A/N: And now for something different.

Synopsis: The War in Heaven brought death and chaos to the galaxy on a scale that would not be surpassed until the arrival of the Contingency, centuries later. It started when a pair of newly awakened precursor empires reignited their old rivalries and dragged dozens of spacefaring civilizations with them into a three-way conflict between them and the largest federation the galaxy had ever seen, at war for the first time when both Awakened Empires saw its declaration of neutrality and independence as an act of war.

It was a time of strife that had not been seen in several millennia. Even centuries after the war's end, stories would still be told of the massive battles that changed the face of the galaxy and its nations forever.

This is not one of those stories.

This is the story of a small and insignificant skirmish in the opening years of the War in Heaven, forgotten by all but a handful of survivors.

SIDESHOW I

"Never forget, Vice Admiral, that no matter how much it may look like it from the displays that surround the walls of the command deck, you are not changing the variables in a spreadsheet when you order a planetary invasion, or when you engage in orbital bombardment of an alien empire's homeworld. You are wiping out tens of thousands of years of history with a single barrage from your flagship's main battery. You liquefy mountain ranges and vaporize oceans in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea. Even your soldiers—who I know are disciplined and skilled beyond measure—cannot completely avoid partaking in the horrors of war that we so arrogantly and clinically refer to as 'collateral damage'. A church full of cowering civilians mistakenly designated for an airstrike here, a squad of surrendering alien soldiers accidentally gunned down there…"

"I understand."

"No, Vice Admiral. You don't. I can see it in your eyes. Commit these words of mine to memory: the reason we negotiate with other empires and seldom wage war is not out of weakness. We are not lacking in knowledge, technology, soldiers, or ships, as someone of your rank surely knows. We are simply all too aware of the fact that war is more than a mere word or an abstract concept. It is a terrible, terrible thing beyond imagining. It robs the participants of their lives, their homes, and in a very real way, their souls. There is a reason, Vice Admiral, that in addition to scholars and scientists, our culture venerates those who show both martial prowess and great restraint, as neither is useful without the other. Something you evidently fail to appreciate."

"…Am I to return to my ship?"

"The lieutenant will be escorting you elsewhere."

"For what? Making a tactical error?"

"No. Since you seem to still be confused, let me elaborate. Your tactics are not in doubt. In fact, had I been in your place, knowing how unwilling the enemy was to surrender? I too would have ordered the full bombardment of the Bryll homeworld. Lieutenant, bring up the recording, time stamp one-sixteen-thirty, and pause the playback."

"Yes ma'am."

"Why are you-"

"I want to make sure you know the difference between us before you go, Sothis. As I said, I would have given the exact same order as you, had our positions been reversed.

"But I promise you, if I did have to order the destruction of yet another world, and the deaths of everyone on it? I wouldn't be smiling the way you did."

- Conversation between Sothis Ikkar and Mikaba Karis (High Commander of the Kel Union and President of the Galactic Concorde (2200-present day)) shortly after the end of the Kel Union - Bryll Star League War (2330-2330 Kel Union total victory, Bryll Star League destroyed.)

The Azax System was the very picture of unimportance.

The diminutive star system sat on the edge of the Qopinjaxi High Kingdom's territory, a fledgling empire that, even in their desperate bids to acquire new territory, did not feel the need to greatly invest in the system's sole colony, Tero. At first glance, it was a perfectly habitable planet for the Jaxi, an insectoid race that evolved on a planet with oceans and continents not unlike that of Earth's. Unfortunately, the planet happened to be the exact mix of 'too small to make proper investment worthwhile' and 'too mineral-rich to leave alone', stifling any hope for Tero to be more than a moderately successful mining world.

Which was exactly what it ended up becoming.

"Status?" Captain Arka Sanyal of the United Nations of Earth prodded her bridge crew. It was the first word anyone there had spoken in hours.

Lieutenant Canis, the communications officer, didn't look up from his console. "Ma'am. The Malta has finished its sensor sweep at the edge of the system and is returning to our position. The Alexandria reports all systems normal."

'In other words, business as usual' went unsaid, but there was no mistaking the man's voice, laden with the kind of soul-deep boredom that could convince someone that time was passing in slow motion.

Arka didn't blame him.

Privately, (although she suspected her crew could tell by looking at her) she thought the entire deployment was an exercise in futility at best, and a pointless political move at worst.

The Qopinjaxi High Kingdom had only recently joined the Galactic Concorde. And while their people were agreeable enough, the long standing members of the galaxy's largest federation were rankled at how they were now bound to defend the comparatively weaker empire, whose government and culture was spiritualistic and authoritarian to the core, contrasting greatly against the more egalitarian and materialistic values held by almost all Concorde nations.

It didn't help that many saw the Qopinjaxi as cowards who only joined the Concorde because they didn't want to be conscripted into either side of the ongoing War in Heaven.

