Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Lan stood poker-faced, staring at a huge disk emanating bright neon blue particles that formed the planet of Sigma right above it. Around the disc were seven other beings of various races, all positioned fairly evenly around the planet's hologram. Most of them wearing a very similar expression. Kalah-De Slov, leader of the Varsian army, was the only exception; and that was only because it didn't exactly have a face. Not that anyone should be smiling, this was pretty srs business. Next to Lan were two Terrrans, Amie Helland and Bruno Kurita, both Exfordian military leaders. Then there were three others, a Galaxior she had never seen before, Rudo Shalts, a large yeti-like Ilet, and Sam O'Neil. She trusted the reptile across from her the least. UWUC trash.

They were all inside the Irrida space station, orbiting freely around the solar system's star, and more importantly, out in the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival at the reconnaissance post, the leaders had exchanged handshakes, though most of them were purely sentimental in nature. The only friends here were Helland and Kurita.

But the leaders were certainly not alone. The disc was in a huge dome-shaped room lined with chairs across the wall, much like a miniature coliseum. Several hundred people occupied the chairs from various Exfordian and Varsian Corps, as well as seven RAVEN officers. They were arranged in nine different rows around and above the disc, but the voices down below could easily be heard at the top of the room from several acoustic panels. The humans, dubbed "VIPs", all occupied the lowest row of chairs, also nearest to the disc.

Amie and Bruno had already devised a plan. They hadn't been preoccupied with war. But there wasn't much they could do, considering there were several thousand warships surrounding Sigma. But at least it was better than nothing.

"Attention, beings of all species." Amie started. Her voice rang out around the room surprisingly well. Some small chatter around the room quickly died. "The meeting to liberate Sigma will now begin."

Bruno chimed in, as if he and Amie had written and playwright and assigned each other parts. "As you all know, Sigma as of present is surrounded by the most powerful fleet this galaxy has ever seen." The hologram projector had control panels for each leader, and Bruno tapped a button on his. Small, transparent ships jumped up around the bright blue Sigma and flashed red. "These are Evoknight ships. As you can see, there are thousands of them, spaced evenly around the planet. It's a near perfect defense...And we probably wouldn't stand a chance on normal circumstances. But! With RAVEN's brand new flagship, we can wipe the Evoknights off the face of the galaxy." He nodded toward her.

Lan immediately disliked him. And she didn't bother to hide it.

Amie took over once more. "RAVEN Corps has a new ship that could take on a whole fleet of Evoknights."

Lan really, really hated people who overestimated things.

Amie tapped a button. Sigma and the Evoknight fleet vanished. They were replaced by the average Evoknight battleship next to Lan's ship, The Revenant. The "Rev", as it was called, dwarfed the Evo ship in a size comparison. Amie continued. "The Revenant could turn the tide of the battle in our favor. Afterwards, once the Evoknight space fleet above Sigma has been eradicated, we will contact the remiaining Sigma defense forces planetside and create a coordinated attack against various Evoknight bases set up." Amie finished, smiling slightly. Everyone would be happy about this meeting and how she ended it so quickly by thinking in advance. As she was talking, the hologram mimicked her plan; first a horde of green ships approached a much smaller group of red. The red disappeared, and the green moved toward the planet.

One of the Varsians above the leaders spoke out. "That RAVEN ship looks too slow. Has it even been tested?"

"Can it really beat a whole fleet of Evoknights?" Another spoke out. Soon others were criticizing the plan. It all seemed too simple, and much easier said than done.

Lan silenced everyone with a sharp, "Quiet!" The chatter died down once more. "No, it can't destroy a whole fleet." She shot a piercing glare at Amie. "And your plan is shit. Our fleet cannot beat the Evoknight fleet in its current state, no exceptions. Evoknight ships can warp short distrances extremely quickly. Once an attack is initiated on one front as your plan suggets, their whole fleet will jump to that one front and create an impenetrable wall. And they'll do this right after realizing that's the one and only attack, which I esitimate won't take more than one minute. The average pilot wouldn't even be able to fit through." Amie sat back in her chair with an irritated look on her face.

And the process repeated. Amie and Bruno created another plan, animated on the hologram, just to have Lan shoot it down again. A Varsian somewhere in the surrounding seats voiced his own plan, but that one had flaws, too. Meanwhile, Lan sat back in her chair, her fingers dancing along the control panel. She had her own plan, of course. But she really only wanted to say it if she had to. The hologram reset itself to the default state of a blue Sigma. She analyzed several possibilites, examined every angle, and ended up with too many variables. Hopefully she was overthinking something, and some other leader would come up with an adequate plan that wouldn't result in a massacre of their forces. Lan glared the digital sphere as if it had done something wrong.

Kenji puts his arms on the small table in front of him. He leaned his head down and closed his eyes. All this meaningless jibberish going on in front of him was so boring. He was half asleep at this stupid meeting. Why did he even have to be here? The conversations in front of him became more and more vague as he drifted off into a partial-sleep.

