Chapter 447 The Empire’s Counterattack
The outcome of this new battle has left many people in a state of deep despair.
No one knew how to face such a fleet that was stronger in single ships and could expand its own fleet from the enemy's wreckage.
What's more, now the empire is still facing an evenly matched enemy.
However, the Minister of Psychics had no such idea.
After he saw the capabilities of nanomachines, the hope in his heart became even more impossible to extinguish.
Because he discovered that the ability of nanomachines is very similar to Chen Ming's psychic ability.
Not only the style of capabilities, the combat intensity of the ships, the pure mechanical structure they possess, but also the seemingly endless number of ships, all seem to be from a fleet under Chen Ming.
However, they do not have the terrifying production efficiency that gradually increases with the expansion of the nest size like the Zerg.
Production and assimilation seem to be two different ways of doing things with different efficiencies for nanomachines. The efficiency of ordinary warship production is not as fast as assimilation in actual battles.
At least a cruiser or even a main ship was not destroyed just now. In a few minutes, it was completely assimilated by the nanomachines and became a member of the nanofleet.
This can be seen from the recent battle commanded by the commander of the Fourteenth Legion, and from the empire's observation from different nanoplanet that the number of nanowarships in those nanofleets is far lower than expected.
The minister doesn't understand why, but this is one of the few pieces of good news at the moment.
Although this good news does not seem so good when nano battleships already have production efficiency that far exceeds that of normal battleships, coupled with nano's exaggerated efficiency in assimilating planets, and the fact that every planet can carry out industrial production.
But this at least means that these nanometers have shortcomings and are not perfect.
And there's one more thing.
That is, the nano-fleet is not like the battleships controlled by Chen Ming himself. It has nearly unlimited ship repair efficiency and can be repaired from a pile of destroyed dregs.
When the nanorobots of every nano battleship are worn out and cannot support the battleship, it is equivalent to the battleship being destroyed. There is no way to return to the battlefield almost unconditionally like Chen Ming
They also do not have truly unlimited firepower output like Chen Ming's fleet.
In terms of single-ship combat effectiveness, it indeed exceeded the ordinary battleships of the empire, but it was still far behind the battleships operated by Chen Ming.
In terms of strength, it is weaker than Chen Ming.
The gathering of these messages made the minister feel that the nano fleet led by the Queen was almost completely suppressed by Chen Ming's psychic power.
No matter how powerful the queen's psychic powers are, she cannot change this fact.
In the minister's view, unless a single psyker is powerful enough to destroy the entire empire on his own, he has no capital to threaten the empire.
After all, the power of the individual is too weak in front of the collective.
Even the Queen is the same.
If she didn't have those nano fleets, she would be just a lamb to the slaughter to the empire.
What's more, if she can really destroy the empire single-handedly, then she is indeed just like what the military leader the minister heard at the meeting two days ago said, and there is no need to slowly expand the nano-planet.
Therefore, the minister is extremely convinced at this time that as long as Chen Ming can come back, the empire's current predicament or desperate situation will be completely overcome.
Just...
The minister took out the terminal and tried to contact Chen Ming.
Of course I didn't get any response.
Chen Ming is still out of contact.
The minister put away the terminal with some disappointment and sighed.
This action can be said to be the one he has done most frequently in recent times.
He looked at the current time, got up and went to a special floor of the office building to participate in a new online meeting after the tentative battle failed.
Through the simulation device, the minister quickly returned to the previous online conference room.
The difference from before is that this time there is a moving countdown hanging on the wall on one side of the conference room.
The time shown above has seven days and more than ten hours left, close to eight days.
There were already about twenty people sitting in the conference room. Someone explained to the new minister: "This is the arrival rate we estimated for the Empire based on the current expansion rate of the nano-planet and the Empire's data on those galaxies that are about to be assimilated. Border time ”
"This time may be earlier, but it will not be later."
The minister nodded and stared at the countdown for a long time.
It was like the Sword of Damocles that could fall at any time, threatening him and the empire.
There is currently no way to remove the sword.
The minister sat down in his seat and looked around. The atmosphere in the conference room was worse than before.
If the nanocluster hadn't chosen to expand slowly instead of directly letting the empire face this trouble, I'm afraid someone would have collapsed long ago.
People in the conference room quickly gathered.
The head of the military department was the first to speak at the meeting with less arrogance than the previous two days: "We already have a clear understanding of the combat effectiveness of the nanofleet."
