The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

2384, Bloody Battle of Fangduo (VI)

Thinking of the huge nest, the adjutant shuddered.

It was indeed disgusting as Severance Tann said, but more of it was... fear.

Because when you see the horrible nest and the horrible mutant creatures, you will not associate these things with anything related to "civilization". All you can think of are words like devouring, destruction, and doomsday.

And this is indeed what Alexia is doing.

On the holographic combat map, it can be seen that the scope of Alexia's nest is rapidly expanding. Those terrible tentacles continue to spread along the ground. Every time they capture a factory or a residential area, they devour all the creatures inside, even energy. All of them are devoured.

It is incredible that these tentacles do not even let go of robots. Judging from the mutated semi-mechanical monsters, it seems that because the number of creatures on Fangduo is too small, some mechanical parts are used as skeletons to save some biological materials.

Now, the various monsters that appeared near the nest have increased to nearly 150,000 in just half a day! And these monsters continue to expand outward and have captured dozens of factories around.

"General Tann... we should..." The adjutant didn't know what to say at this time.

"Cooperate with her." Severance Tann said coldly: "Send our armored forces to open a gap for Alexia's biological weapons army."

"In fact, some front-line commanders have complained. They think that fighting side by side with such monsters is a bit..." The adjutant considered his words.

"Colonel Yi Hai, if you encounter such a commander, you should know how to deal with it. Do you still need me to teach you?" Severance Tann said coldly, "Stop such thoughts immediately and never spread them in the army."

"Yes!" The adjutant quickly stood at attention and saluted.

...

On the ground of Fangduo Planet, Alexia Ashford's nest can no longer be stopped.

Hundreds of thousands of mutant monsters, some flying in the air and some running on the ground, attacked every target around them fearlessly.

Severance Tann quickly made strategic adjustments. She began to deploy her troops near the nest, using armored units such as Scorpio tanks and M-90 Wolverine anti-aircraft vehicles to provide long-range firepower support for Alexia's mutant army.

Although these mutant creatures are powerful, they do have a very fatal weakness - that is, the lack of long-range firepower. No matter how resistant these biological weapons are, one burst of energy beams cannot kill them, and ten bursts cannot kill them. So what about a hundred bursts? A thousand bursts? How about a few more large-caliber high-explosive bombs?

Alexia seems to be trying to solve these problems, including hatching some creatures that can remotely spray venom through mutations, and hatching a large number of flying creatures. At the same time, the tentacles that continue to spread underground also began to transport mutant creatures through the underground passages that have been opened, and raided the backs of the other multi-planetary defenders.

However, none of these methods are as useful as an armored division sent by Severance Tann!

So now on the ground battlefield of Fangduo Planet, the defenders of the Galactic Empire saw such a terrifying scene - the invisible death god in the sky, the Banshee fighters were constantly bombarding, and the plasma grenades fired by the siege tanks in the distance kept falling. The Scorpion tanks approached quickly, and the 90mm caliber electrothermal guns fired a large number of armor-piercing shells at a very fast rate of fire, piercing the bunkers, destroying the firepower points, and crushing all resistance positions.

And behind these, there was a vast ocean of mutant creatures! ! The number was simply incalculable. As far as the eye could see, there were only countless hideous and terrifying monsters.

Even if the defenders of Fangduo Planet stabilized their position with the help of a large number of K-X security robots and a large number of automatic turrets, and blocked the attack of the armored forces of the Kingdom of Dawn, the tide of mutant creatures did not give them any chance at all!

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of mutant creatures rushed up, and no matter what kind of defense line, it would collapse instantly!

And such despair and fear are spreading around the nest.

After expanding and occupying more energy centers, the huge nest began to wriggle violently, and then the top of the nest cracked, and a bloated mutant monster like a meatball flew out, with a diameter of tens of meters!

