Three days had passed since the Zerg's sneak attack on the space station. The team led by Qi Xingli finally found the hidden queen insect near a space chaos zone 1,200 star ranges away from the space station.
There are a total of 12 male insect guards standing in front of the queen insect, all of them are SSS level. They are the largest male insect team they have ever encountered. Among them, four male insects are seen for the first time and their abilities are unknown.
Qi Hanyi's assault team had a total of 20 starships, all of which were SS-class except for the Bai Ze, and 1,000 mechas, of which 35 were SSS-class and the rest were also SS-class. This was already the highest configuration for the expeditionary force's assault.
But facing the opposing team, we still seem to be a little short-handed.
If it were just that, it would be fine, but the real heavy stone weighing on the hearts of all the assault team members is actually Qi Hanyi's situation. As the driver of the Bai Ze, he is also the backbone of the entire team. When Qi Hanyi cannot use his mental power, he can only exert less than 30% of his strength. If he forcibly uses his mental power, he may not be able to hold on for a few minutes before falling into a coma.
The attacking Zerg seemed to be aware that Qi Hanyi was in poor condition and had been attacking Qi Hanyi.
"Since the enemy likes to stare at me, let the Bai Ze act as bait to attract the enemy's firepower. The remaining starships will be divided into three groups, each of which will spread out and circle around, looking for opportunities to attack the queen insect. Ten mechas will be left on each starship to provide auxiliary attack, and the other mechas will all be dispersed to the periphery, responsible for restraining the low-level insect races that are coming to support, and not letting them enter the battlefield and disrupt the battle." Qi Hanyi's orders were quickly transmitted to other starships through the communication window in the cockpit.
The well-trained expeditionary force was like a precision instrument that operated efficiently, each one starting to operate according to orders.
After shutting off the communication with other starships, Qi Hanyi ordered the members of his own starship: "Everyone follow the deployed mecha and leave Bai Ze."
"Admiral, what are you doing..." Jian Cheng suddenly raised his head when he heard this.
"If I don't use my mental power to attack the male insects, I probably won't be able to hold off for too long. So when I can't hold on any longer, I will use my mental power to take away as many of the enemy's insects as possible. After I lose consciousness, the Bai Ze will automatically turn on the highest level of defense mode to delay the remaining attacks. If the operation goes smoothly, after killing the queen insect, let the co-pilot come back to take over the Bai Ze and bring it back. If it doesn't go smoothly, I will defend you all together with the Bai Ze until the last moment."
"I wish you all a triumphant return." Qi Hanyi spoke calmly, just like he did when giving orders in every battle.
Jian Cheng's throat tightened, and a bit of bitterness welled up in his eyes. He was a few years older than Qi Hanyi, and could be considered his senior. Over the years, he had watched Qi Hanyi grow up and fight little by little, and led them through countless difficulties, winning the war against the Zerg again and again.
Qi Hanyi always liked to say before every decisive battle: I wish you all a triumphant return. But in fact, everyone's confidence in victory came from his planning and his strength. As long as he was still there and the Bai Ze was still there, everyone had no doubt of victory.
But he is leaving now.
"Take care, Admiral." Jian Cheng lowered his head, not wanting his emotions to affect others.
After everyone left the starship one after another, Qi Hanyi sat in the empty cockpit and looked out the porthole in the direction of the planet. Twelve hundred star ranges away, he could no longer see the outline of the planet, but he knew that his home was there, and his little shark was there too.
Qi Hanyi controlled the joystick, accelerated the starship, and met the attack of the male insects.
In the vast starry sky, a silver shark, as if it had drunk fake wine, stumbled and twisted its body in the air.
Su Su drove the starship from the launch pad to the sky. After a day of orbital flight, the starship broke away from the planet's orbit and began to fly autonomously. Su Su used his mental power to connect to the starship's driving system and control the starship's movement.
Because there was no communication signal from the space station, Su Su was unable to receive star field navigation and could only rely on the starship's built-in map and his own observations to determine his position.
Qi Xingli's warning was correct. The real starship was very different from the one in the game. The sensitivity of mental perception, the speed of control reaction, and the operation delay were all different. Even if you used mental power to control it and didn't need to remember those cumbersome operating steps, you still needed a long period of adaptive training to operate the starship well.
Unfortunately, reality did not leave Su Su that much time to adapt.
