Priority: Space

--Diplomatic building, Fort Alnus--

The Diplomatic building is built on almost every central base on occupied worlds. Its purpose is to be used as a temporary resident for deflectors as well as enemy diplomats. UNE soldiers consider it's a "fancy prison" but it is for a reason, the residents are allowed to move freely inside but the outside is heavily guarded by SAT8 and sentries. Every room is bugged and hallways are filled with cameras.

Pina is sitting in her room thinking about the dark future of the Empire then someone knocking slightly on the door.

"Your Highness, are you asleep?" Hamilton asks. She has not been able to sleep because she is also nervous about the trip to the UNE world.

"No, come in" Pina replies "It's not locked, I forgot how to lock it"

Hamilton enters the room and locks the door behind her.

"Press this on this pad, your Highness" She shows Pina how to lock the door and then come and stand next to Pina on the balcony "You're worring about tomorrow too?"

"Hamilton, the fate of the whole Empire is on me. If I fail to negotiate a peaceful solution in this trip…a lot of our people are going to die" Pina pauses for a while and continues "And even if they agree to make peace, how am I going to convince the senate and father to do so?".

"Your Highness, I'm a humble girl from a lowly noble family. I don't know much about politics, but I do know this. I know in my heart that you will succeed in this quest" Hamilton says.

Pina looks up to the majestic Bastion hovering over Fort Alnus like a giant reminder of what the UNE is capable of then replies "Thank you my most trusted friend…for always believing in me while everyone else just sees me as a girl".

Back in Sadera, the nobles laugh at the idea of the Rose Order. To them, it's just a bunch of spoiled noble girls trying to play soldiers and low-class noble boys wanting to obtain a higher status. No one, including her father and her brothers, ever took Pina seriously despite her being an Imperial Princess.

"You two can't sleep too?" Grey says from the next-door balcony.

"Knight Grey, why can't you sleep?" Pina asks.

"My mind is kept awake by the thought of what we will find in their world" Grey replies then look back into his room and continues "besides, this room is big and fancy, the bed is soft and comfortable. This room they keep for their enemy is even better than the rooms of some nobles that I know. I'm not used to this".

"These people are full of things that I can't understand. How can they light up this place like daylight? How are those…beasts that they claim to not be a living creature move?" Hamilton adds.

"We will have a chance to find out tomorrow. This time we will try to learn about these people instead of killing, which should have been my father's first action…" Pina replies.

King Duran is in the next room, he is sitting on the floor at the door of the balcony and has heard the conversation. Before he was the King of Elbe, he was a young prince and was sent to lead Elbean Army as a substitute to the Imperial Army on many of the Empire conquests. For many of these campaigns, he was under the command of Molt. Although he never liked Molt, he knows the Emperor pretty well.

Hearing the conversation makes Duran realize that while Pina is a naïve young Princess, she has the potential to be a great leader. One that is different from her father.

--War Hall, Sadera--

General Tiberius is standing over the map of Falmart reading a report. The production of the magic arrows and ballista bolts is going fast. Millions arrows and hundred thousands of ballista bolts were produced and distributed to the new legions as they are training. A new type of crossbow was invented and is being mass-produced, repeating crossbow. Being a brilliant and experienced General, he has been studying reports of the battle of Alnus Hill and all the battles from the East. Although the Empire is losing, under the order of Tiberius, they are adapting.

Legionaries are no longer fighting in full armor and shield as they are useless against the UNE's weaponry. Instead, they only carry their crossbow and the ammo for it without any armor of any short, and they fight in loose formation while using the terrain to take cover. It greatly limits the UNE's ability to inflict mass casualties to quickly end the battle. However, it is still not enough to stop the UNE military machine as the technological gap is too big. At best, it only serves to slow their advance.

On the chair close to him is a woman, dressed in a high-quality silk robe but also in chains. As she sits there, 2 guards standing behind her ready to put her down if she ever does anything stupid.