After receiving the notice from Alexia Ashford, a behemoth-class battlecruiser immediately flew over, and dozens of ghost fighters escorted the monster. Then the behemoth-class battlecruiser stretched out the mechanical arm used for loading and unloading cargo to grab the monster and flew to the other side of the planet.

After flying to an energy power station thousands of kilometers away from the mother nest, the monster lay directly on the energy power station and began to absorb energy. Soon, the monster began to proliferate and its size began to grow larger. Then, a hatching port began to grow on it, and mutant creatures began to hatch from it.

Alexia's nest actually began to split!

As these small nests continue to increase, the mutant creatures she hatches will grow exponentially! It's really only a matter of time before the entire Fangduo planet is completely devoured!

If Tang Xiao was at the scene, he would probably sigh: Sure enough, the end point of all biological weapons is the Zerg!

But it is true that the structure of the T-Veronica virus is similar to the Zerg in its ultimate form.

Compared with other viruses that pay more attention to individual mutation and enhancement, the T-Veronica virus has the strongest sociality because it has the genes of the queen ant and also contains some plant genes. The complete Veronica virus is to build an extremely powerful population with the queen as the core.

Isn't this the Zerg?

It can only be said that humans have worked hard to develop in the direction of biological weapons, and the final destination is just the starting point of those Zerg.

In fact, if Alexia Ashford's Veronica group only appeared alone on the planet Fangduo, it would probably be completely destroyed in a few days. Tang Xiao actually knew the form of the Veronica virus from the original setting, but the reason why he still indulged Alexia's research was because the Veronica virus was weaker and more controllable than the Zerg, whether it was the current Zerg or the Killik Swarm.

Sometimes, weakness is also an advantage. It's not just about controllability, but also because of such weakness that it can be used by humans. Alexia Ashford produced various byproducts through the research of T-Veronica virus, including body enhancement, various incredible transplant surgeries and limb regeneration, as well as various targeted drugs with obvious effects, all because of the weakness of T-Veronica virus.

Compared with the Zerg, which is extremely powerful but has nothing to do with the development of human civilization except biting people everywhere, the Veronica virus is undoubtedly more useful.

Just like the T virus that Shirley Birkin is currently focusing on, the military application is becoming less and less, and the use of people's livelihood is increasing. This is also a very positive example. When technology develops to a certain level, a disaster like the one in Raccoon City will never happen, nor will it pose any threat.

And Shirley Birkin is now beginning to study some newer and more powerful viruses. It is said that she is currently further improving the T virus from the perspective of some deep-sea creatures, and has also applied to retrieve some extremely confidential scientific and technological files from the mothership database. However, there is no result report yet - only two projects have been secretly established, 'Abyss' and 'Sleeping God'.

However, Alexia's Veronica tribe is now weak, but the number is extremely large. With the full cooperation of Severance Tann, there are orbital bombings of warships in the sky, targeted strikes by ghost fighters and banshees, armored assaults by scorpion tanks, and long-range support by siege tanks. These forces allow the characteristics of the Veronica tribe to be fully utilized.

What is the biggest difficulty in cross-galaxy operations? - The delivery of forces.

Because if you want to completely occupy a planet through ground combat, rather than getting a glass ball that is completely burned by orbital bombardment, you need to invest a huge ground force. And the food, drink, defecation, ammunition consumption, and medicine supply of such a large army are astronomical figures. A million troops are on the march, followed by tens of thousands of transport ships!

Generally speaking, the practice of the Galactic Republic is limited orbital bombardment, with elite ground troops directly landing near the capital of the planet, and then directly capturing the administrative center of the planet and replacing an obedient regime. This is also the most labor-saving way.

Or like the Confederation of Independent Systems, directly throw a large number of robot armies down. The disadvantage is that it is rigid and costly, and it also requires a large number of spacecraft to transport robots. The advantage is that the supply requirements are very low. Considering that the Confederation of Independent Systems is generally the loser in fleet battles, the low supply requirements have become the main factor.

