POV Rio
The cleanup after the attack went fairly well. The only disappointment was that not a single prisoner was cooperative. They all killed themselves before being captured and then refused to regenerate. The eyes they had when they resisted made it fairly clear what kind of mindset they had. It was the eyes of a zealot. That made things a pain in the rear to deal with, as now I didn't have more info on what else we could expect from the Diamond Authority.
'Oh, well, I guess we will have to rely on the retrieved data.'
Several computers were functional, allowing us to gather anything we could. Unfortunately for us, they didn't have Zetan levels of arrogance, and most of the computers had little beyond a star map. But it had just enough for me to have the likely locations of the remaining two Diamonds.
'Hmm, well, I guess I have the weapon, I might as well use it.'
I had no idea the strength of either Diamonds, so I decided to use a weapon made from the harvested nuclear materials and weapons of the Cyberpunk. It wasn't nearly as strong as the one used on the Zetan homeworld, but it should be more than strong enough to destroy the Gem homeworld. The Gems had hollowed out their planet, and from what I could tell, the structural integrity is lacking, to say the least. The only issue would be getting it on the Gem homeworld, but I had a plan for that.
Sometime Later...
"So what does everyone think?" I ask.
"It seems more than doable. And the Super Nuke should distract White Diamond long enough for us to get rid of Blue Diamond. But what about this Yellow Garden?" Guto asks.
"We'll use the large droid army I've had in reserve. We could also try orbital bombardment, but I want to test out the droids and at least give a chance for the Gems to surrender. I believe there has to be at least a few that won't resist to the bitter end," I reply.
"And if they do?" Preston asks.
"Then we'll use orbital bombardment to glass the world. Then we collect the gem shards and use the erasers to wipe them out," I reply.
"I-Isn't that a bit too harsh?" Cadance asks.
"They are a non-organic species that acts like parasites. Draining the life from every planet they arrive at. They are impervious to most forms of destruction and never tire. They also have a long history of mass extinctions. Lastly, they seem to worship the Diamonds, who have proven to be dangerous in their very long lives. I don't want to wipe them all out, but I will if they don't surrender. Furthermore, I know why they came after us," I reply.
"You do?" Guto asks.
"Yes, it's the Jewel of Life; they can sense when I use it. According to their systems, it was sending out a beacon that they could sense, indicating that this world had something crucial to their existence. The Jewel is like an irresistible artifact of infinite value. If the Diamonds got their hands on it, they could likely create an unending army of Gems capable of conquering the Universe," I reply.
Everyone takes those words seriously as they now understand this isn't a situation where peaceful coexistence is possible. At least not without removing the Diamonds, which is unlikely to succeed long-term.
"When do we start?" Cait asks eagerly.
Two Weeks Later...
(AN: You can play Star Wars - Republic Navy Complete Music Theme | Remastered | on YouTube for some background music if you want. )
"General, we're in position, all ships accounted for," Guto reports from his ship.
"Copy that, all groups jump into Hyperspace on my command," I order over the fleet-wide comms.
We were currently a short jump from Yellow Garden. Pharynx had just sent the all-clear signal, indicating they had captured a teleporter and were waiting for my signal to send the package. We had been extremely fortunate that we didn't have to deal with Blue Diamond. It turned out she had committed suicide years ago. Which was also how we captured a teleporter, as nobody was permitted on Blue Diamonds' world.
I looked towards Gilda, who was my second in command, and nodded. The signal was sent, and all our ships jumped into Hyperspace.
As we exited Hyperspace, we took stock of who was present to ensure all ships arrived.
"All wings report in," I ordered.
"Blue Two standing by."
"Blue Three standing by."
"Blue Four standing by."
"Blue Five standing by...
All wings of Blue, Black, and Green reported all 24 members were accounted for, which meant it was time to strike.
"Copy that all ships accounted for begin sanitization of the LZ," I order.
The enemy defenses were weaker than expeted but that was better for us. Once the small defenses were dealt with, dozens of LAAT gunships exited the Venators and moved towards the LZ (Landing Zone). It was at this exact same time that I got reports about the operation executed by Delta Squad.
"We have confirmed effects, I repeat, we have confirmed effects. Main target still unconfirmed, will keep you posted," reports Uritca aboard the IPV-2C Stealth Corvette.
"Copy all," I reply.
