Admiral Murrnal Bram with empty eyes was watching how the hopeless and powerless remnants of his race tried to evacuate from this planet. He was old but he hoped to see his race live. He saw his reflection on the dark screen of the fleet status monitor in front of him. His once pitch-black fur was now grey in many spots even white. Once he was the proud leader of the warrior castle-Vnyr. With a heavy heart, he checked all the data and sighed with resignation. He looked straight into the eyes of his own reflection and saw only immeasurable sadness and what was left of his anger in them.

We almost did it.

They shouldn't have found us here but they found us anyway. He knew the Jarta-vuri will return in their invisible ships again.

They are always coming back.

Attack, stop, attack, stop until they will finally kill us all. At least now we can see them but our weapons are still useless.

But we will die free. He watched his crew's sad faces, their tails hopelessly dropped on the decks, ears down. Someone cried, and someone else was praying to Star Gods who long ago abandoned us. And prayers were the last thing that was left now.

He watched the camera feed from the cargo hold. They managed to evacuate 50% of the population. They still should have at least five days until the next Jarta-vuri attack but they need to move the fleet in the next twelve hours or they will be too deep in the gravity well of the local star to enter hyperspace.

Few more years and we would finally make the ships able to fight them. An alerted hiss of Captain brought him to reality.

"The Jarta-vuri are approaching! They are still 2 mrin away but they already cut off our retreat vectors!"

"Impossible! They never attacked so fast!" He was panicking. Maybe if he orders dispersing ships and retreat on different vectors some will survive. But ... He checked the positions of the enemy and he closed his eyes. There were too many of Jarta-vuri- over 400 contacts.

He had just 25 ships.

And only five ships could fight. Oh, The Star Gods above if any of you is still listening please save just children. We will gladly sacrifice ourselves if children will survive.

Suden yelp was heard from the sensor and communication officers. "Admiral! We detected multiple hyperdrive signatures just 15000 m'uhra away from the fleet!"

He looked at the screen. Nothing. Ghosts? Most probably. No one could use a hyperdrive so deep in star gravity well.

"What's the matter communication?"

"We received a communication request from the unknown source from the position of detected hyperdrive signatures!" He blinked a few times. Jarta-vuri never communicated with anyone. They long time ago just sent one message that no one was able to translate and started attacking us.

"On screen."

"As you order!" The screen was pitch black with a single pulsing blue dot. Suddenly it flashed to life. Some unknown creature was looking at him from the screen. It looked tall, massive, and muscular. Murrnal felt his piercing strange eyes see straight through him. His proud posture and manner almost made Murrnal kneel immediately but he manage to control himself. His face was quite similar to some of his kind the furless who were not covered in fur and had much different faces. But this alien was much more majestic.

For sure he was not Cion.

No one lived to tell a tale how Jarta-vuri looks like so he can't be sure. Admiral was very surprised when the creature speak in perfect Cionian.

"I'm Lord Thuel Raven, Crown Prince of Fa'enni Kingdom and Captain of the Commonwealth Navy. May I ask who you are?"

Admiral hesitated just for a moment. "I'm Admiral Murrnal Bram commanding the Cion remnants. If you know Cionian so well you should know why we running and You should as well! Jarta-vuri are already in the system and in 2 mrin they will destroy remnants of our race. We are too far away from the jump points to enter Hyperspace but if you can... I beg you! Can you save at least some of our children?"

Lord Thuel's eyes started glowing with a cold blue hue. He looked very scary now like the depiction of God from the old book he saw so long time ago. Admiral should know that no one will risk taking some refugees if Jarta-vuri are so close but he was very desperate Cion.

He checked the sensor data. Nothing. If this ship is still undetected it must be small.

"I'm sorry Lord Thuel but we can't see your position. We are sending you all data about Jarta-vuri vectors and how many are incoming. Please consider saving just children if you can afford just some space and time."

Lord Thuel looked somewhere away. He probably received the data. He smiled with a very ugly smile. The smile was once known to Cions before they were almost destroyed by Jarta-vuri. The smile of a predator on the hunt.

"Admiral Bram I'm sorry but I must refuse your request. And if you wonder where we are we are now surrounding your Fleet and evacuation zone."

Admiral sat on his seat with fear when the impossibly big ships appeared on his screen. Six ships, four maybe five times bigger than his biggest ark. Their pitch-black hull were almost invisible to Cion sensors and Admiral understand in an instant that aliens allowed to be seen. One of these ships was different. It was as black and invisible like others but in the maximal zoom, Bram could see the rich embroilments made with silver and finishes in sapphire blue on some of the edges. But it was not what caught his attention but the two towers in which a total of six monstrous barrels were mounted and each one of them was as long as his last frigate. In total there were 42 huge ships and an entire armada of the fighter-interceptors. His sensors showed almost 900 of them.

