A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 20: This commander is too talkative.

Bernd gazed at the seemingly endless array of warships, then looked at the projected blueprints of the warships, and shook his head.

"Not enough, this is far from enough."

The supervisor paused, then asked, "Do you think there's a problem with the design, Mr. Bernd?"

Bernd said, "Your design is excellent and has greatly improved the fleet I command."

"It's just that the improvement isn't big enough. After the battle on Kao Star, the mutated bee swarm will definitely make targeted adjustments again. In the next battle, our battlefield advantage will inevitably be greatly reduced."

The manager's neck hair swayed rhythmically, a natural behavior of Bannermen when they joke, just like humans have a smile on their face when they joke. Clearly, he didn't think what Bender was saying was serious.

The supervisor said, "I think you're overthinking it. Aren't the Babel bees just a bunch of creatures that only know how to manipulate molecular physics? That's common knowledge."

"No, the mutated bee swarms are completely different. I've fought them on the battlefield."

After a pause to organize his thoughts, Bernd continued, "They are completely different from their old, stubborn, and conservative ways; they are much more... much more ruthless."

"Using any means necessary?" The supervisor was taken aback.

In the supervisor's mind, bee swarms are bloodthirsty and brutal, cold-blooded and ruthless, and rampant and insane. But to say they are unscrupulous... it's not that it's wrong to describe them that way, after all, everyone's perception of bee swarms is different. It's just that no one had ever described them that way before.

So much so that the supervisor couldn't help but wonder what exactly Bernd meant by "any means necessary."

Bernd asked, "In the occupied territories of the Dias Empire, these mutated bee swarms always tend to infect imperial administrative planets rather than destroy them outright. And infected Dias imperial administrative planets usually have one or more empty fleets left behind by the mutated bee swarms, right?"

The supervisor nodded.

"Have you ever thought about why this is?" Bennett asked again.

The supervisor shook his head.

Bernd replied, "Because of ideology, in the past, the alliance was able to unite and reach a consensus quickly because the swarm was bloodthirsty and brutal enough. Inefficient decision-making meant the extinction of a civilization. But now, the mutated swarm has given the civilizations in the alliance a way to survive, which has inadvertently affected the urgency of high-level decision-making."

"And this is just one of the methods that the mutated bee swarm is currently using. War is not limited to the battlefield; it is a multifaceted and diverse game between organisms."

The manager, who wasn't very familiar with military strategy, awkwardly shook the fine hairs on his neck.

"Even if you tell me these things, I won't understand them. That's not my area of ​​expertise. As you know, my expertise is in equipment."

As the supervisor spoke, he suddenly remembered something and tentatively asked, "Commander Bernd, there's something that's been bothering me for a long time, and I just can't figure it out. May I ask?"

"What is it?" Bent asked.

The supervisor, relieved to receive permission, asked with puzzlement, "Why was the new hive overlord deliberately left behind? Shouldn't the hive overlord be a serious threat?"

Bernd looked at the supervisor strangely, as if he were seeing him for the first time.

"You noticed?"

It's no wonder Bernd was so surprised; he was quite familiar with the supervisor and knew that the supervisor wasn't interested in military strategy.

Imagine if an illiterate person suddenly solved a problem of two linear equations in two variables in front of a mathematician; this would truly surprise the mathematician.

"Although I don't understand military strategy, your logistics are directly related to me," the supervisor explained.

"The four attacks on the new ruler of that swarm, although the fleets sent to fight were all defeated, there were almost no casualties. Most of the losses were to the automated warships with very low flexibility, and the consumption of warship ammunition was also quite low."

After listening to the supervisor's explanation, Berndt understood and was not stingy with his explanation.

"The reason I kept it is actually quite simple."

"Do you think it's more difficult for the Babel swarm to run around randomly using psionic warps, making it harder for the Alliance fleet to search for and pursue them, or is it more difficult for the Babel swarm to gather in one place and be eliminated?" Bernd asked.

The supervisor hesitated for a moment: "Uh... it should be the former."

"Then let me ask you again, if a swarm of bees learns of the birth of a new ruler after the death of its overlord, what would it do?" Bernd asked again.

"..."

The answer is self-evident: they should gather around the new overlord and accept its command, because the purpose of any swarm of bees is to accept the command of the overlord, including the mastermind.

This has always been a consensus reached by the Star River Alliance.

Suddenly, the supervisor realized that what Bent had said was not a good thing.

If the news leaks out and reaches the Swarm Overlord through various coincidences, wouldn't the Star Alliance's plan fall through?

If the new ruler of the hive knew all this, how could he possibly allow the alliance's plan to proceed smoothly?

"Is it okay for you to tell me this directly? This seems... this isn't something I can say." The supervisor said with difficulty.

"Haha, it's alright, because this strategy has to be abandoned." Bennett couldn't help but laugh as he looked at the supervisor's reaction.

The supervisor was quite surprised and said, "Why give up? Once we bring the swarm leader under control, eliminating the Tower of Babel swarm will be a very easy task."

To be honest, this plan, which used the swarm's dominance as bait, seemed flawless to the supervisor.

As long as the details of the plan don't leak to the Hive Overlord, the Star Alliance essentially controls a Hive biomagnet, wiping out all the Hive creatures that have fled to various parts of the galaxy.

Bernt explained, "Of course, it's because the Diaz Empire's mutated bee swarms are unpredictable in terms of strategic decision-making. They can't predict what changes will occur after these mutated bee swarms come into contact with the swarm overlord. Therefore, the new swarm overlord must be eliminated before the two groups of bee swarms merge."

Hearing this explanation, the supervisor finally relaxed, relieved of his initial worries about the leak.

The supervisor asked, "Since the strategy we were already prepared to abandon aimed to use the swarm leader to constantly attract fleeing swarm members, why attack it four times in the first place?"

"Of course, it's to stimulate the survival instinct of the new dominant species. Apart from those mutated bee colonies, the Babel bee colony's strategic thinking has always been the same: to continuously increase the number of individuals, coupled with modifications to molecular genes," Bernd replied.

Bernt continued, "And when our fleet destroys most of the swarm individuals around the new Overlord, the new Overlord will modify genes and expand the swarm individuals. The expansion of the swarm individuals, in addition to hive reproduction, also involves calling on other swarm individuals scattered throughout the galaxy to return."

When the plan was mentioned, Bennett's feelings became complicated. In fact, he was the one who proposed the plan in the first place. If it weren't for the swarm mutation that happened halfway through the plan, it would have been a disaster.

The Babel bee colony is doomed to extinction!

"Unfortunately, if it weren't for the emergence of the mutated bee swarm from the Diaz Empire, the fate of the Babel Tower bee swarm would have been sealed."

"I'm getting more and more curious about who the mastermind behind those mutated bee swarms is."

The supervisor asked, somewhat surprised, "Isn't the mastermind of the mutated bee swarm a bee-like organism?"

Bernd shook his head firmly: "Absolutely not. According to the behavioral logic of those bee swarms, it would be difficult for them to make such a drastic change in their overall behavior. They are too rigid and conservative."

(End of this chapter)