Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 729

Chapter 727, Defense Plan

. Du Shiliang wasn’t criticized.

After receiving the recovered ships, cargo, and personnel, Wang Jiarong expressed her gratitude and requested additional escorts. The caravan was back on the move.

While concerns about pirate attacks persisted, the caravan’s mission remained to be successfully completed.

Reports sent to the Alliance government and the Ministry of Military Affairs were not met with criticism.

Marshal Thaddeus met with Du Shiliang.

He didn’t waste time reviewing past events; Thaddeus was primarily concerned with the Alliance Navy’s overall security plan.

A single looting incident wasn’t critical; the emergence of a new enemy like the Dark Eldar was understandable in catching the Navy off guard.

Thaddeus wouldn’t question Du Shiliang on these matters.

However, this situation must be eradicated in the future and must not occur again.

The Alliance government was also deeply concerned.

Previously, the Alliance had never faced a particularly serious pirate attack. Even during wartime, the security of interstellar shipping was relatively high.

The Dark Eldar, a highly elusive organization, posed a significant challenge to the Alliance’s maritime security.

Thaddeus was eager to learn the reliability of the Navy Headquarters’ defense plan.

Du Shiliang, acting head of the Alliance Navy after Ye Lishia’s departure, was under immense pressure. He felt somewhat uncertain, lacking any experience in dealing with the Dark Eldar.

Fortunately, though, others did.

Inquisitor Martini, having spent years in the Eastern Space Region, a region plagued by Dark Elf pirates, had developed a set of general strategies that could be used as a reference.

Furthermore, and even more importantly, there was the Inquisition. They were experts in dealing with all kinds of xenos, and their specialized Dark Elf interrogation methods could provide significant assistance.

With the help of these two parties, Du Shiliang came up with a somewhat passable plan,

primarily focusing on proactive attacks and sweeps, supplemented by passive patrol defenses.

Speaking of passive defense, the Alliance Navy’s deployment frequency had significantly increased. Provide more escorts for Alliance caravans, disperse the fleet slightly, and conduct preemptive reconnaissance of key trade routes and the routes of tax collection fleets to ensure safety.

This is a relatively conventional approach, but we can’t rely solely on passive defense.

The Dark Eldar can simply sneak into any system, find an uninhabited asteroid or uncolonized, uninhabitable world in the vast universe, and inexpensively construct a Veil Gate. That’s it. From then on, they can simply open a gate in their homeland of Comoros and access it at any time.

Faced with such high flexibility, passive defense would be impossible to defend against and would leave the defenses completely vulnerable.

More importantly, we must rely on proactive means to detect and eliminate any Veil Gates the Dark Eldar may have established in every system.

Destroy them, and they’ll be unable to pass through.

Even these gates, typically tens of meters in diameter, are a drop in the ocean on a cosmic scale and incredibly difficult to find.

Furthermore, it doesn’t necessarily need to be built on a habitable planet; any location capable of securing the Veil Spirit Portal will suffice.

The experts of the Inquisition have devised some quick methods for finding it.

While they aren’t particularly reliable, they’re still more efficient than searching aimlessly.

Furthermore, the Alliance possesses an advantage that many other locations lack in their fight against the Dark Eldar.

That’s psionics.

The Storm Mage Corps isn’t part of the Alliance military, the Alliance government, or the Alliance Legal Affairs Center. Their role is more like that of the Sisters of the Holy Lily or the Phoenix Space Marines, an independent organization. This includes the Mage Corps itself, as well as the Alliance National Mage Colleges established on numerous planets.

In other words, they are the Alliance’s psionic order.

In terms of power structure, they directly answer to Governor Gu.

Of course, they still rely on the Alliance’s financial support, and before leaving, Gu Hang requested the Mage Corps

‘ cooperation. Du Shiliang’s request for assistance from the Storm Mage Corps was met with a positive response.

The Mage Corps also desires advancement and must demonstrate its value.

This was true during the Governor’s presence, and it remains so during his temporary absence.

With the assistance of numerous psionic masters, combined with the methods of the Inquisition, this solution, which also has a limited ability to detect silent Veil Gates, is relatively reliable.

Besides eliminating Veil Gates, they must also rigorously guard against the Eldar establishing gates.

The good news is that the Eldar don’t directly use Warp Drives for interstellar travel—researchers believe it’s not that they lack the technology, but rather that they’re afraid to use it, fearing that entering the Warp would directly serve as a direct deity to the Warp’s most ardently interested Warlord.

Therefore, for interstellar travel, the Dark Eldar utilize the Comorian Veil Gates for convenient navigation, but also utilize Astral Tunneling for normal navigation.

These Dark Eldar vessels that sneak in to establish Veil Gates are often relatively small, possessing advanced stealth technology. While humans can only achieve technology on Traveler-sized ships, they can achieve frigate-level stealth.

This means that even if interstellar outposts are established at jump points, they can easily be missed.

This requires numerous outposts, staffed with Inquisitors and Psykers, to be stationed permanently at each jump point.

This is obviously impossible, as the sheer number of them would be prohibitively expensive.

However, this could be done in key hubs.

Overall, after listening to Du Shiliang’s entire report, Thaddeus was quite satisfied. He

also approved the budget Du Shiliang requested. The General Logistics Department and the Naval Logistics Department, in conjunction with the government’s production department, would begin a plan to build and relocate more outposts.

The Alliance officially began to confront the challenge posed by the Dark Eldar pirates to its development.

The most direct manifestation of this challenge could be seen in the enemy.

Xernos Bloodcurse encountered significant trouble.

When he emerged from another Veil Gate with his raiding fleet and located an Alliance merchant fleet, he hesitated to attack.

The escort was stronger, and an attack would likely result in heavy losses. There was also the possibility of being blocked by humans due to the delay.

This hesitation led to the arrival of a larger human naval fleet ten days later.

They seemed to have sensed something, and while they failed to capture Xernos’s fleet, they did locate the Veil Gate and destroy it.

The Bloodcurse family’s fleet was trapped in this galaxy in the real universe.

(End of Chapter)