What's up, guys. Welcome back to Midnight.
SirMandokarla:
Thanks for the review mate. I'll be sure to look over my works more often to rid of the grammar issues and whatnot. What you are seeing is usually after I go over the chapter once or twice before I publish it.
Enjoy the new chapter.
Adam Shepherd let out an agonizing scream.
"S-Sir," his lieutenant muttered.
"Leave me alone!" Adam roared as he grabbed his chair and tossed it across the room. The chair flew, and struck the wall right next to his lieutenant. She flinched as the strength of an admiral broke the chair through the wall of his office, even as the chair broke. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
"Sir, you need to calm down before -!" she tried again, but this time, she was treated not with violence or threats, but hysterical sobbing. "S-Sir..."
"I-I let them down again," he sniffed as he collapsed on the floor. His face was in his hands, and his legs lay sprawled without a care. "A-Another one of my liege dead because I-I-I-"
"Sir... it's not just you."
The man looked up, and felt disgusted with himself when he saw the tear streaks on his lieutenant's face.
"We should've stayed and fought as long as we could've," she added with a sniff of her own. Tears streamed down again, and she hiccuped. "W-We should've stayed. I know, s-sir. I know we could've stayed for at least another hour. B-but we had orders."
The Head of the House of Shepherd let out a groan. "We shouldn't have let this happen..." he muttered.
"I-I know, sir," she sniffed again.
It was then that another sob broke out, but not from the captain nor the lieutenant. It came from the halls outside.
Distressed as he was, the worried captain moved across the room and walked out.
There were many there.
His office was connected to the cafeteria for ease of access, so many had come to the biggest place where they could rant and eat to let out their frustration.
And Adam saw many of his crew in the cafeteria. Men and women alike were sobbing, holding each other like family. Men and women roared in anger, smashing their fists into plastic tables, severely denting them.
Hell, one of the magus was in flames, literally. That was probably bad, but he dismissed the scene, only making sure to call the magus out to see if he was alright.
'If our Duke is our father,' Adam thought to himself as he brought along his lieutenant to join the grieving cafeteria. 'Then Prince Ilcosvies was our brother.'
Ilcosvies had always been in the frontlines with the common soldier. It didn't matter the war was or how harsh it was, he went. He stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers during the First Protoss-Terran War, not as a commander but a fellow brother-in-arms. He took hits that were meant for the common soldier. Carried water and food until he collapsed from exhaustion. He carried one wounded soldier for three days and three nights in the deepest territory. After the war was over, he went right back to protecting the common folk against rampant Heroic Spirits.
He stood before them in the ongoing war against the Protoss Coalition when the second war broke out. He led many against protoss warships in space. On the ground, he charged alongside them.
And today, he had sacrificed his very soul to prevent more death, suffering his entire body disintegrate slowly in an agonizing pain. His magic stripped from him in the most violent of fashion. His very soul ... shattering before the eyes of his very son and subordinates.
The ultimate sacrifice.
...
Adam allowed himself to cry like a baby.
Inferno stared at the shriveled looking old man on his screen.
War? Did this idiot just declare war upon the entirety of Terminus Alliance?
But then again, they had dreadnoughts capable of tanking forty of his dreadnoughts by itself.
"So," he grinned as he stood up. "It's war, now is it?!" he laughed out loud. "Not exactly what I had been hoping for, but this is ... beyond my wildest dreams! We go to war!" He snapped to the comm officer. "I want all ships to start firing upon the newcomers!" he laughed out loud as he personally took over the helms of his flagship. He and the other dreadnoughts turned slowly, their spinal mass accelerator ready to pound away -.
And red missiles.
His mind froze for a second as he saw the radar completely get covered.
"The tracking system can't count!" one of the officers shouted. "It's in the hundreds... no, thousands! There's too many!"
The first of those missiles slammed into his flagship, and he gawked as he saw quarter of his ship get torn apart. But there was no time to run away as second missile slammed into the flagship's eezo core. The core didn't even explode. It simply disappeared along with another quarter of his ship, now in four pieces, and one of those pieces far away from him exploded.
And then the entire wall of those missiles slammed into his fleet.
Ilmensvies watched with rightful vengence burning in his heart as the kinetic missiles launched by the entirety of his own flagship reduce the invader's fleet to dust.
"All enemies have been terminated."
"Find any survivors," Otto commanded as he placed his hand on his grandfather's shoulder. "I'll take of things up here..."
The duke nodded. "You were always a good grandson," he muttered before he was escorted by several of his honorguards to one of the smaller transport ships within the dreadnought.
Otto watched his grandfather leave before he turned back to the command crew. "I'm taking command of the Einzbern force until the duke takes over. I want at least three dreadnoughts, ten battlecrusiers, and standard escorts per system that we control, and I want the remaining fleet to come here. I also want scouts out on the outer edge of our system. It's unlikely that these citadel raiders came here by their own means, so one of their relay must be in our system. I want it found, towed into deep space, and destroyed."
"Yes, sir!" the crew saluted before they shot off to their work.
"And get me those pathetic raider's leader. I want to interrogate him myself."
He then ordered another system wide communications to be opened. Once established, he stood in the command console of the dreadnought with a expressionless face. "This is Otto Tohsaka-Bahk. I have taken over in the distress of our duke. Enemy space fleet has been neutralized. If they have landed troops, I want them subdued. For each head of the enemy soldier, I am personally offering one of my minor red prana crystals, which should be at a market value of a thousand ISC*."
The crew gawked, and some were subtly cursing their luck.
