The Premier Fleet and the Bluejay Fleet arrived at the targeted star system in the blink of an eye. The two fleets had made their way over to the Screed Tanner System at their best sustainable pace. The Saint Commander — with the agreement of High Captain Gilbert de Raanvanchas of the Tortuous Scream and Rear Admiral Gori Tensen of the Bluejay Fleet — chose to believe in the collected intelligence and race to Screed Tanner in order to catch the native aliens off-guard. Even after they had translated to the edge of the star system, the arriving warships and carriers quickly engaged their warp drives and sought to head over to the sixth planet from the local star. Screed Tanner VI-F used to be the capital moon of the port system of a now-fallen second-rate state that operated within the protective sphere of the Terran Alliance. The original pioneers who settled into the Olikon Middle Zone and occupied the surrounding regions believed that their forward position compared to the rest of human space would bring them a notable amount of prosperity over the ensuing decades. Located adjacent to the Caesarion Upper Zone, the second-class colonists who emigrated to the Olikon Middle Zone expected to generate a good amount of income from selling raw materials to the first-raters and serving as a vital conduit of trade due to its favorable positioning. The Great Severing and the blazing hot Red War had smashed all of those dreams into pieces. Upon the collapse of the 5 defensive bands, many of the second-rate states failed to put up sufficient resistance against the invading assault fleets. Although it was rather admirable that the human defenders managed to preserve at least a part of the Olikon Middle Zone, that did not give the others a lot of consolation. The native aliens had already plundered and razed the majority of human settlements in the middle zone. The ones that remained were too small to rank high in priority. The native aliens would get around to demolishing them sooner or later. One interesting phenomenon that emerged on a large scale was the rise of resistance movements. Many humans that ended up getting stuck on the planets lost to the invading aliens did not try to go out with a bang. After all, even if they possessed enough courage to go out with the enemy, they might not have access to mechs such as the Final Glory to inflict meaningful damage to the subsequent occupation forces. A lot of other humans simply prized their lives and the lives of their families and tried to flee to safety wherever possible. A minority of them could still board shuttles and rudimentary spacecraft that could allow them to escape the gravity well of their planet and hide out in the vast star system. So long as they picked a good planet, moon or asteroid to build a hideout, they may be able to survive for years if not decades without giving away their presence. Of course, there was no question that they no longer posed a significant threat to the alien occupiers, but they could still make themselves useful in other ways. Most of them engaged in long-range observation and signal analysis. They tracked the movement of alien starships and tried to pass on that information to the Terrans. Those that had chosen to remain behind on the planet did more than just collect information. They attempted to sabotage and hinder the alien operations whenever possible. While there was no way for them to blend in with the very obvious alien soldiers and support personnel that had built bases and supply depots on the surface of occupied planets, they could still rely on stealth gear and familiarity of the terrain to engage in guerilla warfare. Their efforts probably did not result in too much slowdown. Even if they managed to blow up a repair facility or assassinate key alien engineers, the enemy war machine was simply too vast to become affected by this minor interference. From what Ves was able to gather from the intelligence reports of Screed Tanner VI-F, the terraformed rock hosted a lively guerilla movement, but the native aliens had quickly expanded their base on the surface of the moon, making it more and more difficult to undermine. The native aliens also deployed more ground troops to patrol the perimeter and even attempt to track down the hidden boltholes of the human guerillas. The enemy grunts must be having a miserable time by playing cat and mouse with the remnants that refused to roll over and die. Their higher ups likely did not really care about the impact of the local human resistance movement. The moon would get cleaned up sooner or later. Perhaps the native aliens intended to terraform the globe sometime in the future in order to make it more habitable for the next species to arrive and occupy the star system. Ves was not sure whether the Saint Commander aspired to save these guerillas from extermination. It would be impossible to evacuate the majority of survivors if the two fleets failed to crush the native aliens to the point of slaughtering or driving away their phasefighters and warships. Now that he thought about it, these guerillas may make for great Larkinsons. It would be worthwhile to recruit them due to surviving so much hardship and still possessing the courage to fight back. Of course, the Larkinson Clan should only offer them invitations if it was possible to evacuate them in the first place. If the Larkinsons only managed to bloody the native aliens without defeating them entirely, then it would be difficult to bring them away. As the mood among most of the Larkinsons in the Premier Fleet rose to a crescendo, Ves spent what little time he had left on finalizing his own preparations for the upcoming operation. This was why he was currently in his private workshop putting together a small but surprisingly resilient piece of hardware. Vulcan had descended on Ves' body and helped to enhance the craftsmanship of their latest weapon. Their work was much more challenging than usual because much of the structure of their latest work consisted of hull-grade superdimensional alloy. Although the alloying process had made it more