Mission: The hive-race plague of the North Wind Star Region
Content: Cosmic bug-nests have appeared in many places within the North Wind Star Region; several systems have come under attack, and the lives and the safety of the property of tens of billions of people are under threat.
Task one: Destroy thirty T3 Hive Motherships.
Task two: Annihilate a total of one billion hive-race units.
Task three: Rescue the common people whose lives are threatened by the hive-race plague; upon reaching a certain order of magnitude, a corresponding reward may be claimed (5 million, 10 million, 15 million, 20 million, 25 million, 30 million people…).
Task four: Please choose one of the three designated branch-mission options.
Zhao Chen looked at the mission page that had popped up before him, his expression somewhat surprised. This mission page, appearing so suddenly, held far too great a volume of information.
The hive-race plague of the North Wind Star Region?
The System would absolutely never fabricate something from nothing — so it was saying that a hive-race plague had broken out in the North Wind Star Region? Had it already happened, or was it about to happen?
"Report!" Lilith suddenly came hurrying into the bridge, her face somewhat anxious. "Latest word: over the past five hours, large numbers of interstellar bug-nests have appeared within the North Wind Star Region. As known so far, there have appeared five tier-3 cosmic bug-nests, 12 tier-2 cosmic bug-nests, and 45 tier-1 bug-nests. The affected range involves 13 systems within the North Wind Star Region!"
Sure enough!
The timing of this System mission's issuance could well be called astonishing.
"And moreover, just now, the North Wind Governor issued a star-region general-mobilization order. It demands that the systems not struck by the hive-race plague must dispatch 70% of their own lord-fleets to support the disaster-struck systems!" Lilith said.
A star-region general-mobilization order!
This was one of a star-region governor's highest authorities. It could, at a critical juncture, grant him the power to command all the lord-fleets within the star-region, and even the private fleets. This showed that the star-region was, at this moment, in an exceedingly dangerous situation. And this was, moreover, within a mere five hours of the hive-race plague's outbreak. Set against the hive-race plague that had earlier befallen the Water Lotus System of the Azure Star Region, this was several dozen times more severe. And at the same time, the North Wind Governor's handling of it was exceedingly decisive!
"Relay my order — the whole Owl Dragon Fleet has one hour of military outfitting time; enter tier-3 combat-readiness status at once!" Zhao Chen gave the muster order.
In truth, even without the System mission, toward a hive-race plague of this kind Zhao Chen couldn't have sat idly by and looked on. The tragedies of history had long since laid down the definition of this interstellar hive-race: the instant these bugs appeared, they were to be stamped dead. Otherwise, in the brief moment of your hesitation and wait-and-see, these bugs, once they'd gotten food enough, might well breed and expand by a thousandfold and more within an extremely short span of time! Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon System lay precisely within the North Wind Star Region; the principle of "when the lips are gone, the teeth feel the cold," Zhao Chen knew well.
"Yes!" Lilith and Chitong at once set about contacting the relevant personnel. The Owl Dragon Fleet — this war machine, rested for over a month — began to run once more.
Over here, Zhao Chen used a spare moment to go on studying his System mission a while.
There were four task requirements. Task one, killing 30 T3 Hive Motherships, was of no great difficulty; before this, Zhao Chen had, relying on a single T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser alone, killed three of them single-handed. The problem lay in whether there'd be enough T3 Hive Motherships to kill. So this task was one that turned on efficiency! He had to seize the heads of these T3 Hive Motherships ahead of others.
Task two demanded the annihilation of 1 billion hive-race units; there was no detailed stipulation in this, which meant that the ground-crawling hive-race units, the most numerous and teeming of all, counted as a part of it too. So long as there was firepower enough to attack with, completing it was merely a matter of time.
Task three was the rescue of personnel, and this task was of slightly greater difficulty — for rescuing people was often several times harder than killing. It bore on the interstellar transports required to move the people, and besides, if a planet came under hive-race invasion, that meant surface combat had to be carried out; a moment's carelessness, and large-scale casualties might well occur.
These three tasks weren't much to speak of. The fourth task was somewhat special — was this a mission within a mission? A mission matryoshka?[1] It required him to select one from among three branch missions. Zhao Chen tapped to unfold this task option.
Branch mission one: The Defense of Planet SP118 battle.
Branch mission two: The Morton System hive-race battle.
Branch mission three: The Sapphire System Third Planet rescue battle.
These were three wholly different branch missions, and their types weren't quite the same either. The first's requirement was to defend a planet; the second's was a decisive interstellar battle against the hive-race; the third's belonged to the type of an evacuation mission.
Zhao Chen's mind stirred: could I go and do all three of these branch missions?
Ding: The task requirement is only that one be completed; but should the Host complete more, a stacking reward may likewise be obtained.
That was fine. Because these three branch missions could, in fact, all have parts that overlapped with his own three earlier tasks; if, in the course of completing one branch mission, he could also go and complete the other two branch missions, obtaining more rewards, then that would be finest of all. And if he couldn't complete them, that would be no matter either.
Zhao Chen reckoned it over, and in the end chose the third branch mission — The Sapphire System Third Planet Rescue Battle.
Why choose this branch mission? The reason was simple. By what the data showed, the Sapphire System had a star gate, which meant its transport was convenient; and the Sapphire System's Third Planet had a huge population — reportedly a full 2 billion people! Never mind Zhao Chen completing the evacuation of them all — completing even 1% of the evacuation task alone would be enough to greatly raise Zhao Chen's task figures.
Zhao Chen opened the North Wind Star Region's star chart and found upon it the Sapphire System's position; it was three systems distant from the Owl Dragon System. Had the Owl Dragon System a gate leading straight there, perhaps he could have arrived in half a day's time. But there was nothing to be done — Zhao Chen had to have his Owl Dragon Fleet cross the interstellar fringe space to reach the nearest Arctic Fox System and use the gate there. The voyage time of this stretch of road alone: for the T3 Blizzard, it was projected to need at most about two days; but for the other T2-grade Owl Dragon Fleet warships, it would need about five days. Happily, this North Wind Star Region operation was swift; and though the interstellar hive-race came on with a fierce momentum, in the short term there ought, by all estimates, to be no very great problem.
"Governor Chu's proposal of getting another system really is a fine one; I'll find a way to work on it in the future — with a star gate, it'd be a great deal more convenient," Zhao Chen muttered. For now, though, it was still the matter at hand that had to be dealt with.
Come to think of it, it was strange. Over this stretch of time, the Starlight Empire had, within a single year, seen three interstellar hive-race attack incidents break out one after another — each more severe than the last. The frequency with which these cosmic bug-nests appeared was, surely, a touch too high. Could all of this truly be nothing but coincidence?