Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered

Chapter 285: Operation Quiet Anvil Primary Success

The cleansing took hours.

It was slow, dirty work that no one wanted to rush. Drones scraped thick black residue from cracked stone while sealed engineering mechs pulled apart twisted metal frames and loaded them into reinforced containers for disposal.

Above them, carrier craft hovered in steady formation, releasing thin layers of Elowen’s stabilizing compounds across the ruined plaza.

Every pass was carefully measured because no one wanted to risk disturbing whatever had been left behind.

Even with those precautions, several machines failed after getting too close to the crater.

Their control systems froze without warning or became trapped in endless command loops, forcing Eirenne to shut them down remotely before marking them for destruction.

Nobody argued with the decision. Losing a few machines was far better than allowing whatever was inside the crater to spread farther.

The residue reacted twice.

The first time, a thin strand of darkness rose from the crater and stretched toward a damaged drone as if it had noticed the machine.

Before it could reach its target, a nearby plasma cutter burned it away, leaving nothing but drifting ash.

The second time was worse.

A faint human-shaped shadow slowly lifted from the crater floor. It barely had any form, but everyone nearby stopped working the moment they saw it.

Three cleansing units immediately focused their light on the figure, and after only a few seconds, it broke apart and vanished like smoke.

That alone was enough for Cassian to quietly move his flagship into a higher firing position above the city.

He never gave the order to fire.

He did not need to.

Everyone working below understood exactly what that change meant.

By the time the plaza was finally sealed, the remaining soldiers inside Vortan Redoubt had lost whatever confidence they still had.

Some surrendered the moment they watched the cleansing drones burn away the black residue.

Others abandoned their positions and tried to disappear into groups of civilians, only to be identified and separated by screening teams before they got very far.

Under Eirenne’s direction, recordings of Hask Renn’s ritual and the destruction of the device spread across the entire planet. They were shown again and again with only one message attached.

This is what your commanders were willing to do.

It turned out that the message was more convincing than any threat.

By the following morning, the last hostile regional garrison contacted the occupation command and asked to negotiate surrender terms.

Cassian accepted, but he trusted paperwork more than promises. Every officer was disarmed before talks continued, communications equipment was confiscated, and military records were copied before the surrender became official.

Units that had helped move civilians for unknown purposes were separated for investigation, while those that had refused those orders were treated differently.

Aurelian had not expected that distinction to matter so much, but word spread quickly that surrender did not automatically mean that everyone would receive the same punishment.

That changed people’s behavior.

Karven Spire was far from loyal, but its people were beginning to understand how the new government intended to operate.

Aurelian spent most of the next day traveling between orbit and the surface.

He inspected the relay station, met with March officers assigned to the occupation bureau, checked on the civil screening office that Astercourt’s team had already begun organizing, and reviewed the first reports on forced-labor sites scheduled for closure.

Astercourt arrived later that afternoon.

She studied the captured administrative archive, the damaged Kharov records, frightened clerks who barely knew where anything was stored, labor files that contradicted one another, emergency food requests, surrendered garrison rosters, and tax maps that seemed to change depending on which office had written them.

After several minutes, she looked at Aurelian.

"I hate this place."

He nodded. "That was fast, but can it be fixed?"

"Yes."

"Oh? So how bad do you think this is?"

She let out a slow breath. "Bad enough that I would like to invent three entirely new crimes for whoever designed this archive system."

Eirenne stepped beside her. "I can help with classification."

"You are already helping with relay deception, planetary signal control, prisoner record recovery, and abyssal residue analysis."

"I can do more."

Astercourt pointed at her. "You specifically told me you were not infinite."

"I am not. I am simply underused in this particular archive category."

Aurelian looked from one of them to the other before deciding that interrupting would probably make things worse.

Experience suggested staying quiet was usually the smarter option.

The good news was that Karven Spire was worth saving. The relay station remained intact; the dockyard could be repaired without too much difficulty; the military depots had survived the fighting; and the planet already had factories, skilled workers, and transportation networks.

With enough time and careful management, it could become both a strong defensive position and an important supply world for March’s future expansion.

The bad news was everything else.

Years of Kharov occupation had poisoned almost every part of the system. Forced labor contracts had been mixed into ordinary employment records until it became difficult to separate them.

Local officials had earned promotions based on production quotas instead of stability. Some prison camps existed only inside private ledgers that were never meant to be found.

Several wealthy industrial families had openly worked with Daskor’s regime and were already trying to paint themselves as innocent administrators, while other people who had quietly resisted were still officially listed as criminals.

Looking through the records, Aurelian finally understood why Cassian had insisted that every judgment be backed by documentation.

Without records, justice would become little more than guesswork.

With records, it would still be difficult, but at least there was a fair way forward.

That evening, Cassian held a command review inside the captured relay station.

The room had once served as the Kharov strategic control center, but the old banners had been removed, the command table had been cleaned, and Arcturus security seals now covered every entrance.

Through the armored windows, Karven Spire curved below them, its clouds and city lights glowing against the darkness of space.

Cassian stood at the head of the table.

"Planetary control is now stable enough to begin the transition phase," he said. "That does not mean the planet is fully pacified. It means the likelihood of an organized military counterattack is now low."

A military elder reported that every major garrison had either surrendered, been disarmed, or remained surrounded by forces strong enough to prevent any movement.

The capital was secure. Vortan Redoubt remained under quarantine. Kareth Hollow had stabilized.

Two industrial cities needed emergency food shipments after local commanders emptied their storage facilities before surrendering, and the remaining forced labor sites were being marked for closure according to how dangerous they were.

Elowen then presented the environmental report.

"The black reserve contamination remains contained. The residue at Vortan is more complicated, but the breach site has been sealed. I recommend a restricted zone around the central plaza for at least six months, possibly longer if deeper scans reveal additional instability."

"Approved," Cassian replied.

Aurelian studied the map. "Can the city keep functioning with that district closed?"

Astercourt answered without hesitation. "With some difficulty, yes. Several transit routes will need to be redirected, and food deliveries will become annoying."

"Annoying or dangerous?"

"Annoying. If it becomes dangerous, I’ll complain much louder."

"That is how we’ll know?"

"Yes."

Rhoswen, joining through a surface feed with one arm wrapped in bandages, smiled faintly. "I like that system."

"You would," Astercourt replied.

The meeting continued as attention shifted to the wider campaign.

Operation Quiet Anvil had succeeded. The outer chain was now under the control of Arcturus and the March.