Chapter 482: Ch
"Hmm, not bad," Mav said, letting out a soft breath of relief. "What about the planetary defense grid? Have you told her about—"
Before he could even finish, Ritika cut in, "All of that has already been delegated to EVE—she will handle it. What remains is deciding how we deal with the population affected by the Red Fog we detonated across this star system’s habitable worlds. That is something I haven’t addressed yet."
"Hmm, about that..."
Mav remained silent for a moment before looking directly at her and speaking up. "You don’t need to worry about that. It isn’t our responsibility. The Department of Terraforming & Planetary Engineering will deal with the mess we left behind, terraforming those worlds to fit our needs." With a casual wave of his hand, he added, "They should already be on their way."
Ritika let out a sigh of relief. Delegating that task to EVE would have been far too troublesome, especially since they weren’t carrying the necessary atmospheric equipment with them. Not wanting to cause any delays in the Imperial Emperor’s grand strategy, she had been quite concerned. "Then that is good," she said.
Following her silence, Ritik—who hadn’t spoken a single word since his sister arrived—finally spoke up. "Then what should our next move be?"
Mav responded almost instantly. "Once all the upgrades and repairs to the Illyrian fortress and our fleet are complete, we will make our move. We’ll head toward the next Illyrian star system, move on to the territories of the Republic’s three Supreme Families, and only then launch our final assault on the Republic Central Star System. That was the plan we agreed upon, and we will stick to it. If all goes well, we should be completely finished with our objective in just ten days."
Mav looked at both of them sternly. "I need both of you at the top of your game during this window. You must ensure the subordinates beneath you maintain absolute discipline. The mistakes that occurred during this battle shall not happen again."
Ritika and Ritik nodded solemnly, both sighing in unison before Ritik responded. "The root cause was mainly the arrogance that built up among a few of our officers after the massive blow we dealt to the Illyrians. That overconfidence is the only reason a few of our vessels suffered structural damage—with about ten taking notable hits, while the rest took relatively negligible harm."
Hearing this, Mav sighed as well. "It is our fault as commanders too. We failed to deploy every force at our disposal to finish the job cleanly. I wanted to rush the objective, and that’s why I opted for that approach," Mav admitted freely.
Ritika and her brother frowned, exchanging a quick look before turning back to Mav. "But—"
"There’s no need to console me," Mav cut in gently. "I simply failed to account for every variable in my rush to achieve faster results and secure more merits for our unit. However, just a moment ago, I was contacted by the Empress regarding both her and the Imperial Emperor’s dissatisfaction with our hasty movements—as well as those of the other fleets."
He paused, his expression turning grave. "The Emperor instructed her to pass along a message: our mission has no strict time limit, nor does taking a extra time pose any issue for His Imperial Majesty. The true purpose of deploying us here was to give our forces a live combat training exercise.
Even though the enemy is technically weak, their sheer numerical advantage is meant to apply pressure and spur our growth. His Majesty ordered us to utilize every asset at our disposal to thoroughly destroy our enemies—and never to be reckless out of haste."
Both brother and sister sighed in unison, a sudden wave of realization washing over them.
"Indeed," Ritik said, his expression grave as he looked at Ritika and Mav. "We really ignored something fundamental. If we keep acting recklessly and failing to utilize all our assets in battle, this bad habit will become second nature in future conflicts.
Up until now, we’ve been using these exact same rush tactics against Tier 1 and Tier 2 powers without consequence, mainly because they were far too weak to exploit our carelessness."
"But even though this Tier 3 power is still nothing compared to us, their sheer numbers bridge the gap," Ritika added, her brow furrowed. "No matter how you look at it, we suffered unnecessary damage. Fifty of our ships took various degrees of harm—and that’s despite our fleet being primarily made up of heavy cruisers and higher-class capital ships, with only a few destroyers!"
Mav let out a weary sigh. "Indeed. That happened mostly because we allowed the Illyrians to execute a concentrated bombardment. If they had been given just one more clear opening, we would have lost ships today. That would have been an absolute humiliation for our fleet."
He shook his head bitterly. "Facing a vastly inferior enemy and coming anywhere close to losing a vessel proves that our current operational mindset is completely flawed."
Both Ritika and Ritik sighed internally, the harsh truth weighing heavily on their minds.
They immediately began contemplating ways to restructure their battle doctrines to ensure such negligence never happened again.
If they were making sloppy mistakes and taking hits against a weaker opponent, what would happen if they encountered an enemy that was slightly stronger—or even on equal footing with them?
It was a terrifying scenario, and one they dared not even contemplate.
"No, this can’t go on," both brother and sister declared simultaneously.
"Indeed, it can’t," Mav agreed, nodding solemnly as the exact same realization weighed on him. "We need to formulate a proper combat doctrine—one that fully utilizes our tactical advantages against weaker foes as well as stronger ones."
Ritik frowned, rubbing his chin in thought. "But how can we achieve that right now? We could adopt specialized fleet formations to maximize our firepower, but that still won’t showcase our total strength or resolve our core issue."
"Exactly," Ritika chimed in. "A simple formation shift is just a surface-level fix."
Mav sighed, realizing that achieving a complete tactical overhaul in the middle of an active campaign wasn’t realistic. They could attempt to draft new battle protocols as they pushed toward their final objective, but any doctrine forged in haste would inevitably prove flawed—and haste always led to waste.
"No worries," Mav said, his gaze sharpening. "After our return, I will personally apply for our fleet to be deployed to the frontline of the Universal Expansion Plan. Fighting against native beast forces in the wild sectors will pit us against far stronger, more unpredictable enemies. If we learn to conquer the strong, sweeping aside the weak will become second nature."
Both Ritik and Ritika let out a sigh, but nodded in agreement. "Yes... that is the only true way forward."
"For now," Mav continued, his tone turning cold and stern, "I need both of you to issue a strict warning to every subordinate under your command. Tell them to drop the overbearing arrogance immediately. Even though we didn’t lose any ships today, remind them that their luck won’t last forever. If anyone dares to charge into battle recklessly without prior orders again, they will be stripped of their command on the spot and court-martialed!"
"Yes, High Admiral!" both brother and sister acknowledged before their holographic avatars vanished from the meeting room aboard the Lance of the Void.
Left alone in the quiet command chamber, Mav leaned back into his captain’s chair with a long, heavy sigh. He slowly massaged his throbbing temples. The lingering tension of nearly receiving a official reprimand from the Imperial Emperor himself on his very first grand command mission was not something he took any delight in.
Meanwhile, outside in the cold expanse of space, an endless swarm of engineering and industrial bots—ranging from massive repair rigs to tiny precision drones—poured out from the supply ships. They moved with mechanical efficiency across the surface of the station, refitting structural hulls, replacing destroyed capital weapons, and swapping out outdated equipment with cutting-edge human systems. Damaged armor plates were fused back together, and cratered hull sections were completely restored.
Just like that, nearly three hours passed, and quiet returned to the star system.
The swarms of repair bots that had been meticulously working across the gargantuan, thousand-kilometer-diameter moon fortress retreated back to their stations. Behind them, they left an installation that looked almost entirely pristine. The deep dents, shattered armor belts, and massive impact craters were completely erased.
In their place, upgraded high-yield weapon batteries bristled along the hull, and a brand-new, multi-layered triple-merger shield system hummed to life—granting the newly conquered stronghold a level of defense far superior to anything the Illyrians could have ever dreamed of.
To say it was almost a completely different installation based on two entirely new metrics was no overstatement—in fact, anyone who hadn’t seen it before would find it hard to believe this fortress had ever belonged to the Illyrian Clan.