Artcarik-482 was wealthy beyond measure. The three asteroid belts were rich and thick with elements, the three super gas giants and the two standard gas giants were filled with rare and important gasses, and the eight solid worlds were full of easily extractable mineral wealth. The xenospecies was a calm one, industrious and hard working. The natives, the Maktanan, were herbivores, small, hairy, with small wide-set eyes, two legs, two arms, a tail, Their expressive mouths were full of plant chewing teeth. They were curious, intelligent, and enjoyed celebrations as well as ironic and juxtapositional comedy. The imported xenospecies, the Carikan, were a flightless avian with long legs with a reversed knee and two different sets of hands. One at the mid-point of the wings and the others, with longer and flatter fingers, at the end of the wings. Their plumage was dark matte blue with streaks of glossy bright green, the feathers short and soft.

The Maktanan made up sixty percent of the population. The Carikan made up thirty percent of the population. Lanaktallan made up eight point nine six of the population. One percent was made up of other xeno-species from the neo-sapient species.

The remaining were the Terrans.

Zero point zero four percent did not seem like a lot when pure mathematics were concerned.

But the Precursor Autonomous War Machines were coming. Not the earlier versions, the Type I and Type II, but rather the new ones. A malevolent hybrid with new weapons, new tactics, new ship types.

Two thousand Type III Harvester Class Autonomous War Machines were coming.

Zero point zero four percent Terrans and Terran aligned species did not sound like much.

But Mana'aktoo knew that the Terrans would make a difference far outside of their apparent few numbers.

He stared at the holotank.

The majority of Task Force Agwu was already under repair.

Artcarik-482 possessed extensive ship yards. In the sixteen months the Terrans had been present they had built their own repair and refit ship yards, with Mana'aktoo's approval, to handle ship repairs for the vessels involved in the conquering of Mana'aktoo's people the Lanaktallans.

Not to say Mana'aktoo was a quisling. He had handed the Terrans their first 'phyrric victory' by surrendering the system immediately, without reservation.

He had pinned Task Force Anvil in his system for much longer than a military campaign would have lasted, far more effectively, and without a single lost life.

His loyalty was to his loyal subjects.

Not the Council.

Never the Council.

Not after what they had done.

Mana'aktoo pushed the thought out of his mind as he slowly trotted around the holotank, looking at the system, examining the numbers.

Eighty-five percent of the troops he had hidden away and prepared in order to carry out an invasion of Council territory were still fit for duty. Ninety-six percent of his ships and other military hardware were ready for deployment. His ammunition stocks, intended to supply an invasion of Council territory, were at ninety-nine-point-five percent usable. His supplies and logistics were ready.

It galled him to admit that while his preparations would have been able to face off even against the Executor Council's advanced war machine, they were woefully inadequate to face off against the Precursors unless he was willing to accept a horrific casualty rate.

Without the Terrans, Mana'aktoo was confident his people, fighting under his banner, could defeat the Precursors if they were willing to take 80% military and 60% civilian casualties.

A number that made Mana'aktoo go cold, as he knew that the civilian casualties would have included not only his beloved parents and siblings, but many many other being's beloved parents, siblings, and children.

Sixty percent, it sounds so clinical, so easily withstood, until you looked at what it was sixty percent of. Sixty percent of twenty-three point five eight billion sentient beings, Mana'aktoo thought to himself. He reached out and picked up a stalk of goldleaf bush, bringing it to his mouth and chewing on it as he stared at the holotank. Nearly fifteen billion dead, and that's with victory.

Mana'aktoo ground his teeth on the tough, but tasty, fibrous stalk of the plant.

He had shelters for everyone. It would be tight inside, but he had shelters.

When he had mentioned it to the Admiral, three months prior, that he had prepared for a counter-invasion by building enough shelter space for all, the Admiral had ordered his own men to inspect them.

Now the shelters benefited from Terran technology and manufacturing techniques.

Terrans approached survival with almost monomaniacal obsession.

To be honest, with the red bar LEDs at the base of every Terran's skull, he half expected the Terrans to refuse to fight since they no longer possessed technological immortality.

But he had not seen any Terran flinch when the incoming Harvester attack was announced.

The sheer size of each Harvester was daunting enough. The size of an appreciable subcontinent.

Combined into 'shells', the amount of combined area of the Harvesters would be roughly the surface size of a hundred and fifty comfortable sized planets.

Mana'aktoo knew that the combined mass of the incoming Harvesters, much less their attendant vessels, was enough that at least six resource rich planets.

Part of him wondered what made Artcarik-482 so special.

The rest of him knew it didn't matter.

He wished he had studied military history better, had paid more attention to military tactics and theory than he had. He had only spent less than ten hours going in-depth on the information and realized that it would take months or years for him to become an expert.

Time he didn't have.

Mana'aktoo viewed himself a benevolent deity to the occupants of Artcarik-482.

He understood, now more than ever, why the most effective deities were part of a pantheon.

