Chapter 6969 Relieving the Caesarion Upper Zone The Premier Fleet and the Bluejay Fleet moved quickly through space. Every vessel consisted of fairly modern first-class starships that had been built in the last decade. All of them were equipped with superdrives that had been fortified with as much phasewater as the drive engineers could get away with. The combined properties of a warp drive and FTL drive enabled even the larger and more sluggish hulls to course through the higher dimensions at a blistering pace. The high-quality materials and technical specifications applied to the superdrives also made them remarkably stable and resistant against interference, interdiction and natural gravitic tides. They had little concerns about getting ambushed or delayed in their journey. The lack of sub-standard support ships helped a lot with keeping the fleets fast and agile. The lack of cargo haulers, fleet tenders and other civilian ships might limit their ability to sustain themselves in the field over a longer period of time, but that was not a critical shortcoming so long as the Terrans kept their end of the bargain and provided support services in the local region. The only reason why the two fleets could not arrive at the designated war theater any faster was because the Tortuous Scream held them back. It couldn't be helped. The converted orven battleship may have been developed with the help of stolen human technologies, but the implementation was still inferior compared to the authentic versions. Even if the native aliens built up a lot of expertise in warp drive engineering, the human FTL drive technology was still fairly new to them. There was only so much the cosmopolitans could do to educate the aliens on how to harness this tech in a short time period. Fortunately, the Tortuous Scream was not a slow battleship by any means. She still traversed the stars a lot faster than the older alien hulls that had not been graced with recent upgrades. Many Larkinsons had their hands full with the ongoing war preparations. It was actually premature to deploy the Tortuous Scream into battle. She had not completed a proper trial before she was immediately mobilized for the current campaign. The E-66 Experimental Yard had also been forced to rush her conversion and most definitely cut a few corners as a consequence. Not an hour went by without a crew member discovering another glitch. Although they mainly affected smaller and more auxiliary systems that had received less attention than others, the faults could still cascade into greater calamities if left unchecked. While there were more than a few Larkinsons that began to cast doubt on whether the Tortuous Scream was even space worthy in her current conditions, the warship did not fail them up to this point. "So where are we heading, exactly?" Ves asked as he paid a visit to the Saint Commander who had settled elsewhere in the flagship. "I am aware that our current destination is the Caesarion Upper Zone, but there is a lot going on in this region." Casella Ingvar did not look up from her reading. "We are still exploring our options. At this stage, many defensive redoubts are struggling to keep up the fight. Alien raiders are making it more and more difficult to keep them supplied. The Terrans have asked us to inflict a crippling blow to their operations. Any progress will help them catch their breath and make additional adjustments." The Caesarion Upper Zone had only been half-colonized by the Terrans before the Red War intensified. This was good news as the Terrans had yet to commit too heavily in this upper zone before the native aliens attempted to reconquer their lost territories. Many serious battles ensued as the native aliens were kept to recapture the resource-rich star systems and deprive the red humans of strategic resources. In fact, the native aliens valued the planets that were capable of producing phasewater so much that they often held back when employing their heaviest arsenal in orbit. This made it a bit easier for the defenders to stand their ground and fend off the alien assaults, but not that much. The native aliens could still rely on other weapons to make the humans miserable. The humans and aliens contested over control of the Caesarion Upper Zones for years, but it was only after the fall of the defensive bands that the Terrans were gradually losing ground. The fall of numerous strategically important fortified star systems increased the pressure on the ones that remained standing. Not only were more and more aliens beginning to concentrate their forces at the defensive positions that remained functional, they also found it much easier to disrupt and even cut off supply lines. The latter might not sound like a big deal, but it was absolutely detrimental to the defenders. They relied too much on the supply of replacement mechs, personnel and supplies to sustain their struggle. Even minor disruptions to the supply lines could seriously limit their ability to leverage their weapons to the fullest. "While our fleets are relatively fast, it is a waste of time for us to hunt down every alien raiding party." Ves remarked. "Your Command Field also makes it so that we fare best if we can concentrate our forces on a single battlefield at a time. It makes little sense for us to split up our combat forces across multiple different star systems." Casella nodded. "You are correct. That is why I have been thinking about launching an attack on the locations that the alien raiding fleets use to offload their ill-gotten goods and replenish themselves. When the raiding fleets return damaged but with full loads, they do not travel all the way back to the original alien staging points. They are instead instructed to move to the newly erected forward operating bases that are often located in the nearby conquered Middle and Lower Zones." That caused Ves to frown. "These forward operating bases sound like they can be anything from a rudimentary dump to a brand-new alien stronghold. The smaller outposts are not worth the effort, but the better-defended sites might cause us to