Chapter 188: Don’t Leave Without Paying

For five grueling days, the skies above the Western Hemisphere had been a constant battlefield. Endless skirmishes, a brutal dance of death between the desperate, outmatched forces of the United Earth Defense Pact and the relentless invasion fleet of the Krill’s 54th Battle Fleet.

But with the sudden, game-changing intervention of the Terran Retribution Command, the tide had slowly, agonizingly, begun to turn. Richard’s forces, their advanced ANV fleets providing overwhelming air and atmospheric superiority, had systematically dismantled the Krill’s atmospheric presence.

Crucially, TRC’s rapid logistics and supply deliveries had kept UEDP ground forces armed and fighting, while the devastating precision of Richard’s Planetary Defense Weapons had picked off Krill reinforcements before they could even enter the atmosphere. It was a grinding, bloody push, but the UEDP, bolstered by this new, powerful ally, was slowly but surely pushing back the enemy forces.

The Krill War Command room aboard one of the 54th Battlefleet’s Motherships, high in Earth orbit, was a cacophony of red alerts and dwindling unit counts. Holographic displays flickered erratically, painting a grim picture of their failing invasion. Admiral Khizar, a burly Krill officer with duller silver scales, slammed a clawed fist onto a console, the sound echoing through the agitated murmurs of his officers. They had expected a swift, decisive victory. Instead, they were bleeding.

"Admiral, another cruiser lost!" a Krill Officer barked, his voice tight with stress. "The energy fields... they’re shattering instantly! We’re not even seeing the source of the attacks half the time!" On the display, Krill ships attempting atmospheric entry were picked off one by one, silent explosions blooming in the vacuum of space.

"Impossible!" Admiral Khizar roared, his frustration boiling over. "Our dampeners should deflect anything these primitives possess!" Around the Pacific and Atlantic, where their ground forces and drone swarms were designated for deployment, the Krill are being pushed back, their formations breaking. The humans, these ’primitives,’ were fighting back with an unseen, devastating force.

Admiral Khizar’s eyes, narrowed with a mix of fury and dawning dread, fixed on a particular anomaly on the tactical map. "Unknown projectiles." They appeared to circle the planet at astonishing speeds, then, with impossible precision, suddenly altered course, striking Krill troop carrier ships no matter where they were in orbit. Each impact was followed by a massive, silent fireball.

"Admiral Khizar has been coordinating orbital strikes on human facilities," a nearby officer reported, his voice tinged with a rare admission of surprise. "It seems these humans are surprisingly better than they initially thought."

Khizar turned to Xylar, a younger, more aggressive Krill general whose scales shimmered with a vibrant, impatient green. "Xylar," Khizar said, his voice grim, "if this continues, our invasion forces will dwindle to nothing. We have no way of protecting ourselves from these human counterattacks. We should retreat for now, and reorganize our strategies."

Xylar sneered, his fangs glinting. "No, Admiral! We have to at least show some progress! My ground forces are suffering less than your aerial units!"



Khizar’s own sneer deepened, a sign of his growing irritation. "Listen here, Xylar. Your forces may suffer less on the ground now, but my forces are quickly dwindling. Out of 150 escort cruisers and destroyers and troop carrier ships, I only have half left. If you want us to succeed, I suggest we retreat to Luna Station, and coordinate with Chancellor Shuha’dar."

Xylar sighed, a sound of grudging defeat. "Fine. Should we inform the 55th Battlefleet?"

Khizar shook his head. "I’ll inform them, but since they’re doing much better on their designated side of the planet, I doubt they will back off. I will accept this as a loss from the humans. We’ve underestimated them."

"Yes," Xylar admitted, a rare concession from the aggressive general. "We did. But we will win next time." The bitter taste of retreat filled the Krill command room, a stark contrast to the easy victory they had anticipated.

Deep beneath the Amazonian rainforest, in the TRC Command Room, the holographic tactical map glowed with a triumphant blue, showing a significant thinning of Krill forces in the Western Hemisphere. Richard’s aura pulsed faintly, a steady, almost imperceptible rhythm that underscored his sustained focus.

Lina’s calm, synthesized voice cut through the ambient hum of the command center. "Sir, enemy forces from the Western Hemisphere have initiated a full tactical retreat. Their remaining cruisers and destroyers are moving towards space."

Richard’s eyes, sharp and calculating, narrowed on the holographic map, tracking the retreating Krill vessels. He wasn’t content with merely repelling the attack. He didn’t hesitate.

"Target one of the retreating battleship escorts of the Mothership," Richard commanded, his voice cold and decisive. "Prioritize a vessel that offers a clear line of sight to the Mothership itself once pierced."