A real starship requires extremely precise mental control, otherwise it will be like Su Su now, it can move, but the direction and distance of flight are not under control. This is much better than the situation when Su Su simulated driving. At least the general direction is correct, but the route looks slightly distorted. When Su Su first went on the simulated driving, he rushed across the map of the asteroid belt and directly crashed the simulated starship three times.
After a tough fight with the starship, Su Su finally drove the starship to the vicinity of the space station.
This place looks very different from the scenery in the game. Several damaged buildings show that a very fierce battle has taken place here. The messy space garbage floating in the starry sky shows that the people here evacuated very hastily.
There were a few active Zergs nearby, the highest level was S-level, and the others were all below A-level. After discovering Su Su's starship, they immediately surrounded him.
Even though Su Su had already mastered the corresponding driving skills in the simulation cabin, he was still in a mess during his first combat. Several of his attacks failed because he failed to adjust the starship's posture, attack angle and attack timing, and he also suffered a lot of damage from the opponent.
Fortunately, the Silver Shark has excellent performance, and the attacks of low-level Zerg will not cause too much damage, giving Su Su a certain amount of room for error.
Actual combat is the most effective way for people to grow, and Su Su was already extremely talented in driving a starship. By the time he had dealt with the several Zergs that had surrounded him, he had become somewhat adept at controlling the starship.
Su Su continued to drive forward in the direction he was going, but as he drove, he became aware of movement behind him. There was a rustling sound, as if something was crawling.
He was the only one on the starship, so there shouldn't be anything else. Even if there was an invasion, there should be a warning.
As Su Su was thinking, that thing was getting closer and closer. There was a sound of breaking through the air ringing in his ears, and something was flying towards his head quickly. Su Su untied the restraints of the driver's seat, took out the particle gun equipped for the starship driver from the side of the driver's seat, then used the strength of his waist to twist his body suddenly, aimed at the disguise of the source of the sound, and pulled the trigger.
This particle gun was equipped for starship pilots to save their lives, and it was naturally much more powerful than the one Yan Bai had used before. The particle beam carried a hot air stream and rushed forward, causing the temperature of the entire cockpit to rise sharply.
"Puff!" There was a sound of something soft being pierced. Su Su supported himself on the ground with his hands, turned around and looked behind him.
Just above his head, something like a shellless snail was opening its mouth towards him, revealing the densely packed red and purple fleshy thorns inside.
Su Su felt a chill down his spine. If he had not heard the sound and dodged, his head might have been swallowed by the opponent with this ugly thing.
How did the Zerg get into the starship? Why didn't the alarm go off? Questions popped up in my mind one after another.
But the most urgent task at the moment is to get rid of the Zerg in front of them and check whether there are other Zerg of the same kind mixed in inside the starship.
Su Su observed the wounds on the opponent's body caused by the particle gun. They looked like they were burned, and the edges were charred black.
The attacked Zerg bypassed the driver's seat and continued to crawl towards Su Su, while opening its mouth wide to swallow Su Su's head.
Su Su saw this scene and had a clue in his mind. This Zerg tribe should not be of high level, moving slowly, and attacking in a simple way. Its only talent is probably in stealth and sneak attacks. It is not a big threat at the beginning. A particle gun can solve it.
After firing a few more shots and confirming that the opponent had no signs of life, Su Su found the cleaning button on the control panel and asked the cleaning robot on the starship to send the Zerg corpses to the garbage disposal room, break them into particles and scatter them out again.
Afterwards, Su Su turned on the enhanced scan and scanned the interior of the starship twice. After confirming that there were no other Zerg infiltrating, he continued to drive the starship away.
Su Su was about to arrive at a supply station near the space station. From a distance, Su Su saw the scattered starships and mechas building defenses in an orderly manner, and further inside, the engineering ships were busy, seemingly building temporary defenses.
Su Su's spirits perked up, and he continued to click on the replenishment, ready to inquire about some situations here. If Qi Hanyi happened not to leave yet, it would be great for him to stay here.
As soon as Su Su's starship entered the contact range, he received a communication request from the other side's guard starship: "Which team's starship are you from? Why are you running around alone?"
"I'm not from any team." Su Su lied without hesitation: "I'm here to carry out a special mission."
He didn't say he was a mermaid, even though His Majesty had personally confirmed his mermaid identity a few days ago and promised to let him participate in starship training like humans and become a pilot. But saying it at this time might cause unnecessary suspicion and vigilance.
