Admiral Haigely stared at the holotank, completely unaware that a group of her opposites were staring at nearly the same image in a flickering holotank. The Orion-Cygnus Gaclatic Arm Stub glowed brightly, the stars different colors. There were different colored areas, slightly glowing, as if the stars were in diffuse clouds.

Blue for the Terran Confederacy, with color hatching for non-Terran allied races. Yellow for the Unified Council territories. Green for the Neo-Sapient Systems, AKA Disputed Territory, with markers for who was in control of the area. Red for the Precursors, with diagonal hatching for the type. Purple for the Idiots. Gray fog for the Long Dark AKA Precursor Autonomous War Machine Spawning Zone. Red and amber for the area where the Mar-gite had first appeared, which was missing on the Unified Council maps. Amber with red markings for the Talmonus Harmony Cluster.

The Admiral reached out and touched the amber marker over TerraSol.

NO CONTACT - CASE OMAHA PROTOCOLS

She sighed. Almost four months since the Case Omaha had been announced. A month since the other systems had left the gravitational protective system, and TerraSol was still locked down.

She hoped her wife and children in MechaKrautland were not too worried about her.

Haigely pushed down her concern and looked back at the holotank.

The Confederacy, before TerraSol had been locked down, had managed to largely take the outer regions of the Unified Council Territories and start to squeeze. As a student of military history, she knew that this was where a conventional force would start to slow down even further as troops and equipment would have to be diverted for occupations.

The would lower the amount of troops and war material available for the fronts, take up trained troops, and require a massive amount of dedicated logistics to keep it all running.

For nearly eight thousand years that had been beaten by the Terrans, no matter what government they had lived under.

Cloning banks and the Born Whole system ensured instant reinforcements. Nanoforges and Creation Engines and Von Nuemann Logistics Systems had ensured that the Terrans supply lines were only as far as the nearest gas giant, nebula, Oort Cloud, or ocean. Robotic and clone manned ship refit bases could be manufactured quickly and easily, allowing ships to be refit even while the Terran military machine dug into a system.

Grand Great Most High of Military Most Highs Su'uprmo'o stared at the holotank in front of him, the flickering hologram annoying him.

"Right here," he said, pointing at the holotank. "This thing has worse resolution than Neo-Sapient Gal-Net videos filmed on a pair of cam-shades in a bathroom stall."

"It is a standard holotank, Most High," the Most High of Executor Most Highs Spy'inmo'o said, his tendrils curled nervously and his crests inflating. "It has always been good enough."

Su'uprmo'o turned and curled his lips, inflating his jowls. "We fight for our lives against a crazed enraged lemur species who might as well be doing magic and their half-mad allies, and you start bleating about 'good enough' like the Most High of Corporate Most High Low'ngre'ed." he sneered. "If you have nothing good to add, please launch yourself into the nearest stellar mass so you do some good."

Spy'inmo'o swallowed nervously and backed away.

"For millions of years our species has trumpeted out 'good enough' from our buttocks and then we are shocked, shocked and dismayed I say, by the fact that some jacked up primate lemurs jumped out of the tree and began gnawing into our skulls," Su'uprmo'o sneered. He turned and brought up images in two other holotanks.

They flickered, shot through with static, the hologram slowly wavering.

"AAARRRGGG!" Su'uprmo'o let out a scream of frustration. "How am I to use this worthless dross?" he screamed. "I would be better off with two dimensional pictures that this terrible device."

He whirled in place, kicking the holotank. Sparks shot out of it and it went out with a squeal of feedback. "I would be better served by hiring a black market pornographer to attune these devices! Why is it that some clever neo-sapient with a dataslate camera and a hand held flashlight can get the resolution fine enough you can count every pubic hair upon a trollop's genitals but the Unified War Room has such poor resolution in their holotanks I can't tell if I'm looking at lemur armor or a grocer's mannequin trying to sell me substandard nutri-cud?"

The gathered Most Highs of Most Highs all looked away from one another, trying to avoid answering any questions.