"Admiral we believe that 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Your people for certain are not a threat for the Commonwealth but we want to learn about this Jarta-vuri more." Lord Thuel responded softly with a cold but somehow welcoming smile.

Admiral looked at his system officer. "Send them everything! Now!" He pressed a button and authorized sending the entire fleet database to aliens. Faint hope sparked in his heart.

"So what they decided to give us?" Thuel asked the air.

"Everything Sir." Responded at once the communication officer and Ra'volta and both of them laughed.

"Well yes, I heard what their admiral said. But what was in this primitive laser stream you received?"

"As I told you, Sir, everything. They are still sending. If I'm not wrong it's their entire data core. They refer to it as database, Sir." precised Ra'volta and Thuel whistled surprised.

"I wasn't expecting that." He looked at the video in which the alien admiral was ordering his officers. "I wonder if mom felt the same in Federation Senat when Grandpa was announcing our race survival like this Admiral when he saw our ships and heard my message."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"No idea Captain but I understood your feelings." After a brief while Ra'volta added. "Lord Thuel you were right. These aliens had extensive knowledge about the Shadows, nothing groundbreaking if I am evaluating this data correctly but nonetheless this data possesses value to our intelligence agencies. The data they send is catalogued in order of what in their opinion would help us the most. They must sort it manually and I'm impressed with its integrity. I'd like to examine their sensors later since They had some interesting features and profiles." Thuel nodded. Ra'volta was updating tac-net with data from Cions.

Interesting. We didn't saw Shadows at initial scans but now when we know where to look we see them clearly. We thought we can see them but their stealth technology is quite impressive.

Elisabeth was asking for his attention on a private channel.

"Yes, Liss?"

"Thuel are you sure that's a good idea? We have just 42 ships. No one ever fought with the Shadows."

"With the furry potatoes, Lady Elisabeth. It's not technicly true because one of the Hunter Fleets captured their ship. So we will be second."

"You contacted Alinti?"

"I sent the report. Yes."

"But you didn't called them directly! Am I right?"

"Elisabeth, My Father King Konrad Raven gave me full authorisation to act with my instinct and with the Commonwealth interest in mind. We are at war with the Shadows for at least 12-14 years. It's just they are hidden so well we can't kill them yet. So what do you expect? Someone at home will say noooo you can't fight them? Because what? I'm the Prince? Exactly that's why I want to contact them or I will have to murder them so maybe then fucking potatoes understood with whom they picked a fight with. This is my duty, Elisabeth."

"What about Supervisor?" she was surprised. Her family always told her to avoid any battles she may die in since she started being valuable to them.

"He fully agreed with my judgement. They are en route to us and will join our little party in 4 hours. Fucking shame because I plan to annihilate them in the next two hours thirty-seven minutes and twenty-one seconds."

"That's it? They want us to fight 400 unknown ships with unknown properties and weaponry systems and didn't say anything?"

"Of course not!"

"Ufff I'm relieved. What instructions you got?"

"Instructions? No, no. No. It was a note from Admiral MacArthur. 'Have fun'."

Thuel ended the call and Elisabeth was speechless. He is crazy. All Fa'enni are crazy. They are all about caring, love, art and all that shit until they decide you should die. What's wrong with Lord Raven and Lord MacArthur?! What they have done with the peaceful Fa'enni?!

She received tac-data from the Ra'volta. Manoeuvres and fire plan. She confirmed the orders and allowed her first officer to proceed with preparations when she saw with the corner of her eye how 200 Fox and 300 Virtu drones accelerated towards the Shadows with regular combat speed.

She was focused on the declassified information about the ship captured by the 201st Fleet. She opened her eyes widely, that data was absolutely shocking.

No wonder Thuel was so confident.

The Shadows ships are far worse than anything Humanity had over 800 years ago.

Couldn't he just start with this?

Admiral Bram was watching how these monstrous ships were just hovering in the vacuum motionlessly. The fact they could do this was more terrifying than their sizes.

His ships used thrusters and even main engines to stay in a stable orbit. But the Commonwealth ships just stayed there like pinned to the point they decided to be. Suddenly the 500 small ships disappeared and he heard a surprised shriek from the sensor operator.

"What happened? The Jarta-vuri destroyed so many? They shouldn't be in range yet!"

"No Admiral! They all accelerated from the relative 0 to over 10% speed of the light in less than 0.05 mrin before I lost any trace of them."

Admiral looked at the monstrous ships and started wondering what hellish place born the Creatures thought enough to withstand such acceleration.

Or what unimaginable technology they possess.

Johan was giggling. No one gonna believe him. The Catgirls in space. Thor told him that all communication attempts with Shadows failed. Their AI which was very good protected their otherwise poor network against all intrusion attempts made by the Commonwealth's AI. Despite the fact, furry potatoes were still approaching. Thuel and Johan read reports about Shadows raids on Federation installations and ships and he saw pictures of mutilated corpses of former owners of raided places. However, most of the time raid target was picked clean and no one know what happened or where the Federation citizens are. He watched how the clock finished counting down and ordered: "Main weapons open fire!"