stable at the cost of reducing its durability, the material was still exceptionally difficult to shape and machine. Relying on normal tools was folly, so Ves had taken the time to craft a basic set of superdimensional hand tools. He also had to install superdimensional parts in a handful of production machines. Handling superdimensional tools was not as easy as ordinary ones. Their superdimensional nature caused them to cut into normal materials far too easily. However, when these superdimensional tools came into contact with superdimensional materials, they did not always behave as straightforward as they appeared on the surface. Ves and Vulcan found it necessary to think and visualize their work beyond the 3 material dimensions. They had to shape matter that existed in dimensions that could not be seen through normal eyes. Normal people would probably get stumped at this point. They could not even conceive of the concept of cutting into materials in strange and weird dimensions. Even the scientists and engineers that had studied the fundamentals of superdimensional technology still struggled to grapple with the inability for the human perspective to cope with this complication. They had to rely on new and sophisticated lab and workshop machines to do the work on their behalf. Ves actually possessed an advantage in this sphere. Unlike most people, he happened to be a phase lord, so his awareness and cognition had expanded in a vague and indescribable sense. While he was not able to directly observe what was taking place in dimensions beyond the material ones, his lesser Locos organ was able to reach into it and make sense of it more or less. No wonder the Locos organ was part of the basic 3 phasewater organs that every phase leader had to start with first. The absence of superdimensional and gravitic senses would leave them blind to the conditions of their own multidimensional physiology. In any case, the Locos organ enabled Ves to work a lot of stuff out by hand and figure out the true state of all of the parts. If he did not have such a convenient organ at his disposal, he would have been forced to request the Red Association to loan him its cutting-edge superdimensional production equipment. Ves knew they existed because the mechers had given Ketis access to the newly developed superdimensional machines to complete the most recent upgrade of the First Sword. As he and Vulcan continued to learn plenty of lessons on how to shape superdimensional alloy, they rapidly figured out a few knacks and made fewer mistakes. This was important because they had to produce a masterwork. Their weapon wouldn't work if it was just a regular piece of craftsmanship. "Alexa." "On it, sir." He had called upon his direct disciple to assist him in his current work. He and Vulcan needed to maintain as much focus on their craftsmanship as possible. Alexa diligently supplied Ves with materials and took away the finished parts until they were ready for assembly. She also kept track of time, inspected the conditions of the tools and machines, kept away any nosy people and occasionally voiced her own opinions. In exchange, she gained an excellent view of her mentor's personal approach towards craftsmanship. As an observant mech designer, she learned plenty of lessons just by watching him work. "It is time to assemble all of the parts." This was delicate work, but it was much easier than producing all of the small parts. Slowly but surely, a metallic cat came into being. This mechanical avatar possessed a strong superdimensional skeletal frame and internal structure that was able to resist virtually any infantry-grade attacks. Ves loaded up with plenty of miniaturized components. Each of them comprised essential systems responsible for movement, detection and technology interfacing. As Ves continued to put together his latest mechanical avatar, it became obvious that he had designed it with a combination of combat as well as infiltration in mind. The gunmetal gray cat body made the mechanical avatar look a bit too conspicuous, but Ves eventually fixed that by wrapping it up in a shell made of transphasic hyper alloy that was impregnated with Solus Gas. Although this meant that the outer-most layer was much less resistant against damage, its was nearly undetectable by most electronic detection methods! That was not all. The exterior armor plating was actually part of an active stealth system. The mechanical cat avatar could hide itself from sight! When combined with the properties of Solus Gas, Ves believed that it had become practically impossible to detect its presence when it was trying its best to hide! Although Ves was not arrogant enough to assume the native aliens had no chance of detecting it, his latest cat avatar should be able to remain safe so long as the enemy was not actively trying to search for infiltrators. Ves paid special attention to the tail of the mechanical cat avatar. He had integrated a small transphasic hyper luminar crystal weapon at the end of the tail. It was a bit tricky to design and install the miniature parts and still keep the tail flexible enough. Ves relished in the challenge and felt satisfied when he had managed to realize his idea for this miniature weapon. He did not expect it to inflict too much damage. While it was incredibly powerful for its size, it was still smaller than a handheld pistol. Ves had installed the most simple fire beam attack phase crystal, which meant that it could only launch transphasic fire hyper beams. This was enough firepower to instantly kill most generic infantry targets, but it was quite underpowered when used against vehicles or larger hardware. If Ves wanted to inflict greater damage, then he did not intend to rely on this pitiful small luminar crystal weapon, but instead on a much more primitive weapon! "Bring me the fangs and claws." Alexa carefully brought over a lockbox that contained a set of small-scale superdimensional things that were nonetheless far more dangerous than they appeared! This was because Ves hade made them all out of weapon-grade superdimensional matter!