It had been just under three years since Arkhan had fallen into a coma, and by all accounts the ASC (Arcadian Solar Commonwealth) was doing fine. The three battles that had taken place inside the Solaris System had each resulted in zero casualties among the Mobile Suit Golems, and the medical staff that took care of Arkhan had given several reports that indicated that his neural activity had gone from absolutely chaotic (despite being in a coma) to just being mildly chaotic. It seemed that he was on the fast lane to recovery, but only time would tell if he would actually recover or not.

Queen Asharia had proven to be a quite competent ruler, and while she did not get as much respect from the MSGs as Arkhan, they were in no position to simply disregard her words and actions. The MSGs did not fully trust Asharia, who they had initially seen as nothing more than a gold digger but now saw as someone that could be trusted just as far as they could be thrown. She was, however, their only real shot at not only getting the Creator back, but also having him come back to a nation that was at the very least as good as he had left it, and they would never forgive her if Arkhan did not come back.

Despite the numerous advances made during her regency, Asharia was still on thin ice.

…

A small object not even seven meters in diameter streaked across the system, only slowing once it had reached a precise position, one that hung high over Gaia. The stealth systems on board prevented the Arcadian forces from knowing that it was there, but also limited the capabilities of the device. The sensor suite built into the device tried and failed to record its surroundings multiple times until it finally used its main camera to get a visual on what was around it.

The probe took a video feed of the sight that lay before it. There were hundreds of warships and several dozen orbital defense platforms and shipyards, uncountable numbers of war machines flying about and a massive space station that hung in geostationary orbit over the planet. There would have been more data that could be sent, if not for the fact that a ship accidentally rammed the probe as it patrolled the area. The probe managed to jettison its data core in time and sent it back home using an FTL drive only capable on a single jump.

On the side of the probe’s shattered hull was a symbol showing four-armed spiral galaxy that was surrounded by a white circle. In white letters beneath the decal were the letters in Basic, ‘U. G. N.’. Now Arcadia was no longer a secret, and instead was known to the whole of the United Galactic Nations, a body that included the North Korea+ Russia+ China+ ISIS of the galaxy itself, the Angelus Holy Union.

…

The AHU had been silent for several Galactic Weeks after the revelation of there being a new FTL capable nation existing became widespread. The AHU had effectively gone dark and had even gone so far as to ignore any attempts at communication by any outside group. This put the rest of the UGN in a bit of a bind, as the new nation was bordering the AHU, a nation that had the habit of aggressively exterminating any primitive race they uplifted. They wanted to send a delegation, but that would put them against the technologically superior AHU, which had gone silent. If they accidentally arrived just in time to see the AHU exterminate a race that cried out for aid, then it could possibly start Galaxy War 3.

Thankfully, more sensible heads prevailed, and a delegation was sent, escorted by over fifty-nine destroyers from the other 9 member nations of the UGN. Sure, these ships might not be able to destroy a AHU task force, but they would bloody it and allow the rest of the galaxy to know what the AHU was up to. There would be a reckoning for both sides if the AHU was found with blood on their hands, and everyone on board the sixty vessels knew it.

The ships jumped into the Solaris system and began to make their way towards the asteroid belt that separated the system into two halves. Just as they were preparing to navigate the belt, alarms sounded in every ship. Every sensor aside from visual ones had gone dark; they had entered into a Blackout Trap, a region of militarized space that had sensor jamming equipment installed in it. All ships made a hard stop and switched to purely visual sensors and discovered that they were on the outskirts of a massive minefield. Each mine was painted to blend into the void around it, and each one was made of over 100 nukes that had been slaved together; a slightly primitive, yet incredibly effective design.

The sixty vessels pulled back from the minefield and began to try and go around it, but they only got so far before a fleet of 39 AHU warships dropped in. However, much to the misery of the Angels, and much to the schadenfreude of the crew of the UGN ships, the AHU warships jumped directly into the center of the minefield. A single one of the Angelus Holy union’s warships got too close to one of the mines, which caused a chain reaction that resulted in the entire minefield going off nearly at once. That whole region of space lit up like the night sky in the United States of America during the fourth of July as the entire AHU fleet was swallowed by a mass of blinding light.

Of the 39 ships that jumped into the system, only 5 remained, all in very bad shape. Even the technologically superior Holy Union was unable to fully deal with the absurd amount of overkill that they had dropped themselves into. The four destroyers and single cruiser that remained had taken a massive beating from that one attack, but only the cruiser was in any position, no matter how flimsy, to actually continue a fight. The near-totaled destroyers limped after the damaged cruiser as it sped towards a group of five large asteroids. The UGN fleet noticed something about the five asteroids as they focused their visual scanners; those were not asteroids that had been there moments ago, they had just appeared shortly after the minefield went off.

As the cruiser closed the distance, thousands of beams of light flew from each of the five giant asteroids, proving that they were in fact mobile battle stations. The energy beams traced lines of pinkish red and vibrant yellow as they flew through space and crashed upon the unshielded cruiser. The hull and armor of the ship could only take so much of the sustained fire before succumbing to the searing heat of the concentrated plasma bolts. As the cruiser was engulfed by the heat and light, the weapons on the battle stations took aim at the four remaining destroyers and let loose a storm of destruction.

Merely a few minutes after the Angelus Holy Union’s ships had jumped into the system, they were already nothing more than twisted and melted scrap floating in an ever-widening graveyard. The delegation took one last look at the stations that had taken out the greatest current threat in the galaxy before deciding it would be best to avoid making an enemy of these people by mistake and launched an ‘Emissary Probe’ from the (relative) safety of their current position. They did not want to be the next ones to walk into that death trap, and they certainly would prefer to have these people on their side.

The probe, which was painted white and broadcasting a wide-band hail, slowly advanced towards the five battle stations until a massive ship big enough to dwarf even the largest AHU warships dropped out of Hyperspace in between the stations. The probe was directed to dock inside the massive ship, and as it got closer it was escorted into one of the ship’s massive hangars by several dozens of the giant bipedal strike craft that the previous probe had seen.

The ambassadors held their breath and counted the seconds. The next few hours would decide much more than the fate of their ships, but also the direction the galaxy would take.