Mary Tarith sighed as she looked out over the stacks of reports on the holographic screen in front of her. Three hundred and four ongoing battles in their Galaxy alone, more than the entirety of the Alliance Galaxies combined.
The Great Enemy had gone on a rampage once that strange world had appeared in the gulf, as if they were directly threatened by the humans for the first time in a way that they hadn't been when they were fighting them among the stars.
It made no sense at all to her, but more concerning was the fact that she had not only lost contact with her Nico and Commander Max, but Absolution had suddenly vanished from the construction area without any messages or warning.
All the communications to the world were scrambled, but their sensors suggested that Absolution, as well as an unknown spherical world ship were on that planet, along with a vast quantity of the Great Enemy's forces.
Even worse, that was far enough out that there was a possibility that the Greater Energy Beings might be able to approach them directly, instead of sending the armies in without their strongest support.
They had ramped up production as much as they could, with everything that wasn't an essential service being redirected to the creation of war materials, but still, it was barely enough to keep up with the influx of attacks.
There was a desperation to the Cathedral Ships, as if they were on a limited timeline and would lose if they couldn't defeat the humans within the next few months.
It made no sense, they were unable to restock that quickly, and even with massive numbers of Androids, they still couldn't threaten the other layer of space where the Great Enemy and their renegade Gods were hiding.
In fact, Mary didn't even know that there was a way to harm a being on that level.
"Leader, there is an attack." One of the Council members shouted as he ran into the room.
"There are attacks everywhere, you need to be more specific." Mary demanded, glaring at the man who had interrupted her attempts to balance the responses to minimize casualties.
"There is an attack here. Rae 5 Star System is under attack." The Council member declared.
[Mary Tarith to all available Reavers and Tarith Family members. Rae 5 System is under attack. Initiate defence protocols.]
Then she pulled up the sensor data for the region, and watched in horror as a hundred enemy World Ships began to disgorge an enormous number of attack vessels into space. They had sent a World Ship to every space station that was in the Rae 5 region, which was a good strategy, under normal circumstances.
But these were Reaver stations, they were armed well beyond what anyone would consider reasonable, and they had no concern for the welfare of the region as a whole.
They had the power to open a portal that would engulf a world, so Rae 5 could be moved, along with everything that survived this battle, assuming that their response was enough to destabilize space the way that it had in the Anomaly Region.
The Moon base suddenly erupted with weapons fire, targeting multiple vessels with over a hundred different orbital lances, while firing a thousand Antimatter Torpedoes at once.
The alarms that Uncle Lu's fusillade had set off nearly deafened Mary, and alerts were coming up on every screen that she had active.
[Imminent planet fall of large debris.]
[Incoming ELE sized object, firing countermeasures.]
[Shockwave incoming, atmospheric shield not expected to hold.]
Uncle Lu might have been the first to trigger the defences, but the other stations were quickly revealing their hidden strengths to the Cathedral Ships armada. Thousands of Orbital Lances collided with World Ships, tearing apart void shields and rupturing hulls instantly.
But the enemy wouldn't go down without a fight, and the return fire was tearing apart hundreds of Reaver stations before their reinforcements, if any were coming, could arrive.
The second volley from the Moon Base tore through the enemy fleet, and those few ships that had survived the onslaught began to open portals away from the battle, unable to escape into their home layer.
[Don't let up on them. Any vessels that are still mobile, fire into the portals, I want no survivors.] Mary demanded as she sent out more firing priority messages for the vessels that appeared to have weapons still online.
"And someone shut off those damnable alarms."
Then the planet shook, and the lights dimmed, causing her screens to flicker off for a full second before recovering.
"What the hell was that?"
"Lady Tarith. The City shield took a direct impact from a piece of debris over a hundred kilometres in length. The atmospheric damage is immense, and I recommend evacuating all citizens into bunkers with atmosphere generators." The Council Member in the room announced.
"Get it done. I will keep up with the orbital battle directions." Mary agreed with a glare on her face that made the man glad they were on the same side.
The last of the intact enemy vessels had managed to escape, but the Reavers were busy dealing with the thousands of crippled vessels that hadn't been completely annihilated. Some could be salvaged as research materials, others repurposed to save time building an entirely new fleet, while the ones that had fragmented would be used as raw materials to rebuild the destroyed stations that had enough surviving crew to continue operations.
Mostly, they were built in segments for just this sort of incident, and only part of the station was dead, while the rest was just without power and waiting for rescue. It had minimized casualties, even while the number of disabled stations had reached sixty percent.
[Moon Base, what is your status?] Mary asked, starting her survey with the closest location.
There was a long pause, and then a faint signal.
[The second volley took out both primary and secondary power. The shield generators are at life support levels, with no defensive capabilities left, we took an Orbital Lance to the sector eight grid, which was fortunately unoccupied after the docked ships launched to join the battle. Uncle Lu says we should be back online within a day.] The voice informed them, sounding incredibly rattled.
[Understood. Good to hear your voice, Moon Base.]
