Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 692

Chapter 690, Battle of Rheaduches (V)

If Leroy still considered himself the Northern Front Commander-in-Chief, on par with Gu Hang, then what was the point of delegation?

There was no need for him to be a ground combat commander; wouldn’t he have simply commanded the Imperial forces on all sides?

He didn’t do that.

When he wanted to take command, his first instinct was to ask Gu Hang for authorization, a gesture that pleased Gu Hang greatly.

It was a relatively humble gesture, and it fully acknowledged Gu Hang’s leadership.

Gu Hang was satisfied with this gesture.

As for apologies, Gu Hang didn’t particularly care.

Apologies were more of a personal surrender; without them, there was none. Gu Hang wouldn’t force them, much less act in a domineering manner.

Since he had no intention of slaying Leroy on the surface, and Leroy’s attitude was quite good, there was no need to offend him. As long as he survived the war, he would still be a prominent figure in the Black Crusade upon his return, ranking third among this powerful chapter.

Adding Xi Rui, who ranked in the top five, would give Gu Hang some connections within the Black Crusaders.

There wasn’t a fundamental conflict of interest between the two sides. In that case, having more friends was always better than having more enemies.

As for Leroy’s suitability as the ground commander, Gu Hang felt it was a no-brainer.

He was a suitable commander in terms of his status. After all, the majority of the troops on the ground were the remnants of the northern front who had survived the first battle and were originally under Leroy’s leadership.

He was also experienced and capable.

Although he had previously suffered a devastating defeat, he was still capable of leading a front independently. He was certainly qualified to be the commander of the ground battles alone.

Moreover, without Leroy, Gu Hang would have no one else to rely on. While he did have some trusted figures, such as Martins, the risks of ground combat were too high. Furthermore, there was no telling when the extermination order against the Earth would take effect. At that point, whoever was commanding the battle on the surface might die before they could retreat.

Teleporting Martins, or some other key figure, into a position of danger, commanding a force not under his command, with a high-ranking figure like Leroy among them, and with the possibility of their withdrawal uncertain…

It wasn’t appropriate, and Gu Hang himself couldn’t bear to do it.

Leroy continuing to lead was fine.

As for the risks of the Extermination Order… Gu Hang lied.

He’d told Leroy he’d deal with it later when the time was right, but in reality, he’d longed to use psychic power to send the Burning Sky Torpedo directly to the planet’s surface.

But wasn’t that impossible?

Psycoplasmic teleportation requires more than just an exceptional psionicist; it also has certain requirements for the target. The target must at least be a living being, receptive to the Warp. This means that soulless beings like the “Soulless” or the “Untouchable” cannot be targets, nor can inanimate objects. However,

weapons, equipment, and even power armor accompanying the target are not a problem. But the core reason is that these devices are relatively small and, embodying the will of their masters, can be recognized by the Warp as part of, or an extension of, this “soul.”

A single Burning Sky torpedo is as large as a small starship, completely unsuitable for teleportation.

But even without the convenience of teleportation, the battle on the surface had already eliminated fourteen air defense nests in the drop zone. When the probability of a transport landing increased from less than 5% to around 20%, he ordered the release of the Burning Sky torpedoes.

Nearing orbit, the human fleet, braving both ground-based orbital artillery fire and the Zerg Hive Fleet’s attacks, resolutely approached, sacrificing a Lunar-class cruiser as it launched eight Burning Sky torpedoes.

All were intercepted.

This is a stark contrast to the transport’s ratio.

According to the transport’s ratio, at least one out of eight would have landed.

Simple bad luck?

Not really.

Gu Hang noticed that whenever an Exterminate Order weapon was launched, the Zerg’s various interception methods became more active.

They must have some ability to quickly discern whether the Alliance ships dropped an ordinary transport or an Extermination Order.

Furthermore, they must have retained orbital interception reserves. Activating all of these reserves to destroy the transports might not completely intercept them, nor could they achieve significantly higher interception efficiency.

Furthermore, the Queen might deem this unnecessary.

Even if some ground troops were dropped, the ground Zerg’s numerical advantage wouldn’t be negated. Even if a few air defense nests were destroyed, it would be troublesome, but the majority would still remain. The Queen could reuse their biomass reserves or simply digest some of the soldiers to hatch and create more air defense nests. However

, intercepting the Extermination Order was a must. If one exploded, the whole thing would be lost.

Therefore, the Queen had plenty of backup plans, allowing orbital air defense and the Hive Fleet to retain some interception capabilities. Furthermore, if these reserved capabilities were deployed the moment the Extermination Order was detected, specifically targeting the Extermination Order weapon for interception, the success rate would be greatly increased.

Later, Gu Hang tried using transport ships to deliver the Extermination Order to the surface.

Three attempts yielded the same result.

Gu Hang didn’t waste any more Burning Sky torpedoes.

There was no need.

Observing the way the Burning Sky torpedoes were intercepted, it became clear that the problem wasn’t the delivery method. The Zerg didn’t use the delivery method to distinguish between the Extermination Order and ordinary troop transports or supply ships. They must have a more efficient method of distinguishing.

We had to think of other solutions.

First, we couldn’t relax our ground force deployment.

We had achieved some success on the ground.

We must not only preserve it but also maximize our gains and strengthen it.

We had to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Even if we had to fight the Zerg to the point of exhaustion and exhaustion, even if the Queen’s biomass couldn’t keep up, we still had to win the war.

Of course, this was a worst-case scenario.

In reality, it was best not to get to that point.

Gu Hang was still considering other options.

Later, the human coalition attempted to deliver the Extermination Order again. This time, they used a frigate, modified with void shields, to charge towards the surface.