Samson watched the leaders in front of him. They all piqued his curiosty, leading great nations, corporations, or armadas. He wondered what it would be like to be in their position. What would be more fun, being on the frontlines, or commanding a kajillion people most of whom follow orders to the letter? Hell, Kargagna probably had the power to order his men to the Truffle Shuffle.

the Anne's Mercy sat just outside of the sigma gravity well as Etrius began running diagnostics on the ship and bringing everything online as well as calling for the small advance fleet. Sam watched Lan present her case and nodded before voicing his own plan. "well, it seems like an excellent plan, however, you forgot to take into account the long range capability of ONAs ships using the experimental lane drive technology, we can easily bring a large fleet into action in about three minutes after initial engagement." Sam brought up a hologram of a battle simulation, showing fleet movements and expected actions. "as we speak, a small fleet is being assembled just outside of the sigma gravity well. The Supernova class titan is being outfitted with Warwalski sail generators to accommodate the gravitational standing waves, and we expect to be able to bring it into action in a few hours while the drive is re calibrated but, back to the plan.

"As you can see, it is the perfect defense but if you look at the formation, it acts similarly to the structure of a crystal, apply pressure and you can crack the rest of the structure." he highlighted several points on the hologram and zoomed in on several of them, panning across the planet. "these are the sensor ships, they seem to be completely defenseless in their own right but they are defended well, assaulting them would cause us disastrous and unacceptable casualties unless we weaken them first." he then highlighted two large points in a different color, and zoomed in on those spaces. "These are command ships, both housing an admiral and vise-admiral, these are both the most heavily defended points in the entire formation, but also some of the most vital. We split into two task groups, RAVEN and ONA will be task force one and force two would be consisted of the rest of the group because it is vital that none of the Evoknight forces intercept any communications until the commanders are eliminated."

The hologram began running the simulation. “The assault takes place in three phases: surgery, hunting and mop up. The first stage will be taken by task group one to eliminate the command ships stationed at the poles, ONA to the south and RAVEN to the north, if the Rev lives up to expectations than they should be more than able to take down the northern command ship. The purpose of the first stage is to surgically eliminate the Evoknight command and force the ship commanders to rely on individual initiative where they rely on the sensor ships to provide information. A secondary purpose is to force the rest of the forces from around the sphere to divert and aid the commanders, thinning the forces around the sensor ships.”

The hologram showed the first stage of the plan and showed the allied forces in blue while the Evo forces were shown in red. “this plan accounts for several setbacks an under unfavorable conditions it shows for …” here he winced “acceptable … casualties. The second part of the plan then calls for the second task force to strike at the weakened sensor ship formation and cut off information.” he hesitated a bit and then began again “this, unfortunately, is where you guys bail us out after you take down the sensor ships. The ships would have lost almost all of their combat efficiency but the reinforcements would have arrived and there would be swarms of them and that would be bad for us.”

The hologram illustrated his words while showing “force two” in green. The hologram showed the formations slowly falling apart as the sensor ships died. “Once RAVEN and I are … liberated … we smash the new command ship while the engineers drag in nuclear missile pods and point defenses, courtesy of me and RAVENtech.” The hologram showed “force two” causing breaches in the Evoknight formation, and splintering the crystalline structure of the formation while nuclear missile pods launched a hailstorm towards the new command ships.
“Even under less than favorable conditions, we should be able to take sigma without … disastrous loss of life… and this should let us establish some defenses and plan for and carry out the ground invasion without trouble. By the time Evoknight Reinforcements can mobilize, we would have had sufficient time to establish some defenses and drag in some more orbital platforms” he dismissed the hologram and sent details of the plan to the individual commanders. The plan had estimated casualties, for different commanders and had schematics of the Evoknight ships for the commanders to evaluate for themselves. “well, if anyone has any concerns, please speak your mind”

Lan sat up as ONA voiced it's plan. They and RAVEN were semi-competitive corporations on the market, but she would have to live with them for now. She reviewed the plan carefully, then dismissed it. "That's a negative, ONA." She tapped a button on her panel. Large, almost completely transparent spheres appeared around the sensor ships. "Most classes of Evoknight ships have their own sensor and relay equipment, including the command ships. The sensor ships just have a much longer range." That's what the spheres represented. "Also, although The Revanant and some of our other ships have long range weaponry, there are several Evo ships in defensive positions that are theorized to be 'sniper' ships. They outrange almost all of our weapons...and have faster-moving projectiles." Lan moved her eyes across the holographic battle plan. "Not to mention the sensor ships are also surrounded by stationary defense platforms. We can only theorize their range, but they can probably match most long-range vessels. I sincerely doubt the attack will succeed. We simply don't have the firepower..." Lan took a deep breath. There were just to many Evoknight ships. And each of them could be carrying thousand of drones, or several squadrons of strikecraft. "And there's hard evidence some Evoknight ships have stealth technology. We can't even see all of them right now."