"Basically, it can be said that as long as they expand and fight us head-on, we will lose."
"With our current technological level, there is almost no effective way to deal an effective blow to their fleet except to crush them with at least twice the number of fleets."
"In terms of fleet and ship strength alone, the Titan-class warships that are still under construction may be able to do it, but once the Titan-class battleships are damaged in battle, the few methods we have at our disposal will also lose their effectiveness."
"This is news that everyone knows by now, and you should also have a headache now."
"But...I also want to tell you some bad news that you don't know."
"The size of the nanofleet that passed through the wormhole at the beginning was only close to the permanent military force of an ordinary star field."
"We have missed our best opportunity."
As he spoke, the head of the military department glared at the person who questioned him last time.
But there's nothing to say. Even if the authority is really delegated to the military, they can't really assemble the available forces and all the psykers in the entire empire to attack the Queen on the day she arrives.
It’s really hard to say who will lose and who will win.
So the people in the military department just glared at it, and then continued: "But as of today, the size of the nano fleet cannot be predicted. It is at least one-tenth of the empire's standing military strength."
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"Don't think that this number is small. How many star fields does the empire have? How many star systems have they occupied until today?"
"The production efficiency of those nano-planet is very high, and the speed of replenishing the fleet is far faster than the speed of our replenishing fleet."
"And as the number of planets they control increases, the number of warships they produce will increase."
"It won't take a few days until the number of nano fleets really crushes the number of our fleets, and we really have no hope of making a comeback."
"But there are still."
"Based on our parallel investigations over the past two days, we found that the growth of the nanofleet is not exponential, but linear."
"The only means they use to expand the nano-planet is the Colossus."
"I doubt if the Chen Ming Colony hadn't used the Colossus to try to destroy the Star Gate, giving them the opportunity to recreate the Colossus. It would have been possible for their Queen to come directly to the Empire to grab one."
"We have ways to curb their expansion, and this Colossus can definitely become our target."
The Minister of Psychics couldn't agree more with this point of view.
Although he himself thought that the production efficiency of nano planets was not as high as the conversion efficiency of nano ships in battle, that was also relative.
It would also be good if we could find a way to dismantle the Colossus and delay the expansion of the nanoplanet for a day or two.
If the production efficiency of nanometers is lower, the reconstruction of the Colossus will be slower, and it will be even more unexpected if it can be delayed for a few more days.
With only eight days left to face the Queen, delaying time is extremely important.
But someone else brought up the last meeting: "Where is the Queen? What are you going to do?"
"The Nano Colossus has not been found yet. Are you still thinking about the Queen?"
The person in charge of the military department turned dark and asked. However, he still said a plan that seemed to have been thought out before: "If you want to deal with the Queen, there is only one option. Gather the power of the top psykers in the empire to fight in a concentrated attack."
"We can't just find a few psykers and try to deal with it. That would be the same as losing our lives."
The plan to gather the top psykers in the empire is currently unfeasible, and the threat of the mechanical superbodies is still aside.
Once the machine race notices the movements of the empire's psykers, the super-body will cause heavy losses to the empire in a very short period of time.
Therefore, if you want to target nanometers, you must first start from other aspects.
After two sentences, the topic of the Queen was temporarily ignored.
The person in charge of the military once again said with preparedness: "Not only the Nano Colossus, we must also try to clean up those Nano Planets to further reduce their productivity."
"It is also necessary for our Colossus to move. This is the Colossus's job."
Everyone in the conference room discussed it for a while and had no objections to this idea.
This is indeed an effective way to suppress the productivity of the nano fleet.
The only possible consequence, the same as destroying the Nanocolossus, is that the Queen changes her current way of doing things and attacks the Empire directly.
But this is not a problem at all, it is just something that is bound to happen sooner or later.
Instead of being afraid of the consequences, try something.
Someone suggested: "There is also a Colossus over there in Chen Ming's colony. Do you want to borrow it?"
"You can give it a try, but I'm not optimistic about the effect of neutron torrent on nanomachines."
“An extra choice doesn’t hurt.”
After the plan was passed and handed over to the military department for execution, the person in charge of the military department suddenly glanced at the Grand Consul.
He suddenly changed the topic as if he understood something again and said: "Having said that, in fact, it is necessary to plan the plan for the Queen."
"At present, we all know that the Queen's psychic power far exceeds that of any psyker, so our psykers must work together to target it."
