Eyyyyy!!!!!!!

Chapter 6. Yay!

A hundred reads! Woohoo!

Here goes nothing!

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Throughout the past decade, it hasn't been uncommon for UPRN High Command to hold emergency meetings. With the UPR on the back foot of the war, every week meant a new list of battle plans and contingencies.

Yet today, the meeting was to discuss something else entirely.

Sixteen men and women were seated around a clear crystal table with a three-dimensional holograph of the Bubblegum Nebula projected above it.

"The Prythians do understand this would be an act of war, correct?" President Lyctove asked in his thick Ralina accent. "Isilon is a Republic protectorate. For all intents and purposes, it is our station."

"Hold on." Kuznetsov replied, standing from his seat directly opposite Lyctove, "Don't jump to conclusions. We have no reason to believe the Prythians did this."

"We lost contact with station security and the defense flotilla at the same time." Secretary-General Hasan replied, rising to meet Kuznetsov's height. "This was clearly a deliberate attack."

"That is not enough for a declaration of war." Kuznetsov retorted. "Anything could've cut communications. The station is in a nebula, for crying out loud."

"Fringe sensor clusters would've detected an anomaly."

"Bullshit!" Kuznetsov said, with admittedly more force than he had intended. "Those have been wrong time and time again. Trusting them now would put us on a one-way ticket to a multiversal conflict which could kill billions of people!"

"This is not the time for speculating! We have to act under the assumption that our clusters are correct! Prythian warships could be entering our borders as we speak-"

"Enough!" Lyctove shouted, slamming his fist down hard onto the table. "Both of you!" 

"I will not redeploy the fleet on your hunch, Secretary-General," Kuznetsov said slowly,  "Without the approval of all of High Command and the President." 

Lyctove let out a deep sigh. 

"Kuznetsov is... mostly correct," he began, "but we cannot let this go unanswered. The fact remains that our ships were destroyed and our people were killed. Either that, or we should expect to regain communications with them in a few days, a week at most."

"I feel as if I must reinforce the fact that our fleet is fighting defensively at best, and is in a full retreat at worst," Kuznetsov stated. "Stripping our defenses to persecute a war against the Prythian Assembly would be insane in every sense of the word."

Hasan swiped his hand across the holographic map of the Paragon galaxy and a similar map of Carok took its place. A series of blinking red dots were arrayed across the new map, most of which were deep within the Bubblegum Nebula.

"Our watchtowers in Carok are armed with stealth planetbusters," Hasan said, once again replacing the holographic display with the cross-section of a missile possessing an hourglass-shaped warhead. "Each missile contains twenty-five MIRV antimatter warheads."

"You are not suggesting we destroy Prythian planets." Kuznetsov responded in an uncompromising voice. He glanced at Lyctove, and suddenly felt sick when the president didn't make eye contact.

"Of course not." The hologram of the planetbuster miniaturized and one of a planet rose to replace it, with one of its six moons highlighted in bright red.   

"This is Gsajd VI." Lyctove said, rising from his seat and awkwardly clearing his throat. "One of Prythia's moons. Nine months ago, a Republic planetbuster destroyed Gsajd VII in response to the attack on Musira Station."

"We did what!" Kuznetsov said, raising his voice and standing to face down the president. "That is a blatant violation of protocol!" 

Lyctove met Kuznetsov's incredulous glare evenly. "The attack required immediate action. We didn't have time to hold a council." 

"A preemptive strike-" 

"It was not preemptive," Lyctove said firmly. 

Kuznetsov's gaze faltered. 

Lyctove cleared his throat and waited a few seconds before continuing. "The moon was a completely automated defense platform. It had no organic crew." 

"We vaporized a Prythian moon?" Grand Admiral Laughaden asked, his native Ermanic quickly translated and replayed in Republic basic through ear-mounted devices that all members of High Command wore.

"Correct, Admiral," Lyctove responded, with his basic similarly being translated back into Ermanic for Laughaden. "Gsajd VI is nearly identical to Gsajd VII- that is to say, it is totally uninhabited and operates as an autonomous defense platform. Depending on the outcome of this situation, we may be forced to destroy it as well. Or retaliate in kind."