Su Su directly displayed the Silver Shark logo: "I want to see Admiral Qi."
"Silver Shark! Wait, you are the mermaid, right? Admiral Qi's partner, your name is... Su Su?"
"?!" Su Su didn't expect that his lie would be exposed in less than a second.
"Don't be nervous. I'm from the expeditionary force and was left here to help with the defense." The man seemed even more excited than Su Su: "We in the expeditionary force have heard of you, and I've watched your competitions. You can actually drive a real starship. When I saw you driving over just now, I didn't realize you were a novice."
Su Su didn't have much time to chat and asked directly what he wanted to know: "What happened to the space station? Why did it lose communication with the ground?"
"Hey, it's all because of the shapeshifting bugs. Oh, it's a newly discovered bug race, ranging from E to B. Although the level is not high, the number is really large. They can assimilate with the surrounding objects for a short time, and then slowly peel off from another direction. Using this method, a large group of shapeshifting bugs invaded starships and space stations. Fortunately, the strength of the bug race itself is average, and it did not cause too much casualties. , but the space station was severely damaged during the battle, and the control system, communication system, and defense system all collapsed. We couldn't communicate with the ground, and we couldn't check how many insects were hiding there, so we just moved to the supply point temporarily. The communication station is still under repair, and the defense shield has been put up. Those insects are afraid of fire and high temperatures, so they can't get in now. . "
The guard finished his words in one breath and then asked about Su Su: "By the way, why are you driving a starship here at this time?"
Su Su said, "I'm here to look for Qi Hanyi. He's not in good health right now. I can save him. It's urgent. Do you know where he is?"
"Ah, is the Admiral sick?" As a driver on the lower level, he didn't seem to know Qi Hanyi's condition and was a little surprised to hear that, but he didn't think anything serious. He just said, "The Admiral set out on the day the accident happened. Calculating the time, the mother worm should have been found by now. I don't know where it is exactly. It's possible that the mother worm is hiding anywhere. Anyway, the Admiral will always find it. According to the efficiency of our Admiral, it is estimated that we will be able to win the battle in a few days. I will report to the person in charge of the space station, and you stay here and wait for the Admiral to come back."
"No, I'll go find him directly. Thank you for the information." Su Su had already obtained the information he wanted and was ready to leave.
"But you are still a novice, are you going there alone? Do you have a co-pilot on your starship? This distance cannot be reached in a short time, and you may encounter a battle at any time. This is too dangerous..." The guard wanted to persuade him, but Su Su had already hung up the communication.
The guards watched helplessly as Su Su drove the Silver Shark farther and farther away, until he finally disappeared from their sight.
"Hey! Just run over there like this? Aren't we just going to die?" The guard was extremely anxious, but there was nothing he could do except report the situation to the commander of the space station.
Su Su was no longer driving the starship crookedly at this time. He increased the speed of the starship to the maximum, and the silver shark flew into the distance like an arrow shot from a bow.
The silver shark has its own concealment system, but Su Su chose to show himself off in a high-profile manner, attracting the insects to attack him. He determined the position of the queen insect from the direction they gathered and the paths they traveled.
The price of being high-profile is the constant appearance and attack of Zerg.
The young driver grew rapidly in the frequent battles and broke through himself and created miracles again and again in the crisis of life and death.
Su Su never thought about danger, nor did he care about death. There was only one thing in his mind, to survive, find Qi Hanyi, and take him home.
Su Su was alone, without a co-pilot, so he couldn't rest during the long driving process. After the starship left the orbit, he had to maintain a high level of mental concentration. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he would find a relatively safe place, turn on the stealth mode, and take a rest.
After another twenty-eight hours of trekking and dozens of battles of varying sizes, Su Su finally arrived at the battlefield where Qi Hanyi was.
By then, the Silver Shark was already covered in wounds and could no longer be seen in its pre-takeoff state. Su Su also became more and more proficient from being unfamiliar at the beginning.
However, those sharp operations and prepared judgments did not seem to come from a driver with dark eyes, pale face, and haggard appearance, as if he could die suddenly at any time.
Finally, in the agony of near collapse, Su Su finally saw it. In the faraway universe, it seemed as if a ray of starlight illuminated the surroundings clearly. It was the Bai Ze. He had found it. It was his star.