The Dark Apostle felt pleased as he had his conversation with Swordmaster Ketis. Although he detected that she was clearly frustrated that he was not able to converse with her in matters related to mech design, he still managed to leave a good impression behind. This was important. There was no reason for him to make Ves' friends and partners resent him. That would only leave him unable to count on their help when he needed it the most. While it was still important for him to maintain a distinct identity from his weaker mortal self, the Dark Apostle could not afford to give up easy opportunities to establish a network of capable and trustworthy people. The Dark Apostle felt absolutely no shame by piggybacking off the years-long effort of his other self. Besides, it was not as if Ves gave all of this up for free. He could take advantage of the Dark Apostle's network as well. The Ascended Giants might not respect a human mech designer, but they should not shut him out entirely like before. As the Bluejay Fleet almost reached one of the hotspots of the Rubarthan front, every serviceman gradually became more serious. No matter whether it was the collies over at the Armitage or the mechers serving on the Tarrasque, they all understood that they needed to be ready to engage in combat at any time. Sure, the mutated voribugs had yet to employ sophisticated tactics such as ambushes and stealth attacks, but who knew whether these fast-evolving space vermin developed this capability. All of the starships entered yellow alert, which meant that there needed to be at least two shifts of personnel that could fully operate their vessels if an attack occurred. The mech pilots of the Red Association had to remain on standby or even rest in their cockpits during this heightened state of alert. Fortunately, the mech technicians had already serviced and tuned their individual machines for optimum performance. Their weapon loadouts had also been adjusted to perform better against the voribugs as opposed to the native aliens. This mostly entailed switching heavier weapons for lighter ones whenever possible. With energy weapons, it was possible to apply slight modifications to drastically tune down their power. This allowed them to fire more shots and reduce the load on a mech's energy reserves. Every starship also adopted much stricter anti-voribug protocols. This meant that the hangar bays became a lot more isolated. Everything that came in and out needed to undergo a strict process of inspection, sterilization and isolation. Dedicated crews would roam throughout the hull of a vessel to manually check whether any section or system had secretly been infected by a nest of voribugs. No matter whether it was the baseline version or the mutated versions, the voribugs could easily turn into a nightmare infestation once they had spread across a vessel! Red humanity had learned very painful lessons in the first weeks of the voribug invasion. Third-class starships succumbed the most against these infections. The worst cases even brought them back to industrialized planets where transport vessels and combat carriers unknowingly carried back nests of voribugs. However, second-class and first-class starships were not immune to the voribugs either. Damaged hulls were especially prone to giving them space to hide and proliferate as the coverage of their monitoring systems had become impaired. This was why it was important for every starship that traveled to the new front to prepare dedicated crews of voribug hunters. Only manual inspections could confirm what machines were not able to ascertain. The fact that not even the Red Three dared to slack off when it came to adopting the new protocols showed how seriously they regarded their new enemies. Under this tense atmosphere, the Bluejay Fleet finally arrived at the edge of the Philaster Crestia System of the Zortena Upper Zone. The entire upper zone was one of the more important strategic border regions of the Rubarthan Pact. The surrounding star systems did not contain a lot of phasewater, but offered a good amount of mid to high-grade exotics and hypers. The Brownstone Principality originally claimed the Zortena Upper Zone to serve as a launching pad for future expansion into the Red Ocean and to form a strong industrial base. Now, all of the industries and infrastructure that the Brownstone Principality had painstakingly built up before the Great Severing threatened to turn into voribug food! No matter what the other Rubarthans thought of Prince Havilaik, the Zortena Upper Zone served an important role in the Rubarthan industrial war machine. Its fall would significantly reduce the rate of production and replenishment of military hardware. This would also force the Rubarthans to make more painful concessions to the Cybernetic Empire. Two stars anchored the star system. The bountiful amount of planets, moons and asteroids provided plenty of materials for the voribugs to ramp up their production. Philaster Crestia would have been an excellent invasion site for the Solari Hive due to hosting two stars instead of a single one. Its abundance of planets and asteroids in the outer system also granted many more opportunities for the Superswarm Hive to flood the human defenders with bug bodies. However, the Goliath Hive claimed this invasion corridor. This group of voribugs were unable to take full advantage of the excellent geographic conditions of the Philaster Crestia System. The Goliath voribugs were unable to gain a foothold in the inner system, but they were also unable to produce their Goliaths quickly enough due to the lower concentration of high-grade resources at the outer system. That did not stop these space vermin from driving away the Rubarthan defenders. As the Bluejay Fleet quickly regained its bearings, it confirmed that it had successfully translated into a location that was relatively quiet. The native aliens entered the Philaster Crestia System from the other side, so the surrounding planets and asteroids were still relatively bug-free, though only for the time being. The Babylon Squadron had already sent a pair of stealth corvettes ahead of the route