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Of course, Gamora wasn't so naïve as to assume her plan would work entirely. No matter how hard she tried to refrain from slaughter, their survival—for now—would still ultimately come down to these humans themselves, and some would undoubtedly resist. Their militaries would obviously do so, their governmental bodies, less so perhaps. Ironically, Gamora had found that many times those with power on a world being conquered would be too terrified of losing that power to fight for it, even against an extra-planetary invasion.
Still, this way at least Gamora would not need to kill any more than she was required to. My hands may never be clean again, but at least they will not be as black with dried blood as the others.
As Gamora repeated her warnings, more troops came through the portal, spreading out over the city and away. As they advanced like an endless tide, they dealt with a few instances of resistance from the local populace, as expected, but nothing even remotely dangerous. Between her brief words, Gamora listened intently, and after comparing what she heard against what she'd been anticipating, could tell they had all boiled down to a few kinetic projectile-type shots fired in small numbers, which was most likely examples of the city's constabulary. Their quick deaths were more than enough to get her point across to the rest of the populace.
Meanwhile more loaders came through, although this time they carried Chitauri and anti-air guns. With the portal's immediate area already secured, they would pass over the city to instead find defensible terrain in various locations and build up fortresses there; hard points that could defend against land and air units alike. Once the city was entirely cut off, its citizen pacified, and the portal thus completely protected from threats, Gamora planned to push forward as quickly as possible. Mobility and retaining the high ground is key. We will destroy any military forces that march on us, but otherwise I am content to simply retain command of the skies and spread out slowly. That is enough.
OOOOOOO
One beacon whose location Loki had chosen deliberately was the one set in the city of Washington, D.C. As the nation that could project force beyond its borders most easily of all the nations on Earth, Loki had decided the United States needed special care. Targeting its capital was an obvious choice.
The detail of their research into humans was such that within seconds of the portal opening, Thanos and his commanders could tell from that first glimpse of the opening which portal went to Washington. And since they had no idea where the Avalon Empire's capital was – they had looked for it extremely closely, but Potter's magic kept any who did not come through the runic doors from even knowing about Camelot at all, let alone attack it – Corvus Glaive, chief of the Black Order and husband of Proxima Midnight, stepped forward and went through with the first troops. He was easily the best tactician Thanos had amongst the Black Order, a living weapon honed by decades of servitude and slaughter, and for this invasion had been assigned to lead the largest army outside of the main force led by Ebony Maw.
As he appeared on the Earth-side of the portal, Corvus Glaive could already see why. In the distance, jet fighters were already moving to intercept hisair forces. Below, several hundred troopers were also racing around. He was also getting reports about anti-air guns coming online from hidden stations around the capital.
With a gesture, Corvus sent a group of Rippers towards the incoming aerial units. As they closed, anti-air cannons lining their sides and backs opened up filling the air with plasma. Those guns didn't really have enough range to fight the human's missile tech, but for now they would do the job.
Meanwhile, Chitauri soldiers dropped from their skimmers all across the city, attacking any humans they came across, soldier or civilian. Other Rippers lowered themselves into the city skyscape moving about the tall buildings, laying waste to all and sundry with their main cannons. A few nearby buildings were almost instantly vaporized, but most concentrated their gunfire into the streets, slaying thousands.
Yet even this, and the still distant engagement between jet fighters and skimmers, was a side-show. This was the seat of the American government, not just literally, but symbolically. The more carnage they could create here, the more they could break the city and its people, the better. To maximize that impact, Corvus himself led the assault against the so-called White House, a specific target in mind from the start. By the time I am through with it, it will forever be called the Crimson House, the alien commander thought to himself,grinning cruelly even while knowing his words weren't so much a, but rather prophesy.
As his Chitauri troopers broke off and engaged human defenders, Corvus charged forward.
Human soldiers wearing strange uniforms of black pants and black jackets with white shirts underneath attempted to stop him, but he knocked them all aside as if they were Tx'le pins. Their tiny kinetic ballistics bounced off of his highly durable skin and the ragged cloak he wore as a uniform to no effect, and even when two of them brought out larger, rifle-like weaponry rather than the paltry handguns previously used, there was no hope of them defending against his might.
Corvus stormed through the White House's front door without much issue, carrying the bloody corpse of one of the guards that had been in his way still speared onto his scythe. Hurling it to one side, the body smashed into two soldiers hard enough that he heard their legs break at the collision. Twisting in the oppostie direction, Corvus lashed out with his scythe and a wave of force energy shot out, bisecting four guards who had been racing towards him.
Marching forward without missing a step, Corvus smashed through any door he came to, immediately slashing out once he'd entered a new room, slaughtering those within, guard and civilian alike. Directly above the massacre, a Ripper positioned itself directly over the White House while another moved into what had once been called Congressional Hall. Ceaselessly, more and more Chitauri troopers hit the ground, rushing into nearby buildings from there.
Corvus's orders had been very, very clear. Anyone found within those buildings was to be slain. No exceptions. It was to be the barest frothing of the wave of sacrifices he planned to create for his Lord Thanos.
Glancing out a window for a brief second, Corvus took a moment to stare out to the area immediately surrounding the White House, nodding in some approval. Native resistance had arrived to combat his troops, as expected, and were now trying to force their way into the cordon the Chitauri had thrown up around their government's buildings. It could've been a viable tactic, but they lacked the advanced weaponry required to fight his forces on an even footing.
Glaive's musings were interrupted by a spattering of bullet fire hitting his back, though no damage was done of course. He turned, flipping the staff of his scythe around before shooting out more bolts of energy at his latest victims. Once those were rightfully put down, he marched down the now destroyed hall, leaving three more dead as he did so. Another eight guards dead later, Corvus found himself in front of the so-called Oval Office. Kicking down the door, he growled at the sight that met his eyes. The office was not, in fact, ovular in shape, but more importantly, there was no President within to slay. "Blast, so much for this being a quick hunt."
As he turned around, his communications device went off. "Lord Glaive, we have assaulted the so-called Senate and House buildings. To tally, we have ended at least eight hundred humans between the two buildings so far, and more will come. Several are hiding, and others fortified positions in small groups, but we foresee no issues with getting through them all quickly. I do not have enough data to tell you the total number we should have found here, but there are signs that some may have escaped. We found an entrance to a secret tunnel underneath the building. I have already sent troopers down to begin searching."
There was a momentary pause, the Chitauri officer hesitating. Corvus frowned; that only happened when there was… distasteful news to relate.
