James wasn't that calm inside, yet he was trying to control himself and think of all the possibilities here. "Deviating from the plan is inevitable," he muttered before moving his gaze to somewhere else. "That report will decide everything."

The first clash with the enemy was brutal. They were already lining up their defenses, and knowing their allies were coming to their aid had added more fuel to their engines and souls.

Yet James never ordered anything else but keeping the entire fleet moving forwards. Crushing such a strong resistance required strong force, and he had to do this in the shortest time possible.

He was afraid of the trapping fleets to come and hit his rear and side. From his perspective, he knew this wasn't the final battle but it's precursor.

Whoever lost many of his fleets here would be at the back foot later on in the decisive battle. James kept his eyes over the sensor screens, and wasn't satisfied until more scouts were sent around to early alarm him of the incoming fleet.

"They are here," the droid suddenly said.

"Who?" James asked, as he was waiting for two fleets to arrive.

"Our enemies," the droid said before adding, "shouldn't we divert part of the fleet to defense?"

James gnashed his teeth. "Fine, divert one tenth of the entire fleet to intercept them," James said before adding, "and the rest stays on course. I want these bastards to be crushed sooner than planned."

"Affirmative," the droid sensed the rage in James' tone and so he kept his words short and started doing his work.

The early clashes with the incoming fleet caused James severe losses. Many defensive lines were crushed instantly, and breaches occurred everywhere.

"Damn!" he cursed before moving, heading to the outside, "Keep me posted on the enemy fleet locations."

"Where are you going?" the droid speechlessly asked.

"To join the war indeed," James said as if this was something obvious, "keep me posted on Rigo and Dora's fleet location all the time. We might need to change some tactics here."

He said while moving outside. He headed directly towards an escaping pod and went to outer space. "It's my turn to show them the empire isn't only defended by steel ships," he muttered before taking out his scepter and bow.

"Joining the war?" Stefanie asked.

"You should have done this early one," Lara complained, "this way you would have killed more of them."

"No time for such words," James said while pulling the string, "let's kill as many as we can now. I'll leave defending me and this cruiser to you Stefanie," he said before speaking in his communicator, "tell me the location of those leaks."

The droid started to give him directions, and all James did was to let the string free, releasing the arrows to go beyond his eyesight reach and then he grabbed the string again and released more arrows.

For him, he was hitting the empty space around. Yet soon he started to receive reports from the droid. "Twenty ships were hit, sir." "Fifty ships were destroyed, my leader." "Three hundred and twenty-three ships were down so far, esteemed emperor."

"Military bastards," James sneered when he noticed the change in tone and respect of that droid with each causality report he provided. James kept attacking blindly, only depending on the rough estimation of his droid directions.

"Incoming," yet all of sudden many lines of lights started to appear coming from everywhere. Stefanie shouted before she floated a few meters above his head, creating a defensive shield around the entire cruiser.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"These hits…" Lara muttered, "they are coming from artifacts," she added.

"Indeed," and Stefanie hardly said while getting busy defending.

"Scan the places these hits came from," James was slightly surprised by this, yet he sent this order to his droid and after a few minutes he received the response.

The droid gave him directions, and James started hitting towards them at once. "Follow the arrows and tell me if they managed to clear the hostiles," he said.

"A failure," the droid suddenly said after half a minute, "they have all hit the target but caused no damage."

"Interesting," James smiled before adding, "it seems someone came quite prepared with kings and queens."

"There is no other reason but this," Lara sighed, "we shouldn't hit them from this far and waste my hits over them."

"I know," James nodded, "send me directions of other ships," he said to his droid.

"And those hostiles?" the droid asked.

"Let them be for now," James sighed, while starting to target many ships, while Stefanie was quite busy defending the cruiser.

Many ships around got hit in the crossfire from both sides, yet James didn't even think for a single moment of changing his strategy.

After some time, he realized Stefanie alone wasn't enough, so he had to ask for another girl; Gorgena.

She was a pure defensive artifact, in the shape of a huge shiny shield. Her own weakness lied in the fact she was a mere artifact, not a queen.

"Master," the moment she was taken out, she said in a respectful and shy tone.

"Go and help Stefanie," he said, "she is taking a strong rain from my enemies."

"Right away," Gorgena said before flying a couple of meters above his head and shone to cover the cruiser with a golden shield.

Her shield seemed stronger, but James knew she couldn't be compared to his Stefanie. The fight kept raging from both sides, escalated from a fleet battle into artifacts' battle.

And James kept causing more damage to his enemies than his enemies did to his side.

After five hours he finally received good news. "Esteemed emperor, the two fleets are approaching us. Only ten minutes and arrive."

"Good," he said before adding, "how about the front fleet?"

"They are still resisting," the droid said, "but we managed to decrease their numbers a lot. It will be enough to crush them the moment the two fleets joined us."

"No, they won't," James changed his mind while picturing a grand image of this fight, "let's make this an epic battle," he sneered while sending off another wave of arrows towards the dark space.