Jeremy knew his place. Sure, after 4 years of marriage with Victoria he had gone from not being able to hit the broad side of a barn to being better than an average shot; but make no mistake, he knew where his most effective place was: ensuring the weapon his wife held was provided with a steady stream of ammunition, for the madame was a very thirsty beast.

As Jeremy slotted the next case into place, its deadly contents ready to be dispensed, he couldn't help but take a moment to stare at Victoria: her feet planted firmly in the dirt, screaming with fury and joy as the weapon in her hand turned any Uhae dumb enough to poke their heads out of cover into a fine mist. Jeremy would be lying if he denied feeling a tinge of jealousy for the way his wife held the weapon between her hands.

The world around him was a cacophony of sound and chaos, as all combat was. The noise of gunfire and yelling mixed with the drum beat of explosions rocking the landscape as ODIN continued their barrage upon the approaching Uhae. At some point, the Estorian slavers were slowly working out what was going on, or at the very least starting to get an inkling into the true goals of this assault.

A little too late.

This wasn’t just a Terran force, defending the location as vehicle after vehicle left the Uhae prison, carrying rescued civilians towards the safety of a space-faring vessel. While on a per capita basis the defending forces were largely made up of Terrans, the flurry of gunfire taking down all that opposed them came from a variety of sources. A little teddy bear Hatil raked bursts of fire from a position of cover while a feline Kigrel fired a grenade launcher into the Uhae ranks. Of course, there were Parket as well, lots of them.

A song was starting to form, not just the metaphorical beat of battle, but the sound of avian singing as the Parket began to scream out their cries of rage and vengeance against those who had wronged them, a song that promised death upon those who stood against the flock. It was a chorus that the Avians weren’t even fully aware they were singing, each voice taking its place in a symphony almost fully by instinct.

If Jeremy had more time to listen, there would be many interesting things to be found in this song. For starters, the words weren’t translating, making the complicated chirps and notes sound truly alien. The potential reasons for this were numerous: Perhaps the song was less about words, more about feeling, an instinctual memory of when their pre-sapient ancestors would sing amongst the trees? Or the words might be old. So old that nobody bothered to translate the language, or even knew what they meant anymore, the sounds and concepts of the chorus passed down through history with their exact context lost forever. It was an interesting-

Any thoughts Jeremy had on the matter were interrupted as a sharp pain erupted from his shoulder, as a stray bolt of plasma fire caught him as he ran to grab the next set of ammunition, the impact causing Jeremy to fall to the ground in a spinning motion. While the Terran forces were handily winning this engagement for now, it wasn’t coming without some cost, the incoming fire occasionally finding a valid target. Such as Jeremy.

As he lay there on the ground, the familiar feeling of being shot racking through his body, he couldn’t help but think a single thought.

God damn it not again.

This state of self-pity wasn’t to last, however, as Jeremy felt the telltale warm-cold feeling of someone applying Medigel to the wound as it drove the pain away. Slowly getting back up, he turned to see a little Quoxxett staring back at him, an empty pack of medical supplies in hand. It was a strange sight; the little beaver-like hamster was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and little straw hat, both tattered and torn, dirtied over the trials of the last few weeks. He looked like someone more suited to sitting on a beach drinking cocktails… which was probably what the small rodent was doing on Far-Sa-De before the Uhae attacked.

“You alright mate? Yeah, you look alright. Don’t get shot again, you’re fine.”

Quoxxett took a few more moments to stare at the Terran to ensure they were ok and no worse for wear after being shot, before rushing back towards the fray, towards whatever Terran got injured next. The Quoxxett might be too small to fire a weapon, but they could still help in other ways. The fighting continued as more and more truckloads of people were being driven out of the prison.

There was still plenty of ‘helping’ left to do.

—----------

TANK was focused on the important task of transporting their cargo safely to the drop-off point, which involved them taking a more systematic approach than their previous carefree use of overwhelming force. Each shot was calculated and deadly, efficiently dealing with the threat as risk-free as possible. It was honestly… easy.

ODIN was providing near-perfect intelligence from their position in the sky, highlighting incoming threats to the convoys of civilians being transported to safety. It was just as well since TANK could feel the urge to check on sensors they knew they didn’t have access to right now. Keeping themself distracted from spiralling again was vital to the strategy, the AI couldn’t afford to lose focus, not this close to the end.

Although if they were being honest… TANK’s firepower might have been unnecessary at this point. A few of JOSH’s units were aiding in protecting the convoy, the rest helping Ramsey defend the prison with the rest of the Terrans. Scellestra…. Scellestra was legitimately terrifying, even to the AI. If TANK was being fully realistic about their capabilities, they didn’t know if they could stop the Woolean if they wanted to, at least not without a dedicated EMP device.

Note to self: Buy EMP weaponry and have it installed, just in case.

The Woolean didn’t have a solid cohesive form right now, as that wasn't their main focus. Instead, their goal was simple: disassemble anything approaching the convoy not being blown up by TANK.

There was no sound, no real visual cue to the threat lingering in the air. A light mist just above ground level perhaps? Infantry that entered the area would just… collapse and fall into pieces as the nanobots went to work. Scellestra had been busy during their time on the planet, and while there was an overall limit to how large they could grow… the distance the Woolean could cover was measured in miles.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

JOSH> Can I just take a moment to point out the hypocrisy of everyone saying my storage of the Tritian was dangerous, while you let Scellestra walk around in public places able to do this with little to no checks on their overall mindset?

ODIN> To be fair… I did not know they could do this.

Scellestra> Nobody ever asked.

JOSH> You are kind of terrifying.