The officer picked up again before he could consider this for long. "We are taking losses. Though primitive, their kinetic projectile weaponry is not without merit if they hit in unarmored places. Their incendiary rocketry is also proving dangerous once shields are down. Two Rippers along the eastern assault zone have been destroyed. We are encountering heavy aerial resistance everywhere."
"Call in a further fifty Rippers, then signal the anti-air units to start coming through. Continue the cleansing," Corvus ordered, dispassionate as always. His command would prove themselves worthy to Lord Thanos once more. What did a few dozen, a few hundred, a few hundred thousand losses matter when compared to that? "We will lead the cleansing of this pitiful planet. Release divisions five through twelve to continue clearing out the city. Have you hacked into the local data-net yet?"
Instantly, a line of text and a map appeared in the iris of one of his eyes, even as he came under fire as still another cadre of the strangely garbed soldiers rushed him to defend the white house he'd turned red.
Three of them went down in quick succession, although their current fire was notably precise, an oddity for such a primitive world. These special service people evidently come with various levels of training.
The next instant, however, Corvus rounded the next corner and bolts of plasma immediately shot towards him, yellow in hue and brighter than the energy weapons of his soldiers. A lucky bolt struck him in the thigh before he realized he was facing upgraded weaponry, the force of it hitting with enough impetus to knock him sideways into the far wall.
Five more guards appeared from behind, and he hissed as he realized was caught in a crossfire. Then plasma rained down from both sides. The maelstrom of fire burned through his clothing in places and actually caused a slight bit of injury. The plasma weapons still weren't quite hot enough to burn through his skin, but they were certainly going to leave him with a few burns.
"You useless vixtac (gnats)!" With a roar of affronted fury, Corvus yanked himself out of the wall, turned, and charged towards the five humans who'd seemingly appeared from nowhere. Once within reach, his scythe lashed out, bisecting one man as he kicked out at another, crushing his chest like foil. A third fell to the staff of his scythe sweeping his leg, almost tearing the limb off. The other end of his scythe came up, delivering a crushing blow that burst the fourth human's head like an overipe fruit.
Throughout the brief massacre, the guards who'd previously been in front of Corvus never stopped firing, ignoring their allies well-being. In fact, one of the wounded humans Corvus hadn't yet slain died from a plasma bolt through the chest. and yet the continued shots to his back caused Glaive some actual pain now as they hit already sore points. Enraged at the nearly forgotten feeling, Corvus turned forward once more and charged the humans who'd dared cause him such a disgrace. They didn't last long.
Seconds later, last man standing hastily pulled out a dagger, thrusting it out in an instinctive, last-ditch effort for survival. Corvus caught the blade on his forearm with a sneer of contempt… only to stare in shock as it pierced into his skin. He absently noted that he would need to examine that weapon later as his hand, now bleeding slightly, smacked the last human aside, his scythe coming up and slicing down. The last guard fell, and Corvus turned, sending out a blast of energy that seared two new guards who'd just rounded the bend in the hallway into so much char.
Kneeling down, Corvus reached for the dagger that had succeeded in injuring him, although his clothing was already mending itself, flowing over the injury in a facsimile of skin until his low-grade healing factor could kick in and heal him. Feeling the lightness of the blade, despite the fact that it looked almost like kit should be a short sword he scowled in irritation. Wherever it had come from, it had hurt him, and the implications of finding such a weapon here, even if only the one was something he needed to pass on.
Reaching to his belt, he switched com channels for a moment, connecting to the secure line the rest of the Black Order used to speak amongst themselves. "Black Order, the humans have developed an alloy that was able to penetrate my skin. So far it seems to be exceedingly rare, perhaps given to their best warriors? Regardless, it is a worrisome sign. Stay vigilant in your service to our Lord."
With that, Corvus cut off the communication, amused as he had heard his wife about to go on a tirade. Oh dear. His darkest moon was without a doubt infuriated that someone other than herself had caused him harm.
Strapping the dagger to his hip, Corvus stood and activated one of the neural implants his Lord had blessed him with, connecting with the information database his command had gleaned from the native digital network once more, searching for the relevant information, and swiftly barked out commands, sending others segments of his troops toward different areas. The aptly named Pentagon would fall swiftly to his forces, along with the accompanying military base and any others within the surrounding twenty miles. However, going over the information he'd gleaned, Corvus decided to order one massive assault launched at a specific naval base, the one called Hampton Roads. There were rumors on the human's Internet of strange experiments possibly going on there, and after the dagger he wanted no further complications or unexpected developments.
Hearing reports of their losses in the air and how many squadrons of local air superiority fighters were already in play, Corvus also ordered a doubling of the amount of antiaircraft guns being drawn through the portal from the original he had anticipated. This America was indeed a real superpower in terms of this piddling little world, which meant airpower. Worse, in a way, was that he'd learned that the original assault on the nearest naval base had been completely wiped out. Whatever ships docked there would be put to sea before the next wave caught them. It was infuriating. That said, Corvus took grim solace in the fact he knew that any Earth fleet would forever pale in comparison to the numbers the Chitauri could field.
Finishing the organization of his forces for the next phase of combat, Corvus continued on his way, assured by quick mental query that nothing had left the White House since his arrival. Unfortunately, his search for his original target was in vain. No one seemed to be around, beyond the security guards he'd already dealt with some of whom had been knocked out rather than slain.
Scowling in annoyance, Glaive wound his way back toward the entranceway. Finding two more unconscious guards there, he grabbed them both and dragged the two until they lay against the wall of the building they'd been supposed to protect shoulder to shoulder. Once the pair were at least sitting up and in position, he slapped across their faces. Lightly, so as to not kill either too soon.
The force of the slap, still incredibly strong for a human, woke them up and after staring at Corvus's glorious visage, both tried to reach for their non-existent sidearms. Snorting in disdain at the scrambling, Corvus put the blade of his scythe against their throats, the sharp edge more than long enough to reach both at once. "You will answer my questions, or you will die. Do not posture, do not lie. I have seen and heard such before and both ceased to be amusing several hundred years ago."
Neither human answered, simply clamming up. The sight caused Corvus to smile, if slightly. Whatever else these humans were, and there was a lot of negative things he could say about them, they did not seem to lack courage. Still he had his questions.
Still smiling, Corvus reached down and, without any effort, tore off one of the humans' legs, tossing the limb aside as if it were the leg of a tiny mammal.
"ARGGHHHH!" The human screamed, grabbing at where his leg had been only seconds ago.
