The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2835. The Battle of Scipio (Part 1)

Andre Viking, dressed in a black military uniform, stood side by side with Vasari General Kelslak in the center of the bridge of a Keltu Destroyer.

The interiors of the Vasari warships were also mostly painted black, which, combined with the red screen projections inside, created a strong sense of menace.

“The Vasari respect the strong,” Kelsrak said viciously. “If you are not strong, next time, you will be the one lying on the altar.”

Ander-Viking smiled slightly and said nothing.

Accompanying the Vasari fleet were Muun navigators. They would guide the fleet through the secret passage between Macito and Scipio.

The Muun originated on the planet Mulinster, but they amassed their wealth on Macito, a planet known for its crystal and gemstone production. As they leveraged their business acumen to expand their operations throughout the galaxy, they naturally began to develop towards the inner circle.

The planet Scipio served as a crucial springboard for their expansion into the inner circle. After the Muun people began operating the financial industry, they established a massive vault on Scipio, storing enormous amounts of rare metals and credit ingots there as a basic credit guarantee for their loans to the entire galaxy.

However, during the Clone Wars, the Interstellar Banking Association began to split. Under Palpatine's covert influence, the Interstellar Banking Association split into a human faction led by the Inner Circle planets Scipio and Algo, and a Muon faction led by the planets Macito and Mullinst.

Ultimately, the human faction, dissatisfied with the Muen's long-standing control over the core power of the Interstellar Banking Association, suddenly launched an attack, attempting to seize control of the treasury on Scipio.

However, the Kingdom of Dawn acted decisively, robbing the treasury of Planet Scipio and rescuing the core five members of the Interstellar Banking Association.

This move directly led to the collapse of the Galactic Republic's economic system and the split of the Interstellar Banking Association.

Ultimately, the human faction occupied the planets Scipio and Algo, controlling most of the senior management and fixed assets of the Interstellar Banking Association, and reorganized into the Interstellar Banking Association (S), which is Scipio.

Meanwhile, the Mygeeto faction returned to the Outer Ring, establishing their headquarters on Mygeeto, and rebuilt the Interstellar Banking Association (M), which stands for Mygeeto.

For thousands of years, during which the Intergalactic Banking Association controlled the economic lifeline of the galaxy, it opened a secret route between the planets Macito and Scipio in order to strengthen financial regulation and the stability of intergalactic settlements.

This route is extremely well-hidden; it was discovered by the Muen people through a massive investment of over a decade by hiring astronomers and hyperspace experts. The navigation data for this route is incredibly complex, navigating between tens of thousands of stars and incorporating their orbital patterns. It contains thousands of hyperspace nodes, and only by precisely following the navigation data can hyperspace jumps be successful; otherwise, one will simply crash into the mass projection of a star.

This navigation data alone requires a massive computing array to continuously verify it; any tiny deviation will lead to catastrophic consequences.

After the split of the Interstellar Banking Association, the Galactic Empire secretly deployed multiple hyperspace jammers and encrypted beacons to prevent the Muen from reactivating this route. Any ship that travels through this route will be immediately detected and dealt with.

Furthermore, this route is extremely complex, and the astronomical distance between Macito and Scipio is vast, so even hyperspace travel would take four or five days. This time would allow the Galactic Empire to prepare defenses in a timely manner.

Therefore, the defenses of Planet Scipio have always been very solid, and the Kingdom of Dawn would not be foolish enough to send a fleet on a long journey to their deaths.

Aside from the fact that Geth used a human-shaped version of the Throne-class battlecruiser with a warp drive to Scipio for what was more of a warning harassment, the Kingdom of Dawn has no intention of attacking this planet.

But now, the situation has finally changed.

Facing Kelslack's almost blatant threat, Andre Wiking smiled and said, "I'm not exactly a strongman. But if we're talking about victory, we're fully prepared."