of the Bluejay Fleet. These small but handy vessels secretly patrolled the surroundings and made sure that no one prepared an ambush for the new arrivals. Now that they had completed their mission, the stealth corvettes did not rejoin the Bluejay Fleet, but instead continued to spread out in order to monitor potential escape routes. The initial fighting against the mutated voribugs had already revealed the importance of making sure that the human fighters did not unknowingly become surrounded. Once the mutated voribugs managed to form a blockade, any escape attempt would turn into a costly affair! More ships began to patrol the periphery as well. Both stealth ships and regular ships started to perform their new missions with great diligence. The remainder of the fleet continued to travel to the inner system, steering clear of any planets and choosing to dip below the galactic plane to avoid getting too close to an asteroid belt. Once the Bluejay Fleet neared the orbit of Philaster Crestia III, the local defending Rubarthan troops sent an inspection vessel to greet the arriving reinforcements. They completed the necessary formalities before the fleet was allowed to sit in high orbit of the fortified but half-evacuated planet. Read on lig‌ht‌no‌‌vel‌world‌.o‌rg Philaster Crestia III should have turned into a heavily industrialized planet. The Brownstone Principality had invested in the construction of several industrial settlements on the surface. The Rubarthans had even transformed an entire continent into a farming region in order to make sure it could feed the residents and provide enough foodstuffs for export. All of that investment would likely go to waste. While the Rubarthans had no intention of giving up the Philaster Crestia System, the mutated voribugs were too strong and numerous to repel on a permanent basis. As one of the more important sun systems to the war effort, the Philaster Crestia System already hosted a number of different defending forces. The RA and the RF had pulled out shortly after the Day of Insurrection. This left the Rubarthans to undertake the burden of defending this location alone for a time, which placed a lot of pressure on their shoulders. Fortunately, linefighters throughout the Rubarthan Pact and beyond had answered the call and volunteered to defend Philaster Crestia III. While the reinforcements certainly helped, the Goliath Hive was continuing to ramp up its production of both ordnance fodder as well as expensive Goliaths over time! This forced the Rubarthans to request military assistance from other forces that were bound to demand a higher price for their services. This was why the binary star system happened to host a single mech regiment of the 24th Gamma Scorchers Warfleet. "Damn. I was hoping that the Assimilators have come, but if that is the case, then my presence here probably would have been redundant." Ves muttered as he got up to speed on the current state of the invaded star system. After enjoying several days of sole custody over their shared true body, the Dark Apostle had reluctantly abided by the terms of the agreement. Besides, not many people trusted the Dark Apostle. The Rubarthans and others were clearly hoping to speak with the mech designer, not a gigantic oaf that just happened to possess the same face. Ves regained control. Vector Loban continued to brief the returning personality to the current state of the contested star system. "The Goliaths are not as efficient as the Superswarmers when it comes to spreading their numbers across the outer system, but they are making steady progress." Vector explained. "Once the mutated voribugs have captured over half of the planets and asteroids of the outer system, our calculations indicate that the ongoing battle for this star system will reach a tipping point where the Goliath Hive can produce new bugs faster than we can feasibly eliminate." This was the difficulty of fighting against the space bugs. Defeating their humongous swarms on the battlefield did not necessarily end the battle. So long as the bugs controlled enough satellites, they could easily replenish their losses and send another wave of swarms to the human defensive positions! "Have the Rubarthans made any attempts to go on the offensive?" "No." The Transhumanist mech designer shook his head. "They lack the numbers to enter the occupied parts of the outer system and eradicate the bugs over there. Without enough strength and numbers, it is simple for the bugs to take advantage of their home territory and envelop the attacking force." Ves grimaced. He could easily imagine how that could go wrong. "I see. So the Rubarthans and their buddies have just been hovering around Philaster Crestia III and allowed the voribugs to pummel them every day, is that right?" "They are doing a decent job of patrolling and cleaning up the inner system, but you are essentially correct." Ves hated this passive approach, but he understood that the defenders did not have much choice. The Rubarthans and other groups preferred to send the bulk of their forces to more important and strategic port systems and other resource-rich sun systems. The Bluejay Fleet chose to enter a slightly less critical star system such as Philaster Crestia first in order to trial its new tech, forces and teamwork. It would be reckless to throw them all onto the toughest battlefield straight away without smoothing over all of the wrinkles first. Of course, defeating the Goliath voribugs in this star system should be anything but a cakewalk. Their numbers advantage kept growing while reinforcements from other human forces dwindled to a crawl. Many of the defenders harbored high expectations for the Bluejay Fleet. They heard about the arrival of the famous father of Carmine Mechs and also heard that he had brought a bunch of human phase lords along. Ves did not want to disappoint their expectations, but he was afraid that they were asking too much from a single mech designer. "Can we hold the Philaster Crestia System?" "That depends on whether we can find a way to repel the Goliath voribugs without needing to eliminate each and every single insect." Vector replied.