The Fierce Dragon Kingdom's leadership learned from Zhao Chen that the hive-race would invade in three years.
No one panicked; instead they began discussing the arrangements to come.
"By our original plan, over the next three years we would lead Dragon Star into the interstellar age. But now the hive-race invasion is about to arrive. If we put a great deal of time and money into research and interstellar development, it's bound to lower our arms budget," Marshal Chu Xuan said gravely.
"And there's one more very important point. Whether we should make this news public or not," Secretary Officer Barbara put in.
Everyone fell briefly silent.
This meeting lasted over ten hours, broken off several times along the way.
The moment the meeting finally ended,
the Fierce Dragon Kingdom urgently notified the leaders of the other nine countries of the Dragon Star Alliance's Upper House to come to the Fierce Dragon Kingdom for talks within three days.
At so sudden a summons, the leaders of these nine countries realized something was wrong too.
They flew in on their private planes to the Fierce Dragon Kingdom without a word.
The moment their planes landed,
these nine leaders were taken straight to Zhao Chen's official residence,
and the meeting was held directly in the conference room.
This meeting too was a very long one.
Two meetings, a week from first to last,
changed the fate of Dragon Star for the next three years.
The meeting ended.
The leaders rode back in their own cars to the hotels where they were staying.
Zhao Chen walked out of his office and stood on the open-air balcony, looking at the night sky.
Secretary Officer Barbara came out at this point, holding the sorted materials.
Seeing Zhao Chen lost in thought there, Secretary Officer Barbara did not disturb him at once.
A few minutes later,
Zhao Chen spoke: "Is it all sorted?"
"Mm, the plans decided at the two meetings are all sorted."
"Give me the important parts."
Secretary Officer Barbara opened the document and said, "For this coming crisis, for secrecy's sake, we've named it the 'Bug-Bug Plan.' The original development plan is revised for the three years after Year One. A great deal of the money and time originally in the interstellar program is cut and shifted to developing mecha technology, ground and orbital defense weapons, and building moon bases. We aim within three years to build a triple defense net on Dragon Star's ground, in low orbit and on the moons, making sure we're prepared to respond before the crisis of the Bug-Bug Plan arrives. Then there's the matter of making the Bug-Bug Plan public. We've decided to make it public in stages. In the first year, only the leaders of the ten countries of the Upper House will know this news; it stays absolutely secret from the outside. At the same time we'll release some online works, video works and games involving the hive-race, so that people grow familiar with the hive-race's existence through these literary and entertainment works. In the second year, the news will be declassified to the leaderships of all countries, while secrecy is still kept from the public. Considering the risk of a leak at this stage, we've prepared a leak plan in advance. In the third year, we'll formally announce the Bug-Bug Plan to the world and tell everyone we've predicted that the hive-race crisis is about to appear. We'll announce the whole series of plans we've prepared to calm the public's feelings. At the same time we'll stabilize order at the level of society and step up the suppression of extremist forces, to keep any atmosphere of fear, surrender or rioting from arising."
Secretary Officer Barbara briefly set out this preparation plan for the next three years.
She paused.
Secretary Officer Barbara added, "Besides that, with the part of our interstellar program we're keeping, we'll launch telescope satellites, so that we can see the interstellar civilization on the other side of the star. Only by finding them early and scouting the level of their civilization can we be prepared."
Zhao Chen nodded.
Many hands make great strength; in this mere week, the course of development for the next three years had all been marked out.
"Go by the plan you've drawn up. Three years. That's enough for us to prepare." Zhao Chen raised his head and looked at the night sky.
Whether or not this was a Trial,
the land beneath their feet was guarded by their Fierce Dragon Kingdom, and they would never allow anyone to lay a hand on it.
——————
In a car.
"Big brother, what do you think the hive-race looks like?"
"Didn't you already look at all those pictures and materials?"
"How can pictures and materials compare with what the real hive-race looks like?"
"…"
"Big brother, do you think guns will do anything against the bugs?"
"Big brother, do you think these bugs can fly?"
"Big brother, do you think any of these bugs could be as big as a small hill?"
