StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

This room, temporarily used as the emperor's office, was more like a military camp, with bright lines and plenty of light. Only the golden curtains embroidered with wolf heads and cloud patterns silently highlighted the status of its owner. Outside the window is the bustling city center of Augustgrad. The Royal Palace is like a giant looking at the majestic buildings in an orderly manner with a stern look. The sky is covered with dark clouds and it is raining cold rain.

Kerrigan was wearing a white silk dress and a red velvet jacket with gold trim. There were two small mountains of paper documents on the table in front of her, and the holographic projector beside it was always turned on. Flashing continuously.

She sometimes even has to deal with government affairs until late at night, leaving little time for rest.

Although many of them are inconsequential matters, such as a routine report from a border world governor, Augustgrad always has to review and approve the reply. If there were ten times more imperial worlds, it would be almost exhausting.

A few months ago, wars were still raging across the empire. Major and major wars broke out at the same time. War reports and requests for support almost overwhelmed the palace.

It wasn't until Augustus gathered his troops to go to Aiur, attack the Yellow Dragon, and force the main force of the Golden Fleet and the Dominator Swarm to return for reinforcements that the pressure on the empire's front line was relieved.

Augustus called this besieging Wei and rescuing Zhao.

Kerrigan then turned over a report signed by the Minister of Shipping. It stated how many Imperial transport ships had been sunk and disappeared due to attacks during this period, and detailed statistics on how many crystal mines were carried on them. Storage tanks, liquid high-energy gas tanks, and rare minerals, meat, cotton, wood, wool and other materials produced in various places, all it took was to clearly declare that the people of the empire would be hungry and cold at the end of the year.

Seeing this, Kerrigan couldn't help but rub her hair angrily and let out a series of lamentations.

The Secretary of the Navy's document was on the other side of the table. He listed the number of naval warships, fighter planes and artillery shells produced this year. He said that the new warship construction and dock expansion plans had been completed, but mentioned the shipbuilding plan for next year and As well as the budget review, this representative of the Imperial Navy, who had high hopes from many senior naval admirals, shamelessly added a few more zeros after a bunch of suffocating and terrifying numbers.

Let me conclude by saying that everyone in the Navy knows that the work of colleagues in the Ministry of Finance is difficult, but no matter how poor they are, the Navy cannot be poor. I hope they will not be ungrateful.

In comparison, the Planetary Army and Marine Corps are at least more than human beings. What they want are living people. Of course, now that we have people, power armor, weapons, cannons, various types of tanks, heavy tanks, armored personnel carriers, and ammunition must all be matched to each other without overdoing it.

Before the troops and horses are moved, food and grass go first. When it comes to the materials needed for the war, massive military supplies are also indispensable. If it is not enough, then we have to build more factories and carry out industrial transformation. When the production capacity is limited, we can only sacrifice some products that are not beneficial to the war.

Kerrigan only sees two words in the whole story, cannibalism. War consumes both resources and real population. If we continue to fight at this intensity, the empire will collapse before the baby boomers at the beginning of the empire can grow up.

It is not easy to balance the expenditures of various departments in peacetime. When it comes to war, it is simply a chaos of chaos.

Since the Tyranids declared a state of war, laboratories, factories, arsenals, recruitment centers, barracks and countless related offices have sprung up, becoming part of the vast war machine of the Tyranids. But in the final analysis, the war machine must be refueled, and the empire is not a perpetual motion machine.

In comparison, it is much easier to control a swarm of insects. The Queen's command is the meaning of all existence, absolute loyalty, never doubting, expansion, growth, and conquest. The hearts of the insect swarm are as one, they are one but also billions and billions.

At this time, Kerrigan had noticed Louis and Rosa Morales standing at the door, so she waved to them to come over.

"Thank you for your hard work, Rosa." Kerrigan nodded to Moralis, then looked at Louis on the other side:

"Louis, come here."

Morales bowed her head and saluted, then stood aside.

Kerrigan put Louis's hand in her arms as she flew over, and mother and daughter rubbed each other face to face.

