Supremacy Games

"Send a scouting crew to check it out." Zosia ordered, and then she returned to reading her documentations.

'Sigh, in this wide battleground, asteroids hit planets quite often. Are we going to be scouting each one.' The assistant shook his head lightly as he stepped outside the office.

He knew that she was getting paranoid and as a leader, that would be detrimental to her judgment.

Still, he did as he was told and ordered the nearest scouting crew to embark on their journey as fast as possible.

...

Inside a massive silver metallic space station that was at the borders of a cosmic wormhole, a blue-skinned youth in a military outfit stepped inside a small gloomy office.

When he looked to his left, his eyes were met with a fair skinned white-bearded man, who had not a single wrinkle on his face.

His long bent ears gave away his race almost immediately...An elf.

"Captain, we have just received new orders." The blue-skinned youth reported with a serious expression.

"Do tell." The captain spoke faintly without lifting his head.

"We have been ordered to scout an incoming asteroid that is going to hit planet Toppoki in two months."

"Asteroid?" The captain raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Does the Commander think we are getting bored doing nothing?"

"..."

Seeing that his subordinate refused to comment, the captain waved his hand nonchalantly, "Whatever, take the 3rd squad and go check the asteroid. Make sure to be through."

"Roger." The blue-skinned youth saluted and exited the office.

When he was left alone, the captain shook his head as he thought, 'It seems like the great commander is starting to lose her calmness.'

Although Zosia was respected by the alliance due to her strength and leadership, she had yet to truly display traits worthy of being a great commander.

So, a lot of generals and leaders were still on the fence if she was the right commander for this war. God knows that many commanders of other backgrounds were dying to step up and take the lead.

Sure they weren't at Origin Realm like Zosia, but their experience in war was noteworthy.

Right now, everyone was simply waiting for her to screw up, so they could file a motion to replace her.

Zosia knew about this as well. It simply added more stress to her already stressful life.

....

Half a month later...

The scouting spaceship could be seen approaching a gigantic gray asteroid that was coated by a veil of blue mist.

From a far it looked fascinating and pretty. But when one start to think that an asteroid of this size was capable of wiping out civilizations with a single hit, its beauty collapses immediately.

"Slow us down." The blue-skinned youth ordered as he sat in the cockpit with his crewmates.

They were riding on a small sized spaceship that resembled a bumblebee.

Though, no one could see it now since its alloy was made out of light reflective materials.

Although it was just an asteroid, they were taking their scouting mission seriously.

Minute by minute, hour by hour...They kept inching towards the asteroid while making sure to scout the area thoroughly.

They had already used their spaceship's scanning device on the entire asteroid and noticed that no one was hiding behind the asteroid or such.

"Let's head back serg." One of the crewman suggested while yawning, "We are just wasting our time here."

"Agreed." Another one supported, "We have scanned the asteroid, and we found nothing. This should be more than enough."

It seemed like they were quite confident in their spaceship's scanner. Well, it did make sense since it was the latest and best known version in the galaxy.

They knew that nothing should really avoid their scan unless the technology used was from the Metal Race or some unique races with bizarre techniques.

"We already reached this far, let's get nearer." The blue-skinned youth recalled his captain's order to be through in their scouting.

"Sigh, as you wish serg."

His crewmates could only shake their heads in frustration and continue on their mission.

...

After three more days, the scouting spaceship had finally entered the ten-kilometer radius of the asteroid.

"Should we switch to autopilot serg?" One of the crewman asked after noticing that their vision had been hindered by the blue gas emitted from the asteroid.

"Do it." The sergeant gave the permission, wanting to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Unlike them, Queen Ai could use the spaceship's scanner as her eyes to pilot the spaceship.

However, as they approached a gigantic boulder without the Queen Ai showing any intentions to change their direction, they started to feel slightly uncomfortable.

If they could see the giant rock within the blue mist then Queen AI should have seen it way before them.

Yet, she still kept on her track.

"Serg..."

