From her perspective, as well as indications for her Captains, it wasn't hard to see how this battle turned into a massive clusterfuck. Sarah Palmer wasn't happy with how the battle was turning out. Despite the Victorian intel, the force they faced was bigger than they could have even expected. The Empire had reinforced their defences around Zeta in a big way.

Before the attack, the intel said that the Empire's defences were minimal but by no means problematic. 30 ships, primarily destroyers and cruisers were set in a defensive formation around the ring. They were supported by 6 MAC gun platforms and 1 command and control station. That was what the intel said, but the defences were greater than what she and the other leaders had expected.

There were 75 ships, which were primarily destroyers and cruisers. It wasn't much of a comfort to know that little fact was right. There were also 3 dreadnaughts and 3 carriers both of which were paired and controlled a battle group of 20 ships. These groups were supported by 12 Mac platforms. 6 more than expected. But it was clear that not all were fully operational as four of them were still under construction. But the main problem was the station.

It wasn't just a command-and-control station as the leaders first thought, it was a fully operational battle station with large mac guns, rail cannons, plasma cannons, missile pods, repair stations and around 100 fighter wing squadrons. It wasn't going to be the easiest nut to crack wide open. Victorian forces were already working to try and take down its shields while Atlas forces were focused on one of the battle groups. GHR was a different matter. They had 25 ships split between 3 groups. A corporate Republic combat group, a GHR combat group and the final group being made up of a council fleet. The latter was split up into smaller strike units targeting the station.

Sarah's force was dealing with one of the Empire's storm groups. It was easier said than done as the ships were very agile allowing them to doge quicker. Making it hard to get any kind of weapons lock. But the armour made them hard to take down. However, the Empire's weapons were basic and didn't have the punch to put much of a dent in the ships facing them. The Empire had always focused on speed and armour the idea being that basic weapons would wear down the enemy if you had the speed and armour to survive.

Sarah growled as a frigate was playing around with them by moving in and out of weapons lock. The bastard wasn't letting the Eternal get any kind of baring. While it was decked out with weapons, its size forced it to be slow. It was just a gigantic target for every ship in the vicinity. At least it had the armour to force a few to shy away from targeting it.

"Report," Sarah growled.

"We've lost 4 more ships," the radar operator said. "The Empire has lost two more, but they are putting up the pressure,"

"Any word on the Federation?" she asked.

"No word," the comms officer said. "Something must be wrong, they should be here by now,"

Sarah nodded but said nothing. She knew that the Infinity was attacked by that Order. Scattered reports of them weren't welcome as they, almost, left no survivors. There have been incidents when they have failed, but those were few and far between with soldiers known for thinking outside the box. Order soldiers were tough, mindless and had no mercy. But they could easily be outthought and manoeuvred, with the right train of thought.

The Eternal shook as a MAC round hit the side of the ship. Alarms went off, as the round caused several breaches. Sarah ignored that as she focused on the space battle. It wasn't going as well as she expected as the Empire forces used their superior speed to their advantage. While their firepower wasn't good, even a pistol can cause major damage in numbers. And that's what was happening. Like small bees making thousands of stings weakening their foe.

"Target the destroyers!" Sarah called out as she watched the battle. "Remove their heavy hitters,"

"Sir!" the crew responded and began to relay the orders.

Almost immediately the Atlas ships began to move to target the designated ships. MAC, rail and heavy cannon fire began to spark from the Atlas ships followed by streaks of red from their laser cannons. Several of the Empire destroyers were cut apart and exploded. Sarah smiled, but that quickly failed as the Empire began to move to counter the attack.

"What happened?" she asked no one in particular.

"They've adapted," the radar operator said earning a groan from another.

"How?" she wondered. "Even with HIVE, it shouldn't take this quickly to adapt to enemy tactics,"

"Slipspace rupture!" someone yelled and Sarah watched as a tear appeared in space.

23 ships exited, mostly cruisers and frigates followed by the Eternals' older sister ship the Infinity. As soon as they exited, a group of frigates sped off and targeted several Empire vessels close to them. Sarah smiled, but then noticed a message pop up on her personal screen.

Sorry for the delay, had to make repairs to major systems. Need update -P

Sarah nodded before typing in a reply and attached a report. Now that the Federation were here, they could gain the advantage.

OOOOO

Parisa, along with her command staff, John, Cortana, Six and Dana, watched as a holographic image of the battle played out before them. As it did John frowned, something was wrong here.

As a general rule, Spartans were trained in all aspects of war. Aquatic, aeronautic, space, ground, none of it was left out of their training regime. While they were not expected to use it, at least not all the time, it was drilled into them so that if and or when the time came, they could use that knowledge to help or defend themselves. And that's what he used at this moment. Something was off here, but he couldn't place his finger on what. It was only when Atlas forces targeted the destroyers and how the Empire responded that he released what was going on.