Louise has passed the age where she can be picked up with one hand, and she is also very tall. She is a very beautiful little girl, but she has the determination of the Mengsk family in her eyebrows.

Valerian's face had the softness and neutrality of his mother, Julianna, but Louise was more like a child of sword and fire.

There are no extra decorations in this room, only the fireplace of Mengsk's old mansion is retained. A ball of yellow light is embedded in the marble wall tiles, and the burning incense wood makes a peeling sound, lingering The incense does not make people feel tired.

Next to the fireplace is a framed oil painting of Louis' great-grandfather hunting wolves in Stillling Forest. This type of wolf has long been extinct in Korhal, and there are only some wild dogs that have been deformed by radiation.

A sweeping robot was flying around on the wool carpet, looking like a blue-black beetle.

"Baby, how are you today?" Kerrigan asked, holding Louis' head.

When Kerrigan educated Louis, he did not train her as the heir to the throne. In fact, when she gave birth to Louise, she had neither the experience of being a mother nor how to become a queen beloved by the people.

She is neither a court lady nor a middle-class woman from a wealthy family, nor is she a dynastic princess in the traditional sense.

Despite this, no one now doubts Kerrigan's qualifications to become queen, just relying on her past status as a ghost of the old Federation. Kerrigan's queen-like temperament is natural, and there is no one in the huge Tyranid Empire who can compare with her.

As a ruler, Kerrigan is resolute and there is no such thing as weakness in her body, but as a mother, she is gentle and approachable.

"It couldn't be better." Louis liked his mother very much.

Her strict father would always ask questions in his soul, Lu Lu, have you finished your homework today?

But if he had time, Augustus would be more willing to take Louis out to play.

"Today is Master Selmus's class, right?" Kerrigan looked at Moralis, and quickly received a nod from the latter: "I hope to get a fair evaluation of you from him."

Kerrigan organized her words.

Even for a dark master like Selmus, teaching Louis a lesson is not an easy task. The way of thinking of human cubs is completely different from the Nerazim protoss. It is not only unreasonable, but also groundbreakingly overturning past theories.

To use an analogy that humans can understand, among the Dark Templars, in order to control war horses, you must first develop a relationship with them and gain their approval, and then fit the horse with a good saddle. Louis said, huh? Why don't you just carry the horse and go?

The important thing is that these subversive and incredible theories can be realized in Lewis. But if other Dark Templars want to do this, even with the support of powerful void energy, according to martial arts novels, they may go crazy.

Once, Kerrigan saw Louis walking out of Selmers' residence in a happy mood, while the master remained silent for several days in a meditative posture, like a bird sitting by the pool on a hot summer day. A panda thinking about life.

In short, this theory was that in the past, the Dark Templar were classified as forbidden knowledge and sealed away.

Such an example may be traced in the history of the Dark Templar, that is the Dark Archon Orega, and his power is like a demigod.

"He admits that he has little experience in the void. The eagle should learn to fly from the chicks." Louis imitated Selmos and clasped his hands in front of his chest.

Kerrigan blinked, digesting Louis' words.

High-level bugs all have powerful void abilities. Like himself, Louis has the talent to communicate with bugs and even control them, so his attainments in void spiritual energy will never be low.

Unlike Kerrigan, who became a monk halfway through, Louis has received the teachings and guidance from the masters of the High Templar and the Dark Templar of all generations since he was a child, and knows how to use his incredible power.

"Selmos is a respectable elder." Kerrigan paused and said, "And we have nothing to repay him except a thousand thanks."

Some protoss trade in keldarin crystals, but human currency is of little use to them. The protoss living in the imperial world also have no desire to consume, let alone understand human hedonism. Their concepts in this regard are very different from humans, and Augustus's idea of ​​using tourism to boost the economy is out of the question.

Based on the supreme leader's foresight, the Duram Protoss also maintains a considerable amount of foreign exchange reserves of imperial credit coins, but that is only for the purpose of purchasing hard currencies such as crystal mines and high-energy gas in times of crisis.

"There is good news today, I was about to tell you." Kerrigan put the topic aside and said to Louis: "There is news from the direction of Ayr that your father's army has won. Counting the time, they should On the way back."

