The chief of staff smacked his mouth, it was hard to say anything, he originally thought that Xie Si would order the fleet to take advantage of the opportunity that the wormhole could still be used normally, so that all the fleets would leave this right and wrong area, but looking at Xie Si's current appearance, he should be unwilling to give up this "great" opportunity at the moment.

He also couldn't use the microbrain to forcibly remove Xie Si's command, because if the hormones in Xie Si's body were disordered to a certain extent at this time, Liu Che would take the initiative to remove Xie Si's command, and since Liu Che didn't do this at this time, it means that Xie Si is still in his senses.

In fact, Xie Si is not unaware of the stakes. If it is not withdrawn, the fleet is likely to face annihilation, and it is very likely that it will die on the battlefield.

But if he retreats now, will he be able to live?

Withdrawing from the battle without an order at this moment will directly paralyze the offensive in the middle of the operation, and if there are friendly forces on other roads nearby that need support, the GS fleet will not be able to provide effective support. If the friendly forces withdraw safely, in case they are completely wiped out, then even if the GS fleet retreats completely, he Xie Si will be sent to a court-martial, and the result will also be that he cannot escape the fate of being shot.

Since advancing is also death, and retreating is also death, why not take a desperate gamble and walk towards a promising path?

"Colonel, did you understand the tasks assigned to you?" Xie Si patted Colonel Zhao Yuantian on the shoulder.

"Yes, I promise to only scout, and never engage in a battle with an enemy I may encounter."

"Good, go ahead."

"Yes!"

Standing on the bridge, he watched a cruiser and several destroyers leave the fleet and head towards the rear of the fleet.

"General, if Colonel Zhao Yuantian discovers a large army of bugs, what are you going to do?" The Chief of Staff asked in a low voice behind him.

"Let's keep going, if there's bugs in the rear, do you think we'll have a chance to go back?" Xie Si took a deep breath and said in a tone of despair.

"Didn't you think about this kind of contingency when you made the plan?" The chief of staff was almost desperate, and in this way, the fleet simply had nothing to look forward to.

"There is definitely a plan, but, for now, we should be quite short of mobile forces." Xie Si glanced at the dark universe outside the window and sent a rough battle plan to the chief of staff.

The chief of staff quickly swept over the so-called plan: "This...... What kind of mobile support force can two provincial-level fleets be used for? Don't we still have four provincial fleets of the Third Front? Where are they? ”

"According to the original operational plan, they were supposed to carry out long-range artillery bombardment of the bug nests in the middle zone in the central sector."

"Central Sector? If they don't use wormholes, it will take us two days! ”

"That's right, so now we're on our own." Xie Si turned his head, his bloodshot eyes staring at the chief of staff, "Let the soldiers rest for an hour in batches, we will soon launch an attack on the Feng Mars system, and in the future, I'm afraid there will be no chance to rest." ”

The chief of staff was stunned for a moment, because he couldn't see any fear in Xie Si's gaze at this time, and the only thing that existed was the bloody nature of the trapped beast fighting desperately.

"Yes! Checkmate! ”

Xie Si sat down in his chair, his gaze returned to the dark universe, what he hoped most now was that Zhao Yuantian could return safely, saying that the reconnaissance ship in charge of liaison was only out of order and repaired on the maintenance ship of the QH fleet.

Time passed minute by minute, and the fleet was only an hour away from the Feng Martian system, and Zhao Yuantian still had no sign of returning.

"General, you can't wait any longer, let's attack immediately." Liu Che reminded behind Xie Si.

Xie Si came back to his senses and sighed heavily: "How is the spirit of the soldiers?" ”

"I haven't told them what it's like yet, so everybody's in good spirits."

"Very good, order the Lanzhou with his city-level fleet to immediately launch an attack on the Feng Mars system......"

"General, wait, hold off the attack!" Before Xie Si's order could be delivered, the voice of the chief of staff came from the communication channel.

"What's the matter, Chief of Staff, why are you so alarmed?" Xie Si had a faint premonition in his heart.

"Colonel Zhao Yuantian's troops are back."

"Good! Let Colonel Zhao come to the bridge! ”

"Well, General, there's something I have to tell you first," the Chief of Staff voice paused for two seconds.

"Tell me quickly, why didn't you finish halfway?"

"Only a few reconnaissance ships returned, and they reported that the QH fleet had been completely wiped out, and only a pile of wreckage remained."

