"The first wave of hive fleets has reached the No. 1 Main Position's warning compass; the number is projected at some 500,000 hive hulls. Among them above 50 T4 Hive Motherships; no T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Mothership found."
"Reporting — the hive fleets' forward force is projected to enter our forward position's firepower compass in 10 minutes."
"Reporting — our interstellar stealth scouts have observed that the Hive Motherships have begun releasing hive units."
Field intelligence came through to Zhao Chen, item upon item.
And before Zhao Chen were those images besides.
One could see that the Hive Motherships, black and pressing already, had now released swarming black tides.
These black tides were the hive units the motherships were putting out.
From the lowest T1 flying bugs, T2 spike-serpents, T3 self-detonating beetles, T3 corrupted wyrms.
And besides them, no whit behind an interstellar warship in strength: the T4 Guardian Leviathan, the T4 Hunter Leviathan, the T4 Colossus Leviathan.
"This order of number is a thing we never met in any of our fighting with the interstellar hive-race before." Lilith looked at the data the radar scanned out without cease before her.
Upon it stood the precise figures of this batch of hive fleets.
By the field radar a starship carries, the enemy fleet's fighting units are detected.
But an order of number like this, set upon any other field.
Would want some tens of T4-grade interstellar warships working together, by estimate, before the final figures could be had.
Whereas here, the T5 Dragon Emperor Interstellar Command Ship could complete the scanning and data analysis of the whole field upon her own strength alone.
Do not suppose the T5 Dragon Emperor possesses only an exceedingly strong capacity for communication and for system calculation; she has besides the strongest starship field radar the Owl Dragon now holds!
Surpassing even the second-ranked radar by thirtyfold at the least.
The numbers, which had been climbing fast, began by degrees to slow.
Which meant that the field's calculation was near its end.
"Commander, this is the latest fighting-strength data of the enemy fleets upon our No. 1 Main Field; should no other hive reinforcement appear, the fluctuation in the final result will not pass 10 percent." Little Dragon Girl floated up before Zhao Chen.
And handed over a detailed set of the enemy fleets' data.
Total: 537,281 hive hulls;
among them 57 T4 Hive Motherships; 2,011 T3 Hive Motherships; 43,621 T2 Hive Motherships; 491,592 T1 Hive Motherships.
From this string of figures one could see that the hive fleets were vast in number, but that the higher Hive Motherships were few and low in proportion.
Yet by the hive fleets' own numbers alone, their fighting power cannot be judged.
For a great part of a Hive Mothership's fighting power comes of the hive combat units it carries.
The lowest hive combat units, for instance.
That long train of trailing figures made Zhao Chen's eyes swim.
Happily Little Dragon Girl was thoughtful, and had called up the round numbers.
T1 flying bugs: about 30 billion.
Not in tens of thousands now, but in billions!
Thirty billion T1 flying bugs — though their fighting power is only T1 grade, there is no helping so vast a number.
Even if they made no resistance, then with the autocannon of the No. 1 Main Position alone, though the ordnance were supplied without limit and every barrel fired until it was scrap, one could likely not clear them away.
T2 spike-serpents: about 70 million.
T3 corrupted wyrms: about 2.6 million.
T3 self-detonating beetles: about 600,000.
And as the field's chief combat units, the numbers of the T2 spike-serpents, T3 corrupted wyrms and T3 self-detonating beetles were astonishing likewise.
Though the more terrible among them were the T4-grade — the strongest hive combat units upon this field at present.
T4 Guardian Leviathans: about 30,000.
T4 Hunter Leviathans: about 6,000.
T4 Colossus Leviathans: about 1,700.
These three Leviathan creatures put out by T4 Hive Motherships are, singly, no whit behind certain interstellar escorts, destroyers and battleships of the same grade!
And these T4 Leviathan creatures, at the first moment of their appearing.
Had already been marked by the T5 Dragon Emperor as targets of the highest priority.
"That is no small number; I wonder whether our ordnance can feed these grandsons full," Zhao Chen said with a light laugh.
"By my calculation, with the war-readiness stores now held at our No. 1 Main Position, destroying these 500,000 Hive Motherships is no trouble whatever. It is only a question of how we fight, and how we govern the field's consumption." Little Dragon Girl put a hand to her chin with the look of one thinking.
Zhao Chen's eyes went to the No. 1 Main Position upon the war sand table.
Garrisoning the No. 1 Main Position, besides the T5 Dragon Emperor, were the Owl Dragon First Legion in Charlotte's charge, and 20,000 hulls of the Dragon-Tiger Legion in joint defense.
Thirty thousand combat-type interstellar warships in all.
Set out so, it might feel as though a bare 30,000 hulls holding off this terrible swarm tide were the mantis's arm against the chariot.
But look closely at the fighting power of these 30,000, and the thought is another thing entirely.
The 30,000 here held both the Owl Dragon Legion and the Dragon-Tiger Legion.
But the Dragon-Tiger Legion used Owl Dragon-line hulls without exception; and with Charlotte herself the Dragon-Tiger Legion's highest commander besides, there would be no great trouble in the two working together.
The detailed starship strength data stood before Zhao Chen too.
T4-grade interstellar warships: 910.
T3-grade interstellar warships: 11,271.
T2-grade interstellar warships: 18,010.
Beyond the T5 Dragon Emperor there was no T5-grade interstellar warship at all.
As for those T5s, Zhao Chen of course had other arrangements.
When they were wanted, they would of course appear.
For these 500,000 hive fleets at present, it was not yet enough to send out Zhao Chen's T5 interstellar warships!
"The hive combat units will enter our forward position's firepower compass in 60 seconds!" Little Dragon Girl muttered from where she stood.
Zhao Chen propped his chin on one hand and stared silently at the war sand table.
The commander-in-chief of this No. 1 Main Position's field was Charlotte; Zhao Chen need only watch.
He looked at a picture of the field's forward position beside him.
First, rank upon rank of interstellar escorts and interstellar destroyers making up the foremost line of defense.
And several hundred interstellar defensive fortresses built within these bare few days besides, each carrying multi-barrel laser autocannon.
That laser autocannon had been chosen rather than the great-bore turret was expressly for those hive combat units of astonishing number.
In this battle Charlotte's Owl Dragon First Legion had changed from its former way of leading with interstellar missile firepower, and took instead the position's autocannon and the interstellar escorts and destroyers, holding fire until the enemy swarms had closed to middling and short range.
The surging curtain of fire seemed for a while to light up this stretch of the star-heavens.
And at the same time it was tearing those hive combat units to pieces.