Adam awoke after a few days of coma, and not long after he did he took back control of the Empire and declared war on the Regime.
He changed his mind, he won't subjugate these people.
No, These creatures.
He will slaughter them all.
It's morally wrong? So what? He's the Emperor, he's the man in power, who can challenge his decision?
No one can, and no one will.
So, now humanity had a two-front war, as the Regime joined hands with the Republic to defeat the Azburgian Empire.
This situation is not good, but humanity has time.
The fleets of both opponents have been crushed separately, meaning only the Empire has a fleet large enough to matter.
Even after all this time, the Xenos are still weaker.
So, Adam used this advantage and ordered the Royal Navy to raid the cargo and trade ships of both nations.
This maneuver made it more difficult for the Xenos to rebuild their fleets while at the same time making it easier for the Empire to expand its own.
Of course, the aliens didn't just take it and do nothing, they quickly stopped mining minerals from systems closer to the Empire.
So since they couldn't take minerals the easy way, they just went for the next target.
The stations defending the system.
Before, when raiding the cargo ships, they always fought them at the edges of the system, or at a safe distance from the station.
Now they would directly attack it, and the small stations stood no chance.
There simply isn't enough spare material in the various systems to make a large bastion in each system. So, most systems had a small and simple station with a few basic weapons.
This meant that the Royal fleet could scrap them and use them as fuel for itself.
And so, even if only for a few weeks, the Regime and Republic suffered massive losses of materials, territory, and strength.
At this point, no matter how slow, the Republic and the Regime should have enough combined firepower to challenge the Royal Navy, so soon after defeating the tenth station and scraping it at Earth, the raids stopped for the safety of the fleet.
The Royal Navy is back at its full strength with thirty corvettes and twenty destroyers, which is still expanding at this moment.
Any Xeno caught by the fleet is either sentenced to death or tied up and thrown into the crowd, which mostly consisted of people who lost someone to these creatures.
They showed no mercy.
Their tough exterior broke under the pressure of hundreds of humans pounding at it with all their grief and fury.
At the end of it, there was only a puddle of pink flesh, with a tinge of red.
It was at this moment that I realized I never considered how alien flesh might taste...
...But I dismissed the idea, I don't want these things anywhere near me, let alone inside me.
God knows what things were wriggling around inside these disgusting things.
They could be used for experimentation, and other useful things so I let the scientists take them.
I made speeches to my people, of course, I also officially announced the prince's death to the public, which made everyone pretty mad.
How dare these creatures touch royalty? And they even killed one?
The people are fiercely loyal, I didn't even have to use any propaganda, which shocked me.
All the men were already conscripted a while ago when we first invaded the Republic, so the recruitment offices didn't receive any increase, but the men became fired up once more.
I used this to my advantage and asked the people what they would do if they saw life leaving their children's eyes.
What if the aliens came for them next?
What if their families were next?
I utilized the masculine instinct to provide and protect to instill unwavering loyalty into any new recruits.
I visited some outstanding units personally, to congratulate them and encourage them to keep fighting for the fatherland.
Most were truly remarkable soldiers, and I even competed against the best of them in exercises.
I obviously lost, but I put up a good fight... Or that's what they said anyways.
I'm pretty sure they were being polite but whatever, it doesn't really matter.
The war effort has pretty much stagnated now since the Allies are too weak or scared to move and we don't want to risk anything.
We can't even launch an invasion on one of them because the other might use our weakened defenses to invade Earth.
Again.
So an awkward silence cowered both sides, as no one really had the courage to do anything.
But I knew that eventually, we would have to move while we can.
The other two nations can now rebuild their fleets unimpeded by us, so their combined production speed has most likely surpassed ours.
So our advantage won't be long-lived, and we have to use it while we can.
Now, the Allies are gathering their forces in the capital of the Republic, seems like they are expecting us to attack them and try to wipe them out while we can.
But no. We won't do that since it would be incredibly stupid, how could someone fall for such an obvious trap?
So more and more time passed until a month went by, at this point, the Allies have gotten impatient and are intentionally moving small regiments of their fleets out to "patrol," which we did not ignore this time.
We, or more precisely my generals, believe that if we strike hard and fast, we might be able to destroy the five Corvettes and two destroyer units and flee before they intercept us.