His confidence was not unfounded. Attacking Planet Scipio was a goal Tang Xiao set three months ago, with the initial requirement of conquering the planet within a month. However, a month was unrealistic, so the plan was eventually extended to three months.

This plan began as soon as Tang Xiao personally took over the planet Palansi.

Withdrawing from the already occupied planet Palancy was the first step in Ander-Viking's plan. Although it appeared on the surface that he had easily abandoned the Dawn King's last effort while he was still lucid, it was actually complementary to his plan.

Tang Xiao's occupation of Palansi Planet made the Galactic Empire immediately realize the suffocating feeling of being able to launch attacks in all directions and spread the flames of war throughout the core area of ​​the Northern Territory after occupying that transportation hub.

Therefore, when the Galactic Empire launched the Goalkeeper Plan and fought back desperately, and finally reclaimed Palancy after paying a heavy price, they cherished it immensely and began to frantically build a defensive system on Palancy.

Furthermore, the First Star System Army's base was moved from the original Anax-Sipio planet to Anax-Sipio-Palanci planet. Their battle lines were stretched and their forces were dispersed.

Furthermore, they focused more on Palancy and the neighboring Bilblin planet, gradually ignoring the threat posed by Scipio.

The Geth's raid on Scipio was not meant to warn them of a potential threat, but rather to subtly tell Marshal Oswald Tesik that the Dawn Kingdom could only threaten Scipio through Geth and the warp drive; there was no other way.

Therefore, during the following period, all of Dawn Kingdom's military operations in the North were aimed at diverting the attention of the Galactic Empire's First Star System Army to Planet Palancy.

From that moment on, the Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command had been judging that the Dawn Kingdom's goal in the North was definitely to reclaim the planet Palancy and then launch attacks in all directions, turning the entire northern core area upside down.

And from a psychological perspective, this is indeed the case. When the Dawn Kingdom occupied Palancy, it held a tremendous strategic advantage. Therefore, when the Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command analyzed the Dawn Kingdom's strategic thinking, considering it from the Dawn Kingdom's perspective, they naturally assumed that the psychological impact of losing what they had gained would affect their judgment. The Galactic Empire always believed that the Dawn Kingdom wanted to use Palancy as a stepping stone to penetrate the inner circle. However, they were completely unaware that the Dawn Kingdom, having already obtained the data on the Celestial Pivot route, could actually directly threaten Coruscant!
This is why Lieutenant General Luo Huacheng said that the Galactic Empire always thought that the Dawn Kingdom's military operations in the North were aimed at opening a passage, but in reality, the Dawn Kingdom was always thinking about how to keep the First Star System Army's attention in the North and turn it into a meat grinder.

Then, the departure of the main Northern fleet from Bilblin to the Eastern Frontier was seen by the Galactic Empire as a move to shift the strategic focus of the Dawn Kingdom.

They did indeed guess that the Kingdom of Dawn was trying to launch a feint, but they would never consider Scipio as a potential target. They speculated it might be Palin-Minor, the heart of the North; Lantilis, the capital of the Twelfth Army; or even a decisive battle with the Fourth Army.

The most reliable assessment came from the drug-addicted Marshal Miltin-Takl, who believed that the Kingdom of Dawn might want to break through the Fourth Army's defenses and threaten the Delon System's defenses from the flank and rear—and that was indeed the Kingdom of Dawn's plan, but not now.

Regardless of the assessments of the high-ranking generals at all levels of the Galactic Empire, they never considered Scipio as a potential target for attack.

So when the Kingdom of Dawn revealed the unfinished second Divine Messenger-class Titan warship, the Galactic Empire couldn't sit still.

They didn't want the Dawn Kingdom's fleet to threaten any of their perceived targets, even if it was just a feint. Furthermore, the capture of Bilbrin, their fortress planet, had created a sense of insecurity within the core. Therefore, they wanted to push the battle lines further away from the core while simultaneously preventing further military action by the Dawn Kingdom, wherever it might be.

