Despite more than half of their ships being dotted with splotches of the infamous ‘Shieldbreaker Blue’ concoction, the Free Galaxy Resistance fleet continued forward through the winding path. However, while the asteroid belt of this system was indeed dense, with only a few viable lanes of travel, it began to dawn on the crews of the FGR fleet that something was amiss. While it was certain that there were still an absurd number of asteroids in the belt, as they progressed down the path charted by their scouts, they began to notice that a great many places had been seemingly hollowed out, leaving pockets large enough for some minor fleet maneuvers.

Even when the system was under the control of the greedy Grek’sah Mining Conglomerate, the asteroid belt had not seen this much excavation. What would have taken decades of work had seemingly been done in mere months. There were traces visible on the remaining space rocks in those pockets that showed the strip mining had been brutally quick, taking not only valuable materials but also useless things such as rocks and ice. As the FGR fleet went even deeper through the scouted path, the pockets grew ever larger and ever more numerous until areas the size of planets were found to be completely devoid of any stellar debris.

It was obvious that Arcadia, the evil and despotic dictatorship that it was, was planning something big. All of these materials, both useless and useful, were just gone. It was clear that Arcadia was going to use them for something twisted, monstrous, and nefarious, but what that thing was, they could not know.

Rather than stopping after realizing the sheer scale of the mining efforts going on in the system, the fleet steamed on ahead, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a mining effort this massive would have suitably heavy protection. This would be a terrible mistake, as they were about to come into contact with the very reason why this system was being strip mined.

…

As the FGR fleet entered the next pocket, they saw a massive battle taking place before a large cylindrical object that easily eclipsed the size of their entire fleet. The Arcadians had somehow managed to get warships into the pocket (if you could call a gap ten times the size of Earth a ‘pocket’) and were engaging what appeared to be warship-sized masses of meat and chitin. The organic behemoths were lobbing blobs of acid and hardened spikes made of ultra-dense chitin and every so often one of the Arcadian ships would suffer a heavy blow and resort to a kamikaze strike to avoid falling in vain.

As things stood, the battle was slowly turning in Arcadia’s favor as the Arcadian Navy continuously pounded the organic ships while either conducting hit-and-run attacks or simply staying at extreme range. To make matters worse for the unknown vessels formed of meat, the Mobile Suit Golems and Mobile Armor Golems added more firepower to the equation, easily dodging the attempted retaliation of their foes.

Seeing the Arcadian military in a battle with something, the FGR fleet commanders knew exactly what they had to do!

“All crews; prepare for combat! Our target is the damnable Arcadian Fleet! Aid those poor animals in their fight for survival against those that would seek their extinction!”

“Aye, Aye! Let’s give ‘em hell!”

…

“Sir, the rebel fleet is coming towards us.”

Aboard the Colony Gun, a dwarf looked out over the battle that took place in his neck of the woods. It was annoying in the extreme that the invaders had come and forced him to commit the forces that were supposed to ambush the rebels to dealing with these damn monsters. Now the idiot rebels had shown up and added a third force to the battle, but while he wanted them to realize that Arcadia was facing the true foe, he knew deep down that the rebels would do something mind-bogglingly stupid and try to aid the invaders.

“Sir?”

“Yes, I see that. How goes the charging process?”

The Snake Beastman who worked as his aide pressed a few buttons on her data pad, and after a while she smiled and replied to her boss.

“By the time the rebels get within range, we will have reached 100% charge. Shall we prep the weapon for a ‘test fire’?”

The dwarf female pulled at her chin while a smile crossed her face, a tell-tale sign that a dwarf was thinking of something that they considered to be incredibly interesting.

“Why not?” she said with a laugh as she narrowed her eyes and grew her smile even larger. “If I wasn’t a girl, what is about to transpire would be something that would give me a beard growth!”

The female Snake Beastman cocked her head.

“A ‘beard growth’? Don’t those grow naturally?”

The dwarf woman shook her head.

“Do some reading, will you? It pays to know as much as possible about your fellow citizens. Now, let’s start the countdown…”

“Very well. I will send out the request for the navy to withdraw immediately.”

…

As the FGR fleet closed the distance, the Arcadian ships began to disengage from their attempted slaughter of the poor, defenseless space animals and retreat to the sides of the large cylindrical object.

“Hah! Look at them run! They know we can crush them, so they flee! Aid the poor animals and bring death to the evi-!”

“Sir! Incoming!”

The ‘poor and defenseless space critters’ immediately turned to attack the closest things to them, which just so happened to be the FGR fleet. As the Free Galaxy Resistance ships were neither uniform nor well-staffed, the first few ships in their formation were hit with the full force of the unknown creatures’ power. In mere moments, the eighteen leading ships in the fleet were reduced to scrap metal and the rest of them scattered to avoid the incoming fire.

“What?! Why?! We just want to help you!”

“Sir, we have bigger problems!”

The Fleet Commander looked down from his high seat as the bridge officer who spoke up.

“What is it now?!”

“THAT!”

The insectoid idiot looked up towards where the officer was pointing and saw something that would have made him sweat buckets if he could have actually done so. The cylindrical object was partially hollow, and inside that hollowed part there was a great glowing mass that was building in intensity.

“All ships, run like he-!”

…

The fool did not even get to finish his words. The cylindrical object, the Colony Gun, vomited out a supermassive pillar of energy that instantly atomized the organic and extragalactic invaders before doing the same to the FGR fleet. The colossal beam of light and death surged forwards for tens of billions of miles before eventually fading away to reveal that it had not only eradicated both fleets but had also carved a massive ‘tunnel’ through the bits of the asteroid belt that were in front of it.

The two women who had ordered the weapon to ‘test-fire’ whistled, impressed at the sheer destructive power of the drastically improved former Colony Laser as the light died down and all became visible once again. The two turned to each other and bumped fists as they congratulated themselves on a job well done. This was Colony Gun number 83 that they had built in this place, but this was the first time that they had been able to see the devastation that was now being brought to bare across the frontlines firsthand.

As the weapon powered down and began to recharge, the two women decided to join the others aboard the superweapon for the usual party to celebrate their achievement. Oh, how so many, many people would be drunk under the table that night.