"The fuck?! Pieces of trash!! How dare they target people of their own and kill them?! Betraying us was one thing, but this... this is straight-up betraying their blood and race!! How could they do this?!!"

As chaos erupted across the backline of the Hegemony fleet!!

While others believed—

"No... it might not be as simple as that!! I know Jude, and he wouldn’t betray us, much less the whole race!! I believe the people onboard those ships are not ours anymore already!!"

"What?! You are delusional, person above!! It was clearly the voice of Jude, and even his face within the command bridge alongside his people!!"

"All this you’re saying being mimicked is impossible!!"

"The person above is right!! Just check, and indeed there seems to be no sign of editing or tempering done there!! That was real and live footage!!"

While an amusing argument broke out among the people of the Hegemony fleet for a minor part, for the major part many remained terrified!!

But there were a few who dared, seeing the main command making no moves whatsoever to punish those traitors and instead just fleeing as fast as they could!!

"It was fine when we abandoned those brave mech pilots and others on their doorstep to death!! But this... this is beyond anything my conscience could accept!!" said one of the elites sitting atop a heavy destroyer!!

"Turn the ship around!! Overload our shields!!" he barked, raising his left arm like a horizontally shining sword, and continued, "I need every ounce of our shield power diverted to the bow side!!"

"Yes, Commander!!" the soldiers immediately accepted the orders!!

And the ship began to turn around under protective shields...

And immediately, as its bow faced the charging tide of human mech forces, the shields completely shifted toward the bow, withstanding all attacks that came at it without trouble!!

Slowly, it began to advance!!

Seeing that, the commander of the ship shouted again, "Push the thrusters to the maximum!!"

"Yes!!" replied the officer.

And quickly, the six massive thrusters and four smaller ones burst alive as the blue flames behind them intensified and began to accelerate...

Nodding his head, the ship commander spoke again, "Charge the weapon systems!! Lock onto those mech forces ahead and fire!!"

"Lock the main weapon systems onto those traitors!! Let’s give them the beating they deserve!!"

"Yes, Captain!!" the weapons officer shouted!!

And it wasn’t only this captain doing so... there were others as well...

Back within a certain battle cruiser, which was monitoring this, its captain frowned in displeasure seeing that.

"Another few, huh..." he muttered.

And a warning came—

Warning!! Friendly ship XX912 is charging its weapon systems directed at us for now!!

The man’s eyebrows twitched.

"Indeed... they are traitors as well!! Think this will work again?" speaking as he stood up and narrowed his eyes. "You all can dream on!! Under my watch, this won’t happen!!"

"Lock onto those ships that have diverted their course from the main fleet and even dare target us!!" he ordered, raising his right hand!!

"Yes, Captain!!"

"Locking onto destroyer XXX912... 922..."

"Target locked!! Weapons charged!! Ready to fire, Captain!! On your orders!!"

Meanwhile, back onboard the destroyer and its captain, listening to the same prompts as their weapons locked onto the designated targets and completed charging—

"Good!! What’s there to wait for now? Let’s f—"

Before he could even finish, a warning rang throughout the command ship—

Warning!! Destroyer locked onto by friendly battle cruiser!!

"Huh??" The captain of the destroyer-class ship was stunned and confused.

"L-locked by our own ship?! What is going on?!"

"C-captain!! Incoming!!" an officer shouted in disbelief and terror!!

"Wh-what???" the captain reacted, only to see on the holographic map a bright beam of light heading directly their way!!

BOOOOOM!!

The beam struck the destroyer’s unprotected backend instantly!!

A white sun rose there, consuming the whole ship and its members right then and there!!

And at the end of his life, neither the captain nor anyone else had any idea why they had been attacked by their own friendly ship!!

If they had known, they would have cried in despair that they had merely been mistaken as traitors, and that some of their malfunctioning weapon systems had failed to adjust themselves and by sheer coincidence pointed toward the said cruiser!!

