Five thousand beams tore through the void before the Stargate simultaneously.
Dense and unending, they formed a wall of pure energy advancing at high speed.
Five thousand beams.
That was not a volley.
It was a deluge.
Following closely were the second and third waves, even denser and more ferocious.
The Cruiser's Pulse Laser Arrays sprayed hundreds of thousands of deadly azure light needles toward the meteorite at a rate of thousands of shots per second.
The barrels of the Destroyer's Railguns glowed with dark red overheating patterns from continuous firing.
Tungsten Alloy Projectiles surged into the void at sub-light speed, weaving an invisible Metal Storm ahead of the meteorite.
The Vertical Launch Units of the Missile Destroyers erupted like bursting honeycombs, with thousands of various Interceptor Missiles scrambling out, trailing chaotic Tail Flames.
Some headed straight for the meteorite itself, while others attempted to construct a Fragmentation Interception Zone in the forward airspace.
Even the outermost Escort Ships aimed their pitiful, originally Point Defense laser cannons toward the direction of the approaching meteorite.
Even though their beams couldn't even catch up to the trailing light of the meteorite's wake.
The airspace a million kilometers ahead of the Stargate was illuminated.
That was not starlight.
It was the Imperial Fleet, in an instant, pouring all its rage, all its fear, all its despair...
onto the same Coordinates.
Just as the five thousand beams were about to strike the meteorite.
The meteorite moved.
Not its main body.
Its surface.
Those cylindrical metal objects hidden within the seams of its armor plating.
Simultaneously sprang up, rotated, and unfolded from the gaps in the meteorite's surface armor.
Each cylinder split along its central axis, with four Shield Generators spreading out like blooming sepals.
At the center of the sepals, dark blue Energy Cores ignited.
The next second.
Dense, pale blue rays erupted from the core of each generator.
The rays rapidly extended, intersected, and wove through the air.
In just a moment.
A complete, hexagonal Pale Blue Energy Shield covering the entire frontal face of the meteorite bloomed like crystalline petals suddenly unfurling in the void.
It formed abruptly.
The five thousand beams crashed down upon it.
The shield violently caved in.
The blue energy membrane trembled, flickered, and peeled under the impact of the Particle Torrent, like canvas about to tear in a storm.
It held for 0.7 seconds.
Then shattered.
Billions of pale blue energy fragments scattered silently in the vacuum like crushed crystal dust, vanishing in an instant.
But it had succeeded.
Nearly five hundred beams exhausted their energy in the collision with the shield, dissipating into nothingness.
Another eight hundred beams were deflected by the shield, grazing the edges of the meteorite and disappearing into the depths of Deep Space.
A total of thirteen hundred T5-class Main Cannon beams.
With its complete collapse, the shield had shaved off a quarter of the destructive force aimed at the meteorite.
The remaining three thousand seven hundred beams struck the meteorite's surface squarely.
The impact points erupted with blinding, blazing white light as the armor melted, vaporized, and shattered under the intense heat.
Yet...
As the flames subsided.
What was exposed on the Imperial Fleet's sensor screens was not some unfamiliar alloy, nor some secret Federation armor.
Instead, they were familiar pieces of ship wreckage, bearing standard Imperial serial numbers.
A piece of Cruiser broadside armor, its edges still marked by the scorched, molten traces of a particle beam penetration. The Imperial Double-headed Eagle Emblem was sliced clean through the center, leaving only half a wing.
A fragment from the bow of a Battleship, the painted hull number clearly discernible.
[Toothed Shark——Venom Fang]
Hull Number: IMP-3791-B
And there was more.
Destroyer hatch covers, fragments of an Aircraft Carrier's flight deck, engine cowlings from Escort Ships…
They were welded together.
Layer upon layer.
As if forging a coffin of iron from the corpses of their enemies.
Within the Imperial bridge, countless operators fell silent the instant they clearly identified those wreckage markings.
Three thousand seven hundred beams continued to burn.
The armor layers peeled away, shattered, vaporized.
The wreckage of the Venom Fang melted into molten iron under the beams.
The adjacent piece of Cruiser armor was pierced, exploding into seven or eight smaller fragments.
However.
Peel away one layer, and another lay beneath.
Pierce one piece, and ten more stood beside it.
When the beams ceased, the meteorite's surface was already pitted and riddled with holes.
Countless pieces of armor wreckage broke free from the main body, tumbling and drifting in the vacuum like a shower of steel leaves.
But the rocky core, eighty-two kilometers in diameter.
Remained intact.
The following swarm of Pulse Lasers arrived.
Tens of thousands of azure beams, like dense raindrops in a downpour, poured onto the meteorite's surface.
They couldn't tear through the armor like the heavy particle cannons.
They could only gouge pits.
One after another, densely packed, like the sting marks left by a swarm of bees on the hide of a giant beast.
And those missiles and the tungsten alloy projectiles from the Railguns left crater after crater on the meteorite's surface.
The meteorite's surface became even more mottled.
But that was all.
The meteorite's structure remained intact.
Flagship bridge of the Demon Prince.
Scott stared at the screen at the meteorite still steadily approaching.
First volley.
Five thousand beams.
Over a thousand missiles.
The meteorite's surface was pitted and scarred, most of the wreckage armor stripped away, exposing the mixture of ice and rock beneath.
But it was still flying.
Structure intact.
Scott's face was ashen. He slammed a fist against the edge of the control console.
"Who thought of this?
Huh?"
His voice was hoarse and distorted with rage.
"Welding the wreckage of our Imperial warships, piece by piece, onto the surface of a meteorite!"
"Killing us.
And rubbing our noses in it!"
His chest heaved violently.
"Without a planet-killer weapon, how are we supposed to destroy it in such a short time?"
Armstrong did not respond.
He kept his head down, his gaze fixed on another screen.
It was the last set of high-resolution images captured by the outer Reconnaissance Ships before the meteorite passed through the shadow of the Loba Star.
The tail section of the meteorite.
Sixty fusion engine nozzles.
He recognized the engine model.
They were the standard, universal fusion thrusters used on Imperial Transport Ships.
His Adam's apple bobbed. His voice was low and resolute.
"It's that fleet."
Scott whipped his head around.
Armstrong didn't look at him, his eyes still locked on that set of images.
"The Federation fleet that ambushed our transport ships.
They weren't just looting."
He paused.
"They took the transport ships' fuel, engines, armor plates…"
"And the shield generators they captured from the Demon Claw Fleet."
"Everything is loaded onto this meteorite."
The Bridge fell into a brief, deathly silence.
Scott opened his mouth, but no words came out.
A few seconds later, he took a deep breath.
The fury on his face slowly faded, replaced by a cold, resolute calm.
"At this point."
His voice was hoarse, yet exceptionally clear.
"It's too late for anything."
He turned and looked at the Main tactical screen.
That meteorite, that meteorite draped in the corpses of the Imperial Fleet, was now approaching.
One point seven million kilometers.