In a system five jumps from the Shazka System, a vast fleet sailed silently through space.
Every ship in this fleet bore the distinctive design of stone-based lifeforms. It was the last main fleet of the M'tok Union returning to reinforce the Homeworld System.
Half a star system behind it, another fleet of similar size followed-the fleet of the Nier Guardians.
The two fleets sailed in silence, one behind the other.
Aboard the M'tok fleet's flagship, Perkin Asland, its body covered in silver metal, paced anxiously across the bridge.
It had been months since it had received any messages from the Homeworld.
Perkin Asland had a nagging feeling that something was wrong.
The Homeworld System had not contacted it for several months, and every message it sent went unanswered, vanishing without a trace.
Had I somehow steered the fleet into subspace or some wormhole?
Perkin Asland worried over the possibility. It had never considered that the Homeworld System might already have fallen.
In its eyes, the Shazka System should have been impregnable. Its beloved Chairman was leading the Board of Directors and resisting the human invasion alongside the Celestial Dragon.
Unless the Chairman died, the Board of Directors fell apart, and the Celestial Dragon betrayed them, it could not imagine how they could lose!
Still, the prolonged communications blackout worried it, and it had concealed the situation from the crew.
They would find out once the fleet returned to the Shazka System.
But...
The Stone Person Director turned its massive body and looked at the Nier fleet behind them on the sensor display.
"What the hell is wrong with them?!"
Perkin Asland could not help swearing.
Why was this Nier fleet following them?
Although they had signed an extremely strict peace treaty, opening the borders of the Nier Guardians and