Kerrigan did not shy away from Morales next to her and continued: "They succeeded."

"Is he injured?" Louise was surprised and happy, but she was more worried that there was bad news waiting for her.

In fact, Louis did not know the purpose of the Tyran Empire launching this battle, nor did he know its scale.

"He has been fighting for many years and has been to the front line countless times, but he has almost never been injured." Kerrigan replied.

If one wants to praise Augustus Mengsk, no one can use all the words of praise to suffice. But regardless of Augustus's so-called beautiful moral character and iron will, he was able to walk out of the sea of ​​blood and corpses of marines unharmed, and ascended to the throne step by step. One trait that cannot be ignored is, Lucky.

Having said this, Kerrigan smiled again: "They have defeated the swarm and recovered Aiur. From now on, the Golden Fleet will no longer be our enemy."

This is what will be made public. For the people of the empire, destroying the incarnation of the Void Evil God used to descend into reality is a bit mysterious.

"We have been waiting for this news for too long."

Kerrigan said, pulling out another document, her eyes immediately sharpened.

This document shows that four days ago, the Gantuan VI starport (Gantuan VI, a huge gas giant) reported that an Imperial warship named Dominion's Revenge suddenly jumped into orbital space, but they had previously No relevant notifications have been received, and there are no ongoing training or combat missions in the area.

The document also comes with a picture of four huge barges towing the giant ship slowly into the star port. The scene is very spectacular. Even though these four barges are already the largest ships in the starport, they are pitifully small compared to this battlecruiser, which looks like a product from the age of giants, but now stands with a group of dwarfs .

Gantu VI starport does not even have a dry dock that can accommodate this battleship, and can only rely on the ship's own engineers to perform simple maintenance work.

This situation is understandable during wartime. A battleship that has been severely damaged but cannot contact the fleet will be allowed to choose to jump to the nearest imperial base for repair work.

But the captain of this battleship, Colonel Jenkins, claimed that he had just withdrawn from the Aiur battlefield, which confused everyone in the star port. They didn't even know that a war was going on in the Aiur system. Great war.

The voyage log shows that the Imperial Revenge indeed came from Ayr, but it is obvious that Jenkins did not receive any order to retreat, and his actions depended entirely on his own temporary judgment.

Rear Admiral Adams, who was responsible for managing the Gantu VI starport, bluntly described Jenkins, the captain of the Empire's Revenge, as having a confused mind and a mental breakdown in his report. His words and deeds were full of loopholes and illogical.

By the end, what Jenkins said was already shocking. He said that the Imperial fleet was almost completely destroyed in Aiur, the Emperor's flagship White Star had also sunk, and his own life or death was uncertain.

Suddenly, people in Gantu VI Star Port were in panic.

Fortunately, Major General Adams locked up Jenkins directly and blocked the news, so more terrible consequences were not caused.

However, the Imperial Revenge was neither the first nor the last ship to escape from Aiur. Some battleship captains knew that they were very likely to be sent to a military court, so they never returned to the empire. They either fled to the depths of the universe, or simply became bandits.

As you can imagine, bad news travels fast. Although the imperial government controlled a huge propaganda machine, it failed to prevent thousands of private radio stations from spreading all kinds of true, false, or simply fabricated news.

Changing the subject, adjusting the word order, and hiding key information may change a piece of news beyond recognition. If possible, a march protesting the blockade policy may also turn into an uprising of revolutionary fighters against imperial oppression.

By now, news of the unfavorable war in Ayr has begun to spread rapidly. Some people are sure that the empire has suffered a defeat, while others believe that Emperor Augustus is dead and the empire should establish a new emperor. Or the emperor has long been a clone. He He had already died in the palace civil strife.

These rumors will not have much impact on the imperial government, but if someone asks you why you left the world at your doorstep without guarding it, and why you had to go to Aiur, it really gives Augustgrad a headache.

In short, Kerrigan needed Augustus to show up in public as soon as possible and let the Empire know if they won the battle. (End of chapter)