Therefore, attacking the sparsely populated planet Bilblin became inevitable.

What the Kingdom of Dawn wants is for the First Star System Army to attack the planet Bilbrin, even if the final price is losing the planet to the Galactic Empire.

Regardless of the First Star System's plans, the important thing is to keep their main fleet stuck on Bilblin.

In this way, the planet Scipio became empty once again!
Actually, it wouldn't be accurate to say that he felt particularly empty, because the Guardian Executor-class super star destroyer was currently on the planet Scipio.

But for Andre Viking, that's enough!

The Vasari fleet set sail, consisting of 20 Keltu Destroyers, 10 Vakonos Destroyers, and 100 transport ships.

The massive fleet entered the stargate on the planet Macito and then began its journey along the secret route between Macito and Scipio.

In the entire Milky Way galaxy, when it comes to the level of technology and understanding of hyperspace and phase space, the Vasari are second to none. Their current application involves using the stargate as a phase accelerator to drive hyperspace travel.

This is essentially a journey that combines stargates and hyperspace. It's not a stargate-to-stargate journey, but rather a journey through a stargate into hyperspace, eventually arriving at a place without stargates.

Only Vasari warships could use stargates so crudely, so this raid could only be carried out by the Vasari!

That's right, speed up!
Since we are going to launch an attack, it is absolutely impossible to proceed step by step and give the enemy enough time to react!
The Vasari's hyperspace engines were already far faster than their Galactic Empire counterparts, and the sheer size of the Keltu Destroyers and Vakonos Destroyers further amplified their energy levels. Now, with the addition of stargates for acceleration, reaching Scipio would only take a day!
When Rear Admiral Kallic, captain of the Guardian Executor-class super star destroyer, received a call about possible abnormal hyperspace fluctuations along the Macito-Scipio route, his first thought was whether the Kingdom of Dawn was harassing them again, and he wanted to find a place to clear out the hyperspace blockers set up by the Galactic Empire.

He finished his wine in one gulp while having his meal and said, "Don't pay any attention to those bugs. Just send some more engineering ships over tomorrow and deploy another batch of jammers."

Three hours later, after Major General Carrick finished his meal and rested for a while, an officer rushed over and shouted, "General! Our deployed hyperspace jammers have lost contact across a large area!"

Slightly tipsy, Carrick still didn't realize the seriousness of the situation. He frowned and said, "Has it been a hyperspace storm? Let the technicians check again."

The officer said urgently, "No! It shouldn't be a hyperspace storm! Judging from the fact that the hyperspace jammer is constantly losing contact, something is 'crashing' through the jammer and heading towards us!"

"You mean an invasion?" Carrick quickly ran towards the bridge.

On the expansive bridge of the Executor-class superstar destroyer, Carrick arrived at the sensor department, where he saw only a blinding expanse of red error messages—all reporting that the hyperspace jammers had lost contact. And this message was spreading rapidly, its target: Scipio!

Major General Carrick was momentarily stunned, because he was indeed the highest military commander on Planet Scipio, which was why the officer had reported this matter to him. But the problem was that most of the time he was just a captain; even if the warship was relatively advanced, he didn't actually need to make strategic decisions. He only needed to be responsible for commanding the warship well.

Moreover, the Guardian Executor-class super star destroyer has never actually been in combat!

"Quickly! Raise the battle alarm! Put the entire ship into combat readiness immediately!" Rear Admiral Carrick shouted.

"Are we the only ones? What about the other warships?" the adjutant asked. "General, Marshal Oswald Tessik took almost our entire main fleet with him. Now, you are the highest-ranking officer here."

Carrick then realized what was happening and added, "Put all warships to combat readiness!"

He turned to the technicians and asked, "How long until the loss of these hyperspace jammers spreads to our planet?"

"It is estimated that there are still..." the operator said after pressing the screen for a while, "...9 hours and 12 minutes left!" (End of this chapter)