"They have her," he muttered earning looks from just about everyone.

"They have who?" Commander Laskey asked.

"Keyes, Miranda Keyes," he said slowly. "These are her battle tactics and her fathers. She watched the manoeuvres and adjusted. She's part of the HIVE, and they are using her knowledge to counter our forces,"

"But I thought she died," Parisa said. "At the Ark, didn't she get hit by a spiker?"

"While spikers do do a lot of damage, they fire spikes into her," Cortana explained. "Spikes act as a sealant in a way. In the past, when someone was impaled, that stayed in them until they got to a hospital. It's a rarely used technique thanks to sealant foam. So, it's entirely possible that…" she tailed off as her eyes widened. "That she was alive when she got back to the ship,"

Eyes looked to the former AI as realisation dawned on them. "But that would mean…" Laskey said.

"That this whole warlord era was planned," Parisa said her lip twitching. "Or at least the Empire was planned,"

All eyes turned to the hologram before them. "So, we stop them," Laskey said before typing something in. "If we can make a hole to Zeta, we can drop an assault team and move to finish off the HIVE. If we do that, we cut off their main source of intel and strategy,"

Six looked at the plan before and nodded. "Only the Direwolf could do something like that. We have the bays to drop hundreds of Spartans and equipment. We could do it, but they have the way to Zeta locked down tight,"

"We need to get rid of those MAC platforms," one of the other captains said as his holographic form pointed at them. "If we can gain control of them, we can use them against the Empire and that damned station,"

"Could work," Parisa nodded. "ODST teams would be the best option. 5 teams per platform with 1 Spartan per team," That got a series of nods. "The problem is getting them there,"

"The best option would be using the Frigates to get in close and launch borders," Laskey said.

"But that would be obvious and those ships would be targeted," Six pointed out. "Empire ships are fast. They will target the frigates. We need some kind of distraction,"

The group paused as they looked at the hologram before them before Dana spoke up. "We focus attacks on the battle station," as she spoke, she brought up another image of the circular station. "We alert the other factions about what we plan to do, but we don't let them know about the boarding action until it happens, that way there's less chance of the boarding teams getting knocked out,"

"What if…" Cortana said as she began to type. "Dana, help me out here,"

The AI said nothing but turned to the map and begin to blink. The team watched as Cortana and Dana ran through several scenarios at lightning speed. It was hard for the regular humans of the staff as they couldn't see what was happening. But the Spartans could, Parisa in particular monitored the strategies with interest. In the end, Cortana sighed in annoyance.

"There's not much we can do," she then said as she pulled herself away from the console. "We are dealing with Miranda Keyes here, daughter of Jacob Keyes and…" she paused looking around and swallowed. "And a very smart scientist. He might not have the same mind as them, but that's both a good and bad thing. Because it means that she won't rely on the same tactics as her father, but it also makes her very unpredictable as an opponent,"

"So we need to do something unpredictable then," Parisa muttered. "But what?"

The room fell silent for a moment before someone unexpected spoke up. "What about using rocks?" one of the pilots said with eyes turning to him.

"Whatdya mean?" Laskey asked.

The man gulped but continued. "I and a few others play this old pen-and-paper RPG. In the book it said that this race used hollowed-out rocks to drop on a planet as a precursor to an invasion," he shrugged. "We could do something similar,"

"I could work," Cortana said as she cupped her chin. "We could use drop pod frames in the rocks and propel them at the MAC platforms,"

"We'd also need to put up blockers to hide their signature," Six said. "But they would get shot down,"

"Not if we use decoy rocks," Laskey said. "Scramble the signals to make it look like there may be soldiers in them,"

"I feel like I should point out that this race had thousands of rocks and people to throw away. And they didn't care about losses," the pilot said. "If we did the same thing, we would lose people,"

"Then it's a volunteer mission," John said. "We can use the rocks to target multiple platforms. Once on, we can set up a beachhead for reinforcements and take over the platforms. I volunteer for this mission,"

Parisa looked at him, but said nothing and nodded. "All those in favour?" most of the staff raised their hands. "Ok, Dana how long will it take to hollow out the resource asteroids we have?"

"About 12 hours," she said. "And that's including setting in frames,"

"Then let's buy the fleet 12 hours," Laskey said before beginning to bark out orders to the fleet.

Parisa turned to John. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"I'll get there, even if I'm the only one," John muttered before he turned and walked out of the bridge.

"He's lucky," Cortana said. "One of the luckiest people around,"

"That's what worries me," Parisa sighed. "How long will it be until he pushes his luck too far?"

Cortana fell silent at that but nodded.