Gateways by Aer-ki Jyr (world of reading txt) 📕

do what, target what, move where, and he trusted them to take it from there, but the flow of battle was for him to direct, as it was for the other trailblazers and their fleets in their own assault sectors.

This was how galaxy-level war was fought. Not in a single battle, or single moment. Not a heroic move or winning strategy. This was tedious, non-stop carnage that even the best of personnel could get distracted by and lost within…but Star Force was better than the best, and they were going to stay in unison when the Hadarak fractured. And because of that they would win this coming fight convincingly, but they would have to do it day after day after day after day in order to get through all the enemies here.

The Hadarak would have plenty of time to learn from their mistakes and adapt their tactics…and therein lay the biggest job of the trailblazers. They had to counter their adaptations and improvise to keep the flow of battle what it needed to be, for a stalemate here was a loss. And 10% casualties was utter failure. Drones could be replaced, but not warship crews. Everyone had to live, otherwise a loss of a single person here would be felt tomorrow and on into the future. And while it did occasionally happen, Roger could not let it happen or the amoral Hadarak attrition strategy would win out. Roger could trade ships for kills, but he couldn’t trade people for kills.

And that’s what the Hadarak were going to try very hard to force him to do or give up and retreat.

As Roger’s mind extended out his astromech came alive and his senses expanded, with him seeing through every ship in his fleet, through their sensors, their cameras, their engine pulls on the black hole, the temperature of the air inside them, the latches holding the drones in place inside the warships. He was becoming the fleet, and through the fleet he would fight as his crew onboard the Sharkhammer protected him in his now vulnerable state plugged into a machine that he could not quickly detach from.

It was not the preferred way to fight as a warrior, but in naval warfare on this level, it was the only way to keep up with Wardens who had brains the size of starships and could control far more minions than Roger could ever hope to control drones.

The difference was, a Star Force drone pilot sitting in a warship was vastly superior to a minion’s intellect, so Roger didn’t have to micromanage as much. He just had to maintain the flow of battle…and his people would take care of the rest.

That was called ‘Teamwork,’ as opposed to the ‘Tyranny’ that the Hadarak employed so effectively across multiple galaxies.

But not this one.

Not anymore.

10

September 18, 158407

Megatron Prime 37 System (Galactic Core)

Low Stellar Orbit

Four years. Paul-024 had been fighting naval battles in this Gateway system every day for four years, and finally it was over.

He hadn’t had a full workout in all that time, nor had he made any improvements in his physical skills. The same was true of the rest of the Archons in the Star Force fleet, who all were doing partials to try and maintain their fitness during rotations while the combat had gone on nearly nonstop across the system.

It had occurred in spurts, with lulls here and there, but Paul had never been out of mental contact with the battlemap network for more than a few minutes while awake. This had been the most intense system conquest he and the other trailblazers had ever taken part in, and he knew it was going to get worse as they climbed the difficulty ladder taking the remaining gateways.

But for now it was over, and Mak’to’ran was already here with a small fleet to begin securing their foothold. He always did that personally before handing off system command to another V’kit’no’sat, and Paul knew he’d taken care of the work here as traffic was continuing to flow from outside this galaxy in both Hadarak reinforcements and other races.

Yet now that their foothold was gone, those Hadarak reinforcements were walking into a trap. The same was true of those coming from nearby systems who hadn’t got the idea yet that this gateway no longer belonged to them. The Star Force fleet was cutting them apart almost as soon as they entered at the primary local jumplanes while the Jedein were capturing as many as they could. Already there were huge areas of the system cordoned off into refugee camps where previous minions were now encased in cocoons and slowly transforming into new forms that would not be enemies.

Several Wardens were there was well going through the same transformation, except they were inside stars. Also they had managed to capture two Lurkers, which was a pleasant surprise, and they too were already in cocoons as the Uriti watched over them and the Jedein to make sure no one would damage them during in their vulnerable state.

But all was not safe here. As Paul sat in his command nexus looking down at the black hole directly below him as his fleet skimmed over its surface with a chunk a their sensors being completely useless in the super high gravity, the trailblazer watched the undulations in the surface via the sensors that weren’t affected. The black hole, while invisible to normal light, was actually quite active with magnetically stirred waves crisscrossing the surface as the extremely dense material flowed like sticky water.

The Uriti could go down there, as could the Hadarak Wardens and Lurkers. The Jedein stayed out of all but the uppermost layers, finding it too hard to move and they had to keep their tendrils tucked or they’d be ripped off, so a black hole of this size was really off limits to them almost as