Ant Tensei Redux Prologue Terra Arc in segmented format for easier reading and viewer enjoyability.

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Terra Arc, Part 4 -The Gods of Old Awaken

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Hmmm…

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I suppose the life I was given gave me a bit more excitement than most…

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The clash of thousands, the hopes of billions.

In a single instant, these forces of will shall meet to contest their survival in the eyes of a certain doom. Not for the world, not for themselves, but to face against a single, greater threat to their very existence.

From a battleship at the front, I had established my headquarters.

The initial engagement would tell us what the aliens were truly capable of in a fight. Would we be wiped out instantly, would we slowly meet oblivion, could we resist, these are the questions I wanted to answer with all haste.

For this task, a tenth of our air forces took flight.

The target, the smallest of the twelve alien cruisers. A one mile long, three hundred meter wide ship. It was less than half the size of the rest of the ships, and the best way to test our capabilities against their technology.

In a worst case scenario, I’d do everything I could to hold the invaders in a single area, allowing us to plot out an escape to the stars. In reality, we were only a few years out from taking our first steps into interstellar travel, with half of our vessels capable of being upgraded for short-term space flight.

Hmph… I wonder why I always combine measurement systems… The fools of our past decided to continuously change how an object would be measured, and formed several different methods. I always took a certain pleasure in using multiple forms when giving measurements, it would drive people nuts. It’s a shame there’s no one left to bother with it now. Measurement guidelines are simple anyways, since I learned two, I’ll use two if one measurement fits better.

I never heard the end of it for that though… oh… wait… hah… … I did… …

Hmmm…

At any rate, a pilot force of twenty five thousand, arming ten thousand, one hundred and… hmm.. nine ships were launched from the carrier fleet. Nearly half of their full capacity. We had created far more efficient carriers in our time, allowing each one to carry dozens of ships and planes. Otherwise, how else could we realistically plan to maintain a constant shuffle of our forces on the frontlines.

The skies were clouded with the flight of the light brigade.

The result was carnage incarnate.

The flight of missiles and the roar of the explosions that thundered across the heavens, a reincarnation of the gods of old, joining the fray as the end times had come upon their world. It was no longer a clash of man and beast, it became a battle of the gods, and we, as men of humanity, shall take up arms alongside them. The alien’s retort our heroic charge, their lasers firing upon all directions. Hundreds of planes and ships alike crash upon each other, slipping beneath the watery depths below. Every second became a scene of death. An epic struggle where both sides locked down upon the throats of the other. We would hold them here, we would not fail to meet the next dawn with the steps of our heel and the determination of our hearts.

Certainly, the battle was a grand one. The alien ships were massive. Even with over ten thousand ships engaging the front of their formation, we only were engaging three of the alien cruisers. As they began to become locked in combat, their advance slowed to a halt, it would appear that they weren’t foolish. If they attempted to get within the range to drop their terror weaponry, they would put themselves in full range of our land based nuclear weaponry. Outdated as they were, just before the continent’s last organized forces were wiped out, they had launched a handful of nuclear weapons at the ships. The attack was a suicidal attack as the ships had advanced nearly right on top of them. The results, however, showed great results that left their fleet with obvious damages.

To use nuclear weaponry to destroy them completely, however, would be foolish. The level of fallout that would enter the atmosphere and air would be tremendous if we were to estimate how many warheads it would take to destroy them all. As they were several miles into the sky, it would seem that they were taking measures to prevent us from using large warheads. If we were to do so, there would be a chance we could disrupt the atmosphere of our planet, causing any number of natural disasters.

As such, we were using non-nuclear weaponry on a mass scale. Not nearly as effective, sure, but far less likely to cause a worldwide extinction event.

In the end, if we were to create a field of attrition, there were but two ways we could realistically pursue.

The first would be to focus down the enemy one at a time, destroying their fighting force slowly while drawing out the combat time that the enemy is exposed to. This would turn out to be nearly impossible to realistically pursue. The reasoning for this fell upon several factors.

The first would be that there were no visible engines or power structures. We had no idea how such mechanical structures remained airborne. To further that, those ships were obscenely tough. We were causing damage to it, but since the cruisers were beyond massive, with such dense armor of an unknown alloy, there wasn’t much chance for us to hope for extensive damage quickly. We could only slowly chip away at it, perhaps even blasting away at it for weeks if we wanted to even think about bringing that thing down. The use of hundreds of thousands of missiles and hundreds of tons of jet fuel would be expended. No, if we were to try and follow this method of attrition, it would be obvious that we could not achieve victory from it.

