Captain Brutus had been in command of his cutter for the last twenty years and had served with the fleet for thirty, he had been through six wars for territory and this was by far the worst led one he had ever been in, it wasn't just the loss it was the humiliating defeats that they had suffered not once or twice but consistently, it was enough for him and his men to truly wonder about their leadership and this he had found was not an isolated incident, it was as if the entire Pride was on the brink of total rebellion against the current alpha, since the loss of the Bones of Drago Museveni it was as if the winds of fate were against the dragons.

He and his patrol group were currently at the sector guard station that had once been a commonwealth guard station and it was situated next to a vast and almost impossible to navigate nebulae, and was currently the fleets main refuelling station for the Drago fleet, they were supposed to be refuelling then heading on to their main mission which was an attack on the Saber-Jaguar fleet HQ that would hopefully knock them out of the war and give the Dragons time enough to reorientate their fleet and crush the two upstart Prides that had dared to tempt the Dragon.

Currently, he was patrolling the immediate aria searching for any potential scouts and anything that could mean a potential threat.

"Captain," said a voice taking him out of his contemplations

"Yes"

"sir there has been an anomalous communication that the communications officer has been unable to verify"

"location"

"within the nebular"

"what?"

"within the nebular"

"Get me fleet command now"

"I can't sir were being jammed"

"what?" he said turning to his second when a massive explosive shock wave buffeted the ship like a dingy in a tsunami the internal dampeners and gravity were knocked offline and the ship was sent spinning, several of the crew died almost immediately somewhere liquidated when they were pulled into the ships into the main reactors and others died of bludgeoning as they impacted their consoles violently enough to powder their skulls, the command deck had been spattered red with the blood of the crews that had not been secured at their posts.

when the ship's automated systems had finally brought spin under control captain Brutus took stock of what had happened, it seemed as though the heavy cruiser that had been refuelling and rearming the Krakatoa had exploded taking all the ammunition stores and fuel that it had been storing with it along with the Guard station had been atomised, as had the five hundred ships closest to it because they had been in the cue to be refueled and armed.

The fleet had been devastated not a single ship from the heaviest battleship to the lightest prowler had been spared damage, but before Brutus could order damage repair teams to beg repairs space erupted in shining light as thousands of slip portals opened and a fleet of ships of commonwealth design had been disgorged, they struck with a fury that he had never seen then everything went white.

On the command deck of the Warth of Achilles Admiral Rhade smiled, this had been the first blow struck against the Nietzscheans in three hundred years.

"it was a good plan to send a VI worm to start the self-destruct command of the station" the Admiral turned to the voice it was the large African avatar of the ship

"Yes well" Rhade cleared his throat "it all went according to plan I only hope that the others were as successful as ours"

"the winds of fate has signalled," he said turning to the Admiral "the last of the Nietzscheans have been dealt with we can move on to earth and support the Andromeda and the twins"

"very well move us out"