Chapter 145 The Ranking.
The next three days kept everyone on edge as the fleets were coming back to reach their portals.
Most of them were short a few ships and some had battle damage, attesting to their activities while they were away.
Many of the fleets that left never came back, and some who did, have forgotten about the Kraken and got wiped out, before they could reach the safety of their portals.
A few even tried to do some last-minute pillaging or tried to attack a system on their way, with mixed results, as some of the fleets were destroyed while some got lucky and managed to take out the system lord and took whatever they could.
-Why do you think the first wave ended so soon?
Aelita asked Andrew while they were observing the invasion forces retreat.
-I have no idea.
Andrew shook his head slightly.
-According to what we have found, they should still have resources for at least two weeks if not more.
The only thing that comes to mind is that they lost so many ships that it was deemed impossible to sustain the invasion for much longer, or they achieved some goal and there is no need for them to stay here.
Whatever the case, most of the invasion forces should leave.
Andrew said while in thought.
-I'm more worried about the fleets that are staying here.
Lanarine said, looking at the sensor data.
The combat fleets were just sitting there, even though they could have left long ago.
-Nothing we can do about them for now.
Andrew shrugged.
As much as he wanted to wipe them out, there was no way he could do so with his fleet alone, and he didn't trust the other system masters enough to ally with them.
the combat fleets that were occupying a few systems in his sensor range had destroyers on their side, and even if he could take out one of the weaker fleets, it would cost him a lot of casualties and weaken his fleet significantly, without achieving anything of ant strategic value.
-For now, let's just focus on building up our forces and getting the shipyard up to full power.
Jalina said while monitoring the new storage modules as they were being filled with resources at an amazing speed.
After they were done building the 2000 tier 3 storage modules, she came to Andrew asking to expand the resource gathering even more and build additional drones.
The effect of that was two more resource-gathering substations.
As for the drones.
Andrew allowed her to build as many as she deemed necessary to keep the resource-gathering operations as smooth as possible.
That was a little over a day ago and the two new substations were already operational along with the drones which were still being produced.
All this work allowed them to see a great increase in their resources as till now over 40% of their storage capacity was filled and the numbers were still rising.
-How much longer, for the research resources?
Andrew asked.
-At this rate, we should have enough by the end of the day.
Maybe a bit faster depending on how much resources we can get from the other stations.
-The moment we have enough, start the research.
He said, nodding.
Even with all the collectors in place and the drones working on the gas planets in the AI system, they were barely able to fill up one additional reserve tank of the shipyard and at this pace, it would take them at least two or three weeks to gather enough fuel.
The extraction from the asteroids was their best bet to speed up this process along with placing additional collectors in every system.
However, the shipyard was not the only place that needed helium 3.
The ships they were building or captured from the enemy forces also required it as fuel, so the demand was quite high.
An hour later, the time set for the invasion forces came to an end and the portals started to close one after the other.
There were a few fleets that didn't make it and were stranded in this universe, while the rest managed to leave, with a few ships barely making it through the portals before they closed.
The moment the last portal closed, everyone heard the most hated voice in this universe.
-The first wave has ended, but that was just a worm up.
Before the second wave arrives, you have some time to prepare and if you're interested, you can check the new ranking of this universe.
It was the same voice they all knew but this time it was not filled with hatred and malice like before.
Andrew immediately took a look at his holo-screen and found the ranking.
It was divided into many categories, such as the fleet, resources, research, battle, territory, and a few more.
The moment he opened the first file, Andrew saw that his fleet was not even in the first hundred billion on the ranking, which shocked him.
He thought that his fleet was one of the better ones but it seemed that he was wrong.
The next in line was the territory and here he was in the first ten billion, but only by a small margin.
In the research category, he was in the first billion, but even there he was close to the end of that number.
The battle category, also showed him how insignificant his efforts were, placing him way below the hundred billion places.
This trend continued throughout every ranking he opened.
-What the hell is this?
Andrew asked, no one in particular once he finished reading through the rankings.
-Calm down, we are doing quite well, considering the number of beings that are still alive.
Aelita said.
-Sorry, I just thought, that we would be way higher than we are right now.
He said.
-Have you not noticed that most of the places above ours belong to alliances?
Tanira asked.
Hearing that he took another look and saw that she was right.
His status was "unaffiliated".
Meaning that he was on par with quite a few alliances that had dozens if not hundreds of members.
-What worries me, is our place at the diplomacy ranking.
The diplomat said, looking at the number she was not even able to pronounce.
-It's not like we had a lot of chances to engage in diplomacy till now.
Lanarine said.
It was a fair assessment, since till now they only negotiated with pirates, Adurians, and one AI.
As they were talking, a notification popped up, informing them that they had risen in ranks at the fleet ranking.
-It's the shipyard, they finished building another batch of ships.
Sarill said, after talking with someone over the comms.
Andrew took a look at the list of the ships in his fleet and it rose by adding 5 corvettes, 5 frigates, 5 heavy frigates, and a destroyer.
This sent them over 120,000 ranks up, however, it was still too little to reach the first hundred billion.
Andrew used a search engine to look for the person he was most interested in, which was Alex.
To his surprise, she was a part of an alliance that was way higher in rankings than he was.
Consisting of entirely female system masters, the alliance managed to grow quickly and was placed in the first million of any ranking there was on the list.
Then he searched for the people he had a bone to pick with, finding out that his father's whole family created an alliance and were also placed much higher than him in every aspect.
The same could be said about anyone who he looked for.
The ladies were also doing the same, and it was not a surprise to anyone that their families and enemies were mostly part of an alliance.
-We might want to consider creating an alliance of our own if we want to reach the top in the future.
Tanira said after she finished looking for her former family.
-This might not be a bad idea, but I would prefer to simply take over more territory and build a star nation instead.
Nairin shared her thoughts.
-We can already be considered a star nation.
Lan chimed in.
-Well, we have way too few people to be calling ourselves a star nation.
Andrew said but considered, what the ladies said.
The alliance was not something he was interested in, but creating a star nation was something worth thinking about.
However, for now, he was more concerned with survival as there was no way of knowing when the second wave would arrive, and if what the voice said was true, then they would be in the fight of their lives once it did.
After taking some more time to look through the rankings, Andrew decided to focus on getting ready for the future.