Admiral Haigely walked around her holotank, which was displaying crisp clear graphics. She rewound the display to show the early meetings between the Unified Council and Terran exploration teams. Then through the initial attempts at assistance and repelling the PAWMs. Then the Lanaktallan attack upon Talmonus Harmony and other systems. Then at the Terran counter-attack, using rapid ready forces and irregulars.

Now the full weight of Space Force was coming down on them, having retooled and trained for this war, not the last war.

For every combat ship there were ten logistics and infrastructure units moving forward.

Combat Arms troops only faced low level threats and rapid redeployment. The Logistics and Rear Echelon troops were looking at a decade posting per world.

She growled slightly to herself as she changed several icons.

Fifty-eight EPOW worlds. Eighty-two point one billion EPOWs, 80% of which were just unlucky neo-sapients that had apparently just been walking down the street when the press gang had arrived. Six of the races were currently so far from being able to withstand the rigors of the modern battlefield that the Terran Confederacy was spending more time and materials on emotional and mental care then they were on feeding those EPOWs.

She brought up combat effectiveness stats on the neo-sapient conscripts under Lanaktallan control. Less than 0.138. She brought up the rating for combat effectiveness of First Telkan Marines and Third Leebawan Aquatic Commandos. The Telkans rated a 14, the Leebawans rated a 9. Anything over 6.25 was considered combat effective for their assigned roles.

The Telkans first space craft were coming into play. Same with the Aktltak Aerospace Warfare Division. They'd bought and refurbished the old Pubvian Carrier design and built exactly three, but she knew her military history and knew that wars had been decided by a single carrier in the right place.

Admiral Haigely stomped around the holotank again, looking it over. She could feel the eyes of the Terran Confederate Military Planning Board staring at her, letting her look it over. All of them were experts in their own areas of expertise, and all were waiting for Admiral Haigely to decide what, if any, changes needed to be made to the Confederate war plans.

Not the battle plans. Those were up to local commanders and theater commanders.

Admiral Haigely's job was to lead the planning section for the war in its entirety.

She stopped and brought up a small system, toward the base of the stub, at the edge of Lanaktallan Space and the Long Dark and the Unexplored Coreward Territories.

The name burned above it: Belvak-8/Hesstla

A list of "Killed in Action - Temporal Warfare" scrolled by. Ships popped up, the design before deployment to what was supposed to be a training and integration exercise and the design it had finished with.

ANTAEUS FLEET ADDITION appeared.

Haigely nodded to herself as she wiped it all away with a single swipe of her hand.

Admiral Thennis had died 'in the cradle', meaning she'd been killed while in command during combat. Technically it was old age, but it was old age brought about by Temporal Warfare. At least, that was what was assumed. The Admiral of the Black Fleet had take Thennis's body.

A Captain's Soul is the Price whispered through Haigely's mind.

She moved over and checked the status of the "Irregulars" AKA "The Idiots" and their deployment.

Belvak-8 for the Imperium of Wrath. The Neko-Marines had apparently vanished with the Case Omaha from Terra, the same with the Legion of the Damned and the Black Fleet. The Imperium of Wrath was still in place, however. An Elven Court was being established for Belvak-8, as the world of Hesstla had taken/would be taking an atomic pounding.

That made her circle the tank again, reaching out toward another holotank and giving a wave of her hand.

A tall purple skinned creature appeared. Tentacles over a lamprey mouth, conical head, white eyes, long fingered hands, no apparent sex organs or secondary sex characteristics. One heart, one lung, short and obviously tailored digestive system. Approximately eight times the nerve bundles as a Terran of approximately the same size.

ATREKNA - HOSTILE PSYCHIC SPECIES

Potential and observed capabilities scrolled up.

Direct Kinetic Combat Effectiveness: 2.1

Psychic Combat Effectiveness (Terran): 1.1

Psychic Combat Effectiveness (Mantid): 1.3

Psychic Combat Effectiveness (Other): 19

Other data streamed by. Land speed, primary mode of travel, how many in combat group, observed weapons, and more.