ISC, or Interstellar Credit, was the currency used in the Terran League. This is however different from intraplanetary currency that each planet has one of their own. At a thousand ISC, one head of those invaders were worth a veteran arcane engineer's annual salary.
No doubt a manhunt for the invaders -if it hadn't been organized already for invading the planet already- would be going up.
"I'm going to have to talk with our guests."
Suddenly, the mood on the command bridge turned from bitter to near-hostile.
They had forgotten, Otto noted.
The very same aliens that had attacked their home, and probably killed a lot of their friends and family if the planetary shield had been activated, were on their own ship.
"I'll determine whether or not they are of the same nation. If they are though ..." Otto chuckled. "Perhaps that war will happen."
Mordin was now officially scared.
The room that he and the others were staying in was one of the more luxuries rooms all connected by a single common room that had a view of the space outside.
And he had seen perhaps that was the pinnacle of terran technology.
His throat was dry. His pupils were dilated. His mind was blank. His legs were shaking. His back was wavering.
His will was broken.
And yet at the same time, he was invigorated. He was awed! He was inspired! He wanted to know more about them.
A planetary shield.
Truly, these terrans were beyond any Citadel members. The sheer power requirement alone for keeping up the shield for as long as he was looking at it was something that no race of the Citadel Council could achieve. Even if they united together, it would be impossible. It simply wasn't obtainable.
And then he saw something else that terrified him.
Ships of unknown origin firing dreadnought salvos at a constant rate at the shield. Were these the protoss? The ships were too far away from him to see any details, but compared to what he had heard and seen of terrans, these ships were lacking in size. And then these ships were blown away.
The doors of the common room slid open, and Mordin glanced. To his surprise, he saw Otto Tohsaka-Bahk.
"Ah, how can I help you, Primarch Tohsaka-Bahk?" he asked. From what he understood, Otto was a patriarch. He had a lot of responsibilities and a lot of power.
Something was wrong, though. The man seemed ... cold. There was a sense of coldness about him that didn't exist in their first few meetings.
"Tell me, Doctor Mordin," he asked. "Is it a common policy of the Citadel Council to attack worlds of neutral sovereign states after having signed a peace treaty?"
Mordin was shocked. "What? No, sir! There was never any incidents in our histories like that," he replied. "What prompts you to ask me this?"
"...My planet had been attacked by a fleet possessing your technology."
Mordin felt his stomach drop. It couldn't be, right? The Citadel Council had just signed a peace treaty with the Terran League. They wouldn't attack them!
"From what I could see already," Otto spoke as he walked up to Mordin's right and stared at the shielded planet. "Ilyasviel has already been bombarded by orbital strikes. If they struck our centers of populations, then I suspect death toll to be in the tens of millions."
"It couldn't be Citadel Council," Mordin assured Otto, but it sounded more like he was assuring himself. "Is it possible to see the ship schematics of the enemy fleet?" He had to know who attacked the terrans.
Otto nodded, and ordered pictures of the enemy fleet to be sent to the diplomat's common room via the hologram. Then he turned around as the room darkened. Mordin did so as well, and he saw a hologram of ...
"Terminus Alliance," Mordin said with a sigh of relief too quiet for Otto to pick up. Unlike Citadel Council's diverse dreadnought hulls, the dreadnoughts of the infamous Terminus Alliance had only one hull shaped like a curved bullet. It was infamous for its notoriously heavily armed midsection. "This is a Terminus Alliance dreadnought."
Otto nodded. "Thank you for the information," he said.
"What will happen now?"
Otto was silent for a few moments before he spoke up. "The duke has declared war upon the Terminus Alliance, and bowed to see the capital planet burn to nothingness. If you have relatives or friends there, I highly recommend you pull them out before the end of this month."
"Y-You would commit a massacre?!"
Otto glared. "You must understand, Doctor. This is not the first time that our planet here had been bombarded. We have already sent out our fleet once to decimate our enemy. This would be merely the second time we do so. And from what I remember of your codex, the Terminus Alliance is nothing more than warlords having banded together for mutual boost of power."
"But still, there are at least several billions of innocent civilians on that planet!"
"I think you misunderstand us. It has already begun. The Einzbern forces are gathering to strike against the Alliance. Nothing can stop us."
"Then what about your government, the Terran League? Surely, they won't allow this to happen!"
"Is it not a matter of whether or not they want this to happen, though I suspect they would want what we want as well. Terran League has three semi-independent sovereign states, one of which is the Dukedom of Northern Star Archipelago ruled by my family. We are allowed by the laws set forth in the founding of the Terran League to declare war upon those who have wronged us. By law, the Terran League cannot interfere. They can put sanctions on us, but how long can they do so when many of their warships depend on the very prana crystals that we produce? We are the societal and industrial heart of the Terran League. If anything, the Terran League would join us to destroy those who wronged us today." Then he made to leave the common room. "I suggest you contact anyone precious to you inside Terminus Alliance to leave quickly. There will be no mercy for anyone who stays to support them."
=-V-=
=V=
-v-
"This is CNN News reporting live from Ilyasviel of the Northern Star Archipelago. Exactly three hours ago, Ilyasviel had been attacked by a fleet allegedly from the Terminus Alliance. They proceeded to orbitally strike at Ilyasviel. The death tolls are already in the millions, and a half of Ilyasviel's capital city Heracles had been reduced to craters."
The camera flickered to an aerial view of the city. It showed the circular shaped city, but it was clear that the eastern and southern portion of the city had been struck by orbital strikes from the giant craters that adorned the cityscape. The tall, white palace in the middle of the city remained untouched, but there were few boulders that had crashed into its beautiful structure, scarring it.