"Tell me, woman, how many soldiers do you have? What is their plan?" Tiberius turns to the woman and asks.

"I am Rear Admiral Ruby Bennett, service number 16106205" Admiral Ruby replies.

"Listen to me, Rear Admiral" Tiberius gets angry and lean his face closer to Ruby's face "If you don't tell me what I want to know, I will torture and kill your people one by one and then hang their corpse on the streets for all to see. NOW TELL ME!".

"I am Rear Admiral Ruby Bennett, service number 16106205" the Admiral continues.

"As you wish" Tiberius says as he signals the guard to bring another UNE prisoner in.

The young girl around her 20s looks like she has been beaten and abused, she is terrified and crying. Tiberius takes out his knife and walks over to the girl. He holds her hand up and slowly cuts her thumb trying to make it as painful as possible. The girl scream in extreme pain.

"Stop!" Admiral Ruby shouts as Tiberius prepares to cut another finger of the girl.

"Are you going to tell me now?" Tiberius stops and asks.

"You're making a big mistake, our people will come for us. When they do, there is nothing that you can do to save your sorry asses" Admiral Ruby says.

Tiberius then slits the girl's throat and pulls her hair to drag and drop her at Admiral Ruby's feet "Her death is on you, Admiral".

"No!" Admiral Ruby cry.

"Take her back to her room," Tiberius says with a cold tone.

As the guards and Ruby leave, a messenger entered the room to report a new situation.

"My lord, General Lucius and all his legions are gone. The UNE wiped them out when they were surrounding King Duran" the messenger says.

Tiberius gets angrier and throws a chair breaking it. Lucius was one of his best generals and a friend, to lose him is a huge pain for Tiberius.

"Send the messengers, recall all the legions that are not in the garrison of the Eastern cities. Order them to fortify the Dumas mountain range, the cities will fall but their sacrifices will give us the time to prepare a defense" Tiberius orders.

As the messenger leaves to carry out his order, Tiberius throws his knife at the Dumas mountains and determines to make the UNE pay when they push through there.

--Fort Alnus--

It's early in the morning, Ava and Ashley arrive at the girls' house in Alnus Town to pick them up. The President wants to meet Rory for her apostle title, Tuka and Lelei for their magic. Lucas is just being smuggled along as long as he doesn't cause trouble and Ava vouches for that.

"Good job, you're early this time girls. Keep it up" Ava gives them compliment for being ready but she knows it's only because they are excited for the trip "Hop on".

"So, Commander, why do you think they want us to escort the diplomats? Couldn't the DSA handle it?" Ashley asks.

The Diplomatic Security Agency (DSA) is tasked with the security of foreign diplomats and important visitors when they come to UNE's space. In addition, they are to make sure that whoever they are protecting does not have any bad intentions and help them feel as comfortable as possible. With thousands of alien nations and species, the DSA's job is never done. Their combat training is not as intense as the Presidential Security but they have extensive knowledge of alien culture, psychology and behavior.

"Oh, they'll be there and arrange everything. We just tag along for the ride" Ava replies "the rest of the unit was ordered to help organize Alnus Town though, it's free estates so new folks keep coming in every day".

"Talking about free estates, why are you building houses for free?" Lelei asks.

"Yes I was meaning to ask that too" Rory adds.

"Well our construction drones and vehicles would be sitting in their hangars doing nothing anyway, might as well let them actually do some good" Ashley explains.

"But where do you get the materials for them? You seem to create things out of thin air" Tuka asks.

"Hmm this might be harder to explain but in a simple term, we convert things into matter mass then we use that matter mass to 'print' the things we need" Ashley continues to explain.

"That true, the science behind it is much more complicated which neither I nor Ash is nerdy enough to explain but it often doesn't cost us anything as long as we can find materials to convert" Ava says "and materials can be anything and from anywhere".