There simply are limits as to how a rapidly expanding front could be sustained. As it were, the ammunition and fuel resources had been fine, but there would be a limit to how long a massive offensive could be sustained in the long term. To refine, load, transport, and utilize fuel alone would take great efforts. But, to consider producing the number of warheads required to arm the sheer number of ships we were launching would be beyond reason. To begin with, we were only able to sustain a semi-continuous assault if we were to run out of our reserve ammunition. Meaning we could only afford to arm roughly fifteen thousand ships with enough ammunition and fuel to fight at 100% efficiency for a little less than thirty minutes. Such outcomes would lead to us being broken through the moment our constant offensive front were to break down. In that sense, we would end up burning ourselves out and then having the attrition war turned on us.

Even now, if I had just been able to have an extra week more, something might have been done about that and we might have been able to do something more. If only that were possible…

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In reality, I suppose only the second method is one that we could sustain.

A war of manpower.

However large these massive cruisers were, there will always be a limit to just how many personnel will be in there. In essence, we would be taking up a raid-like style of assault while maintaining our previous tactic of prolonging the engagement. More or less, this method entailed that we would be attacking them with infantry to decrease their numbers while holding them in place.

The front of those ships were far more densely armored than the backs… well, I say that, but the difference between 100% and 60% density is only so different.

The other reason why we can hold them is because they never broke formation. Always in a synchronized formation. The reasons behind this was never discovered, but we took heavy abuse of this fact by using our warheads to manipulate the movement of the front ship. As long as we balanced that ship to a certain degree, the rest of the fleet wouldn’t move. After only about twenty minutes or so, their fleet stopped moving altogether, probably because they were decided against continuing to try and turn. In hindsight, they probably couldn’t back up either. Their flight system truly is a mystery I suppose.

Though, if they had just kept going and tried to bypass our lines and used their terror weapons regardless of us using nuclear weaponry, I wonder what would have happened. Our entire air force of one hundred thousand some-odd ships would have gained the capability to take flight and engage all at once.

Well, in the end, war is war. The decision and tactics are decided by their commanders, and their will is absolute with a little discipline.

Like so, another hour had passed. It seemed as if I was finally pegged or something as my capital ship and headquarters was overtaken and destroyed with long-range targeted fire out of the blue.

Since my body was and still is beyond sturdy, I survived just fine. I lost some skin, a bit of blood, a few dislocations, a few chipped bones and a split eye. The longer I continued my life, the more my vitality seemed to climb. When I was picked up by a nearby capital ship, I suppose I probably spooked the crew of the ship as I boarded. Though, they calmed down after they noticed I started healing from those injuries, not to mention that I wasn’t phased by the fact one of my eyes had been nearly destroyed. I knew it would fix itself over time, so I didn’t bother passing it concern.

I was out of it for roughly twenty minutes or so, mostly because I had a hard time moving with damaged muscles. Well, that, and the fact that I weigh what I do. My bones, are HEAVY…

Well… were…. hah…. So lucky this vitality of mine grows with age… it does me good right now…

Hem…

Well, once I boarded the ship, I redirected my command to it and resumed control of the situation. Well, my new command, there weren’t many survivors from my old cabinet.

As it were, the fighting was rather rough and we had already lost a few thousand ships. There were also roughly three dozen battleships that were destroyed as well.

With a full view of the current flow of the battle, the current losses weren’t that bad for the amount of time that had passed, roughly two percent, if that.

Since I had expected the worst my mind could think of, when one of the best case scenarios occurs, you savor it with full gusto.

Plans were written up and we began to shift over from a full offensive tactic to a delayment tactic.

We needed to prepare for an invasion after all.

I was going to turn the air battle, into a land invasion. The invaders, would now become the target of my conquest.

Honestly, preparing for a suitable invasion tactic that took into account the millions of soldiers we had at our disposal. In the end, the only tactic really available for such numbers would be to just land troops right on top of the enemy cruisers and then use the sheer number of our personnel to force our way into their ship to destroy it from within.

The only real thing that had to be changed to allow this tactic was to reassign supply ships into troop transport craft.

After that was taken care of, humanity would once more engage in blood contest within a grinder of both wills, and of lives.

This time, it would not be over something as shallow as swaths of land, not as ignorant as over cultures or religious difference.

We would willingly enter a contest of death against an unknown foe of far greater technological power that, in normal circumstances, humanity should have no right to resist.

The roar of battle continued to echo across the skies through the day, ships and planes falling beneath the waves as a hailstorm of lasers and missiles traded places to strike at the senders. Both fully intending to destroy the other.

Certainly, we could not win this way.

I can remember vaguely… a sense of… hesitation?

... No… perhaps… it is more fitting to call it anticipation… anticipation… for the next move.

It would be six hours after the initial confrontation had begun that the next phase of battle would commence. A much more gruesome, and violent phase that would bring about the beginning of the end…

Of the some one hundred and two thousand remaining ships, planes, and various other aircraft, roughly only six thousand were troop transport capable. In general, the idea of moving an entire army of that level all at once wouldn’t be the tactic any normal nation would think to utilize. On top of that, during those two days, I hadn’t even landing troops on those cruisers, thus the number of troop transports I had gathered weren’t that many in comparison to how many I would have if I had planned for it in advance.

