Even the empire's top brass never imagined that as the final battle had just passed its probing stage and the Compound-Eyed Observer revealed its new hand, with the extremely hard-fought period about to come, the Carriers that were supposed to scatter across the sky according to the original plan would actually swim against the tide.
If they fled, they could probably live at least a few more years, or even live to their natural end.
Most of the Carriers had not received professional military training, and even the veterans among them were old and incapable of operating the highly-intensive war weapons.
Moreover, the Carriers' ships, as civilian and industrial types, were equipped with outdated weapon systems and had very poor acceleration performance.
Despite the large scale of the Carrier fleet, its combat power was not very strong, and coming here wouldn't be of much help.