Tales of the "Pink Mist" Ch. 10

Every spaceworthy ship on Monga-Actual had been put into service in an attempt to ferry the residents offplanet. This was a very bad move, indeed, for the Alliance was waiting and picked off the stragglers one by one.

By the fourth week of the sterilization of the planet, the air had grown too thin and toxic for the Meat Squad, so they were evacuated and replaced with combat drones. The planet was dead, but the Mongan Royalty refused to capitulate, having slipped away during the initial action.

Other systems and planets were undergoing virtually identical scenarios throughout the Empire

The Alliance suffered heavy damages, as well the Marauders.

The EXETER's right side was completely torn off by an out-of-control Mongan battlefrigate. She lost almost a third of her crew, but was able to limp back to Purgatory for repair. The damage to her body caused Salli to ramp up her ferocity, whereupon she interfaced with as many Mongan computers as she could and force them to open their doors to outside space.

On their way to rendezvous with an Alliance strike group, forty five ships belonging to the Marauders were forced from warp by an ambush and completely ripped apart. They managed to send out a distress call, which was answered too late by a massive Alliance force led by the Conorri Battle-Killer MORT D'ARTUR.

Six months and one week after hostilities began, His Royal Imperator Gomlo Valmaja, emperor of the now-devastated Mongan Empire, contacted Alliance President Cuthbertson to request an end to the war.

Overall, the Alliance had trashed ninety one solar systems. Total Mongan citizenry dead was close to two-hundred billion, with its fleet reduced to a mere ten percent of its former might.

The Alliance herself had lost over twenty thousand of the ninety thousand ships initially engaged. Almost a million Alliance and Marauder souls were lost.

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A new, fairly large hill had seemingly emerged from the ground overnight, a few hundred miles from the colony on Katham VIII. Alice had remotely piloted the HAWK'S WING down to the planet, a load of construction- and heavy-lifting bots aboard. Their mission was to dig a hole large enough for the PINK MIST to set down in, and once the dreadnaught was nestled snugly, cover her with the soil, topping the whole thing with the grassy sod. The massive main viewport, as well as a few smaller, windows were left visible. A small ramp was built down to the first hangar bay as a driveway for small utility cargo craft. The upper pedestrian hatches were level with the ground outside.

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Alice, carrying a small tray of food and drink, walked up the hill and gently sat on the ground beside Quillan. Laying the tray on the ground, she reached to stroke Quillan's waist-length gray hair, streaked with red, kissing her lightly on the cheek as the latter watched the sun set.

"Thirty years today, Quillan," she purred, flipping her own gray hair out of her face. "You never did get your hair cut."