Arcturus was sowhat surprised because, for the past day, they had been en route to the area where the Arachnids were being active; both Zehal and Jeniale were behaving very well, rather too well.
To the point where it was becoming suspicious.
But he guessed that it was a good thing because at least they were not fighting amongst each other all day. Not to ntion, just yesterday, they got a ssage from the Directorate that a violent Cosmic Storm was approaching the surrounding Star Systems, and it would last for a longer ti.
The most modest guesses of the educated people were that the Cosmic Storm would pass in a few weeks at the fastest, but realistically speaking, it could remain here for a few months. This information rather soured the mood of the vehicle because it ant that nothing would be able to leave these Star Systems or enter these Star Systems.
When the Cosmic Storm happened and covered certain area within the space, it rendered all of the space travel thods entirely useless and severed the area from the rest of the space.
Nothing would get out, and nothing would get in.
So the only thing that they could do was to wait for the Cosmic Storm to disperse naturally and this could take a very long ti. Fortunately, this one that was covering the Ziras Star System and the surrounding Star Systems would last only a few months maximally as was predicted.
At the sa ti, Arcturus didn't really know if this was a good thing or a bad thing to happen just now. On the one hand, the Ziras IV was cut off from any possible reinforcents that would be arriving from the Imperial HighCom, while on the other hand, this also ans that Arachnids wouldn't be able to send in here any of their Hive Fleets.
This was certainly good news because he was sure that the Arachnid Hive Fleet would arrive sooner or later at the Ziras IV. The Hive Fleet always arrived at the place where the Arachnid Nests were located.
It was rather standard procedure when the Arachnids were invading so world deep in the enemy territory. They would first infiltrate the said planet, create their Nest there, and cause problems for the local population.
When the Arachnid Nest got big enough and strong enough, it would launch an invasion into the planet itself and also send the Psionic Signal to the Hive Fleet and summon the Hive Fleet, which would arrive either at the sa ti when the attacks were starting or shortly after.
This way, they had the sowhat unique and irreplaceable opportunity to deal with the Arachnid Nest without any outside interference, but at the sa ti, being cut from the outside support was bad.
However, when Arcturus talked with the Agent from the Directorate that assigned this mission, he ntioned that they could kill the Brain Bugs and other types of Bugs that were used as communication thods with their Hiveminds.
This way, if the bugs were indeed planning a full-scale invasion of this world, they would be able to thwart their plans because when the Cosmic Storm covered the entire planet, it rendered any kind of Psionic Communication useless.
So, not even the bugs would be able to communicate with their Hiveminds because the Cosmic Storm was shrouding everything. Perhaps only the Beyonder Realm entities were able to breach forcefully through the Cosmic Storm, but for anyone under the Beyonder Realm, it was mission impossible.
Even for so of the Beyonders, it could be rather dangerous to force their way through the violent and powerful Cosmic Storms. Apparently, there were cases when so more unlucky Beoynders were killed in the Cosmic Storms when they tried to force their way through.
Another way would be to have specialized starships made from extrely durable materials that were considered rare commodities even among the High-Level Civilizations and High-Level Star Nations.
One could say that it was really fate that the Cosmic Storm ca just right now, at the ti when the colony was under the threat of the Arachnids, and now it was isolated from the outside world for an unknown amount of ti.
"The information gathered on the Arachnids is incomplete, and in so areas, it's even contradictory. With soone falsifying the reports about the strength of the Arachnids and sabotaging the investigation efforts, we are basically on zero. Though, I have two possible explanations for that."
For several days, they spent ti in an armored vehicle that was at least huge enough to accommodate four or five people comfortably. These kinds of armored winter vehicles were made for long-term trips into the freezing wilderness of the Ziras IV.
So one could sleep there or eat without problems, though moving through the place was still rather complicated, so they needed to make a short stop every few hours so the three of them could stretch out their bodies.
"What do you think?"
Arcturus asked because Zehal always saw sothing hidden in between the lines. She was very smart and could usually see the things that the other people overlooked. And he wasn't really wrong even now because Zehal did indeed see sothing in the docunts she had been studying for the past few days.
She was comparing everything that they had about the Arachnid's presence on the Ziras IV and from all possible sources that they had available as she was using everything that she could to uncover the truth about the situation.
Reports from the Directorate, information provided by the Imperial Phoenix Military Academy, reports submitted to the Colonial Office by the Governor's Office of the Ziras IV, and independent reports of the people that saw or dealt with the Arachnids on the Ziras IV.
There were also more than a dozen different other sources that were more minor ones and often contained only so bits of information here and there. Zehal did her research because she was rather paranoid about this entire ordeal, and she had a rather strong apprehension towards this entire mission.
Not to ntion, she was already thinking that she could talk to Jeniael and Arcturus to use their influence to abandon the Imperial Conscription Order collectively. She knew that with one word from Arcturus's master, Arsit Byrllir, they would get scot-free from the entire thing.
However, it was Arcturus, on the other hand, who was sowhat against such a decision because he at least wanted to give it a try. The man saw rather huge opportunity in this entire ss and wanted to take as much as possible from it.
"Well, there are two possible explanations for such discrepancy between the reports and their falsification. One reason is that the power of the Arachnids on the planet is actually much higher than expected and they are hiding their power and preparing for the invasion. The second reason would be the exact opposite: the Arachnids are much, much weaker, and the one that has compromised the governntal structure of the colony is covering this weakness up by artificially increasing their power, numbers, and strength to the point where they beca unknown and buying their ti."
