Battle on the Insect Planet (5): Return

Liu Wennian reported the news of the team’s return to the camp. The captain who stayed behind in the camp quickly issued a new order, requiring them to rescue the camp at full speed according to the provided coordinates.

When the anxious people were still two kilometers away from the camp, the soldiers standing on a small sand slope finally saw what was happening in the camp. Nearly a thousand giant yellow-colored insects were besieging the temporary human camp.

All the spaceships that had landed in the surroundings had disappeared, leaving only a lonely metal building in the center of the camp. Fortunately, this building released a huge belt-shaped protective shield to wrap around the camp.

However, the protective shield was shaking constantly under the fierce impact of numerous insects, and it looked precarious, as if it would break at any time.

The soldiers in the protective shield were fighting back with all their might, but the number of enemies surrounding the camp was simply too large. There were only about a hundred soldiers left in the camp and two small teams coming back for support. Even if the logistics personnel who could barely fight were included, there were only more than two hundred people.

The enemy was numerous and they were few, so it was difficult to counterattack. They mainly relied on the protective shield to resist the siege of the insect swarm.

The coordinates provided by the captain barely avoided being surrounded by insects and could still be used to enter and exit the camp. However, the current situation in the camp made everyone retreat. Did they really want to take the initiative to rush into the encirclement of insects?

“Captain Xia, Captain Liu, are we really going to go back?” A soldier asked hesitantly, “Why do I feel like that gap was left there intentionally by those bugs?”

The team was currently standing at a higher position, and could see the situation below more clearly. The insects seemed to understand the strategy of surrounding three and blocking one.

“My suggestion is to go back. As long as there is enough energy support, the camp’s life-protection shield can last for a long time. Besides, the command center is in the camp. Just in case, we still have to rely on the command center to contact the outside world and call for a spaceship to leave this planet.”

Liu Wennian knew that Xia Ruize lacked combat experience, so he immediately explained his reasons in detail. However, after he finished speaking, he also looked at Xia Ruize, waiting for Xia Ruize’s decision. He had finally figured it out. No matter how rich his experience was, he would still be a little short of the mark if he didn’t have someone else’s intuition.

“Then let’s go back.”

Xia Ruize made the final decision with one blow. The soldiers of the squad no longer hesitated and followed Liu Wennian, rushing towards the surrounded camp with all their strength.

The camp also saw the returning team and quickly helped to clear the insects in the corresponding direction. With the joint efforts of both sides, Xia Ruize and others successfully approached the protective shield.

Then they saw that there was a gap in the protective shield in front of them. After people were let in, the shield was immediately filled up, blocking the insects that wanted to rush in from behind.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry! Leave the southwest defense to your team. Don’t worry about saving energy. Get rid of the insects that are besieging the base as soon as possible. The insects’ weak point is the connection between their head and body, which is relatively fragile. Once it breaks, they won’t be able to survive for long.”

The officer who came to pick them up took the squad of soldiers to the corresponding defense zone, gave them some instructions, and quickly took the wounded they brought back and left.

With one more team coming back to support, the defense pressure on the camp could be reduced, and those logistics personnel who were forced to stay on the front line could withdraw to continue building the unfinished planetary resource station.

Liu Wennian quickly arranged a new formation, with the soldiers standing in two rows in a staggered pattern to attack the insects outside the protective shield.

“Once the life-blocking shield is opened, living things cannot pass through. We can launch our attacks, but we must also be careful of the attacks of the enemies outside.”

After the explanation, Liu Wennian raised the high-energy electromagnetic shock gun and shot at the insects outside the protective shield that were hitting the protective shield with their bodies.

It had to be said that being in the protection of the camp shield, everyone felt a lot more relaxed. At least they didn’t need to defend all directions around them, nor did they need to worry about the energy they carry with them being consumed. They just needed to focus on attacking the enemy in front of them.

Naturally, there were soldiers specifically responsible for logistics who moved boxes of energy blocks to the rear of the squad’s position.

The only thing they needed to worry about was whether the camp would fall along with it after the energy stored in the camp was exhausted.

Putting aside their long-term concerns, after constant practice, the soldiers discovered that a group of four soldiers attacking in a cross-direction could quickly break a giant insect into pieces.

Because the yellow giant insects knew very well where their weaknesses were. Their small heads and key joints were always hidden behind their sharp forelimbs or inside their hard shells, making it difficult for humans to attack their heads directly.

The soldiers could only use the electromagnetic beams emitted by the electromagnetic gun to decompose the insect’s limbs, and even completely decompose the huge insect into pieces before they could get rid of it.

Of course, this method of attack wasted time and energy, and elite soldiers with higher combat skills would still try to attack the weak points of the insects.

After many attempts, Xia Ruize gave up the electromagnetic gun on the mecha arm and pulled the sealing bow instead.

Because although the electromagnetic gun was called a “gun”, it was very different from the “gun” on Blue Star. It shot electromagnetic beams instead of bullets.

This meant that as long as the user kept holding the trigger, the electromagnetic beam emitted from the muzzle would continue to extend along a straight line. Wherever the beam reached along the way was the attack range, and the beam would continue to exist until the user let go.

The advantage of such a high-energy electromagnetic shock gun was its strong attack power, but its disadvantage was that its attack was very inflexible, the attack distance was long, the attack time was long, and it consumed a lot of energy.

Xia Ruize felt that the electromagnetic gun was not very useful, so he pulled out the more convenient Sealing Bow. Without waiting for the insect to reveal its weak spot, he shot directly at the insect’s head. The Sealing Arrow with a flexible trajectory would bypass the insect’s forelimbs that protected its head and directly attack the insect’s head, completely stopping the insect’s movement.

