The Coalition Collapses
Some were screaming in pure panic, insisting they had to get out of there right now. Others argued that escape was already impossible, so they should just charge Avalon Fortress, seize it, and dig in for a siege. A few had already given up entirely and were floating the idea of surrendering to preserve their fleets.
It was, in every sense of the phrase, a five-alarm dumpster fire. The coalition had stopped just short of shooting each other — but they were teetering on the edge of open mutiny.
Of course, if everyone simply did their own thing, the whole operation would collapse into nothing. So the few clan leaders still clinging to their sanity tried to rally the rest, pushing for one last reckless offensive on Avalon Fortress before the encirclement closed completely.
But that "offensive" was just a rerun of everything they'd already tried. Ramming assault pods into the fortress while leaving its defensive batteries fully operational, hoping to seize the station alone — that failed too. A handful of supers did manage to land and infiltrate, but…
"Supers. Welcome."
"Ah."
"Finally our time to shine, nya. Let's finish them off quick and go help the Commander, nya."
"Indeed, you are quite right, Miss Smeragi."
Icarus's close-combat supers — who hadn't shown so much as a nose hair during the defensive battle — were waiting for them. The result was a spectacular failure.
And thanks to that reckless push, the coalition's fleet strength was burning away at a catastrophic rate. Meanwhile, the sight of Central District players charging in to "rescue" him seemed to have given Icarus a sudden burst of courage — or maybe the destruction of the Overseer at exactly that moment had simply made him snap.
Two Krakens that had been dug into the spaceport gate like bunkers, plus every remaining ship that wasn't a Hresvelgr or a carrier — the entire surviving fleet came barreling out in a wild, indiscriminate charge.
A short while later…
The Central District players tightening the encirclement had begun striking the coalition's rear — and then:
When Menaldo arrived with his own fleet and his friends' ships in tow, the Walpurgis Coalition finally let go of the last fraying thread of reason. They abandoned their stubborn, self-serving plan and fled en masse through the gaps in the Central District players' formation — gaps that were inevitably loose, since the system made allied ships fight each other if they packed too tightly.
Of course, fleeing didn't erase what they'd tried to do, or what the outcome would have been. Everyone already knew. Even if they escaped this battle, endless pursuit would follow them for a long time to come. That much was certain.
Another day of stubborn survival.
The enemies who'd been attacking in a careful, measured way had suddenly started ramming themselves into my defenses. They'd been dumping assault pods like fireworks even though the fortress's anti-air systems were still perfectly intact. The whole thing had left me deeply confused — until I realized the reason was the six thousand-odd jokers who'd shown up to "rescue" me.
Faced with that merry band of jokers, the fifty-clan invasion force finally tucked tail and ran.
Stubbornly survived another day.
I still couldn't tell if I was the luckiest man alive or the unluckiest, but I was alive, so that counted for something. Of course, surviving the fifty-clan coalition was one thing. There was no guarantee that the massive player fleet that had just appeared out of nowhere was actually on my side.
I was already preparing to contact the mercenary dispatch office again — ready to dump every last one of my remaining 2.5 million minerals and 500,000 rare resources into a mutual suicide pact with whoever these people were, if it came to that. Before that, though, I reorganized the surviving mercenary companies and the defensive fleet, then scattered my remaining twenty-odd resource harvesters to start emergency repairs on the battleships and other vessels.
Fortunately, those worries turned out to be nothing more than worries.
I'd just finished reorganizing and redeploying my fleet — Krakens included — and was making a show of still having fight left in me when a chat notification chimed. The message was from Menaldo, the one currently leading the fleet drifting casually toward me.
There was more to the conversation, but that was enough for me to piece together how things had played out.
"So in the end, we weren't attacked by a bunch of minor clans. We walked into a scheme by a single clan chasing hegemony."
"Looks that way."
And as if to prove the point, most of the players who'd been holding a loose encirclement formation were already chatting in the Solo Player channel about how fun it had been — then turning around and heading home to their own bases.
Between Menaldo's explanation and the players' actions, I finally nodded to myself. The fortress siege — long if you measured it one way, short if you measured it another — was over at last.
With that settled, I moved to release every mercenary company whose contracts had been completely chewed through, terminate the remaining ones as well, and dock the surviving ships in the fortress's internal berths for repairs.
But a small problem I'd completely forgotten about — something from so long ago it had slipped my mind — chose that exact moment to make itself known.
Unlike Unit 1, Kraken Unit 2 was still in its growth phase, and after gorging itself on enemy ships throughout the late stages of the battle, its belly was so stuffed it was practically suffering from indigestion. The result: a creature that had previously slipped through the spaceport gate without issue was now firmly, thoroughly wedged in the entrance.
"Commander, we have a problem."
"…Don't tell me one of those jokers finally decided to attack?"
"No — Kraken Unit 2 is stuck in the gate and can't get out!"
"…"
Of course, the reason was simple enough. Unit 2 had been slightly smaller than Unit 1, so—