To WAR!

The cruiser slowly lifted itself off the ground, as Adam walked to the deck a sharp burst of anxiety shot through him, he did not fear death, but dying doesn't sound like a comfortable process.

As the cruiser broke the atmosphere, Adam sat down in his seat as the captain, silently observing the consoles in front of him, calculating his odds of survival.

The Imperial Fleet stretched out before him, professional ships mixed with civilian ships retrofitted to fit the current situation, all filled with people who have aspirations, families, friends, wives, sons, and daughters.

Each man here had something to fight for, for a true man fights not for what he hates, but for what he loves.

"Space Fluctuations Detected! They will be here any moment now!"

The communications between ships fired up, everyone checking on each other and making sure everything is perfect before the battle.

The plan is simple, the entire fleet is going to make one big hole in the living shield, allowing as many civilians ships through, which are filled with as many soldiers as they could stuff in them.

Hundreds of these ships should make it through and into the Devourer's veins, their weapons filled with a virus that should weaken it exponentially and make it easier to kill.

Adam will remain on the cruiser overseeing the battle, as much as he wants to get into the thick of it, he knows that his survival is a priority and him being here is already a great risk.

Besides, what better bait than the Emperor himself?

"All fleets prepare for combat!" Adam said as the space at the edges of the system seemed to twist and turn, and moments later, a truly colossal creature appeared.

They couldn't even see it since it is so far, but their systems could, and its scale is immense.

Thousands of eyes perpetually scanned its surroundings, as surprisingly few weapons covered its soft tissue, but the most eye-catching part is, of course, the main gun.

A massive mouth that stretched out like a snout closed shut for now, but ready to unleash destruction any moment.

Millions of little creatures swarmed around it, protecting its softer hide with their own, harder, armored skin.

The fleet stayed put around Earth, hoping to use the Station as a big distraction.

The Hive fleet slowly rumbled forwards, the energy detectors firing up at each twitch the mouth of the Devourer made.

all the destroyers were sent out to deal a few final scratches to the fighter shield.

It took agonizing hours until they could even see the thing, and it was still just a dot on the horizon, seemingly unimportant and just as insignificant as them, until it got closer and closer, and the fragile human brain fully witnessed its scale.

The thing hovered above the moon, still small, but significantly bigger now, the destroyers couldn't even be seen yet, and they began retreating towards the fleet ahead of the Devourer.

During the next hour, its size increased exponentially, until the fleet engaged and the plan swung itself in full motion.

The cruiser fired its main gun and the Earth shield activated behind them, giving the blue planet a second kind of "halo," marking the beginning of the battle.

The corvettes charge forwards with their close-range weapons, forcing the fighters to move and engage them.

The cruiser released its own fighters, which were hopelessly outnumbered but held on thanks to the point defense provided by the fleet and the massive station behind them.

The station itself fired volley after volley of heavy weaponry, making the Hive casualties soar exponentially.

Seemingly tired of the station, the Devourer angled itself and aimed its mouth directly at it.

The fighters in front of the mouth did not move to the sides as one would expect, but instead surged forwards, ensuring the Imperial Fleet doesn't use this as an opportunity to deal immense damage.

This also unintentionally prevented them from executing the plan, forcing them to wait for another opportunity.

Still, the fleet did its best at punching a hole through, which unfortunately failed.

After about half an hour of desperate attacking, the Devourer fired, completely obliterating the Station in one massive shot, but also making some of the slower fighters around it shrivel up like dry vegetables.

The beast closed its mouth after the attack and sluggishly began moving above the Earth, seemingly tired and exhausted.

The defeat of the station happened significantly faster than expected, as they hoped the main gun would take hours to charge up and fire.

Still, the main objective hasn't changed, they must find a way through.

Thanks to the death of some fighters, the shield is no longer as thick, allowing a small hole to be created, through which the entire fleet charged, the civilian ships in the middle, protected.

They plummeted downwards to the Devourer's exposed veins near the mouth, crashing into them and shooting their way inside, pushing past the red blood that showered them at a high velocity.

