Chapter 159: Aftermath and Negotiation on Skywarehouse V

“Report! All enemy ships have been neutralized!”

“Release Tuoba’s people. Let them handle the aftermath—we’re heading out to wipe out that so-called marauder fleet!”

“Understood!”

Hearing Lin Yu’s order, George nodded and immediately got to work.

This time, the Sixth Fleet wasn’t acting alone.

Besides the Sixth Fleet, they also brought along a Pioneer Fleet that Tuoba had left behind on Tianyuan IV—427 warships strong.

To be honest, this was the original fleet Tuoba had started with.

But after getting Seawolf-class warships, those old ships were beneath him, so he just left them at the old base.

On top of that, the Houyi temporarily carried 300 of Tuoba’s Bai Ze mechs, all manned by his own people.

This was also the home-defense force Tuoba had left behind, but now Lin Yu brought them all along.

After all, this wasn’t just a defensive battle—the cleanup, post-battle tasks, and even orbital drop operations were needed.

You couldn’t just blow up all four terraformed planets and write them off as uninhabitable, could you?

So Lin Yu needed Tuoba’s people to handle all that follow-up work.

Tuoba, of course, was more than happy to help.

Now that the Federation held Skywarehouse V, he didn’t have any worries left, right?

He immediately ordered his people to fully cooperate with Lin Yu, which brought about this entire scene.

In no time, three hundred Bai Ze mechs were deployed, scouring the battlefield and dealing with any surviving Ziyang Empire soldiers.

Meanwhile, the Houyi Battlegroup swung around and charged straight for the marauder fleet.

At the same time, hundreds of Federation warships arriving at Skywarehouse V got into attack formation to flank the marauders together with the Houyi Battlegroup from two sides.

With all this chaos,

Someone in the marauder fleet finally caught on and snapped awake.

But unfortunately…

They were just a tiny fraction of the whole crew.

A few even tried to rouse the others, but the guys who’d drunk themselves silly…

Weren’t waking up anytime soon.

And even if they did come to, most of them were still out of it.

Bottom line: they didn’t even have the bare minimum crew needed to operate a ship.

All they could do was stare helplessly as a massacre unfolded before their eyes.

——

Two hours later.

The marauder fleet was completely wiped out.

Tuoba’s Pioneer Fleet had also arrived.

Lin Yu immediately ordered them to take over all follow-up operations and, without causing too much planetary damage, launch orbital drop assaults onto Skywarehouse V’s four habitable, terraformed planets.

The fleets in orbit would focus on precision strikes to back up the orbital drops.

Heavy weaponry was strictly off-limits.

Honestly, since it was only Tuoba and Ziyang people dying, Lin Yu couldn’t care less.

All he had to do was wait for them to finish fighting, then show up and take over the planets.

One thing worth mentioning—the Bai Ze mechs were phenomenal in orbital drops.

The Ziyang Empire’s ground forces on all four planets didn’t stand a chance.

Mechs led the charge, the infantry followed, and with pinpoint orbital strikes thrown in, it really did feel like reliving World War II—just with mechs instead of tanks and warships in orbit instead of bombers.

The only difference was that tanks had become mechs, and bombers were now starships firing from orbit.

With this relentless push, not a single planet took more than three days from the first attack to total surrender.

After all, once the enemy held orbital superiority, there was simply no way to fight back.

If you even tried to rally your troops, a single railgun slug would rain down and wipe you out.

Accurate, devastating, and completely clean—no radiation, nothing but scorched earth.

Bonus: you even got your fields plowed for the next harvest, didn’t you?

——

“Commander, all planets have been subdued, but there’s still an enormous number of Ziyang Empire citizens. What do we do with them?”

Now, that was the real problem.

All told, the total Ziyang population living on the four planets and those in the orbital cities was over five billion.

Granted, plenty died in the fighting these past few days.

But there were still more than 4.5 billion left.

In the conference room, everyone had their heads down, deep in thought.

When you got down to it, there were really only three options.

Option one: take a page out of Bai Qi’s book and execute all of them.

Option two: round them up as interstellar slaves and sell them to other civilizations.

Option three: send them back to the Ziyang Empire.

No one really dared to suggest the first option out loud.

Killing 4.5 billion people—even if they’re aliens—not everyone could stomach that.

As for the second option, while both Tuoba and the former Klein folk had mentioned interstellar slave traders, Federation law forbade slavery, plus… the Federation had no connections in that market anyway.

Which left the third option…

But handing them back to the Ziyang Empire for free just felt like too much of a loss.

No wonder everyone was at a loss.

Just then, George walked in, came up beside Lin Yu, and whispered something.

“Alright, quit wracking your brains. Emperor Parlo of the Ziyang Empire just sent a message: he wants to buy back all his citizens!”

“Same rules as before—the Federation can’t show their face. George, get in touch with Tuoba. Have him put together a team to negotiate with the Ziyang Empire on our behalf.”

“Also, tell the Pioneer Fleet to get ready. Move all the Empire’s people to a single planet for centralized management.”

“If there are no objections, make it happen—now!”

To be honest, even if Parlo hadn’t reached out first, Lin Yu had already been planning to see if they could get some resources in exchange for these people.

But now that Parlo came knocking himself,

Of course Lin Yu wasn’t about to say no.

And to keep the Ziyang Empire from getting any real evidence, Lin Yu still had Tuoba’s people do the negotiating.

After all, there was a rule in the Wasteland Alliance—for any member civilization invaded by outsiders, all others had to dispatch their Main Fleet under the joint defense treaty.

As said before, the Federation had no interest in taking on the whole Wasteland Alliance just yet.

Even if Parlo was already suspicious, he had no proof.

Lin Yu wasn’t about to give him any.

That’s why, after taking out the Berri Fleet and the marauder fleet,

He let Tuoba’s people handle everything that required showing their faces.

In fact, Lin Yu often had Tuoba’s team make themselves extra visible—so even the spies on the scene would report back.

And what would those reports say…

That there were no alien civilizations here—just Tuoba’s faction.

That kind of message.

Basically, Parlo was getting zero leverage.

——

Three days later.

Tuoba contacted Lin Yu to report that the deal was finalized.

Parlo had agreed to buy back all the Empire’s citizens on Skywarehouse V—and for a very generous price.

According to Tuoba, over the next three years,

The Empire would send 4,800 large transports, delivering the agreed resources listed on the manifest in batches.

And, they’d sign an official agreement ceding Skywarehouse V and promising neither side would attack the other again.

So, not only did the Federation secure a vital strategic base, but—

They also gained a mountain of resources.