As long as they entered the atmosphere and released the Burning Sky torpedoes, the mission would be a success. As for the tens of millions of people on board… forget it. They couldn’t even care about the millions and thousands of Space Marines fighting on the ground, so how could they care about anything else?

But this time, too, they failed.

The frigates were destroyed.

Should they go a step further and sacrifice a cruiser or even a higher-tier warship?

No way.

Gu Hang didn’t think that would be enough.

He needed to think of another way.

However, while a new plan hadn’t been devised, the situation on the ground was gradually improving.

Leroy had finally demonstrated his prowess as the Black Crusaders’ Marshal during the battle.

The area controlled by the human forces was expanding.

They had cleared all Zerg from a certain area.

Leroy now had approximately two million troops at his disposal, controlling an area exceeding 50,000 square kilometers.

A more direct manifestation of this was the dramatic increase in the transport plane landing success rate in the area designated as a large-scale airdrop zone, reaching 60%.

While the Extermination Order weapons still couldn’t land, this landing rate was still quite satisfactory.

However, at this point, it was already approaching its current limit.

The main reason for this was that the remaining northern flank troops from the first battle had almost all been assembled. Those who hadn’t yet arrived were either unable to independently overcome the Zerg’s numerous obstacles due to the long distance, or had already been annihilated and could no longer be counted on.

Furthermore, the Zerg were extremely wary of these surviving individuals and began to intensify their hunting efforts.

This made it impossible to directly gather troops from the ground by gathering remnants.

At the same time, the greatly improved success rate of airdrops, with the delivery of large quantities of war supplies and armored vehicles, also restored the combat effectiveness of the remaining troops on the northern front.

This improvement had reached its limit.

With their increased size, especially with a solid base, the Zerg no longer needed to disperse large numbers of troops in preparation for airborne attacks. Those Zerg troops on standby recently completed their assembly and launched a fierce siege on the human base established on the surface of Rhaeadoches.

Thanks to the heroic sacrifices of the human soldiers and the reckless airborne reinforcements, Leroy withstood wave after wave of attacks and held his base.

However, this was already the limit of the current situation.

The surrounding Zerg swarms were growing in number.

Not only were the Zerg armies from across the planet converging here, but all the hatcheries controlled by the Queen were operating at full capacity. Piles of biomass were being transformed into various Zerg units.

Their numbers were increasing at a much faster and more direct rate than the human army, despite suffering 40% casualties, constantly dropping troops from the sky.

Smoke and fire were everywhere along the hundreds of kilometers of the base’s borders, and fighting was raging everywhere. The base itself was also under constant bombardment of all kinds.

The situation had reached a stalemate.

Leroy had already given his all to hold onto the base, and he couldn’t have asked for more.

If the battle was to progress further, more ground forces were needed.

Gu Hang’s answer was, of course, affirmative.

The largest ground-to-ground airborne assault since the Second Battle of Rheaduches had begun.

Not only were numerous transport ships dropping, but also a vast array of fighter aircraft were obscuring the sky.

Wind Falcon, Qilin, Dragon Elephant… these three progressively higher-tier fighters, while also divided into space and planetary versions, generally speaking, even the latter were capable of maintaining combat capabilities in space for extended periods. The Aerial Knights piloting them didn’t need to follow the transport aircraft down and risk their lives. Instead, they could maneuver more flexibly, even using machine guns and high-performance servo-skulls for fire control, to thwart incoming interceptor fire.

Thousands of fighters successfully entered the atmosphere, rapidly descending, then ascending near the surface, raining missiles down upon the Zerg charging towards the human base. The most brutal were the dozen or so precious Dragon Elephants, each armed with a single Dongfeng Fen missile.

A single launch of these L-class missiles could annihilate not only a Zerg swarm, but even an entire medium-to-large Zerg hive.

The rest could use their machine guns to ravage the ground.

Thousands of fighters inflicted heavy casualties on the Zerg. Only when a swarm of flying insects, dozens, even hundreds, of times larger than the human aircraft, swarmed in, obscuring the sky, did they finally drive them away.

Of course, the aircraft, having already entered the atmosphere, could not return to orbit or to the ships. But within the base, airfields and hangars had already been established.

Fighting while retreating back into the base, the human anti-aircraft guns, deployed in place, fired streams of flames, shooting down the swarms of flying insects and halting the Zerg air force’s pursuit.

This wave of attack boosted human morale!

Not only did they witness a dazzling fireworks display, inflicting heavy damage to the Zerg swarm, but they also clearly received substantial support.

During the transport ship landing, the escort of thousands of fighters significantly increased the success rate of the airborne drop, reaching an unprecedented 75%.

Not only did they bring over a million ground forces, but they also brought with them a vast array of heavy weaponry—armor and artillery.

There were over four hundred Lion King tanks alone!

These were vastly larger and more powerful than the Lion tanks.

Even more formidable was the arrival of half a Titan Legion.

Half of this half, brought from Mars by Salilius from the Solar System, came from the Alliance National Knights.

Furthermore, Gu Hang, braving the powerful Warp Shadow of the Zerg Queen, teleported down five hundred Space Marines from various Chapters.

By this point, Leroy had nearly two thousand Space Marines under his command.

Gu Hang was quite satisfied with the support delivered to the ground this time.

Honestly, even the two Sky-Burning torpedoes, hidden in transports disguised as ordinary troop transports, still didn’t make it to the ground, having been accurately identified and intercepted.

It was a shame.

Regardless, a formidable force now existed on the ground.

While the number of troops had dropped to two million due to the brutal losses suffered earlier, after replenishing a million, it was still a sufficient number of elite troops.

Gu Hang looked forward to Leroy achieving satisfactory results with the massive reinforcements.

(End of Chapter)