Snorting with a role of his eyes, Corvus removed his scythe from the humans' necks, pressing its blade against the gushing wound, searing it shut with a hiss and plume of acrid fumes.
"GRAAAHHHHAGHH!" The human's screaming increased dramatically at this kindness, rising in volume until he swiftly fell unconscious.
This left Corvus looking over to the remaining human, whose other leg he had held in place with one hand while he used his scythe with the other. "That one got off lightly. You will not, should you not answer my questions satisfactorily. Disappoint me, and I will remove your arms and legs. Continue to do so, and I will remove that which makes you a man., always being careful the pain itself does not kill you. If you still refuse, I will flay your skin, starting from that point outward. Eventually, you will talk. That is inevitable. What condition you are in as you speak the truth is the only choice before you."
The human continued to glare at him, but now there was more than a fair bit of fear in his gaze. Glaive couldn't help but grin when he saw it. Still smiling, he began to make good on his boast.
The human lasted until he was down to a single working limb before he broke. "Wait! Wait! Wa-agh—wait! I—I'll talk!"
"Of course you will. Now then, where is your leader, the one you call President?" Corvus asked with a snarl. Although this hunt had been amusing at first, it had taken overlong. Every instinct he'd honed over the centuries was telling him that the human's real defenders, Potter and his ilk, would be on the move soon. They needed to be prepared before then.
"I—I don't know where! He's been going around in Air Force One, ever since—" At that, most astonishing to Glaive, the human clamped up. But it had been enough.
Moments later, Corvus was walking away from a now quite dead pair of humans, moving over to a fountain set in the open green space behind the White House. Calmly, he plunged his hands inside, washing them clean of the crimson coating they'd gained during his interrogation. His slight smile grew ever so slightly at the sight of the red staining the formerly pristine water.
Once clean, he turned his attention to the overall battle over the city. Just in time, it seemed, as he caught sight of several dozen shadows as they blocked out the sun above him as they moved through the sky. These figures were larger even than the Rippers, and far, far wider, looking almost like flying manta rays to the humans. Once the flying rays had all arrived, they began to fire long, greenish beams of energy from their front orifices, collectively aimed at targets far off in the distance.
Seeing this, Corvus' smile widened and he stalked forward. Despite not having caught the President, he now knew that the locals had been ready for them, to some small degree. That meant he too would have to prepare a warm reception for their true enemies, Potter and his followers, when they arrived.
OOOOOOO
Moments before the portal in the mountains of Afghanistan had opened, Nick Fury had been leaning back in his chair in his office in Washington, DC, ignoring the man on the other side of his desk for a moment as he instead stared up at the ceiling in seeming contemplation. In reality, it was more idle musing than anything else. After all, the guy had just repeated himself again for the third time running.
It had taken a while, and favors and threats and strings he'd long held close to the chest, but Nick simply knew where too many skeletons were buried for him to be completely pushed out to pasture despite how badly SHIELD had failed. Eventually, the Powers That Be, which in his case had meant the American president and his cabinet, had decided that he could still be of use to them in terms of homeland security. As such, they had actually created a new office for him, along with a new agency. The Investigative Agency Oversight Committee. It hadn't taken him long before he'd managed to rope in many of his former agents, and friends, into working with , few of his spying type field agents had done the same.
Some days, Nick was a little angry at that. The fact that Natasha, along with several others, had switched their allegiances to Harry Potter and his Custodes, and then the Earth Defense Force and the Avalon Empire as a whole, somewhat annoyed him. After all, he'd been the one to think up the idea of a worldwide defense initiative first, pushed for it to actually be created, and had seen to their training, or at least polished their training in Natasha's case. And then they'd just dropped him for the bigger fish.
But most of the time, Fury was able to understand that Harry had simply become the source of the kind of stability he'd been aiming such a long time for. And when it came to it, at least the people who'd once been a part of SHIELD were still doing good in the world. Nick could be happy about that, at least.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but if I could hand this particular job off to someone else, I'd love to see if I could convince Potter to recruit me too. I know he's got Sir Dennis, and that he, for all that he was railroaded by the internal politics of the British intelligence community, lives up to his codename spectacularly. Still, there's being a consummate professional, and then there's being the best in the game, and I was one of the best in the game for a long time. Despite how SHIELD turned out, that is still true. The fact that working for Potter would mean I wouldn't have to deal with these idiots is a major bonus.
Shaking his head, Nick turned his attention back to the Director of the CIA, finally deciding the man had talked to his ear off enough for one day. "I understand your concerns about the budget. I also understand that the President's decision to cut down on several operations overseas, including a number in the Middle East, bothers you tremendously. Frankly, I also don't care. The President was very clear about this to me. The CIA's reach and mandate both were to be pulled back, and all of you were to be on your best motherfucking behavior internationally. These Operations, Peach and Green Dagger, no! Absolutely not. I'm not going to reverse my decision on this one, and neither will I stand for you trying to keep on pushing forward. I know where the money is going George, and I am not going to let it continue. Try to go around me on this, and I will bury you."
George Oppenheim, current Director for the CIA, glared back at Nick, snarling as he spit out, "Dammit Nick! You and I both know Potter is too soft! In all this time, he's done fuck all about the terrorists in the Middle East unless they impinge on mutant rights! He's done nothing to topple the tyrannical regime in Iraq or the Mullahs in Iran, and everyone knows they're both still powder kegs waiting to explode. And that's not even counting the various issues in China, some of them his own damn fault too."
His tone turned more wheedling. "Come on, Nick. We know the Mandarin's hold on China isn't as concrete as he might want the world to think; far too many party members know he's a former criminal. That kind of thing is too disingenuous, even for their yellow bellies. We can—"
"—Add more fuel to an already burning building? A building, by the way, that to the international community appears to more resemble something from a cartoon, you know the ones that are always ready to explode at a moment's notice, than anything in real life? I'll admit that China is a problem. It is. And I'll agree that Potter hasn't done anyone any favors with his moves in Asia, which, given the fact that Sir Dennis is working for him, I still find very surprising."
Nick preemptively held up a hand as Oppenheim tried to interrupt. "But what you're talking about? If anything can get traced back to us, it will ream us in the ass so hard we'll be looking around for the god damn elephant that did it! And don't give me that old saw about how you've taken every precaution. I know how little that actually matters sometimes! There's always goddamn loose ends, something that can be traced back. I've been in your shoes more times over more years than you've been working at the CIA, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. That being said, I'm not a bleeding heart, and I'm not saying this plan of yours doesn't sound good when you think about it," he said, somewhat more commiserating at the end. "But now is most decidedly not the time for that kind of thing. It just isn't."
