Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 94: Entering The Planet

The fighting above Larkspur Haven did not last much longer.

A good number of Kharov ships had their engines or steering systems crippled by Solenne’s second and third attack waves, and once their ability to run was gone, whatever nerve they had left went with it.

Faced with a fleet that was closing in from all sides while their command structure had already been torn apart, many of the surviving ships simply gave up and powered down their weapons, choosing not to be destroyed for nothing.

Those who still tried to flee met a worse end.

Rhoswen was already on them before they could properly break formation, and with Solenne’s strike craft cutting off the wider escape routes, no ship that tried to leave the system had a real chance.

Some tried to dive toward the planet. Some tried to slingshot around the outer orbital lanes. A few even tried to hide behind the station wreck field, hoping to buy a little time.

None of it mattered.

By the time the last pursuit ended, not a single Kharov ship had escaped the star system, not even the fastest ones.

Some had been captured.

Most had been destroyed.

The rest were drifting without power, waiting to be boarded, their systems dead.

When the final count started coming in, Aurelian finally turned his attention to the prisoners and the ship records, shifting from combat to information.

What he got from them was ugly, but useful.

The Kharov Synod was humanoid enough to stand upright and use machines much like humans did, but everything else about them looked wrong to him.

Their faces were long and sharp, almost hound-like, their limbs slightly too short for their bodies, and the way they moved had something feral in it even when they were standing still, like they were always ready to snap.

Aurelian did not spend long on their appearance.

What mattered was what they had done.

And what they planned to do next.

The fleet records clearly showed that the attack on Larkspur Haven had not begun in orbit.

The biological strike had been planned first, and the fleet assault had only come afterward to harvest the result, not the other way around.

That alone was enough for him to decide what kind of end the Kharov deserved, even without reading further.

But the files kept going, filling in the rest.

The Kharov force that had come here was not the whole state, not even close. It was only one eastern expansion force under a regional warlord of the Synod, a powerful figure who had already swallowed several weaker worlds and turned them into tributary systems over the last twenty years, building up slowly.

Their methods were always the same.

Plague.

Panic.

Collapse.

Occupation.

If resistance stayed strong, they ruined the environment and broke the planet anyway, leaving nothing useful behind.

Aurelian read the report with a flat expression, but Caelan beside him looked ready to crush the console with his bare hand, his anger clear.

The more disturbing part was that Larkspur Haven had not been their only target.

Around this same region, the Kharov had also been pressuring another inhabited world in a neighboring system, one with a stronger technological base and far better space resistance.

According to the captured records, that second world had already reached broad Tier II capability and was close to early Tier III in some fields.

The Kharov had not been able to roll over it easily, which was why they had split forces and sent this detachment to take Larkspur Haven first, choosing the easier path.

The Kharov had assumed this would be an easy victory.

Instead, they ran into him.

Aurelian leaned back slightly after reading the worst of it and let out one quiet breath, letting the information settle.

"So this wasn’t just a civilzation war," he said. "But more of a territory expansion of a higher race."

Astra gave a small nod. "Yes. And if they had secured this world, they would have used it as a rear point for the next stage," she said, her tone steady.

Caelan looked from one display to the next, his face hard now, the earlier shock gone.

"They were going to finish us and use our system to hit the next world."

"They still might try," Aurelian replied. "Just not with this fleet."

That ended that part of the conversation; nothing more needed to be said.

By then, Black Crown was already close to the orbital station, moving into position.

The fighting there had been brutal. Wrecked mechs were scattered all around it, some in pieces, some still mostly intact, all of them silent now, left where they had fallen.

The station itself had survived, but only barely. Whole sections were scorched. Some docking arms were dead.

Internal systems were unstable, and Kharov units were still hiding in some of the outer-ring compartments, not yet cleared out.

Aurelian did not bother using the station right away.

It was too damaged, too messy, and too full of things that needed clearing first, not something to rely on yet.

Instead, he left a cleanup force behind and turned to the real problem.

The planet.

A large number of shipborne mechs began launching shortly after that, dropping into the atmosphere in organized waves, their descent steady and controlled.

Their tasks were simple on paper and difficult in practice: destroy infected monsters, search for survivors, stabilize key points, and reestablish enough local contact that the planet could start functioning again, even if only in small areas at first.

Caelan went down with the first larger operational group, along with several of the orbital survivors who had been recovered or gathered after the battle.

Aurelian wanted local faces among the rescue forces. It would make it much easier for scattered survivors to trust what they were seeing, to accept help without hesitation.

He watched the descent for a moment longer, making sure the first wave moved cleanly, then shifted his attention back to the broader operation, knowing this part would take time.