I read over the various reports and see that the droids were performing decently well enough. We were losing some, but the last-minute additions of eraser guns seemed to be quite effective against the Gems. We had sent an ultimatum to surrender, but so far no friendly responses.
"Sir! We've got a message from the planet. They are saying they wish to surrender," Gilda reports.
"Send a unit to retrieve them, but be extra cautious; never underestimate a zealot. They can and will try to take everyone with them," I reply with a cautiously optimistic tone.
After that initial surrender, we did get several more, but most turned out to be traps. I couldn't be upset, as while that might be a war crime on Earth, that can't be said for an alien species. But mixed among all the decievers there were the occasional legitimate Gems wanting to surrender. Which was good to have. However, towards the end of the campaign on Yellow Garden, our long-distance scanners noticed something anomalous.
"Sir, we've got something you might want to look at," Lt Gusty reported.
The details are sent to my computer, and my eyes narrow at the bizarre details. We had picked up distant spatial distortions. They were odd, as each one came from the direction of one of the other worlds we still had to deal with. Except one.
'It's almost as if they are... No, surely not.'
My gut felt I was onto somehting so I decided to go with that feeling.
"Move the fleet away from the planet. Let the droids clean up what remains on the planet while we retreat for a moment. Keep jamming the planet so they can't report our movements," I order.
"Is something wrong, Your Highness?" Gilda asks.
"I'm not sure. To be safe follwo my orders," I order.
Gilda nods and sends the orders. We retrieve most of the ships and then jump back into Hyperspace. We left behind several probes to keep an eye on the system and left most of the droids behind to clean up the remnants of the enemy forces on the planet. Not even a minute after we left, a massive object was detected coming out of Hyperspace. Or the equivalent FTL dimension the Gems use. The size was comparable to the Grand Herald, if not possibly larger. When it finally appeared, I had to admit it was truly massive.
[Image Here]
I was fairly shocked at the sheer scale of what I could only describe as a Gem Megazord. Or maybe Voltron?
"What in the god damn... Is that a mecha?" Cait asks with genuine confusion.
"I think it might be. But the real question is why?" I ask.
It looked cool, sure, but its effectiveness remained to be seen. That was answered moments later when a massive energy signature was detected from the left arm, and said limb aimed at Yellow Garden. Then, after a few seconds, a beam of pure white light shot from the arm and towards the planet. It was so strong that it overloaded the closer probes, and only the probe we had at the edge of the system was spared from destruction. Though it came at the cost of not being in line of sight of the attack. But that was solved by having it move to have a visual, and what we saw made me question the idiocy of the titan mech. Yellow Garden was destroyed and in pieces, but it came at the cost of the left arm that fired the beam.
"What kind of idiot makes the main super weapon destroy part of the ship it's used from!?" I ask with anger, not from the lost droids but from the position of an inventor and creator.
Nobody seemed to have an answer for that. Despite the firepower the ship showed, I wasn't scared. Instead, I decided to test the intelligence of the pilot.
"Evacuate The Smiling Man and then send it with a robot crew to attack the enemy ship," I order.
The Smiling Man was an Arquitens-Class light cruiser that had been built a while back, and whose shields were more than enough to take the average attack the Diamond Authority could use with their ships, while being fast enough to outspeed them. It was about 400 meters long, which would make it quite large by Diamond Authority standards. The hope was to make the enemy use that super weapon again to make them much weaker.
A Few Hours Later...
My plan worked perfectly. And it only cost me 4 Venators, 3 Arquitens, and 48k Droid Trifighters. Which was a fair trade-off in my opinion, since all of those ships can be easily replaced. And it meant I didn't have to risk the Grand Herald. It was through this sacrifice that we were able to learn that the enemy pilot was White Diamond herself. Which was now captured and safely stored in a bubble. The draining had already started, but the sheer amount of power in her gem means it might take several weeks to erase her. As for other Gems from what we could tell, there are none left. The other colony worlds were also gone for some reason. Which meant we were done, and it was time to go home.
Overall, the cost of this expedition was not small. Most of our Space Naval Forces were destroyed, and much of our robot/droid army was lost as well. But as far as we could tell, this was the last enemy we needed to deal with, and we should be left alone. We would keep an eye out, but for now, it seemed peace was on the horizon. I had finally brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new empire.
'Or I guess I will once I get married, and we have a Kingdom and not an Empire. But I suppose we could be considred and Empire in a way. Meh, not that it matters.'