"Our top psykers usually don't cooperate much, especially in cooperative battles. Therefore, if their abilities conflict, appearing in front of the Queen together may even have negative effects."
"We need to carry out certain organization, build a qualified team, be ready at all times, and carry out beheading plans when necessary."
The plans for Nano Colossus and Nano Planet are both theoretically feasible and the approximate results can be predicted.
But for the Queen's plan, it was obvious that no one present would pass it so easily.
"Let's not talk about beheading. How can we behead the Queen if we don't know where she is?"
The head of the military department responded confidently: "We actually have a solution to this problem."
"Our military department has been cooperating with the Fanchao Research Institute to conduct research on a secret project. The name of this project is the Sentinel Array."
"This project was established one month after Chen Ming brought back the cosmic star map. He completed the research some time ago and knows that the technology has only been completely completed recently."
Sentinel Array.
It is a special giant structure that has the same specifications as a giant shipyard, but has different abilities and effects.
The effect is to conduct empire-level long-range and ultra-high-precision reconnaissance.
As long as you are within the radiation range of the Sentinel Array effect, everything from the structure of galaxy clusters to the biological populations and natural resources on the surface of the planet are clearly visible.
The existence of this technology was originally used to target the mechanical tribe. As long as the mechanical tribe still existed around the empire, the empire would be well aware of all the movements of the mechanical tribe.
As long as the war between the Empire and the Machine Tribe continues, the Sentinel Array will soon be able to locate the location of their Omega Core.
And now, the results of this technology can just be used on survivors.
"Then what? No, we still can't beat it."
"Beheading the Queen is not the first goal. This is just preparation. If we are not prepared, we will not even have a chance to fight the Queen."
The Grand Archon, who had been silent for a long time since the beginning of the meeting, ended the debate and completely set the tone of the empire's targeted strategy against the survivors.
Destroy the Nano Colossus.
Clean up the nanoplanet.
Behead the Queen.
The three fronts go hand in hand.
This is not because the Archon is arrogant, but because the Empire cannot win if he doesn't do this.
Half a day later.
The sentinel array built in a secret galaxy affiliated to the military department of the empire was officially launched after a series of careful preparations.
Within minutes of activation, the array determined the precise location of the Remnant's Empress and her nanocolossus.
The Queen's vehicle is currently hovering in the galaxy where the wormhole is located.
Her vehicle, like any nanoship, does not require a giant dock to maintain it.
Because every nano-planet has all the functions it should have, and they transform with the changes of the nano-machines on the planet.
Each planet can be a ship production center or a specialized ship repair center.
And the Nano Colossus is on the edge of the galaxy occupied by the survivors, moving in the direction of the empire.
The Queen's star field does not expand in a spherical shape, but in an egg shape.
The tip gradually lengthens towards the empire.
This gave the Empire an excellent opportunity for a surprise attack.
One day later.
The operation against the Nano Colossus was officially launched.
A combined fleet composed of several powerful imperial forces took the initiative to launch an attack on the galaxy where the Nano Colossus was located.
Relying on the absolute superiority in numbers, the empire's fleet barely managed to win back a victory in this battle.
The Nano Colossus was not dragged into the war, but went to other nearby galaxies under the escort of other nano fleets.
Of course this is also planned.
A level 6 psyker was placed on all the retreat routes of the Nano Colossus, with the sole purpose of destroying the Colossus.
The actual direction in which the Nano Colossus evacuated happened to be Hu Yi, who had been caught by Chen Ming before, then forgotten by Chen Ming, and finally ran to the president's side.
His psychic energy has a very good effect on nanomachines.
The entropy reduction of its spiritual energy is completely irreversible to the structural damage of nanomachines after building an area of absolute zero.
And the moment when the Nano Colossus stepped into the ambush range.
The extreme cold that came in an instant completely destroyed the entire nano fleet, including the nano colossus.
Hu Yi's fleet quickly dismantled the colossus and evacuated. The imperial fleet, which was used to attract the main force of the nano fleet, also took the opportunity to end the battle and also chose to evacuate.
The Queen did not appear during the whole process.
The nano fleet seems to have no ability to replenish a new Colossus in a short period of time.
The Queen's steps seemed to have stopped for the first time.
But just as this news was sent back to the empire, another news was also sent back.
Under the surveillance of the sentinel array, a nano fleet with three capital ships was leaving their star domain and approaching the empire.
(End of chapter)