Interstellar Age
Chapter 401 Venturing Into the Great Beyond

Erich stood on a small space station built on the edge of the galaxy within the borders of the Germanic Star-Empire. Standing before him were a group of several heavily armed men, men whose entire purpose was to wage war on behalf of the Empire's enemies.

These men had been given the information necessary to understand their task, and the severity of the consequences that would result if they were to fail. They knew this was a suicide mission, and they were more than willing to throw their lives away for the sake of the Empire.

The Germanic Star-Empire had, for well over a century, possessed the technology to revive its dead soldiers. There was always, of course, a potential for permanent death. But most soldiers never experienced this, and it was never really a concern for most men on the battlefield because of it.

"If I die, my consciousness will be uploaded into a clone, far away from this battlefield."

Yet these men knew that death was all but certain, and it was not the kind of death they could ever come back from. Despite this, they were not afraid. Rather, they were ready to embrace their fate. After all, life was meaningless, but the glory of the Empire? That was eternal and could never be besmirched!

Thus, these men stood before their emperor, a man who had recently claimed such a title, a man whose body had undergone a rebirth and was now immortal. The man who would lead their people on an eternal crusade to annihilate the Narkau menace wherever they may replace them. Knowing all of this, these men stood with their proudest salute as he listened to their words.

"Each and every one of you knows why you are here at the edge of the galaxy. In Andromeda lies a threat to the very survival of our people and our way of life. This threat is legion, their numbers unknown, and their territory incalculable....

This enemy is the Naraku. They seek to invade the Milky Way Galaxy and consume all biological life within it. But we will never let that happen. For as long as our people have eixsted, they have fought tooth and nail, against all odds for individual glory, and the glory of our great race.

Today, you will be the first men to march into another galaxy and wage war upon its inhabitants. You will strike at the heart of the Naraku hive which is spewing out their filthy insectoid race at a rapid rate, and you will deal them a critical blow. One that will set back their plans to invade the galaxy long enough for us to be properly prepared for their arrival.

You will die on this day, but your names will be etched into the halls of eternity, forever remembered as heroes of the Empire. Your offspring for a thousand generations will learn your names and be proud to have you as their ancestor.

So go forth, and wage war as you were born to do! Death to the enemy, and glory to the Empire!"

The last words were repeated back by the elite team of enhanced super soldiers whose objective was suicidal, yet there was not a hint of fear nor hesitation in their voices as they spoke them.

"Glory to the Empire!"

After saying this, the super soldiers boarded their deep space starship, designed to penetrate the gap between galaxies and take them to Andromeda within the span of only a few weeks. Erich and the other men and women who bore witness to this event, men and women who were sworn to secrecy, such as Mirage, saluted the soldiers as their spacecraft took off from the space station and departed to regions unknown.

Once the ship had undocked, Mirage approached Erich and spoke to him with a hint of concern in her voice.

"I know I have said it before, but you understand that the odds of them successfully completing this mission are incredibly low, right? Should they fail, the Naraku will immediately invade the Galaxy, and though we have made ample preparations over the last few years, it is still not enough."

Erich did not say a word. He continued to silently salute the soldiers who marched to certain death until their space ship had entered FTL, going further beyond the boundaries of the Galaxy than any man of the Empire had ever done before.

Once they were gone, Erich finally spoke with a stoic expression on his face and a prideful tone in his voice.

"I have complete and utter faith in the abilities of my warriors. They will succeed. I know this. And if not... We have a secret weapon, one that will make the Naraku think twice about their invasion should they start it prematurely...."

Though Mirage had no idea what this secret weapon was, or the fact that she was on close personal terms with it. The weapon being Ayumi; she trusted Erich's judgement. Still, she could not help but sigh and look out into the void of space, verbally questioning the man's decision.

"I hope you know what you are doing..."

---

Tia would watch the conversation between Erich and Mirage while monitoring the spacecraft that had penetrated the void between galaxies. Her deep space probes within the boundaries of the Andromeda galaxy were constantly reporting the movements of the Naraku.

It was as Mirage had said. The Naraku were preparing for an invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy. After discovering the origins of the probes which kept spying on them, they realized someone in the Milky Way had discovered their plans.

Thus, the timetables for the invasion were moved up. But they were blissfully unaware that the Milky Way was sending an advanced strike team, one a suicidal mission to destroy the hive world which was responsible for the overwhelming majority of production of their current forces.

Needless to say if this hive world was destroyed, the Naraku plans to invade the Milky Way would be set back by decades, as the amount of eggs, hive queens, and drones on this world accounted for roughly 25% of the Naraku forces within Andromeda.

But even Tia sighed when she ran the odds. No matter how many times she calculated thme, failure seemed the only possibility. Luckily for her, she knew never to underestimate the margin of error called humanity, and thus she silently hoped that Erich's strike team would genuinely succeed in their efforts. No matter how unlikely that was.