Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 98: New Leader Of Larkspur Haven

The extermination war on Larkspur Haven was still going on.

Elowen had reached an agreement with the Whiteheart, but even that success didn’t change anything overnight.

The giant silver tree could provide what they needed, and Elowen had already begun preparing the sap mixture for wide atmospheric dispersal, but producing enough of it to affect a planet on that scale still took time, more than anyone would have liked.

Until the first artificial rain began, Aurelian’s mech forces still had to do the hard work the normal way, without shortcuts.

They had to hold the survivor zones, keeping them from collapsing under pressure.

They had to break infected concentrations before they formed into proper swarms, cutting them apart early.

They had to escort evacuation convoys out of collapsing districts, moving people through areas that were already half lost.

And they had to keep the remaining human pockets alive long enough for the larger plan to matter, buying time where they could.

Fortunately, the infected still lacked real intelligence. They could swarm, evolve, and overwhelm, but they did not yet think like an organized army, making them dangerous yet predictable.

If they had been able to gather properly and coordinate large attacks on the surviving bunkers and military compounds, even the number of mechs Aurelian had deployed would have been under much heavier pressure, and losses would have risen fast.

The fighting on the ground was ugly, but for now, it was manageable, controlled just enough to hold.

The other issue was the rule.

Saving Larkspur Haven was not the same as holding it, and holding it was not the same as turning it into a functioning territory.

Aurelian understood that from the beginning, and he had no intention of ignoring it. If he wanted this world to actually become his first true foothold, then killing monsters and breaking enemy fleets would only be the first half, not the end.

After that, he still needed the people below to accept a new order, something stable.

Brute force could do some of that, but brute force alone never lasted well. He had not crossed half the map to build a future world on nothing but fear, only to have it collapse later.

Which was why Caelan mattered.

After several long talks, Aurelian came to understand that Larkspur Haven had not been unified even before the Kharov attack.

It had been a planet of sovereign states, trade leagues, military blocs, and old regional powers that had only formed a loose planetary alliance once outside threats became impossible to ignore, more a necessity than a choice.

They had built the orbital knight corps together, but that did not mean they had built one true government.

Under normal conditions, they were still busy fighting each other in quieter ways, competing for influence and control.

Under this disaster, that structure had shattered almost at once, the weak connections breaking first.

The Kharov assassinations had made it worse. A surprising number of top civilian leaders were already dead, removed in the opening stage of the collapse before anyone understood what was happening.

Several states had completely lost central authority, and many surviving military zones were now operating independently, without coordination.

In practical terms, that meant Larkspur Haven had been decapitated from inside, its structure cut away.

And because of that, Caelan had become far more important than Aurelian expected.

He was no longer merely a rescued knight commander. He was now, by the emergency laws of his own homeland, the highest remaining authority of the strongest surviving state on the planet.

That state still controlled the largest coherent group of organized troops, the most intact reserve depots, and several of the most defensible interior zones, giving him real weight.

When Aurelian understood that, he quietly admitted to himself that he had picked up a much bigger prize than he first realized when he dragged a half-dead mech pilot onto the ship, something far more useful than just a survivor.

Caelan, for his part, had no illusions left now.

He had seen the Kharov fleet destroyed.

He had seen how Aurelian’s forces operated, how quickly they moved, and how cleanly they fought.

And he knew very well that if he refused to cooperate, Aurelian still had enough power to force the matter with time and effort, even if it cost more.

So the choice became simple.

Help the stranger from the stars save the world and preserve as much as possible, or cling to old pride and watch what remained burn out around him, piece by piece.

He chose the first option without much hesitation, not wasting time.

With Caelan’s help, Aurelian quickly gathered a large number of surviving military units, local administrators, and civilian coordination cells.

Once Elowen’s rain plan began, these would become the backbone of restored order under mech protection, something that could hold together.

The ground was stabilizing, slowly but clearly. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

And outside the planet, things had gone even better.

Rhoswen and Solenne had done their jobs well. Better than well, without needing correction.

The incoming Kharov reinforcement fleet never reached effective combat range in proper formation.

Their carrier was crippled early in the engagement before its strike wings could even launch properly, and once that happened, the battle had become a slaughter, one-sided.

Aurelian had watched the feed from high orbit and had actually been caught off guard for a moment when the enemy carrier broke apart so quickly, faster than expected.

The surviving Kharov ships had not lasted long after that. The remaining heavy hulls were picked apart under carrier pressure and pursuit, unable to hold position, and the lighter vessels had no chance at all once panic spread through their line, their retreat turning into chaos.

By the time the battle ended, not one hostile ship had escaped the system, every exit cut off.

That mattered more than the kill count itself.

A dead fleet was good.

A dead fleet that sent no message home was better, because it bought time.