"You people possess full of strange things yet you claim to have no magic," Rory says.

The conversation continues until they reach the landing pad. Other than the people from Falmart, David, Rob and Jimmy are also part of the escort on this trip. King Duran has agreed to negotiate for Alguna's King while he stays in Falmart and takes command of the combined Elbean-Algunian army to keep the Imperial forces and their vassals out.

As they arrive, another IFV carries Pina, her knights and King Duran also arrive. Pina gets off the vehicle and walks towards Ava.

"Good morning, Commander" Pina greets, after Ava returns greeting she continues "Aren't we supposed to travel to your world? Why did they tell me that we're going to another base to go off-world? The gate is here".

"Yes we are going to the UNE through a gate, but not this one. We're going to use the one we built" Ava replies.

"You can build gates to other worlds?" King Duran asks.

"Yes, we have one in every system and in various places. There are dozen thousands of them and they are much bigger than this" Ava casually answers.

"Is there anything you people can't do?" King Duran is surprised by the answer.

"Well…" Ava is going to say something but David cuts in.

"She can't dance" David says as the other SIFs laugh.

"Hush! Anyway, mount up, time to move" Ava smile they tell everyone to get on the D-20.

The trip to Fort Ruby is short, the Falmartians ask the SIFs various questions regarding to UNE, mostly unimportant ones. The D-20 does not land at Fort Ruby but instead ascends through the breach in the shield and into space. As they go higher, the view of Falmart and Spes is slowly revealed to them.

"This…this is the Heaven?" Pina asks while Hamilton is terrified and holding onto her arm.

Grey is looking out of the window and giving it his best to remain calm but to no avail. King Duran, however, showed no emotion but deep inside he is glad that he made the decision to align with the UNE.

"So it's not flat" Lelei says

"Huh?" Ava confuses.

"The land, it's not flat" Lelei looks to Ava while pointing down to Spes.

"Oh, yes you are correct it is not flat. We call this is a planet like every other worlds" Ava then pulls up a holographic image of Uros system in the center of the D-20 and continues "There are 7 other planets in your system, Spes is your planet right here" as she points to the 4th planet from the star.

Lucas is kneeling on his seat marveling at the view.

"This is Uros right? The sun is not circulating us, it's the other way around" Lelei continues.

Pina looks at the map then looks over to Tuka "You elves have been right all this time".

"And you think we're crazy" Tuka says with a wink.

"Rory, you seem quiet" Rob asks.

"This is extraordinary, I don't know what to say. As an apostle I have traveled the lands and gained followers for Emroy, I thought I have seen everything, but this…I don't know what to say" Rory replies.

"Want to see something cool? Look to the front" David says "This never gets old"

The mighty ships of the 9th Terra Fleet are anchoring in a defensive formation near the massive Interstellar Gate. There are hundreds of them of various sizes from the flagship of 6.3 km (3.9 miles), the biggest of them all, to a frigate of 1.8 km (1.05 miles), the smallest in the fleet, all bigger than the Bastions that they saw back on Spes.

As they fly pass a carrier, they can feel how tiny they are to the behemoth. Pina feels that the ship would need a few hundred crewmembers to operate it.

"How many crews does that ship has?" Pina asks as she points at the carrier.

"That's a carrier, second largest in the fleet. It has 30 thousand personnel on board supplemented by drones and AI" Ava answers.

"Woa…" Pina answers not knowing what to say.

"Say, Commander, to my understanding you and your unit are Special Forces, which means you're some kind of very elite warriors among your people. Why would they have to escort us?" King Duran asks.

"We're just tagging along for the ride, your Majesty. New Ginza Incident cut short our shore leave so this is their way to compensate us for that, beside, I was the first to make contact with the Princess so they want a familiar face with her" Ava answers.

"Incident? To you people that was just an incident? 200 thousand Imperial troops went through the gate was just an incident to you?" Pina is shocked when she hears that and a little insulted.