Oppenheim grumbled a bit, but that was why Nick had been chosen for the position. He really had been practically everywhere and done every job within the intelligence society; offense, defense, diplomatic, even bureaucratic. At one dark point in his life, he'd even worked in records for fuck's sake. He understood why a plan like Operations Peach and Green Dagger had been thought up, and at one point he knew he'd have given it the green light. But if he said it wasn't the proper time to even start putting something like that in motion, then Oppenheim would just have to grin and bear it.
The director of the CIA didn't have to like it, but if he tried to go around Nick's back like he could the Senate Oversight Committee, or even the President if asked about something like this, he'd know. And take… steps. The old director of the FBI had found that out the hard way, not to mention the NSA, which was now but a pale shadow of what it had once been. The only reason Oppenheim even still had his job was because he knew both how to play ball and not to underestimate the man behind this desk. "Fine, I'll redirect the money from those two ops to Operation Redbeard."
Nick frowned for a moment, thinking, reviewing his encyclopedic knowledge of all black ops being run by the CIA, then nodded slowly. "Send me the dossiers on the agents involved. There was one who's proclivity for violence rang a few warnings in my mind. But other than that I—"
Suddenly, there was a booming noise outside, followed by screams, more booming, the sound of the men and women out on the streets running, and underneath it all, the distinctive "fzzGRK!" of energy weapons of some kind being fired en masse.
"What the fucking hell?" Turning rapidly Nick moved to his window, fingering an opening in the blinds to stare out through the bulletproof glass out onto the streets. Below, dozens of people were staring up in the sky, pointing, while others were shrieking and running for cover. The sources of the other noises weren't visible from where he was, but Nick had been in enough firefights within cities to be able to figure out that the worst of the sounds were coming from Capitol Hill. His remaining eye widened in dawning understanding just as a giant fucking metal-clad whale-fish of some kind dove down into the streets, its sides blasting out with numerous grafted-on gun emplacements.
Both Nick and Oppenheim, who'd joined him at the window, immediately hurled themselves away from it, not trusting the bulletproof glass to stand up against energy weaponry. This proved to be very much the case, and Nick had rolled away the window shattered, the impact of multiple energy bolts bursting through and sending molten glass everywhere. Oppenheim gasped as his back, arm, and leg were hit by small droplets of the flying slag. Fortunately, his clothing had blocked the bits just enough that he could still move under his own power, and he crawled on his hands and knees to get farther away.
Not wasting a second, both men jumped up as soon as the last bit of debris had settled, wordlessly racing out of the room. Right as he reached the doorway, Nick paused, pulling down a lever there before exiting. Outside his office, the two passed Nick's secretary, who was staring wide-eyed out her own window, even as her desk began to shift. A series of small lockers appeared as the desk unfolded, and the secretary jumped into action, hastily opening one of the lockers. Pulling out several rifles, she tossed one to both men, taking one herself. "What's going on and what's the plan, Sir?"
"Agent Leo," Oppenheim murmured, fighting back the urge to nudge Nick in the side at the actions of the cute-as-a-button but thoroughly professional young woman. "You poached her from Travis over at the FBI, right?"
"As well as a few others. After all, there are secretaries, and then there are fucking secretaries," Nick replied with a snort. Taking point, he gestured for Agent Leo to follow him. "Let's get down to the basement pronto. The not-so secret tunnel there can get us to the Hoover building, and then from there, we can push to Capitol Hill. George, do you think you can make it to the precinct?"
Oppenheim nodded, staring down his side with a grimace where he could see a few of the burn marks caused by the molten glass eating through his suit jacket, already feeling the pain from them and others on his back. "I probably won't be of much use with my arm and leg anyway, but I can damn well hobble along."
For a moment, they were interrupted, the noises outside growing to a fevered pitch. The cacophony of blaster discharges cut through the tumult of screaming, people running, cars honking, and even the sound of buildings being smashed to pieces outside. "Of course, I make no promises that I'll be able to actually get there through all that…" Oppenheim mumbled, staring out the window as a number of smaller flying vehicles of some kind flew through the streets, each carrying a trio of what were undoubtedly aliens as they proceeded.
"Fuck! This isn't just a mission to cut off the government's head, it's a whole goddamn motherfucking invasion, just like Potter warned us about!" Nick hissed, staring out the window as well. Shaking his head, he moved to follow Agent Leo towards the door, and the hallway beyond. "Change of plans then. We'll all head to the precinct, and then I'll double back to Capitol Hill. We need to get some kind of motherfucking organization going pronto, evacuation, defense, both if we can."
The other two both nodded, and together the three raced on, none realizing the true depth of the conflict that had suddenly exploded into being around them.
OOOOOOO
As the militaries of Earth began to mobilize against the Chitauri, the Skrull fleet popped into existence along the outer edge of the Sol system, half a light-year from Pluto. Some of the information they had about the defenses of this solar system showed the impact of some kind of gravity weapon that appeared able to pull ships out of hyperspace and divert their route towards the fortress on the fourth planet from the central star, designation Mars by the locals.
Since one of the most foolish things a commander could do was to fight on the battlefield of his enemy's choosing, Len'Dok had decided to do the smart thing and jump into real space well out of the inner system and move to encircle the human's home planet via his ships' much slower impulse drives. That this allowed his fleet's sensors to reach out ahead and begin creating an up-to-date picture of the system of their own was also part of his thinking. Radio waves and even captured old light was often not accurate, after all.
At first, Thanos had argued with Len'Dok, or rather, demanded an explanation as to why his first steps into the Sol system would be so cautious. But eventually the experienced fleet officer had convinced the Mad Titan that being cautious would be the better overall strategy, regardless of their numbers and superior technology.
"Shock and awe can come in two different forms, My Lord," Len'Dok had said. "There is the more often utilized form of precise, swift, and ruthless action; the application of force onto an area or areas where one's enemy is vulnerable. That is the way your Chitauri know how to wage a war. Then there is the other way. Slow, methodical, the unstoppable approach of an overwhelming force, one that grinds away at the will of the enemy until it breaks. That is what my fleet will provide. After all, if we break the morale of the humans, or even merely draw away the majority of their non-powered space-going military, you will have a much easier time dealing with their superpowered elements."
