The fighting aboard the colony was flaring up. Doom was able to establish his beachhead and accomplish the first phase of the assault with relative ease, but that was only because of the total surprise of his initial attack. The Skrulls would manage to sort themselves out quickly enough and he suspected the next phase would more arduous.
Fortunately, securing the detention block had gained them considerable reinforcements.
Some of the super-beings, ones such as Omega-Red or Sabertooth, would be impossible to incorporate into his plan; these loose-cannons were simply released and encouraged to cause chaos. Others, such as Daredevil or Wonderman, couldn't be trusted to 'see the big picture.' Doom had a reputation of willingness to work with others to save the world, and this aided him somewhat in getting these malcontents to agree with the plan he explained to him. These sorts were amalgamated into distracting forces; groups looking to seize engineering or the bridge.
Doom had little concern about their success, but it would draw off defenders from his main objective: the computer core. He had told them that he was taking a force to attack the royal chambers and capture or kill Queen Veranke; this had mollified them well enough.
Emma Frost had made good on her promise as well; several mutants with teleportation powers, aided by Doom magically 'anchoring' the area, brought reinforcements. She even managed to scrape together a small X-Force team to accompany him: Psylocke, FantomX, Doctor Nemesis and Monet St. Croix all had volunteered to carry out the mutant's end of the bargain. They were a fearsome group of murderers, but he was confident that the chance to end the persecution of mutankind would be enough to keep this morally questionable group in check.
What he did not expect was the addition of the Queen of the Inhumans, Medusa.
"Queen Medusa; I did not think you still lived," he said, approaching her after she was deposited by the teleporting Pixie.
"The survivors of the royal family fled to seek aid from the Kree; instead we were captured by Ronin the Accuser when he betrayed us. Only I escaped," she said. "Imagine my surprise when I returned to find Attilan destroyed and Skulls ruling the Earth," she continued as her prehensile hair writhed around her in restrained fury.
"My good queen; I sympathize for your great loss. Doom can only offer you blood and vengeance," he said.
"That will suffice," she replied with a regal calmness.
Nevertheless, there was some joy for Medusa: among the freed prisoners was Gorgon, the head of the Inhuman Royal Guard. The two enjoyed a reunion as Doom turned his attention to other matters.
Among the freed prisoners included Anole and Ava, the other captured members of Carol's cell. She was clearly thrilled to see the young heroes still alive. He watched as they had a heated exchange; Carol wanted to send the youngsters home, and they insisted on joining the battle. She finally relented to their arguments and they were added to his task-force. Anole seemed particularly pleased to see so many of his fellow mutants present after being separated after San Francisco
Doom's last two allies he was bringing on his mission concerned him; he hated to be so unsure about Carol Danvers and Colonel Rhodes.
Over the past year, he had been using subtle enchantments and hypnotic suggestions on Carol, which combined with destruction of her world, left her suggestible enough that she may see reason. Colonel Rhodes on the other hand, was rendered immune to such things by his cybernetic nature. Doom was not confident that the cyborg would willing join him, but he also needed as much firepower as he could muster at this moment, and Warmachine still had a part to play in his plan.
Regardless, the group made a suitable enough praetorian guard, supplemented by the two platoons of Doombots he kept. Too large of a force would be liable to be tied down in the room-to-room and corridor fighting in the ship.
With his control over many of the subsystems, most notably the doors, Doom held a powerful advantage. He needed to seize the computer core; accomplishing this would grant him control over the entire fleet. With gun to the head of every surviving Skrull, he could dictate peace on his terms. Likewise, the power over every computer and telecommunication system on Earth would allow him to dictate the same to the remaining human governments, lest he destroy their civilization.
Of course, if he failed, the Skrulls would instead be handed the tool to finalize their dominion over this world. But Doom would be dead if that occurred anyways, and he knew humanity was lost without his guidance.
Already, across the globe, his most sophisticated replica Doombots were rallying the scattered forces of mankind for a single coordinated strike against Skrull centers of power. These robotic doppelgangers were constructed with the most advanced diplomatic-heuristic software he could design, further tailored to each of their targeted allies.
Each carried his most advanced weapons, and even had multiple quantum detonators designed to trigger if the Doombot was heavily damaged in the battle. Allies of the Doombot would simply see a flash of light as the robot disintegrated itself, giving the impression it 'teleported' away. A final Doombot in the ruins of his castle would send a transmission to the allied forces that 'he' was forced to join another battle that was going poorly, but to carry on.
As for his battle on the ship, Doom's route was forced to pass through the alien arena. The stadium sat on in the connecting 'neck' between the exterior ring of the ship and the central module. The rest was of it was composed of tunnels and corridors that were already bound to be full of fighting as some of his distracting forces fought their way through that quagmire which wholly favored the defenders.
Unfortunately, the arena was the fastest way into the government module of the ship, and he did not have the forces for a protracted boarding action. Their one saving grace was how close the arena was to the detention block, to facilitate the transfer of prisoners for the Skrull's entertainment.
