"By the figures our scientists have worked out, those suspected hive-race creatures are expected to reach the surface of our Dragon Star in fifteen minutes!" Secretary Officer Barbara reported.
Fifteen minutes?
"How many?" Zhao Chen asked.
"By our rough count so far, there are nearly three thousand individual units, but whether these units are separate hive-race units, we can't be sure."
Zhao Chen said in a deep voice, "Whatever the case, prepare for battle. Intercept these bugs outside Dragon Star's surface as far as possible! Keep our losses down!"
"Yes!"
Almost at the same moment,
the fifteen-minute figure was relayed into every country,
and it was confirmed that these were hive-race units.
At this moment the Nancy Empire's Empress, under her bodyguards' protection, had already entered the shelter tens of meters below her palace.
"Word from the Fierce Dragon Kingdom. Those unidentified objects are expected to reach Dragon Star in about fifteen minutes; there are thirteen minutes left now!" the secretary said beside her.
"Thirteen minutes?" The Nancy Empress thought a moment, then said gravely, "Notify every shelter base. Follow the rules set out beforehand. As soon as the people inside a shelter reach the required number, close the shelter at once!"
"Yes!"
Every shelter built underground had in fact been allotted according to the number of residents in the local area, with a further 30% spare capacity.
But the situation above ground now was not quite right.
Take the districts where great crowds of marchers had gathered, for instance.
In these areas the population density now far exceeded normal, and even with the nearest shelter's 30% spare capacity, it could not hold so many.
So among these people, some might very well face being unable to get into the nearest shelter.
But in this the Nancy Empress made no special exception.
Instead she chose to carry out the original rules without the least leniency,
and stressed the order now.
Above ground,
the marching crowds were still reveling.
But there were sensible people too, who chose to go into the shelters.
"Look at those idiots. What hive-race crisis? That's all panic manufactured by the people at the top. Who wants to hide in those dark, cramped shelters?"
The marchers pointed at the people streaming into the shelters, jeering and laughing.
Some even threw Molotov cocktails, stones and other weapons.
And toward these people,
the soldiers responsible for order at the shelters now showed an attitude wholly different from before.
Bang, bang, bang.
Shots rang out.
On the ground in front of some of the wilder marchers appeared a row of bullet marks.
It frightened these marchers out of daring to take another step.
"Warning! Anyone who tries to threaten or disrupt the shelter procedure, we have the right to shoot dead on the spot. Those who want to enter the shelter, drop everything you don't need and line up to enter the shelter!" the broadcast sounded.
At the shelter's entrance, several machine guns had been set up, the soldiers' fingers already on the triggers.
Once they pulled them, these people would be nothing but a field of live targets.
"Damn it, these lunatics! They really dare to shoot!"
The marchers cursed loudly, with every kind of foul language.
But no one dared set foot inside the cordon again.
Instead it made a dramatic scene.
On this side, in the street, the marchers went on shouting and reveling.
On the other side, at the passage to the shelter's entrance, evacuees kept arriving in good order.
They passed quickly through the checkpoint and into the underground shelter.
On the display above the shelter's entrance was shown the number of places left in this shelter:
from a thousand at first, to five hundred, to three hundred, and then to a hundred.
At this point the voice on the broadcast changed.
"This shelter is about to reach capacity. Those still coming, please go to another nearby shelter."
On the display beside it, the positions of several of the nearest shelters, and the numbers they could still hold, were thoughtfully shown as well.
At this very moment,
outside Dragon Star, at the three moon bases,
defensive weapons stood ready, one after another, on the moons' refitted surfaces.
"Three minutes left until the first wave of unidentified creatures enters our range. All combat departments, stand ready! We are Dragon Star's first guardians; behind us is our home!"
Inside the moon fortress, the commander's voice rang out over the broadcast.
In underground bays not yet opened, combat mecha stood ready, one after another, under the lights.
At a single order they would drive out in their mecha.
Behind these mecha were squads of interstellar marines in basic space combat suits, weapons in hand.
Before this, they might have been only the builders, the cooks or the technical workers of this base.
But by wartime rules,
apart from the essential staff kept back, everyone else would be enrolled in the interstellar marines.
In fact, from the moment they volunteered to come here, their wills had been written.
For they all knew very well
that compared with Dragon Star's surface, theirs was the most dangerous line of defense.
"Report! All orbital cannons ready!"
Orbital cannon after orbital cannon, rising like chimneys, was aimed at the unidentified creatures coming from afar.
One last minute remained.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
"We see them! We see them!"
At this point someone cried out.
Then photograph after photograph appeared.
In the photographs could be seen bugs like starships, one after another,
each one enormous,
with brown bodies and huge mouthparts at the front.
They knew these things, for in the literary works of the past three years there had been many names describing them:
Hive Motherships, hive-race starships, and other such words.
"Orbital cannons, lock on targets! Fire!" the commander ordered.
Orbital cannon after orbital cannon fired beams like meteors
at those Hive Motherships.
Where these orbital cannons' beams fell on the Hive Motherships, fireball after fireball could be seen bursting.
There was damage, but not enough to be fatal.
At the same time,
from every part of these Hive Motherships' bodies, great numbers of flying-bugs began pouring out, swarming toward the moon fortresses
like locusts.
"Rapidly approaching enemy flying units sighted. All antiaircraft guns and close-in guns, fire!" a voice came from inside the command post.
On the moons' surfaces, gun after gun aimed at the flying-bugs coming through the sky and opened fire.
Where these bullets hit the bugs, they smashed them one by one; torn to pieces, they fell onto the surface.
But there were simply too many of these bugs.
These close-in weapons' attacks did some good only at the very start.
Very soon
bugs reached the surface and began attacking the weapons, spraying highly corrosive bug-ichor.