Thanos had paused at that, and considered. Shortly after, he'd acquiesced to Len'Dok's points, although not with a warning that in the future, he may not be so merciful to a dissenting voice. "The humans will most likely surprise you with their tenacity, no matter how you believe yourself prepared. And if the Phoenix Avatar or Potter decide to ignore the Chitauri, you fill find your fleet burnt to cinders like the feathers of an avian caught in a bonfire. Still, it is your command. Do what you will."
Unfortunately, even with the minor capitulation, Thanos hadn't taken Len'Dok's opinion on what sort of fleet the Skrull needed for their operation as kindly. Thus, the fleet was a bit too top-heavy for the commander's tastes. It was the kind of fleet he would've taken against an equivalent opponent, such as the Kree, an enemy Len'Dok knew how to fight, knew what to expect from.
The humans, for all the information they had managed to glean on them, still held a LOT of unanswered questions. Especially in regards to their space-worthiness. Thus Len'Dok would have preferred more ships with lighter armaments and speed rather than heavier units.
Yet to his chagrin, his fleet's current composition would actually work better in terms of the shock and awe that Lord Thanos wished for rather than his own preference. It wasn't quite as flexible, nor, admittedly, did the various different aspects of the 'fleet' work together in a manner that was fit to be called such. Len'Dok had been utterly appalled by the number of flag officers Thanos had seen fit to cull, seemingly uncaring that destroyed the fleet's efficiency.
wo hundred and thirty-one Equalizers, the super-dreadnought class of the Skrull Fleet. These were not like Kree Doom Bringers or Worlds Breakers; the Skrull didn't do specialized designs like that. Instead, Equalizers were able to do the tasks of both Kree dreadnaughts almost as well as their counterparts.
Or at least, it was supposed to work out like that. It didn't quite succeed in doing so, but the Skrull made up for any lack by having better shielding tech overall than their enemies, and somewhat better onboard repair resources. Alas, in contemporary space warfare such advantages didn't really matter much under a normal commander, however the best officers could manage to rotate their ships out of a battle, and the Skrull damage control teams could get to work and return those self same ships to the battlefield in a useable condition quickly enough to still impact the fighting.
Three hundred seventy-seven battleships. Normally, such units would be split off to attack in flanking actions, to peel off enemy defenders from the sides, and thus weaken the enemy for a main attack. But now, with a gravity trap Lord Thanos' information had told Len'Dok that was on the fourth planet out from the sun, that wasn't advisable.
Nonetheless, these ships were still the second largest ships in the fleet. They bristled with the same kind of energy weapons as the Equalizers, if in smaller overall number. Much like their eternal enemies, the Skrull had long since moved away from kinetic missile-based weaponry.
Seven hundred and fifty-one cruisers. Unlike their opponents, or the Shi'ar who somewhat specialized in the midrange class of combatants and therefore relied more heavily on their far better specialized units, the Skrull barely used cruisers at all save for missions focused on commerce protection or raiding. By design they were most useful for flanking enemy battlelines; destroying strategic targets when defenders had been pulled away. However, that also meant they couldn't take much of a beating in comparison to their larger brethren.
Nine hundred and seven destroyers. Normally, ships such as these would be sent ahead of a main fleet to engage any soft targets available, investigate anything or anywhere a fleet's sensors could not discern enough information for the commanding officer, or attack already weakened targets prior to the main engagement. Here, despite their hyper-expensive dual-hyperdrive engines, their ability to strike fast and hard had been rendered useless. They were, however, still well armed, each equipped with only a few weapons but all of a larger type, than their size would indicate.
For now, the Len'Dok had decided to keep them close, but he anticipated sending them forward to deal with any orbital defenses that the humans might've possibly cobbled together. Meanwhile, he would use the rest of the fleet as a massive hammer, and destroy whatever space-based mobile units the humans had captured from the Kree. If it came to it, he'd even be able to deal with any space-based or spacefaring superpowered elements that dared to face his fleet.
We know that there are objects in orbit over the planet, but we failed to discern their capabilities. We also know how many Kree ships Potter has somehow brought back to fighting trim, but somehow nothing concrete about their actual armaments. We even know that they have found or designed a large number of strange, shuttle-sized ships, but not what their purpose is. And unlike some others, I refuse to believe that the humans merely use those shuttles as part of their, admittedly, growing infrastructure.
That was the problem facing Len'Dok, really. The information on the humans they were operating under was mostly based on two sources: radio waves captured from around 'Fortress Mars' and their home world and captured old light recorded by Lord Thanos' spy ships well outside of the system. Both means of intelligence gathering had issues, and contrary to previous records, the humans didn't seem to send important military information via radio waves anymore. Not the Avalon Empire, and not between the third and fourth planets, anyway.
Worse was how patchy the information truly was. Even Lord Thanos had only maintained precious few ships that were capable of going into the long dark between systems and tracking down the specific old light that would give them any idea of what they would be facing. This led to the current situation where, while Len'Dok knew that the humans had managed to beat a Kree fleet by pulling them into range of Fortress Mars, and knew that the humans had also beaten off a flotilla of Badoon, he had no idea how that second battle had commenced while conversely there was a near play-by-play recording of the battles against the Kree.
And so it was that as the fleet began to pass through the encompassing Nalve Sphere—which the humans had stupidly named the Oort Cloud of all things—to where it shifted into the Nolj Circle—the human's designated Hills Cloud—Len'Dok's found his concerns growing.
"What do you mean you don't know where their fleet is? Either they are out on maneuvers and we should be picking them up on sensors, or they are stationed near their Fortress Mars. Regardless, we should be able to at least figure out where they are there. Or are you telling me that they just happen to be on the other side of the star from us?"
To be honest, they could be on maneuvers on the other side of the star, but that would be rather… suspicious timing. Len'Dok thought, glaring at his sensor specialist as his thoughts whirled. Could the humans have known we were coming? If so, just what are they using as scanners and communication devices over inter-planetary ranges? There are just too many blasted questions. I know Lord Thanos and his ilk are powerful, but it is the Skrull who will die in the thousands if this goes poorly.
Beside the specialist, the flag bridge's senior sensor analyst shrugged his shoulders, at a loss. Thankfully, the Fleet Overlord wasn't the type to shoot the messenger. Well, so long as the messenger was competent at least, and the man would not be on his flagstaff if there were any questions on that score.
"There are no starship-sized energy readings within our sensor range, sir. And, while we can't get much detail, we can see into the inner planetary zone. We have pinged several dozen space stations orbiting around the gas giants, a few of what we assume to be satellites both there and also scattered across other inner system worlds, particularly the primary target. Small scale, we have located fourteen individual energy signals moving at speed. Not a one is large enough to be, at most, a handful of those oversized shuttles we were informed about clumped together."
