Defensive Fortress No. 077.
"Reporting — No. 3 autocannon has overheated again!" a soldier called out in haste.
"Overheated — then change the barrel! Put the barrel you take off into the cooling fluid to cool it faster!" the officer in charge of this defensive fortress shouted.
The soldier at once began working the mechanical arm, took down the barrel — overheated, and looking somewhat red with it — and set it into the cooling fluid already made ready beside.
Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss.
As the scorching barrel entered the fluid, a hissing could be heard.
By this means an overburdened, overheated barrel can be brought back to its proper temperature in a short time and used again.
But there is one drawback.
Namely that after this is done over and over, the barrel's life is greatly shortened; and at the last, once it reaches its limit, to go on using it rather than retiring it may even bring the risk of the chamber bursting.
The fortress's officer in charge called down the internal channel, "I say it once again: remember, when you use those cooled barrels, you must test the degree of their wear! Any whose wear passes the standard is not to be used again! And if you find cracks upon a barrel beyond what is allowed, that too is not to be used. Be careful for me, careful, and careful again!"
"Yes!"
At his subordinates' answer, the fortress's officer in charge took off his cap and fanned himself, and undid several buttons at his collar, cursing as he did it. "It is damned hot in here! What in the world is the matter with the temperature control? The temperature now must be above 30 degrees!"
"Sir, there is nothing we can do about it either. Every weapon in our fortress, save while a barrel is being changed, is firing without cease, which drives the heat up sharply. And in cooling the overloaded barrels a great quantity of heat is given off besides. This… there is nothing we can do about it."
"Damn." The fortress's officer in charge muttered it, and pressed the petty officer no further; he walked to a viewport and looked through it at the state of the field in the distance.
Through the telescopic equipment fitted at the viewport he could enlarge the distant picture besides.
He saw hive combat units in dense array torn to pieces by their curtain of fire.
But behind them more hive combat units would come swarming up, as though there were simply no finishing them.
While such T1- and T2-grade Hive Motherships as showed themselves now and again would be picked off precisely by the interstellar battleships, with no chance at all to show what they could do.
At its opening this war seemed to stand upon their side, the defenders'.
But every officer in charge of a defensive position knew very well that this was but a beginning.
Near 10 hours.
Their No. 1 Main Position had taken no great loss.
But the trouble was that they had annihilated less than a tenth of the enemy's strength!
And in such a case, attacker and defender only held to a kind of balance.
Once any mischance arose at the No. 1 Main Position — above all a want of military stores leading to a want of firepower — the situation would change in an instant.
"How in the world are these bugs bred? There is simply no finishing them!" the fortress's officer in charge muttered.
The T5 Dragon Emperor Interstellar Command Ship · bridge.
"To the present, 10 hours of fighting. Of the 500,000 Hive Motherships we have annihilated near 50,000; and of those hive combat units we have destroyed near a tenth of the number. At the same time some 50,000 Hive Motherships, carrying their own hive combat units, have rounded our two wings and will meet the small positions behind us. As the case now stands, there will be no very great danger. Our supply of combat stores runs smoothly too — at the least, so it is at present.
"The other nine main positions have entered the fighting as well. Those main positions face on average some 200,000 hive hulls each; next after us is the No. 6 Main Position in the charge of the Holy Light Empress fleet groups and our Owl Dragon Eighth Legion, facing 350,000 hive hulls. But as at present, all may be reckoned to go smoothly." Little Dragon Girl floated behind Zhao Chen with both hands laid upon his shoulders.
"By this data, the hive fleets that have entered a state of battle with us to the present come to near 3 million. That is but a tenth of the enemy's 30 million. And the 11 T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Motherships have not yet moved." Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes as he said it.
He fixed them upon the 11 brightest energy points upon the war sand table, set at 11 positions about the cosmic bug-nest, exceedingly evenly spaced.
But with never a definite movement all this while.
"That is so. We have observed the movement of a second batch of hive fleets, but their direction of attack is not yet definite. Once the enemy's second batch fixes its direction of attack, we may answer it at any time. We have at the least five hours in which to answer," said Little Dragon Girl.
"Set out so, this invasion of the enemy's should have a commander behind it," Lilith said of a sudden in her analysis from beside them.
A commander.
All along, in everyone's eyes, the interstellar hive-race had been an interstellar race launching invasions upon the instinct of slaughter.
Though a Hive Mothership possesses a certain intelligence, even the known T4 Hive Motherships can do no more with that intelligence than make their own fleets give over the instinct to attack and withdraw.
To carry out a detailed disposition of battle wants a higher intelligence.
Could the interstellar hive-race of this invasion possess such an intelligence?
Was it those 11 T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Motherships?
Zhao Chen's instinct told him it should not be.
Then the worst possibility was that behind this hive-race invasion stood a thing of yet higher intelligence.
Whatever creature that might be, if it could truly command 30 million hive fleets and possessed an intelligence so high.
That was beyond doubt a great threat!
Though at present there was no clue whatever, and there was nothing for it but to take one step and look to the next.
At the least they must make certain that no error whatever arose upon their own side in the present fighting.
Thereafter, 10 hours… 20 hours… 30 hours… 50 hours…
A hundred hours…
In the course of it the second echelon and the third batch of attacking hive fleets were likewise very evenly assigned to the several lines.
Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair with his eyes closed.
"Commander, will you not go back to the captain's quarters and rest a while?" Lilith looked at Zhao Chen in her concern.
Through this stretch of time the Commander had been upon the bridge without cease, and the greater part of it in the captain's chair, or now and again walking a little about the bridge.
Even his rest was leaning back in the captain's chair with his eyes shut a while.
Understand that all the other crew were set upon three watches, or two, to rest.
It may be put thus.
Here, the Commander alone had never once left the bridge.
"A hundred hours. And we have destroyed near 3 million Hive Motherships. What in the world are those bugs waiting for!" Zhao Chen muttered, his brows drawn.
Lilith beside him looked at the war sand table, the fighting fierce upon it still, and did not know what to say either.
This quiet deadlock did but sharpen their unease!