Zehal explained that she noticed many weird things in between the various reports when she compared them to the information found about the Arachnid Nest and Arachnid presence on the Ziras IV from the local news channels and information on the Imperial NetSphere and so on.
"And what do you think is more probable according to you?"
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Arcturus asked because he wanted to know what was more probable, according to Zehal, as she was usually right in these matters. However, he suspected that the second possibility was the more probable one for various reasons.
In his mind, the bugs wouldn't have waited for anything; if they were strong and powerful enough, they would have overrun the planet already. The fact that the planet was still standing and the skirmishes with the bugs were rare was proof of his theory.
"The second one, but... at the sa ti, I think that the Arachnids have so really powerful specins, though their numbers are low. If they were confident enough, they would have already long ago breached the defenses of the colony and devoured everything in their sight. At the sa ti, the greatest supporting fact of this theory is the flora and fauna of the Ziras IV itself... the Biomass is not sufficient to support a large Arachnid Nest."
She put forward her reasons, and Arcturus found them pretty plausible. He, too, noticed that the Ziras IV was a pretty hostile environnt, and even the Arachnids would have serious problems gathering Biomass to grow their Nest and numbers.
The fauna was extrely dangerous, and powerful on the Ziras IV, and the flora was no slouch either in this world. Not to ntion, the number of the animals and beastss living on the planet was relatively low, so there wasn'e even much to hunt for.
All of these things coupled together led Zehal to the conclusion that the Arachnid Nest wasn't that big. In situations when the Arachnid Nest didn't have enough Biomass, they would go mode of preserving the Biomass and focus on creating a few strong Arachnids instead of great numbers.
Mostly by creating the specialized Arachnids that were best suited for a certain kind of environnt.
"So, we can await so elite bugs, but not in great numbers?"
Arcturus asked as they were having the sa thoughts, while Jenaiel was just silently observing from the side as she was lying on the bed and doing nothing. She just occasionally checked on the news on the Imperial NetSphere or watched so videos there.
She knew that these intellectual talks were not really for her as she was best suited for fighting, if nothing else. She liked to fight and not think about complicated things, creating plans and sches that could be left to the people who were way smarter.
"Yes. I would be that the actual numbers of the bugs in their area would be much lower than initially anticipated, but their individual strength would be much higher."
Zehal was highly confident in her own analysis of the situation, and she thought that the actual numbers of the Arachnids would be way lesser compared to what was predicted or reported.
It even sounded logical, but the only tis that the higher numbers of the Arachnids appeared were on the paper. Yet when Zehal started searching for the encounters with the Arachnids on the Ziras IV, there were not many results, and even when there were so, it was with so really powerful bugs.
'Master, approximately several thirty kiloters ahead of us, I am sensing so bug activity.'
Suddenly as they were in the middle of their talk, the Red Queen that was in the control of the armored vehicle. The Super Advanced Hyper Artificial Intelligence also only scans the area with the sensors that are installed on the top of the vehicle so they can see the dangers ahead.
The devices had a rather wide radius of several tens of kiloters as they were used to scout the entire area ahead, which was crucial for the successful exploration of the planet by the colonists.
With that, they were able to detect the threat from far and safe distance, just like right now, when the Red Queen noticed small groups of the bugs that were wandering here. Which was rather suspicious because it was far from the Arachnid Nest.
This was the most unusual because this was the closest that the Arachnids were ever sighed most probably, but according to several sources that they had in their disposition, it seed to be true.
"How many of the bugs are there and of what Classes?"
Arcturus asked because even though the Red Queen reported the presence of the bugs in this place, he suspected that this was for sure just a scouting party of the bugs. Most probably, they were searching for Biomass due to the lack of it on the entire planet.
In most of the places, the Arachnids were always the top predators, but on the Ziras IV, the Arachnids were just one of many top predators on the planet. The beasts that lived on the Ziras IV were as fierce and as dangerous as many of the Arachnids, so the bugs had a lot of problems gathering enough Biomass for their growth.
'Mostly Warrior Bugs, few Tiger Warrior Bugs and Scarab Scout Bugs. Altogether, there is sothing around fifty bugs.'
That were actually not that high numbers; he would have expected at least a few hundred bugs, not just a ager fifty bugs. This showed that the numbers of the Arachnids were indeed not as high as one would have thought.
"Are they doing anything else aside from scouting the territory?"
Zehal asked as she was curious about the behavior of the bugs. Even though she primarily studied advanced technology, theoretical taphysics, and other stuff that nobody among them understood, she was rather fascinated with the bugs.
'Aside from hunting for the beasts, I am not getting any other activity from the bugs as we area speaking right now. This seems to be the Biomass gathering party according to my prediction based on the standard behavioral patterns of the Arachnids.'
Red Queen answered as she ran an analysis on the behavior patterns of the Arachhnids based on the information that she could gather from the Imperial NetSphere and ExtraNet about the bugs.
"Then it's set, we are going to ambush them and dispose of them... it seems that they are really in dire need of the Biomass if they are sending the gathering parties that far from their Nest."
The Arachnid Nest was located at least one week from the location where they were right now, but they managed to encounter the bugs even here.
So it ant that the Arachnids were sending their Biomass Gathering Parties rather far from the location of their Nest. It seed that they couldn't find Biomass close to the location of their Nest.
Thus, they were forced to search in the other areas, which was rather dangerous for them because this was already pretty close to the first defensive outposts of the Ziria.
"Red Queen, continue to monitor the bugs and take us closer to them."
Arcturus ordered to his artificial intelligence as they contained directly towards the bugs that were already waiting for them to be killed.
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