"Thankfully, the Einzberns activated their planetary shield, only one of four in existence, but it came at a heavy cost. Viewers may not know this but it is known that Einzbern's planetary system requires a magician capable of using Heavens Feel, the Third True Magic, to power the planetary shield. The information regarding the shield had been released scant few minutes ago. However, there hadn't been any Third Maigc users on the planet at the time. The Duke and Otto Tohsaka-Bahk were away on a diplomatic trip to the Citadel Council for the invasion of the turians while the eldest son of the duke was on the frontlines on Auriga holding the protoss back. We are not sure of how the planetary shield was activated without a Heaven's Feel user, but sources within the Einzbern military report that the duke's second son, the Dreadlord of Einzbern, Ilcosvies von Einzern had to sacrifice himself to activate the shield.
"Wait, we have incoming video of what is supposed to be Einzbern command center. It'll be on screen right now."
The audiences all over the world watched their screen flickered once and then twice before it showed a throne surrounded by many Einzbern officers. But they kept their distance as an old man, the duke of Northern Star Archipelago, slowly walked up to the golden throne at the back center of the room. The camera zoomed in and saw a burnt figure of what was supposed to be a man.
The duke deactivated the throne's shield with a wave of his hand. "M...My son," he whispered as his trembling hand hovered over the burnt left arm of the dead Einzbern.
He dared not touch it.
His hand moved back and forth, wanting to touch and yet being wary of touching such a fragile legacy of his second child.
Ilmensvies began to sob. "My s-son... My heir..." he croaked out as he fell to his knees. "Why... Why did you do this?" He sobbed openly. "My precious s-son. Why did you do this...?"
Sobs broke out in the room, but a single man broke through the crowd.
"S-Sir..." he spoke.
"... What is it?"
"I-I have his last words." With that, he pulled out his phone. "If you would like to hear it, sir. I-I'm sorry, but I was not able to get a video of his last moments..."
Ilmensvies stared at the man with his tear-filled eyes and wrinkle-filled face before he nodded. "Play it."
"It's my last order, son." Pause. "I hereby declare you, Lucian Tohsaka, my 15 year old bastard son, as my legitimized child. You are now Lucian von Einzbern. As such, with my death and by the Primogeniture law of the Northern Star Archipelago Dukedom ..."
"Goddamn it, don't do it, dad!" Sobs. "You promised me have me see grandfather!" Sniffles in the background. "You promised to teach me all you know! We can't talk with each other if you're dead!" There were poundings as Lucian struck at the throne's shield with his fists.
"...You are now the Heir of the von Einzbern. So do me proud, get married, learn magecraft, and be happy. That's my last order. Oh, and tell Otto and pops that I love them..." There was a pause as did everyone. "Dreadlord of von Einzbern..."
"NOOOOO!"
"Signing out."
Click
"GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
BANG BANG BANG BANG! "NOOOO, DAD!" Lucian roared as he pounded at the shields with all he had.
The screams of both father and son didn't stop for a whole minute in the recording, and every single officer broke out into heavy sobs.
Ilmensvies began to sob. "Ah... my son, my son...! My son...!" he sobbed. "My... stupid, dutiful... son!" He then began to look around frantically. "I buried his mother without a body. I refuse to have it repeated with him! Someone get me a coffin-!"
Then he froze as his son's body began to crack.
"No... Please..."
The body then collapsed into a pile of ash on the throne.
Ilmensvies watched the scene with a lost look to his face. The sobs grew harder as those present called out to their dead heir.
"...Someone get me a box."
It took a minute before someone approached the old, sobbing duke with a plain white box. He took it, and began to scoop his son's ashes with his own hands.
The screen changed back to the reporter, who was crying over in a corner, unaware that she was now on air.
"Sarah, you're on air."
The reporter quickly wiped away her tears with a tissue with a quickly muttered thank you before she stood before the camera again.
Not that anyone cared nor did her crying matter. Everyone was crying too.
However, there were more pragmatic and less emotional bunch that saw this. Namely, these people were the politicians of the Terran League. It wasn't because they were cold hearted bastards that they didn't feel as much as others. If anything, they felt more.
Ilcosvies von Einzbern was called the Terror of Rebels and the Dreadlord of Einzbern because he helped to subjugate many rebels and did it ruthlessly. More often than not, he had saved many politicians and their families from harm by taking out terrorist groups and insurrectionists.
No, they were too busy thinking about the consequences of the coming war, even if they themselves felt a pang of sympathy and pain for their savior.
Ilmensvies von Einzbern had called upon Article III, which stated that any semi-sovereign states within the Terran League could declare war upon other nation-states if given enough reason to go to war for. Orbital bombardment of Ilyasviel was one such reason. But what was more terrifying was that the Northern Star Archipelago was but one such state.
There were three in total.
Dukedom of the Northern Star Archipelago
The Black White Conglomerate
Vjanyaguer Empire
And they were all allied with each other. If Einzberns declared war due to having been invaded, then the Black White Conglomerate and the Vjanyaguer Empire would gladly join to prove their worth, never mind the fact that those three states, each a fifth of the Terran League, would be able to take over planet with the conclusion of war.
Together, they possessed nearly 700 dreadnoughts, double that possessed by the League's navy.
In fact, the military might of the Three was what enabled the foundation of Terran League to be formed. It was the sheer might they possessed that the public nicknamed them "the Three Friendly Warring States."
It would be the biggest warfare that Terran League would have participated in since the end of the Expansionist and the Warring Stars Era.
One such politician thinking of the consequences of this war was Terran League's President Tyler ab Rogiyal-York. He was a tall man in his late sixties, though he possessed the body of a muscle builder. A staunch moderate, he had gained the support of over half of the planets in the Terran League, earning him his presidency.
