Arcadia hung quiet in the darkness, backed by an infinite field of stars. The closest source of light was distant, but still brighter than any star one might have seen from earth, brighter even than the moon, but still it was too far away to provide much in the way of light or warmth. Thousands of ships, many small some large, deployed in a giant fanning array from the orbital space port, swarming in flocks not dissimilar to the mass wheeling of birds, before separating and spreading out across arcadia's marble face. Each ship paired itself off with one of the orbital nexus guns, and hovered in wait, scanning the dark reaches of space for any more potential breaches.

And at the head of all of those ships sat the Empyrean.

Glowing white in the near darkness she lorded over the flock of ships like a mother eagle, or perhaps, a dragon.

Floating on the bridge of the ship, Ramirez glowed softly with Anima light, the same light which ran in veins over the surface of the ship providing light and powering the engines. His soft Amber eyes burned gold into the darkness.

"See anything."

Outside, Adam had taken up familiar position.

The F-90arkfire, cut a long sweeping parabola across the blackness of space. Inside the cockpit Adam was silent inside his armor, the visor of his helmet feeding him reedings from the ship's outer sensors. This jet was custom, in a way. It was a rather old model. The F-90 had been in military operation since the beginning of the Panasian war, and newer jet models had been developed since. With the event of intergalactic travel jet designs had been created to fit specific needs. Some ships were never meant to see atmosphere while others were meant to handle both.

All came in a series of different designs.

Those ships and jets that were designed for space flight were designed differently than those meant for use in atmosphere. For the most part they didn't require the use of wings, and many designers had simply taken to attaching rotating engines to the pilot pod.

Adam found the designs.

Displeasing.

If you were going to build a spaceship, they at least needed to look cool. That was rule number one.

So that's why he used the old model darkfire. He was comfortable inside it, and he always thought the classic jet looked pretty awesome.

He banked right in another slow arc, 'Sensors aren't picking up anything, but that doesn't mean someone isn't there. Celex, what can you see."

A pinprick of light flared in the darkness, and Adam slowed slightly, catching sight of the figure which hung suspended against the field of stars.

Adam struggled to control his impulse to panic seeing an unsuited body floating in the vacuum of space. He had been exposed to that vacuum before and would not recommend it to anyone, so seeing Celex casually floating in the blackness was disconcerting.

The man had taken on a shape that wasn't entirely human, but neither was it entirely star born. He still had his signature rainbow hair which swirled around him in a lazy sort of cloud, but his skin had gone almost alabaster pale. His eyes were still the same, but at his back, an array of a thousand ribbons held , "him in space and provided him with the energy needed to move forward. Arcadia wasn't near a star, so Conn would need to recharge himself on the planet's surface before attempting to join them.

Celex's ribbons flared glowing white as he sped forward , "No, I don't see anything, but something does seem..... off."

"Which gun was it?" Adam asked

"AA 21." Conn said, sending them information from Arcadia's surface.

Adam used the coordinates to maneuver himself in the direction of the explosion, "Detecting a significant debris field. Were we able to enhance the picture on that camera."

"Yes.... I believe so, hold on." There was a long pause, "yes, looks like a Kree model ship though..... its strange, the engines aren't being powered by..... anything that the computers can recognize. Some kind of orange energy but that's all I know."

Adam had fought the kree once before, he knew their ships, and he knew the emissions tended towards white.

"Is that sounding suspiciously void flavored, or is that just me."

He cut into the debris field making a quick scan.

Celex followed behind him, turning over each broken piece with his bare hands, as if looking for something.

"I got something over here."

Adam cut his ship around and turned on the reverse thrusters, coming level with Conn and the piece of debris he was indicating.

"What is that."

"A charred corpse I think."

"Can you get anything off of it." Adam asked, inching his ship a bit closer.

There was a pause before Celex's thoughts appeared again, "No, the body is too damaged. The heat from the gun was powerful enough to fuse the bones into glass. All soft tissue is basically dead, though I have a feeling it was probably one of the void kree."

"But.... Why, why would they send us one attacker?" Adam wondered pressing back into his seat with a frown, "It doesn't make sense. If anything, it seems like they have given up an advantage. By sending us this one we know the void has kree ships and are controlling kree bodies. We can prepare for any eventuality , so why set off a warning shot."

"Perhaps they were attempting to test our defensive measures." That was sunny over the line. She would be manning the weapons on the empyrean, and it was good to hear her voice knowing that she was backing him up.

