The Snow-Swallow Star Region · a certain star system
"Report — great numbers of mutated hive-race are still welling up all about us; the count has passed beyond our means of reckoning, and by our estimate there are at the least above 100 million mutated hive-race! The great majority of them mutated hive-race of T1 grade!" Secretary-Officer Chu Xuan made her report, her face grave.
Secretary-Officer Lilith pointed at the mutated swarm upon the interstellar holo-table, which had them encircled three rings deep within and three without.
"To this hour we have set our three Owl Dragon legions in a triangular defensive formation to hold off the mutated hive-race's attacks, and the line is for the present firm. But this also means that in our present situation we can make no combat disposition whatever save defense."
Zhao Chen fixed his eyes on the interstellar holo-table, his brows knitting slightly.
"How do our losses stand?"
Lilith answered, "To this hour, fighting across a good many star systems, we have lost 131 interstellar warships in that span, every one of them T3-grade. Personnel killed come to near 9,000. As for the consumption of munitions and supplies, we have already spent 70%. In the matter of interstellar missiles especially, going by the present state of the field, we can hold out perhaps 10 hours more."
Hearing Lilith out, Zhao Chen looked at the interstellar holo-table before him and shrank it down, and down again, until it had shrunk to where one could see the star systems one by one.
"And this is the Snow-Swallow Star Region's second system — the base Qin Xiaotian built up. Yes?" Zhao Chen pointed at the system next to their own.
"Yes." Lilith nodded. She had seen what was in the Commander-in-Chief's mind, and said, "At present we have no clear notion how much force Qin Xiaotian has deployed within this Snow-Swallow second system. But in our present state, merely to break through the blockade before us is a thing of the greatest difficulty. By the results of our secretariat's simulations, the longer this drags on, the worse the situation becomes."
"Commander-in-Chief, it is not that there is no way to drive into the Snow-Swallow second system." Charlotte spoke up now.
Zhao Chen looked to Charlotte; she was at present the true commander-in-chief of the whole campaign.
"Say on."
"First we need a quantity of supplies. That much we can manage by contacting the Owl Dragon Star System and having the logistics fleet there use the T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ships to jump straight to us and deliver them. But supplies are only a small problem. There is another that wants solving, and that is that our firepower falls short. The mutated hive-race are many in number, but in actual fighting strength they cannot begin to match the true interstellar hive-race. So long as we press a breakout in one direction, and keep that breakout at high efficiency for a stretch of time, we can tear an opening, shake off these mutated hive-race swarms, and drive into the Snow-Swallow second system. As for what everyone fears — just how great a fleet Qin Xiaotian has deployed within the Snow-Swallow second system. In truth I think that is not, after all, a thing for us to trouble ourselves over. For… we can turn the flood upon them instead." A thread of cold light flashed in Charlotte's eyes.
"You mean us to draw these mutated hive-race swarms into the Snow-Swallow second system!" Secretary-Officer Chu Xuan cried out.
Charlotte nodded, and put up several passages of video recorded earlier. "By our fighting with the mutated hive-race these several days, one can see this. Qin Xiaotian's people cannot control the mutated hive-race; but they may have some means of drawing them, much as one sets a chicken leg before a hyena. Which is why we come to face a siege by a mutated swarm as vast as this. The number of these mutated hive-race creatures far exceeds what the people… the population… of this system could ever have produced. My estimate is that Qin Xiaotian's subordinates drew them here from other systems. To be used to hinder our advance. We have already had it on certain intelligence that this hive-race virus affair was arranged and put in place by Qin Longcheng. And the Snow-Swallow second system being Qin Xiaotian's own base, that creature Qin Longcheng would never dare loose a hive-race virus of that kind within this system. So we need only draw these mutated hive-race swarms into the Snow-Swallow second system, and Qin Longcheng's crew will have business enough of their own to see to."
"But… that would do enormous damage to the Snow-Swallow second system as well… just as with those systems we passed through…" Secretary-Officer Chu Xuan looked at Zhao Chen in her anxiety.
She knew what manner of man Commander-in-Chief Zhao Chen was. Had it been her grandfather standing here, he would most certainly have carried out this plan of Charlotte's.
Because her grandfather was a marshal who, upon a battlefield, could set consequences aside altogether for the sake of victory.
But Zhao Chen was not!
"Bring up the intelligence on the Snow-Swallow second system for me." Zhao Chen had not finished speaking—
when Charlotte got in ahead of him. "I have already looked over the relevant material on the Snow-Swallow second system's past. From the time Prince Yan Qin Xiaotian began building the place up, he listed it as a military restricted zone, and several times, batch by batch, moved the system's residents out of the Snow-Swallow second system. By what the data show, the Snow-Swallow second system's population may originally have stood at some 56 billion. But over the past several decades, near 50 billion were moved out. Those who remain are, at a guess, either technical trades or held there as the lowest grade of labor. And going further by the recorded quantities of food shipped into the Snow-Swallow second system in times past, the population within the Snow-Swallow second system most certainly does not exceed 5 billion!"
Zhao Chen looked at the Charlotte before him. At some point this girl had become the worm in his own belly; she had known long since what it was that gave him pause.
"5 billion…" Zhao Chen thought of those systems he had seen turned into the territory of the mutated hive-race, one after another — of those planets whose ecologies he had been driven, having no other choice, to destroy.
Qin Xiaotian… Qin Longcheng…
Those two men's names already stood first and second on the death list in Zhao Chen's heart.
"If you feel this course is too great a risk, we can carry out plan B. We could perfectly well lean upon the T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ships to withdraw from here directly and return to the Owl Dragon Star System. But in that case all our earlier effort would be spent for nothing. Though looking at the campaign as a whole, we might choose to attack the Snow-Swallow Star Region's main system, or else the Imperial Capital Star." Charlotte set out another plan besides.
Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair and shut his eyes. "That beast Qin Longcheng — it is established that he is in the Snow-Swallow second system. Yes?"
"He has turned all the systems about him into a world of mutated hive-race, and with the connecting star-gates cut off at present, there is no way for Qin Longcheng to escape! Qin Longcheng is right here!" Charlotte pointed at the Snow-Swallow second system's coordinates upon the interstellar holo-table.
"If we storm the Snow-Swallow second system, our Owl Dragon legions will have their dead. Yes?" Zhao Chen asked.
"There will be dead anywhere. The question is only whether those dead are worth it." Charlotte said it plainly.
Zhao Chen mused a while, then opened his eyes; the murder in them was thick.
"Damn it all — these last days I have dreamed of killing that swine Qin Longcheng. Let him live one day more, and I cannot sleep well. Pass my order: notify the Owl Dragon Star System at once to send a logistics fleet through by jump. And order Baixue's Owl Dragon interstellar missile-ship special fleet to make ready to jump in support! That swine Qin Longcheng need not think to draw breath one day longer!"