But the Kel Union had spoken. They accepted the Qopinjaxi's request, and the rest of the federation acquiesced with few arguments. They had little desire to vote against the Kel, who founded the Concorde and whose fleets were as numerous as they were technologically advanced, composing more than 90% of the federation's armed forces. Even so, the War in Heaven had left the Kel Union's navy stretched thin across the vastness of Concorde space. A consequence of having so many allied nations to defend, but only a handful capable of even slowing down the precursor empires that now threatened the galaxy.

And so it was that the United Nations of Earth, a willing protectorate under the Kel Union, offered the service of its meager fleets to share the burden of guarding the Galactic Concorde's nations. On paper (or at least, in the UNE President's broadcast), it sounded like a great idea that would show solidarity and prove to the Kel that humanity was worthy of respect.

In practice, it meant that the UNE navy—which was significantly smaller and less potent than the Kel's—was forced to defend too much territory with too few ships, far less successfully than their overlord.

Arka glanced at the tac screen. A holographic representation of the Azax system was displayed, along with her motley and unnamed flotilla of the UNS Alexandria and Malta, a pair of destroyers, and her own ship, the cruiser-class UNS Rubicon, which sat comfortably in high orbit of Tero.

Not for the first time, she marvelled at how much effort and resources had been expended just on moving three fully militarized starships so far from UNE space. And how it was all wasteful and pointless. Either Azax would be ignored by the warring Awakened Empires, in which case there was no point in stationing her ships there, or the system would come under attack, surely by a fleet more numerous and advanced than her own, meaning defeat was inevitable.

In which case, there was still no point in stationing her ships there.

"Captain? We're reading incoming hyperspace contacts," the voice of Lieutenant Stevens, her ship's sensor officer, shook Arka out of her musings.

She spared her a glance. "Source?"

"It's- ah, wait a minute. That can't be right."

Captain Arka's stomach dropped. Much like doctors, pilots, and people who manned artillery cannons, when a sensor officer said 'wait a minute', nothing good tended to happen in the immediate future.

Sure enough, Stevens looked up at her, a faintly worried expression on her face. "Captain, these contacts are coming in from the Gemma system."

"How many?" she asked while gesturing to Lieutenant Murphy, the engineering officer. Wordlessly, the man started bringing the ship's reactor from its idle setting to its maximum output.

"Uh, thirty-seven, ma'am."

That figure erased any doubt in her mind that it was a sensor glitch or a few passing Tiyanki space whales. They didn't travel in packs of several dozen.

"Canis, contact the Malta and Alexandria, have them form up on us. Tell them to hurry it up," she ordered as the man started barking into his communications equipment and the bridge crew erupted into activity. "Raise shields and ready weapons. Advise the Qopinjaxi that we have detected incoming contacts of unknown origin, likely hostile. And-"

"Detecting increased hyperspace signatures, they're entering the system!"

Arka racked her mind for what the contacts could be as she panned the tac screen's map to the system's edge, where several blue-white portals were forming near the Azax-Gemma hyperlane. Azax and every system it connected to was in the middle of the Grasping Claw Nebula, fraught with solar storms and thick clouds of stellar gases that blocked long range sensors. It was a favored raiding ground for marauders, but something in Arka's gut told her that whatever was incoming wasn't a mere pirate fleet.

The space around the hyperplane continued to warp and crackle with flashes of exotic energy. Dozens of portals, glowing with the signature pale blue associated with hyperdrives, suddenly expanded and disappeared with a violent burst of energy that seemed to tear at space itself before abruptly vanishing.

As they disappeared, thirty-six ships took their place. They were sleek and narrow, with iridescent hulls of dark silver, studded with the occasional fin that reminded Arka of predatory sea creatures. The majority of the ships were small; corvette-tonnage vessels with a handful of destroyers, but it was the thirty-seventh ship that stole everyone's attention. Massive and vaguely cross-shaped, with azure light overlapping its armor and aft end. It was several kilometers wide and thrice as tall, with a gleaming hull of impossible alloys that confused the Rubicon's sensor array. Captain Arka narrowed her eyes. She didn't immediately recognize the smaller ships, but there was no mistaking the massive battlecruiser for what it was.

There was only one empire in the entire galaxy that used such ships. One empire, infamous throughout the entire galaxy.

The Lozavata Zealots. An ancient precursor empire that had recently grown tired of remaining dormant and spreading its religion through peaceful means. And, as of a few weeks ago, enemy of the Galactic Concorde and all its member nations.

Immediately, the massive ship turned with a grace and speed that belied its size, until it was pointed directly at the one UNS ship that was far out of position and too close to flee—the UNS Malta.

Lieutenant Stevens started to shout a warning as her instruments trilled in alarm, but it didn't matter. The Lozavata battlecruiser's front glowed an ominous purple and white before the light erupted outwards in a blinding flash.

The Malta was a brand new Apollo-class Destroyer. It was a kilometer long, equipped with the UNE's most bleeding-edge technology, including new and improved shield generators and reinforced plasteel armor, gifts from humanity's Kel overlords. At the hand of Commander Haye, a man Arka personally knew to be competent and level-headed, it was a fearsome vessel that could go head to head against the vast majority of ships in the galaxy.

