Truce Amid the Chaos
The problem was that this so-called “front” was the battlefield itself—where my main fleet’s cruisers were already locked in a bare-knuckle brawl with the enemy.
In the middle of that free-for-all, the light cruisers that had been sitting idle in the rear were shoved forward in a reckless free-for-all. The result flipped the situation on its head: the enemy fleet packed itself far too densely, and their mobility went straight to hell.
“Now’s the time♡”
“Overseer main battery, fire. Aim for the center of their battle line.”
The concentrated heart of the enemy fleet took the full brunt of Overseer’s remaining main gun and Pashtura’s all-out beam—!
—BOOOOM!!!
—KRA-KOOM!
“Enemy line collapsing! Confusion is spiking across their fleet!”
Lightly armored light cruisers were skewered like kebabs by Overseer’s main guns, or simply ceased to exist under Pashtura’s beam cannons—reduced to nothing but a floating bow and stern. Watching that scorching display erase hours of grinding misery in an instant, I almost shot out of my seat to cheer.
And then, right after—
—KRAAAAAANG!
“Eek?!”
“What the hell just happened? Griyanaar!”
“This is bad… Commander? Every last one of Overseer’s main guns has been destroyed.”
“…”
The moment I heard Overseer had been castrated, I also realized something else: regardless of the chaos on their side, that commander’s—guy or girl, who even knew—small ships were still perfectly fine and running on auto-combat. I immediately ordered the mobile force, already mid-charge, to dump every heavy torpedo they were carrying into the enemy line first.
Dozens of fifty-five-meter heavy torpedoes streaked out from the mobile force. Their sheer size, combined with mobility that barely matched a patrol craft, meant most of them met the anti-air fire of a veteran-designed fleet and detonated in empty space. Still, the handful that survived put their massive, beautiful bulk to work. They tore through the paper-thin armor of light cruisers like wet cardboard, then cooked off inside. In the blink of an eye half the enemy light cruisers were either dead in the water, combat-incapable, or both—proving their absurd price tag in the most spectacular way possible.
The catch was that hanging those heavy torpedoes had left the mobile force’s own armaments paper-thin. After the salvo, most of them couldn’t even scratch a light cruiser; they just buzzed around like flies.
With the mobile force crashing into the fight as well, the battlefield turned into a truly grotesque double sandwich: enemy – my main force – enemy main force – mobile force. Damage on both sides started piling up at a terrifying rate.
That god-awful melee structure also made retreat nearly impossible for either of us. Ships were already packed so tight that small craft getting swallowed by a capital ship’s magazine detonation was routine. Superhumans from both sides were hopping from hull to hull like stepping stones, snatching ships back and forth. Formations completely swapped mid-battle. One cruiser changed owners five times in a single hour. Micro-control—mine or theirs—became so chaotic it was basically impossible.
It was a perfect reminder of why the me from three years before possession, and most of the current veterans, had always been so allergic to PVP even when the admins dangled every bait imaginable.
Five hours after that thought first crossed my mind, the situation had only gotten worse. Except for the ships bought from the shop or pulled from gacha, nearly every hull on both sides had changed hands at least once, or been abandoned as a wreck only to be patched up by repair ships or self-repair modules and thrown straight back into the meat grinder. After nearly ten hours of a fight so chaotic that “melee” felt like an understatement, what I wanted more than anything was rest.
The problem was that ordering a full retreat here—exactly as I’d been saying—was suicide. This damn battlefield was mixed far too thoroughly. Pull out just because I was tired, and the enemy ships scattered in every direction would chew my fleet to pieces. The result would be catastrophic, and the other side knew it too. That was why they kept clinging on even though most players hated this kind of insane brawl.
I was still turning over how the hell to untangle this mess when—
> ALERT!
> A 1:1 chat request has been received for Commander Icarus.
> Do you accept?
> [ Y / N ]
Huh?
The sudden chat request made me suspicious, of course—but only for a second. In this situation there was exactly one “user” who would be messaging me. I hit Y without hesitation and watched the chat window open, then spoke in a flat voice.
Even in the middle of this mess they were casually flexing. Irritation flared and I almost closed the window on the spot—
The hurried follow-up messages cooled my irritation a little, but I kept my tone curt and asked again.
For someone who’d thrown the first punch, they were acting pretty damn confident. I felt my brain short-circuit for a second—then realized the “hurried” typing I’d noticed earlier wasn’t panic at all. Their chat speed was just absurdly fast. And the tone…
“Commander, may I report?”
“Yeah, Jessica.”
“If I’m being honest about the current state of the battle… we’re losing, if only by a narrow margin.”
“…”
Jessica’s report made it clear we weren’t exactly sitting pretty. The other side wasn’t offering me a favor out of kindness; they were the ones in a position to “let me off.” That realization sent me into a long, grinding internal debate.
Of course, that only applied to the fight happening right now. If I scraped together Marianne waiting back at base, every ship still rolling off the production lines, and the entire resource-zone defense fleet and threw them all in, the expedition force on the other side—unable to resupply—would get completely erased. So their real goal was probably to preserve both fleets through negotiation rather than finish mine off.
Still, if I jumped at their offer too eagerly, they might decide, Oh, this guy’s out of gas? Screw the peace deal, all-in rush! and try to force a decisive fight. Tempted as I was, I typed a refusal into the chat.
But then—