He was also a personal friend of Ilcosvies von Einzbern.
And he was also one of those who had believed that the man would die on the frontlines.
He had grieved openly for an hour for his friend, the longest ever since he had grieved for his parents, but his duty took place first.
One of the subjects he was thinking hard about was the subject of war.
From outsider's perspective, the Terran League had an awkward system of government. How does one work with three semi-independent states that can easily overpower the League by themselves? Or how does it work without a strong central government?
The answer was that it only got itself involved in interstate or international subjects. Taxes, boundaries, colony rights, and so on.
Subject of war definitely fit into the bill.
But Duke Ilmensvies had declared war using Article III of the League Constitution, which allowed the duke to declare war without having to worry about the League's central government attempting to stop him.
Tyler was not interested in stopping the war. He was worried about having to drag the whole of Terran League into war.
Ilyasviel was a planet of heavy population with more than 20 billion with higher education graduation rate of 70%. It was one of the most important center of Terran League, if the most had Gaia not been the most important.
An attack upon such planet was not just a small time pirate raid or skirmish; it was a declaration of war to the entirety of Terran League.
However, he had another war to worry about: the Second Protoss-Terran War. Almost all of the Terran League's naval assets were tied in fighting off the protoss at Auriga and very few other border systems that required constant patrol. The League could not spare the expenses nor the manpower to fund another war.
But not going to war is going to get a lot of resentment from everyone.
So he had to support the war efforts to visibly make an impact...
He brought his office's comm panel. "Hey Rebecca, yeah it's me, Tyler. Can you call the people on the list I am about to send you?"
Back in the Terminus Alliance territory, all of the warlords were cursing their luck.
Aria was especially afraid.
Her space station of Omega was considered one of the most strategic points in Terminus Alliance due to its relative closeness and farness that was just right between the rest of the Terminus systems and the Citadel systems via relay.
At the same time, it was now the worst place to be. By position, it was one of the closer systems to Terran League's territory, and thus making it a hot target.
She possessed four dreadnoughts. A large number before the Terrans had come into play.
Herself, her station, and her fleet were unlikely going to survive.
Maybe she could capitulate to the terrans when they came, hoping that they will keep her as the manager of the station? But that risked her life upon the chance that the terrans would keep her alive. In fact, she had heard the declaration of war and the terran promise of burning their worlds.
What was she supposed to do?!
Ilmensvies sat upon his throne.
Situated inside the throne room of the Einzbern Palace, it was usually a place filled with people.
Today though, there was no one there.
So he sat there in the darkness with only the moon light filtering through the windows high above like a cathedral.
"..."
Ilmensvies slowly lifted his head from his hands and hands to look up.
"I didn't expect you to be here."
"No one does."
"What do you want?"
"You're angry."
"Of course I am," the duke growled as he stood up. "My son was killed!"
"Perhaps I can help."
"What can you do?"
"You seem to forget that it was through your son's effort that we're even enjoying this conversation. That and he is also my friend. I was there when he was born. I was there when he first walked. I was there when he needed a shoulder to cry after he saw his mother get obliterated into nothingness."
The duke fumed. "I asked: what do you want?"
"You do know about my son being your heir, correct?"
The duke paled, his anger forgotten and suddenly a lower priority.
"He's half-Disciple?"
Disciples. They were the name given to the creatures born of Ilyasviel the Planet in an effort to copy the True Ancestors and Dead Apostle Ancestors of Gaia. There were only nine of them, compared to Gaia's twenty seven, but each were strong, if not stronger, as the Dead Apostle Ancestors.
"Try a quarter, but sure."
"...Why are you here?"
The creature stepped out of the shadows of the throne room. It was a creature that towered over Ilmensvies. It stood on thousands of humans hands and arms that crawled like a mutilated centipede. On top of this creature was a woman. She sat upon a fleshy throne with a diadem made out of shining blue quartz. She wore nothing, but tribal-tattooed body of the woman erected no response from Ilmensvies or even the silent, invisible guards.
"My lover has been killed. My mother has been wounded. My family has suffered," the woman hissed as she leaned forward. "If anything, I am here to demand that you include all of the Disciples into this war."
"No."
The Disciple snarled. "What?!"
"If I kill all of them and their children, and then go on to destroy their nation into tiny fragments to be our subordinates for all eternity, it will be a better than having to release all of you to them. You and the others will end up devouring all of the planets they possess until everything there is lifeless."
"You dare deny me my right?!"
"I won't if you promise to only involve those directly involved and that you wouldn't swallow up those planets. You, your son -now my heir-, and maybe just one more."
A pause as the two regarded each other.
"...Ho, you still have that ridiculous spine of yours even after all these years."
"It's this spine of mine that subjugated you and your siblings when I first came here. Perhaps I should introduce your face to the ground again for seducing my son."
The woman looked offended before she laughed. "Seduce? He was the one who came to me. Wouldn't leave me alone for a whole year!"
Ilmensvies scoffed. "Like I can believe that you're even capable of reciprocating emotion on human level."
Her black eyes gleamed. "I'm here to offer my power for our revenge for no ulterior motive. I think that alone tells much."
"...My limitation stands. I may be angered, but I am not blinded by my hatred to unleash a monster like you by the spades."
"Integrity of a holy god," she grumbled. "Fine," she said as she held her hand up. A purple fire lit up. "I, Clara iL Grey, the Bone Queen of Ilyasviel's Disciples, the First Disciple, ... wife of Ilcosvies von Einzbern, and the mother of Lucian von Einzbern, hereby pledge that I will abide by the limitations set forth by Ilmensvies von Einzbern." With her piece said, she banished the fire.