After becoming more proficient, Xia Ruize would cooperate with his comrades to shoot several sealing arrows at the same time to lure away the tough and strong forelimbs of several insects, and other comrades would take the opportunity to attack the vulnerable joints exposed by the insects.

After all, the IQ of insects was still not as good as that of humans. After Xia Ruize and others grasped their weaknesses, the speed of eliminating insects was greatly improved.

In the rear, the logistics personnel who were good at building camps rather than fighting withdrew from the front line. After working against the clock, they finally installed the exploration function of the resource station and opened it smoothly.

Dozens of drones were released from the camp. Some of them followed the mission directions of each team and tried to find people and recall the soldiers to the camp, while some hovered over the camp and sent the situation around the camp to the mechas of all soldiers.

Not long after, a mobilization message was sent to Xia Ruize’s mecha. The captain asked him to immediately go to the newly built lookout tower in the camp, stand on a high place, and be responsible for supporting more directions.

“Every shot of the high-energy electromagnetic shock gun is energy. The longer the shooting distance, the greater the energy consumption, so it can only be considered a short-range, high-power weapon. But the Sealing Bow is different. It consumes less energy. The longer the shooting distance, the greater the power. It can be considered a true medium- and long-range weapon.”

Liu Wennian helped Xia Ruize explain: “The command must have discovered that you are good at controlling the Sealing Bow, so they transferred you to be a mobile team member.”

While explaining, Liu Wennian sighed in his heart that some people’s talents really make people envious and jealous!

The Sealing Bow was actually a relatively useless weapon in the military. It was incredibly powerful, but the difficulty of controlling it was too high. “Sealing” meant that it sealed cell movement and killed cell vitality. No creature could resist such an effect.

But compared to its actual combat application, this weapon was destined to be a private collection of researchers. After all, asking a soldier to draw a bow and shoot an arrow was not only slow but also very laborious. In a rapidly changing battle situation, who would shoot arrows slowly?

But now Liu Wennian saw with his own eyes a man who could draw a bow and shoot arrows at an astonishing speed. What was even more astonishing was that he could actually shoot several arrows at the same time, aiming at multiple targets without affecting each other? !

Liu Wennian was speechless except for envy, jealousy and hatred.

Liu Wennian helped Xia Ruize point out the location of the observation deck. Not far behind them, there was a simple temporary support.

After the logistics personnel took action, they built lookouts on the four sides of the camp, allowing soldiers who were good at long-range combat to attack the insects outside the protective shield from a high position more easily.

Xia Ruize approached the observation tower as ordered, and controlled the mecha to jump onto the temporary metal platform. After three jumps, he was standing higher than the height of the protective shield. He could see the entire battlefield outside the camp at a glance, and the sand in the distance was constantly churning, and giant yellow-colored insects were jumping out of the holes in the ground.

The metal mecha used its arms to pull open a huge bow. As the bow became larger and larger, three energy arrows formed on the bow and were rapidly propelled out by the huge force. In the blink of an eye, three giant yellow insects that had just jumped out of the cave entrance were broken by the necks.

The three insects fell before they could fully jump up, blocking the entrance to the hole, and the insects behind them were also unable to rush out immediately.

Xia Ruize’s mouth curled up in pleasure, staring at the hole. The moment the insects jumped out of the hole, their bodies stretched out, unable to hide their short and fragile necks, it was a good opportunity to attack.

Several waves of giant yellow-colored insects died the moment they jumped out of the burrows. The insects were forced to dig new burrows in other places. However, Xia Ruize, who was high above, had an excellent vision. His arrows would follow wherever the insects’ burrows were.

The commanders in the camp soon noticed Xia Ruize’s excellent performance and quickly arranged for the logistics personnel to continue to raise the temporary metal support under Xia Ruize. They also transferred the command authority of the two drones to Xia Ruize so that he could find the right viewing angle.

With the cooperation of logistics, Xia Ruize ensured that no new insects were added to the southern area under his charge within ten minutes. His superb archery skills attracted the attention of the soldiers in the battle.

Cheng Huaiqian was very proud of it. If it wasn’t an emergency, he would definitely show off his lover.

Without the endless stream of bugs popping up, the soldiers realized that the enemies outside the shield were finally not endless and seemed invincible no matter how hard they tried to kill them.

The decrease in the number of insects surrounding the camp made people feel happy and hopeful. At this moment, a mecha squad appeared in the distance. What made people in the camp nervous was that the number of mechas was obviously abnormally small, and most of them were in poor condition. Some of the broken wires were exposed.

This was the fourth exploration team to return to the camp. Xia Ruize, who was standing on a high place, could see at a glance that of the 45 soldiers in the team who went out, only 35 returned, and each mecha had defects and was in urgent need of maintenance and repair.

Xia Ruize fired four rounds of forty arrows in succession in the direction of the team’s return, helping them clear a passage back to the camp. After watching them being picked up by the logistics soldiers and entering the camp, he no longer paid any attention to them and continued to focus on cleaning up the newly emerged holes.

As the team returned, their experience soon became known to everyone. What they encountered was a swamp that looked no different from sand. What was even more terrifying was that there were insects in the swamp.

The return of this team also marked the beginning of the collective return of various exploration teams. Next, teams continued to return to the camp at a frequency of five to ten minutes. To the surprise of the soldiers in the camp, the later the team returned, the worse the condition of the team.

Half an hour later, the last returning team was reduced to only ten people.