And so, the first move since the battle of Earth was made.
The battle was a one-sided massacre, our destroyers alone immediately crushed the entire opposing fleet while the corvettes swarmed the station with ease.
The problem is, however, and the only thing that made this plan risky as well, is the fact that the FTL drives take time to recharge, a few hours to be specific.
This gave the aliens a window of opportunity to force an unfavorable battle for the Empire.
The reason such a battle would be unfavorable for us is that we have nothing significant to gain from further engagements.
The aliens are also in their backyard, giving them more knowledge of the system's unique characteristics.
At first glance, it might seem that the Empire is bound to lose if it stays still, but that's not the truth.
The fact is that the Republic is a democracy, and a disadvantage of democracy is that everyone can vote.
Even the idiots.
And their rivals have used the failures of the current government to boost their own popularity, causing even more infighting than there already was.
The Regime is a lot more stable, and a bigger problem but they also aren't much of a concern on their own.
The deserters have slowly grown in size and made contact with me, they requested support and I happily gave it to them.
The same goes for the Republic as well, I made their pirates nice and fattened up so that they can distract them.
Both nations know it's the Empire's fault, but what can they do? make a diplomatic protest?
History has repeatedly proved how meaningless such action is.
But things aren't all good. It's still a fact that both nations are catching up at a fast rate, and the Empire had to move and either make the nations collapse from the inside out or the outside in.
This is why it's crucial that the fleet can "flee" from the alien fleet into a predetermined system.
In which a nice surprise awaited them.
As expected, the aliens arrived just as the FTL drives recharged, and they were forced to watch as the murderers of their allies disappeared in front of their eyes.
Shockingly for the aliens though, the enemy did not flee into their territory but instead into an unoccupied system in the Reginald Buffer Zone.
They could feel the trap all the way from here, but they couldn't let this chance pass unused.
The Republic desperately needed support from its people, and the Regime was facing immense pressure from all sides thanks to the highly trained and skilled deserters.
In other words, they had no choice but to use the opportunity no matter the risks.
Once the Royal fleet arrived in the system, which contains a red dwarf with a few normal planets and a gas giant, they immediately went to work setting up the trap for the aliens.
The trap is simple, they would put down mines around where the Xenos should appear and move behind the expected point.
After they arrived, half of the corvettes of the enemy should be incapacitated, while the destroyers at the back will get pummeled with the concentrated firepower of the entire fleet.
Not long after doing the quick preparations, the enemy arrived.
Explosions set off in the quiet system, as multiple alien vessels cracked in half and many smaller pieces due to the mines scattered around them.
They were expecting an ambush, however, and their destroyers are protected from the Royal fleet by corvettes, if the Empire managed to destroy their combined fleet here, it would essentially be the end of the war, destroying any hopes of the Alliance's victory.
Luckily for them, they were prepared and stopped this bleak possibility.
Both sides launched their missiles at each other, most of which did not make contact with their intended target, or any target at all thanks to the point defense of both sides.
The human destroyers are distanced away from the heat of battle, only launching long-range shots at the combined fleet, giving them safety and time to react.
The Alliances destroyers, on the other hand, are literally in the middle of it all, making casualties unavoidable and their commanders struggle to keep up with the battle.
Hours passed like this, with the aliens encircled by the human forces, no matter how much the aliens struggled to get out of this encirclement, they only got small successes and plenty of casualties in return.
The human side has also taken casualties during combat, and their encirclement is a lot thinner than before.
This allowed the aliens to break out of it, allowing them to regroup and for their remaining destroyers to move to the back.
Now the humans outnumbered the combined fleet, which gave them the confidence to move forwards.
In response, the Kuckod ships moved forward and let out their mines, which unexpectedly moved toward any ships that got a few meters near them.
The humans quickly pulled back and allowed their point defense to clear a path, through which they charged forwards once more.
A head-on collision happened between both species, in which the familiar dog fights happened, as groups of corvettes stuck together to hunt other vessels.
Groups of corvettes also tried going to attack the destroyers on both sides, but no attempts made by either side were successful.
After a slow and bloody battle, humanity won once more.
With fifteen corvettes, five of them heavily damaged, and twenty destroyers with light damages remaining, Humanity celebrated once more.
Asserting dominance over the inferior weaklings of outer space.