There's Much to Consider for Victory
Of course, it hadn't just been empty talk.
Due to the recent clashes between the Pirate Coalition and the Earth Federation, not only the Pirate Coalition's main force but countless commanders stationed in the affected regions have seen their mercenary hire rates explode — and as a result, every other region has been completely stripped of available mercenary companies.
For the next week, the Mercenary Bureau will only process contract renewals for existing mercenary companies.
Well, that settles it.
The event message that had just popped up in front of my eyes delivered the confirmation kill. Faced with the Mercenary Bureau clerk's helpless shrug and a resigned "nothing we can do," I had no choice but to accept it — and the realization that I would have to fight the enemy with nothing but the forces I currently had left dragged a groan straight out of me.
Still, sitting around doing nothing wasn't an option either. I headed straight for the command center.
Information is power…!
I opened the Gallery and ran a quick search, intending to dig up whatever intel I could on the large-scale invasion currently unfolding in the Central District.
But the moment I actually opened the Gallery — oh, for the love of god.
It was Sodom and Gomorrah made manifest in the present day, and I could scarcely believe what I was looking at.
What the hell are the other mod bastards even doing?
Sure, a handful of rankers including myself were under attack in the Central District — but there were only three of us. The other rankers, meaning the other mods, should have been handling Gallery moderation like normal.
Instead, for reasons unknown, the mods had half-abandoned their duties, and the board was so thoroughly flooded with garbage posts that running the information search I needed was completely impossible.
I was about to close the Gallery in defeat when, at that exact moment—
Oh damn.
Like the Lord Himself raining orbital bombardment down upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the actual staff mods — not the player ones — had stepped in and were bulldozing every deranged post into oblivion. And only then, in the newly sanitized list of Gallery threads, was I able to find the post that would answer my questions.
Those two are currently locked in a full-scale clan war against each other.
2. Rank 2 and Rank 4 are just MIA.
From what I've heard, they lost a war and are busy with internal crackdowns, so they're not even looking at the Gallery.
3. Ranks 3, 5, and 10 are reportedly getting dogpiled in the Central District.
Why they're getting jumped, nobody knows.
Anyway, with active mods suddenly dropping to a third of normal, the trolls decided this was their chance to burn the whole Gallery down. No idea what their problem is, but when tens of thousands of them pile on at once, you're just screwed.
And at some point those three remaining mods also gave up and let go of the reins, which is when the real catastrophe hit — and now the staff are intervening to get things back to normal as fast as possible.
…So that's what was going on.
The posts had only been explaining the state of the Gallery, but thanks to them I now understood not just my own situation — I had a clear picture of the overall strategic landscape as well.
At any rate, after checking the Gallery reactions and reviewing the status of the enemy fleet, I suddenly sensed that something was off.
Hold on — why haven't they shown up yet?
No matter how vast the territory was, it shouldn't take more than a day to get here. Pure ship count put it at 408 versus 150 — they could just steamroll us with raw numbers. So why were they dawdling around instead of coming?
Don't tell me they were planning another cheerful little tour of the resource zones, determined to dry up every last one of my supply lines.
I will not forgive such rotten behavior!
But the moment I voiced that suspicion out loud, Jessica shook her head firmly and offered a different explanation.
"Commander, the enemy fleet is currently holding position at the outer edge of our sector."
"Holding position?"
"Yes. Strangely enough, they aren't even attacking the resource zones. They're just… sitting there."
"…Hmm?"
Hearing it from Jessica only spawned a fresh wave of questions about their incomprehensible behavior.
Why on earth…?
I wasn't joking — if they simply split in half and started roaming around, I'd be completely unable to respond and would get carved up all over again.