Lan decided to put her plan to action. Though it would reveal to the UWUC personnel that she was a criminal. In fact, one of the most wanted. "Four years ago, I infiltrated UWUC central command and stole several documents. One of those documents especially stood out." She frowned, realizing she should've brought the document with her. Instead it was sitting in a safe back on New Exford. "The document held information concerning Operation Blacklight. During the UWUC-Terran conflict, the Terrans came within Sigma boundaries not once, but twice. In response to the second failure of defense, UWUC built a last resort of defense. Across Sigma there are thousands of underground generators. Once primed, they release an enormous electromagnetic shockwave throughout space. Everything in space will immediately be rendered useless until manual rebooting." She emphasized everything. "But since we'll know it's coming we'll have a slight advantage. We can reboot in ten or twenty seconds while Evoknight ships take an estimated six minutes."

Lan tapped a button on her control panel once more, and the Sigma hologram grew bigger. She typed in a code that made all Evoknight technology vanish. "You've probably all seen the twenty tall superstructures poking above Sigma--those aren't just large commercial buildings, but they house the electromagnetic units. Luckily only four were destroyed during the invasion..." The sixteen tall structures became enlarged and highlighted in green. "Up-" Lan started, then frowned. Two other large structures were suspended above the planet's equator in space, on opposite sides. She took a quick glance at a screen to make sure she typed in the right code. She had. Lan didn't know what those were, but they weren't Evoknight tech...

She continued, ignoring them. "Upon activation, the units will emit enough radiation to fry electrical systems close to the planet, aka Evoknights, without too much affect on forces farther out, aka us. There are enough surviving towers to EMP all around the planet. Once the Evoknight ships have been EMP'd, we can move in for an easy kill." Only problem was, fighter and bomber pilots would certainly be killed. But she didn't say it.

"The one flaw this plan has is that the only way to activate these is a switch inside UWUC central command. In it's basement. Normally we could contact surviving military forces and tell them to flip the switch. But unfortunately, it has a password none of us know, and Xychus City has literally been transformed into an Evoknight fortress. When the attack starts, we need a small advancement group to get past the Evoknight fleet, evade Xychus anti-air weaponry, land on UWUC Central's rooftop, and descend all the way into it's basement. To get past the password, we'll use Agamemnon." She nodded toward the freaky human. "Finally, we launch a full-scale counterattack against the Evoknights on land."

Lan sat back in her chair. "That's the most efficient plan I can think of." She muttered.

Kenji fell fast asleep.

OOC: BEST ENDING EVAR

Alice tapped a finger to her lip, thinking about Lan's plan. She sighed and slightly shook her head. "That plan. . .has another flaw," she bluntly replied as she sat up straighter in her chair. "What if an Evoknight ship makes contact with their main force about our advance? They'll see us coming. Then communications are shut down and so they bring in reinforcements. Those new arrivals won't have fried electronics. And what if they bring in one of those ships that were the first wave in the Sigma invasion? Some people escaped and brought video with them. UWUC forces there hardly scratched their sheilds and they had amazing firepower--especially those lazars that decimated the surface of Sigma. Our forces would be massacred."

Lan didn't even look at the human. All she did was frown. "As far as we know, most of those ships are still stationed in the atmosphere. One EMP'd, they'll crash into the surface of the planet. As far calling in reinforcements...There's nothing we can do to prevent that, and that's a possibility for every plan. Unless one of you humans has some sort of power to nullify transmissions?" She doubted it.

Lan tapped her fingers on the desk. Maybe she could use pieces of ONA's plan... But then Bruno spoke up again. "I think...we can take them all on, no? ONA's plan is more sensible." Lan pinched her eyebrows. "The plan would fail, Kurita. If the Evos shifted all forces to two fronts, then were attacked on other fronts, all they would have to do is move extra forces from the old fronts to the new. And they'll have plenty of extras."

Amie sighed loudly. Which idiot allowed a stubborn, pessimistic teenager to become a leader of the Entente?

Sam decided that now might be one of the few times where revealing classified information was a good idea and in this case, he would have to give it all out. "some of you might not know this but there are actually two different types of hyper travel: tunnel driving and lane driving. You guys, the Evos and some of our stealth ships use tunnel driving because it is the simplest drive to install and modify, my ship and most of my other vassals use lane driving because it is less energy intensive and because our ships seem to be the only ones capable of navigating the gravitational standing waves." he leaned back and prepared for a long lecture. "One characteristic of tunnel driving is that it does not produce a hyper 'wake' but we found that the evoknight ships do in fact produce a slight fluctuation in the speed of gamma rays while traveling through hyper. While everyone uses the Hyper 'alpha channel', the evos seem to exclusively use the 'epsilon channel' which is as high as any modern technology can get."

he brought up a strange alien looking device that changed shape constantly, rearranging into different geometric patterns. "This is what i was working on for the past few months, a tunnel blocker that cuts hyper tunnels for a short time. i managed to limit it to the 'epsilon channel' but if they switch into a beta or alpha channel than we are screwed" he paused to send details for the scientists to analyze and continued "with this device, i may be able cut off their reinforcements until we have sufficient time to set up orbital defenses and take care of any stragglers after the EMP. this device is installed on my ship at this very moment but once it is active it also cuts off the 'Alpha, Beta and Epsilon lanes' and therefore, my fleet will not be able to hyper out"

he then switched the hologram to a spheroid ship that looked like it was covered in mirrors or something. "for the command ships, and the better shielded craft, this is the Ivan class battleship. it has one weapon but this weapon has an effective range of just under six light minutes. I'll send you details of the weapon later."