The crew started to get nervous the closer they got to the giant rock.

When the sergeant realized that Queen AI seemed hell-bent on continuing going forward, he couldn't help but forcefully switch control to manual.

Luckily, he didn't it in the perfect timing, giving him a chance to turn the wheel to the limit and avoid a head on collision with the giant rock.

Naturally, their spaceship wouldn't have been damaged that much due to their alloy toughness. But, the momentum would propel them backward or in a different direction.

God knows if they would be smashed into another giant rock.

"What the hell what that?"

Relieved and a quite bewildered, one of the crewmate spoke as he wiped his sweaty forehead. Just like him, the others were as confused.

In their eyes, everyone could make mistakes but the Queen AI. Such a basic directional mistake should have never occurred under Queen Ai leadership.

"Is our scanner faulty? It might be feeding the Queen wrong data."

"Possibly...But, if it was faulty, Queen Ai would have warned us about it."

"True...But, just check anyway." The sergeant ordered with a stern look as he tried to operate the spaceship to the best of his ability.

"I just checked...Everything is working just fine."

"Does this mean it's from the Queen?"

"No." The sergeant narrowed his eyes dangerously, "I would rather believe that something is wrong with this asteroid than believe that Queen Ai could make such a rookie mistake."

Upon hearing so, his crewmates all showed serious expressions and started focusing on the front glass of the spaceship.

At the start, they thought that the commander was getting paranoid by sending them to scout a random asteroid.

But now?

It was hard to ignore such an uncanny situation.

"Should we report this?"

"Not yet." The sergeant denied, "We need to make sure lest we rise concerns over nothing."

His crewmates remained quiet after hearing so, not wanting to bother him anymore while he was manually operating the spaceship.

They could see that the closer they got to the asteroid, the bigger the rocks got and the narrower the slits became.

"Brace for impact." The sergeant warned as he knew that soon he would screw up and collide with something.

Just as he expected, a medium-sized rock that was half the size of their spaceship emerged out of nowhere and tightened his pathway.

This forced him to maneuver to the side reflexively. Unfortunately, another giant rock was waiting to walk them.

Everyone tightened their grips on their chairs, preparing to get rocked hard.

"Hmm?"

However, a few seconds went by and nothing happened.

Everyone was left dumbfounded as they stared at each other, waiting for someone to explain what had just happened.

Even the sergeant had his focus broken by the situation, making him start messing up his maneuvers.

Yet, just like earlier, the moment the spaceship was going to hit a rock, it simply doesn't...It goes through it like it was made out of clouds.

When it happened again and again, the Sergeant felt chills course on his spine...He absolutely had no idea what's going on and why did the rocks had no physical properties.

But he knew that something bizarre was going on.

Since, they were in a virtual Battleground, he understood that anything peculiar happening would almost always be related to their enemies!

"Report this to the captain! We are leaving!" The sergeant had no intentions of going deeper without proper reinforcement.

"Ro..."

BOOOOM!!

Alas, before his crewmate could reply, the spaceship was blasted out of nowhere!

Peep Peep!

-Breach in compartment 7!-

The sound of the alarm kept ringing throughout the entire spaceship, forcing the crew to get their shit together.

"Luis, shut the alarm down!" 

"Mara, check the scanner again and identify our enemies!"

"Noah, activate light speed mode and wait for my instruction!"

The sergeant laid out one order after the other at an implacable pace.

He was certain that they were hit by a red laser instead of a rock. That's because only lasers were capable of breaching through their tough alloy.

"Mara!!"

The sergeant shouted after waiting a few seconds but no information was relayed to him. He couldn't do anything without seeing his enemies positions first.

"Serg, I got, I got nothing on the radar!" Mara cried out loud in fear as she watched their most advanced scanner fail to locate their enemies.

Upon hearing so, the sergeant felt like his heart had sunk to the bottom of his stomach.

'We are completely blind...'

No visible vision due to the mist and no working scanner. It wasn't farfetched to call themselves blind in this situation....