His task-force carved through the periphery zones. The Skrulls left token forces of marines who gave their live dearly, but there were concerningly few Super-Skrulls among them, and the occasional one was easily dispatched by Doom's allies. With their superior levels of coordination, the doombots easily cut through the rearguard defenders, and any pockets of stout resistance were dispatched with heavy firepower supplied by Rhodes and Carol, or cut down from behind by the X-Force mutants.
As he stepped over the smoking remains of a Skrull heavy weapons team, it seemed clear to him that the aliens were pulling their elite forces back for a more concerted defence.
He checked the status of his virus, taking a few moments to turn his intellect to the strategic vision as his lackeys executed their roles in his tactical plan. Already, some of the lesser Skrull ships were nearly fully under his control, though that would mean the aliens would have an indication as to his plan. Critically, the prison ship containing the humans the Skrulls replaced during their initial invasion was included in that list. While he couldn't destroy the ship (yet), he could suddenly disengage the stasis pods holding the heroes and vent their life support.
Another relevant bargaining chip when things came to head.
A short assessment of his distracting forces showed unsurprising results. The group he sent to engineering had made good initial progress, likely due to recall of the Super-Skrulls to the central module, but they had to fight their way through the whole outer ring, and the numbers of Skrull marines they faced was taking its toll. He suspected they would make it half-way before their momentum entirely petered out.
As for the group his dispatched to the bridge, they were several decks below him and caught in the morass of urban-style fighting, involving many more Super-Skrulls. The heroes were battling bravely, but they would be overcome if nothing changed. Worse, by now the aliens would know that Doom was with neither group, and no doubt Veranke would prioritize his death to put an end to this.
Regrettably, several of the residential areas were reporting attacks; that would be the work of Sabertooth, Omega Red, and their fellow psychopaths. The local policing forces were little match for their kind, and with the Super-Skrulls tied up, those monsters were free to brutalize the civilian Skrulls. Useful as it was to further peel away more defenders to protect their civilians, such tactics still left a bitter taste in Doom's mouth. War-crimes tribunals will have to be-
"Vic?! You gonna help or anything?" Rhodes said, shaking Doom from his thoughts.
"Take care when you disturb me, cur," Doom replied. At the very least, one way or another, he wouldn't have bear the indignities of these lesser beings feeling entitled to his time.
"Thought you might want to know we made it to the stadium. But I'm sure whatever else you were thinking about was more important than the firefight."
"And?" Doom said. This man was a damned Colonel! Did he expect Doom to sort out every tactical detail? Surely even the Americans taught their senior officers better.
Rhodes threw a thumb over his shoulder as he spoke, "Their waiting for us."
"Some specificity in your speech would be appreciated, Colonel Rhodes," Doom answered as he brought up his tactical display. His robots had already spread out to various entrances to the stadium and were stacked up in preparation for the attack.
One of the robots had scouted forwards, and was quickly gunned down. He reviewed the last of its telemetry: on the other side of the arena, several dozen Skrull marines were deployed in the stands, all the way to the upper levels. A score of Super-Skrulls had taken positions in the arena grounds. Queen Veranke herself waited in the royal box of the coliseum, surrounded by her praetorians, including the Skrullified Iron Man.
After learning of the disposition of the aliens, Rhodes said, "So it's a trap."
"A challenge," Doom answered.
Rhodes shook his head, "How do you figure that? This is obviously a perfect kill box."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," he replied absent-mindedly as he issued orders to his doombots. "Regardless, with Queen Veranke here, we must face her to topple the Skrull government," he continued. That was only half-true, but with the computer core only a short trip from the arena, victory here would mean that there would be little opposition left to his goal.
Doom gathered his own praetorians, and entered the arena for what he expected to be the final time.
As they entered, he could see the alien marines clutch their weapons tighter, training them on his small cohort, but they did not open fire; as he expected.
His own troops were coming through various entrances in the stands, taking up firing positions. Doom could see that his allies were getting jumpy as they walked into the open arena. They finally stopped just short of the center of the grounds, and he crossed his arms and waited.
There was a way things had to be done.
Queen Veranke stood up from her throne. She had chosen to replace her regalia with a spiny, segmented plate crafted from an opalescent alien alloy. Despite the catastrophe, she seemed more animated than ever.
"I won't waste our time by offering you the chance to surrender," Veranke announced.
"I suspect you'd be disappointed if I accepted such an offer," Doom replied.
Veranke gave a sly smile before answering, "I would. It has been too long since I whetted my blades," she said, sliding a finger down one the edges of her silvery bident. "Besides, you've gone to all the effort of gathering our enemies together. I must say, I expected more than this rag-tag collection of freaks and degenerates."
He ignored the insult, even if it was half-true. "Doom seeks no terms other than your unconditional surrender. Accept or decide this with force of arms, but let us not waste any more time."
"Then let the Lord anoint this sacred field of battle" she declared, raising her spear to the heavens as her retinue howled in blood lust.