Which by some weird coincidence the ship central AI interpreted as hostile targeting...

And so the captain of the cruiser, believing them enemies, turned them into fireworks to contribute toward terraforming space itself!!

"Wuuwuwu!! Why didn’t you just blow yourself up, huh?! We don’t want to contribute to this initiative!! We want to live!!"

And they weren’t the only ones. A couple more ships were taken down like that as well, dying in total confusion!! There they were, preparing to take revenge against the "traitors," only to instead be killed by their own people because, to them, they themselves had now become traitors ૮(˶ㅠ︿ㅠ)ა

Above all that, others were even celebrating while watching their own ships explode under friendly fire!!

"How does that feel, traitors?!""You deserve that for betraying us!!"And so on and so forth...

"Sir! Human mech forces are about to reach us!! Their star fighters are already running amok within our backlines and have already taken quite a few of our ships! What should we do?! Your orders!!"

Pact, hearing this, frowned and asked, "Can anyone tell me how much longer it will take us to get away from this spatial lock field, damn it?!"

"Sir, a few more minutes and we should be out, based on the already significantly lower gravitational activity that is continuously weakening and allowing us to pick out the spatial layers..."

"What about the FTL drive? How are the enemy repair efforts going on that front? How much longer will it take us??"

"It should not take much longer as well, Commander! A few functions are already working again. Just the main link needs to be established and we are set! We could attempt at least one hyperspace jump!"

"Good."

"Good."

Pact nodded and said, "Ignore what is happening behind us! Tell everyone to accelerate!! That is the only way we can survive! If we stop to fight, we will die a dog’s death!"

"But, Commander! Our forces on the backline have already collided with the human faction and are being crushed as we speak! If nothing is done, millions more will quickly be lost!!"

"My orders are final!! We will not stop and will only keep charging ahead! We do not stop unless something blocks us or prevents us!!" Pact declared, not budging from his position at all.

The vice admiral looked at the others, all of whom had frustration written across their faces. But seeing more than double their number of cautionary guards watching them closely, they could only grunt in anger before leaving the command bridge itself.

Meanwhile, the vice admiral sighed and remained standing there, clenching his fists from both helplessness toward the situation and fear of his commander, who now seemed capable of seeing nothing beyond escape itself... something the vice admiral already felt was far beyond their capacity somehow.

At the back end of the Hegemony fleet, the mechs as well as the Star Fighter Corps of the 4th Battle Fleet directly rammed into the Hegemony fleet’s rear ships!!

"Fuck! Human mechs coming from the stern side! Prepare for battle!!" the leading officers shouted immediately. "Intercept those star fighters immediately! Don’t let them get any closer!!"

Another person within the bridge spoke out, "No... it’s already too late!! We can’t keep them away like this!" He gritted his teeth as he watched from the darkness of space multiple hundreds of specks of blue-white propulsion trails moving at lightning-fast speed, evading countless attacks launched by the close-in point defence weapon systems with manoeuvres that looked practically effortless.

Then they swooped down upon a heavy destroyer farther behind like predators hunting prey.

The ship operators hastily diverted their shield power upward to defend.

"Raise the shiel—"

"Raise the shiel--"

But the voice stopped just as quickly.

The three fighters rapidly fired their highly charged pulse weapon systems, easily breaking through the destroyer’s shields. Then they followed up by unloading three antimatter torpedoes directly onto the undefended hull!!

The torpedoes connected directly with the hull, and a massive chain of explosions erupted across the ship’s spinal armour!!

The vessel split apart into multiple massive fragments within a blinding explosion!!

And on the other side, the mechs were causing their fair share of damage and destruction as well!! They too, though slightly or more than slightly slower than the Star Fighter Corps, casually and successfully avoided most of the attacks coming their way. And those they could not avoid, they defended against with their shields.

Then they bombarded the ships’ shields either with their back-mounted highly charged weapon systems or struck directly with their energy weapons, causing the shields to ripple violently before collapsing under the following attacks.