"Logistically, a full-scale war would be a nightmare," Laughaden said, glancing down at the personal PDA he held in his hands. "Redeploying even a small fraction of our fleet to another universe would require the recall of at least three puddlejumpers just to provide the transportation."

"We're aware of this." Hasan replied. "The fact that Carok is in a separate universe makes persecuting a war extraordinarily difficult. Hence why it has been avoided for millennia."

"It has been avoided for millennia because those who came before us understood the consequences of a multiversal war." Kuznetsov retorted, moving to face Hasan but forcing himself to remain seated. 

"Watchtowers have bounced anti-cloak scans off of stealth missile platforms in far orbit around Oscomn and Endura several times over the past few years." Laughaden said. "We suspect they belong to the Prythian Assembly, as their signatures match Prythian construction precedent."

"As with ours," Kuznetsov continued hastily before Hasan could interrupt, "Intelligence believes these platforms to contain Prythian planetbuster weapons, whether nuclear, antimatter or some other type. The nations of Carok possess the power to bring the war to our doorstep as we do to theirs."

High Command fell silent.

"Which implies the Prythians could have retaliated against Gsajd VII," Lyctove finally said, "but didn't because they were afraid of escalation." 

"Exactly. If we strike again, we may, at least in their eyes, have forced their hand. They may see no other alternative than a first strike." Kuznetsov finished, allowing himself to relax back in his seat.

After a few more moments of silence, Lyctove stood from his seat and straightened his suit. "Very well. We will reconvene after re-establishing communications with the Isilon flotilla. The planetbusters will only be fired if we have no other alternative."

The rest of High Command murmured in tentative agreement. 

Three hours later, Kuznetsov found himself once again in his office, the room where he seemed to spend the vast majority of his life. As would likely be the case for the next few years. Republic defensive lines were a mere hundred lightyears from the core worlds. 

At least the overall plan was far simpler. There was no room for flanking maneuvers or tactical retreats. If the naval lines broke, they lost the war. 

It was easy to see why the Republic was so hesitant to enter a war against the Prythian Assembly, even if they were responsible for the destruction or otherwise loss of communications with the Isilon station fleet. The navy could not sustain a war on two fronts and expect anything short of a total and decisive defeat.

A woman knocked on his door. She handed him a PDA before backing out with a box stacked full of PDAs hovering in front of her on an antigrav sled.

He glanced at the PDA and nearly tripped over his desk. 

Prythian warships had destroyed the station fleet over Isilon. Lyctove had gotten his evidence and had given the order. There was no turning back now. The planetbuster would be fired- it likely already had been.

Kuznetsov left his office at a run, tossing the PDA onto his desk.

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*Gasp!* This is new!   

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Watchtower C-11 was a stealthed autonomous satellite, part of the Republic's Watchtower network which spanned the entire multiverse. Normally, it acted as an intelligence satellite, quietly collecting data on the Prythian Assembly and its capital world of Prythia.

Today, however, it had new mission parameters. 

A twenty-meter long cylinder detached from the bottom of C-11, quickly accelerating to top speed and entering Prythia's defense perimeter.

Ten thousand kilometers out from Gsajd VI, the distinct hourglass warhead of the planetbuster shattered and twenty-five antimatter charges fanned out into a cone, each one individually controlling their own velocities via trios of correctional thrusters. 

Gsajd VI was nearly identical to Gsajd VII, being a few dozen kilometers smaller in diameter. Much like C-11, it was an entirely autonomous station, purpose-built as a defense platform. Yet the point-defense cannons and anti-ballistic missiles remained dormant, unable to detect the stealthed Republic planetbuster. 

In a brilliant flare of light which, for a split second, outshone Prythia's resident star, Gsajd VI was utterly destroyed, erasing it from existence and leaving one less moon in the Prythian sky. 

(Aghhh! Wattpad keeps deleting random bits of this chapter! It's soooooo annoying!)  

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