All of which only afforded the Malta half a second of survival before its shields and armor buckled underneath the precursor battlecruiser's powerful arc emitter. The vicious weapon tore through the UNE ship's hull like a lightning bolt from God, turning half the ship into molten slag and sparking secondary explosions throughout the other half, but the worst was yet to come.

The Rubicon's bridge crew failed to avert their eyes from the tac screen as the containment fields for the Malta's antimatter reactor failed, causing the once-proud vessel to come apart in an inferno that briefly lit up the vacuum of space in a furious display of orange and red before it was snuffed out. In its absence, nothing remained save for an expanding debris field of plasteel shards that glowed red with heat. None were larger than a dinner plate.

Arka clenched her fists. People had died under her command before—it was impossible to become a captain without taking some kind of loss—but there was something uniquely stinging about the way the Lozavata ship obliterated the Malta and her crew with casual, arrogant ease.

Silence reigned over the Rubicon's bridge for what felt like hours.

"Ma'am." Lieutenant Stevens broke the stillness. Her voice was hard and had lost its placid undertone. "Your orders?"

Her words banished Arka's previous line of thought. Commander Haye and his crew would have to wait before they could be mourned. "What's the status on the Alexandria?"

"They're ten thousand kilometers distant and closing on our location. Commander Fitzgerald is reporting all systems nominal, ready for battle."

"And the enemy fleet?" She examined the tac screen, examining the hostiles ships as they edged into sensor range, her ship's systems providing more details as they drew closer. The avian-like vessels were armed largely with ultraviolet-based lasers, with their destroyer-tonnage vessels sporting additional flak cannons and missile silos with unknown payloads.

Arka grit her teeth. Any one of the enemy ships were smaller, weaker, and a few generations behind her own on the technological curve. They would have been a non-threat if they didn't outnumber her so massively and had a Lozavata battlecruiser on their side.

Symbols appeared over the alien fleets as Stevens updated the tac screen. A three-pointed star against a purple and green background for the Lozavata battlecruiser, and a dot surrounded by two semicircles on a black and blue flag for the smaller ships. Finally, Arka recognized them.

The Larongo Sacrosanct Order. A militaristic race of avian bipeds whose religious fervor was matched only by their skill in battle. They had a long history of disdain for the Kel Union—along with everyone they associated with—and were among the first nations to willingly join forces with the Lozavata Zealots.

"Ma'am, hostile vessels are on the move," Stevens said. Her report was punctuated by the shifting of threat icons on his displays. "They're heading for Azax Station."

Arka checked the tac screen, frowning at the results. Indeed, the Larongo ships were advancing towards the Qopinjaxi's starbase, but what drew her attention was the precursor battlecruiser. It sat still at the edge of the system, not having moved since it erased the Malta.

What the hell are they doing? Arka's mind raced. Was the Lozavata ship planning something, or was its captain so arrogant they didn't feel the need to participate any further in the battle?

Then she noticed something else; a slight shift in the advance of the Larongo ships.

"Sensors, run another scan," she commanded. "I'm seeing a split in the enemy fleet."

"Confirmed," Lieutenant Stevens tapped furiously at her console. "I count ten enemy ships changing course towards Tero. All corvette-class vessels- correction! Six corvettes, four transport craft!"

Arka swore. Planetary invasions were always a messy affair, and there was no way she could prevent the hostile transports from reaching the planet. Not with only two ships to her command, and certainly not when she had to reinforce the local starbase as well…

"Ma'am," Lieutenant Canis spoke up. "Commander Fitzgerald is requesting orders. What should I tell him?"

"Order him to put the Alexandria in a defensive position around Tero," she said. "His priority is to prevent the destruction of the colony by any means necessary until further orders. And get a message to our troops on the surface, tell them to prepare for a hostile ground invasion."

"Message sent, ma'am. Commander Fitzgerald copies and is moving to Tero orbit."

"What about us, captain?" asked the ship's helmsman, Lieutenant Finch. "What are our orders?"

Arka glanced at the tac screen again, this time as it displayed Azax Station. The Qopinjaxi starbase was flanked on either side by a pair of small defensive platforms. They constituted the only friendly space assets in the system other than her own ships, and they were about to come under attack by a force that outnumbered them almost nine times over.

Would her ship be enough to turn the tide?

It didn't matter. It was the only option.

"Helm," she said. "Flank speed to the station."

As Lieutenant Finch acknowledged her order and brought the Rubicon's plasma thrusters to their maximum output, Captain Arka keyed the ship's intercom.

"All hands, hostile contact is imminent. Seal all bulkheads and prepare for battle."

A/N: This all started when I looked at the progress my assault armies were making on a planet—something that was represented only by a few health bars going down—and I wondered what a ground battle in the Stellaris universe was really like.