bite more than we can chew." Casella finally looked up from her reports and grinned. "The latter is exactly what we are hoping to find. The Terrans have already dispatched numerous scouts to identify the more heavily defended alien raiding ports. I have also dispatched the Morpheus — our converted scout archeship — ahead of our fleet to monitor our likely target under stealth to make sure that we have not overlooked any threats." "How long will that take?" "Not as long as you think." She responded. "I have requested the cooperation of the diviners of the Moloch Squadron to work together with Ylvaine to surveil the locations of interest through mystical means. The information they expect to gain from their efforts is likely vague, but we do not need much precision to confirm the presence or absence of phase leaders." "Ah. I see. You don't just want to squash the alien raiding bases. You also want to eliminate a bunch of phase lords while you are at it. Only by winning a battle at a location defended by multiple greater phase lords will earn the Premier Fleet enough renown." The ace commander raised her hand and projected a map that displayed the Caesarion Upper Zone and surrounding zones. A large portion of the Caesarion Upper Zone was cast in red, with only the side nearest to human space still cast in green. However, much of the neighboring Middle and Lower Zones were already cast in red. This almost caused the Caesarion Upper Zone to look like an island surrounded by a hostile sea. The situation was not as bad as it looked. There were other Upper Zones that had become completely cut off from the rest of human space. That massively increased the difficulty of supplying the isolated defenders. Everyone could figure out that these lone pockets of resistance would run out of steam sooner or later. While the Caesarion Upper Zone still maintained enough guarded supply lines to avoid getting cut off, that could always change in a short amount of time. "As you can see, the aliens are aware of the importance of these supply lines. They have allocated more and more assets to conquering these locations or at least raid the shipping conveys that pass through them. This makes it likely that the bases that these raiding fleets operate from have become significant staging points to the native aliens." Ves agreed with this logic. "The more important the locations, the greater the chance that phase lords are stationed at those central locations. After all, if there are no 'gods' presiding over these sites, the native aliens are likely to become unruly to the point of fighting against each other. It would not shock me if they are also tempted by all of the phasewater and other riches that are being stockpiled. In the case that the lesser phase lords that accompany the raiding fleets feel tempted to throw their weight around, there has to be at least one but preferably multiple greater phase lords on guard to deter any trouble." Just because the native alien races had set aside their animosity and united against the shared threat of red humanity did not mean they got along with each other. Ves could find plenty of stories of alien infighting if he bothered to look them up on the galactic net. What he found amusing was that the greater the confidence, the more likely the aliens engaged in squabbles against each other. Not even the phase lords were immune from this effect. All of this gave the leaders of the Red Cabal a headache. They had to dispatch many of their phase lords and phase whales in order to act as enforcers and peacekeepers. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦 Eliminating them therefore created a bonus effect of destabilizing the cohesion of many nearby alien fleets. If the Red Cabal was unable to maintain a strong presence at a section of the frontlines, then the native aliens operating in the region would definitely lose cohesion! Was that enough to blunt their offensive? Maybe not, but it would definitely help them ease the pressure. "Suppose this attack succeeds. What is next?" "That depends, Ves. If the opposition folded easier than expected, then we would immediately move on to attacking the next major alien staging point. We may even attack multiple of them in quick succession if we have managed to confirm their details in advance." "The enemy won't stand still. They will either evacuate or reinforce these strategic locations in advance, especially if it becomes obvious what we are doing." "That is the point." Casella smirked. "If they maintain the status quo, then we will topple them like before. If they evacuate, then we have strengthened the supply lines leading to the Caesarion Upper Zone without needing to undergo a battle. If the native aliens decide to make a stand and reinforce our next location, then we can choose from multiple options." "Attack or avoid, right?" "Correct. We need to make full use of the First Sword Mark III's excellent superdimensional traits. As long as Saint Dise has gained enough practice and confidence in utilizing her ace mech's new strengths, she should be able to challenge several greater phase lords without falling into a disadvantage. It will be risky, but I think that it is worth a try. If we find out that the native aliens have stationed too numerous greater phase lords and fleets in a single location, then we can always opt to turn away. Our multifaceted scouting capabilities give us a greater ability to detect ambushes ahead of time. This is one of our greatest strengths and the key reason why we can confidently operate behind enemy lines." Although the alien invaders had yet to establish full control over the fallen Middle and Lower Zones, they were still crawling with enough alien forces to make them dangerous to traverse. Not many forces possessed the strength and daring to swim through the fallen regions like the Premier Fleet. However, that made it all the more important to disrupt the adversary operations over there. They would definitely slow down their offensive against the Caesarion Upper Zone if they felt they were losing grip on the surroundings.