With the negotiations concluded, there was only about an hour left for the imperial fleet to return home.
During Andrew's negotiations with Kirna and Ritkil, the fleets that wished to accompany him started arriving.
The ships were refueled and prepared to leave as soon as possible.
Ghost 1 was already in the process of refueling, and it would not take long for it to be topped off.
In the meantime, the ladies were still far from reaching any form of agreement.
Every faction was doing its best to convince the others that they were right and their way of thinking would guarantee their survival.
This changed the moment Andrew interrupted their shouting match again.
-Sorry ladies your time is up, if you wish to continue this debate you need to have a meeting face to face.
Goodbye.
He said and terminated their access to the relay, effectively ending their quarrels.
With that Andrew left the station and rejoined the fleet, just in time to leave the system.
The fleet that accompanied him there was composed of a thousand ships, but now that he was leaving, there were almost three thousand vessels accompanying him as most of the fleet commanders realized that if they stayed there, they would most likely die, before they even saw the Battle-verse.
Before leaving Arien divided the fleet into five ship groups, to avoid the kraken and the moment the timer Andrew set reached zero the massive armada started leaving.
As soon a Andrews fleet left the territory of the Rose Association, The very thing that the remaining ladies were most afraid of happened and their neighbors launched an attack, taking over systems one after the other.
In less than 48 hours the association territory was conquered.
Luckily for the remaining females, or at least most of them the moment the attack commenced, they boarded the ships they still had left and evacuated.
However before that, they all set their stations to self-destruct.
They might have lost their territory, but they didn't intend to make it easy for their enemies to occupy it.
On his way back Andrew dropped out of FTL at the nearest relay to contact Aelita and the rest to warn them that he was bringing back way more ships that he set out with, as well as to instruct them to send ships with relays to their new territories.
However their response shocked him.
-Andrew we don't have enough relays at this time.
Ever since the announcement of the invasion's end, we have been besieged by small and mid-sized territories asking to join the empire.
Aelita said, in a tired voice.
-Tarina's team is working around the clock, the same as the rest of us, to manage everything and we still can't keep up.
The same thing is going on in the Milky Way galaxy, and there things are even worse.
Our territory and fleets are growing so fast it's scary.
Thankfully some of your people stepped up and are helping as much as they can over there or I have no idea what we would do.
-Alright, was there any major trouble with anyone when I was gone?
Andrew asked.
-Nothing major, the five races federation sent another diplomat but you should be back before they arrive.
Other than that the Cherix threatened to attack the empire if I'm not returned to them, but Runir dealt with them by inviting their fleet to become target practice.
They still didn't show up.
There were also some troubles with a few humans, who started to demand to see you as soon as they heard that they were free again.
They were shouting something about being generals, chairmans, senators, and so on and so forth.
I asked Droga to have a talk with them and they calmed down a lot after that.
She smiled, proud of her way to deal with the uncooperative humans.
-Good work, I'll be back tomorrow and deal with them as soon as I arrive.
He promised.
This was something that Andrew expected to encounter sooner or later, and he already knew how to deal with anyone who wanted to make trouble for him.
-Good to hear that.
The sooner you arrive the better, we need all the help we can get right now.
As soon as the conversation ended Andrew's fleet jumped back into FTL.
He didn't forget to tell Tanera to send the message to Alex as it turned out that it was postponed due to him losing his trading privileges before.
As soon as his fleet jumped into the system, Andrew understood what Aelita meant when she said that they needed all the help they could get.
There were hundreds of ships in the system that did not belong to the empire, and more arrived all the time.
-What the hell is going on here?
Arien asked, not expecting an answer.
-Everyone is panicking, we all thought that we would have more time to prepare.
Andrew answered anyway.
Aelita was waiting for him when he arrived at the station and greeted him with a hug.
-The others also wanted to be here, but there is simply too much work.
She explained the absence of other empresses.
-I saw.
How many territories want to join us anyway?
-We already accepted over a hundred of the smaller territories and twenty five midsized ones.
Additionally, we have a few bigger territories that wish to become allies with us, but that needs your approval.
She explained, shocking him.
Then how many more are willing to be annexed by the empire?
The human asked.
-A lot, and the numbers are still rising.
On top of that we have a Dranix Republic diplomat coming in tomorrow along with the Five species federation one.
The Diplomat from the Adurian council is already here and wishes to speak with you as soon as possible.
-Alright, let me get a quick shower and change of clothes.
After that I'll start dealing with them, starting with the humans who were giving you trouble.
Half an hour later Andrew was in the conference room, looking at a group of twenty seven men and women, who were shocked to see that a teenager was the emperor.
-Is this some kind of joke?
One of the women said, angrily.
-Kid call the real emperor in here!
A man in his fifties said, calmly, but with a tone indicating this was not a request.
-You are looking at him, old man.
Andrew said coldly.
-Yeah right and I'm a fairy godmother.
Another woman laughed.
This was enough to strain Andrew's patience.
He now understood why Aelita had to threaten them with Droga, to keep them calm.
-All chips in this room activate, set control to level 5.
Andrew said calmly and the laughing stopped abruptly when all the gathered people felt that they were losing control of their bodies once again.
Now they were staring at Andrew with disbelief and regret, since they just offended him.
Before he left Andrew left a set of recordings that allowed Tanera to accept more slaves while he was away.
This also was all the proof that anyone needed to confirm that he was indeed the Emperor of the Lantean empire.