The Invasion
The entire base is constructed from extremely sturdy metal and transparent glass-like material, forming a sealed structure with an independent air circulation system inside.
Those glassy substances appear fragile, but they are actually extremely hard and very thick. Even with concentrated artillery fire, it would be difficult to break through them in a short time.
On the contrary, those seemingly stronger metal structures are actually weaker in some places because they need to perform different functions.
For example, there are several exits for maintenance personnel to go out and repair instruments and equipment; their thickness is only half or even one-third of that of the fortress walls.
The insects quickly found these locations. The Raider carefully moved to the blind spot of the surveillance equipment in front of the door, then approached and destroyed it.
Some insects, slightly different in appearance from the Raider, crawled to the front, sticking out their rear ends and spraying puddles of viscous liquid toward the gate. This was the oldest and most basic acid spraying system, which had been improved to increase the acid strength hundreds of times, enough to corrode these hard metals.
Even the inner wall muscles of its launch tubes have been improved, enabling it to spray the acid more than twenty meters away.
Inside the fortress's control room, a monitor's screen suddenly turned into a static display.
"Damn it, this junk is broken again. The guy who bought this stuff should be court-martialed," complained a Ricken soldier. Then he picked up his communicator. "Team three, team three, the security camera in front of maintenance tunnel number seven is broken. Go check it out."
Unfortunately, he waited for a long time without receiving a response. He patted the communication device and suddenly noticed that several more monitors had gone black. Alert, he sensed something was wrong.
Before he could call on other teams to check the situation, a piercing alarm went off.
On another instrument monitoring the entire interior of the base, several rooms connected to maintenance access routes turned red, indicating that their structures had been damaged and outside air had entered them.
He quickly looked at the other wall, which displayed the images from the base's internal monitoring equipment. The monitoring images of the rooms connecting to the passageway had gone black, and the monitoring of the passageway connected to it was also being rapidly destroyed.
Before one of the images went black, he seemed to see an endless sea of insects.
Ignoring his surprise, he quickly called his companions and sounded the alarm.
As a result, the alarm that originally only sounded in the monitoring room now resounded throughout the entire base.
Meanwhile, Colonel Chloe, the highest-ranking officer at the base, was still holding a video conference.
The piercing alarm startled the high-ranking officials in the meeting, who quickly checked and found that it was not an alarm from their own ship.
"Chloe, what's going on your end?" Major General Porter was the first to notice the alarm coming from Chloe's video call, and as her elder, he quickly asked with concern.
Chloe was also completely bewildered; she didn't know why the alarm was sounding in the safe fortress base.
Just then, her Adjutant whispered something in her ear, and Chloe's face showed an expression of disbelief and shock.
"What's wrong, Chloe?!" Porter saw Chloe's expression and knew she must have found out what happened, so he quickly asked again.
"Those bugs have invaded my base!?" Chloe still couldn't believe it.
Not only did she not believe it, but the other commanders didn't believe it either.
"How is that possible? Given the combat power those insects displayed, not to mention how they evaded detection instruments, they couldn't possibly breach the fortress's defenses alone," a captain exclaimed, looking at Chloe with suspicion, as if he thought she was just trying to attract attention. He had long disliked this young nepotism hire.
"Shut up, all of you. Chloe, organize the defenses immediately and see if we need support. Also, grant your base monitoring authorization; I need to see the situation on the ground." General Masai, the supreme commander of the Expedition Fleet, silenced the noisy crowd and issued the order directly.
Chloe was somewhat helpless. Although the base's internal surveillance videos didn't reveal much, nobody likes having others watch their territory. However, there was nothing she could do; it was her fault for making the mistake.
The AI at the base was invoked, and access was granted. Soon, surveillance videos from various locations within the base were displayed at the meeting.
Unfortunately, these surveillance cameras couldn't see much. The cameras that could actually see the situation had all gone dark, but in the brief moments before some cameras went dark, you could still catch a glimpse of that endless Zerg army rushing past.
Chloe no longer cared about the base's privacy. She had initially thought it was just a few bugs that had somehow crawled in, but she hadn't expected the situation to be this serious.
This was precisely when the base's defenses were at their weakest, and the fact that the Zerg chose to attack at this time made it hard for her to believe it was a coincidence. However, the sense of superiority that comes with being a highly intelligent being made her unwilling to believe that those Zerg could do such a thing.
However, now was not the time to think about these things. The situation was urgent, so she quickly ordered all the hatches to be closed in order to delay the Zerg's attack.
Meanwhile, she didn't forget to call for help. All the commanders were watching the surveillance video and realized the seriousness of the situation. But this was precisely the time when the various bases were attacking the Insect Nest Crypt. Reorganizing forces and arranging rescue teams would take at least thirty minutes to arrive, and that would only be possible thanks to the Riken Race's extremely fast spaceships.
The garrison troops stationed in the nearby ravine were close enough to be there in five minutes to reinforce her. But before she could even give the order, she received a distress call from them.
From the pitted position, a large number of Raider emerged from nowhere and surrounded the guard force. They launched a suicidal charge. The guard force had already been largely mobilized, and there were very few Gunboat and transport ships left. Under the Zerg's frenzied attack, they were already in dire straits.
Pitfalls, other Crypt, attacks on fortress bases—cold sweat broke out on Chloe's back. Each link was interconnected, each detail intricately linked, exuding an air of conspiracy.
Although she cannot yet guess what the Zerg's true purpose is, it is certainly not simple.
There was nothing she could do now but hope that the sturdy hatches could hold off the Zerg. If they could hold them off for half an hour, reinforcements would arrive one after another.
The chances are still very high, because the fortress base is enormous, with numerous rooms and almost identical structures. Even the Riken Person work and live inside would easily get lost without a Personal Terminal navigation map.
In addition, the sturdy hatches make it difficult for the Zerg, with their primitive bodies, to damage them.
Furthermore, there are a small number of automated defense weapons in the passage. These weapons are controlled by artificial intelligence and are all functioning normally. With these, it should be no problem to hold off the Zerg forces for half an hour.
Thank you Jiyu the 1500 Qidian coins reward, thank you for the 1500 Qidian coins reward for seeing blurred vision, thank you for the 200 Qidian coins reward for Abyss Order and Eternal Insect Mother, and thank you for the 100 Qidian coins reward for the Chen the Enthusiastic Citizen of Jiujiang, Book Guest Good Brother, and Bi Ni Lang.