"Well…I didn't name the battle" Ava shrugs.

The pilot announces that they are docking in the battleship HSS Destiny. Rear Admiral Sofia Rossie is the second in command of the 9th Terra Fleet, but she is temporarily taking command of the HSS Normandy while Admiral Hackett is going to take command of the Destiny for the duration of this trip. The flagship is an important ship in the fleet as it coordinates fleet action and a carrier while the second largest is vulnerable by itself. Therefore, the remaining option is to have the Falmartian travel on a battleship. While not the biggest, it is still massive enough (5.7 km to the carrier 5.9 km) to impress anyone looking at it and is powerful on its own.

Admiral Hackett is already in the hangar bay waiting for his guests to arrive. He received a list of destinations before Earth and strict instruction from the President himself to put on a good show.

The D-20 land on a plot and open its rear ramp. Ava is the first to get off and salute the Admiral.

"At ease Commander. Welcome aboard the Destiny" Admiral Hackett return the salute.

"Thank you Admiral, these are our guests" Ava introduces each guest.

"It's an honor to meet you, your Highness, Your Majesty and ladies" the Admiral slightly bow to each of them "I am Admiral Owen Hackett in command of this 9th Terra Fleet, I will be taking you on a tour through the United Nations of Earth's space. Now please follow me".

The group follows the Admiral to the massive staircase leading up to the next deck. Next to the staircase is a set of lifts, 2 bigger ones are for cargo and emergency troop transport, the smaller one is for officers and crewmembers that have important jobs. The massive crew size in a modern spaceship means that lifts are not a sufficient means of transportation. Therefore, a series of staircases and moving walkways are arranged throughout the ship so that moving from 1 end of the ship to the farthest end will take no longer than 15 minutes of walking.

Taking the lift, they reach the central area of the ship very quickly. From there, it's a short walk to the bridge. Pina is admiring the architecture as she follows the Admiral, the walls are smooth and the hallways are so clean and bright. The floor is covered by a dark blue carpet with yellow stripes along the sides, the hallways are filled with crewmen going about their business in their neat uniforms.

"Captain on deck!" a bridge officer shouts when the group enters the bridge.

"At ease," Admiral Hackett says as he walks to the captain chair "Welcome to the bridge, this is the safest place on the ship and also where we control it".

The bridge is a secure room in the safest place of the ship. Unlike ancient ships where the bridge have to be exposed for the crew to see the surrounding, advanced sensors and vision technology allow modern bridges to be safely secured in the center of the ship. It can also be ejected and act as a life pod if needed so the bridge crew can keep control of the ship as long as they can in case of emergency.

As soon as the bridge door is closed, it feels like they are sitting on a platform in space as a holographic screen cover the entire bridge which allows 360-degree view of the ship's exterior in all direction.

"This is truly marvelous, your people are full of wonder. You said we are deep inside your ship yet we can see all of the surroundings" Rory jumps in excitement.

"All these…spaceships…how many of them do you have?" King Duran asks.

"It's classified information, your Majesty" Ava replies.

"It's ok Commander, they can know" Admiral Hackett says "Destiny, tell him".

Each ship has an AI installed and they are part of the ship. Therefore, the name of the ship is also their name.

"Admiral Owen Hackett authorization recognized. How many details would you like me to tell, Admiral" Destiny AI aks.

The voice startles the Falmartian for a little.

"Just tell them how many ships we have in total from Frigate-class to Flagship-class, Terra Fleet and Guardian fleet alike" Admiral Hackett replies.

"There are 204 500 300 active vessels and 100 000 000 more in reserve," Destiny AI says.

"You…you have more of these behemoths than the population of the Empire" Pina is shaking up and feels like she cannot keep on her legs anymore.

"How many soldiers do you have?" Grey asks.

"Tell them" Admiral Hackett orders the AI.

