Well, here we are: Infinity, one of only two real challenges I faced in the Darkspore Universe. The planet's surface was covered entirely in metal, as it had gradually become an ecumenopolis, which is the scientific term (at least I think it is) for a city that covers an entire planet. I don't mean an artificial world designed like a city (which would basically be a civilian version of an annihilaser), I mean that the planet used to have a normal biosphere that was gradually replaced with urban environments until most if not all of the planet was covered in city buildings. A side effect of this was that the planet had a permanent smog-layer on it from absolutely colossal industrial sectors, whose operation had contributed to the collapse of society on the planet and the extinction of most of its native lifeforms.

The sad thing was that, originally, the planet had actually had a thriving biosphere, as the machines that had been there had managed to successfully maintain the planet's ecology while working on their goals. But then the Darkspore had shown up and ruined everything. Now, according to the signals I had been picking up on my way to the planet, the last remnants of Infini as they were called had holed up in Infinity Prime, the planetary capital, with a couple of mutant beings fighting a guerilla war against the Darkspore in the outer areas. It looked like, for once, I could count on having backup in the coming battle.

Once we were in range, I returned to sublight speeds so I could locate a landing sight, ideally around Infinity Prime to relieve some of the pressure on the rebels. To my surprise, I found a large amount of what appeared to be debris in the planet's orbit. I could make out some mutation mines, which the Darkspore used to spread their infestation, but the others were a mystery-

"Warning, Detecting missiles approaching starship," announced HELIX, "taking evasive action now."

Both my flagship and the crogenitor vessel that HELIX was within quickly moved out of the way as barrage of missiles flew right past us. A few shots from my ship's lasers ensured they would no longer be a threat, but I soon found out that more were on the way. Additionally, the rest of the 'debris' I'd seen suddenly began to move or, alternatively, fire at me, forcing me to retreat a little bit.

What was going on- oh. That.

Yeah, should've seen that coming.

You see, Infinity was the home of most of the Crogenitor fleet, with its core (which was somehow inexhaustible) providing huge quantities of metal needed manufacture and maintain the fleet. They had been constructing orbital defense platforms to further bolster the planet's defenses when the Darkspore had arrived, reducing the planet to its current state. IT looked like the Destructor on the planet, Arcturus, had decided to reactivate the factories to get an edge on me. While he hadn't been able to build anything really dangerous, as long as the defense grid and fleet was up, I couldn't make planetfall.

Well, time to solve that.

"Any suggestions on dealing with those ships?" I asked HELIX.

"Analysis indicates that they have some kind of teleportation blocking technology aboard them, so any attempt to deploy the genetic heroes aboard them is likely to end in failure. However, you should already be able to destroy the orbital guardian ships and turrets with the machines you have."

Really? "How?"

"The ships and defense platforms were designed to fight ships of or greater size than themselves, and there are only a few squardrons of fighter-craft available to attack your own. As your own production abilities currently outstrip those of Infinity by several orders of magnitude, I recommend simply deploying your fighters to destroy the defenders and supporting with any weaponry you have aboard your starship.

Oh. Well, that could work.

And that was what I did: fighters began emerging from my ship, attacking all that they could find. The few ones that the Darkspore sent at me actually scored quite a few kills, being pretty tough and powerful in their own right, but ultimately, quanityt trumped quality here, and it didn't take me long to demolish the last of the fighters. After that, I started taking on the larger ships and the defense platforms.

Do you know how satisfying it is to watch a Starfighter or bomber destroy a ship several orders of magnitude larger than itself? Well, its very, very, very satisfying, as I can attest to from personal experience, and I got to witness it happen a couple dozen times during this battle. Oh boy was it awesome.

Once the defense platforms were down, I decided to join my starships in finishing off the enemy: I opened fire with antimatter torpedoes, which were each a one-hit kill against the starships. It only took me a few minutes to wipe the field clean of the remaining Darkspore fleet. After that, I determined a suitable location on Infinity (one close to Infinity Prime) and prepared to drop. Time to take back Infinity.

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AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off!