"Affirmative, sir," Lina confirmed immediately, her data streams already identifying the optimal target and trajectory for the Cerberus Lance Mass Driver.

Deep in the jungles of the Amazon, the colossal Cerberus Lance Mass Driver Cannon array, previously unseen, shifted with a low, hydraulic groan. Its massive barrel slowly elevated and turned, aligning with Lina’s precise calculations.

Inside the TRC command, Lina’s voice echoed with complex, rapid-fire calculations, almost poetic in their precision. "Calculating... projectile path and velocity... accounting for planetary rotation, atmospheric drag, gravitational lensing... calculating predicted Krill vessel evasive maneuvers... adjusting for Mothership’s projected trajectory... predicting inertial dampener disengagement angle... optimizing for kinetic energy transfer... calculating predicted velocity... Target lock established."

A deafening thrum vibrated through the Amazonian base, a deep, resonant sound that shook the very earth. A blinding flash erupted from the Cerberus Lance’s barrel.

A single, impossibly fast projectile, glowing with incandescent energy, streaked into the sky. It quickly left the atmosphere, circling Earth like a comet, its inertial dampening component keeping it in a precise orbit. The raw power and precision of the Cerberus Lance were breathtaking, a testament to Lina’s advanced calculations and the weapon’s sophisticated design.

The glowing projectile continued its orbital path, a silent hunter. Far out in orbit, it flickered. Lina’s new calculations, based on the real-time movement of the leaving battleship escorts, were finalized. The leaving battleship escorts were no longer safe. She had reprogrammed the inertial dampener to turn off at a precise angle to leave orbit and hit the battleship escort, and hopefully, piercing the Mothership on the other side.

With a barely perceptible shimmer, its inertial dampeners disengaged. The projectile executed a brutal, instantaneous course correction, no longer merely orbiting, but accelerating directly towards the retreating Krill battleship escort. Its target: the heart of the Krill 54th Battlefleet. Unseen Krill crew on the retreating ships continued their frantic retreat, completely unaware of the incoming doom, a comet of vengeance hurtling through the vastness of space.

Aboard the Krill Mothership, in the War Command room, Admiral Khizar watched the tactical display, relief beginning to seep into his weary scales as their remaining forces pulled away from the hostile planet. The retreat was costly, but necessary.

Then, a piercing, high-pitched alarm shrieked through the command deck, unlike any they had heard before. A new, terrifying red icon flared on the tactical map, moving with impossible speed, directly towards the retreating battleship escort, the Vanguard of Eternal Flame.



"Incoming!" an officer screamed, his voice cracking with terror. "Direct trajectory! No, wait—it’s not stopping!"

Admiral Khizar’s eyes widened in horror. The projectile, a pinprick of incandescent light, grew exponentially on the viewscreen. It struck the Vanguard of Eternal Flame mid-retreat. The impact was immense, tearing a gaping hole through the battleship escort as the glowing spear passed clean through it, its velocity only slightly decreased. Debris, molten and incandescent, erupted from the Vanguard’s far side, and then, with a sickening, internal implosion, the battleship escort folded in on itself, collapsing into a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma and shrapnel.

But the projectile didn’t stop.

Through the blossoming fireball of the destroyed escort, the glowing spear continued its relentless trajectory, now aimed directly at the Mothership itself. It struck the colossal Mothership’s hull with a sickening thud, its immense velocity finally spent as it embedded itself deep within the reinforced plating. There was no explosion, only a deep, resonant shudder that ripped through the entire vessel.

Then, from the glowing projectile, small slots opened with a barely audible hiss. Gaseous smoke, thick with airborne pathogens, a virus unseen and unknown, began to seep into the Mothership’s pressurized hull. Unbeknownst to the frantic Krill crew, who were entirely focused on the structural damage and the ongoing retreat, they were about to carry a silent, deadly passenger—a disease that would follow them all the way to the Krill lunar station, a grim message from a species they had underestimated.

"Damage report!" Khizar bellowed, trying to be heard over the chaos. "What was that?! What just hit us?!"

A junior officer, his scales pale with terror, stammered, "Admiral... it... it went through the Vanguard! And now it’s stuck in our hull! Structural integrity compromised in several sections!"

Xylar, picking himself up from the deck, stared at the tactical map, his eyes wide with a terror he rarely showed. "Impossible! No weapon could do that! We’re shielded! We’re a Mothership!"

Khizar’s face was a mask of grim, dawning realization. "It wasn’t a weapon, Xylar. It was a message." He looked back at the viewscreen, where Earth, now a vibrant blue and green jewel, seemed to pulse with a defiant energy.

The Mothership continued to shudder, a wounded leviathan slowly bleeding energy into the void. The bitter taste of retreat had been replaced by the acrid tang of absolute, unprecedented defeat.