289 Reconquest of the outer citadel 1

"Isn't that the politician who tried to get the 125th resolved a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah, that's her alright… I guess witnessing magic first hand must have changed her outlook on life, that or she's playing into recent pools which shows that the people once more trust the 125th."

Standing on the sidelines listening to Senate Representative Stone's speech it didn't take a long time before small talk broke out among members of the 125th who were at the ceremony, specifically Ifrit, who had finally been let out of their cage by Dax, and Terra who also wasn't that interested in the speech.

"So she is the one who wanted to jail us all and claim credit for it… Can I eat her soul?~ ✿"

"You can't. Besides, I'm not even sure politicians have souls in the first place… AW! What was that for?"

Receiving a not so gentle slap to the back of their heads the two chatters turned to see Dax, the current 'smile' which was plastered on his face instantly silenced all resistance.

"Shut it both of you, at least try to act disciplined. And if you keep saying stuff like that and I'll be forced to lock you up again Ifrit."

"I-it was just a little joke, that's all."

The reason Ifrit hadn't done much since arriving at the capital was because of their nature, with zero respect for living beings and a tendency to eat the souls of those they disliked there was no way Dax would allow them to roam freely, not until they had been properly tra- I mean disciplined by him.

"So I get that this 'citadel' is a fortress, but what exactly keeps the Emergence or even us from going around it?"

As Representative Stone started talking about the target for this new campaign, Alice found herself confused as to why such a system was so important, therefore she turned to Dax who stood beside her.

"There're a lot of black holes and neutron stars in that area of space, in comparison the citadel as a pair of calm red draws for its stars. Making jumps between systems become exponentially harder the more gravitational waves there is at the destination system and fast spinning black holes and neutron stars emit a shitton of those waves compared to normal stars, making travel to them practically impossible without specialized jump cores which are way too fragile for use in warships."

"So, in other words, you can travel through that region without going through the citadel, but only with ships that are too fragile for combat?"

"Exactly. Going around that region of space would also be slow and easy to observe, so the only practical way of passing through that region of space is through the citadel, making it a strategic chokepoint. Before we do anything else, we need to first push the Emergence back to that point, then take control of the system back from it."

As Dax finished explaining the objective to Alice, the speech which was going on in the background finished up and was met with thunderous applause before yet another speech started, leaving not only Alice, but also Dax to sigh deeply.

"It is good to be in your care once again fleet admiral Simmons."

"The feeling is mutual Dax, although calling you that after simply 'commander' for such a long time feels a bit strange."

"Don't worry about that, I take no offence if you still call me that. Oh, and thanks for lending me Rin for all this time, she's really a useful subordinate to have."

The night was about to fall when the 3rd fleet and its newly retrofitted flagship was finally allowed to launch from the capital, as Dax and his subordinates boarded the Ingenuity they were once again greeted by fleet admiral Simmons and his trusted officers, with the exception of Rin, who was no attached to Dax's unit and followed with him instead.

"Please don't extravagate commander, all I do is answer questions and make tea!"

As Rin unexpectedly became the centre of attention while being praised out of the blue she was understandably flustered, even more so when Dax placed a hand on her head to reassure her while ruffling her short red hair.

"Dax! P-please don't do that, it's embarrassing!"

"Yeah, yeah. You're doing great Rin, keep it up."

"You're not listening to me in the slightest, are you!?"

"Not at all~"

With Dax only stopping to embarrass Rin once he felt his life was in danger from Lilly's resulting jealousy, boarding was slightly delayed but overall without issues. Travelling for a few days with the fleet it was finally time for what everybody on board had been waiting for, a live fire weapons demonstration conducted in a resource depleted asteroid belt. After witnessing the mighty power of the brand new 720 mill anti ship rail guns and next generation torpedoes designed by Lazarus it was finally time for the main event. although the was still technically classified, there had been talk about the so called N class weapons technology and its capabilities ever since the Ingenuity set sail, something which both Dax and fleet admiral Simmons chose to ignore as it was great for morale, morale also being the reason why the live fire weapons demonstration was broadcast to not only the rest of the 3rd strike group, but also the rest of the galactic empire.

"Initiate local subroutine #33402, kill nonessential power use and reroute everything to node #9."

When it was finally time for the weapons demonstration, Phillipa took over command from fleet admiral Simmons as she instructed the bridge crew on how to activate the massive mana generator which had been installed aboard the Ingenuity and up until that point in time kept a secret.

"Weapons officer please report."

"Yes, ma'am. Mana purity at 97%, all generators online and holding at 20% output, ready for tasking."

Although the officer had no idea what he was talking about, he nevertheless did his job admirably and reported the numbers presented to him with only mild confusion visible on his face.

"Solaris, are you up for it?"

"Sure."

With Dax quickly selecting the operator for the test, Solaris walked out in front of the other officers present on the bridge to an empty area at the front, as she neared countless screens and contact interfaces emerged from the floor and ceiling. Gripping hold of a guard rail presented to her, Solaris focused as she spread out her pair of large, pure white wings, those were quickly joined by ones made out of golden mana crystals as she used an ascension spell to take control of the vast amount of mana generated by the ship's mana generator.

"I have control."

Ignoring the confusion which spread on the bridge behind her, Solaris achieved full control of the mana with her 20th set of wings, almost filling the area offered to her with a truly impressive array of mana crystals in addition to her own wings which also started glowing brightly.

"Affirmative, you are to destroy the target at point 19. Fire when ready."

"Roger."

With the order from Phillipa, Solaris drew a thin smile as she started weaving a truly massive spell formation, at its completion she uttered only a single quiet word for its activation.

"Lighting."

With that single word, the world of technology was introduced to magic, and in a truly spectacular way too. In a split second, a gigantic spell formation formed out of nothing in front of the Ingenuity, drawfing the battleship in size before generating a mass of energized plasma on par with that of a supermassive solar storm which was focused into a single tight beam which launched at near light speed towards a 20 kilometre wide asteroid, evaporating it like it was a bead of water hitting a ripping hot plate of metal.

"Target eliminated."