As I watched through Celeste’s eyes, I could see the five ships displayed on the monitor of the bridge. As I had expected, three of them had the metallic rings circling them indicative of an assault ship. As for the other two, they matched the model for the shield ships we had seen previously.

“All ships, commence attack!” Celeste called out from the captain’s chair, her eyes trained on the screen. After her words fell, there were various responses, such as the Qu’Lopti flights assembling or the Deus Ex cannons charging. “Prepare to fire the new gun on the closest assault ship once their shields go up.” She gave the warning to the nearby Ackbar, who nodded his head heavily.

As expected, when the majority of the ships on our side started shooting their weapons, the hexagonal shields quickly appeared in place around our target ship. It was at that moment that I felt a cold smile forming on Celeste’s lips. “Fire the main cannon!” She ordered loudly.

On the screen, the empty space seemed to turn white for a brief moment. There was a wide flash of formless energy, which immediately focused itself into a concentrated beam, targeting the blue hexagon directly between us and the enemy ship. When the beam made contact, it did not stop, it did not even treat the shield as being there. The only thing that happened was that the beam changed its color from white to blue after passing through the shield.

And like that, the first ship fell. It did not explode in a brilliant blaze from the detonation of its white hole like the ones we had fought before. To my surprise, the white hole actually began to shrink and dissipate before our eyes, vanishing completely before the ship itself exploded into countless pieces.

How did you do that? I asked Celeste curiously. Before, the ships exploding had always been a major threat, as just one had the power to destroy nearby planets.

“I’ve been studying the structure of these ships since our first encounter.” Celeste spoke to me mentally, as the remaining two assault ships trained all of their rings on us. “There are a couple of weak points I theorized and programmed into the targeting computer. Now, this is going to sting a bit…”

As her words ended, the world was once again bathed in light. Two massive beams fired directly at the Ariadne, colliding with our shield. “Feedback stored energy to strengthen the shields!” She ordered, even as the ship began to shake slightly.

“Shield generators three and six are down! Shield strength down to 70%.” Ackbar called back after reading the damage on the screen, his face grim. If just two of these ships could get rid of 30% of our shields in the first blast, we were in for a rude awakening when we found their main fleet.

“Target the second ship, all guns!” She said before closing her eyes. Despite the situation, I could hear an almost excited tone to her when she spoke mentally to me again. “Want to see a new trick I’ve been working on?”

Before I could ask what she was talking about, she had started. “Reality Break: Limitless Silver Sands, stage two.” Oh god, she developed that skill even more?! Don’t tell me that it has that same naming sense… “Infinity Hive.”

Although she had still not opened her eyes, I could hear a gasp from some of the crew members. Looking up from my actual body, I could see faint silver specks flying through the vent only moments later, before some more words entered my mind through Celeste’s ears.

“Shield generators three and six are… back online. Shield at 85% percent!”

Celeste chuckled slightly, finally opening her eyes. “Fire the main cannon again!” She ordered, before turning her thoughts to me. “I figured out a way to take advantage of all of those metallic clones in my grove. I can use that skill to convert them into my Limitless Silver Sand, though I am unable to move my main body while controlling them. And naturally, they can’t perfectly replace the rare materials used in the ship, so the shield will be a bit weaker until we get time to repair it.”

As she finished her explanation, the second assault ship had fallen. “Qu’Lopti flights, take out their warp gate! Deus Ex, beginning moving on the communications relay! Let’s give this last one some more targets.”

It’s a good thing her words fell when they did, because I could already see the rings surrounding the final assault ship moving into position to attack again. But this time, the target was not us, but the planet. However, that changed immediately when the other ships began moving.

This was only natural. They wanted to destroy the base on the planet to prevent us from getting the research materials, but that was not our only objective. If we destroyed the warp gate, this region of space would be cut off from their main forces. Stalling that for just a few minutes would let them have reinforcements. On the other hand, if we capture the communications relay, we will have access to the locations of other nearby bases.

The ship seemed to hesitate for a split second before the metallic rings spun into motion. Two of them targeted the Qu’Lopti ships, two on the Deus Ex, and the last one on a rather unexpected target, the communications relay itself. “Shit.” Celeste cursed, probably the first time I have heard her say that in… ever, as far as I could remember. “Didn’t expect them to go that far.”

After she said that, the three beams of light shot out. While the Qu’Lopti ships were agile enough to avoid the beam locking onto them, the Deus Ex had to endure it with the power of their shields. Yet, there was no defense for the relay, as it was instantly obliterated under the force of the beam. “New plan.” Celeste said reluctantly. “Qu’Lopti flights, pull back. Deus Ex, do your best to disable the warp gate without destroying it. If we can’t find their nearby bases, then we’ll just take the transit data from the gate.”

