The Martial Unity

”I. Don’t. Care. How. Many. Administrators. These. Bastards. Have.” -o- glowered with anger. ”I. Will. Crush. Them. All! We. Will. Declare. War. Against. Them!”

”No.”

-o-’s eyes widened at her older sister’s firm rejection. ”What?! You. Plan. To. Forgive. Them. For. The. Death. Of. Our. Sister?!”

”No. They. Will. Pay. The. Price. But. We. Will. Not. Rush. Into. War. Immediately,” -oo—oo- spoke with a grim expression. ”Your. Rashness. And. The. Impatience. Of. Your. Faction. Has. Done. Enough. Harm. To. Our. Civilization. This. Time…”

She turned towards -o- with a firm, unyielding glare. ”We. Will. Do. It. My. Way. Understood?”

Every bone in -o-’s body made her want to push back against her sister, but unfortunately, even she wasn’t that shameless. The reality was that she had messed up big time by triggering the attack on the aquadites with her bloodlust, and they had gotten themselves into an existential war against an opponent that wasn’t even responsible for the death of a Divine Mother.

”…Fine.” She conceded. ”We. Will. Do. This. Your. Way. What. Do. You. Have. In. Mind?”

”Reconnaissance. Surveillance. Threat Analysis,” -oo—oo- replied firmly. ”We. Learn. Everything. There. Is. To. Know. About. The. The enemy. Before. We. Attack. Them.”

It was a highly patient and comprehensive strategy. Though, in fairness, it was not -o-’s approval that she needed to earn, it was the entire Divine Mother Web Council that made the decision, of which she had but one voice as an unaffiliated Divine Mother.

However, she understood the politics of her civilization very well. The moment she revealed that the brashness of the War Faction had led to an existential war against the wrong opponent, she knew that the War Faction and the Virus Faction would suffer a devastating blow.

They had both pushed for war with the aquadites even before they got complete confirmation of their guilt. They had already burned all their political capital and goodwill with that decision, and once she revealed that it was objectively the wrong decision, she would be able to convince the web council to pursue a more measured, comprehensive, and meticulous approach.

”But. Do. Not. Mistake. Caution. For. Reluctance,” -oo—oo- spoke with a determined tone of voice. ”They. Have. Killed. Our. Sister. And. For. That…”

Her six eyes flared with anger.

”They. Will. Pay. The. Price. For. It. With. Their. Destruction.”

While she wasn’t a warmongerer, she didn’t forgive targeted hostility, especially if it resulted in severe losses. As far as she was aware, the Arakai Web Civilization had never so much as touched this unknown prodigious civilization. Yet, they had gone far to antagonize the arakai nonetheless and even seemed to think that they could get away.

”How. Foolish... If. They. Knew. What. Was. Good. For. Them. They. Would. Not. Have. Made. An. Enemy. Out. Of. Us,” she shook her head, turning back towards the frozen Captain Flia. ”To. Begin. Let. Us. Extract. Every. Ounce. Of. Useful. Information. That. We. Gather. From. These. Individuals. Then. We. Shall. Compile. And. Refine. It. Into. A. Comprehensive. Civilizational. Profile.”

She wanted to ensure that by the time they did attack the humans, they would utterly dominate them and annihilate their entire civilization. She wanted to commence a systematic surveillance campaign against their enemies to ensure that they didn’t miss anything or that they didn’t underestimate their opponents just because they were much smaller.

Clearly, their technology was remarkably advanced, and they seemed to have some unusually powerful infantry. There were a lot of strange and bizarre aspects of their civilization that -oo—oo- simply weren’t able to comprehend. She didn’t feel comfortable attacking an enemy that she didn’t understand.

She had come across the concept of Paths and Pathwalkers, which struck her as a cosmological miracle based on even her preliminary understanding of this phenomenon. Then there was the fact that they had managed to grow ten thousand times larger in the span of just thirteen years. It was such a shocking rate of growth that she didn’t want to touch them until she understood how they had managed to do it.

Then there were the Emperors of Water, who were perhaps the most concerning part of their civilization. Until she understood what they were capable of, she didn’t want to wage war against them.

One of them had managed to kill Divine Mother o-o-o-o, after all. That was the shocking part.

Administrators were not necessarily equal across civilizations and the arakai poured a lot of resources into equipping their Divine Mothers with a lot of power outside of just their Administrative power. Divine Mothers had biotechnology equipped with extremely powerful infected matter used to upgrade their bodies as much as was possible. They were extremely formidable.

Smaller civilizations were generally less able to upgrade their Administrators to such an extent due to much more limited technology and infected matter. Yet, the Emperors of Water seemed to have overcome that and achieved a decisive victory.

That was an anomaly. One that she needed to understand before she could wage war against the humans.

”We. Have. A. Lot. Of. Work. To. Do,” she muttered. ”Let’s. Get. Started.”

The two Divine Mothers immediately resumed deep-diving into the minds of the humans that they had captured, who remained utterly frozen in fear, unable to even bring about a meager amount of resistance against creatures that were essentially gods in flesh form.

They began gathering information and sending it to the analytics division aboard their ships, which immediately got to compiling it into a comprehensive database that was up for further review. It wouldn’t take too much time before they had managed to squeeze out every ounce of information that they were able to get from their enemies.

Once that was done, they would then would they prepare a presentation of the results of their investigation to the Divine Mother Web Council and use that information to push for a larger-scale intelligence campaign against their enemy.

-oo—oo- was determined to do it the right way. If everything went well, they would be able to extricate themselves from the mess they had gotten themselves into and get justice for their fallen sister.