The next few days passed in their usual orderly routine. Then, with the Empire's border logistics department operating at full capacity, a fast-moving fleet of 247 warships finally completed preparations for war at exactly 15:00 on October 29, 832, Commonwealth Calendar. They would carry 300,000 crew members—more than 50,000 of them aboard the Dawn Angel alone—and 120,000 armored grenadiers from the assault corps away from Luyuan Star, racing day and night toward Lion's Den Fortress.
If all went well, this formidable strike fleet would reach Lion's Den Fortress on the border of the Far Frontier in four days.
More than two hundred warships, all medium- to large-sized vessels capable of fighting a head-on fleet engagement, looked like steel fortresses sailing through the sea of stars. As they gathered near the starport and leaped toward the vast heavens beyond, everyone's vision seemed to slip for a moment. The colossal metal vessels, each weighing hundreds of thousands or even millions of tons, seemed to stretch into dotted lines before vanishing into the void.
The light trails left by their jump engines looked as if they had been woven from fragments of a rainbow, leaving a shimmering ripple of gorgeous light across the sea of stars.
By then, the Luyuan system had become a bustling military port. Freighters loaded with all kinds of military supplies came and went, delivering war materiel to thousands of warships of every size gathered in the five surrounding systems. The transport ships and facilities of every description bustled like industrious worker bees, busy yet orderly, their activity infused with the industrial beauty of the spacefaring age.
But even against that backdrop, the sight of more than two hundred colossal warships jumping out of view within five minutes remained the most breathtaking spectacle of all.
The Empire's workers watched