The Assembly Starfield on the Spark War Zone's Eastern Front had become a spectacle so vast it seemed to make the entire universe tremble.
The ten-day deadline had arrived. In this stretch of deep space near the frontline staging planet, the darkness had long since been lit up like day by the engine trails of tens of millions of Interstellar Warships.
The Federation's staggeringly vast fleet spread out from the Space Jump point in every direction, forming a steel wall that seemed capable of cutting across a galaxy.
Behind the dense Battle Formations stretched an endless array of giant logistics Transport Ships and planet-sized interstellar fortresses.
Thick energy-transfer conduits crisscrossed between the logistics ships and the warships like the blood vessels of some colossal beast, supplying the last of the fusion fuel and loading high-energy antimatter ammunition.
Inside those Transport Ships waited tens of billions of troops from the newly expanded Revenge Legion.
Once Mine Slaves, refugees, and civilian Martial Artists, they now wore standard-issue armor bearing the Spark War Zone insignia. Their eyes were bloodshot, their hands gripped their weapons tight, and they waited in life-support cabins like starving wolves about to be let loose, silently awaiting the order to strike at the aliens' heart.
In this vast interstellar war, the cruel laws of physics were on full display.
For those tens of billions of ordinary soldiers and low-ranking Martial Artists, deep space—with its absolute zero temperatures, lethal cosmic rays, and vacuum pressure—was death itself.
They had to remain inside the thick Composite Armor and life-support cabins of their ships. Only by using the products of human technology—Interstellar Warships and Heavy Assault Mechas—as their shells could they unleash fire on the aliens.
If a ship's shield failed and its hull tore open, they would need no enemy attack to