Seeing as the fleets departed, Andrew felt a bit of fear for the ladies and their subordinates, despite their plans, which they discussed extensively for the last week.
Runir, Arien, and Giarna wanted to find a way to minimize their casualties or at least the losses among the ships with the organic crews.
The easiest and as it turned out in simulations, the best way to do that was to simply send the drone ships and the ones crewed entirely by droids in front.
Their main task was to tank the hits, and to take out the enemy destroyers as soon as possible, to minimize the possibility of their AI taking over the drone ships.
The fleets jumped into the system within the optimal firing range, totally surprising the enemy and immediately the drone ships targeted the destroyers.
Before the surprised enemy even understood what was going on, they were already under fire.
The only reason the three destroyers were not vaporized, by the first salvos, was that their AIs reacted and activated their shields just in time to stop the first shots from tearing holes into their ships hulls.
However, it only delayed the inevitable, since they were under attack by over two hundred ships, most of which targeted the destroyers while the rest was engaging the heavy frigates.
Despite their technological advantage, their shields eventually failed under the relentless assault and the three biggest ships in this invasion fleet were gutted.
The sheer amount of kinetic rounds that slammed into them almost ripped them to shreds.
Once the destroyers were out of the action the rest of the battle was way easier, but it was far from being one sided.
Before the destroyers fell, Andrew's fleet suffered a lot, losing 34 ships, to the enemy fire.
Thankfully they were all either drone ships or were crewed by only droids.
What surprised all three fleet commanders, was the fact that even when they were fighting a losing battle and even lost their biggest ships, none of the aliens in the invasion fleet surrendered.
They were hoping that if they overwhelmed the enemy fleet, they would just give up, allowing them to size their ships, but not one ship did.
They all fought till the end, despite knowing that it was a death sentence, and they also inflicted a lot of damage on all three fleets.
When the dust settled, the total was a bit terrifying.
The invasion fleet was wiped out to the last ship, while the three fleets from Andrew's territory, lost 56 ships, and several more were damaged.
Thankfully, no one died as most of the damage was taken by the drone and droid ships, but the losses in this battle were staggering.
What's more, they even held the element of surprise and still suffered great losses.
-This was a lot harder to deal with than I anticipated.
Arien said after the battle.
-Yeah, good thing we had the drone ships to take the hits for us, or we would have lost a lot of people today.
Giarna agreed.
-We still lost a fifth of the fleet and we outnumbered them more than four to one, not to mention we even surprised them.
If we didn't have as many ships we might have lost here today.
Runir joined in.
–Whatever the case, we took them out, and that was the biggest and most powerful group around, so I say we replenish our fleets and go take the rest out in a couple of days.
-Sorry Giarna, but I dont think it will be that easy.
Even if Vulcan can replenish our fleets within a few days, we need to come up with a better plan.
Runir said shaking her head.
-She's right.
There is no way we can fight like this when the second wave hits, or we will eventually run out of ships, and if what the voice said is true then the first wave was just a warmup.
Arien agreed.
-Alright, then let's go back and leave this place for the tugs to clear out.
Giarna agreed after thinking about it for a moment.
Without further delay, the fleet jumped out as the tugs whose number increased to ten during last week, jumped in, along with two cargo ships, to clear up the battlefield.
-Good work ladies.
Andrew greeted them when they docked.
-I don't know about good work when we lost the fifth of our fleet.
Runir answered, then yelped when he hugged her, taking her by surprise.
They all had a hard time getting used to his affection, not that they disliked it, but they were always surprised by it.
During the last week, Andrew gathered them all and they discussed their relationship in depth.
At the end of that discussion, they all agreed that they would share him if he didn't mind having a harem since by now they all knew that most of humanity was monogamous.
Andrew for his part was a bit overwhelmed with suddenly having a dozen partners, but he got over it rather quickly, accepting them all.
He even joked about feeling like an Emperor from the past on Earth as most of them had harems of dozens if not hundreds of women.
This triggered another discussion about creating their star nation, instead of joining another faction.
-Then you won't only feel like an emperor, you will be one.
Nairin pointed out.
Andrew, didn't dismiss the idea, but it required a lot of thought, since building a nation was not something easy to accomplish.
