Watching from the Shadows
"Hasmu, I need you to lead your squad to that location and capture a few native creatures. I've sent you the target image and coordinates."
On this voyage, the Cat Ear Spaceship carried a 500-person Guard Team, divided into ten squads. Opposite Dr. Lute was Hasmu, the Captain of one of the squads, responsible for the security of this surface exploration mission. Half of his squad went ashore to protect them, while the other half remained on board, ready to provide cover fire at any time.
Moreover, Hasmu was the tallest Riken who landed on the planet's surface this time. With his 2.7-meter height after being equipped and his muscular physique, Dr. Lute was only 2.1 meters tall, looked like a child in comparison.
"Yes, Dr. Lute. But what about your safety?"
"Don't worry, the rest of us non-combat personnel will return to the spaceship in a Transport Craft. But you all must be careful; the situation here is very strange, and we don't know what's lurking in the shadows," Dr. Lute cautioned.
"Understood." Hasmu nodded. The situation here was indeed very strange, even he, a soldier, could sense it. They thought there was a civilization here, but when they arrived, they found nothing. Just when they thought there was a problem with the navigation, they discovered residual radiation on the planet.
After escorting Dr. Lute and his team back to the transport ship and watching it take off, Hasmu gathered his squad and returned to the Gunboat.
The Gunboat, only 20 meters long, was very crowded with 50 people; half of them could have been transported by a cargo ship when they arrived. Fortunately, Captain Regi had already dispatched another cargo ship to support them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to load the hunted prey back into the water.
The Gunboat took off and flew towards the designated coordinates. The Swarm hidden in the shadows also focused their attention on the Gunboat.
This Gunboat was clearly on a mission, and once it left the radiation zone, it gave the Swarm an opportunity. If they didn't actively seek out some fun, then the Swarm might secretly drive away some native creatures to provide them with some entertainment.
However, this time the Swarm obviously didn't need to intervene. The Gunboat's target was very clear: it flew straight towards the nearest Magic Wolf den to the radiation point.
Rowan immediately mobilized all the Swarm units in the vicinity, maintaining a safe distance, and placed the entire area under surveillance.
The Riken Gunboat were very fast; they covered a distance of over 50 kilometers in just about three minutes, and that was only because the distance was so short that they arrived as soon as they picked up speed.
The battle was very brief; in just a few minutes, the guard squad had destroyed the Magic Wolf den.
They first deployed an armed force of more than 30 people about one kilometer from the Magic Wolf den. Then, the Gunboat took off and launched reconnaissance and armed Drone. Although there were fewer than ten of these armed Drone, their fuselages were more than one meter long, and with machine guns and four missiles mounted on their fuselages, they had considerable firepower support capabilities.
Reconnaissance Drone arrived first above the Magic Wolf den, providing the squad with vision and marking targets. With their assistance, the escort squad launched beyond-visual-range attacks from a distance of one kilometer.
They used an energy weapon, a gun-shaped device, that emitted a red ray about ten centimeters long. Upon contact with the target, the ray caused burning damage and also exploded, causing secondary damage.
Although this weapon is quite powerful, its rate of fire is slow, firing only about three or four rounds per second. The advantage is that it doesn't seem to require frequent magazine changes. After watching for a long time, Rowan saw that each gun fired over a hundred rounds without anyone needing to change magazines.
However, this type of ranged weapon is more than sufficient to deal with primitive creatures like the Magic Wolf.
The explosion seemed to stir up a fear hidden deep within the Magic Wolf's genes, though it was somewhat different from the scene in his memory and much less powerful.
After leaving behind dozens of corpses, the remaining members of the Magic Wolf den, which had more than 300 members, fled in disarray. The guard squad did not pursue them, but instead gathered the spoils, set up a defensive line, and waited for the Transport Craft to arrive.
Meanwhile, within the Swarm Network, a discussion was underway regarding the surprise attack.
"My Overlord, although their technology follows a different path than ours, it is not beyond our comprehension. Their firearms must use some kind of device to process energy into a kind of light bullet before firing it," one of the Intellect spoke first.
"That's right, and this kind of light-based weapon should be countered by our Optical Stealth System. Our Optical Camouflage principle is that the nanocrystals on the surface reflect the same light as the surrounding environment, thereby achieving the purpose of blending into the surrounding environment. But as long as we understand the spectral composition of the enemy's weapon, we should be able to use the nanocrystals to deflect it." An Intellect followed up with a statement.
"I don't think so. Although the bullets fired by that weapon travel at high speeds, they don't exceed the limits of our vision. We can still see streaks of light passing through the air. And if it really is some kind of light weapon, then it should also travel at the speed of light, and we shouldn't be able to see its tracks," Tikas jumped in to raise his objection.
The Intellect whispered and exchanged their opinions. Rowan was more inclined to agree with Tikas's opinion. He was no longer the illiterate person he was when he first arrived on Origin Star. After living for so many years and reading so many books, he could be considered an intellectual to some extent.
That kind of firearm must have condensed some kind of energy and then fired it. Although it looked like a beam of light, it was actually still some kind of energy aggregate. That's why they were able to see the trajectory of the beam bullet.
In this case, Optical Stealth System would be unable to counter this weapon, as they would be unable to reflect this energy.
However, although the energy aggregates flew very fast, their luminous properties made them far too easy to spot compared to the almost imperceptible trajectory of metal bullets.
Rowan thought that if the Swarm's advanced dynamic vision systems were installed, and their reflexes were enhanced, there should be a chance of dodging this light.
In short, we'll only know the specifics once we actually try it out. But right now, even if Rowan has all sorts of tricks up his sleeve, he can't operate it without his physical body in place.
Rowan already had his answer regarding the weapons issue, so the meeting moved to the next stage: discussing how the Swarm should confront this civilization from the M37 Star System.