Fire Phoenix looked at his younger sister beside him, chattering on and on, and covered his face.
Had he known, he would never have ridden in the same car as her.
——————
Elsewhere, a car drove into the city of the Fierce Dragon Kingdom
and stopped at a snack street.
The Nancy Empress stepped out in plain clothes, with only one female bodyguard beside her.
Because of how safe the Fierce Dragon Kingdom was, they had long since stopped being as wary as when they first came.
It truly was very safe here.
Things called surveillance cameras had even appeared on the streets.
This had cut the crime rate within the Fierce Dragon Kingdom several times over.
Walking into the noisy snack street,
the Nancy Empress very soon saw a familiar figure waving at her.
"Xixi!" It was the pregnant woman the Nancy Empress had met two years before.
After that meeting, the two had kept in touch ever since.
Every time the Nancy Empress came to the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, she would invite her out to eat something good.
The once-pregnant woman's belly was flat now, and by the hand she held a little girl of two,
pink and soft and very cute.
"Let Godmother take a look at our Nannan." The Nancy Empress picked up the little girl affectionately and kissed her on the cheek.
The little girl liked this godmother before her very much too, and hugged her neck.
"You've come just in time. The dishes I ordered are almost all here. Swimming crab, crayfish, and grilled fatty-edge pork." Huang Min handed out bowls and chopsticks to the two of them.
The female bodyguard did not stand on ceremony either; she sat down beside them and tore the plastic film off her bowl and chopsticks.
"Why the sudden visit? Wasn't your last visit only three months ago?" Huang Min took her daughter from the Nancy Empress's arms. "Stop clinging to Godmother; Godmother rarely gets to come; let her sit down and enjoy the food properly."
"Something came up, so I came running. And that made it just right to ask you out for a late-night snack, didn't it?" The Nancy Empress peeled a crayfish and ate the meat inside with practiced ease.
Probably no one in the Nancy Empire would ever imagine that the Nancy Empress, so high above them as they saw her, was now sitting at a roadside stall eating crayfish, and sucking the crayfish heads too,
for all the world like a seasoned glutton.
"It's all your fault. I'll probably be a couple of pounds heavier again tomorrow," Huang Min said, though her hands did not stop for a moment.
Compared with the good food and good friend before her, whether she got fat could wait.
At worst, she could think about dieting later.
Enjoying the food, watching Nannan blink as she stared at the dishes, and passing her some of the food she could eat:
such a lovely atmosphere
made the Nancy Empress think of the crisis three years away.
Whatever happened, she had to lead everyone through this crisis.
A good life like this had only just begun.
Children like Nannan had not yet had a proper look at the world before them!
The Nancy Empress could not help clenching her fists.
——————
The first year of the Bug-Bug Plan.
The resources and personnel of the other nine countries of the Upper House came unconditionally under the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's direction.
In this year, the Fierce Dragon Kingdom also launched a great many projects at once.
Many were connected with weapons and equipment.
The debut of the first man-made mecha amazed a good many people.
At the same time, at the year's end, the first phase of the space station was formally completed; only by launching four rockets in a row in one month did they catch up with the work.
And from this moment on, there were Dragon Star people living in Dragon Star's outer space.
The second year.
Mecha of every kind began to appear one after another; there were even civilian and industrial ones.
But among the public, opinion on whether the mecha as a weapon was worth spending so much time and so many resources to research was always split two ways.
Some thought the mecha as a line of weapons had gone wholly astray, and that they should keep developing aircraft, tanks, artillery and such weapons.
Others thought mecha were the future.
The space station in the sky was also fully completed in this year, able to hold at least three hundred people working aboard at the same time.
The rocket-launch bases on the ground averaged two rockets launched a day!
At the same time,
Dragon Star's people also formally announced, in this year, landings on the three moons around Dragon Star.
On the day of the landing, the grand occasion was broadcast live around the globe:
the first footprint, the first flag.
And after that, they began building moon bases on these three moons.
In these two years, interstellar topics of every kind kept appearing,
and literary works of every type came out in an endless stream.