He hoped, in the silence of his own soul, that Admiral Schmidt was an adequate war god.

After all, if Terrans were wrath incarnate, then it made sense that the greatest of all of them, their military leaders, would be demi-god status.

He hated it. Hated having to rely so much on such an unknown.

He consoled himself with the fact that the Devourers had been wiped away easily.

Trotting around the holotank again, Mana'aktoo looked at the numbers. Looked at Schmidt and Kulamu'u's strategies to withstand the Precursor Autonomous War Machines.

Mana'aktoo wished again he was more knowledgeable, better educated on military theory.

But he was not an omniscient deity nor was he an omnipotent deity.

Just a benevolent one.

A flashing icon got his attention.

His mother.

Calling from the shelter beneath the manor.

He waved away the estimations of the combat effectiveness of his tanks against Precursor armored vessels and answered the vid-call.

His mother needed him.

-----------------------

Admiral Thickett looked exhausted. She had been out of her vac-suit for nearly ten hours but Admiral Schmidt could still faintly smell the distinctive scent of a vac-suit around her.

"We hit them hard, pulled them in, then jumped out of the system," she said. "They followed us to the next system, where we were waiting. We hit them again, made sure we had their attention, then jumped out again, pulling them with us. They followed us back and forth twice more so I could be sure they weren't leaving behind any significant forces, then jumped between stellar systems."

"And ambushed them," Admiral Schmidt said, looking at the holographic replay.

"We hurt them bad enough that they showed their hand," Thickett nodded. "We were engaged, and had them on the ropes, when their reinforcements arrived, obviously being held back to engage any system defenders once their advance force was engaged."

"And you went from fighting just over a hundred of them to fighting three thousand," Schmidt said. "Why didn't you pull out, head for the nearest Space Force base."

"We did," she admitted.

When Schmidt looked at her she made a vague wave around her.

"You. You're the closest, most well entrenched, with the most ships," she said. "Once we crippled their interdiction vessels, those were a nasty surprise, by the way, we jumped out. The Precursors have to follow us, because we looped back around four times to hit them again and jump out."

"They either follow you, or you'll rip them up nickledime them to death," Schmidt said, nodding. He looked up. "I noticed there are only a handful of the old Type-I and Type-II Precursors."

Thickett nodded. "There were more, but we concentrated on them before the last jump."

"Is boarding them still the fastest way to disable them?" Commodore Kalkatik asked.

Thickett shrugged. "We don't know. Any Harvester that's boarded immediately breaks contact and Helljumps out. We've seen two of them return to the fight. I quit sending boarding parties after that."

Kalkatik nodded. "They must not shield their hulls in Hellspace."

"That's what my analysts think," Thickett said. "Go into Hellspace unshielded, let Hellspace tear apart the boarders. I didn't want to risk any more troops."

Schmidt looked up at Kulamu'u. "Anything to add, sir?"

The Lanaktallan stared at the screen."Boarding parties, you say?"

Thickett nodded. "That's the new standard Space Force tactic for the bigger ones, which you can pound on for hours. Land boarding parties, blow the thinking array. You can kill one in less than two hours if your team is properly prepared, outfitted, and deployed."

"You would need at least double the boarding parties than their are Harvesters," the Lanaktallan said. He made a wheezing noise, almost a musing hum. "I would prefer a dozen, maybe even a score, of boarding parties."

"That's a lot of manpower. Most boarding parties are a full infantry company backed by heavy assault," Thickett said. She stretched and yawned.

Her armpits still gave off a sour smell that made Most High Kulamu'u think of unripe marnett fruit.

"Our strategy for dealing with Unified Executor Council ships was to be boarding parties," Kalamu'u said. "We have enough boarding parties to dedicate nearly a hundred boarding parties per Harvester."

That made eyebrows raise up.

The Lanaktallan made the wheezing sound again. "When the smaller vessels, the ones the size of megalopolises, make planetfall, I think sending boarding parties aboard to disable their primary strategic array would be our best bet," he said. He nodded slowly, clenching all four hands. "We'll dedicate twenty boarding parties for each one that makes landfall."

The two 'native' species military representatives both nodded.

"This is our world. We will not give it up," the Carikan said. "We will fight next to our Lanaktallan and Maktanan brothers, as well as our new brothers from Terran Space Force."

The Maktanan military liaison looked up at Admiral Schmidt. "We are a small people, unused to war, but we will not give this planet up to ancient rusting junk from beyond the stars that think they can take what they want."

"We have a few hours to train, perhaps you have troops, experienced and trained at boarding actions, that would feel comfortable in joining the assault teams?" Kulamu'u asked.

Schmidt rubbed the side of his jaw, then glanced at Thickett, who gave a slight nod.

Kulamu'u noted that all six of the Terrans present had red glows to their eyes.

"Fuck it, we're all in," Schmidt said.

"Together, none may withstand us," the Maktanan said.