The first Innu vessel arrived the next day, a full 48 hours early for their deployment. They had done a raffle across all the Innu homeworlds, and this ship was the one that got the first lucky ticket.
Of course, they had made sure that anyone who entered knew the risks and had both a ship and crew that were prepared for the task. The lucky winners had been on a medical research tour when the announcement was made, helping local governments with plague outbreaks, and they were confident that they could transfer their skills to the battlefield.
In Max's mind, that was only half of the story. The Innu, by unspoken consent of the majority, were doing their very best to ingratiate themselves with the Humans.
As word of Absolution and the other Reaver vessels had spread through their society, along with the technological advancements, they had begun to suspect that they had found kindred spirits.
But when news of Gravity Slides and Coffee had become common knowledge, the majority of the species had decided that humans truly loved them and wanted to make them happy.
Human culture was portrayed as a paradise in their newest cartoons, a subtle jab that only barely made it past Government censors.
Fortunately for them, the censors weren't Innu, so they looked at the reality of the descriptions and the fact that it didn't actually speak down about the Alliance and let it pass without fully realizing how the Innu would take it.
If Max had asked for military volunteers, they would have found a loophole to join. But the public announcement was that he asked for support ships, and they were happy to oblige.
Not long afterwards, the rest of the Innu vessels arrived, all eager for the chance to take a day off aboard Absolution before it was time to go.
That was no surprise to anyone, and Felicity had already assigned them docking berths that were close to the beach resorts on the second level.
The Valkia warships were the last to arrive. As a Government fleet, they had come right on schedule, 12 hours before departure time, so that their crews could sync sleep schedules with the rest of the fleet.
That wasn't actually going to be possible, as most of the fleet was Androids, but they got themselves adjusted to the Absolution time zone easily enough, and Max would be using that for the entire mission into the Rift and afterward.
[One hour to departure, all departing Captains, please ensure your crew are aboard and at their stations.] Felicity reminded the Station, specifically targeting the areas that still had stragglers aboard with increased volume.
The AI also made additional transit pods available for the stragglers to grab back to their ships so that they would make it on time and not hold up the whole procedure because they lost track of their surroundings.
The occupants of Absolution got their first camera views of the full fleet at that point, as Max and Nico joined the newly built attack force and the Alliance reinforcements.
[You have brought quite the force. Tell me, Commander, how many humans have you sent today?] The Valkia Captain asked.
[Sadly, only the two of us. The rest of this fleet is an Android army. We are expecting a long and grinding battle which favours the Android bodies, which can have the memory cores reimplanted if they are destroyed.
It is a tactically superior option to losing more humans, but there are roughly eighty thousand of my people already engaged in the conflict.] Max explained.
The Valkia knew that the Humans had a headstart, but they had expected the human fleet to be much larger than what was already there. The Titan Class Mecha were not to be underestimated, but in pure numbers against an unknown army that threatened multiple Galaxies at the same time, it seemed like far too few.
They held their thoughts to themselves, though, and followed through when Max had Absolution open a portal to the Anomaly.
There was an entire army waiting for them there. One hundred more human-operated Destroyers, with escorts, including Vampires and even Narsians.
How they had managed to get that group together without someone turning it into a bloody battlefield was a mystery to Max, but the violent blue giants were waiting aboard a handful of old Colony Ships similar to Terminus to join the convoy that was heading for the battle.
[Now, this is a battle force.] The Valkia Captain whistled in appreciation at the sight.
[Welcome, Commander Keres Max and the forces of the Alliance. The Second Expeditionary Fleet is here to assist you in the battle at the Rift past Koleska Territory.] A lightly Kepler-accented voice announced.
[It is good to see you. The Anomaly Fleet is nearly into combat now, so we will be leading you toward battle as quickly as possible to reinforce them.] Max replied.
The Second Fleet fell into line, ready to proceed through the Anomaly alongside Max and his escorts, while the group assigned to replace the Defence Force that had gone forward moved well clear of the scene so that there would be no close calls.
The Innu fleet's excitement was palpable. They hadn't even gotten through the anomaly yet, and already, they had gotten the chance to see over thirty new ship designs that weren't in the Alliance database.
That was way better than they had expected, as they thought the Alliance databases were nearly complete. Max smiled to himself at their excitement. There were dozens if not hundreds, more species that hadn't been recorded at all by the Alliance. Even the Darklings had very minimal descriptions in their records.
The ships moved through the Anomaly, and Max set a course to the Defence Force. They were travelling at Warp 10, which was all that most of the ships in their fleet could maintain.
But the fleet he had brought was much faster, and Nico had confirmed that they could all hold Warp 25 for a sustained period of time except the two Narsian Colony Ships.
Max was impressed. He hadn't realized that there were so many advanced new human ships. But most of them had been made for the purpose, the same as his fleet had been. The Reavers had shut down all ongoing orders to build a fleet and had moved the forces over to them from more outdated vessels.
The occupants were mostly Kepler Core World and Cygnus soldiers, but the Vampires had sent over a large force that the Reavers had made new ships for, with the modifications that the Vampires requested, while the Narsians had brought their own.
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