Also, it would require him to renounce the noble title, he received from the elves, which could lead to trouble if the Elves felt offended by it.
As of now he still didn't decide on that when he hugged the three ladies one after the other welcoming them back.
-Don't worry about the losses, that's the main reason I even added the drone ships to the fleet, their main goal is to take hits and reduce our casualties.
He said as he let go of Giarna who was the last one he hugged.
-That might be the case, but we lost more ships than we destroyed in this battle, and that was when we had a numerical advantage and even the element of surprise on our side.
If they were ready for us, we might have lost half the fleet or even more.
Runir said.
She was worried about the losses.
-You are forgetting that this was the most technologically advanced fleet you have ever faced.
According to our sensors, their ships were all equipped with tier 4 weapons and shields, not to mention that their overall design was much better than our ships.
Taking all of that into consideration, your losses are more than acceptable, especially since you didn't lose any of the ships with an actual crew.
Andrew explained.
-Then why did designate this fleet as the first target?
Arien asked.
-Because I want their technology and according to Vulcan, if we capture advanced tech and reverse engineer it, as long as it's not more than one tier above our current research, it would count as researching it, so we are now able to jump ahead with some research without spending a ridiculous amount of resources, not to mention it saved us a lot of time.
-Didn't you tell us something similar a few days ago?
Giarna asked, faintly remembering hearing something about it.
-I did, but you three were too focused on planning the battle.
I'm surprised that you remembered anything about it.
-So what do we do now?
Runir asked, hoping to change the topic as she didn't remember any of that and didn't want to admit it.
-Do we wait for the new ships, or do we rearm and go take out another group?
-Why are you asking me?
You are the fleet commanders, it's your decision.
Andrew said amused.
-Why dont we go for the weakest groups, that way we can split our fleets and eliminate three groups at once.
Arien suggested.
-I agree on taking them out, but let's stay together, that way we won't suffer as many losses and it will be quicker.
Who knows maybe some of them dont have a death wish and will surrender.
Giarna voiced her idea, leaving Runir with the choice to make.
-Alright, we will take them out, but we are going together.
As Giarna said, we might get lucky and capture some ships for a change.
Runir decided after thinking about it for a while.
The resupply was swiftly completed and the fleets were on their way to their next target, or rather targets since they were going after two fleets that fought each other recently and suffered great losses.
The battle concluded without a victor, and both fleets were too damaged to leave so they both occupied the same system, keeping their distance from one another.
Together these fleets had around forty ships at their disposal with the heavy frigates as their biggest ships, so the three combined fleets should have no problem taking them down.
In the meantime in the command center, everyone was a bit confused, as the scout drones scanned the entire Rodill's system and didn't find any trace of the slave traders' base.
-Is it possible that they moved it somewhere else?
Lan asked, unable to figure out any other explanation.
-That's a possibility, but if they did, we would have noticed it.
You can't move something so big without being noticed, I don't care if it was cloaked or not.
Andrew said.
-I think I found the reason it disappeared.
Nairin said a moment later while everyone was trying to find an explanation.
-When the retreat order came for the Invasion fleets, there was one portal opened in that system.
I think that it was opened right on top of that base and it was transported to another universe.
She said, displaying a sensor log from that moment on the main screen.
-You see, just as the portal opened, there was something on the sensors, and then it vanished.
-If this is true, then I doubt we will see them again.
Andrew shook his head.
This would explain everything and it made a lot of sense.
-We have movement in the Milky Way.
Lanarine said suddenly, making everyone forget about the slaver's base.
-It seems like they finally decided to do something, but it looks like they are all sending a single ship each.
The geologist said, surprised at the readings.
-If I'm not wrong, they sent envoys to negotiate with us.
Tarina said after a moment of thought.
-They should know by now that they can't take back the system by force, and we are too much of a threat to them to simply ignore us.
So they might want to use diplomacy to at least find out what our goals are and if we plan to expand into the Milky Way galaxy.
She explained.
-Since that's the case, you will be the one in charge of negotiations.
Andrew smiled with amusement, seeing the surprised expression on her face.
-You are a diplomat after all, now show me what you can do.
He grinned at her, leaving her speechless.