"Looking to cement yourself as my son's wife I see." There was pause before his right index finger lit up at the tip in white. He waved his index finger silently, leaving behind a simple circle with an 'X' beneath it. "I, Ilmensvies von Einzbern, the Duke of Northern Star Archipelago, and the practitioner of the Third True Magic, do accept your pledge."
"Good, because I'm bringing the Demon."
"You bitch!"
While his grandfather was making deals with the devil, Otto was being the devil.
He stood before one of the few survivors of the Terminus Alliance fleet in a dark chamber. There was only a dim light. The man, a turian, was bloodied in its blue blood. Its blood splattered all around the floor with a single etched rune circle underneath it.
"P-Please, I don't know anything...!" the turian begged pitifully as it tried to crawl out of the wide circle.
"Your own records show you as a lieutenant commander of your navy," Otto spoke with a drawl. "You will tell me everything you know about your worlds."
"Please, t-they'll kill my family if they find out. Please, please not my family."
Otto scoffed and crouched down just outside of the circle, some three meters away from the turian.
"I don't care about your family, lieutenant commander Rumanov. My home is burning, and I want my revenge to be thorough and clear. Now talk!"
"N-No.. My f-family..!"
Otto sighed as he stood up. He snapped his fingers.
The rune circle lit up and began to intensify.
"You should fear for your sanity before your family."
"NOOOO! GAHHHHHH!"
Otto turned around when one of his subordinates approached him, completely ignoring the lightshow and the scream of the tortured behind him. "How goes the interrogation on others?"
The woman shook her head. "They were too low in the ranking for much information. They broke immediately when we demanded information about their planet. Even told us everything about their relatives in the higher ups."
Otto che'd. "Kill them. I don't want any of those filth alive. At least this one is hanging on for his family."
There was a bang. "Sir, another bounty hunter brought in a live subject. Presumed to be a captain of their navy."
Otto's face split in two as his grin stretched across his face. "Bring them to me." He snapped his fingers. "Get rid of this garbage too. Make it as slow and messy as possible."
A man wearing black vest and black face mask appeared from the shadows. "Should I donate him to the Unspeakables?"
Otto nodded approvingly. "Yes, that is for the best."
Citadel Council
A days later...
"This is bad," Sparatus muttered as he replayed the declaration of war. "Those stupid idiot pirates."
The declaration of war and the involvement of the Terminus Alliance in terran affairs hadn't reached the Citadel Council until just few short hours ago. And this was because one of the scientist with the terrans had warned them to pull out all of Citadel resources within
Tevos was frowning along with her colleagues.
They had never truly tasted the might of the Terran League, nevermind a single state within it. But it must be substantial if they were able to blow away nearly fifty dreadnoughts without a care and still declare war after whatever losses they suffered.
"It was also a good time, perhaps, to see if the might of the terrans," she spoke outloud.
Valern looked at her as if she had gone mad. "Tevos dear, have you struck your head on the way here?"
The bluntness of his question shocked the other two.
"What?"
"They have a planetary shield covering the entire planet that was able to hold out against fifty dreadnoughts' consecutive orbital strikes for at least ten minutes. Might of the Terrans? It is fitting you say it that way. Too advance. Cannot comprehend power requirements alone. Complexity of whatever engineering is mind-boggling. We have seen the might already. If this is their best, then they are leagues above us. If this is their worst, I wonder why they bothered with us to send a diplomatic party."
Tevos nervously nodded. Perhaps the shock of the declaration of war had rattled her mind. Even if it had come at her blunt, what Valern had said was true.
"I still suggest we send cloaked STG ships and Spectres to observe them."
"Agreed."
System: Irisviel
"We're dropping out of warp drive in 3 ... 2... 1...!"
There was a tremor as the rainbow of time-space fabric of the w-space braked down to a near instantaneous stop. "All operating systems are clear and at optimal condition. System-wide IFF signal is being broadcasted in standard League diplomacy frequency."
"Good job, pilot."
"Just doing my job and moving you along, ambassador," the pilot replied. "I was actually surprised, though. The League rarely hires a private taxi like me. This is because of the ... attack, right?"
The ambassador, a man of dark skin dressed in blue and green of the Diplomacy Corps, nodded.
"Well, I hope whatever you're here to say, it better be a good one. And uop!, they seem like they got my signal."
"This is NSAN-E Emiya greeting Blue Angelfish. You have broadcasted on the standard Dipolmacy Corps frequency yet you do not match the hull of the said corp. Please explain."
"This is Blue Angelfish. I was hired by the League to zippy the ambassador I have onboard. His name is Zandala Hyjyuis, over."
"Ah, you are taxi'ing ambassadar Hyjyuis? Welcome to the system then. Be on high alert though, all of the patrols are on the edge. Make your way over to the space elevator."
"Roger that, Emiya." He turned to the ambassador. "That went well."
"Yes. But please hurry. I must talk with the duke before they set off on their war."
"Got it, got it."
The space elevator of Ilyasviel had been heavily guarded with shields and turrets, which was the only reason it was spared from the invasion force. Designed like a spiral cocoon with a oval space center in the middle connecting the planet with outer space with a single elevator barely forty meters wide in radius, it was small compared to some of the other space stations or even space elevators. However, the Einzberns had prided themselves in quality rather than quantity.
So when Blue Angelfish approached the station, the station's cocoons slowly unraveled to make a opening just right for the spaceship.
The ambassador, despite the seriousness of his business, couldn't help but admire the fluidity of the space station's machines.
Then they were docked.
He nodded to the pilot. "Thank you for your service, captain."