"now, onto the revised battle plan" he said with a sigh "it simply will not do to just send a strike force to activate the EMP, in fact, that would be suicide for the strike force." He replaced the ship with a schematic of the basement of the Central building and panned around. "The Evos have already turned it into their own little fortress, and flattened half of the rest of the city. A wiser choice would be to wax the Evoknight ground forces with a kinetic energy bombardment and then sent our soldiers in to mop up stragglers and activate the EMP" we still need to take down the command ships but i think ONA will be able distract both command ships until the EMP is activated. RAVEN and our Galixor friend here will have to escort the Strike force to the surface while the rest of you keep the evos from obliterating both the strike force, RAVEN and the remaining humans, I'm already an endangered species and i have no desire to be the last of my kind."

"Lan, i don't really have the stomach or the strength to launch a full bombardment on a civilian center, you think you can take care of the strike force and wax Xychus city at the same time?"

Lan bit her lip. "A kinetic bombardment sufficient enough to eradicate the Evoknight forces in Xychus will penetrate the ground, and might damage the control system for the EMP, and it's very likely the the already damaged structure will collapse. I really don't want to risk something like that happening." She stared at the holographic blob for a few seconds. This blob really changed things. Assuming it worked right. The puzzle was being put together, piece by piece.

"I think a strike force is still the best option. Anything larger will attract too much attention. Though other false strike forces may be necessary to provide decoys. If we agree on this, I myself will lead them and my subordinate will command The Revanant." She tapped more buttons on the screen, and the hologram of Sigma fizzled apart and became replaced with a diagram of central Xychus City. Or what was left of it. "That right there," Lan pointed to a large hole base of UWUC Central, "is a prime point for the whole building to collapse. I don't want to send any form of bombardment down, unless it has no seismic affects. And I don't have any weapons of that capability right now." She tapped another button, and bright red holograms appeared throughout Xychus. "These are anti-air emplacements, as of thirteen hours ago. As you can see, there aren't very many installations." Yeah, eighteen totally wasn't very many. "All we need is one transport ship and a few decoys, and it's highly probable the force will reach the basement if we select the right people to do the job. We could also request help from some remaining SpecOps groups in the area. Task Forces 171, 008, and 362 could advance into Xychus within a couple of days. They could provide fire support and distractions."

Lan returned the hologram back to Sigma as a whole. "So here's the plan so far..." She said, placing her hands on the disc. "Task Group 1 will attack the north pole of Sigma while Task Group 2 attacks the south pole. The Evoknight forces will be drawn away, while Task Group 3 attacks around the equator of the planet. The Evoknights will try to jump back to the previous positions, but will be nullified by the...Tunnel Blocker. The same thing will happen to Evoknight reinforcements. Task Group 3 will break through the defenses, destroying anything in their path and deploying offensive forces plan-" She was suddenly interrupted by a loud snore. She looked up to see some thuggish looking kid, slumped over asleep.

Dumbass.

She took a handgun from her holster a fired a round at the boy. The ramjet-style bullet slammed into his desk and ricocheted upward, making a red-hot slice through his jacket. He sat up from the noise, with eyes like a frightened deer's.

"As I was saying," Lan growled and turned back to the holographic planet. "Task Group 3 will deploy units planetside, regroup with remaining UWUC army forces, and assault nearby fortresses. By that time hopefully Groups 1 and 2 will have finished up and will launch assaults of their own. Then all of us will drop into the atmosphere and await the inevitable Evo reinforcements. When they come, re activate the EMP, go back into space, and obliterate the Evoknights once and for all." She was satisfied with this plan. This had to work.

Sam clapped his hands together. As he came up with an idea. "firebombs, fire, flash, no shake. Point, drop and vaporize, travis packed a few aboard the support fleet before he sent it off. I think those might help in eliminating the anti-air defense for a short time. ONA can spare a couple of it's elite forces for this mission as well as a special ship type you might find useful" he pressed a button and the hologram showed a new type of ship with a sort of triangular blade spreading from the base of the super structure. "the ground forces we can lend to the strike force is limited to about 25 fleet strike commandos and two ONI operatives that I'm sure you guys might like a lot. This is the Honor class frigate, it is designed for fast atmospheric entry. There are about 25-34 outside the gravity well and it uses tunnel drives. It was supposed to be used as a mineral freighter but we repurposed it to hold missiles, magazines and troops, plus, we upgraded the shields on the latest batch. These things can take a planetary SAPL for a full 20 seconds, I'm sure it can take a few AA emplacements."

