"Report — a bug-swarm is bearing down on us!"
"Our firepower's too weak; we can't hold these bugs down anymore."
"A swarm of 1,000-plus sighted at the 8-o'clock direction!"
Over the comm channel came a clamor of voices, news of every kind rising one after another.
Su Lan took off her headset and looked at the battlefield before her.
The bugs' corpses were already piled a meter and more high; an indescribable stench filled the air — the smell of bug-blood.
"Senior Su Lan, this little laser cannon of mine has only 15% energy left!" Xue Xiaoxiao was, at this moment, working a laser gun-turret on the hull's exterior.
Because the operating system had failed, after a brief modification it could be started by hand directly at the gun-position.
"Our laser-rifle energy's near spent too!" Zhao Wan'er, laser rifle in hand, fired at the bugs howling in without let-up beyond the line.
Bug after bug burst apart, the green juice that spattered out flying even onto the teachers and students still in the fight.
Luckily these juices weren't corrosive — only carried a foul stench.
"Hold on a while longer; Teacher Qin said just now that she'd made contact — a starship signal had appeared in the surrounding star region, perhaps a ship come to rescue us. A pity only that, owing to the comm fault, the contact broke off; the engineers are working to repair the comm parts." Senior Su Lan rallied them.
"Bad news — the ship's defense line at the 8-o'clock direction has been breached!" a message suddenly came.
It left Senior Su Lan and the others aghast.
Bear in mind, the reason they'd been able to hold out till now was exactly the solidity of the line — using this fallen ship for a fortress to hold off the bug-race's attacks all around.
The moment a line in any one direction was broken through, that near enough meant the fall of every line.
For the fate of anyone the bugs closed body to body with was all too plain to imagine!
Senior Su Lan sprang up to a high spot and gazed out toward the 8-o'clock direction.
The several ship gun-positions there had, for reasons of every kind, already fallen silent; add to that an astonishing number of bugs that had appeared, and it left that line's firepower too weak outright — the bugs had surged into the line.
A student, seeing bugs charge up before him, at once, in a panic, dropped his weapon and tried to flee into the ship.
But how could his speed match these bugs'?
Soon a half-man-high bug pounced and pinned him to the ground, a fierce pain shooting through his leg.
"Aaah… help… help me…" the student cried, struggling.
A beam of laser shot over; the bug's body was blasted flying, and the student was saved.
"Take up your weapon and fight like a man!" the male teacher who'd saved the student roared.
The student nodded dumbly.
The very next second, a bug suddenly pounced and bore the male teacher down, its terrifying mouthparts tearing a chunk of flesh and blood from his body.
"Off, you damned bugs!"
The male teacher, bearing the searing pain, used the laser rifle in his hand to blast the bug to pulp.
But the next second, more bugs pounced and bit down on him.
Three… five… 10…
The gunfire that had still sounded soon ceased.
The student wore a look of terror and, heedless of all else, began running for the ship at his back.
And at his back, more of the two academies' teachers and students were pounced down by bugs, and devoured.
For a spell that whole stretch rang unbroken with wretched screams.
They carried, even, to the lines in the other three directions.
"It's over… utterly over…" a student beside Su Lan slumped to the ground, distraught, having wholly lost the will to fight.
Su Lan's expression was complicated; she wanted to say some rallying word, but faced with the plight before her, she felt any word would be feeble.
"Senior Su Lan… is Xiaoxiao going to die…" Xue Xiaoxiao stood at the gun-turret, timid and terrified.
Zhao Wan'er stood at the fore of the line, laser rifle in hand, and said, steadfast, "Perhaps we'll die today — but we are students of the Northstar Academy, future captains of interstellar fleets. At the least, in this moment, we fought to the very end!"
"Wan'er's right — so long as we've given our all. Even if we truly face death, we'll have nothing to reproach in our hearts!" Senior Su Lan said, unbowed.
Though such were the words on their lips, one could see in their eyes an unwillingness, a longing to live.
They were in the flower of their years; they still had the great fair span of their youth; they hadn't yet begun their own interstellar voyage.
How could they be willing to die here!
"These damned bugs! Xiaoxiao's going to be a T4 battleship captain in the future — I can't… can't die here!" Xue Xiaoxiao cried with a sob in her voice, aiming her recharged little laser cannon at a spot where the bugs clustered and loosing a shot.
Flecks of bug-flesh flew far — a trifle against the whole of the situation.
And just as despair began to fill every one of the two academies' teachers and students—
Above the cloud layer, a warship broke through the clouds at terrific speed and dove down!
"Look, quick! What's that!" A student pointed at that ship in the sky, astonished and glad at once.
"Could it be a fleet come to rescue us?"
"We're saved! We're saved!"
"Strange — why is there only one ship?"
The glad surprise swept away the despair of one and all.
They could see that ship firing without let-up at the interstellar bug-race in the air; those bugs fell from the sky one after another like fireballs.
At the same time, dozens of unknown interstellar drones dove down, attacking the bug-race around the wrecked-ship base!
The autocannons' barrage blasted those bugs to fragments by the swathe.
One interstellar drone raced past right over Su Lan's and the others' heads, shattering bugs about to charge up before their line-position.
But even so, waves of bugs swarming in from around kept shrinking the ring of encirclement about this stretch.
"Everyone hold on! We can still live through this!" Zhao Wan'er cried out fiercely, firing her laser rifle without pause.
"Take my shot!" Xue Xiaoxiao wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and fired in one direction!
But just at this moment—
The ground suddenly gave a shudder.
An enormous bug bored straight up out of the ground within the line, and out with it came a great many more bugs.
Less than a few meters from Zhao Wan'er's and the others' line.
"Bad — it's a bug-tunnel! Throw magnetic-storm grenades, quick!" Senior Su Lan cried in alarm.
"The magnetic-storm grenades were used up long ago." Zhao Wan'er fired at the bug-tunnel before her, but that earthworm-like giant bug had already pounced and lunged to bite at her.
"Warning, warning. Weapon energy insufficient; please replenish the energy cartridge."
And at that very moment the laser rifle in Zhao Wan'er's hand ran out of energy — it could fire no more.
"Wan'er… run, quick!" Senior Su Lan suddenly charged out, hauling Zhao Wan'er behind her, and at the same time set herself before that giant bug.
Zhao Wan'er's pupils dilated; before her eyes, Senior Su Lan's body was about to be swallowed into the giant bug's maw, her sweet life snuffed out.
Suddenly an enormous black figure descended from the sky.
Crunch…
The giant bug's body was trodden to a pulp outright.
Senior Su Lan slumped to the ground, gazing a touch dazedly at the "black giant" before her.
It was a black mecha the like of which she'd never seen!
A teasing, familiar voice came from atop the black mecha.
"How could you throw so wild a party without inviting me!"
There, on the mecha's shoulder, a man in pitch-black personal exoskeleton combat armor showed the face beneath his helmet, gazing down at them with an easy smile.