Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 690

Chapter 688: The Surviving Marshal, Battle of Rheaduches (Part 3)

Before the main human force officially launched its offensive and conducted a large-scale airborne landing, the number of those who landed on the ground via Gu Hang’s psychic teleportation was small, just over 400.

Aside from Qin Zhiping, the rest were mostly Space Marines.

Such precious teleportation slots naturally belonged to the strongest fighters.

Gu Hang didn’t pin all his hopes on how many of the remaining northern troops were still alive. For these elite warriors who had teleported to the surface, finding the remaining northern troops was a secondary task. More importantly, they had to first assess the situation in the planned drop zone and try to destroy some of the air defense nests before the airborne landings began. Even if this wasn’t possible due to insufficient manpower, they would coordinate with the landing army to immediately deal with these air defense nests after the airborne landings began.

However, the remaining northern troops on the surface were in a better condition than expected.

Contacting the remaining troops was not easy.

Without supplies and orbital cover, they couldn’t muster a large force or secure a secure surface base… Otherwise, both the Zerg’s ground assault and the threat posed by Zerg ships from orbit would pose a devastating threat to the ground forces.

This forced the remaining troops on the northern front to hide. They had to conserve their limited supplies as much as possible to avoid unnecessary fighting. If a fight did occur, they had to fight with all their might, eliminating any enemy they saw and then immediately moving away to prevent the Zerg from tracking them down to the last location of the missing troops.

Hiding made it difficult for the Zerg to find them, but neither was Qin Zhiping.

However, since he had requested Gu Hang’s permission to be the first wave to land, he naturally had some ideas about how to locate the remaining troops on the northern front.

He brought a communication device.

When teleporting, carrying equipment couldn’t be too large, so a simple astropathic tower would be a better option.

But having this communication device was enough.

The channel and password were set to a highly confidential channel dedicated to the Northern Front Legion, followed by a more public channel. The former was intended to contact any high-ranking members of the Northern Front remnants who might be alive, while the latter was to expand the search area as much as possible.

Then, one hundred Phoenixes and one hundred Blood Sharks began preparing for the subsequent large-scale airborne operation. As for Qin Zhiping, protected by another two hundred Space Marines, he began a large-scale movement, searching for any remaining Northern Front remnants.

The majority of the Space Marines protecting him were Black Crusaders under Xi Rui, with a small number of Argent Watch warriors. A few were elite troops drawn from various other Chapters.

It made sense for the Black Crusaders to send so many troops. After all, if any Northern Front remnants existed, they would constitute the majority. A year and a half ago, at the First Battle of Rheaduches, the Black Crusaders were the largest force deployed, with nearly fifteen hundred men deployed.

Both search channels Qin Zhiping used yielded results.

Quite a few of the Northern Front remnants did survive. In the first battle, they left behind tens of millions of soldiers. While the vast majority perished, with only one in ten surviving, that still left several million men.

Of course, these men were scattered widely. They were often found in the mountains, in the tunnels, and in the ruins of the lower levels of the hives. Their conditions were extremely harsh, with equipment, food, ammunition… all scarce.

It was undoubtedly a slow death.

But a slow death was better than a quick one.

As long as they lived, perhaps they could hold on until the situation changed.

Like right now.

Qin Zhiping was able to contact some of the remnant troops.

With this initial lead, the rest of the process became much easier. Although these lingering troops dared not show their faces, many of them were connected to one another. Contacting one would lead to contacting many more.

Of course, Qin Zhiping couldn’t save them.

To survive, they had to save themselves.

He shared the coordinates of the location where the Imperial Coalition would conduct a large-scale airborne landing in a few days.

The way to save themselves was to mobilize immediately, taking all the equipment and manpower they could carry, and rushing towards the area with all their might, regardless of ammunition consumption.

Those too far from the landing site, thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers away, were helpless; no one could save them unless they could truly travel thousands of miles to reach the landing zone.

However, most of those within a thousand kilometers, or even those already within the area, became active.

The coalition’s selection of the landing zone was essentially the same as that chosen by the Northern Front Legion during the first battle. On the one hand, this location was indeed suitable; on the other, it was also considered that the remaining troops on the northern front were most likely to remain in this area.

After receiving Qin Zhiping’s news, these remnants indeed began to move.

To remain inactive was to die.

Moreover, this was an order jointly signed by Xi Rui, Gu Hang, and Salisius. The commanders-in-chief of the northern, southern, and western fronts had all gathered.

And Qin Zhiping, utilizing highly classified communications, achieved a particularly significant success: he contacted Leroy!

The Black Crusaders’ Second Fleet, the true commander-in-chief of the northern front, was surprisingly alive!

During the first battle, Leroy’s flagship exploded in the naval battle, and he subsequently disappeared, leaving Xi Rui to assume command of the ship.

However, when the ship exploded, Leroy and a small number of his personal guards boarded a lifeboat and, taking advantage of the chaos of the naval battle, fled in the opposite direction to the surface of Readuches.

This was certainly not a good option. If he had had the opportunity to board another ship, that would have been much better.

But wasn’t there a way around it?

It was also due to good luck, and the fact that the air defense on the surface of Readuches had been relaxed at that time. If one of these two points was not met, Leroy would have been blown to death in the process of landing on the surface.

And in the past year and a half, Leroy did not do nothing.

It was impossible for him to make any changes to the situation in Readuches alone, but there were some positive aspects.

For example, he contacted various forces and united many remnants of the army. Under such difficult circumstances, he established a unified command system to prevent the remnants of the army from falling into a state of disunity.

In particular, a large number of Space Marines were contacted. Although they may not all be by his side, there are at least about 500 people; in addition, there are more than 500 soldiers who can be contacted and assigned tasks at any time.

This is another huge good news.

(End of this chapter)