Turik's fleet struck first.
Fourteen spindle-shaped warships fired in unison, over a hundred silver-gray beams concentrating on the mothership's front.
The beams pierced the outer layer of flesh, burning a vast stretch of carapace to ash.
More than a dozen huge holes exploded across the mothership's surface. Dark-red tissue fluid gushed out like fountains, then rapidly cooled into black, hardened chunks in the vacuum.
The escort fleet around the mothership reacted with astonishing speed. Hundreds of biological warships scattered like a disturbed swarm of bees, circling around toward Turik's fleet.
Unhurried, Turik ordered the fleet to maintain formation. The escort ships on both flanks advanced, forming a crossfire net.
Psionic beams and biological acid crisscrossed between the fleets, like two schools of glowing fish tearing into each other beneath the stars.
Kalian led her elite squad into the right flank. She herself was like a bolt of white lightning, weaving back and forth through the enemy ships.
Her first slash froze and split a coral-like auxiliary craft down the middle. Her second shattered a Seventh Rank Blood-Eclipse that had just pounced out.
The seven squad members behind her worked in seamless coordination. Some picked off straggling enemies with long-range psionic rifles, while others guarded her flanks with short blades.
The entire squad was like a white dagger, plunging straight into the densest part of the enemy force on the right.
Song Chen also made his move. He first appeared amid the foremost row of enemy ships on the left flank.
The spacecraft of those subordinate civilizations were packed tightly together, with only a few hundred meters between them.
When Song Chen appeared, he stood precisely on the line between two coral-like ships.
He swept his blade sideways, and the blade radiance spread toward both sides at once, like a river