The senior officer then waited as two nearby technicians finally got more detailed readings back and began to fill in more information on their findings. As he'd just announced, some could instantly be designated as HE3 refineries, while others were clearly defensive installations. The information on Fortress Mars solidified as well, although at their present range nothing was still anywhere near as detailed as anyone would prefer. The energy readings coming from the fourth planet were impressive to say the least, and there were signs that the overall gravity of the solar system had changed significantly, and recently, signaling that offworld mining and supply had been going on there.
As for the primary target, from their current position, they had just begun to get a reading on the native energy infrastructure, but nothing else specific about the third planet. Or at least, where their sensors said the planet was, anyway. Some of the information that they'd gleaned from old light that had come from the system had hinted at past battles where the Badoon had been either woefully inaccurate with their artillery or had been tricked into attacking an empty segment of space with their long range bombardment arsenal. The same had happened to the Kree fleet that had come; that battle they had been able to watch from beginning to end before the Kree fleet had been destroyed in orbit over fortress Mars. The fleet had launched planetary bombardment missiles towards the third planet, only for most to detonate or just… disappear before they corrected.
When the staff officer began to see that they had reached the point where they would need to get closer—as in past the seventh planet at least—to get any more useful information, he continued. "I can send out more probes, but that will take time as we can already tell that the Fortress Mars gravity trap has been activated. Anything we'd send would be pulled out of hyperspace just as easily as we would be."
"Could they be hiding within one of the Jovians?" Len'Dok asked. "Using gas giants to hide from invaders is a time-honored tactic because it works."
"Perhaps the innermost gas giant, sir, but not the outer. And even if they are, sir, we have enough ships to interdict said planet and still continue with our primary objectives."
Len'Dok grunted at that but said nothing. "Order the fleet forward then. I want the destroyers split into four units, two to port and starboard each, and then one to stern to merge into the cruiser divisions. Another will be below us. From what information we have, the humans are by all accounts new to space warfare. Based on our experience with such, we should be expecting them to attack from below in fleet engagements such as this if possible. The rest of the fleet will take Formation Puncture. Tactical, I want you to keep an eye on our inter-fleet communications network. Our firing arcs and interlocked defensive network needs to be perfect."
At his order Len'Dok's officers leapt to obey. Moments later, the Skrull fleet lumbered forward, the heavier ships forming into what looked like the head of an Phillips screwdriver. Each of the four prongs was a division, and slowly the Equalizers were surrounded by their smaller brethren. No matter how fast or slow the individuals ships could go, every one kept within the defensive firing envelop of at least its division-mates and two other divisions. Around the center portion of the fleet, the destroyers had positioned to provid almost wall-like formations to either side and below, the cruisers and a breakaway group of destroyers providing the shaft of the 'screwdriver'.
The mystery of where the human fleet was fell to the wayside, however, as alarms began to blare a second later. Another sensor specialist shouted out, "We have incoming! I'm reading a growing number of small incoming vessels from our right and left flanks. Numbers aren't solid, they're too interspersed for a clean return. Readings all point to them either being or being like the oversized shuttles from our war book."
"Hmm… disposable scout ships perhaps? Or something similar?" the senior sensor specialist mused. "If they could send back targeting data… but then, there are still no human ships in sight. Do they have some sort of interplanetary weapons system?"
"Unknown," Len'Dok grunted. "But you're thinking too small. If those are probes, then they don't need to be limited to simply sending back information. What if their purpose is to block our own sensors and scramble communications?"
"Their power readings are quite large for such small craft, sirs," the specialist who had been watching the scanners said. "But the scans indicate their straight ahead speed can't be too good based on current data. Maneuverability might make even the Shi'ar ships look slow, but anything else I can't tell yet. But…"
"But?" Len'Dok growled, standing from his command chair. "That is not a term I like to hear at any time soldier, let alone when going into battle."
"Sorry sir. It's just… I'm not getting readings that would indicate there's anyplace that could have been a base or launch platform for them from the direction the humans' ships are coming from."
At the grunt from his senior officer, the sensor analyst quickly took over the main holo-projector, the display warping to show the area where the signals would begin to appear. Between one section of space and the next, the red rash of icons would appear, so suddenly it was beyond startling to those with any experience with space combat.
"Do the humans have cloaking technology on par with our own?" the senior specialist asked in a murmur, squinting at the projections.
"Unknown, but I doubt it, sir. From the many angles provided by the fleet, it would have been almost impossible for anything to hide from us. Even so, the incoming crafts appeared just outside of the range of all of the destroyers' weapons.
"Look at how they're moving," the tactical specialist spoke up, claiming the floor after a brief pause. "Slight deviations before corrections in no discernable pattern. It's as if each is flying under its own power, being individually operated instead of flying on a straight line or even AI driven. But why would they send their people to their deaths on what is obviously some kind of suicide mission? The only answer is that they have to be weapons of some kind."
"Perhaps. Regardless, bring the fleet to battle stations," Fleet Overlord Len'Dok ordered. He was unwilling to assume that anything his enemies did was not purposeful in some manner. Underestimating your foe was one of the quickest ways to die in war.
Yet even as unfazed as he forced himself to appear, even he was astonished when the human vessels entered the range of his weapons and immediately broke away from their spear-like straight charge and began to evade fire. They really had been manned devices of some kind "Suicide craft?" The tactical officer murmured.
"They could be, aiming to crash into our fleet units, but our information on the humans seems to indicate that such an act would be anathema to the majority of them," the intelligence officer argued.
"We will know what they are shortly. Observe, and be prepared to give me your opinions after the battle," Len'Dok ordered, cutting through the argument before it could begin.
"The numbers of the enemy have continued to increase at a steady rate… they could possibly be using highly advanced decoys to inflate their numbers over scans?" Skrull ships used similar devices, and even as the officer manning the sensors position said this, such decoys began to appear, ghost like around each ship.
OOOOOOO
Colonel Jack Marshall, callsign Reaper Man, was clenching his control stick with both hands so tightly his knuckles had long since turned white. As he dodged incoming fire, while behind him, his fellow Ravens attempted to keep formation. Well, calling it a formation would've been something of a misnomer. They weren't really flying in any such organized manner, rather they were keeping just close enough so that each squadron's tac-net could remain in constant contact.
As they ducked and wove through laser and plasma fire, Marshall's crew of three went about their business quickly.