Adam could only wish them good luck, and retreat away before the entire shield came down on them, which seemed to be currently happening.

While the Emperor leads his men, hoping to buy as much time as possible for their home, the commander of the invasion, one named Alexander, forced his way inside the Devourer's flesh.

The power armors were the only reason they weren't immediately crushed by the pressure that bore down on them, thanks to the thick blood and the velocity at which it was traveling.

The engineers back home are real miracle workers, they spent the last month re-designing the things so that they could breathe underwater and even in blood! He has no idea how they managed it but as long as it works he doesn't really care.

"Testing, Testing, can everyone hear me?" after receiving confirmation from all units, close and far, he gave the order.

"You know what to do, rip and tear until it is done."

After that, mayhem ensued inside the Devourer, as weapons filled with viruses fired their infected rounds into the bloodstream, causing the veins to sag and the blood to slow down, making pressure build up where it shouldn't be, making ruptures, and causing internal bleeding.

Now though, something they didn't expect happened, as weird creatures rushed at them, ignoring the flow of the bloodstream, they viciously attacked the power armors, which barely outpowered them.

'An immune system of sorts?' Alexander pondered but concluded that he can speculate later, now he had to kill the things in front of him.

He fired his gun, but it was slowed down a lot by the blood, still fast enough to deal damage, but not as much as it could.

Abandoning the thought of weapons working well, he rushed the thing and topped it, and with one crushing punch, he killed it.

"There seems to be some kind of immune system present, stay on guard." He informed the other groups and continued attacking.

The blood suddenly stopped flowing, only reaching up to his knees, he looked down the vein, and with his vision now unimpeded, he could see a large platoon of tanks have formed a makeshift wall, starving the surrounding tissue of necessary materials.

Soldiers in smaller-looking armors climbed out of them and quickly made their way over, joining forces with Alexander's group.

The small army traveled down the vein, shooting their weapons and unleashing flamethrowers onto the surrounding tissue, which squirmed in response.

Meanwhile, with the Emperor, the battle has gone horribly, as expected.

The fighters have gone totally berserk, no longer caring about keeping near the Devourer, they swarmed like pests over their ships, while the Devourer slowly moved towards the Earth, its veins bursting and some parts of it violently convulsing.

'At least the invader team seems to be doing well.'

Firing into the mass all around them, the computers surrounding Adam seemed to only get redder and redder as the small things bit, scratched and shot at the ship's hull.

'Not good, at this rate, the ship will go down, I have a power armor ready to go just in case but not the crew.'

Suddenly, Adam spoke into the intercom, "All power armors, gather at the cruiser and follow me."

"Captain, come and take control of the ship," Adam spoke to the original captain, who was kept around just in case he was needed.

Adam walked down a few corridors, where his power armor rested against a wall.

After entering it, Adam fired out of the ship through a hole the little critters made in the hangar where the human fighters, now all gone, previously spent their last moments.

Shooting out, the entire hive seemed to twitch and they all rushed down at Adam, ferociously bitting the durable armor that protects his soft and tender insides.

This gave the other ships room to breathe, and Adam gunned down all the bugs that dared to approach him, they easily made their way to him despite firing at them with everything he had, but when the other soldiers arrived, they began slaughtering the fighters.

Still, they don't have infinite oxygen, and could only last like this for a few hours at best, the same goes for the men in the Devourer.

Adam kept this as a last-ditch attempt, a hail mary of sorts, a last stand for him and his fleet with him being the bait.

The corpses began forming a barrier for the living Fighters to use, allowing them to make their way closer and closer by using each other as meatshields, additionally, the metal below them caved, as it fell to reveal smaller creatures that sneaked their way past them and encircled them.

"GOD F-!" Adam cursed.

As Adam ripped the sneakers apart, the invader team was also facing some difficulties, with the immune system now attacking them in full force, destroying the barricades they set up and doing its damn best to stop them.

As Alexander watched one of his allies get swarmed and brutally mauled by a monstrosity, he could only hope this thing would soon be over, and that he would see his wife and child again.