Escape

The proposal to retreat was approved at lightning speed; thanks to Chloe's reminder, they hadn't forgotten their kin still on Big Origin Star.

On the Big Origin Star, personnel from all bases were urgently evacuated.

Abandon and destroy all bases, supplies, and useless weapons and equipment.

In Dr. Bart's laboratory, Godzilla's complete body could not be taken away; only samples of some body tissues could be taken.

But the Life-Extending Fruit were the most important, their greatest gain from this trip. They were carefully placed in petri dishes and loaded onto the Transport Craft.

As for the experimental equipment, the only option was to blow it all up.

The airship then took off urgently and flew towards the fleet in orbit.

At that very moment, hundreds of suns lit up the sky.

Fortunately Riken Race Transport Craft had not yet crossed the atmosphere, and the atmosphere shielded them from much of the impact; otherwise, they might have suffered the same fate as the escape pods, being blown away to who knows where.

The nuclear blast temporarily halted the Swarm's subsequent advance.

The Riken Race made a bold decision, abandoning the warships that had been infiltrated by the Larval Form, and initiated the self-destruct sequence before evacuating their personnel.

After connecting with the Transport Craft that flew out from the Big Origin Star, the entire fleet started its engines and flew in the opposite direction of the battlefield.

Rowan breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the Riken Race successfully escape.

Unexpectedly, the Riken Race fleet was not as powerful as imagined; in fact, it could be said to be quite vulnerable. It seems that the technology they absorbed mainly focused on engines, fleet structure, and materials, with very little progress in weaponry, making them practically defenseless.

The Riken Race, seeing that the Swarm did not pursue them, assumed that the radiation belt had truly blocked the Swarm and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if they had escaped from the brink of death.

In reality, those radiation zones are hardly enough to stop the Swarm; after the high temperatures subside, this place is practically a giant charging station.

If Rowan hadn't seen that the Riken Race hadn't gone far, he would have ordered all the Space Octopus that had lost their mobility in the battle to be dragged over to speed up their recovery.

Not long after the Riken Race set sail, the seventh wave of the Swarm's Ancient Class fleet arrived on the battlefield.

The play couldn't be too fake. After the temperature in the radiation zone between the two armies cooled down slightly, the Swarm organized more than two thousand Ancient Class to cross the radiation zone and pursue the Riken Race fleet.

The Swarm's engine technology is far inferior to that of the Riken Race, but many of the Riken Race's ships were damaged by artillery fire in the previous battle. Although they can still sail normally at low speeds, their incomplete hulls are struggling to withstand the increased speed.

But the pursuit of the Swarm behind them prevented the Riken Race from slowing down.

Thus, along the way, as the Swarm pursued them, they occasionally saw abandoned Riken Race warships. These warships were heavily damaged, and most of the Riken Race inside had been transferred.

But gradually, some warships in the leading Riken Race fleet fell behind. These warships were less damaged, but they could no longer increase their speed and could not keep up with the overall pace of the fleet.

Because the Riken Race fleet has now increased its speed, it is almost impossible to transfer the personnel from the damaged ships. However, if this continues, the warships will eventually be destroyed due to the excessive flight load. Even if they are not destroyed, they will be caught up by the Swarm.

Fortunately, their warships sustained relatively minor damage, so they decided to leave the fleet and fend for themselves.

The dispersed small fleets headed towards planet T854. This was the first planet they encountered when they arrived in the T85 Star System, where they still had some defensive forces, space factories, and resource gathering equipment.

If they stay there a little longer, they have a chance to repair the warship and then go home.

Now, I just hope the Swarm is drawn to the majority and doesn't bother with this small force anymore.

If Chloe and "Seed" are in this force, then the Swarm will naturally be "attracted" by the main force, just as they expect, and will abandon their pursuit of them.

Unfortunately, during the battle just now, Chloe's vehicle had already been marked in advance, and both the long-range Ancient Class artillery bombardment and the close-range harassment from Mature Form and Larval Form avoided the area where she was located.

When Dr. Bart's team evacuated from Big Origin Star, the Riken Race had already decided to retreat by the time they were notified to evacuate. Therefore, since they were carrying the precious Life-Extending Plant, they naturally wouldn't arrange for a damaged warship to receive them.

And in the initial stages of their escape, they had already moved again, this time to General Masai's vehicle.

This news has been confirmed by Chloe.

Therefore, this scattered and damaged fleet unfortunately attracted the attention of the Swarm's pursuit forces. They abandoned the increasingly fast-moving Riken Race army and turned to chase after this small force.

Seeing that the Swarm had stopped pursuing, General Masai felt somewhat heavy-hearted, but he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Their sacrifice was worthwhile." Masai murmured, watching the damaged fleet gradually being surrounded by the Swarm on the observation video.

These words sound like an attempt to excuse himself, or perhaps a way of convincing himself.

However, the person who least wanted to see this situation was General Masai. As the nominal commander of the expeditionary force, this operation was a complete disaster. Not only did he lose a large number of warships, but he also lost many men and eventually had to flee back in a sorry state.

Now we can only hope that Dr. Bart will put in some effort and use this time on the return voyage to make our bargaining chips more substantial.

The Riken Race fleet has shrunk from 315 main warships and 164 transport ships with over 3 million personnel to 206 main warships, 127 transport ships, and over 2.4 million personnel.

In a war, the main warships suffer the most losses, with fewer than 10 ships lost directly on the battlefield, and the rest all abandoned during strategic relocations.

The number of personnel losses was also very high, but proportionally it did not reach the level of main warships. Therefore, many warships and functional ships received some personnel who were not part of their original crew.

Most of them were transferred here when severely damaged warships were abandoned in the early days.

The fleet's supplies were barely enough to sustain these people's return, but the number of Stasis Pod was somewhat insufficient, with a shortfall of approximately 200,000.

Therefore, some people will have to waste a portion of their lives on monotonous interstellar travel.

Of course, Dr. Bart's team was not like that; although they also did not have Stasis Pod, they did not find it boring.

The study of Life-Extending Plant is enough to keep them occupied.

Because the emergency evacuation was so sudden, although they carried a large number of harvested Life-Extending Plant, these plants were like water without roots.

If a way to reproduce them cannot be found, no matter how much is stored, it will eventually be depleted. And going back to T853 to harvest them again is impossible in the short term.

Therefore, Dr. Bart's team not only had to study how to eliminate their side effects, but also had to find ways to cultivate and reproduce them.

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