The alarms blared the moment the blinding light dissipated.
-Multiple large objects on a collision course with he station and the fleet
Vulcan reported before Lan even got the readings from the sensors.
-Send all available drones and tugs to divert the objects.
Andrew ordered immediately.
His first reaction was to blast the incoming objects, but that would create thousands of small objects, and that was the last thing they needed.
-Runir, use the fleet's tractor beams to do the same.
He turned to the screen with the channel open to the Admirals.
-Already on it.
She replied before returning to giving out orders.
-Lan, what are these objects?
Andrew asked, wanting to know what they were dealing with.
-Give me a moment; the sensors will be rebooting after the transition.
She said, also wanting to know what was going on.
At the same time, all the drones and ships were doing their best to divert the incoming objects, discovering that they were shipwrecks.
-Andrew, we were sent into some kind of ship graveyard or an old battlefield.
The objects are ships, and all of them look like warships, but we have never seen such vessels before.
Runir reported as soon as she had a visual of the incoming objects.
-Can you divert them to some place they won't pose a threat for now?
-Yes, we can.
They are simply drifting, so we can tractor them away from our facilities.
She confirmed.
-Alright, focus on that for now, but remain vigilant; we don't know if there is an enemy fleet nearby.
She simply nodded and got back to work.
-Did we sustain any damage so far?
He turned to Aelita.
-We lost a few dozen drones.
A few of our substation's were hit by smaller objects, but their shields held.
Other than that, we are fine.
It was a good idea to activate shields before the jump.
The Cherin reported.
-Sarill, are we in contact with the rest of the empire?
Andrew turned to her.
-Not yet.
Similar to sensors, our relays also rebooted and are now scanning the area once again.
It will take some time till the communications with other systems are back online.
-Alright, keep me posted on this.
Andrew nodded.
There was nothing else he could do but just wait.
-We have the sensors back online.
Lanarine said a few minutes later.
-Our whole system is full of shipwrecks.
More than that, they expand well beyond the system, but I will need the relays to say anything more.
-Send scout drones and some engineering droids to the nearby wrecks.
I want them assessed, and if possible, I want their logs retrieved.
Andrew ordered.
He needed more information to fully assess the situation, but he didn't like the idea of being sent to the ship graveyard, or a battlefield with god knows how many shipwrecks.
Especially since he knew that most star nations in the battle-verse were competing over resources, and this place was filled with just them.
Time went by slowly as the relays scanned their surroundings again, and the scout drones, along with the engineering droids, went through the wrecks.
Two hours later, the relays finally finished the scan and sent the data revealing the existence of additional systems in their sensor range and reestablishing communications with the systems within a 100 light-year radius.
The reports were mostly the same.
An enormous number of shipwrecks, along with additional unknown systems in the vicinity.
Additionally, the other systems had sustained some losses after the transit.
Luckily, most of the damage was repairable, and they didn't lose any ships or stations.
With every hour, more and more relays reconnected to the network, revealing the massive size of the ship graveyard, which spanned over 160 light-years.
-My lord, I estimate that there were at least 800 billion ships taking part in this battle, possibly more, and judging from our sensor readings, they belonged to at least 37 different factions.
Vulcan reported after going through the sensor data.
Everyone turned pale hearing these estimates.
Their fleets that they thought were powerful, suddenly were not even worth mentioning in the face of such a massive battle.
Another blow came from the engineering droids.
They finally managed to power up one of the wreck's bridges and accessed the data.
It turned out that this whole fleet was not fighting among itself.
It was a coalition fleet, and their target was one of the first thousand.
The beings behind this armada thought that with such a massive fleet, they would take down one of the most powerful territories, but they were wrong.
As soon as the armada left their territories, it was ripped apart by the fleets of their target, who were aware of their plan.
The disparity in technology and firepower was so massive that they stood no chance and were completely wiped out, managing to take down only around a thousand enemy ships.
With the closer survey of the wrecks, it was also discovered that these were all tier seven and tier eight ships, which were way more powerful than Andrew's own fleet.
-We are so screwed.
Nairin said after looking over the data.
-If they come for us now, we are dead.
Runir confirmed.
-But if they don't, we might have a chance to prepare before they find us.
Arien said over the comms.
-We have billions of wrecks, with technology way more advanced than ours; we should use that to our advantage.
Aelita added.
Before Andrew could even say anything, Lanarine displayed something on the main screen.
-All our relays are now operational, but you won't like this.
She said, pointing to the map of the empire displayed on the main screen.
At first glance, they all understood what was going on.
-These traitorous bastards.
Arien said, with clenched teeth.
A moment later, the messages started pouring in.
One after the other, the territories that recently joined the empire for safety were proclaiming their independence, separating themselves from the empire and forming their own small star nations.
The empire shrank way faster than it grew in the past month, as sector after sector was turning from the imperial territory to independent status.
-Recall all the imperial fleets immediately.
Andrew ordered, not wanting to lose ships if the deserters decided to attack them.
In the end, they all had powerful defenses now, and their tech was on par with the empire, thanks to his generosity.
To say that Andrew was angry would be an understatement of cosmic proportions.
He was forced to watch his massive empire shrink back to what it was a month ago.
Suffering blow after blow, he never expected.
But this was a lesson for him, and he was not going to repeat the mistakes he had made before.
As for the traitors, they would pay for what they have done, sooner or later.