In that sense, we could also only feasibly launch a third of them at any given time. Regardless, we’d still be able to transport between twenty and thirty thousand men per wave, but since transports are bulky and slow, we can’t afford having too many in the skies at once, not if we’re going to have a single combat craft in the air at the same time. I had to split the transports into three waves. Though, in honesty, for the first phase of the invasion, this actually was favorable compared to sending all of the transports at once.

In a continuous wave between the three groups, we had estimated we could move roughly a hundred thousand men in the course of an hour. Given the size of the top was an uneven area with a total surface of only a one mile by several hundred meters, there wouldn’t be much room to have troops taking cover if we didn’t get inside after the second or third reinforcement wave. That’s even taking into consideration the unquestionably high casualty rates of the initial groups.

The key would be the first landing force. Roughly only a single percent of the entire fighting force within this battlefield of ours would be able to take part in the initial landing. They would have to fight and secure the landing point for future reinforcements, their role was beyond vital, it was a linchpin for our entire invasion. Beyond just securing the site, they had to reduce the number of laser turrets on the surface of the ship to decrease the number of lost transports for each given wave of reinforcements as well as reduce the number of casualties to the ground forces. The more turrets we eliminate early on, the fewer lives we’ll lose during this first attack.

The air fighter ships had already been focusing on making several large breaches into the hull for our infiltration teams to move in. Now that we’d have to start launching transports in the middle of the fighter class ships, there would be holes in our defensive wall, but it would be our only way forward, to have a chance at victory, to survive.

A gambit with a few million lives with the representation of billions.

Since it was of such import, I had no other intention other than to join the first landing force myself. I would personally see that a landing point would be secured and allow us to cleanly overwhelm the alien vessel.

I would be the first many to land on that ship, and I would be the last to get off before it sank beneath the waves.

There could be no ‘what if’ only ‘have to’, with so many lives riding on that attack, we had to succeed.

As I boarded one of the landing craft, the signal went out. The second phase of our assault, The Great Invasion, had begun.

The engines’ roar could be heard throughout the fleet as two thousand, one hundred and eight transport-class ships took flight. Like the jericho of old, I would see their walls and fortifications crumble before me, becoming their ruination, their final truth.

… Well… that story actually turned out to be false like many before history religious stories… but it fits well…

As we made our approach, the sounds of explosions continued to intensify, the very shell of our ship rattled under the intense hail of doomed ships vanishing into fireballs all around us. It was almost as if the ship itself knew what was to come, and shook with fear. If I had known then what would happen next, perhaps I might have shook as well.

Suddenly, the explosions had grown closer, and far more violent, the rattling far louder. When I went to check, the ship suddenly went into evasive maneuvers, slamming me head first into a steel pole. Luckily it was the pole that was damaged.

To say it fairly, my ship was being targeted, no, I shouldn’t say just our ship, it was the center of our formation that was being targeted. The enemy’s weapons had a three mile range, allowing two other cruisers besides our intended destination to fire upon us. They were after the transports.

We hadn’t even landed yet, revealing the card these ships held, they had simply decided that it was our next plan and started focusing down the transport ships.

Given who we were up against, i’d say they certainly lived up to what I had expected them to be, fierce and on my level in both strategy and execution. When two sides use evenly matched tactics, the only remaining factor of the battle is the valor and strength of the military force.

With their superior weaponry, i’d say we just had to make up for everything with millions of men and unwavering valor.

I was there, and I had long since proven my capacity for war, no matter the form nor odds. An undefeated warrior king had taken the field with his subjects, ready to share their fates. Upon looking upon their leader standing before them, planning to break into the very gates of hell with them, what warrior would not feel a great sense of inspiration or admiration. If it were not that very same king who had given such an order, never would one consider doing such a thing such as invading an alien’s ship, armed with hundreds if not thousands of laser weapons.

It was only because of me, who projected confidence and pure moral as if it were physically manifested that the troops were capable of such insanity.

The rattling grew more intense as we closed the gap.

One hundred seconds before landing, the pilot begins to slow and prepare for landing maneuvers.

Eighty seconds, the rumblings of the ships erupting in flames stop, all is silent before the roar of the engines.

Thirty seconds, the laser cannons of the alien ships open a concentrated volley of fire, casualties instantly shoot up to nearly sixty percent of the remaining numbers.

Ten meters away from targeted landing point, preparations to land complete. Ropes are dropped and I jump from the ship to make first landfall. Our position is instantly racked with heavy fire as debris shoot up from the alien’s own lasers damaging the hull.

Total casualties before first landfall were finally reported in, almost seventy two percent of the first wave had perished before even making it to the objective. Only a count of a little less than eight thousand would make up the first wave’s landing force.

There would be no tie for regret, they were all volunteers who wished to join me during the first landing. They wanted to join me in hell, and they got their wish.

[Part 4: The Gods of Old Awaken- END]