Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 93: Annihilating The Kharov Synod 2

At that rate, she could probably destroy the entire fleet by herself before the others even fully entered firing range, leaving almost nothing behind except drifting wreckage.

Astra noticed it too. "She may leave nothing for the rest of us."

"Then tell her to leave some survivors," Aurelian said. "I want prisoners and records. A dead fleet is useful. A dead fleet with no information is less useful."

Solenne, who was busy ensuring all the spacecraft fleets were as efficient as possible, received Astra’s order, accepted it immediately, and began changing target priorities aboard her spacecraft.

Instead of simply erasing everything still moving, she started crippling propulsion systems, command sections, and weapon clusters, turning clean kills into captured opportunities where she could, adjusting her strikes with more care.

Even with that change, the enemy fleet still could not recover.

Their command structure had already been torn out too quickly. Tier II ships fled in every direction, some even dropping toward the planet below in pure panic, while the remaining Tier III ships tried to hold themselves together long enough to escape, their formations breaking apart.

Aurelian gave his next order right away, not giving them time to regroup.

"Rhoswen, break off and hunt anything trying to run. Astra, with me. Astercourt, continue sorting the field and mark any surviving command hulls worth capturing."

"Yes, Commander," came the answers one after another, clear and without delay.

Crimson Bulwark surged forward without hesitation, clearly happy to finally have fast-moving targets to chase, her earlier restraint gone.

Black Crown advanced more steadily, Astra keeping the flagship under tight control as she moved into better firing lines, choosing angles instead of rushing.

Astercourt remained where she was, but the tactical overlays on the bridge sharpened almost immediately as she began sorting debris, flight paths, and surviving hostile signatures into something cleaner and easier to work with, removing clutter.

Caelan was still staring at the screens.

He had gone from disbelief to complete silence, the scale of what he was seeing slowly settling in.

The fleet that had broken Larkspur Haven’s orbit was being torn apart so badly that it barely looked like a battle. It looked like a one-sided massacre, one-sided and controlled.

He turned toward Aurelian after a moment, his expression caught somewhere between awe and bitterness, as if he did not know which one to hold on to. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"This..." he said, then stopped, clearly not knowing how to finish the thought, the words not coming together.

Aurelian answered it for him without looking away from the battle, keeping his attention forward.

"Your world never had a chance against them alone," he said. "That much is obvious."

Caelan swallowed and nodded slowly, accepting it without arguing.

On the main display, the second phase of the fight had already begun, the outcome no longer in question.

Rhoswen caught the first fleeing destroyer and smashed through it so hard the wreck split into two glowing halves, drifting apart as she pushed through.

Then she kept going, main guns firing properly this time, cutting down another escapee before closing in for a ram on a third, not slowing down.

Somewhere behind her, Solenne’s strike craft rearmed and launched again, this time focusing on the hostile ships trying to descend toward the atmosphere, cutting off escape paths.

Astra’s hands moved across the command interface with her usual smooth precision, adjusting and refining without pause.

"Enemy resistance is collapsing fully," she reported. "Estimated time until orbital superiority is secured: less than one system hour. If we press harder, less."

Aurelian nodded. "Do it."

He did not need to say more than that, and Astra did not ask for clarification.

The next stretch of battle became even uglier for the Kharov side. With the flagship gone and their formation ruined, they had no way to reorganize under pressure.

Some ships tried to form smaller clusters, but Black Crown’s main batteries shattered those efforts before they could become anything meaningful, breaking them apart early.

Others simply drifted and died under carrier strikes or the chase from Crimson Bulwark, picked off one by one.

A few higher-value ships were left crippled rather than destroyed, exactly as ordered, their systems disabled but intact.

Everything else was reduced to wreckage, scattered across the area.

Only then did Aurelian look at Caelan again, shifting his focus for a moment.

The man still looked like he was struggling to catch up with what he was seeing, but there was something else on his face now, too, something new.

Hope.

Not the empty kind people spoke about when they wanted to comfort each other.

But the real kind, where you know it is real and tangible.

The kind that only showed up when survival had stopped feeling impossible, when the outcome could change.

Aurelian did not comment on it. He simply turned his attention back to the tactical display, not giving it more weight than needed.

The orbital battle was already almost decided.

Now the real problem would begin.

The ground.

The virus.

The survivors.

And whatever the Kharov Synod had already put in motion below, while their fleet sat comfortably in orbit, thinking no one strong enough to stop them would come, preparing in ways that were not visible from space.

Astercourt’s voice came in then, calm and measured, cutting through the background.

"At current speed, we should reach the Haven orbital station in around three system hours," she said. "The remaining hostile resistance in near-orbit will be gone before that."

Aurelian gave a small nod, accepting the estimate.

Good.

That gave them time to finish the space battle cleanly and prepare for land operations before committing to the next phase, instead of rushing.

He looked once more at Larkspur Haven through the display, pale and silent beneath the battle above it, unchanged from this distance.

Then he spoke, not loudly, but with enough finality that everyone on the bridge knew the first part was already over.

"We take orbit first," he said. "Then we go down and deal with the problems on the planet."

And this time, no one on the bridge had any doubt that he meant exactly what he said, or that it would be done.