"I can use it to screen the strike force from the triple A and take down some of the atmospheric superiority fighters. I will place my brother in charge of ONAs strike force and assign a couple of our ships to keep the AA guns busy. In our case though, fleet strike does not actually have to touch ground to deploy as they will be using drop pods, I would not recommend them for my fellow humans though, the ride can get a bit rough" he leaned back and folded this hands behind his head "I agree with the plan, I brought some tugs with point defense platforms, they can function as orbital fortresses until it's time to establish the beachhead, in that case, I can drop them onto the planet itself.

Loki shot up in his seat, showing the first bit of emotion in a long while. He would have said something sooner, but these two aliens- or the one alien and a human, they were so hard to tell apart-hadn't interrupted him. "Uh, excuse me." began Loki, finding a moment to speak between the raging two rulers of the planning. "Since there is no delegate for the humans present, and it is very clear to us, that you're volunteering one of our race to go on a suicide mission, I feel that it is imperative that we have a say in this discussion. I nominate myself, for lack of a better candidate, unless.. Alice," he gestured to the girl with a wave of the hand. "Would like to step in for or absent Empress? If there are any objections..." He paused for a moment, looking for any reaction among the VIP humans. Without waiting for a hand raise or even a murmur. "Good." he said finitely.

"In my opinion our forces are being spread way to thin. You're thinking too big, attacking the three different sections of a planet might be a good idea at first, but attacking a whole is much more difficult than attacking halves. The frontal assault that you're proposing is a great idea to kill everyone here. We know nothing about the Evoknights, we haven't fought them once, but they've dealt with our forces on Sigma, they are holding all of the cards in this match. We need to be crafty, that's the only way we can beat them. The use of the EMP can be a great asset, but how do we know that we could even land a party on Sigma, and even if we manage to get people down there, are they going to last long against a huge army as big as the Evoknight's? I don't have to get you a percentage, do I?" he droned on.

"You have to be sly in war, and not hack at the enemy thats bigger and stronger than you. We need a distraction, to form a hole in the wall of the waiting Evoknight fleets, That is where we will get Game and whatever 'lucky' soldiers you send in onto the planet. The moment the shields are done on the ships, it'll be the perfect time strike. But then back to the problem of what to do when ground troops receive transmissions that a ship managed to sneak through their lines. A simple scrambler good do that job, all we need is the right frequency and we can stop communication between them and their ground forces. Divide and conquer. While all of this is going on, we'll ready our ships and have them lie in wait. And then we attack their ships, and hopefully leave their units stranded on the ground, where the real battle will begin." He finished with a sigh, his melodramatic monologue not changing in enthusiasm at all. Completely monotone.

Lan turned to the human, frowning. "Your inexperience of waging war against the Evoknights makes your combat ability unacceptable. I've fought the Evoknights on Earth. I can easily recognize many forms of Evoknights and their capabilities. You may know nothing, human, but that doesn't mean we know nothing. And your plan is faulty. Evoknights do not communicate with radio waves, so find me a scrambler to block their frequencies. As for landing in Xychus...chances must be taken in war. Slow, petty baby steps accomplish nothing. Strike hard and fast, or sit your ass down and let the real leaders handle this." God, if she could, she'd maul his head out of the clouds herself. But instead she stayed seated around the disc. Cursing was unprofessional, but at least it got the point across.

She turned back to Sam, deciding not to address the human delegation problem. "Commandos will be good. But I'd prefer to take a few specific humans to along with me."

Loki snorted, rolling his eyes at the harsh militaristic ways of the aliens. They were so like humans. "You say you fought the Evoknight's before. Learn from your mistakes." You know that hurt my feelings... Tear her apart! screeched a voice in his brain, he repressed the thoughts subtlety, by slicking back his oily hair. "I can find you something to block your frequencies," he tapped Game on the shoulder. "Game is a technopath," As if they didn't already know. "What we need is for him to create a machine powerful to block transmissions to Xychus City, and position it in a hidden area." Come on, give me a chance to say something! Loki paused, closing his tightly and trying to resist the tug of D. Loki's commands. It seemed like it was getting increasingly harder to-. "CHANCES!? CHANCES!? Is that what you call sending, my friend, Game to his own death!? We only have one Game, there are no second chances, we might as well be as cautious as possible!" D. Loki wagged an angry finger at Lan. STOP! You're getting too emotional! screeched the recently suppressed Loki. Relax, I got this, you were putting them to sleep anyway.

"As the delegate for the humans, I have the ability-no... THE RIGHT! To command my forces. You either follow my plan, and use Game. Or he's not going. The humans are endangered, we're not supposed to join in a war, we should be rebuilding our destroyed civilization. Not cleaning up the mess that you failed to take responsibility for!" D. Loki smiled a cocky grin and fixed his collar. "Closing statement? Get your shit together, or you're all screwed."

OOC: oh, this is getting good

Lan got up from her chair and walked over to Loki's desk irritably. She grabbed the back of his head and forcefully slammed his face into the metal desk and held it there. "Listen to me, kid. You have no rights here. You are no delegate. Military has authority over civilians. Always. If we give you a direct order, you follow it or you will be punished. Your incompetence is only slowing things down. I don't mind destroying the human race. I am here to clear my name of criminal charges and to uphold the manufacturing triad. If you think I give a shit about the human race, you're mistaken." She hissed every word into his ear like venom.