The pilot mock-saluted him, friendly. "Don't mention it. I'm getting paid."
The ambassador let out a brief, deep chuckle. "Indeed."
He walked out of the spaceship into a large open dock where hundreds of different spaceships were docking and leaving. In particular, freighters were visibly everywhere, unloading commodities and taking on another commodities by the tons.
'Even with the destruction of half of the capital county, trade goes on, it seems,' he thought. Then he was drawn back to his ground level where a team of three men and woman were waiting for him.
"Ambassador Hyjyuis?" the man in the front asked.
He nodded back. "Yes, that's me. And you are...?"
"We're the welcome crew for dignitaries that are arriving. I apologize for not meeting you right away, sir."
He waved it off. "It's completely fine, but I do need to meet with the duke immediately."
"Of course, sir. Please follow us."
They took a private elevator attached to the side of the main elevator, and zipped down to the planet's surface.
There, they were greeted by more courtiers of the duke, who tended to his needs as he and they made their way to the duke's Throne Room.
Upon standing in front of the ten meter tall, golden set of doors, he checked himself and nodded to the guard.
"Ambassador Zandala Hyjyuis of the Terran League!" the guard announced as he opened door with only one hand and surprising amount of strength.
The Throne Room was half the size of a football field. It was huge, and it was high. It was like a European Cathedral in its majesty that few buildings in the entire League had tried to replicate but failed to do. He could feel glory, power, and wealth that almost radiated in this room.
The attention of the busy Throne Room shifted over towards him, and he slowly walked up to the dais upon which the throne and the duke sat. He bowed to the duke down to his waist before straightening back up. "Greetings, Your Grace."
"It has been a long time, Mr. Zandala. Twenty years since I personally saw to your scholarship."
The ambassador smiled. "Indeed, sir. And it may be the reason why they sent me here instead of another ambassador."
"Then speak. What the League want in this war?"
"...If we may speak privately, sir?"
The duke looked around. He and the ambassador were surrounded by a large number of the Einzbern family as well as his courtiers and vassals who had come to him to offer their full support. "I need a moment."
Everyone nodded, and left the hall in seconds.
"Now, talk."
"Privately, the President of the League is concerned about whether or not Your Grace intends to make this war a total war. He also expresses concern over whether or not Your Grace intends to .. absorb more planets into your duchy. Publicly, he and the entirety of the League's Senate and Representative offer their full logistical support including ammunition, ration, and fuel."
The duke nodded. "I respect his queries and his support. Now, you know me, boy, and because I do not want to intrigue my way around this, I'll be frank with you." The duke slightly leaned forward. "By the time the war ends, there will no 'Terminus Alliance' left. I and the other two will split the territory among us while giving some over to the League for their military and colonization administration outposts. I intend to fully subjugate and have these aliens answer and pay by painful dividends for what they did here."
But it hardly answered the first question.
The nervous ambassador nodded. "I thank you for your frankness, sir," he replied. "I must ask, though... and the President was critical about having me ask you this... do you intend to allow the deployment of all of your fleets? Or for that matter, the current head of the Emiya Clan?" he pressed.
The duke leaned back, allowing his back to rest upon the throne.
He understood the concerns. The Terran League was a loose confederate between the Three Friendly Warring States and the fractured members of the former Gaian Alliance, which became the body of the Terran League today. Gaian League was never strong in their military, depending more on their prestige and piety they received as the holder of Gaia, the birth planet of the humans. As such, its lack of military carried over when it became the Terran League. And with the current Second Protoss-Terran War raging on and devouring the League's naval forces by the dreadnoughts every week, the policing of the rest of the League's space territory, including the Three's, were entirely dependent upon the Three's naval forces.
If the Three's entire naval force left for war...
"I shall leave behind ten patrol fleets to police the territories outside of mine."
The ambassador quickly bowed. "Thank you, Your Grace! ...And Your Grace?"
"Hmm?"
"Please give them hell."
The duke scoffed. "Hell will be a nice vacation compared to what I'm about to do."
Later that day, the ambassador was summoned to the Throne Room, and upon entering, he froze.
The duke sat upon his golden throne without much expression, but it was not the duke that made him freeze.
To the duke's right was the Emiya Clan head. Known as the only human capable of fighting True Dead Apostles Ancestors one-on-one along with a bloodthirsty personality, he was perhaps one of the most dangerous man the ambassador hoped to never meet.
To the duke's left was the head of the Tohsaka Clan, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk. Ambassador met the man several times. Another dangerous man.
Behind the duke was the head of the House of Shepherds, the guard dogs of the Einzberns ever since their reformation. Adam Shepherd looked like he had seen better days with those dark bags under his eyes, but he stood tall and strong. Ambassador knew that he had been ordered to retreat as per the Drealord's order before his death, but he hadn't known that the Shepherd head took his "failure" so heavily.
Alongside the wide red and white carpet were dignitaries that he had only heard about before.
The Prince of the Vjanyaguer Empire, draped in his gold and red robes and a black turban, stood along with his entourage of masked assassins and knights.
The twin heir of the Black White Conglomerate with their red-hued black hair and East Asian features were famous for their pranks and absolute destruction of pirates in their region of control.
And there were so much more. It was almost as if every single planet had sent a representative.
He quickly moved to stand at the back to not draw attention.
There were cameras stationed all along the edge of the room. Drones equipped with silent flying hovered in the air, taking in the entire procession.
"Ambassadors from all over the League, I welcome you in our time of need," the duke began. "It has been a long time since I had called upon my allies and my vassals, but Ilyasviel itself had been attacked and my heir had been killed. I have decided to finally give into my need for revenge, and have called you all to honor the pledges we have made."