She made another tossing motion, although she could have just brought it up with her datalink. But Haigely had come up on the direct action branches of Space Force, had served decades with each branch, before settling on Navy, in the time honored tradition of those climbing the rank ladder.

Ships, ground vehicles, aerospace vehicles appeared in that tank. She made another motion, bringing up Dwellerspawn from the Second Telkan War. Another flick of her wrist showed military intelligence's estimation of emulation between the mechanical versions and the biological version.

Nearly two hundred matches. Either the Dwellerspawn, as the Neko-Marines called them, were based off of the machinery when they were designed or the autonomous war machines were based off of the biological warfare biomachines or both.

She wiped it away, tossing Belvak-8 into its own holotank and leaving the icon burning with the icons of the units currently deployed on the planet slowly orbiting the system.

Admiral Haigely brought up another tank, moving to it, slowly moving around it. She kept stretching out her hand to run with through the hologram, which she had set to have the consistency of warm porridge. It helped her think.

Reports of psychic disturbances heading for Confederate Space. Cupping that report in her hand and tossing it to another screen brought up a classified file.

A massive cyborg, reduced to brain and some extraneous tissue, standing next to an early model FIDO with the words "MAJOR FREEBORN, DAXIN - DECOMMISSIONED" next to the massive borg. Memories downloads from the massive borg showed definitive proof of an active Omniqueen on an ancient planet in an almost depleted system.

Closer to Lanaktallan Space than Confederate Space, but Haigely had studied the Mantid War, knew how Omniqueens operated. They threw out 'spokes', creating new hubs, which would throw out spokes, making even more hubs.

Military Intelligence estimated that if she was willing to strip the system, including processing the mantel and any metallic cores, she would be able to send out at least two dozen Overqueens.

Which meant she, or her children, were coming.

She brought up the encrypted transmission from the Dark Crusade of Light, the Imperium of Wrath's current military operation that seemed to consist of the majority of the more heavily armed and chaotic Idiots.

It showed a female Terran, identified and verified as Bellona, Mistress of the Black Fleet, dancing as she intoned words of prophecy before the gathered leaders of the Dark Crusade.

Haigely shook her head. She hated prophecies.

Another tank she brought up the classified signal from the Terran diplomatic team led by Dreams of Something More, specifically the seer trance words of the team seer.

Admiral Haigely moved to the middle of the tank and closed her eyes, listening to both seers at the same time, in their original languages.

Once the recording was finished, she moved on to the tank showing the estimated status of the Unified Council Territories. She brought up the Confederate Gestalt estimations of public opinion of the Unified Council and the Lanaktallan themselves.

Before the Core Worlds Assault, the majority of the Terran Confederacy had considered the 1% Line to be justified against the Lanaktallan species.

Then finding out what had been done to the Lanaktallan themselves, the testimony of the refugees rescued from Tnvaru Prime, and the popularity of the brutally honest Vu'uklu'u, co-host of "Face Smashing Opinions" Net-Show had changed public opinion. The Confederacy's citizenry considered the average Lanaktallan to be just as much of a victim of the Unified Council System as the neo-sapients.

Combined with the "We Need Assistance" broadcast from several entities tenatively considered a leadership sub-species, and the majority of the Confederacy wanted the Lanaktallan people spared as much as possible.

But Admiral Haigely knew that occupation to change a culture was fraught with risk, one of the main Hamburger Kingdom Conundrums. With the long life span of the Lanaktallan combined with the inertia of a hundred million year old political, social, and cultural machine, the threat wouldn't be over just because every Lanaktallan world was occupied or burnt to a cinder.

There was always a chance of a Lanaktallan Black Box program managing to create an effective bioweapon to 'gentle' Terran Descent Humanity and their allies in a slow, invisible progression, resulting in a return to the Unified Council system within a few generations.

Militarily, the Lanaktallan were no threat. But neither was a ten ton boulder unless it was dropped on you.