“Understood, Vice-Captain.” Several voices rang out over the channel as the ships moved into action. At the same time, they began firing on the final assault ship, while the two shield ships began moving back, as if to retreat.

“Are we going to let them get away?” Ackbar asked, looking up to Celeste.

“We can’t stop them both.” She said, shaking her head. “Any tactical information that they could share about us would have been sent as soon as we destroyed their first ship. Just be thankful that they are choosing to preserve precious resources for future fights, rather than going on a suicide run to ram their planet base.”

After she said that, the final assault ship met the same fate as the first. “How long do you need in order to disable the warp gate?” She asked nervously.

“Two minutes should suffice.” Came the Deus Ex’s honest answer. “We merely need to identify and surgically target key power stations.”

Celeste nodded her head, seeming to fall into thought. “Okay, go ahead then. It should take them at least five minutes to get reinforcements through the gate, hopefully. As for normal subspace travel, we should have a few hours at the very least.” After that, she turned towards the pilot of the Ariadne, just as the two shield ships disappeared into subspace. “Get us within teleport distance of the planet, the landing party is waiting.”

After that, I decided to cut off the link between Celeste’s senses and my own, turning to meet the rather curious looks of the women around me. “We won.” I said with a smile. “But, once we get down there, we need to act fast. With the battle already over out here, they’re probably going to have armed whatever self destruct device their base has by the time we arrive.”

Thankfully, I wasn’t bringing Lex with me, or this would be a lot worse than it was right now. “Once we get down there, we are going to run straight in, guns blazing.” Metaphorically speaking, of course. “Forget about finding any research data this time. There’s probably not going to be the time for that. Instead, try to find a researcher, and if that fails grab a guard. Anyone that doesn’t look like a store-bought entity. We can interrogate them after getting back to the ship.”

Sharon and Yin nodded with small smiles, while Yo pumped her fist. “Alright, finally a good fight!” She grinned, her mouth literally splitting from ear to ear.

“Don’t expect too much.” I said with a chuckle. “The last base we hit had terrible security, remember?”

Hearing that, Yo nodded her head, her expression downcast. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe they’ve got something special here, though? A secret anti-you weapon?”

I really hope not. That would make things troublesome. I thought silently, before Celeste’s report came in. We were close to the planet now, close enough to teleport down. And judging from the energy readings, she confirmed that they were overloading their reactor, building it towards a meltdown.

“Alright, let’s go.” I said with a smile, and the others all nodded. Not long after that, a bright light surrounded us, before a loud alarm could be heard from every direction. Once again, we had been teleported down to the world, just outside of the complex. However, something was different this time, causing me to furrow my brows.

I couldn’t feel any of the elements around us. They were using the same trick that they had showed me back at the start of this war, preventing me from using my druid powers to control elemental mana. And looking at the expressions on Yin and Sharon’s faces, they felt it too.

Shaking my head, I converted a layer of skin on my hand into slime, shifting it into the form of the sword that I had neglected for so long. In this kind of situation, I was the most disadvantaged. Both Sharon and Yin had powers that could be used outside of elemental manipulation, whereas it had become my specialty.

However, there was still more I could do, which I began preparing as Sharon crushed the wall of the base with her bare hands, forcing it open for us. I assumed my battle form, thick draconic scales covering my body. There was the brief sensation of my insides rearranging to fit this form, but afterwards I was ready.

When the three of us charged in, we were immediately met with laser fire from the human guards. For the others, this was fairly normal, but it was rather annoying to me. Even with the scales, I still felt the heat of the beam on my skin. This was the first time I had taken actual damage in a battle in a while, and I was not really that pleased with it.

However, before I could charge in to pay them back for that, they had already fallen to the ground. When I looked at them again, I saw that their heads were suddenly facing the wrong direction, causing me to send a look over to Yin, who shrugged lightly. Aside from Yo, who didn’t need to care about elemental mana, Yin was likely the least affected by the lack of elemental manipulation.

Shaking my head, I looked towards the next door, just in time for Sharon to pry it open. However, as soon as she did, she was sent flying back by a beam of light that squarely struck her chest, making her cry out in pain. “Oh no they didn’t!” Yo said with a dark growl as she dived through the opening that Sharon had made, while I ran over to Sharon in order to heal her.

“I’m alright, John.” She said with a small cough, some blood at the corner of her mouth. Nonetheless, she struggled to her feet, only accepting a small heal. “Time is of the essence, remember?”