Once the forces of the Angelus Holy Union crossed the ‘border’ and entered territory that was not their own, there was no going back. What would come would come, and to the victor would go the spoils. As the bulk of the Angels’ fleets ran roughshod over the territories controlled by the nine Member-Nations of the United Galactic Nations, it seemed for a brief window of time that Arcadia and is Solar Commonwealth would be spared the horrors of war.

Of course, this was not to be.

Arcadia’s destruction of their fleets, its refusal to simply let itself be purged and also the very fact that it existed to begin with were each more than enough reasons to wage a war of annihilation against the Arcadians. These reasons combined only furthered the feelings of utter malice and hatred the Angels felt towards this upstart world and its hideous abominations. Arcadia was in the eye of the hurricane, but there is no such thing as a hurricane that doesn’t move. Eventually, the full force of the Holy Union would fall upon the heretical alien filth, and when it did there would be nothing that could stop them.

Or so they believed.

Despite the most advanced fleet that the Holy Union had ever put to space being the very one that would be the tip of the spear, the Angels had disregarded several key lessons that any military leader worth their salt would know. Arcadia knew the terrain they would be fighting in and had set up traps and defenses tailor made to whittle down their opponents. Arcadia made up for its lesser technology with numbers and tactics. Several years of fighting the occasional fleet or probing ship had given Arcadia’s military a decent understanding of the Holy Union’s ship designs and their limitations.

The ships best suited for being PD (Point Defense) vessels were instead outfitted with anti-ship weapons. The AHU had completely disregarded the fact hat strike craft exist and can cause major damage to ships, if not quickly dealt with. Of course, what little point defense they did have was not geared towards dealing with fighters or bombers or even (relatively) small ‘pocket corvettes’ like the Mobile Suit Golems and Mobile Armor Golems. Instead they focused on intercepting ship-to-ship missiles and torpedoes. This rather specialist PD could actually shoot down an MSG or MAG, but they seemed to be unable to do so when on autopilot.

Another disadvantage was that only the infantry of the Holy Union was equipped with the ‘anti summoned being’ weapons that Arcadia was so fearful of. If the Angels were smarter or were more inclined towards change in their weapons to match the occasion, they would have realized that if they could make weapons like that for their infantry, they could scale it up for even more power. Unfortunately for them, they were set in their ways and it would take an act of god to dislodge them, and their god had already long since passed on. The AHU had been around for over ten thousand years but had only changed just enough to maintain their advantage in terms of technology.

Arcadia and the AHU were in many ways quite like each other. They both were heavily religious, they both had absurd power and most importantly they both were founded by a Summoned Being who had used their power to create an entire race from nothing. Both of them were filled with the creations of their ‘god’, with the Holy Union’s entire sapient populace being the direct descendants of the original summoned beings brought into existence by their ‘god’ and the MSGs and MAGs that were more numerous than the actual living beings in the Commonwealth existing only because of their ‘god’.

It could be said that the fighting that was about to begin between the two of them was long overdue. Both sides knew that the Solaris System and Arcadia’s victory/ defeat would decide the fate of the galaxy. While the Angels were certain of their inevitable victory, Arcadia and its people had a more realistic view on things. They would either win and survive or lose and cease to be, and these options existed for their current mortal enemy as well.

So, while fleets of AHU corvettes and destroyers escorted transports filled with warriors of their god and rained doom and destruction upon the UGN, the heaviest hitters prepared to pay Arcadia a visit and convert the heretical xenos to blessed ash and vapor, by force if necessary.

…

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

“Don’t say that. You know something will happen now that you’ve said that, right?”

A monitoring station on the edge of the asteroid belt in the Solaris System sent out Hyperspace ‘Pings’ into the emptiness of space. If the ‘pings’ hit something it would show up on their instruments and alert them that something was coming.

“We’ve seen nothing but empty near-vacuum for a good few months. What’s the harm in taking it easy? Nothing could go wrong, because the Angels aren’t stupid enough to try it again. They lost, what, three fleets and a shit ton of patrol groups before they just stopped coming. It used to be that every month there would be an incursion of some kind, but now they have given up and aren’t sending anything. It’s been dead quiet for months. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Next thing you’re going to say is you have a husband and kid waiting back home…”

“Girlfriend, actually. And we just adopted a lovely little newborn. I can’t wait to end my tour out here and get back home. I really want to see her smiling face.”

“Please. No more flags.”

“Technically we aren’t married yet, but as we already filled out the paperwork ahead of time, we will get married once I get back. I already told her that and we agreed we would be Wife and Wife only three or four days after I get back.”

“PLEASE! NO MORE!”

“Hey, stop that. I don’t want my last day in the military to be me stuck with an angry person.”

“Are you about to retire? Please say no…”

“I am.”

The Human male turned to the Beastman female and held up his hand, his fingers spread wide.

“5. 4. 3. 2. 1.”

The station was filled with alarms as the Hyperspace pseudo-RADAR detected over one hundred vessels on a course though FTL-space to the Solaris System.

The human looked at the Beastman and gestured vaguely around.

“This. This is why you don’t raise flags. Look at the mess you got us into.”

As they went through the proper procedures for reporting a non-Arcadian ship arriving at Arcadia’s doorstep, the Beastman female came up with the only retort she could think of.

“Correlation does not imply causation.”

As the report was sent, the human male gave one last line before they began to help the first line of defense prepare for the oncoming rush.

“Maybe not, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a massive coincidence.”

…

The pride of the Angelus Holy Union’s navy was leading the charge towards the vile xenos filth. A massive ship that was the only vessel in the galaxy comparable in size to the Arcadian flagship ‘Adeptus Deorum’, the AHUS ‘Final Judgement’ was not something to be trifled with. Yes, it had fewer weapons than the much, much smaller battleships of the AHU’s navy, but what weapons it did carry were huge. Not only that but running down the middle of the ship was a massive superweapon that could fire a beam of energy that could equal the Gryps 2 Colony Laser in terms of sheer destructive power. While such a doomsday weapon would take several days to charge and several hours to actually make it fire, the ‘Final Judgement’ was exactly what the AHU considered it to be.

It was the final solution to any problem regarding other races. It was their pride and joy and the mobile seat of the leadership of the Holy Union. It was the undeniable proof that they were unbeatable and the undeniable proof that they were the superior race.

Judgement Day had come to Arcadia; would the infant nation be found wanting or would it instead be the Angels that would be damned? The future of the galaxy rested on the existence of this one ship, and only its destruction or survival would determine whether the AHU would reign eternal over a galaxy purged of all those they hated or if they themselves would become the ones fighting for their very survival.

Either way, arguably the most important battle in Arcadia’s brief history just about to start and only one nation would emerge from it intact.