command room to report to their leader.
"Why do we have to patrol on foot when we haven't detected any enemy fleet... We really need to talk to the commander about this."
"I wouldn't advise it, the superiors are all paranoid since the Anomaly Rifter betrayed us and started to attack our Holy Islands with his strange ship. Do you remember when we had to redo the mind control of every rifters assigned to us ?
If you remember, please don't provoke the commander. I don't want to do it again just because he's afraid of the Deficient One."
"You're right, it's not like we're on the front lines anyway. Who would be stupid enough to attack so far fro..."
The Scylla who was talking didn't finish his sentence before he abruptly turned himself to look behind him.
Unfortunately for him, it was already too late.
His colleague walking ahead, not having yet felt the danger, asked.
"Why did you stop talking ?"
When he turned himself to look at his partner, he saw him standing motionless. He did not understand what was happening to him and went closer.
"Hey, what's wrong ?"
He approached, and only when he was close enough did he see his partner being lifted a few inches off the ground, a deep hole in the middle of his Templar clone's chest right at the place where his soul-stone was located.
After being lifted up a few centimeters off, his body collapsed with force, as if an invisible being had thrown him to the ground.
Frightened by what he had just seen, the Scylla activated his energy to the maximum and started to spread it around him. What he felt sent a shiver down his spine.
Although he could not see them, by spreading his energy all around him to act as an echo sensor he had detected several invisible beings surrounding him.
The Scylla wasted no time and attempted to use a powerful psychic area attack, however, he didn't have time to lift his little finger before all of these invisible assassins assaulted him at once.
___
A few kilometers away from the scene, on the rooftop of the highest building, someone was lying down aiming with a huge rifle which was almost as long as his whole body.
He was aiming at the headquarters building. Behind him were two elite drones in the same position, lying down and aiming with a weapon that looked more like a medium-caliber cannon than a rifle.
"Alice, I have visual on target."
"Roger. We eliminated all the scyllas guards. Except for the remaining target, there should be only rifters left in the building.
Confirm."
"Affirmative. We will take our shots once you are close enough to finish the target, be ready for the signal."
"Roger."
The person lying on the floor was none other than Douglas, who had infiltrated this mega-structure with Alice and a small unit of elite drones and reapers.
After contacting Alice, he waited patiently for her and the reapers in her team to discretely eliminate the rifters remaining in the building, one by one.
Within only a few minutes, all life inside the structure had been neutralized, leaving only the Scylla Commander in his Templar clone and a few rifters in the command room.
Douglas, who over the years had improved both his weapon and his visor system to their limit, had no difficulty seeing through walls, even from several miles away.
He waited for Alice and her reapers to take position behind the door of the command room before giving the signal.
"Engage."
When he pronounced the word, Douglas and the drones behind him opened fire at the same time.
Almost instantly, two rays of orange energy and one purple high-intensity laser beam pierced the building walls and converged on the Scylla commander.
Even if their shots went almost as fast as light speed, the Scylla commander, being much stronger than his subordinates, reacted fast enough to protect himself inside a translucent shield.
He absorbed the powerful shots aiming for his life, and before he could understand what was happening he suddenly felt a deadly threat behind his back. He immediately jumped on the side of the room and rolled on the floor.
When he checked behind, he saw the air distort at the place he was at a few seconds ago, as if someone invisible try to stab him with a powerful energy blade.
He tried to spread his energy to spot the surrounding area but he immediately got interrupted by sustained fire coming from a very long distance, not leaving him a single second to riposte. The shots went through the building outside plating as if it was butter, leaving perfectly circular holes behind them.
Douglas' job was to suppress the Scylla commander to not let him the time to use any of his Scylla spells, while Alice would keep him occupied at melee range until she finds an opportunity to kill him.
Their duo was extremely efficient in their strategy, as if they've done it multiple times before.
Every time the Scylla started to chant in his native language to use one of his spell, he would get accurately shot in the head or the torso until he cancels his incantation to activate his transparent shield, which was seemingly unbreakable.
