On August 28, 833, by the Commonwealth calendar, the special task force returning home, centered around four Main God-class dreadnoughts, finally arrived in the Gibraltar system, where the Southern Heavenly Gate was located.
Although they had been intercepted by the Imperial Fleet in the high seas region, they had still arrived more than fifty hours ahead of schedule.
...Well, in any case, they also had the Tuhans to thank for their generous "gift." Though they hadn't exactly had good intentions at first.
This system, home to the Morningstar Gate, was also the most important transportation hub in the Third Arm. Yu Lian remembered that whenever he passed through, more than a thousand cargo ships, passenger liners, and pleasure craft of all kinds streamed through space. They'd turned a system with no naturally habitable planets into a bustling hub of traffic.
But now Gibraltar was packed with nearly the entire main force of the Outer Ring Fleet, its strength far greater than it had been during the Westtail system battle more than three years ago.
That was probably because the Outer Ring Fleet's four Independence-class dreadnoughts had finally completed maintenance and returned to active service.
Of course, the massive expansion plan launched by President Nishita during his time as chairman had also proved somewhat useful. In the years following the Westtail battle, the Outer Ring Fleet had added three Yinglong-class battlecruisers, four Lexington-class carriers, and twenty-two Xia Guang-class heavy cruisers—knockoffs of the Empire's Qingkong class. It had also acquired more than a hundred other ships of various sizes.
In addition, of the three nanotech repair ships originally purchased from their big bug friends in the Iron Army Combine, two had been assigned to the Outer Ring Fleet.
All in all, the fleet before Yu Lian was far larger than the one