"Although, using Agamemnon is the only way to fully eradicate the Evoknights. Make a communication jammer for all I care, but it's still an irrational plan. May I remind you...You have no power. There is one Empress and one Empress only. There are no legal documents claiming the absence of a human leader results in the appointment of a different human as Empress or Emperor. They do not exist. Therefore your delegate position does not exist. You have as much influence as a bungalow rat here." Lan tightened her grip on the boy's head. "Blame me for the attack again and I'll execute you myself, right here. You are nothing more than an acceptable loss and the other leaders will just look the other way. It would be a truly pathetic way to die." She released her grip on the boy's head and strode back to her chair. She sat in it with a sigh, and turned back to the hologram. Fuck humanity.

Sam sat back and regarded this "loki" with cold indifference. He thought he was being all high and mighty in trying to protect the humans but what he did not realize was that it hurt Sam much more to even order an attack. All of his employees were friends, professionally or personally and losing even one would be like a punch in the gut to him. "My friend, from one human to another, please listen, i know that the human race is endangered but do you not realize that by not defeating the Evos, they will hunt us down to the ends of the world and destroy us all. If we attack and take sigma than we might go extinct, if we run away and leave the rest of the Jexian Entente to fight and die, leaving an enemy behind us than we will go extinct" he emphasized the words "might" and "will" so as to make his point clear. "Be glad you are not leading an entire fleet of friends and your own brother into battle while fully knowing that if the battle is lost, there is no escape and everyone you every depended upon, looked up to and protected for 4 years will all die horrible deaths. that is all, please carry on" he stood up and crossed his arms "good day to you sir, now if you will excuse me, i need to take a call, i thought humanity was better than this"

The moment Lan stooped to violence, D. Loki knew he had beat her. He didn't mind the pain that flared through him, or the fact that his nose might be smashed. He had beat her. That was actually pretty clever. When she finally released him, D. Loki raised his head a smile on his face. "This... Is the person you elect to lead you? She is too volatile, too emotional. Her plans are all blunt force and no tactics. She is a loose cannon, she cares nothing for anyone here, and all she cares about are her own ideals. I apologize for attacking her, but it seems the only way to get my point across. These plans require delicacy and intelligence. As for me not having any representation in this planning, do you think we humans will follow someone who cares nothing for our race? My 'irrational' plan, makes more sense than throwing all of our forces and praying to whatever you aliens believe in to guide you to victory? And Lan... You, have no power over my people."

Sam had just about enough of this. He regarded Lan as a brilliant military strategist but now Loki was not only wrongfully blaming LAN for earth but now he was discrediting her plan herself even though he had no qualifications to even take part in this. Immediately he hung up, walked over and delivered a right hook to the side of Loki's face. "people? Human beings are not your people, you barely have the right to be in this room let alone criticize The leadership of an esteemed, tried, tested and decorated commander, You may be a human but you disgust me." he spat the the words in Loki's face and delivered another punch, this time augmented by servo motors to put an entire horsepower behind it. "If this is humanity than I could never be more ashamed this is for the good of the universe, if these guys are not stopped here than they will rampage across the rest of the galaxy unopposed and million, hundreds of trillions will die. I ran from earth, left my father, my friends, my country, my fellow human beings to die and I could do nothing about it" he delivered another punch and stepped away. "If you have nothing to offer to the continuation of sentient life than leave now. Now is the time to make military decisions you will just get in the way. I already have a thousand lives on my chest, I will not let you add a trillion more"

Loki ducked. The very instant he saw the punch coming he ducked. He stood to the side of Sam's fist and stared at him. "Human beings are my people. As long as I have live, I am part of this race. YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT DIED SO I WOULD LIVE!? Don't you think that I have losses as well? You're a selfish bastard who can't see right in front of himself! And you attack me, openly in front of millions? That's assault. Yeah! Add that your list of crimes, Lan." He turned back to the man in front of him. "I want to slaughter the Evoknights, I want to watch them all burn in hell, but are we going to accomplish anything by attacking me!? I'm angry, and I can tell you all are, so don't put your emotions above your rationality. You're both acting like bullies on a playground, who wants to put this meaningless squabbles behind them and do something about the threat!?" he shouted at the audience, ignoring the two delegates who were attacking him. "If you won't do anything, I'll find someone who will."

"Can we please just get back on track? We're wasting valuable time and valuable assests," Alice said as she stood up from her chair. "Lan, while your experience fighting the Evoknights has given you insightful information, I think I might know a bit more. I didn't get to leave Earth until I captured one of their ships and escaped. I had to learn as much about them as I could to survive until then. One thing I'm fairly certain of, is why there's so many Evoknight ships surrounding Sigma. They're not all brawn, you know. I've seen a tatic like this before. That's actually a trap they're just waiting for us to spring." Quickly, she lifted her hand up to silence anyone who was aiming to interupt her. "That seems obvious, I know, but listen to this. They've taken the planet hostage and they know we're going to try and get it back. They want us to throw all we've got at them, just so they can destroy most of our opposition. The rest of the war would be theirs. We've got to use our homefield advantage to win this. That includes us humans." Her honey gaze swept across the room. "Any questions?"