"Perhaps, but I feel like there are better ways to do that without giving yourself away, I mean for instance some of the information about our defense infrastructure if publicly available ." that in itself was true, you can't just hide an entire defense nexus even if you wanted to much to Conn's chagrin. There was enough information on the Arcadia nexus to know that Arcadia was one of the most defended planets in all GA and earth owned territory. Adam had spared no expense in making sure his planet was safe.

The nexus was so powerful that it rivaled Earth's defense grid, which was years ahead of arcadia in development . Of course the Celzex overshadowed all of them to the point that it wasn't even worth talking about, but in their own GA cluster, the only ones who could really claim defense grid supremacy were the Vrul. They were one of the only planets with no standing military, so they poured all of their funding into the creation of a defense grid that had been dubbed the Iron Grid.

They had been working on planetary defense for longer than humans had been walking on two legs.

So it was impressive to say the least.

Adam cut another turn through the filed of twisted and burnt metal thinking to himself.

Why, why would the void attack arcadia. The defense nexus was powerful enough to stop most attacks thrown at it, Military strategists across the galaxies wagered that open battles would be fought for control of individual ships which would then be used to penetrate home defense nexuses. Central command ships were now being outfitted with destruct capabilities for its own fleet in case this were to happen.

It was stupid to attack a planet directly.

Some planets anyway.

The technology was new, the strategy was new so there were a few planets who hadn't taken to the idea yet.

And then it hit him.

He sat bolt upright in his seat, and had to pull a quick spiral to avoid crashing into the burnt out hull of the enemy ship.

"conn, I need you to make contact with GA airspace now!"

There was a pause, "Son of a bitch, has anyone been monitoring this?" He could hear conn's voice over the com, "What do you mean you were all focused on the orbital defense system! That's not a job for all of you."

"Conn!"

"Communications went down almost an hour ago." Conn growled, "and thee fools didn't notice because they were too busy monitoring the defense grid."

Adam felt his body run cold.

"Ramirez, open a warp tunnel to Irus."

"Why Irus?"

"Just do it," He switched his broadcast to cover the whole fleet. "Empyrean and Omen fleet ships, form up for external warp entry."

"Adam, that's almost half the fleet, this could be a trap to lure us away." Sunny said. There was caution in her voice, but he knew what she was thinking.

"Yes. Our defense nexus and half the fleet is good enough."

She made no argument with him.

Together Adam and Celex cut backwards towards the Empyrean which was beginning to glow even brighter as Ramirez prepared for warp. Two people would have to provide power to the ship, and this was why.

With Construct bodies it took two people to power a warp.

Celex could operate the entire ship himself with no problem, but that was because his anima wasn't dampened by a construct.

Celex stopped to grip onto his wing as Adam flew up against the omen, ducking under her shields and settling himself against her hull with the magnetic anchor. Beside him, a hundred more fighters were doing the same.

"All ready."

"Prepare for warp." Ramirez ordered.

Inside his helmet, Adam watched as the space around him twisted for a moment.

And then they were engulfed in chaos.

Below them, Irus burned.

Debris flew around them in a great cloud sizzling and breaking up against the omen's shields . Brief bursts of fire erupted as ships were breached, and flame consumed whatever oxygen remained before fizzling out in the void of space. Thousands of small ships buzzed around Irus like a swarm of hornets. The Rundi orbital defense team was being battered from left to right. The dark reaches of space were rocked by silent explosions.

They had arrived just in time.

Just in time to witness Irus's third moon shatter.

The massive black ship took up a point in the blackness, its engines burning orange with void light. Sharp metal spikes jutted from her hull, a declaration of war.

Adam watched in horror as the power built through lines in her ship, creating a glowing orange sphere briefly around the ship before it discharged.

The light was blinding leaving his vision blotchy with blue spots.

There was a brief moment of silence.

And then Irus's green moon broke apart. It began with a massive hairline crack down her center consumed by molten orange light, and then she began to separate. The glowing orange cracks flared from the main rift, splitting the moon apart into massive chunks that began to fall away from each other. From this distance it seemed to happen in slow motion, but at that size and scale, the speed at which this was happening was incomprehensible. Adam's mouth dropped open in awe.

This was

Like nothing he had ever seen.

The violence of the shattered moon was so loud in his mind that he felt it should have had a physical sound to go along with it, perhaps screaming, but I the blackness of space there was no sound at all.

It was all silent.

It may have only been moments, but it felt like an eternity before.

"Ramirez! Fire on that ship!"

It could only have been a few seconds, but then the empyrean let off a blast of energy sp powerful Adam was blinded for a second time. The enemy ship's shields crackled fizzled, and looked as if they would die out, but then.

To Adam's horror.

They held.

They held against the Empyrean.

And then, slowly, ponderously, The void ship began to turn .