The interstellar, extraterrestrial civilizations, the hive-race, aliens and the like had become everyday fare.
There were bug designs on drinks, and some TV dramas would show related content too.
Even of the cartoons small children watched, a great many had to do with bugs.
To the outside world, this was perhaps only a fad that had swept through for a while.
But all of this began to change with a press conference of the Fierce Dragon Kingdom at the start of the third year.
The spokesperson for the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's Ministry of Defense formally announced
that the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had detected what appeared to be hive-race combat units, which would draw near Dragon Star in a year.
For the time to come, Dragon Star would enter grade-2 combat readiness across the board, and everything would be prepared for meeting the hive-race in battle.
Almost hard on its heels, ten-odd minutes later,
the Ministry of Defense spokespersons of the other nine countries of the Dragon Star Alliance's Upper House announced the matter too.
Within the following day, every country of the Dragon Star Alliance had stepped forward and made the same statement.
For a time, the whole of Dragon Star seemed filled with the feeling that disaster was about to arrive.
At first there was some panic, and some bad talk appeared online too.
But because every country was well prepared,
long before releasing this information they had prepared special units in cities everywhere, dedicated to dealing with those who stirred up public opinion,
and they steadied social order very well.
And with the related literary works before this besides, though everyone feared the hive-race's existence, it was not wholly unfamiliar to them,
and the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, over the following week, published the related combat content of the Bug-Bug Plan one part after another, and held a military parade in the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's capital broadcast live to the whole world,
letting everyone see the advanced weapons the Fierce Dragon Kingdom now had:
the Wuzu[1] Quadruped Combat Mecha, the Wuzu Biped Combat Mecha,
transformable flying mecha too, and every sort of air-defense weapon and so on.
On seeing these weapons appear, everyone seemed to feel much steadier inside.
And in this year,
because the news had been made public,
all the preparations were out in the open.
Everywhere they began building underground shelters, and bunkers, fortresses and air-defense weapons,
and at the same time stockpiled great reserves of food and grain.
It was announced publicly that the food stockpiled this time was enough to feed the people of Dragon Star for five years!
With such all-round preparation, everyone's sense of crisis eased a good deal,
and all began preparing for war in earnest.
In the blink of an eye, of the three years only the last three months remained.
Zhao Chen was in his office,
looking at Secretary Officer Barbara's latest report.
"All ten carrier battle groups have finished their latest refit and been fitted with the latest weapons. Besides that, we've also formed the Nine-Dragon Mecha Corps, divided into nine dragon divisions, deployed to every part of Dragon Star. They're all equipped with mecha; if anything goes wrong with any line of defense, the Nine-Dragon Mecha Corps can reinforce the battlefield at any moment. The ground defense positions of every city are now 90% complete. Within three months, all of them can be finished. In low orbit, we've launched 998 combat satellites; these combat satellites are all fitted with close-in guns that can intercept incoming hive-race. On the three moons, we've each built three star fortresses, each garrisoned by three thousand people and five hundred interstellar combat mecha.[2] These make up our line of battle against the hive-race!"
Having heard this,
Zhao Chen stared at the holo-table before him, which covered all of Dragon Star.
"Three months…"
In this crisis
they were in fact very much on the defensive.
For they did not know at all what level the coming hive-race crisis would be.
Would it be a T1 or a T2 bug-swarm?
And then the numbers:
thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, or possibly even more?
Of all this they knew nothing.
The unknown was what was truly terrifying.
"We're drawing closer and closer to the final deadline. At this time we can relax our guard even less. Above all, we have to beware of things inside. Wasn't it reported recently that there's a cult that worships the bug-swarm? Investigate it thoroughly and clean it out. At a time like this we can never let our backyard catch fire again!"
"Yes!"
Over the three months that followed,
the mood in every city on Dragon Star grew heavier and heavier.
People walking in the streets would look up at the sky every so often,
as if waiting for something to arrive.
"Mommy, when is Godmother coming to see me?" Nannan, now five years old, tugged at her mother's hand and asked curiously.