Stellaris from the Automata Era

"Count the losses and report all combat-capable individuals."

Apparently, it was not so easy for 11b to withdraw and return to Earth for overhaul. Although the landing ship she was on was hit by anti-aircraft fire at high altitude, it also performed acrobatic turns when landing.

However, the driver's superb skills still saved them.

"To be exact, we were above the rainforest when we crashed. The lush trees acted as a buffer, which prevented us from exploding on the spot." 7b jumped out of the boat while grabbing the auxiliary machine.

No one knew what kind of genetic mutation the trees on this planet had that allowed them to withstand the impact of their spacecraft falling rapidly from a high altitude.

As long as everyone who came out looked up, they would find that the landing craft was hanging on the tree, tightly entangled by countless vines.

Moreover, there were no signs of trees being pushed around it, and even the branches were not broken. The material alone was not much weaker than steel.

"11b, we didn't suffer much loss this time. We can only say that the fixed objects that prevented us from being thrown away saved our lives." 7b, who had just jumped down, reported the details.

"Of course, there were a few unlucky souls who made it back to the afterlife, including our pilot. When we found him a while ago, he had already been pierced to the core by the branches extending from these trees."

"So it's a very stupid design to have the cockpit and control room at the front."

"This isn't a consideration for the possibility of the camera being knocked out, leaving you blind. The glass observation port at the front is designed so you can continue fighting in that eventuality."

What she said makes a lot of sense.

11b was shocked by 7b's wealth of knowledge, but she quickly put these things that were irrelevant to the current situation behind her.

She looked at the surrounding terrain and quickly came to a conclusion.

"A tropical climate perfectly fits my stereotype of tree people's living conditions. Why don't I see any of their buildings?"

"There are tall trees all around that block your view. What can you see?"

7b complained, then looked at his own spaceship hanging on the tree. It had been hit in the thrusters before landing, and thick smoke was drifting high into the sky from the damaged area.

This made her worry: "Do you think the tree people will follow the smoke to find us?"

"We'll just kill them if they come our way!" Perhaps 11b is really qualified to say this. In her eyes, all land units are weak and no match for her.

After all, he is a humanoid superman with "two hearts and three lungs". He was once hit by hundreds of tons of steel, but only a layer of artificial skin was broken, and the steel frame was not deformed.

Just from this point of view, promoting her as the strongest humanoid is a big truth, and no one dares to refute it.

Of course, 7b, who was still just an ordinary humanoid, naturally disagreed. "We're in enemy territory now, with no allies around. Even the strongest will be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers."

While they were talking, the surviving humanoids on the boat jumped down one after another, landing on their feet in the safest way.

Just then, 7b saw 160d coming down from above, waving his hands and running towards them in joy.

"Maybe you are indeed strong, but we are different. You don't want your new descendant to die on Earth, do you?"

"Hmm, why do your sentences feel weird?"

In any case, 11b finally agreed with 7b.

After all, war is not essentially a matter of one person. If 11b wants to complete the occupation of the planet, she really needs a large number of troops to do it.

Therefore, the most important thing for them is to immediately call for friendly forces to reinforce their location.

"Speaking of reinforcements, do you feel that the sky is a little too quiet?"

According to the strategy formulated by the army, it should be a forced landing operation, with tens of thousands of ships airdropped onto the surface of the planet under the fire cover of the fleet.

In the final analysis, this is a plan that does not care about casualties. The humanoids who have the Glory Network and can be resurrected remotely on Earth can indeed afford the losses.

According to the strategic execution time, the planet's sky should still be in a forced landing mode during this period, and various ships should be approaching the ground under the risk of anti-aircraft fire.

But even after 11b and the others had been chatting for such a long time, the sky was still strangely calm, and there was no sign of anti-aircraft fire from the ground.

It was not until then that 11b realized that there must be something wrong with their plan.

She quickly opened her communication device and took a look. It seemed that the tree man had not blocked the communication, and it seemed to be still usable.

Then 11b immediately pointed his finger at the commander's contact information. After the screen flashed, a woman with blonde hair and a white cheongsam appeared on the projection.

"11b?" The commander's eyes were filled with confusion. "You resurrected so quickly! Did Earth grant you special privileges for your backup body?"

"Why would you assume I've been sacrificed!?"

"Ahem, someone reported that your landing ship was hit and crashed. I think it would be difficult for you to survive at this altitude."

In fact, the 11b ship was at an altitude of more than meters when it was hit. According to normal logic, it should not have survived.

