Part 41: Dark Reflections 2: Broken Frogs

Even as the front line pushed closer to the Torian homeworld, they continued to send fleets deep into Terran holdings. As I said before, the improved DIE fighters put on a good showing, but the Torians were starting to field good ships of their own. One of the DICE carriers was destroyed, and it's a good thing the DIE fighters were upgraded, or else I might have lost a fleet.



By August of '33, I believe the Torians had been cut down to fewer than half their starting number of planets.



At this point, we faced a few counter-invasions. They were fought over former Torian worlds, and they were ruthlessly crushed, for the most part.



One invasion succeeded: an attack on the planet Saba III. I retook it within the month, of course, but to the Torians, this was some grand victory that was broadcast all throughout the frog stations for the remainder of their existence.




In fact, they kept trying to invade the planet again with severely understaffed troop transports. That was really an indication of how desperate they were getting; if the Torians, the Torians of all species couldn't fill a transport's berths, they were in deep trouble.



I also seem to remember that the Yor of all sophonts negotiated a peace with the Torians.



Not that it mattered. By September, the last lines of defense had fallen, and the Toria herself was laid bare to my fleets.



I decided that something…special was in order for this occasion.



And for the second time in her history, Toria was subjugated to a foreign species.



The Torians had some dozen colonies remaining, but all that was really left was mopping up. I recall one incident when two entire Torian fleets couldn't put a dent into a single destroyer that was being sent to reinforce the front. Quite sad, really.




Hell, that was all before we had even finished the new phasors and psionic beams!


"Psionic beams?"


I suppose you wouldn't have them in your universe, would you? It's just a bit of applied psionics, courtesy of Drengin engineers. They send out a wave of mental anguish that no species can withstand, not even Yor if it's calibrated correctly. Terribly expensive, but well worth the added cost.



Oh, right, I also found and conquered the Jessuins. They were in the neighborhood, so I figured, "Why not?"



By December, we found the new Torian capital, where they were making their last stand. And what a stand! It seems they managed to find a world on the periphery that had no fewer than four inhabitable planets!



Still, with no other recourse, the Torians' last attack was an attempt to use their waning influence against us in the United Planets. But when they saw that all their neighbors were arrayed against them, even their supposed allies the Altarians, the Torians knew the jig was up.




On January 22nd in 2234, the Torians surrendered their last planets to the Altarians.



I wasted no time in finding a new opponent. The Arceans were isolated from the rest of the galactic nations, plus we had significant assets in the area left over from our battles with the Torians.



They had quite the military buildup for such a small nation, but I crushed their obsolete frigates easily.



And for supposedly being such a "warrior race" with a long martial tradition, our troops rolled over their planets like a plague of locusts. In fact, we were set to destroy every trace of the Arceans within a few months.



But that's when the Jagged Knife appeared.