The Instigator Who Fled
As if they had once again dropped the thread of sanity they had only just managed to grab hold of, they were throwing themselves into the rebellion with wild, manic abandon.
Watching that spectacle, the clan member who had stirred the Date Palm Clan into action—no, the Loki Clan's external member and professional troll, Skein—gave his head a slow, incredulous shake.
"Idiots. They actually took the bait."
"Maybe that's because the Commander handled things a little too thoroughly?"
Naturally, his adjutant, Mina, gave him a look that said You're the one who stirred them up, and now you're saying that?
Skein only shrugged once, then answered with absolute shameless confidence.
"Yeah, but that isn't my fault. All I did was offer an 'opinion,' you know?"
"Mmm…"
"The choice was theirs. I don't feel sorry for those guys at all."
Seeing him spit out lines worthy of a born demagogue—the sort of thing that would have made any legendary agitator proud—Mina felt a flicker of pity for the other commanders who had fallen victim to her commander's trolling. She began offering earnest advice to the man who seemed determined to sink deeper into the art.
"But Commander, Clan Leader Betelgeuse only told you to apply moderate pressure."
"Mmm, true enough."
"If we actually trade blows with Commander Icarus's fleet like this, our base and ships might get swept away by the Unlimited Mercenary Group's tidal wave, you know?"
"…That part is definitely a problem."
Mina wasn't wrong, either. Skein took a moment to think it over, then accepted her counsel and decided to prepare so they could cut and run at any time.
Of course, that decision also rested on Skein's unshakable conviction that he was, first and last, a member of the Loki Clan and a specialist in trolling. He did not possess so much as a single gram of intention to go down with the sinking Date Palm Clan.
"All right. Get the base ready so it can move to Loki Clan headquarters whenever we need it."
"Yes, Commander."
And that preparation paid off less than an hour after Icarus's fleet arrived in B554's airspace and opened its full assault…
KWA-AAAANG!!!
KWA-AANG!!
— [holy shit wait KRAKEN TELEPORT!]
— [waaah my heavy battleship just blew up]
— [Ouroboros main gun incoming why the hell aren't you dodging dammit!]
— [our main force and the merc dreadnoughts and battleships and Krakens keep pouring fire what the hell are we supposed to do]
KUGUGUGUGUGU… KWA-AANG!! FWOOMPH!
— [damn strategic missiles]
— [another teleport incoming!]
— [three Krakens at once there's no answer to this]
— [why the hell does the merc group have Infestor ships!]
— [ah dammit an Infestor just latched onto a battleship]
— [just clear them with superhumans]
— [Icarus is throwing superhumans and mercenary captains who are superhumans into the mix so our superhumans are getting shredded]
— [hah dammit they're all SSS-grade]
— [so that's how you lock down rank 3]
— [something keeps dealing from the rear what is that]
— [hundreds of destroyers and assault ships running wild it's one of those]
With his infamous teleport-and-strategic-missile doctrine, he smashed their capital ships within ten minutes of the battle's start. When they tried to answer with a numbers game—pulling in garrison fleets and mercenary companies—the Ouroboros's spreading barrages turned that "numbers game" into a memory. He left the small craft to his mercenaries and his own destroyers, then based his main force on three dreadnoughts and poured out merciless fire.
And then, the moment PalmTree's flagship—a Pegasus-class battlecruiser—tried to dodge the fleet bombardment and instead got snagged by Anchorage's Warp Harpoon, crumpling like a tin can as it went down…
Skein yanked every one of his ships and superhumans into an emergency retreat to the base.
"Mina, Mina! Miiinaaa!!"
"Base, emergency warp! Destination: Loki Clan headquarters!"
True to the original plan, he never looked back—whether the Date Palm Clan lived or died—and bolted, putting the finishing flourish on his trolling masterpiece.
And Skein's desertion was never going to end as merely one player's flight…
It wasn't intentional. He simply hadn't been fighting with any real commitment. Still, right before he ran, Skein had become the Date Palm Clan's only capital-ship holder left standing while Icarus beat them like dust in the rain. So when he abruptly left the clan itself and straight-up deserted, the Date Palm Clan's morale collapsed under the sudden loss of a mainstay user. (There had only been three of those to begin with.)
And as a result—
— [is this for real]
— [he stirred us up and now he's deserting?]
— [dammit we surrender!]
— [this is wrong, seriously]
— [lmaoooooooo]
— [hah dammit]
— [ok surrender, we're done]
— […I told you we should've surrendered when I said so dammit] (PalmTree)
Under normal circumstances, the Date Palm Clan would have taken a few more strategic missiles from Icarus—or four more rounds of propulsion sabotage from the Niranzara (which no one even knew about)—before they finally gave in. Instead, Skein's desertion produced a far earlier surrender than anyone had expected.
Of course, surrendering didn't mean much. The window for leniency had already closed a long time ago…
A short while later.
[gif: Skein's base warping out somewhere while still docked]
The guy who stirred the clan into fighting Icarus quits the clan and runs to save his own fleet.
Clan collapses.
Even though the users under that clan surrendered, Icarus says the leniency window is closed and kicks every last one of them out.
Then he fills the emptied docking slots at B554 by giving other users a week of free docking.
They begged for mercy, claiming that if things continued this way the Central Zone players would simply loot them dry. But the deadline had already passed, and so they were coldly ejected beyond the borders of Icarus's territory.
He was no saint, after all.
Separately from the Date Palm Clan that had occupied B554 without permission, I also decided to hold the other outpost chiefs involved in this mess accountable. To be precise, since I had already floated the offer of "Surrender and I'll go easy on you!", this wasn't going to be a beatdown like the Date Palm Clan had received.
— [You all know, right?] (Icarus)
— [It's purge time]
— [Oh]
— [yep;]
— [they did something stupid so it can't be helped]