The news that a tier-4 cosmic bug-nest had appeared in the Morton System soon swept through the whole North Wind Star Region. And not the North Wind Star Region alone — at this, even the upper echelons of the Starlight Empire were alarmed.
A tier-4 cosmic bug-nest — this was a cosmic bug-nest that had not appeared in several hundred years!
The Starlight Empire's upper echelons decisively gave the order, drawing out five Empire corps to emergency-support the North Wind Star Region, which were on no account to fail to reach the North Wind Star Region within 100 hours, and to reach the Morton System within five days. And to the North Wind Governor they gave a death-order: whatever it took, the disaster brought by this tier-4 cosmic bug-nest was to be contained within the Morton System!
But, mind you, this was far more easily said than done.
Just what a tier-4 cosmic bug-nest meant, everyone knew well. For, mind you, if a single tier-3 cosmic bug-nest had the power to destroy a system, then a tier-4 cosmic bug-nest might well be capable of destroying a whole star-region!
The North Wind Governor was, just now, scorched to his very wits' end.
"At once! Mobilize for me, at once, every interstellar fleet that can be mobilized, to the Morton System; on no account fail to contain, in good time, this wave of tier-4-cosmic-bug-nest crisis in the Morton System!" the North Wind Governor said.
The adjutant beside him said, with some helplessness, "We've already begun mobilizing on our end — we've even canceled the original annihilation plans for some systems' Hive Motherships, changing them to containment within a set region, and are sending all the spare warships to the Morton System. But even under such circumstances, the very fastest batch of interstellar warships needs three hours to arrive! And they're not many in number! To form an effective, sufficient fleet combat power will need another five hours' time yet."
"Five hours!" The North Wind Governor was much dissatisfied with this figure; he pointed at the Morton System's star chart. "By what the current intelligence shows, the hive-race fleet surging out of this tier-4 cosmic bug-nest has already gone attacking toward the Morton System's star gate. In three hours at the most, the Morton System's star gate will fall! And then, if we try to mobilize interstellar fleets into the Morton System, it'll be hard upon hard! That would mean, too, that the whole Morton System would fall!"
There were words, besides, the North Wind Governor had left unspoken: Were it an ordinary system, that would be one thing — but this is an important resource-type system of the North Wind Star Region!
"The Morton Count has already fallen; his eldest son now temporarily serves as the Morton System's acting commander. And he has, by our order, mobilized all the interstellar warships to form a line of defense at the Morton System's star gate — to block the hive-race fleet's assault whatever it takes, and protect the star gate! To buy time for our support!" the adjutant said.
The North Wind Governor closed his eyes. He could already picture it — this would be a battle of racing against every second.
A tier-4 cosmic bug-nest… why, of all places, must such a tier-4 cosmic bug-nest appear in his North Wind Star Region.
……
The Morton System star gate.
At this very moment, the whole Morton System star gate had been fully taken over by the Empire-military fleet; all usage authority for civilian fleets was revoked, and all resources fully thrown into supporting the star-gate defense battle. And within the star gate, one could see, flowing in without cease, the interstellar warships that had come from other systems to support. But these warships were, for the most part, the lord-fleets of the various systems, and over half of them, of all things, were still T1 warships. These warships had, in fact, not been counted at all among the support fleets the North Wind Governor had calculated. But there was nothing to be done — in so short a span of time there truly was no other way; they could only muster any interstellar warship that could possibly be mustered, and even T1 warships, driven to it, were pushed onto this battlefield.
"My father, my lord the Morton Count, has fallen; I am the eldest son of the Morton family. By the North Wind Governor's order, I will command this star-gate defense battle. I beg of you all — whatever it takes, hold the star gate before the reinforcements arrive!" The Morton eldest son, aboard his flagship, was delivering an address on the public channel.
Line after line of defense formed up just then. All the interstellar warships now stood arrayed and ready for battle.
Five hours!
This was the span of time they had, at the least, to resist!
And the defensive strength they possessed at present was a mere 300 Empire-military ships and 2,000 lord ships. 10 T3 warships in all, over 500 T2 warships, and all the rest T1 warships.
"Report! We've detected a great number of Hive Motherships coming to attack, their voyage direction pointed precisely at our star gate!" The interstellar warships responsible for the outer-perimeter reconnaissance patrol reported back the news at the first moment.
The Morton eldest son drew a deep breath, staring at the points of light beginning to appear without cease on the ship radar. 100… 300… 1,000…
And this was only the count of the Hive Motherships!
Upon detecting enemies, these Hive Motherships began to deploy their flying hive-race units. In this one instant, on the ship radar it was almost sheet upon sheet of red points of light. The Morton eldest son's flagship, though it was a T3 interstellar destroyer, had performance insufficient to the task, and could no longer make the computations for so vast an enemy fleet. But in truth all this was already unimportant. Just now they had no other choice — there was only to fight to the death here!
"Hold the star gate! Fight to the death, no retreat! For the North Wind Star Region! For Morton!" The Morton eldest son roared on the wartime comm channel.
The battle was on the very verge of breaking out!
The Hive fleet came sweeping in for all the world like a mountain collapsing and a sea surging. In the first dozen-odd minutes, the firepower of the interstellar warships on the defensive-line position could still resist these Hive fleets' swarm assault. But before long, this stalemated state of things was broken. The endless, ceaseless swarm closed in on the interstellar warships of the defensive line, and little by little the defending side's warships began to suffer losses — one interstellar warship after another began to be "covered" by the swarm, submerged… devoured…
"The first defensive line has collapsed; second-line warships, open fire! Cover the first defensive line's warships to withdraw and regroup!" The Morton eldest son had some sense to him, at least. He'd laid out the defensive lines one behind another, so that after one line fell, one could retreat to the line behind. But he'd originally thought the first defensive line could hold for an hour's time. And yet it had resisted for a bare 10 minutes.
At this point, he watched with his own eyes as a T3 Cavalier-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer that hadn't managed to withdraw from the first defensive line in time was devoured by the swarm.
They couldn't hold it…
They simply couldn't hold it at all…
The Morton eldest son clenched both hands into fists, his heart like dead, cold ash. This battle, the very moment it had begun, had utterly shattered his every illusion.
And it was just at this moment that a crimson giant-ship figure flashed out from the star gate, and appearing along with it were over 100 interstellar warships besides. Among them, 20 with hulls painted in a blue-and-white scheme were the most eye-catching of all.
"Report — over 20 T3 warships have crossed the star gate and reached the battlefield!" a subordinate reported to the Morton eldest son in a rush.
At the same time, a video window thereupon appeared before the Morton eldest son, and a man's face appeared before his eyes.
"Hello — I'm Zhao Chen, commander of the Owl Dragon Fleet, come to support you!"