"Activating decoys! Slaving to our systems. Decoys online."
"Gravity cannon and particle beam are both online, we are good to go," fellow veteran, Oscar Harper, announced from the weapons officer's position.
"Random walk, you useless shower!" Jack announced into his mic before putting action to word. He bounced his plane in various ways to throw off the enemy's targeting systems, dodging fire so close he could see it through the viewscreen at the front of his craft. "Hesitation gets you killed!"
Thankfully, the hellish training they'd gone through seemed to be enough, and all of the Ravens were dodging wildly enough to survive as they zoomed in toward the first segment of the invading fleet. Few of Marshall's troops had actually been combat veterans, and while they weren't exactly in a dogfight like they'd been showed from World War II, the sheer firepower coming towards then was far greater than in any battle the old-timers would've ever faced.
Luckily for them, this enemy, like the Badoon, didn't appear to believe in weapons that could home in on targets, most likely due to the amount of defensive fire that their ships could put out. There was a glaring hole in such thinking however. In tests against the captured Kree vessels, the Raven's had proven time and again that the range of their onboard weapons could easily keep them out of the most dangerous defensive zones the otherwise uncontested space behemoths could muster. Obviously, the closer you got to a ship, the deadlier its fire became, but then there was what the Raven pilots and their crews called the sweet spot. This special area was wherever the majority of the main anti-capital ship batteries of an alien capital ship wouldn't be able to target you while you were also just barely out of the range of their secondary systems. Well, it was with most of the vessels we tested anyway. The truly massive ships are still able to get range on us with their secondaries, Jack thought grimly.
Closing to the alien fleet's shared sweet spot ended up costing Marshall at least twenty souls from his attack force—the squads attacking the from the right flank—along with the vast majority of their decoys. His ECM officer's repetitious, "Activating decoys, decoys online," became a mantra, one where the rapidly changing numbers slid by his conscious mind, unable to sink in.
But those decoys were their lifeline, Gods help them, and Marshall swallowed down a growing fear that once they all started to run out of them, the Ravens would be torn apart. We are goddamn eggs armed with nukes. But!… We're gonna show these fuckers the nuke side of that equation. "Activate ECM!"
At his orders, across the battlefield all Ravens activated their ECM payloads in sync. Designed to disrupt the computer network linking an enemy ship to another, these devices would play hell on any fleet's ability to operate as a cohesive unit. Within seconds, the crews of the Ravens saw such an impact. The fire from the smaller ships shielding the nearer flank of the enemy fleet suddenly began to flounder! Likewise, the efficacy of their remaining decoys abruptly shot through the roof.
"About fucking time!" Marshall's electronics engineer grunted. "We're down to six outta ten decoy pairs, boss."
"Noted. Let me know when we're down to our last two pairs," Marshall ordered, grimacing. Maybe we should have waited until the enemy fleet was right on top of one of the rings before attacking?
It was an honest question. The teleportation rings themselves couldn't be seen, and maybe waiting to be within their firing range would've given their forces more of a chance to get all of the way into the enemy fleet's formation all their own? Or is the necessity of firing off decoys on this side of the portals too essential to our survival?" While the ECM suite could be used during a portal jump, the connection to the decoys was always lost during the trip, and according to all reports it was quite the awful bitch to regain afterward.
As Marshall watched, another hundred decoys disappeared off the map, this time coupled with seven actual Ravens blinking out across the combat group. God, we are taking so many casualties already. He took a moment to pray that the magical teleportation arrays on their suits were working as they normally did. If not, there was going to be a lot of empty bunks back at the Nests after all of this was over.
And then they were finally close enough to the enemy fleet to start their own culling. "Blue Squadron, fire on my signal! Fire!"
Almost as one, a bundle of gravity beams struck out, crunching into the shielding of an enemy capital ship. After only two strikes from Blue Squadron members the target's shields gave away. With practiced ease, Marshall's weapons officer sent out the signal to switch to their secondary weapon, the particle beams. With a single command, twin beams of silver light burst into existence and lanced into the enemy craft. The beams did they jobs and tore apart the bindings of solid matter on the atomic level, turning the density of their target's own armor against it. From one moment to the next, the invading ship exploded into with an eruption of atomic fire.
"Hell yeah, take that you assholes!" Harper shouted. "Get some!"
"Secondary target coming up," Marshall warned, his friend quieting down quickly. The next ship was a destroyer, one that was already futilely trying to roll away from the Ravens, taking their fire on different sides of their shields.
Ultimately, its actions couldn't save it. Another Raven, this time from Marshall's own squadron, went dark, but at the same time the destroyer exploded. A single pause, and then they were on to the next ship, one so close to the cloud of debris caused by the second ship's death the wreckage was actually able to shield them for a second. The minute respite allowed them to reposition all of their decoys before hitting their third target.
When that ship fell, Marshall and the remaining groups and squadrons of the wing on their side of the battlefield were passed the destroyers and straight into the fire of the enemy's larger vessels. "Get those decoys out, keep the ECM up!" Marshall ground out, appalled as whole waves of decoys and ten more Ravens winked out of existence on his screen.
Still more went dark, but then the Ravens were truly within the enemy formation. The shields on the ships they found there took far longer to knock down than the destroyer-class craft, several passes for the battleship-sized ones, and far more for the larger Doom Bringer-esque ships. And in so doing, still more of the Ravens went down, although the ECM jammers performed wonderfully the entire time. Twice Jack saw the invaders shoot one another, so badly was their interlinked network compromised. Then, from the other side of the enemy fleet, Marshall witnessed a minor miracle appear on his screen. The other wing of the assault had made it.
When the idea of a two-pronged assault was explained to him, Colonel Marshall, like many others, had argued that it would be too complicated. Many of the older, historically inclined pilots had shouted on about Leyte Gulf and other disasters. But here, it seemed to have worked so far. The simultaneous attacks coming from opposite directions seemed to be pulling the enemy ships in either direction, as if they were uncertain where to fire. The Ravens were still taking losses, but nowhere near what they should have when up against such odds.
"Boss, we're down to our last four decoys!"
At that, Marshall gave a single, firm nod. He knew it was time. Without missing a beat, he shouted, "Bug out, bug out!"
