The hivemind is conquering for me?

"Woah." I muttered underneath my breath as I observed the planet that came in view. I did not think calling it a planet was suitable anymore. Even from this far away I could tell the entire world had been forged into a defensive fortification, and that was only observable through all the cracks left by the uncountable amount of ships and massive space stations orbiting.

"WOW. WOW. WOW! Look at them all! Apollo, look at my hands! They are shaking like crazy!" Keyla said, causing me to turn my head. It was not just her hands, it was her entire body that was shaking.

"Keyla, are you ok? Are you nervous, sheesh, I know I am, I mean... That is a lot and I mean a lot of-" Keyla butted in due to her excitement. "Nervous? No. I can feel my whole body swelling up with energy. I can smell it from here like the space between us is irrelevant. So much blood waiting to be spilled AHHh~ I am so excited."

Ignoring the Keyla, Orchid walked up to me and hugged my arm, resting her head upon my shoulder as she looked out at what I was. "What has made you nervous Apollo? Given ours and their numbers, we still outnumber them by a significant factor."

I gulped back, unable to look away from the planet. "And um, have you scanned the planet? How many are down there?" Orchid did not even take a second as she replied. "The queen has scanned herself, but is getting strange reading due to the abnormally high amount of Psionic energy on the planet, but she estimates roughly twenty billion biologicals and many factor more robots. The interesting thing is the prey seemed aware of our arrival much earlier than usual, they have had a lot of time to prepare for an attack. It is a good thing the entire scout fleet is currently with us and have not dispersed to neighbouring star systems yet."

After hearing that, I shrugged myself free from Orchid and placed my hands on my knees, breathing deeply. "Apollo, can you tell Orchid what is wrong? She wishes to help you." Not replying right away, I took in a few more breaths, in which time Keyla had come out of her state and began rubbing my back in a consoling way before feeling a little better and began to explain myself.

"I have had a few 'war's' so far. The ker'min invasion when I turned sixteen and most recently the the multiple battles on Alexandria. I have killed, and while still not used to it, I can do so when needed, but those to me were still small skirmishes. Against the Ker'mins, I only killed a handful of the yellow things before we got distracted love, you were still concerned for me after all. And my tally was not that high on Alexandria either.

But this. This is war. True war. Billions against billions more. We are talking numbers my inferior brain can scarcely comprehend. It is sort of just hitting me now and I am a tad bit overwhelmed. I'll be fine though... I think."

Orchid did not know how to console her mate. To her, the hive, Billions of entities were truly nothing. A quick snack in the constant search for food. Keyla, however. "Pfft~ Bahahaha!" She began laughing, finding that the situation ticked her side.

Giving Keyla a look as she laughed at my self conflict, she noticed and began laughing again, holding her finger up to indicate 'give her a minute.' After laughing a few moments longer, she calmed down and took a deep breath before saying.

"Oh Apollo. I sometimes forget because of how great you are and how much I am in love with you, but you really are just a 'normal guy' with Psionic powers huh? It just hit me after you said your piece. Here we are on a hive ship about to invade a planet of billions. It is pretty fucking strange huh?"

Turning to Keyla, it was like a lightbulb just went off in my head, illuminating the thought I had for so long. "Right? I mean my life is totally bizarre. Don't get me wrong, I would not change a thing about it, I love you all so much, but like, how am I at the head of an armada about to assault a world? It truly is bonkers. Hahaha!"

Keyla and I began laughing again. Orchid joined in too, though she was just happy that I was happy again. The light jest of the situation proved cathartic and the overwhelming pressure I was feeling looking at the planet before had washed away.

And at the perfect time as well, for it seemed we had arrived close enough to the planet that the defenders had begun to make their first move. The space stations around the planet began to glow a caustic green colour, charging up over an entire minute before firing gigantic lasers towards the Hive fleet.

Jewel was linked up to the head ship of the fleet and activated the dispersion fields around the front of the ships, tucking in the tendrils of the ships to reduce surface area. The Gigantic lasers fired in a continuous beam and struck the dispersion fields heavily, digging in a full meter before the energy was dispersed.

Jewel was multitasking every ship that had been hit. One of the ship's dispersion fields was having a tough time, the laser slowly chipping through the dispersion field, a meter at a time. Jewel noticed a small fault in that ship's brain and began to fix it on the fly, something she doesn't usually do during her standard autonomy.

After the tiny fix, the brain of the ship returned to peak efficiency, allowing the dispersion field to return to its full strength and the green laser to be pushed back to the meter mark. The Hive fleet continued to 'slowly' encroach upon the planet, a predator knowing there is no escape for its prey can take its time after all; It preserves its energy for the right moment.

After a short while, the hive fleet seemed to cross an invisible line and the lasers increased their firepower while out of the spaceports and those already countless in space itself. Countless drones and one man ships began pouring into space.

Jewel looked slightly bored as she began opening up the sides of her ships, the fight around the planets themselves are a tease of sorts, they are too hectic to stop and grab a bite and she needs to be constantly moving.

As the sides of her ships opened. Wing Rippers and freethinker variants began pouring out of the sides of the ships like a flood before dispersing. The moment the Rippers appeared past the dispersion fields, the Thurx drones and all other ships began firing on mass towards the mass of creatures that had created a gigantic wall in the middle of space.

Hundreds of thousands began dying in mass as shot after shot from the defending fleet began to cut down large swathes of rippers. Though where one dies, another five take its place a moment later, the bodies of the dead blocking and providing cover for the oncoming wall.

With how fast the rippers could move without drag, it did not take long before they became a threat for the defenders. The firing line had to disperse so friendly fire could be avoided and a dogfight of mass proportions began.

Watching from my viewpoint, I could not see much. the constant stream of Wing rippers blocking a lot of the battlefield. But considering the fight had no level and began taking place everywhere, what I did see, I was both terrified and in awe of.

Already, there were countless corpses and scrapped ships drifting everywhere. The dogfighting was not as normal as I would think. Considering the rippers have no self preservation, they do not try any evasive manoeuvres, they simply chase down a ship or a drone until it is destroyed and move on.

It was like the ship fight had turned into a melee, the ones with the guns, now that the rippers were close, were actually at a disadvantage. Still, there were so many ships on both sides, I was not even sure when we would be able to break through fully.

...

Aeletha sat in the war room with the generals of the coalition. "The hunger is at full strength as we are the first stop with their new fleet as far as we can tell. It is only a matter of time until they break through our orbit defenses!" An Altax reported, tugging at his tusk nervously.

"It is proven our lasers will break through that barrier on their main ships eventually, we must defend them until the barriers are down. Cor'voth, how long do you think we have until the main ships break through and attempt their drops?" Aeletha asked and turned to the Plipit.

The small little creature was currently doing calculations incredibly fast on a tiny data pad, showing that his technocratic state appointed him a senator for a reason. He then looked up, a bleak expression on his face.

"By my calculations, they will have destroyed enough of our ships to begin a main assault in a little over sixteen hours."