"Currently, there are 300 billion active personnel both combatant and non-combatant supplemented by a variety of combat drones, SAT8 combat bots and automatic sentries" Destiny AI replies.

Pina collapsed on her feet hearing the numbers. Grey and Hamilton help her to stand up.

"Why do you have so many soldiers?" Pina asks her voice is shaking.

"Your Highness, space is vast and the UNE consists of many thousand systems with trillions of citizens. On a planet, say like your Empire, you only need to defend your 2 dimensional borders. However in space, the enemy can choose to attack at any point they like from 360 degrees in all direction" Admiral Hackett explains as the galaxy map display in front of them "You see, we have Guardian Fleets at every system and each planet have their own planetary defenses. We also have Terra Fleets at Gate Hubs and military bases across the territory ready to respond to an invasion at any time".

"Hmm…if space is so vast, how are your vessels counterattack an invasion in time?" Kind Duran asks according to his military experience.

"We have Interstellar Gate which link 2 points in space and allow our ships to travel a distant that would take days, weeks or even months in mere minutes. We have Gate Hubs that link all systems together so any troops maneuvers would take only minutes to get to their destination" Admiral Hackett explains.

"The lowly Empire has really stepped on a sleeping dragon's tail" Lelei says after everything she just learned.

"How dare you insult the Empire" Hamilton gets angry.

"No" Pina stops her and continues "She is not wrong, we started a war with a force that we could never hope to rival against".

"So much for the great Empire huh" King Duran chuckles.

Admiral Hackett smile slightly seeing that he is getting the reaction that he wants from the Princess. Looking over, he sees Ava is explaining something to Lucas as the boy is listening. There's something about Ava that reminds him about Ruby, like mother like daughter.

"Alright take a seat everyone, we are heading to our first destination. Eden Prime" Admiral Hackett says as a serval seats materialize behind his command chair for the quest to sit.

"Take us out" Admiral Hackett orders.

The Destiny approaches the Interstellar Gate and enters then immediately appears on the other side of the gate. They are now at one of the Gate Hubs which is a ring of thousands of gate surrounding a star with the control station directly on top of the star.

The traffic of ships is busy as cargo ships, commercial vessels and passenger's vessels leave and enter the gates. Next to the control station is where 4 Terra Fleets are anchoring, ready to leave at any moment. Each ship passing through the gate also pass through a security post that scans the ship for any contrabands or anything illegal.

Being directed to a gate that leads to Eden Prime, the Destiny is prioritized to enter first. As soon as they are on the other size, the passengers can see a series of planetary defenses sentries and stations as well as civilian stations in orbit of Eden Prime. They are organized into patterns to avoid crashing with each other and the busy traffic of ships.

"Welcome to Eden Prime, this is where New Ginza is located. Does that name sound familiar, your Highness?" Admiral Hackett says.

"So this is where we will be if we cross the gate in Alnus?" Pina nods her head.

"Correct, you will be visiting the place that your Imperial Army first came through" Admiral Hackett continues "Commander Ava, you're up".

"Yes sir, alright everyone. Please follow me" Ava stands up and takes Lucas's hand then walks out of the door now reappears again. She speaks through the radio with the other SIFs "Guys, meet me in the hangar".

Ashely, Rob, David and Jimmy are hanging out in the ship's bar ordering drinks and some food.

"Awe, my pasta just came out" David still sitting looking at his delicious pasta dish.

"Come on" Ashley says as she grabs his collar and pulls him.

"What a waste" David says.

"Don't worry it'll be reprocessed into mass. Now move before I kick your ass" Ashley replies, she shakes her head with a smile seeing David is a tough soldier on the battlefield but still acting like a kid.

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Author notes: I have a question, would you guys like me to write about battles and events that happen in parallel with the main story? or you guys just want me to focus on the main events and just mention the other events as they happen?. Do you want me to describe everything in detail like warships, buildings, places etc or do you want me to let your imagination go to work? Thanks for taking your time!