Sam went back to his seat and listened to this girl speak, Alice was it? She seemed like a type of person that he had only encountered a few times in his life. Strong, dependable, unwavering and slightly creepy for some reason although that could just be his mind. "ah, a voice of reason from a young face, I'm pleasantly surprised, if you had voiced your opinion before this self appointed dictator ..." he jabbed his thumb in Loki's direction "perhaps we could have prevented ourselves from dissolving into our own little squabbles. I think it would be best if the old soldiers step aside and listen to a fresh mind for once, anyway, as you were saying, give us your advice on what we should do. we need to recapture sigma at some time so we can reactivate the UWUC but what we need now is a way to actually fight an enemy that out numbers and out guns us."

Kenji bit his lip as the meeting broke out into violence. This was the very last place he'd ever expect people to fight. Being shot at was one thing, but actually hurting someone was completely different. He leaned out of his chair and picked up the bullet that had blasted right by his face only moments before. He examined it, puzzled. He had never seen a bullet like this before. It was mostly normal, except the bullet had four flip-out fins near the base with four much smaller ones near the top. The very tip of it was as sharp as a knife. Disturbing. Kenji put the bullet in his pocket. Maybe, if he needed to, he could accelerate that thing into...no, through someone's head.

"Thanks, Sam." Lan muttered. She hadn't really expected to be complemented so much. She did care for some humans, the Etrius brothers being two of them. She turned to Alice again, eyes like daggers, stabbing into the girl's. Her eyes looked too harmless compared to what Lan read up about her. "Alice, sometimes you have to put your toe on the mousetrap to get what you want. We have to strike now, for other fleets of Evoknights might be on their way to reinforce the already near-impenetrable defense. As for my history on Earth, do you think a soldier ran away at first sight of unknown aliens? Of course not. Me and my team murdered as many Evoknights as we could, frequently hijacked their vehicles, and used many of their explosives against them. I respect your knowledge as experience is the best teacher...but believe me, I've been schooled for tactical analysis since I was eight years old."

"Homefield advantage?" Lan frowned and tapped several buttons onto her control panel and the hologram fizzled into a topographic map showing Xychus and five surrounding cities. She identified each city by memory. "Directly north of Xychus City is Rucovuc. Task Force 008 is stationed there along with, as of thirteen hours ago, three platoons of troops, a small squadron of armor, and a single artillery piece. Northeast of Xychus is Delios. All UWUC troops there have been eradicated. East of Xychus; Kintora. All UWUC forces there have been eradicated there except for half of Task Force 362, two tanks, and one jet. South of Xychus City is Tamaran City. All UWUC forces there have been eradicated as well. South of Tamaran is Priori. Stationed there are the remainder of the humans as well as Task Force 171. They have six tanks, four mechs, and a variety of light armor and helicopters. You may say that's plenty to use as an advantage. Well it isn't. If TF171 fights toward Xychus, they'll lose almost everything. Same goes for the other TF's. Same all around the planet. Everyone is cut off from each other. There is no advantage. Unless they somehow forgot to tell me they posses Weapons of Mass Destruction?"

Lan snapped the image back to a planet view. "I will order my forces to obliterate Tamaran City at the first chance they have. It's a large fortress and doesn't have any favorable landmarks. That will allow the southern forces to attack Xychus directly. Maybe they'll be a good five minutes distraction." She spun the hologram around so fast the red blotches became blurred. "Agamemnon, you can contact forces on Sigma, correct?"

"wait, spring the trap ourselves? That a great idea!" Sam said as he worked out a plan. He pressed a button and brought up a picture of an array of mirrors and lenses attached to small drones, orbiting over new exford "this, next to the troy station is ONA's pride and joy, the SAPL, short for Solar Array Powered Laser. It's the main weapon aboard the Ivan class battleship that I brought up earlier, lan, you may know it as an asteroid mining laser. In fact, it is, but it can also be used as a military weapon, that is why there are two arrays over the planet. The mining laser is operating at 30% but it's putting out 13 terrawatts of energy every second, that's a 13 with about 20 zeros behind it, we havent tried yet but imagine what it could do at 100%. We can pack up one of the arrays for transport within a day. If you are able to hold the evos off, we can unpack it in about 25 minutes, then deploy the array for both assault and planetary defense"

"Contact Sigma?" whispered Game, a blush forming on his cheeks, not for the constant reminder of that accursed name but thinking of his last contact with Sigma. "Uh... Yeah, sort of..." he muttered with eyes darting from side to side. Question was, why would he do what Lan told him to? Should he do it out of fear that she would attack him or shoot him? He shook his head. That was a horrible choice, he might as well not obey her at all. Maybe the burning flames of anger at the murders of his parents would be enough to make him want to help her, help the whole universe. But he felt like a tool, a pawn, really. Someone who was unimportant in the grand scheme of things and easily disposable. Loki had more or less ordered him not to obey her if they didn't go with his plan, childish yes, but... Maybe he was a bit right. He was a super genius. His plan was probably the smartest way to do things, but even geniuses were wrong...