With that order, the tattered remnants of his personal squadron broke away to join others, continuing to push on through the battlespace. Thankfully, they had no need to turn around or decelerate to flee back along the route they had followed. Attempting such a thing would have been near suicidal, as even Ravens couldn't bleed off inertia well enough to turn on a dime, and the arches they'd be forced to make would've made them easy pickings. Additionally, the decoys that had spelled life up to this point were nearly depleted across the entire force. Worse, with the loses they'd suffered so far, the ECM jammers were having a harder and harder time disrupting the enemy's network. Even a blind soldier could tell that over the course of the skirmish, defensive fire had steadily risen, and gotten more accurate, as the fighting went on. Now, for every five decoys destroyed, an actual Raven went with them.
So instead of a conventional retreat, Marshall and his wing sped through the enemy fleet's formation and out the other side, which they discovered had been smashed into equal disarray by the other wing. This did save them from a certain amount of fire from the ships of the line, but the destroyers had already had enough time to reform, and it looked like cruiser-class vessels and more of their brethren from the back of the enemy formation were pulling up to bolster their counterattack.
The wave of fire was withering from the moment the wing left the main enemy formation behind them and it was here that Marshall and his crew's collective luck ran out. The pilot had barely a second to register his ECM officer's shout of, "The last decoy just went—!" when the enemy's next salvo crashed into them. In a blink, his senses exploded, feelings of intense, debilitating disorientation going through every one of them his mind could register.
When the world could finally make sense once more, Jack Marshall and his people found themselves laid out in the receiving area of their Nest, once again in orbit over the fake Earth.
Groaning, Jack pushed himself to his feet, his stomach growling something fierce, as waves of weakness and exhaustion wracked through him as if he hadn't had any food or drink for weeks. Having learned this feeling well from training, he knew that if he looked at himself in the mirror, his appearance would more than reflect his current feelings. Any excess fat he might've had? Gone. Any larger than average muscle mass? Gone. Anything at all in his stomach? Gone. Everything extra he'd had in him had just been burned away in an instant to pay for the emergency runic array.
But Jack was still alive. Hastily, he grabbed at some of the protein drinks and energy bars that were scattered around the room in small mounds, the bars already unwrapped and the drinks open. Around him, his crew all did the same, each and every one scarfing down the food like ravenous wolves.
Fifteen minutes later Jack had enough energy to think of moving. Groaning again, he made his slow, shambling way over to the nearby doorway, avoiding the medical officers already seeing to the wounded. He needed to get a tally of how many people they'd lost, and how much damage they'd done. And even after he learned that, he also knew that the campaign as over for him for the foreseeable future. There was no way his body would be able to fuel another emergency teleportation for a long, long time.
OOOOOOO
"Well?" Len'Dok growled out, the flag bridge a scene of frenetic activity around him as the officers tried to reorganize the fleet. "What, by the genitalia of your matriarchs, did the humans hit us with?"
"Sir!" the tactical officer stiffened, voice quivering. "The—the strange shuttles we'd noted in our espionage package were very obviously not shuttles. I would almost call them gunboats, maybe… although small ones. They were highly maneuverable, as well as kept a significant stock of scanner decoys. Their ECM suite was also incredible, and while we can filter out the decoys on our sensors now that we've encountered them, the ECM suite was too difficult to decrypt during the short exchange and will continue to impact our defensive network in any future skirmishes. We'll need to concentrate on shooting the gunboats down the instant they start interpolating with us. I would recommend pulling the destroyers into the center of the formation, use them to counter these unorthodox ships."
"We… we detected two different types of energy beams, sir. One was a kind of gravity-based energy destabilizer. That is about all I can say about it," the sensor specialist said, taking up the analysis. "The weapon seemed to create a wide beam, visible due to its frequency on the electro-spec, that was mid-range, matching our secondary systems on the Equalizers. Speed was somewhat slower, but still hard to dodge due to the…gunboats… themselves being so quick. The second weapon system, of which each shuttle seemed to have two, was of an entirely different kind of energy. It was even shorter ranged… maybe. That's not totally a known as the humans only fired when close, but that could've been preference just as much as a requirement. What it can do against shielding is also unknown as it was used only against targets once their shields were down. And after that, they kill. No armor we've got could stop those beams. The thickness of plating didn't matter at all either. Once our shields fell, every ship struck by those secondary beams was either badly damaged or destroyed outright in a matter of seconds."
"And how many ships did we lose?" Len'Dok ground out, turning his glare onto one of this other officers.
That worthy was the Damage Control and SAR (Search and Rescue) coordinator for the fleet, and of all the officers he looked the most shocked. "Sir, only four of the Equalizers attacked were able to survive being struck by those silver beams, and even they are now dead in the water. It's almost as if someone set of nuclear devices inside of the hulls. Multiple nukes." He shivered, his eyes going unfocused for a moment before he managed to pull himself together. "One battleship survived as well… somehow… but we've had to evacuate the surviving crews from all five ships. Beyond that…"
"It was very much an if this, then that, type of battle sir. If our shields went down, then the ship was destroyed," another tactical officers added, shivering a bit. The flagship Silence had lost some of its shielding during the battle, but thanks to the efforts of the bridge crew at its helm had not been struck by the silver beams in turn. "We lost twenty Equalizers outright, seventy-two battleships, three hundred destroyers, and one hundred and eighty-four cruisers; nearly a full third of our complement."
"But we destroyed nearly nine-tenths of the attackers!" the first tactical officer jumped in, voice cracking with stress. "If these were the human's main space defense forces, then they have shot their bolt."
"That kind of supposition is what kills fleets, you Jro'toc!" Len'Dok roared, leaping to his feet. For a moment it looked as if he would add injury to the insulting curse he'd just addressed the man with, a curse that, if translated to English, would read as someone who was so moronic that they'd eat their own clutch's eggs. This was a grave insult to the Skrull as, in their natural body-forms, laid eggs. Luckily for the tactical officer, Len'Dok gathered his self-control and simply continued to upbraid the man verbally, his tone withering. "Assumptions allowed them to strike us such a blow, and I will never allow them to do so again!"
Suitably chastened, his officers all bowed their heads, and Len'Dok continued on even more coldly, looking over at the sensor specialists. "Tell me you have something to report?"
The Skrull had obviously sent out destroyers to try and run down the last of the fleeing attackers. This had worked in the main from all reports, but from the shaking of the sensor team's collective heads, it evidently hadn't worked as well as he'd hoped. "We… we don't know where the attackers went, sir. It—it's like they disappeared. And there is no chance they could have activated any kind of cloaking system with our ships so close. I… I am at a loss, Sir."
"They seemed to congregate around a single point, as if they were, well, exactly the shuttles we thought they were, waiting to enter a space-station's hanger bay. But then… nothing," another analyst added.