Even if 11b's body can withstand the weight of hundreds of tons of steel, it will be broken into pieces under the acceleration of the earth's gravity.

"But I can fly!" 11b turned around and let the commander see the exposed part of her back. It was said before that 11b had the ability to fly for a short time.

Although she may not be able to achieve free flight on a planet with gravity, she can still use it to stay in the air and offset the cushioning force when falling.

"I don't know about this. Your data has long been given the highest authority by the adults. I can't even check it."

Perhaps for protection purposes, after 11b confirmed that the magic element reactor inside was using the original magic element, her authority was set by Yan Luo to the highest level that only she could view.

All those who knew about this were ordered to keep silent, and the public announcement was made that 11b was a homologue belonging to the future (past) humanoid, because the design, development direction and capabilities behind the humanoid must be kept strictly confidential.

In fact, this part of her origin was originally confidential, but Yan Luo happened to discuss this with the commander one day, and then dozens of versions of the rumor quickly spread from Yoerha to the entire humanoid group.

So who is leaking this information?

However, 11b didn't know these things, but that didn't stop her from trusting her colleague, the commander.

She accepted the explanation. After clearing up the misunderstanding, 11b quickly turned the topic back to the original purpose: "Commander, the sky over here is so quiet, it looks like the landing operations have stopped. Do you have any ideas?"

"Be more confident. Remove the word 'seemingly' from the middle sentence. The landing operations have stopped." The commander looked at 11b with a look of 'you actually betrayed me' and explained simply: "After your landing ship was hit, more than 500 ships of the same batch were lost at the same time.

It can be said that the strong landing was completely unable to break through the enemy's firepower. More than 20 humanoids have already "returned" to replace their bodies. Apart from you, there is no news of those who entered the atmosphere.

Then it is not surprising that the landing battle was urgently stopped. If it were 11b, after seeing such losses, it would not be so stubborn as to continue to give up its troops.

In the final analysis, all kinds of strategies and tactics are just like financial investments. There are only risks but no returns. Everyone can grasp the time to stop. If they continue, it will be a gamble that will lose all their money.

Obviously, the commander did not want to take the risk. When the army commander and the first batch of landing ships lost the signal in the atmosphere, she quickly put the brakes on the operation.

Although they received a communication shortly after that 11b had landed safely, considering that none of the T-dolls on other ships had reported anything, it seemed that 11b and the others were just the lucky few.

Then there is no need to continue the airborne assault operation. It seems that humanoids and airborne operations are indeed mortal enemies. Any plan that has anything to do with this word has never succeeded.

"So we have to try another approach." The commander pondered for a moment, then looked at everyone present. "Perhaps we can launch a precision-guided strike in orbit above them."

The humanoid had actually thought about relying on orbital bombardment to destroy the entire planet's ability to resist.

However, considering the need to restore the planet's production capacity after the war in order to provide supplies to the front line on Earth, the fleet cannot plow the entire planet indiscriminately.

Instead, we need to cut off the harmful (air defense) parts as delicately as a scalpel in order to create better conditions for the army.

However, the first batch of landing ships disappeared too quickly, in fact, it happened almost in an instant. In this situation, even a few of the enemy's firepower points could not be detected.

If this continues, the commander and n2 will have to consider indiscriminate land clearing. As for how to restore production capacity after the planet is taken down, we will talk about it after that.

Fortunately, the safe survival of 11b and the others gave the commander an idea.

That is, 11b and the others will act as reconnaissance on the planet's surface, pointing out the direction of the firing point for the fleet.

"You should understand that this method is worth a try. We may be able to determine the location of the tree people's building from a high altitude, but we cannot be sure whether it is a turret."

The current planet is a tropical continent, which is the type with vegetation covering the entire world, and is also built in the architectural style of tree-people and plant-like life.

To be honest, it may not be very useful to see images from high altitudes, especially in the old days when people in certain countries no longer had to worry about rumors about talking trees or ghosts, because these trees really could talk.

Anyway, the current dilemma of the humanoid army is that they can't recognize or know the location and style of the tree-man's turrets.

"So this will be a stealth operation?" 11b responded to the commander in confusion. She always felt that her rank seemed to have been demoted again.

Although he was previously "demoted" to the fourth-class person, he was still considered a commander. However, in the current situation, he directly became the captain of a reconnaissance team.

But she quickly dismissed these useless thoughts.

"But they should also be able to repair and re-fill their destroyed artillery positions, right? Besides, the planet is so huge. Do you intend for us to run around the entire planet to find the firing points on foot?"

