It did not take long for Erich and the rest of the First Armada to arrive at the blockaded world of Dvrakia. What would have taken months for Erich’s personal starship occurred in a matter of days for the massive warships of the Imperial Navy. After all, they carried significantly larger and more powerful quantum drives than a small expedition ship like the Privateer.

When the First Armada arrived back at the front lines, they saw that the world was under siege, and had been receiving an orbital bombardment by the entire Imperial Navy for god knows how long. Most of the world’s structures were reduced to ruin, and its defenses were now nothing but rubble.

Erich did not even have time to properly get caught up to date on the situation, because he and the rest of the thousands of pilots within the First Armada were immediately scrambled into action. After flying into Dvrakia’s orbit, Erich got a much better understanding of just how devastated the world’s surface was.

Despite over a year of conflict, the Dvrakian Consortium was still determined to fight until the last man. And though the Germanic Armed Forces had taken plenty of prisoners and conquered many worlds that had surrendered to them after bloody campaigns, it would appear that the home world of the Dvrakian species was determined to die with their sovereignty intact.

Every single piece of military equipment that was still left in the Consortium’s hands was deployed in defense of the home world, with countless drones flying through the sky while combating the forces of the Germanic Star-Empire.

Erich skillfully maneuvered his interceptor, which was significantly faster and more agile than his privateer, through the atmosphere of the besieged world as he targeted every hostile ship his sensors could pick up.

By now piloting his starfighter was more instinct than actual conscious thought. Thus, he nimbly avoided any and all enemy fire, whether it come from rail guns or missiles, before locking onto his first target, and firing a missile towards the hostile drone.

The missile exploded upon reaching the proximity of the target, and thus engulfed it in a massive explosion, leaving nothing left, not even a heap of scrap. Yet Erich did not celebrate. After all, it was just a drone fighter, and not an actual enemy pilot. Instead, he swiftly dodged an oncoming shot from another drone’s rail gun.

While sweeping past the hostile drone, Erich fired a burst of his laser repeater, which shredded through the shields, and blasted the starfighter into smithereens. On the left and right sides of Erich’s interceptor were two matching starfighters which were from members of his own unit, who fought alongside Erich as his wingmen. As the trio shot down a multitude of drones, a voice came over the comms, congratulating Erich on his 3,000th kill.

“God damn Silber, that is 3,000 kills now. Why don’t you save some of ’em for the rest of us?”

Erich simply snorted as he pressed his throttle forward, which propelled him and his interceptor further into the fray. After narrowly avoiding a missile which was fired towards him, via a combination of countermeasures and some skilled flying, Erich swept past the hostile aircraft and shot it down with his plasma cannon.

His shot ate right through the primitive shields of the aircraft, and targeted its engines, which immediately exploded, and thus propelling what remained of the fighter straight into the ground, which crashed into a mostly destroyed building, bringing down what had previously survived the orbital bombardment.

The battle continued to wage on for another two weeks, with Erich going back to his routine of getting very little sleep while maintaining a schedule of twenty-two full hours of combat. However, in the end, after the last vestiges of the Dvrakian resistance faded away under the intense onslaught of the Germanic Armed Forces, the President of the Dvrakian Consortium capitulated….

—

In an underground bunker on the Dvrakian homeworld, the President of the Dvrakian Consortium and his surviving generals were in the middle of a call with Grand Admiral Emrys from the Germanic Star-Empire. Admiral Emrys was a sharply dressed man, in a white and gold military uniform, which varied greatly from the uniforms which other servicemen within the ranks of the Imperial Military wore.

He had mid-length golden hair, and blue eyes, along with a strong jawline, and other masculine features. He was a rugged man, but a handsome one. When he activated the grid, his eyes would turn gold as a result of his nanite enhancements, which were a cut above those which most Germanic citizens were injected with at birth.

The man had a calm and collected appearance as his holographic projection was displayed in the bunker. Though his face was stoic, his voiced was filled with wrath and disdain as he spoke to the enemy who had forced him to fight so bitterly for a little over a year.

“So… you finally realize now that you have no choice but to surrender. Quite honestly, you could have saved yourself some trouble by doing this a year ago when your allies abandoned you to your fate. You armies are defeated, your worlds are now under my control, you have nothing left, and now you decide to speak about terms of surrender? Perhaps if I did not have other matters to worry about, then I would exterminate your race to show an example to the galaxy of what happens to those who resist our conquest.

But I have plans for your pitiful species, and thus, those of you who have survived thus far will be permitted to live, as I rebuild what has been destroyed so that it is better than ever before. The Dvrakians now have the honor of becoming the first vassal of the Germanic Star-Empire, and you should be kneeling before me, and thanking me for my benevolence!”

The Dvrakian President looked astonished when he heard what the Grand Admiral of the Germanic Star-Empire had said. He could hardly believe his ears and stammered in disbelief.