Emiya was the first to bow. "I, Emiya Kuroshi, hereby honor the pledge we have made to our family, liege, and friend."
Tohsaka tilted his head. "I, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk, hereby honor the pledge we have made with our family, ally, and friend."
Shepherd pounded his chest in a salute. "I, Adam Shepherd, hereby honor the pledge we have made to our liege!"
The Prince of Vjanyaguer Empire stepped forward with a ornate gold spear in his hand. "I, Slioma Chavrujir, hereby honor the pledge on behalf of my family to my ally."
The twins stepped forward, and spoke as one. "We, the Twin Heir of the Black White Conglomerate, hereby honor the pledge on behalf of our state to our ally and friend."
And so on, the pledges went until two pools of darkness opened up on the red carpet. From them, two figures rose up.
One was a woman of infinite beauty that radiated killing intent in degrees he had never felt before.
The other was a big beast of a man. He only wore a simple fur pelt around his waist, covering down to his knees. He had more tattoo on his body than there was bare skin, and all of the tattoos were malicious in their design and red background.
"And I, the Bone Queen First Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my allegiance to the Duke in this war."
"I, the Demon and the Fifth Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my allegiance to the Duke in this war."
Everyone, including the ambassador, gawked.
Avatars of the planet had just declared their allegiance to a mortal.
Then a third pool opened up. From it, a man with white hair and red eyes like that of Ilmensvies rose up. "... I, Lucian von einzbern, the heir of the von Einzbern and the Tenth Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my all to the Duke."
There was a silence that shocked the entire room.
The duke scoffed. "I was wondering where you were after the funeral."
The heir smiled. "I ... needed some time to think, Your Grace."
"Then follow in your father's step and call me Pops, or grandpa. I hate to hear such words from my own grandson," he replied with a scowl.
"Sure ... grandfather."
What followed the Meeting of Pledges of Allegiances was a war council consisting of representatives of the presumed big donators and supporters of the upcoming war.
This secondary meeting took place away from the Throne Room where the other representatives were allowed to stay to mingle and discuss.
This meeting took place in a smaller chamber with more toned down exuberance. It was a round chamber, probably five meters tall and ten meters in radius. At the center of the chamber was a round desk made out of one solid, white marble piece and etched in gold with many langauges all stating the same thing: "May this meeting be productive." The desk itself was about 3 meters in radius. The room was lit up by spirally designed panels of light in smooth curves on the ceiling and the corners between the ceiling and the wall and the wall and the floor. The green and white light gave off a calming feeling. It was most likely designed intentionally as such.
As the representatives took their seats after the duke did so, Ambassador Hyjyuis couldn't help but feel ... overwhelmed. Here he sat, a junior ambassador by experience, surrounded by the big players of the Terran League.
Scratch that, he was scared as hell because the Demon of Ilyasviel was sitting next to him.
"I understand that this war effort will be costly initially ... and fortituous once we claim many of their planets for the grieviences they brought upon us," Ilmensvies spoke. "Know that the distribution of possessed systems and planets will be divided evenly after we take three garden worlds."
It was the Prince of Vjanyaguer Empire that objected first. "Surely you don't intend to up your own allies in the dividends of this war, Your Grace?" he asked in his thick Jap-Indian accent.
The duke shook his head. "I have no such intentions. The worlds I intend to take are those I intend to convert as gateway worlds."
Murmurs and speculations broke out.
Gateway worlds, Hyjyuis thought. As of right now, there exists only twelve such worlds. To be a gateway world, which was connected to other gateway worlds, the planet needed to have in possession a much larger version of the Stargates, the artifacats left by the Alterans. The Stargates left by the Alterans were, fortunately, functioning -all of them. But they weren't big enough for spaceships beyond a personal intrasystem "spacecars," so terrans had made their own larger version, even if they were similar to Mass Relays in their lack of dialing capability. They had to physically turn the entire worldgate towards the general direction of the target to form a connection. At least it was instantaneous.
Unlike the Alterans, who printed out Stargates like paper, no terran organization or individual has such power. To create one Stargate involved tens of thousands of hours of manual and technical labor and materials that cost in the upper billions of ISK, which was the same cost as a space station. In fact, production of a single Worldgate was equivalent to permanently boosting a state's GDP by nearly fifteen percent. For Ilmensvies to announce that he was intending to make three such worlds...
It was also how he got to Irisviel system as fast as he did. The average FTL speed of a terran spaceship was around forty lightyears per one Earth day. Fastest ships were in the scale of eighty to ninety lightyears per one day. But Irisviel was more than three hundred lightyears from Sol. Even if he took the fastest diplomat ship Sol had to offer, it would take a journey of 3 days minimum.
The prince remained silent before he scoffed. "Ambitious as always, Your Grace. I will accept this," he commented before he withdrew his objection.
Hyjyuis knew why the prince withdrew his objection.
Worldgates required a special substance. The Element 150. Despite its size and force, it was stable and found in only special corners of the universe where gravity was higher than normal. Artificially creating them was out of the question due to some technical difficulties and the lack of technology involved. Worldgate production required a literal ton of the stuff, and they were the reason for the worldgates were so expensive.
And Vjanyaguer Empire was in possession of the only two planets where they were mined.
By announcing that he was going to produce three worldgates, he was basically telling the prince that he was going to be boosting not just the Northern Star Archipelago's economy but also that of the Vjanyaguer Empire.
It was the Twins who objected next. "What about us? We are willing to help regardless of the lack of pay because we are friends, Your Grace, but payment on such similar scale as that of the Empire would go a long way."