Lan shook her head. "I'd rather not carve the planet it half. If you deploy them, keep them at a firing angle that won't disturb the planet. I don't want any unexpected radiation to mess things up, either." She really didn't know much about SAPLs, or if they emitted radiation or not. RAVEN Corps preferred different ways of mining, so she never had to build any SAPLs.

"Some changes to the plan, though..." Lam murmured. She was usually against late decisions, but this plan was a bit too important for irks. "Afterwa-"

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP AND DECIDE!? All this idiot talk is getting fricken nowhere!"

Lan stood in place for a second, not completely sure someone had really just said that. God, she hated these humans so much. She turned to look for who had the outburst. Of course, it was the moron that fell asleep. Now he was sitting with his chin resting on his hand, slouching against the desk. One warning was all Lan's patience was capable of. She gripped her large magnum again and took aim within just above a quarter of a second. Irritably, she knew she had to aim for a non-lethal hit. She squeezed the trigger and a second Ramjet round exploded out of the barrel. The bullet slammed right through the boy's other hand and punched right through the desk. He jumped up and howled in pain, clutching the wound as crimson blood flowed out. "You fucking bitch!" He yelled, his arm twitching.

And then, the air around the wound started to blur. Some dead skin suddenly disintegrated, and brand new skin formed right out of the blue. Within seconds, it looked like nothing had happened.

Lan stared at him. She had looked over his file. She had looked over everyone's file. Twice. There was nothing about healing powers. So did their powers evolve over time? The blurring must have been from some sort of radiation. Radiation was a type of energy, so Lan calculated the boy's energy storage was directly linked to the regeneration. Yes, he must have evolved. Dammit, where's an Everstone when you need one?

Kenji stared back at Lan, completely furious. "Listen, shi-" He stopped as she raised the gun again. And then another. One in each hand. Four more rounds punched into Kenji. It felt like an apartment building was flailed into him. He was thrown off his feet and landed smack on his back. He choked trying to regain his breath. Lan watched. Two bullets had gone in his stomach while the other two punctured his chest. She then fired a last round into the joint connecting his shoulder to his arm; the arm was literally shot off him. The boy screeched in uncontrollable pain. Blood swelled up around him. Then, within seconds, the blurring started up all around the wounds. The bullets that hadn't pierced through disintegrated. So she had been correct about the radiation. And apparently he had far limits. His arm completely reformed as the other disintegrated. But it seemed he was still in pain.

Lan let him lie on the floor and catch his breath. "I hope you've learned your lesson." She hissed, then turned back to the delegates, not surprised to meet very surprised gazes.

... And she forgot what she was going to say.

"ENOUGH OF THIS! WHO EVEN LET YOU BRING A GROOLINE GUN IN HERE!" shouted Kargagna, remaining in his seat but digging his claws into the desk. There were enough jeers and screams of outrage from those seated, that it was time for order to be returned. "Lan, if you lay a hand on any of the spectators again, I will personally have you arrested. Your disruptions are the real enemy here. Let us listen to what others have to say before shooting them in the arm. Although he put it rather bluntly, Julio over there is correct. It is time we come to a decision while we still have time before the Evoknights spread their claws further across the galaxy. Their lasers that gouged Sigma should be our first targets, they can throw a wrench into any and every plan we make up. We can't try and sabotage them that would be a suicide mission. Blowing up a ship with that much fire power is also nigh impossible."

Kargagna's tone leveled out into an even and diplomatic voice as he continued his monologue, ignoring anyone who yelled or shouted trying to stop him from talking. "A distraction and a big one is all we need. It's a good thing we have certain people among us who specialize in the absurd and breathtaking. As long as we use their powers strategically and effectively, we can set off your little EMP's without Sigma being scorched into a second Weavon. No more ideas, just decision making. It's either full out attack, or we go in stealthily. Vote now." It was obvious who held the upper hand at this point. Lan and Sam were truly the only ones who saw the idea of using brute force to destroy a more powerful enemy a good plan, and after Lan’s display of violence against Jujubeans, her supporters were dwindling. They didn’t see her as a levelheaded commander, just a bratty teenager who couldn’t keep her finger off the trigger.

Lan holstered the gun, wearing her signature glare. "I am merely stopping unnecessary interruptions. If anyone should be arrested, it's a thug dumber than a rock." She didn't feel threatened by the Galaxior at all. In fact, she would have preferred it if the UWUC garbage had been disposed of.

"A stealth mission will not work." She growled as she sat back in her seat. "The Evoknights could easily launch a planetary bombardment and destroy the EMP generators, and or the activation switch. It's far too risky and I doubt Agamemnon could pull of a stunt like disrupting several billion weapon systems at once. Any number of them could have Hagar Devices anyway." Which reminded her...it was imperative that she capture one of those devices. They could prove very useful in the future.