Every time he tried to flee, his ultra-developed instinct informed him of the upcoming unseen and deadly attack from the invisible beings.
The Scylla commander was unable to fight back or escape, he felt like being played with by those highly trained assassins.
Having understood the hopeless situation he was in, the commander accepted his fate and tried to give his all to inform his higher-ups. The mega-structure he was in charge of was deep inside the Scyllas defense perimeter.
If an enemy infiltrated so far from the front line, he needed to report it to his superiors before anything else.
After a dozen minutes of intense fight, Douglas and Alice were finally able to slay the Scylla in his Templar clone, but not before he sent a distress beacon.
Unfortunately for this dead Scylla, this was all part of their plan and they even waited for him to inform his leaders before giving him the coup de grâce.
While they were fighting the Scylla commander, the reapers were killing all the rifters in the sector who detected the intruders and were rushing to the headquarters.
'Leader, it is done.'
'Good. Gladia, bring them back and get us out of here before the Scyllas reinforcements arrive.'
Once they finished their job, they made their report to their leader, Jun, and got teleported just after.
Leaving behind them three dead scyllas in their Templar clones, and tons of rifters corpses.
___
I was in my seat, having my thoughts wandering while fiddling with the blue jewel that I found in the golden hangar on Kar'goth, when a report arrived and sounded directly in my head.
'Leader, it is done.'
I answered Douglas and asked Gladia to teleport them back and move the flagship out of here. It was the 12th mega-structure we infiltrated and attacked.
Our assaults were swift, precise, deadly, and fast enough to not get caught. In only two weeks, we killed more than thirty scyllas in their Templar clones.
I was surprised at first. I expected them to be stronger, but it seems that these Templar clones are reducing their capabilities by a large margin, much more than what I thought.
If a Scylla in his original etheric body could take on hundreds of rifters and kill them all, inside their Templar clones their battle power was greatly limited and they wouldn't be able to resist against more than fifty rifters attacking at the same time.
After dissecting so much of their corpses, we also found out the place where their soul is stocked.
Because the Singularity reject the Scyllas' soul, to enter inside this dimension they had to trap their own soul inside a sphere made of a glass-like material unknown to us acting as a container.
It had similar proprieties as the Netherite stones, except that it was conductive for the Singularity energy instead of the Void energy.
When we started our guerrilla tactics and assassinations behind enemy lines, I wanted to join the fight and kill the Scyllas myself, however, after seeing the effectiveness of Douglas paired with Alice, I decided to stay on the flagship and let them operate on their own.
"Everyone is on board Ship-master."
"Good. Initiate the warp jump, we still have to give the Scyllas a last farewell gift before returning back to the Legions."
After giving my orders, I put the blue jewel back in my armor and I looked at the map displayed on the holographic screen in front of me.
Our original plan worked better than expected, the Scyllas overreacted to our guerrilla tactics and sent a whole assault fleet just to hunt us. Even with the full firepower of the Lance of Kar'goth, we would be unable to defend against so many ships.
Especially their battle-cruisers and battleships, they went as far as sending a few of their most powerful ships just to catch us.
They understood well their previous mistakes and now they preferred to overestimate us and consider us as a real threat instead of underestimating us as they did on Kar'goth.
"Gladia, is the anti-matter bomb ready ?"
[It is. But...are you sure that you want to do it yourself ? It will be dangerous.]
"I know, but I have to do it. Even if I like staying here acting as a Ship-master, I still need to join the fights and improve my skills.
Douglas and Alice are already leagues above me. If not for my ability to control the Void energy, I feel like I wouldn't be able to deal with any of them seeing how much they progressed since we joined the Singularity."
[If you say so. Just try to be careful, and remember that the bomb needs to be activated manually by injecting some of your Void energy.]
"I know."
Thinking about the Scyllas getting crazy and sending a whole fleet dedicated to catching us, I couldn't help but smile under my black helmet.
"I hope these guys will like our present."
___
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