Chapter 140

Invasion Begins

It turns out, the Nugitraaiil were not that big on paperwork, much to the relief of Lucas and Chu Shen. There were some small things, but there were only three major points. 

One. Any commands that are given by the military is to be followed. Two. They were allowed to engage the invaders, but they must first register their attack plans. Three. There was to be no attempt to fake invader kill count. If that was done, then all previous cores must be refunded and your privateer license would be revoked forever.

Everything else was just small tidbits, like how to register attack plans or that the military could do random inspections of any s.h.i.+p records. They weren’t really concerned with that since at the moment the only s.h.i.+p they had was the small one Lucas owned. It wasn’t meant for fighting.

Chu Shen approached him about that. “Lucas. We need a way to get involved in this fight. The best way to do that is with a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Can you make one quickly enough to suit our needs?”

Lucas sighed. “Yeah but what good is one s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p going to do? I would rather make a whole fleet of drones to fight instead of one s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.” Lucas’ face lit up. “That’s it! So long as I make a ton more of those cradle free fabricators, I can start making tons of s.h.i.+ps in a short amount of time. All I would need would be materials.” 

He grimaced. “The materials though… The ARD (Atomic Rea.s.sembling Device) will be really helpful in that regard, but making a ton of metal would require a lot of time. Plus, it can only make one type of material at once. Hmm.”

Chu Shen shrugged. “I don’t see why you don’t just make more ARD’s then. With more you can increase production of metals by a lot.”

Lucas waved his hand dismissively. “Because I only have enough room inside my s.p.a.ce for two more of them. The Anti-Matter generator could easily power ten more but I just don’t have the s.p.a.ce.”

Chu Shen tapped him on the shoulder. “Uh Lucas. Why are you making them inside your s.p.a.ce?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Because, we can’t have people finding out about technology. You said it yourself. If someone found out, then one of those insanely powerful people could come and kill all of us.”

Chu Shen nodded. “That is true... but look around. I don’t see that issue coming up here.”

Lucas looked at the mechs around him and then back at Chu Shen. “Oh yeah. Alright, give me ten days and I should have it done. Ten more days after that, I should be cranking out s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps.”

……………………………

While Lucas was busy making the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps a reality, there was a war going on. The A.I. had activated all of its resources to hunt down the invaders. Its...o...b..tal defenses activated stealth, preventing the scouts from noticing it.

The invaders’ scout force consisted of three cruisers. The three s.h.i.+ps went to each planet and did a thorough scan. When they reached the planet Chu Shen was on, the defense platforms activated. Over fifty of the round defense platforms shot beams of white hot plasma, at least fifteen for each s.h.i.+p. Compared to the one fired at Lucas’ satellite, these were over twenty times more powerful.

The cruisers’ s.h.i.+elds flared for only a second before disappearing under the barrage of enemy fire. They didn’t even have a chance to react. The three cruisers were filled with holes, making them resemble swiss cheese. Two of them blew up as their reactors lost containment. The other ended up breaking into five pieces. Plasma beams continued firing until all the pieces of the alien s.h.i.+ps were erased.

A week after the cruisers were destroyed, five destroyers appeared in the system. Compared to the cruisers, the destroyers had superior s.h.i.+elds and weaponry by a large margin. They were also slower. They were obviously sent to investigate the disappearance of the cruisers.

One of the destroyers was left next to the seventh planet while the other four spread out to investigate the rest of the system. Apparently, they were worried about not getting a message this time. The defenses activated once again, blasting the two destroyers who were close to the planet to bits. At the same time, an ion cannon located on the seventh planet was able to destroy the destroyer that was located next to it.

The other two tried to flee, but they were swarmed by over one hundred fighters that were in the asteroid belt between the sixth and seventh planets. Their debris was annihilated just like before. All of this was done to try and slow down the invasion. With this, preparations could continue for as long as possible.

The A.I. in charge of the fleet knew a lot about naval strategies. The next attempt at scouting would most likely be an entire fleet. If so, it was pretty much guaranteed that at least one s.h.i.+p would get away. When that happened, multiple fleets would all converge on them.

Just like four hundred years ago, they would send only a couple fleets. Each defeat would mean an increase of one fleet to the fight. Eventually it would reach the point where the defenders would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It would be at this point that privateers would be needed. At the moment the A.I. had already commanded the only privateers to stay planetside. It did not seem as though they were capable of s.p.a.ceflight at the moment anyways.

Just like the A.I. had predicted, a week later a fleet consisting of 1 carrier, 200 fighters, 10 battles.h.i.+ps, 40 destroyers, and 20 cruisers arrived at the seventh planet. The carrier launched ten wings of fighters with five fighters to a wing for a total of fifty fighters launched. 

The fighters scattered throughout the system, doing long range reconnaissance while the rest of the fleet slowly moved into the planetary system. The A.I. had small naval bases set up everywhere inside the system. Hollowed out asteroids in the asteroid belt contained either one large s.h.i.+p, five medium s.h.i.+ps, or one hundred fighters.  Naval bases on the planets contained surface-to-orbit capable weapons along with large amounts of s.p.a.cecraft.

The A.I. had not wasted time developing its defenses. The s.h.i.+ps at the bases were mostly outdated though. Its research, which was conducted on the fourth planet inside the system, had allowed it to progress steadily. The seventh planet contained the oldest s.h.i.+ps. The closer you get to the sun, the newer the s.h.i.+ps became. The reason for this was that the s.h.i.+p production lines were on the first planet next to the sun.

The reason it was set up there was because it offered abundant energy and natural cloaking. The sun’s radiation was able to interfere with pretty much all scanning attempts. The production line was located deep underground though, to avoid all that radiation, and was heavily s.h.i.+elded. Any s.h.i.+ps were launched when the installation was facing away from the sun to avoid damage from the sun’s intense radiation.

As soon as the enemy fleet went past the asteroid belt, numerous s.h.i.+ps launched. Taking the enemy by surprise, over half of their destroyers and cruisers were immediately destroyed. The battles.h.i.+ps were much tougher nuts. All of the battles.h.i.+ps took off for the seventh planet as it was clear the fleet did not have a chance of surviving. All of the other s.h.i.+ps tried to hold off the enemies to allow the battles.h.i.+ps to escape. The fighters from the carrier proved to be particularly annoying.

They were successful.

One battles.h.i.+p, with over five holes in its hull, managed to limp to the seventh planet and jump.

The A.I. was not disappointed at this failure. It had no feelings after all. Instead it calmly ordered the surviving s.h.i.+ps back to their hiding places. There, they would be repaired for the next fight.

After all, the war had only just begun.