The Martial Unity

From outer space, one might have been able to spot the hundred-meter wide exploding prothanite shell rushing towards the planet. And they certainly would have been able to seen the explosion that erupted from it.

A bright, white sphere of light erupted at the point of contact, before spreading across the surface of the planet at high speeds. It swept across the planet, leaving a smoldering, burned surface behind. Within minutes, it crossed across the entire surface, wiping out every living being on the surface of the world.

Every last structure had been razed to the ground.

The Jakarthar Federation and the millions of people living on its surface had been destroyed.

Frontier colonial states had low populations relative to their carrying capacity. Billions of people did not move to the frontier to live there, and artificial birthing plants weren’t worth developing until a state had developed a firm foundation with iron-clad institutions that could handle billions of humans, raising them from birth.

The people who had settled in the frontier state weren’t ordinary people either. They were people who understood the risks of the frontier. The limited presence of law of order. The Jakarthar Federation had done a much better job in that regard than most frontier colonial states. It was one of the reasons that Ria and Runark had chosen to base their adventuring operations on that world.

Now, it and all the people within it were completely destroyed.

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”Planet. Sarantel. Is. Razed. Jakarthar. Federation. Is. Destroyed.”

—o-o—o sneered with a hint of sadistic pleasure on her face. More than the destruction of millions of humans living atop a planet, what truly made her satisfied was thinking about the loss of morale on humans across human civilization. Thinking about the how the Emperor of Water would feel at the destruction of his people at her hands made her feel even more joyful.

She hoped it would hurt him.

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”Destroy. The. Other. Two. Planets. As. Well.”

”…We. Have. Yet. To. Complete. The. Intelligence. Gathering. Operations. On. Them. Your. Excellency.”

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”Do. It.” Her tone gave them no room for debate. ”The. Damage. To. Morale. Is. More. Important. Than. The. Information. I. Want. The. Humans. To. Panic. And. Suffer.”

”Very. Well. Your. Excellency.”

Massive explosions erupted on the other two planets within the Arima III System as life was ravaged across their surfaces as well, leaving smoldering, lifeless planets behind. She didn’t destroy the space infrastructure around the planets. She knew the humans were watching through the space surveillance apparatus that was still intact.

She knew the news would flood across human civilization.

And she was right.

The footage rapidly traveled through the interweb, spreading across human civilization at alarming rates. Despite the limited interconnectivity between star systems due to limited throughput, information blazed through human civilization at alarming rates.

Blurry, fuzzy videos of entire planets being engulfed in destructive explosions were especially shocking and traveled fast, sparking panic across those online.

[AbeTheGoat: Wtf??? They destroyed entire planets! I thought we sent warships to stop them?]

[Qui Ruarrier: It’s so over. We’re so cooked.]

[TheGhostofNOVA: Anybody have a ticket to Gaia Prime??? I will pay a thousand alliance credits up front for it!]

The nature of the interweb was such that it was innately anarchic. The transmission of the video footage was overwhelming and could not be stopped and it blazed through virtually all channels across human civilization. The panic it caused was palpable, spreading fear and terror in the hearts of civilians across the entirety of human civilization.

Central Human Command, in the middle of a meeting, was interrupted as they became alerted of what had happened.

”They… they destroyed those worlds!” Dwight’s eyes widened with horror as he watched the explosions raze entire planets. ”Those mad spiders! Weren’t they supposed to be consolidating their forces and collecting intelligence?!”

The horror of what had happened was not beyond them. Even though the destruction of Arima III was already a foregone conclusion, it still chilled the air in the room as the footage played in front of everybody.

Rui’s expression darkened. ”…They chose to forsake those to wage a psychological war. They likely predicted that we are mobilizing more forces to attack the Web of War and prevent them from gaining a foothold in the star system. They likely calculated that inflicting irreversible damage to our civilization would serve them better than whatever intel they could gain from capturing and scouring the planets.”

That was bad. His ethereal eyes sharpened as he realized just how much damage the Web of War had inflicted upon the people of human civilization. Though in terms of an absolute loss, the damage was nothing that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Everybody in CHC, including Rui, had written off the people in Arima III the moment Sage Sayfeel had managed to uncover the plans to invade that star system. It was simply impossible to evacuate dozens of millions of people in a short amount of time without tipping off the arakai.

And once a destructive war commenced, protecting a frontier planet that was much less secure innately would be utterly impossible. The principle of offensive power exceeding defensive power was one that didn’t change even at the interstellar scale.

Yet, it was one thing if the planet had been destroyed in the middle of active war, and another entirely for the arakai to destroy it after what was left of the ten armadas had retreated from the star system.

”…This will be horrible for morale and law and order,” Edward remarked knowingly.

”We must do something, Your Majesty!” One analyst urged Rui. ”We cannot allow the arakai to instill this sense of impending doom. You must make an announcement once more.”

Rui shook his head. ”That would be counterproductive. Words alone will not be enough to quell the horror of what they have just witnessed. The only thing that can reverse the impact of this is… action.”

His eyes sharpened, turning towards the Gaian Admiralty. ”How long will it take for the suggestions made by Bornine and Edward to be implemented?”

Thirty grand admirals representing the eleventh to the fortieth armada were present in the meeting, as Rui had wanted. The Grand Admiral of the Eleventh Armada, a middle-aged evolutionary woman, directed a serious gaze at Rui. ”It will be done within a week if we conduct the changes as urgently as possible, Your Majesty. The suggestions are not difficult to implement. We merely need to cut down our fleets to only the dwarven ships and consolidate them into one fleet. Then have the pathwalkers reshuffled and board them all one by one. We will need to restructure the armadas as well. However, the longer-term suggestions will take much longer.