Because of the angles, some of the gun turrets could not destroy the bugs clinging to them at all.
And at this point,
door after door hidden beneath the surface opened.
"1st Squad, charge with me! Clear out every bug around the gun positions!" the mecha pilots' squad leader roared.
He drove his mecha running out, and behind him several mecha and a squad of interstellar marines dashed out.
The 2nd Squad came to the door and waited for further instructions.
They did not all rush out in a swarm.
For their purpose was never to destroy every bug; their task was rather to protect those turrets and guns so they could win more time to attack.
"Screw you, you stinking bugs! I've sat here the best part of a year waiting for exactly you!" A mecha pilot aimed his autocannon at the bugs on the ground and opened fire,
tearing apart the bugs clinging to the gun barrels and smashing them!
But very soon more bugs lunged at this mecha, biting.
"Combat formation! Don't panic. Fight the way you trained!" the mecha pilots' squad leader shouted.
Several combat mecha covered one another, firing at the bug-swarm around them.
"My magazine's nearly empty!" a mecha pilot shouted.
"I'll resupply you! Get ready for resupply!" An interstellar marine pushed a loading cart to the back of this combat mecha.
The mecha pilot dropped his mecha into a half crouch.
"Buy me fifteen seconds!" the mecha pilot shouted to his teammates.
His teammates began taking on the enemies in front of him for him.
And behind his mecha, the interstellar marine, as trained, quickly fitted him a new magazine.
But these mecha squads in the end could not hold off the bugs that kept coming on and on.
A few minutes later,
these bugs had pounced onto the mecha, spraying corrosive fluid on the mecha and gnawing at the mecha's surface.
"Screw you! You want to eat me? I'll break every tooth in your mouth! Brothers, I'm going on ahead!" This mecha, almost wholly covered by bugs, suddenly burst into a dazzling light.
Then came an explosion that blew the mecha and all the bugs around it away together.
This was the self-destruct program every combat mecha had!
On the surfaces of the moons, more bugs began to appear.
And some Hive Motherships had already passed the moons' line of defense and were going on toward Dragon Star.
And at this point, glowing objects appeared one after another in Dragon Star's low orbit; they were artificial fortresses, one after another.
Missile after missile appeared and was fired at the approaching Hive Motherships.
Then gun after gun extended to tear apart the oncoming bugs.
These were Dragon Star's second line of defense.
A few minutes later,
these artificial fortresses began exploding in the sky, fireball after fireball.
The first line of defense and the second line of defense still could not intercept all the hive-race.
Bugs were still lunging at Dragon Star!
It was like a great cloud of locusts closing on Dragon Star.
The Fierce Dragon Kingdom: Supreme Command.
"It's confirmed: these are T1-grade Hive Motherships. So far five kinds of hive-race combat units have been found. Four are sub-T1 grade. We've named them the Giant Ant, the Leaper, the Scythe-Bug and the flying-bug. And there's a T1-grade hive-race combat unit as well, the T1 Little Thunder-Beast. The sub-T1 hive-race combat units can be destroyed with our infantry weapons if hit in a vital spot. The T1 Little Thunder-Beast takes several antitank rockets, or missiles, to kill."
Hearing these reports,
Zhao Chen felt a little steadier inside.
T1-grade Hive Motherships they still had a chance of handling with the strength they had now.
But if they were T2-grade, that would be hard to say.
"How many T1 Hive Motherships are there!" Zhao Chen asked.
"So far, over three hundred T1 Hive Motherships have been detected. Our moon fortresses have destroyed thirty so far, and great numbers of Hive Motherships are closing on our Dragon Star!" Secretary Officer Barbara said.
"Ready our space nukes. Whatever happens, these Hive Motherships must not get near our surface!" Zhao Chen said decisively.
"Yes!"
In secret launch base after secret launch base, colossal space nukes stood ready, one after another.
These space nukes were part of the Bug-Bug Plan, made specially for dealing with these Hive Motherships.
Destroying as many of these Hive Motherships as possible in space would cut the number of hive-race combat units that came down on Dragon Star,
and so lessen the danger on Dragon Star.
But three years' time had been limited, and these weapons were not many either.
Space nuke after space nuke was launched, shooting toward the Hive Motherships that had already appeared in low orbit.
And at this point,
on Dragon Star's surface, a meteor shower, like so many meteorites, could already be seen in the sky overhead.
"Those… what are those things? Meteorites?" The marching crowds in the Nancy Empire noticed something wrong overhead and shouted, pointing at the sky, which had turned somewhat red.
"Don't tell me it really is a hive-race attack?" Some did realize something was wrong.
"Impossible! It's all a lie. I reckon those are just the wreckage of satellites crashing. I've seen it before!" Even now, some still stubbornly believed the hive-race invasion was one huge conspiracy.
But as the fireballs in the sky grew more and more numerous,
someone swallowed and said, "Satellite debris… could there be this much?"
By now, people were gradually beginning to realize something was wrong.
And as chance would have it, some "meteorites" came falling toward their city.
And at this point
some of the air-defense weapons built in the city long before opened fire at the meteorites falling from the sky.
Barrages like fiery serpents appeared in the sky,
destroying those meteorites in the air one by one.
But as more and more meteorites came, some broke through the barrages and smashed down hard onto the city's streets.
As chance would have it, one meteorite fell on the street where the marching crowd was.
The charred bodies of several bugs scattered.
But inside the meteorite appeared more huge bugs.
These bugs had clustered together, relying on the bugs on the outside to shield them from the extreme heat of entering the atmosphere from on high, so that they could land safely.
"Bugs! They really are bugs!"
"The hive-race crisis wasn't a lie!"
"The shelters, get to the shelters!"
The marching crowd now panicked completely; they threw down the placards in their hands and rushed toward the nearest shelters!