—-------

ODIN watched from their position in orbit as the stream of civilians entered the vessels, lifting off from their positions and warping away to safety as they left the planet and headed towards Terran Alliance space. At this point, it was by the book, a masterclass in the logistical and military power of AI and humans working together in tandem.

It felt almost… wrong. As if nothing going badly meant that something was being missed, some horrible trick was about to be played. Yet there was nothing. ODIN could see the Uhae’s communications, their desperate attempts to get aid from the rest of the Uhae forces within the galaxy or their attempts to properly organize an assault upon their position. The enemy had half worked out what the Terrans’ intentions were, but at this point, it was too late.

Even better, ODIN watched with some satisfaction as Ivan finally got onto a vessel leaving the planet, curiously being followed by the form of the Woolean AI close behind him as both left the Uhae.

Scellestra> I am going to get on this vessel with Ivan, I do not want to leave him again and I want to ensure he safely gets home.

ODIN> That is fine, I understand. We are nearly done here, so your aid is not required anymore. 67.2% of the prisoners are off of the planet, and based on our current projections we will be leaving 24 minutes before the main Uhae fleet gets here.

TANK> The remaining extraction targets will take two more trips to fully move the remaining targets. The enemy forces have been unable to launch an effective attack and my forces are still at 94.9% effective capacity.

JOSH> Defense here is going well, with minimal casualties. Also, Ramsey seems to be having, dare I say it, a lot of fun.

ODIN> That AI worries me.

TANK> I like their style.

JOSH> I might be new to all this, but it feels like this is going very well. Are we really going to do this and get anyone out without any issues?

TANK> NO NO NO NO NO NO NO DO NOT SAY THAT!

ODIN> Really JOSH? Why would you say that?

JOSH> Wait what did I say wrong?

ODIN> By saying nothing is going to go wrong, something is now going to go wrong!

Scellestra> This makes no sense. The outcome of an action has nothing to do with statements made, the possibility for success is exclusive to statements made on the progress of said actions.

TANK> You just wait 15 minutes for the universe to respond, baiting the god called Murphy is a fool’s errand...

—----------

Saelihn was trying her best to keep the ship from sinking, but everything was going wrong simultaneously. The Terrans had found them. She didn’t know how they had found them, but find them they had. The AI had come back for vengeance over what they had done, and they were getting it in spades.

“Focus on maintaining a communal mind, then bring the planetary defences back online.”

She spoke softly but with a measure of command over the communicator.

“We can’t, my queen! Every time we try to create the link, the Terrans, they keep interfering. They-”

The response cut out suddenly as the connection with the other side was lost, causing Saelihn to sigh. That had kept happening, and ‘interfering’ was a good way to describe what the Terrans were doing. The Uhae hadn’t been unable to form a communal mind at any point during the attack, simply due to the sheer breadth and scale of the assault.

It was almost as if ‘they’ were back. Not that that would be possible, since they had been long destroyed by an aggressive AI race.

Saelihn stared down at the visual representation of the planet that had been turned into a battlefield. Everything was red, everything was being assaulted at once. The Terrans had control of orbital space and any attempted assault on Terran forces ended in defeat.

“What are they up to?”

The question to her three advisors wasn’t rhetorical. The Terran attack didn’t make any sense. They were currently taking heavy losses, but the royal fleet itself would soon arrive, and then this paltry force would be wiped clean. Just attempting to destroy their military assets was a losing proposition, it would make no logical sense even as an act of righteous revenge.

Unless they have another goal?

“The prisoners. They’re congregating there, the ground forces are heavier and we’ve lost full contact with the area.” The first advisor responded, after a thought, pointing to a spot on the map.

“This secondary point? Several ships have been seen leaving orbit.” the second advisor added.

So that was their plan. Hit everything and distract our forces long enough to get the spoils of our attack out.

In retrospect, it made a lot more sense, although the question as to how they knew exactly where and what to hit was one that needed answers at a later date. But first, they had to deal with the Terran threat. Now that it was pointed out, the density of Terran forces was obvious compared with the general background noise of the targets being struck by the orbital and enemy ground forces.

This would explain why they were starting to leave, each of those ships filled with the prisoners they had taken. Presumably attempting to time their evacuation to leave before the royal fleet got here, leaving the Uhae with nothing to their name for such a military action. Saelihn scanned the map, taking a moment to notice the complete lack of forces in the area. The Terrans had done their jobs well.

Do I just let them go?

Saelihn was not one to throw good after bad. If the Terrans were going to leave, then letting them leave might have been the best option. They were outmatched and needed to regroup and rethink their plan.

The entire thing hadn’t been a full waste of time: the Parket had been a valuable source of information, and even the little they’d gleaned from the Terrans would presumably be useful at some point. In addition, the data from this attack would aid in the Uhae adjusting their strategies for AI opponents. One single bad engagement didn’t define a war.

Yet, there was something niggling at the back of her brain as she thought about the situation. This wasn't a standard Terran assault. If it was, this war would have been over far sooner. If Terrans were fully integrated with their AI and every AI could do this, then the war with the Terran Alliance would be going even worse than it was.

Meaning this had to be a special case.

Were there limitations to the AI that Saelihn didn't know? Different skills for each digital program? Was this some of the best the Terrans had to offer? Would stopping this threat here and now be a critical moment in the war?

There was only one way she could tell for certain: by capturing the heretical digital lifeforms and ripping the information right out of their hard drives. There was only one way to do that though: by delaying them till the royal fleet arrived. Which would be a problem, since none of their forces could compete with the Terrans.

Apart from one. Using that resource could go badly if it was destroyed. Was the information and removal of an important Terran piece from the board worth the risk?

There’s only one thing for it.

“It looks like this situation needs our direct intervention. Come take a walk with me, my advisors, let us show them the power of the Uhae royalty.”