The Martial Unity

”Damage. To. Interdiction. Force. Has. Worsened!”

”Squads. 17. 19. 28. Have. Sustained. Damage. To. Hulls!”

”Breachhead. Is. Reforming! Ablative. Breachers. Have. Restructured. To. Restore. The. Shield!”

—o-o—o watched with an ugly expression on her face as the War of Web was caught off-guard by the massive wormhole that overwhelmed their interdiction force. Operation Lightfury had left the War of Web reeling; even if the operation hadn’t harmed the core war assets of the invading army, it had severely damaged the breachhead and the interdiction force. The War of Web had been in the middle of consolidating its damaged formation when the humans opened a massive wormhole and funneled in nearly a hundred fleets.

The first ten armadas of the Strategic World Bridge Force exploited the damaged and off-guard posture of the War of Web, unleashing a siege. The battleships of the war fleets, in particular, cocked their gun barrels towards the Web of War and directed an onslaught of a variety of attacks, each more destructive than the last.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

While an enormous number of blasts were blocked by the ablative breachers, many of the sieges managed to get around them nonetheless. The first ten armadas directed most of their attacks towards the interdiction force. While the mighty webnoughts and battle webships were also grave threats, the gravest threat of all was the enemy’s goal of trying to isolate the star system to conquer it as a bridgehead.

Thankfully, the armadas managed to succeed in their goal to some extent.

”Gravity. Anchor. Fleet. AF-19. Has. Suffered. Damage. To. Left. Flank!”

”Energy. Shields. Projectors. Have. Suffered. Superficial. Damage.”

”Commencing. Hull. Realignment.”

The damage that Operation Lightfury had inflicted upon the breachhead gave the armadas the opportunity to avoid the nigh-indestructible exteriors of the breachhead. The only problem was that prothanite was not exclusive to the breachhead. As preciously indestructible the substance was, it didn’t appear to be constrained in its supply.

Nearly every ship enjoyed a layer of prothanite, however thin it was. While there were plenty of parts of the webship’s exterior that didn’t enjoy this protection due to needing to be exposed by virtue of function, the webships that the invading army came with were extremely tenacious in their ability to survive. This was especially the case considering that each webship came equipped with an energy shield generation system, save for the breachhead, that allowed it to bleed, if not entirely block, all of the attacks that struck them.

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”Analytical. Web. Has. Completed. Preliminary. Analysis. Of. Human. Offensive. Prowess. Your. Excellency.”

—o-o—o sharpened her six arachnid eyes as she immediately accessed the report. Human naval power exceeded her expectations. Although she had been informed by arakaian intelligence webs that human naval power was largely unknown due to the civilization never having waged war on this scale, she still found their destructive power to be decent.

The native offensive weapons in the Arima III System that had attacked the War of Web when it entered were much weaker than the premium high-grade weaponry that the first ten armadas of the Strategic World Bridge Force had been equipped with.

According to arakaian intelligence, the human armadas had primarily demonstrated four broad forms of offensive siege technology. The first was, of course, ordinary lasers. This was a primitive form of technology that could do a lot of damage when scaled up to kilometers in length. It functioned simply by generating a large amount of light and focusing it into as narrow a beam as possible.

The human warfleets also demonstrated antimatter beams. These were a more sophisticated siege technology system, since antimatter-matter reactions were a form of destruction that was enforced by the laws of physics. But these were still elementary and were a form of offensive that the arakai were prepared to handle.

The ballistics and heavy ordnance were also nothing to write home about, although they were destructive. However, when a siege made use of all four forms of offensive technologies, they could pose a significant threat even to more sophisticated fleets like that of the arakai.

More threatening than anything else, according to the intelligence web report, were the vessels that were constructed by the diminutive race of humanity known as the dwarves. These vessels were not only instantly distinguishable to a keen eye because of their indescribable harmonious quality, but had also been responsible for at least fifty percent of all the damage that had been inflicted on the Web of War by the First Armada.

But not even that was insurmountable.

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”The. Intelligence. Web. Has. Created. A. Tailored. Set. Of. Protocol. Solutions. To. Counter. The. Human. Warships.”

—o-o—o’s eyes flared with determination as she received a file containing the recommended strategy and tactical approach.

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”Then. Let. Us. Show. Them. How. Outclassed. They. Are.”

She exerted herself, activating the powerful infected matter that her body was laced with. One of the reasons that the Divine Mother Web Council ultimately accepted her volunteering to lead the Web of War to destroy humanity was that her strengths were particularly suited towards command and control.

Not all Divine Mothers were primarily combatants, although all of them could fight if needed. There were Divine Mothers who dedicated themselves to research, to statesmanship, and to military command.

—o-o—o was one of the latter.

An electromagnetic web of information emerged from her, connecting with the mind webs of each and every single arakai in the Web of War, despite that number ranging in the hundreds of millions with ease. The sheer amount of data flux that spread from her to her subordinates and vice versa was so great that it would have shattered any ordinary mind.

Yet, —o-o—o did not possess an ordinary mind.

Her mind was a mind that had been born with phenomenological uniformity. A mathematical miracle of neurology that allowed her to be born with the power of a god from her very birth. She could easily handle the surge of information, and it allowed her to command her vast army in real time from the comfort of the command room aboard the Web Bringer.

”Interdiction. Force. Fleets: Commence. Singularity. Lattice. Shield. Technology. To. Absorb. Light. Beams,” she commanded. ”Activate. Antiproton. Electromagnetic. Redirection. Systems. Realign hulls. To. Match. Siege. Angles. Of. Incoming. Ordnance. And. Activate. Anti-Ballistic. Gravitational. Pulse. Generators.”

Immediately, the Web of War followed her command. The relevant forces adhered to her instructions, deactivating their conventional multipurpose energy shields and redirecting power to the shield systems that the Divine Mother had ordered them to.