The Riken Star System was, after all, the Rikens’ main battlefield, and over the decades, they had installed nurous surveillance devices throughout the system. Even after their defeat and retreat, these surveillance systems could not be cleared out quickly.
The Swarm, anwhile, made no effort to conceal their movents, leaving the Rikens well-inford about the incoming reinforcents.
In the second Battle for Planet Raze, the Swarm’s Primordial bodies suffered minimal losses. If their numbers continued to grow unchecked, the Rikens’ chances of victory would dwindle further.
The Riken leadership was well aware of this, but they had no effective counterasures. The three main fleets had sustained heavy losses in the second battle for Planet Raze, losing nearly 20% of their ships, with the remainder requiring extensive repairs.
Even if they included newly constructed vessels, the Rikens could muster fewer than a thousand ships ready for imdiate deploynt.
This number was theoretically sufficient to intercept the Swarm’s reinforcents, but the risks were enormous, and the cost-benefit ratio was unacceptably low.
To launch a surprise interception, the Rikens would have to bypass Planet Raze, now firmly in Swarm hands and defended by thousands of Primordial bodies.
Moreover, the Swarm’s reinforcents did not move individually. They waited until reaching critical mass before moving as a group. If the Rikens’ interception force were delayed, they risked being caught between the reinforcents and the Swarm forces on Planet Raze.
Such a scenario—being attacked from both sides—could result in the total annihilation of the interception force. For the Rikens, losing a thousand warships would be catastrophic, tantamount to forcing a surrender.
However, failing to intercept the Swarm reinforcents ant the Swarm’s growing strength would steadily erode the Rikens’ ability to resist, drawing them closer to a slow and inevitable death.
Faced with this grim reality, the Rikens adopted a fatalistic attitude, focusing on imdiate survival over long-term strategy.
The discovery of the Watchers faction, however, emboldened the Swarm. Confident in their position, they acted more aggressively.
After uniting part of their reinforcents, the Swarm stationed 5,000 Primordial bodies to defend Planet Raze. Another 2,000 rested in space to recover, while over 8,000 Primordial bodies ford a fleet advancing deeper into the Riken Star System.
Planet 8 of the Raze System was a small terrestrial planet, only a tenth the size of Planet Raze. Its diminutive size ant it had no natural satellites and limited capacity for a planetary defense system.
Due to the defensive advantage provided by Planet Raze in the front and the Twin Star Defensive Zone behind, the Rikens had only installed observational devices on Planet 8, leaving it without a defense system.
When the Swarm forces passed by Planet 8, they left behind 200 Primordial bodies and their accompanying larval bodies, planting fungal carpets that would later develop into railguns.
Although Planet 8 was small, it was far larger than the Primordial bodies. Railguns developed on its surface could grow to imnse sizes and potentially provide long-range fire support during critical monts.
Planet Izumo, the seventh planet in the Raze System, was a massive gas giant resembling Planet A7 in the Genesis Star System. It boasted an impressive array of 19 moons.
No matter whether a civilization followed a chanical or biological route, their theoretical foundations were often similar. The Rikens, unlike the Swarm, could not simply latch onto the orbit of a gas giant to absorb its radiation for growth. However, energy conversion was not a complex process.
On Planet Izumo’s many moons, the Rikens had constructed nurous facilities for energy conversion, making it a major production hub for their energy storage systems.
The movents of the Swarm forces had been under constant surveillance by the Rikens. A massive mobilization like this was impossible to hide under the scrutiny of their gravitational wave detection radars.
The Swarm made no attempt at concealnt, openly signaling that their next target was Planet Izumo. Within the Riken ranks, this revelation sparked intense debate.
“We must hold Planet Izumo!” a strategist exclaid.
“Hah! With what?” another countered. “We can only field about a thousand warships, while they’ve got 8,000 five-hundred-ter-class Space Octopuses. How do you propose we fight that?”
“Don’t we have a decent number of defensive systems set up around Planet Izumo?”
“Planet Izumo is a gas giant,” a strategist patiently explained, “so it cannot host a planetary defense system. Of its 19 moons, only 11 are large enough to accommodate defensive structures. Moreover, because Planet Izumo is so massive, the orbital paths of these moons are highly varied. This makes it difficult to concentrate fire in a single direction, let alone form overlapping fields of fire. That’s why Izumo’s defenses were given a lower priority.”
He continued, “Previously, we had to simultaneously construct the defensive systems for Planet Raze, the Twin Star Defensive Zone, and our howorld’s defense network. We simply couldn’t afford secondary projects. As a result, Planet Izumo’s defenses are relatively weak.”
The room fell into silence for a mont before a Riken general finally spoke.
“If we lose Planet Izumo, our energy costs will increase by at least 50%.”
The energy produced by Izumo’s resource systems was safe, convenient, and low-cost. It primarily supplied the main fleet and the various defense networks. Losing Izumo would force them to rely on energy supplies from the howorld and other colonies. The production costs alone would be substantial, not to ntion the logistical nightmare of transportation.
“There’s no choice,” another officer said. “Although Planet Izumo is critical, our deploynts there simply aren’t enough to repel a Swarm attack. Even if the three main fleets were still at full strength, it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“That’s correct,” agreed General Hamis, a veteran commander who had faced the Swarm in battle. “Even if we started fortifying Izumo now, it’s already too late. Furthermore, we must concentrate our resources where they matter most—on the Twin Star Defensive Zone. That’s where we’ll make our stand against the Swarm.”
Hamis spoke with the authority of soone who understood the Swarm’s capabilities all too well. He harbored no illusions about defeating the Swarm outright. His goal was simply to stop their advance using the powerful overlapping firepower of the Twin Star Defensive Zone.
Discussions like this had taken place countless tis recently. Initially, many Rikens supported the idea of making a stand at Planet Izumo. However, after thorough analysis, they realized it was a futile endeavor.
For one, establishing robust defenses was nearly impossible. Unlike terrestrial planets like Planet Raze, Izumo’s moons lacked abundant mineral resources. They couldn’t rely on local materials, and the construction costs would be exorbitant.
More importantly, they still hadn’t figured out how the Swarm had infiltrated Planet Raze. Theories about genetic mutation and adaptive transformations remained speculative. For now, the only reliable thod to counter Swarm infiltration was to prevent them from approaching at all. This required an impenetrable firepower network to destroy anything that ca close—be it Space Octopuses or teors.
However, Izumo’s environnt made such a network infeasible. Once the Swarm drew near, it wouldn’t take long for those accursed purple-gray fungal carpets to spread across its moons.
Reviews
All reviews (0)