Alexia is now building her own mother nest on the planet Fangduo, which is to directly skip the step of force delivery and use local materials to create a large and cheap army.

With this solved, it would be easy to capture Fangduo.

…

About 10 days after Alexia's nest was built, the time had come to 12 BBY, 7 years in the Galactic Empire calendar and 23 years in the Dawn Kingdom calendar (again, a reminder, the Star Wars calendar has 35 days a month and 10 months a year, and the Dawn Kingdom also uses this calendar, but the way of counting years is different from that of the Galactic Empire).

At this time, Alexia Ashford's nests have appeared in large numbers on Fangduo, and millions of mutant creatures are sweeping across every inch of the planet like a tide with the support of the Dawn Kingdom's air strikes.

The battle situation on Fangduo has begun to collapse visibly.

In contrast, the Death Squadron led by Darth Vader is still fighting back and forth with the Given defenders in the underground caves of Yago-Dur. This time, Severance Tann's home-changing strategy has seen the dawn of success.

Although Fangduo has been completely blocked by the Dawn Kingdom's fleet, some news has still reached the center of the empire. Almost none of the news received by the top military brass of the empire was good news.

Among these fragmentary intelligence, the Imperial military only came up with a few key points: the Kingdom of Dawn used biological weapons on a large scale, the organized resistance of Fangduo has been disintegrated, and now basically each industrial zone is fighting on its own. In addition, the industrial capacity on Fangduo is still very huge, and a steady stream of robots are being produced, but raw materials are beginning to be in short supply.

However, even from these intelligence, it is easy to conclude that Fangduo is already difficult to hold on.

This important industrial world must not be lost. This is Emperor Palpatine’s very decisive order in the Imperial Parliament. Everyone can imagine that once Fangduo is lost, it will inevitably cause a bloody storm in the military and political circles of the Galactic Empire!

However, at this time, both Palpatine and the Imperial military still recognized Darth Vader’s strategy of continuing to besiege Yago-Dur. The reason is actually the same as Severance Tann’s judgment-once withdrawn from Yago-Dur, and then a fleet decisive battle, the result will be nothing.

Severance Tann didn't want to return to the state of confrontation, and the Galactic Empire didn't want to either.

So, on the one hand, the Galactic Empire military continued to prepare to reinforce Fangduo, and on the other hand, it was also urging Darth Vader to achieve the goal as soon as possible and capture Yago-Dur.

After discussion, the task of reinforcing Fangduo fell on Wilhuff Tarkin, the current governor of the Fourth Army of the Galactic Empire. In fact, the closest to the 20th Army to Fangduo should be the Second Army. However, the Second Army suffered a disastrous defeat under the leadership of Jedi Master Mace Windu at the end of the Clone Wars, suffered heavy losses, and lost trust as a result, and its political status plummeted, so this important task was postponed to the Fourth Army.

Wilhuff Tarkin currently has a small number of warships, and a large number of warships have been transferred to Darth Vader. He doesn't want to touch this hot potato at all, but Palpatine's order has been issued, and he has to find a way.

So he found the black hole.

Black Hole is Palpatine's dark advisor, the behind-the-scenes manipulator of the Imperial Intelligence Agency, and the real leader of the Imperial Inquisition. Although Wilhuff Tarkin has always been indifferent to things like the Force, he can only ask Black Hole for help now, hoping to get help.

"Reinforce the planet Fangduo? Hehehe... Governor Tarkin, you really shouldn't take this task." In front of Wilhuff Tarkin, there was a human-shaped shadow, and nothing could be seen inside.

"The strategic position of Fangduo is extremely important. His Majesty the Emperor gave me this task and entrusted me with an important task. I shouldn't shirk it." Wilhuff Tarkin said this, but the anxious expression was already written on his face, and he didn't seem to intend to hide it.

"Hehehe... But what happened on Fangduo now does concern me. Okay, I will help you, Governor Tarkin..." Black Hole said, "Remember, you owe me a favor."