After all that, Shali, who had maintained her timid, cautious persona for years, had indeed displayed astonishing courage at that very moment.
Yu Lian himself was pretty shocked.
Still, when faced with such an overwhelming disadvantage in numbers, that courage was little more than symbolic.
By the third minute of the video, the tragic battle had ended.
The giant crab-like bugs could fly freely through the void, and their plasma cannons looked to have at least the firepower of a destroyer's main guns. But their maneuverability left a lot to be desired.
When the Imperial fighters closed in, those flying bug turrets became nothing more than targets to be slaughtered.
The powerful Titanium Blade fighters in particular plunged into the swarm like knights in armor, armed to the teeth. After one unstoppable charge, they carved bloody paths through the bugs.
Of course, some unevolved dragonbugs still retained their maneuverability and tried to resist. But the effect was about what you'd expect from a rabble of unarmored conscripts trying to stop a charge of heavy cavalry.
For some reason, as Yu Lian watched the Empire slaughter the swarm, he felt a little pang of sympathy for them—not the grief and anguish he'd feel at the loss of comrades, but something subtler, as if his own flesh and blood—no, cells—were being squandered.
Yu Lian knew that this was a mindset very fitting for a swarm's Overmind, but he was a respectable human being.
So, coming back to the question, why was Shali being so brave?
There were only two or three thousand bugs in the video. On a planet's surface, they might blot out the sky, but in space, they were even smaller than viruses. If she really wanted to hide, how could Shali's stealth abilities fail to keep her concealed?
Had