This is simply an impossible task, okay?

If it can be called a planet, it must be quite large. For example, if we compare it to Earth, without any means of transportation, 11b would not be able to orbit it in its entire lifetime. (Note)

So if you want to use 11b as a detection eye to eliminate anti-aircraft fire, you might as well ask if there is a time limit.

"Of course it can't be the entire planet, but rather some of their air defense points."

In fact, many people may have a huge misunderstanding about the science fiction cities of the future. In everyone's imagination, as technology gradually develops, people's buildings will gradually fill every corner of the continent.

The future planets they often imagine are filled with interlaced skyscrapers occupying every available space, greatly satisfying those with obsessive-compulsive disorder who love to fill in the blanks.

But in fact, this is a wrong idea. It is impossible for a planet to be fully utilized. Just think about it, even 800 billion round heads cannot fill the earth.

So how many people would live on a planet full of buildings?

For reasons of support, the population of a planet covered with buildings is simply not something that the land beneath its feet can support.

Especially organic life forms that require farming, because of their food needs, they need more space to make room for growing their crops.

Therefore, for a developed civilization, their defensive artillery batteries should not be built everywhere.

Instead, a planet is divided into modules and clusters and dispersed into several or dozens of points, which makes it easier to manage them in a unified manner.

"So we only need to blow up a few of them to create a blind spot in their defense positions, so that our landing ships can land directly."

"Do you think...the tree people will arrange it according to our ideas?"

"If they really mess up their air defenses, it would make it easier for us to land. The evaporation speed of the landing ship is like a dense array of concentrated fire."

"Then... I'll give it a try."

11b didn't continue talking. After receiving a satisfactory answer, the commander quickly hung up the phone.

After finishing, 11b quickly looked in the direction of 7b and 160d, seemingly wanting to seek their opinions.

"Well, if it's about stealth combat, I do have experience. After all, I've done this before." This was 7b's response.

"As a guard model D, I will protect my seniors!" This is 160D.

Note: Without a means of transportation, 11b certainly cannot circle the earth, or any YoRHa humanoid cannot do so. Their weight and body density make them all soluble in water, and they will sink into the sea if they dare to go down.

Chapter 320: As long as all the witnesses are dead, the infiltration will be perfect

"So this is Senior 7b's experience in infiltration and reconnaissance?"

160d looked at 11b in disbelief.

After getting off the boat and counting the available combat forces, they continued their journey into the depths of the rainforest.

Strangely enough, the Tree People on this planet did not form patrols to search for destroyed ships.

Therefore, they can be said to have had no danger along the way, after all, they could not see any enemies.

In addition, they were unfamiliar with the terrain, and after wandering around like headless flies for several days on Earth, they finally saw something different from trees in their field of vision.

Or it could be said that it is a group of buildings with tree-decorated roofs, so it makes sense that the humanoid fleet cannot see the anti-aircraft artillery in the high-altitude orbit. Given the density of their vegetation, even the old-fashioned Eagles could only give a thumbs up and then evacuate quickly.

However, although they had found the enemy's location, 11b and the others soon ran into another problem.

How can you determine whether the building in front of you is military or civilian?

Of course, this problem was immediately solved by our colleague 7b.

"I remember her exact words were, 'I have extensive experience in infiltration. I'll know everything after just one look.'" 11b repeated 7b's words.

For the purpose of insurance, after a brief discussion, 11b led a small number of people to stay where they were as a backup in case of emergency, while 7b led most of the people and quietly moved towards the direction of the building complex.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, and they were almost bored to death in the hidden place.

As a result, they had just been slacking off for less than half a minute when the building in front of them suddenly burst into flames, accompanied by a series of sounds such as gunpowder explosions.

Just when everyone thought their infiltration was exposed and were preparing to attack, they immediately saw 7b and his men moving towards this side quickly.

Soon everyone had a brief meeting, but when 7b and the others rushed in front of 11b, they did not stop, but continued to run to the back with her infiltrators.

Just as everyone was confused, 7B, who had already run quite far, finally turned back and shouted, "Go, go, go! I've called in an orbital bombardment. This place is going to be razed to the ground."

"What? No! Everyone run!"

Following 7b, use the simplest language to remind people, and those who haven't reacted yet will immediately realize that something is wrong.

Many people may not quite understand how orbital bombardment works.

In fact, the so-called orbital bombing is very similar to the operation of heavy bombers washing the ground, but because it is in the high-altitude planetary orbit, the bombing equipment will not be shot down by others during orbital bombing.