Li Wei closed the comm with his sister and looked at the interstellar holo-table before him, where the Northern Goose Group's starship base was marked out — the place that held 20,000 T2 Iron-Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships!
The largest interstellar-industrial-ship base in the Starlight Empire.
"Pass my order. Every T2 Iron-Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship is to halt everything but the interstellar-missile production lines. All of it to be turned over to producing T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers, by modular assembly-line production; build me warships at the greatest speed there is. And once they come off the line finished, arrange crew aboard at once and enter them into the fighting!" Li Wei ordered.
The adjutant looked at him in astonishment. "That being so… we can bring 3,000 T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers off the line in a single day, but… boss… we haven't so many crew as that."
To do as Li Wei said would indeed produce a mad flood of hulls.
For what was being built was only the T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer — the T2 warship lowest in difficulty of manufacture at present.
Which could reach the terrifying rate of 3,000 off the line in a single day.
But 3,000 Tibetan Mastiffs wanted at the least 100,000 crew to fill them!
Li Wei's eyes went hard, and he stared at his adjutant. "If there are no people, then recruit them for me! Discharged veterans, interstellar adventurers, interstellar mercenaries, miners, commoners — even the criminals in the prisons. So long as they have experience of handling an interstellar warship, put them in for me! And tell them that if they will only fight for the Northern Goose Group, then after this campaign they may have a post with the Northern Goose Group outright; and those who want no post may have a rich reward instead. Whoever destroys a Hive Mothership gets five times the Empire's old scale of reward. As for the criminals in the prisons — let them only fight the enemy valiantly and I too will reward by merit, and set merit against their offenses! And for every man who falls, the Empire's standard of compensation is to be issued to the family the fallen soldier names! In short: of every T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer that comes off the line, I require full crew standing to within half an hour, and the ship able to enter the field within one hour. Is that understood!"
The adjutant gulped, and said hurriedly, "Understood."
"Have the existing fleets entered their defensive positions?" Li Wei looked at the holo-table.
"5,000 warships are all in their combat positions!" the adjutant answered.
Li Wei's eyes went over those defensive nodes on the holo-table; upon those lines he must hold the Northern Goose Group!
"And the interstellar scout ships sent out to reconnoiter the enemy fleets — has any intelligence come back?" Li Wei asked with knitted brows.
Unlike the other places under attack, the hive-race fleet making ready to strike their Northern Goose Group very likely held at the least one quasi-T5-grade Leviathan-Monarch-class Hive Mothership.
He had heard that a Hive Mothership of that grade possessed a powerful comm-jamming capability, so that no detailed understanding of the enemy fleet had yet been had.
"None as yet." The adjutant shook his head.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
And just then a message box extended from Li Wei's handheld terminal — the general command channel the Owl Dragon Legion had established.
Where at need every region and every fleet could share certain intelligence.
And which served besides for Zhao Chen to give new orders to each legion fleet.
What had been sent to Li Wei at this hour was a real-time battlefield report.
With some data in it, and several recorded video images besides.
Li Wei tapped one of those videos open.
The angle of it should have been what an interstellar scout ship, or an unmanned scout craft or the like, had observed.
And there in the distant cosmos it was as though a rift had split open, and out of it a black mass of hive-race craft came slowly forth.
The number of them… and with the terrifying look of those Hive Motherships besides, left anyone who saw it chilled to the bone.
This should be footage of the enemy fleets appearing, taken at some of the other fields.
And just then, Li Wei took note of certain particular hive-race creatures.
They were things like worms — enormous, greater than any Hive Mothership Li Wei had ever seen; and yet looking at their build one could see nothing threatening about them whatever.
The feel of it was like an evolved version of a great fleshy grub.
And after that, a scene came that made the flesh creep.
Upon the surface of this great fleshy grub's skin there began to appear protruding 'grains', one after another — the feel of it like gooseflesh rising.
Anyone with a horror of dense patterns, seeing this scene, would likely have come apart altogether.
Li Wei watched these fleshy grubs hard; and very soon those 'grains' seemed to break their cocoons, and warship after warship came out of them, slick and sticky!
Li Wei's pupils dilated.
And once these warships had wholly emerged, Li Wei noted the imperial fleet blazons upon their hulls!
While those great fleshy grubs that had released these imperial warships seemed to wither, and their whole bulk began to shrink.
Li Wei played several more of the video clips, and near enough all of them held scenes of the same kind.
And that body of data recorded with them bore upon the videos too.
'By supposition from the reconnaissance: among the hive-race fleets there is a kind of Hive Mothership after the manner of an "interstellar transport", able to wrap warships within itself, and possessing no fighting power of its own.
'By judgment of the circumstances, this is in all likelihood because the enemy's wormhole-jump technology is limited as regards non-hive-race units.
'But a Hive Mothership of this kind, before making a wormhole jump, wraps warships within its body, and then makes the jump.'
After this passage there were further data of analysis.
And at the last, one reminder: that within the hive-race fleets met in every combat zone there may be imperial fleets of a certain scale — take note.
Li Wei drew a deep breath. This information in fact changed nothing much for him.
For a vast hive-race fleet was a chasm in itself; and as for those imperial fleets, what difference did a few more make?
Hsss, hsss, hsss.
And now Li Wei had another video comm request, showing as being from the head of the Morton family.
Of whom Li Wei was no stranger.
For he was the Morton system's acting administrator, and its former lord.
The Northern Goose Group being placed here, dealings with this man had been unavoidable.
The video comm connected.
A young man appeared before Li Wei.
"Brother Li Wei — I, Xu Yifan, have come in support with 3,000 warships!" Xu Yifan said it with his head up and his chest out.
Li Wei gave a rueful laugh, and cursed him fondly. "You young fool — everyone else can't get out of the way fast enough at such an hour, and you of all people come running toward it? Do you know who it is we face this time?"
"Hive-race fleets, no more. I, Xu Yifan, fought and killed hive-race fleets right here alongside my lord of the Owl Dragon in those days." Xu Yifan said it with pride. "The more so as this is the Morton system. No place for any dog-turd bugs to run wild in! If they mean to make trouble here, I, Xu Yifan, will not allow it!"