Super Mothership
The atmosphere in the conference room was somewhat strange. Everyone was silently guessing who the “reckless fool” that Gilard had mentioned could possibly be.
Nie Yun, after a brief moment of surprise, returned to an expression of indifference and started fiddling with his fingers as if the matter had nothing to do with him.
He was certain that Gilard wouldn’t start a direct confrontation with him in such a setting. After all, seniority was seniority—and besides, he hadn’t named any names. Accusing someone of “disrespecting a superior” without solid evidence would only lead to a tedious argument if things escalated.
Gilard’s sharp gaze swept over Nie Yun. Seeing the latter’s calm and fearless demeanor, he couldn’t help but let out a cold snort.
"No need to be angry, General," a young officer beside Gilard suddenly spoke up. "As they say, tactics must serve strategy. Some people simply can’t see the bigger picture—short-sighted fools, that’s all."
The remark was a clear provocation. Several officers in the room shot the speaker unfriendly looks, but he remained unfazed, even wearing a faint smile.
"Beckman — a direct descendant of the prestigious Victor family," Nie Yun recalled from Catherine’s intelligence reports. "In terms of background, he’s on par with Arthas. Because of factional ties, he’s close to General Gilard, and his outstanding abilities have earned the general’s favor."
Beckman ignored the reactions around him and began calmly analyzing the battle on Gilard’s behalf.
**"Gentlemen, our opponent this time is not some ordinary low-level civilization. I’m sure you’ve all seen it for yourselves — our large-scale surprise assault did indeed catch them off guard. In that sense, the operation was a success.
Unfortunately, we failed to anticipate that the Wolf Civilization had secretly hidden a massive reserve force.
Their main combat strength lies in their elite mecha corps, the ‘Bronze.’ And because these are small-scale units, it’s nearly impossible for long-range reconnaissance to accurately determine their numbers or scale.
In the matter of concealing their true strength — the enemy outplayed us!
As for their reason for hiding their troops, I believe it’s obvious to everyone here. Yes — they were likely planning the same thing as us. The only difference is that we struck first."**
Beckman shrugged helplessly.
**"This operation merely ignited a bomb that could have exploded at any time. Even if we hadn’t launched this attack, it was only a matter of time before they did.
Think about it — even when we held the initiative, we still failed to defeat them head-on. So what would happen if we had waited until they were fully prepared?
According to the calculations of the General Staff, there’s a 90% chance the situation would have been even worse than today."**
Beckman’s logical and well-reasoned analysis made several people in the room nod quietly.
Indeed, judging from today’s battle, they had been crushed in a frontal engagement despite having the advantage of the first strike. Everyone could come up with a dozen excuses to justify the failure, but no one could deny the enemy’s overwhelming strength.
**"Gentlemen," Beckman continued, "we’ve been on the defensive for too long. This situation is extremely unfavorable. It’s not just morale that’s been damaged — even worse, the continued expansion of the wormhole is driving this war toward an unpredictable future!
Our wormhole barrier is being torn apart bit by bit, and as that happens, the Wolf Civilization’s threat to us is growing stronger and stronger!
If we don’t change this, we’ll remain strategically passive forever.
And the key to all this… lies in their ‘wormhole expansion technology!’"**
At those words — wormhole expansion technology — Nie Yun’s eyes lit up, his expression showing genuine interest.
"If such technology can indeed expand wormholes," Beckman went on gravely, "then all of our civilization’s natural defenses will become meaningless!
Once they break through this front line and seize the Storm Star System, they’ll be able to gradually devour the entire Galente Sector — and may even continue breaching the interstellar defense gates that protect our remaining territories!
In other words, if their power truly surpasses ours… we’ll have nowhere left to retreat."
"Gentlemen, this is a dangerous technology—one that could determine the very survival of the Gemini Civilization!"
All the officers nodded. The threat posed by wormhole expansion technology was obvious to anyone who thought about it for even a moment. But understanding it was one thing—breaking the enemy’s technological advantage was another matter entirely.
Still, since Beckman had brought it up so deliberately, many began to show expressions of realization.
"Could it be that this surprise attack of ours is related to that technology?" one officer couldn’t help but ask.
"Correct!" General Gilard finally spoke, his tone solemn. "Beyond boosting morale and probing the enemy’s defenses, the most crucial goal of this assault was to penetrate deep into enemy lines and uncover the secret behind their ever-expanding wormholes!"
So that was it!
The crowd suddenly understood. If the purpose truly was to find a way to counter the enemy’s wormhole expansion technology, then the mission was indeed a strategic-level objective. In that case, even the total loss of hundreds of warships—indeed, even if the entire attacking fleet had been wiped out—would be a price worth paying.
"Among the attacking forces were several special task fleets," Gilard continued, **"their job was to take advantage of the chaos and infiltrate enemy lines to gather intelligence. Our main operation was to provide them with cover.
We knew this mission was dangerous—but to achieve our goal, we had to take the risk!"**
Gilard swept his gaze around the room, face stern. "Many of the participating units were external legions, but half of the fleets lost this time were from my own command!"
Though dissatisfaction still lingered among some, Gilard’s reasoning was too sound to argue with. For a strategic objective, he had sacrificed mostly his own forces—no one could rightfully criticize that.
"So what was the outcome?" someone asked impatiently.
After paying such a heavy price, everyone was desperate to know whether the operation had achieved its objective.
"Hmm... it can only be said to be a partial success. Please, take a look." Beckman said as he projected a three-dimensional holographic model.
A black vortex slowly spun in the air. The experts in the room immediately recognized it as a miniature model of a wormhole.
Around the vortex appeared three red dots arranged in an equilateral triangle, encircling the wormhole at the center. Each red dot emitted rippling circular waves.
Under the influence of some invisible force, the wormhole at the center began to expand ever so slightly.
"As we all know," Beckman began, **"in the early stages of contact between the Wolf Civilization and our own, they used their unique ‘wormhole charging technology’ to partially bypass the limitations of narrow wormholes and send a sizable fleet into our territory.
That fleet was eventually discovered and destroyed by our forces, which was also how we first learned of this remarkable technology.
Unfortunately, our scientists have yet to reproduce anything similar, though their years of research haven’t been fruitless either.
Recently, through extensive study of the wormhole charging process, our scientists developed an initial hypothesis regarding what we now call ‘wormhole expansion technology.’
They theorize that the charging technology not only replenishes the energy loss of wormholes and increases their transit capacity, but that, under extreme charging conditions, it might even cause a stable wormhole to experience an energy overflow—resulting in unnatural expansion.
Based on this theoretical framework provided by the Central Academy of Sciences, our task fleets—at great cost—finally confirmed three primary charging nodes that the enemy uses to influence wormhole expansion!"**
Beckman tapped the three red dots on the display.
Mm-hmm! So that’s how it is. Better jot that down.
Nie Yun listened with great interest, mentally underlining the key points.
It might have sounded like just a few sentences, but to professionals, the amount of information hidden within was enormous—enough to fill a whole data vault!
The fruit of years of research by Gemini’s scientists had, without anyone realizing it, just been completely exposed…
TL Note-The Spy....
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