She sighed, staring at all of the icons. Every strategy conceived so far was fraught with risks. Not just the fighting itself, but afterwards. The motto "You can win every battle and still lose the war" was inscribed on the side of every holotank.

Su'uprmo'o stared at the holotank as the neo-sapient turned it on. The hologram no longer flickered, was no longer mostly transparent, no longer had wavy lines and lines of static through it, no longer waved and pulsed. It was stable, high fidelity, crisp, and clear.

The neo-sapient collected his tools and left the room as Su'uprmo'o moved around the tanks, looking at their contents.

In the two months it had taken him to find the neo-sapient, have him released from prison, and convince him to perform illegal and unauthorized modifications to the software and hardware of the holotanks, the Terrans had made gains.

Great Most High (recently promoted) Sma'akamo'o had arrived, bringing word of a new Terran attack strategy that had caused most of the intelligence services to label the Lanaktallan Planetary Defense expert as insane.

Still, Su'uprmo'o had watched the footage. It was undeniable.

A single ship could quickly take over a world within days. The system within a week or two. From one ship to a massive military presence.

The Terrans had deployed the system on dozens of worlds. Sma'akamo'o had defended two worlds successfully, using atomics on the craft as soon as it landed. Within a week the Terrans had responded with a full blown invasion.

His peers believed it meant that the Terran war machine was over-stretched, that their logistics, manpower, and control chains were too long and becoming tenuous.

Su'uprmo'o saw it for what he felt it was.

Consolidation.

Every intelligence and strategy expert at Su'uprmo'o's disposal believed that the Terrans would soon have no choice but to make a direct strike toward the Unified Council seat. A thrust the take over or eliminate the fifty worlds between the nearest Terran controlled system and the Unified Council world. That the prime chance to hand the lemurs a defeat was to wait until they had begun their spear thrust, wait for it to gain momentum, and cut the Terran supply chains by counter-attacking and taking back over the systems as the 'base' of the strike.

"Foolishness and ignorance," Sma'akamo'o had harumphed. "the Terran war machine's supply lines are the nearest gas giant."

"Then what do you suggest?" Spy'inmo'o sneered. "Just roll onto our backs and hope for the best?"

Sma'akamo'o shook his head, looking at the star map.

He pointed out a single system. "Here. The Terrans will hit here. Not with their single ship infrastructure system, but in force."

The Executor sneered again, opening a window to show the system.

It was a mess. A trinary star system. A red giant with a yellow star and a white dwarf orbiting it. Sixteen gas giants, a third of them super-massive. Five winding asteroid belts. A Kupier Belt and Oort Cloud so thick with debris it was measurable and prevented outside observation.

"There is nothing here," the Executor sneered. "No solid planets. Even the moons around those super-massive gas giants are gas giants. The closest thing to a solid body are the comets."

Su'uprmo'o stared at the system displayed. Deep in the Unified Council territory, there were nearly a hundred Council Worlds within a hundred light years of the system. The only thing present were scanning beacon to keep a watch for pirates, a communications link, and a Gal-Net repeater node.

For any other species that the Great Herd had faced, it was a worthless system, militarily. Yes, the gas giants could be mined, but that was a time, labor, and material intensive process.

For any species but the Terrans.

"Sma'akamo'o is right," Su'uprmo'o said. "Gather all available military fleet elements that are not tied down guarding systems."

He reached out and touched the system's icon. "They will be attacking there."

The system icon burned brightly.

Admiral Haisely stared at the icon. It was perfect.

That was the problem. It was too perfect.

Still, it would provide an advanced logistics node, take the pressure off of supported units when they made their initial attacks. It would work as a massive refit and rearming base once it was controlled for a month or two.

It was obviously a trap.

But sometimes traps needed to be sprung if one wished to catch the trapper.

She reached out and touched the icon. "Sent Twenty-Ninth Fleet in."

In the Long Dark ships oriented, linking their navigation computers into one vast network.

Space bulged, twisted, and finally, tore.

The armada jumped into Hellspace.

All heading for the same target.

There was only enough for one.