"I intend to make sure that no taxes will be put on any businesses and government transports for two decades after completion of the worldgates."
"...We accept."
It was his turn.
He stood up. "As I stated before, Your Grace, I and the League's Central is concerned about the lack of ..."
Ah... politics. Why did he get into this messy business of behind-the-doors-negotiation again?
Mordin stared at the site of destruction wrought by the Terminus Alliance. There were multiple craters in the eastern portions of what was supposed to be capital city of this vibrant world.
He knew that the duke was showing this to him and the entire Citadel exchange group as a case in point for their casus belli invasion into Terminus.
He hadn't known when he first talked with Otto about the sheer destruction. And to hear what was sacrificed to put up that shield...
He felt sick.
He felt disgusted.
He had nearly condemned the terrans for starting a war, but this scene before him was nothing but a declaration of war! This was atrocity that even the Citadel Council would not forgive.
This was the massacre that he had accused the humans of attempting, yet this was done by the hands of the Terminus Alliance. Hundreds of millions dead! For any tier 1 civilization, this would be close to wiping out a continent! If the Einzberns hadn't cleared up the dust storms, it would have led to an ice age as well as the clouds covered up the skies and temperature plummeted as the clouds absorbed all of the sunlight and heat.
"Shit," he heard one of the exchange philosopher mutter. "This is messed up."
Messed up didn't quite sum it up, Mordin thought. But the sentiment was there.
"So Terminus finally dug their own grave."
Couldn't be said better. "I heard from Tohsaka-Bahk that they intend to wipe out the Terminus Alliance as a nation."
"That's perfectly fine with me," an Asari scientist by the name of Relli T'Uni scoffed. "It'll do the rest of the galaxy good to see those scums gone."
Couldn't be said any better.
Reaction of the declaration of war varied depending on where one was from. Citizens of the Citadel Council were intrigued and afraid. Terminus Alliance was only one or two relay jump from more than tenth of the Citadel territory. Denizens of the Terminus Alliance were frantically putting up defense or fleeing.
Terrans of the League?
They were in a bloodrage unlike anything the species had experienced.
The total death toll of the Ilyasviel Orbital Bombing of 215 SC (Sol Calendar) was in the hundreds of millions, and most of the Terran League was connected to Ilyasviel either by blood relative or friends. So with more than a hundred million dead, everyone in the entire League had lost someone directly or had someone who lost someone on Ilyasviel. The death of a hundred million had pulled the entire bickering humanity into one bundle.
Half of the Core Worlds were demanding a counterattack on part of the Terran League while the other half were simply proposing to allow the ruthless Einzbern to deal with the attackers as they saw fit.
The Black White Conglomerate and Vjanyaguer Empire had joined in on the war on the grounds of upholding their three century long alliance.
On March 5th of 215 SC, the might of the Three Warring States, no longer friendly, jumped into the first Terminus System with five hundred sixty dreadnoughts, ninety carriers with a hundred fighters each, three thousand five hundred battlecruisers, five hundred freighters, sixty thousand frigate-class escorts, and fifty million ground troops. Each soldier and warship were in the color of their homeworld. Those of the Northern Star Archipelago were in white and red. Those the Black White Conglomerate in black and white. Those of the Vjanyaguer Empire were in gold and green.
By Citadel standards, all of the dreadnoughts were super-dreadnoughts, or Titans as some were calling them. Each battlecruisers lacked the shield strength of the dreadnoughts/Titans nor did they possess the sheer armaments of their bigger cousins, making them weaker targets, but they had the same firepower of the Citadel dreadnoughts without needing to turn to aim thanks to their omnidirectional plasma and energy turrets. The frigates varied between standard, assault, electronic warfare. And all ground troops were equipped in the Three's standard arms and armor.
The sheer size of the fleet was something that had not been deployed since the First Protoss-Terran War, and Citadel had never seen anything like it.
Races of the Citadel tuned in the moment the first battle was reported. The single news crew from the Citadel Central News held up their camera in the face of the Might of the Terrans.
The first ship to enter was a single ship in gold and white. It was shaped like two boomerang that had been attached together facing each other. The defense fleet immediately locked unto the ship, and began to fire.
The ship did not try to dodge. Instead, it sat there, and began to gather a form of red energy ball.
Then just mere seconds after the energy ball turned white and caved inward, it was destroyed by a single well-placed dreadnought shot.
"Umm, it seems that the alleged terran ship has been destroyed," the reporter replied from behind the camera. The camera turnedto the reporters. "I don't know what that was ab- holy shit!"
The camera swerved back to where the ship had been destroyed, and watched as hundreds of thousands of spatial distortions rippled in bubbles across space.
And then there were just there.
A fleet that formed a wall simply by existing. The camera was already trying to count the number of ships it was seeing, and in seconds, the count had risen above a hundred thousand.
"I-It's the terran fleet!" the reporter squeaked. "H-holy spirits, this is ridiculous!"
Dreadnoughts longer than five Destiny Ascencions put together lined up by the hundreds. Their dark metal hulls glistened like predators in the void of space even with the other colors they sported. Then there were literally thousands of smaller ships. Unlike the bulkier dreadnoughts, the frigates were just menacingly shaped. Many of them were shaped like animals with "claws" and "teeth." Many were painted black and red with only small portions of it being painted in other colors.
Watching the frigates from afar was like watching blood drops speed by. An omen of death.
They swarmed space like locusts, ready to devour.
And this locust intended to devour the Alliance.
"T-This is the might of the terrans," she whispered in awe and horror. To think that Citadel almost waged war with these people. "The terrans have started their invasion into Terminus Alliance territory!"