“W…We….. You’re letting us live?”

Grand Admiral Emrys nodded his head silently, thus raising the hopes of all the Dvrakians who were hiding in the bunker, until he spoke his next words.

“I have no choice. I need a buffer, and thus, the Empire will invest in the total reconstruction of your civilization so that every world may resist that which is about to come. Show us the same determination you had when you fought our forces, and you will be greatly rewarded!”

The moment the Dvrakian president heard these foreboding words, he once more began to stammer, this time out of fear, not disbelief.

“A….And… What is precisely coming for us?”

Grand Admiral Emrys did not hold back any punches as he responded to this question with the complete and honest truth.

“The Naraku Hive Fleet Terminus is on a path headed directly to our borders. And, since you have wasted a year of our time, we now only have a little under two years left before they arrive in our sphere of influence. While the cowards from our political party have fled to Alfheim in search of refuge, the Military of the Germanic Star-Empire has decided to fight until the very last man. There will be no retreat, only victory or death, and you now have the honor of joining us in our heroic last stand!”

The President of the Dvrakian Consortium immediately felt like crying when he heard this news. Had he known that a Naraku Hive Fleet was on a direct course for his borders, he would have voluntarily given up control of his nations’ territory, and fled with as many of his people as he could towards the Enochian Theocracy, who would have done their best to accommodate their vassals until they found a new place to call home.

Instead, he had resisted the invasion of the Germanic Star-Empire and was now nothing more than a puppet to be thrown into the meat grinder against the galaxy’s greatest menace. In all honestly he could not envision a worse fate for his people, who had already suffered so severely against the Germanic war machine. But he had no choice now but to accept the vassalage which the GSE was willing to bestow upon him. Thus, he ordered all of his remaining generals and admirals to bow before their new suzerain, as the fate of the Dvrakian race now laid in the hands of their new overlords.

“We would be honored to fight alongside your for the continued survival of our two species…”𝔬𝑣𝓵xt.𝓬𝗈𝓶

Though the Dvrakian president said these words, he could not feel anything but the opposite. Still after a little over a year, the war had come to an end, and though it had progressed longer than the Germanic Star-Empire’s admiralty had expected it would, they had achieved victory within a short enough time span that they could still muster a proper defense against Terminus and the horrors that lie in its Hive Fleet.

—

In the world of Alfheim, Empress Lunaria Asterion sat on her throne. In front of her was the Supreme Leader of the Germanic Star-Empire who bowed before her with the most courtesy he could afford to give. The beautiful Elven empress had a rather excited expression on her face, as she informed her lackeys about what the rest of their race had been up to over this past year.

“I am sure that you would be glad to know that your brethren have just concluded their war with the Dvrakian Consortium, and annexed the little devils into the Germanic Star-Empire where, for the time being, they will be your people’s first vassals.

Curious, isn’t it? I thought you Germans hated everyone who was not of your own race. Hell, even now I can see in your eyes the disdain you have for my people. I never would have thought the day would come where your Empire permitted a conquered species to live. The winds of change have come at last….”

Supreme Leader Hans Epp sweated profusely upon hearing the Alfheim Empress speak of the disdain he had for her, the anxiety he felt in his heart was visibly displayed on his face, to which Lunaria giggled like a schoolgirl before speaking in a rather heated tone, as if she were about to climax from the excitement she currently felt.

“What are you, nervous? Well, you shouldn’t be! Part of what makes your people so tantalizing is just how cold you are towards everyone else, even your masters! The pride that your people have in your race, it is rare to see it be upheld in the face of overwhelming power.

And while you might be nothing more than a pathetic dreg of your race who has fled in the face of death, I have no doubt that your Grand Admiral would be more than happy to stare me down, and spit in my face if I were to ever threaten him. Oh, the thought of it makes me so dreadfully excited!”

Supreme Leader Epp was not the only one who looked at the Alfheim Empress as if she had a screw loose, even her own daughter, Princess Celestia Asterion, stared at her as if she had gone well and truly mad. The young Princess could not help but voice her disbelief at her mother’s scandalous words.

“Mother!”

Despite being chastised by her own daughter, Lunaria did not seem to care. Such was the confidence of a galactic overlord. Instead, she sighed heavily before dismissing the Supreme Leader of the Germanic Star-Empire with a look of utter disappointment in her eyes.

“You can go now. I just wanted to tell you how bravely your people are fighting, even in the face of death. It was my hopes that perhaps their heroism would inspire you and your followers to return to your homeland to join their war for survival, but unfortunately it appears that I have overestimated you all. You lot truly are the dregs of your race. No wonder you all became politicians…”

After saying this, Lunaria motioned for her royal guard to escort the leaders of the Germanic Star-Empire’s sole political party out of her palace, and back to their embassy, where they would hide until the upcoming conflict with the Naraku Hive Fleet was decided.