The Dominion Ships were close to their prey. The Hunt Master was proud of himself as he was commanding the biggest hunt fleet ever mustered by his race. His computer informed him about some very advanced attempts at communication but he dismissed that. He will not talk with prey. They can't escape this perfectly orchestrated situation. They are finally ours. These slaves ran for too long. The Hunt Master was unhappy as the prey decided to not run in panic when he graciously allowed being seen. They will need more slaves because the last ones already died. With the thoughts about what he will do to his slaves, Hunt Master died when his ship was pierced all the way out by Johan's railgun fire.

Admiral Bram was watching in the deaf silence of his command center how the Gods send great Lord Thuel ships were destroying Jarta-vuri ships from a distance of over 1 light mrin. The Jarta-vuri who tried to fall back were killed by these small impossibly fast ships. Some interceptors were destroyed. His race will forever remember the names of their pilots.

Thuel was disappointed. 12 years of research and hunt for this? This is how must have the Hunter Fleets feel after they finally found Huluk. Or no.

Huluk at least put up a fight.

However, the Shadows are a threat even to the Commonwealth's civilian population so they had to be dealt with. He knew that only the vigilance and farsight of uncle Robert safeguarded the borders of the Commonwealth against such enemy. But Thuel watched in shock as his initial salvo that was meant to stop Xeno's advancement and made them respond to his communication attempts obliterated almost half of the alien ships. He can't allow them to flee and he doesn't want to.

"To all destroyers and frigates. You can pursue the enemy, let no one escape! Try to board them maybe we can take prisoners." Confirmations on his com exploded when escorts accelerated with 30g toward their targets. They are slower than the drones but not that much.

"All drones can engage the enemy. The Dashu'uns leaving one cps-team on them." The Combat Patrol of the Space Team was necessary for their doctrine. Besides what idiot doesn't hold any protection for his own Carrier?

"Ra-volta any success with cyber intrusion?"

"Their AI is very good sir. No success here." Thuel was giving orders by his neural link for his entire Fleet. The Commonwealth used both systems of giving and receiving orders- verbally and by neural link. Both had their own cons and while the neural was uncomparably faster the verbal orders were deeply connected with traditions.

Christopher was taking care of the ship while his Lord was occupied with task force coordination. He was already used to more feudal systems developed by Fa'enni than any other monarchy outside the Avalon Kingdom, Great Spanish Empire and Polish Union Worlds. But as far as he was concerned Fa'enni's feudal system changed just the title he was using in some situations. Not Captain or Sir but Prince or Lord- since the rest of the Navy Protocol was still in place it was all fine.

The Prince is a very, very good commander. Christopher doubted if he ever will be this good. The Commonwealth ships under his command were placed at planetary blockade positions and were also in an excellent position to attack the Shadows. Or Furry Potatoes as Prince Thuel calls them.

Only 120 furry potato ships survived this long but they will be caught. They are able to do 12% of Light Speed. The Commonwealth destroyers reached already 30% of LS and still accelerated.

The Dominion ships were destroyed at a terrifying rate. They didn't know who could that be but they must be protecting their cursed slaves or using them as bait for the Dominion forces. There was a race more powerful than the Dominion? They never found them! He was now Master of the Hunt but if he don't do anything they all are going to die. His ship computer was trying to understand what was going on or find the enemies but it was impossible. The flagship computer knew about something before the attack but the previous Hunt Master dismissed it. They are so far away from the jump zone. He...

He died when invisible to his sensors Fox drone emptied its last two missiles at his ship engines trying to disable it. His ship was shredded to pieces when a chain reaction of exploding fuel reached the reactor compartment.

Admiral Bram saw how five of the smaller ships from the Commonwealth armada turned and just disappeared. They accelerated almost as fast as the interceptors before. If they decide Cions should die nothing is going to stop them. He watched how the bigger ships moved. To his surprise, he didn't even noticed any exhaust flames.

He remembered what Lord Thuel told him 'enemy of my enemy is my friend.' that meant the Commonwealth is fighting Jarta-vuri! The Gods descended and saved Cions!

He looked at his bridge crew and saw someone switched view from the transmission to all ships. The Jarta-vuri were broken and trying to escape. One of the biggest if not the biggest fleet of the silent enemy he ever saw was destroyed like nothing.

Elisabeth regretted many things in her life. And now she has one more thing on the list.

She regrets her panicked private talk with Thuel. He will think she is weak or scared. Or what's even more possible he will have to report her behaviour to the supervisors. While she didn't care about her Navy career as much as she had a few months ago but she was afraid her only real friends will think she is just a coward. She checked the data.

At least she is a coward with 100% accuracy.