Chapter 111 Chapter 111

Even on the front lines, insect nests are very rare.

Rong Heng had only seen an insect nest during an insect tide when he crossed the defense line and searched for the insect base.

Since the Empire and the Zerg have been at war for thousands of years, no one has ever known where the Zerg's earliest nest is. All they know is that they are pouring into the Empire's star field from an unknown place. When they are blocked by the front-line defenses, they look for suitable planets outside the star field to build temporary nests, and then use the temporary nests as bases to launch attacks on the Empire's defenses.

The planets chosen by the Zerg as their nests are like this. The surface vegetation is completely destroyed, and countless gray rocks cover the ground. Below them are huge, complex, and crisscrossing Zerg nests.

In the insect nest, there are countless insect eggs. Once these insect eggs are reproduced, the empire's defense line will once again be hit by the insect tide.

In the past, Zerg nests only appeared in star fields outside the Imperial defense lines, but now, habitable planets within the Imperial administrative areas have quietly become Zerg nests.

At this time, the spaceship was already quite close to the port. Passengers could even see the high gray rocks on the ground and the Zerg crawling on the rocks through the portholes.

There was a sudden cry of panic in the cabin. The passengers looked panicked and instinctively wanted to escape, but they didn't know where to go.

The cubs also looked serious when they saw the Zerg on the ground. They looked at each other tacitly and consciously guarded the hatch. If necessary, they were ready to go out and join the battle at any time.

Garland followed the group of cubs and observed that they showed no fear in the face of the Zerg, and were even a little surprised. Then he remembered the information he had found when searching for B3024 before - this garbage planet had encountered a Zerg tide, but it survived in the end.

It seems that these cubs are no strangers to the Zerg.

The little dragon looked back. He thought Garland was also afraid. After all, Hector said that Garland's father was a scholar who did research. He thought for a moment, stretched out his claws to push Garland back, and said seriously: "Don't be afraid, we will protect you."

When I say "to protect you", my tone is serious.

Garland did not refute the boy's situation. He said "hmm" and retreated to the floor-to-ceiling window to continue observing the situation on the ground.

At this time, Ruan Shiqing had already brought Rong Heng to the cockpit.

After getting close enough to the ground, the captain apparently realized that something was wrong. He reduced his landing speed and continued to try to contact his superiors.

But the communication signal here was very weak, and his request message was not sent out.

Seeing that the spaceship was approaching the port, Ruan Shiqing rushed forward to interrupt his constant request for help and said in a tone that did not allow for argument: "Stop landing immediately and leave Driftwood Planet as quickly as possible."

The captain still didn't understand what was going on: "I haven't contacted my superiors yet."

"The ground is a worm nest!" Ruan Shiqing said in a sharp voice, "If we don't want everyone on the boat to die, turn around and leave now."

insect nest.

The captain was shocked by this word, and subconsciously stopped landing and turned around as he said.

Ruan Shiqing was already very familiar with large spaceships. He placed Rong Heng on the control console and tapped rapidly on the control panel. He first activated the protective shield and then called up the weapon system to stand by. At the same time, the infrared scanner had sent back the analysis data - just under this lifeless gray land, there was a dense patch of bright red.

The captain looked at the image in shock: "How is this possible?"

The images show that beneath the ground, there are densely packed insects, or in other words, insect eggs.

These eggs are obviously about to hatch successfully. Once they are allowed to hatch, the consequences will be disastrous.

Several thoughts flashed through Ruan Shiqing's mind, and finally he thought of the passengers on the spaceship. If he took the initiative to bomb the insect nests on the ground, although it could prevent the insect eggs from hatching, it would also inevitably cause a crazy backlash from the insect race, and then these passengers would likely be implicated... He clenched his five fingers into a fist, closed the image, and urged the captain to speed up.

At the same time, he used the signal-enhanced intelligent computer to send coordinates and information to Hector and others far away on the planets Barham and B3024, asking them to bring people over as soon as possible.

If the spaceship can successfully leave the floating wood planet, they can land on the next planet and then ask the Imperial Army to come to rescue. During the period when the Imperial Army arrives, they will stabilize the situation first to prevent these insect eggs from hatching in large numbers.

However, things did not go as smoothly as he expected.

Just as they approached the atmosphere, the defense system of Driftwood was activated. The defense system that was originally intended to protect the planet blocked their way to survival.

"What's going on?" The ship tried to contact the space station, but there was no response.

Ruan Shiqing stared at the huge protective shield above his head, and his heartbeat suddenly slowed down. He confirmed with the captain: "Before the spaceship lands, do we need to get the consent of the Driftwood Star? Is this process an intelligent program, or does it have to be manually controlled?"

The captain looked stunned: "It needs manual confirmation."

Each spaceship's route must be applied for in advance. Before landing on a planet along the way, the spaceship needs to send its own information, and will be released only after the space station staff confirms it. This is to prevent some interstellar pirates from sneaking in disguised as passenger spaceships.

"But if I'm not mistaken, there are no living people on this planet." Ruan Shiqing's jaw tightened: "Who was the one who confirmed the release before?"

The captain's mouth opened in shock.

Ruan Shiqing didn't look at him again. His heart was beating fast and something was about to come out of his mind.

So his panicked gaze could only fall on Rong Heng.

Rong Heng had already transformed back into human form. His expression was calm, and he even had a hint of gnashing teeth as he spoke: "It's the Zerg. They are trapping."

The tourism industry on Driftwood is developing very well, and many spaceship routes will pass through this red planet. But after they boarded the spaceship, they did not hear any news about Driftwood being occupied by the Zerg.

This shows that the news about Driftwood was deliberately concealed.

The Driftwood government and the local people are unlikely to do this, so the only possibility left is the Zerg.

Ruan Shiqing immediately understood what he meant. He used his smart computer to log on to the official website of Fumu Star, and saw a notice on the official website that "receiving tourists is temporarily suspended." The notice was issued a week ago, saying that the environment of Fumu Star needed to be improved, and receiving tourists was temporarily suspended.

Therefore, many tourist ships have stopped going to Driftwood recently. Only passenger ships that have applied for routes early on will stop at Driftwood.

He searched the news again and found that in the past week, two passenger spaceships passing through Jupiter had crashed. All the passengers on these spaceships were missing, and only the wreckage of the spaceships with thousands of holes was found in the star field that had deviated from the route. So far, the culprit has not been confirmed...

"The IQ of these insects may be higher than we imagined." Ruan Shiqing's face turned slightly pale.

When he first encountered the Zerg on B3024, he already realized that the Zerg had intelligence, but judging from the situation on Driftwood, the IQ of these Zerg might be much higher than they thought. It could even be said that they were no different from humans.

Not only do they know how to conceal their whereabouts, they also know how to deceive people and divert attention. Just the notice of closure on the official website is not something that a low-IQ insect race can do.

Without tourists, the possibility of the true situation of Driftwood being exposed is greatly reduced. And if a passenger spaceship occasionally passes by and lands at the port without any precautions, it will be certain death.

What is even more disturbing is that they even knew to transport the wreckage of the spacecraft to a star region far away from the route, thus minimizing the possibility of Driftwood being investigated.

This is no longer ordinary wisdom, it is more like a conspirator hiding in the dark and planning.

No wonder the Zerg disappeared after the news of Lenka's capture. It's not that they have retreated or been destroyed, but that they have learned to hide.

Perhaps there are countless "drifting wood planets" within the empire. Once the eggs in the nests hatch, the entire empire may be drawn into the war.