Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 28: Confirmed... Omnic Vanguard Eliminated, No Remaining Units

Chapter 28: Confirmed... Omnic Vanguard Eliminated, No Remaining Units

Watching Astra operate was strange in a way that was hard to describe. This is because he, along with all the students, can train on simulators so they can command better.

But Astra gave him a feeling completely different from the ship girls in the simulators and even the real-life ones he saw in videos during classes.

A minute later, the last organized cluster was gone, reduced to drifting wrecks and half-functioning shells that the point-defense guns cleaned up without effort.

The battle zone turned into a messy field of fragments, glowing coolant trails, and broken machine parts slowly spinning in the dark.

Aurelian kept his voice level.

"Confirm no new contacts," he said.

Astra ran a fast sweep, then another, wider.

"Confirmed," she reported. "Omnic vanguard eliminated, no remaining coordinated units."

She paused, then added in the same composed tone.

"Combat summary: two Tier III Foundry Cores destroyed, three Tier II and five Tier I Logic Nodes destroyed, remaining Omnic combat units destroyed or disabled. No hostile units survived in operational condition."

Aurelian let out a slow breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

"Good work," he said, and he meant it.

Astra’s eyes softened for half a second at the praise, then she returned to business.

"Proceeding to battlefield cleanup," she said.

Black Crown drifted into the center of the wreck field, and deep in the ship, the Source Extractor began running at full speed, pulling in invisible residue from the battlefield like the ship was inhaling, converting broken energy traces and leftover matter into usable fragments.

Aurelian pulled up the chamber feed out of curiosity to see the quality of the fragments.

The conveyor systems inside showed fragments forming in batches, mostly gray, some white, and a few blue ones, the kind of output you’d expect from low-tier Omnic units even if the command cores had been higher tier, because the smaller bodies were still the bulk of what had died here.

"Extractor efficiency looks good," Aurelian said.

Astra nodded. "It’s stable. Purifier is processing without contamination."

He watched for another minute, then checked his Commander Network without thinking too hard about it, just to see the damage report and confirm nothing had slipped through.

No hull damage.

No command-core damage.

Shields steady.

Then he saw the experience feedback, and that was what actually surprised him.

Astra’s experience moved only a little, which made sense because killing weak units didn’t give much growth to a ship already sitting at a higher baseline.

But his own level jumped hard.

It wasn’t subtle at all.

He went from being a fresh commander barely past the starting line to someone who had cleared multiple early thresholds in a single battle, his network filling with that sharp sense of expansion that came when the system recognized progress.

Aurelian’s mouth twitched slightly.

"So that’s how it feels," he murmured.

Astra glanced at him. "Your level rose quickly."

"It did," he admitted, still calm, but clearly satisfied. "And it would’ve been even faster if they’d brought something stronger."

Astra didn’t disagree, but her eyes narrowed.

"The fact they were here at all is wrong," she said quietly. "This patrol corridor is not supposed to see Omnic movement, not this deep, not this organized." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"I know," Aurelian replied. "That’s why we’re not just going to quietly move on and pretend it didn’t happen."

He tapped his console and sent the final battle report to the sector fleet and the outposts again, including the confirmation that the vanguard had been eliminated, and he made sure the location markers were clean, because someone higher up was going to want a full reconstruction of how a pair of Tier III Foundry Cores slipped into an academy route.

Astra finished the cleanup cycle a few minutes later, her voice calm again.

"Battlefield cleanup complete," she reported. "Fragment yield is moderate. Ammunition usage is acceptable, though main cannon cycling was heavy."

Aurelian raised an eyebrow. "Give me the numbers."

Astra brought up a summary with a faintly reluctant look, like she already knew he would notice the cost.

"Extractor yield: approximately one hundred thousand gray fragments and seven thousand white fragments and less than a thousand of the blue fragments," she said. "Ammunition reserves down by roughly ten percent. Main cannons consumed the majority of high-grade charge cartridges."

Aurelian leaned back, thinking it through.

If a normal first-year commander had done this, it would’ve been a painful trade, maybe even a loss depending on how their ammo supply was priced and whether they had the logistics to salvage physical wreckage.

For him, it was different.

Because this wasn’t about profit.

This was about buying time for three planets that were about to get hit before a real fleet could respond.

And even if someone later tried to argue about resources, the alliance always paid for prevention when the alternative was civilian worlds burning.

"You did fine," he said, and then he reached out and tapped her shoulder lightly, simple and firm. "We’ll get reimbursed one way or another, and if we don’t, we’ll still be ahead."

Astra’s expression eased slightly.

"Yes," she said. "Understood."

Aurelian looked at the star map, then at the route line.

"Set course for the nearest inhabited system on the corridor," he said. "We’ll dock, report in person if needed, and I want ammunition replenishment before anything else shows up."

Astra nodded. "Nearest is Cinderleaf Star. Estimated arrival in two and a half hours at warp cruise."

"Do it," Aurelian replied.

Astra’s hands moved, smooth and practiced, and Black Crown changed course, engines shifting as the ship slipped back into warp.

The stars stretched, the battlefield fell behind, and the ship’s interior returned to quiet, but it wasn’t the same quiet as before dinner.

Now it was the quiet after the first blood.

Astra spoke again, softer than before, almost like she was reminding herself as much as him.

"Aurelian," she said, using his name without hesitation now, "this was only a vanguard."

"I know," he replied, eyes forward. "That’s why we need to go to the nearest planet and wait for the response from both the alliance and the Omnic side."