"What about Colonel Zhao Yuantian? Is he in those scouts? ”

"Colonel Zhao...... He has been martyred. ”

"Boom!"

A thunderbolt exploded in Xie Si's brain, and he only felt that his eyes were black, and he almost fainted, if it weren't for the two staff officers behind him hurriedly hugging him, he would have fallen directly to the ground.

"General, what are we going to do?" The staff officer helped Xie Si to sit down on the captain's chair and asked in a low voice.

"Give me some time to take a break, and the command will be handed over to the chief of staff for the time being." Xie Si closed his eyes and said weakly.

"Yes!"

A golden five-pointed star appeared on the microbrain of the chief of staff, which indicated that the command of the fleet had been officially transferred to him.

And his first order was that the Haoyue-class cruiser equipped with the wormhole generator immediately opened the wormhole leading to the safe star zone, and the fleet was ready to withdraw from this place of right and wrong.

However, the light words replied by the Haoyue-class cruiser that made the order abort - the wormhole could not be opened, and even the jump system was disturbed, and the fleet could not go anywhere now.

"Chief of Staff, let's go to the Abundance Mars system, establish a temporary base on Planet 2, and establish defensive bases on Planet 1 and 3 respectively." Just when everyone was at a loss, Xie Si opened his tired eyes, and his left hand trembled and touched the astrolabe, and the microbrain copied all the plans he had come up with in his brain onto the astrolabe.

"We're lucky, it's the closest time for the first three planets in the Martian system, and if it's a month late, we'll have to leave a second planet alone." The chief of staff looked at the preset defense points marked on the star map, "But if you deploy it like this, will the fleet be too scattered?" ”

"It's up to you to make arrangements, I'll only give you a plan, and the rest will depend on the plan of your staff team, and I'll make final revisions when the rough results come out." This time, Xie Si did not insist on his opinion, and directly handed over the operation to these equally young staff officers. After all, this is likely to be their last battle, so let these young people finally become the executors of the battlefield.

The fleet turned its engines to the maximum and entered the Abundance Martian system as early as possible.

Blue stars burn in the distance, but fleets in space can only feel loneliness and desolation. Although the soldiers did not know the specific situation, from the expressions of the staff officers, they had roughly guessed that this time it was more than lucky.

On the battleship, which was usually lively and lively, there was no superfluous sound at this time, and everyone was silent and quietly doing what they were doing. At this moment, even welding an extra steel plate on the surface of the hull may be the key to helping the battleship survive to the moment reinforcements arrive, although such reinforcements are likely not to exist.

It took two hours for the fleet to finally establish a very rough defense line, and the chief of staff summed up everyone's opinions and decided to build a small space station only on Planet One, which was relatively close, and transferred three municipal fleets to be stationed there.

Just as the construction of the fleet was about to be completed, the figure of the bug finally appeared.

In just a few minutes, the huge star was so tightly covered by a dense mass of bugs that not a single speck of light could be seen.

But the bugs just watched from a distance and didn't take the initiative to attack. The fleet can only use the beam cannons above the cruiser's main gun to carry out long-range attacks on bugs.

Xie Si saw from the telescope that the beam of light was about to hit the insect every time, but it was dodged by the insect at the last moment.

"Damn, you can't fight like this, Liu Che, let all the warships stop firing and make the shield system as perfect as possible." Xie Si threw away the telescope and pushed away the two staff officers gathered around the astrolabe, "What are you going to do now?" ”

"Looking at the way the bugs are only besieging and not attacking, I think the bugs are now under-armed and can't guarantee that they will eat us in one go, so they are now waiting for the arrival of the follow-up troops, and as soon as their reinforcements arrive, the battle will begin." A very young, recently graduated staff officer, replied.

Xie Si just nodded in satisfaction, but immediately retorted with another slightly older staff officer.

"No, General, I don't think that's the case, you see, the bugs, whether they are basic scorpions or massive Eritan, are definitely enough to match us. They chose to wait and see because they didn't want to lose too many troops on our defensive line. You see, the rotation of Planet One will cause the space station in low Earth orbit to run to the far side of the planet, and at that time, our two fleets will completely lose contact and become two separate teams, each broken by bugs. I've calculated that it will only take about two hours for the station to reach the far side of the planet, and that will be when the bug attack will begin in earnest. ”

"Why wasn't this explained before the battle began?" Xie Si frowned and said rather dissatisfied.

"I said it, but no one listened to me," the older staff officer glanced resentfully at the staff officers standing around him.

Xie Si didn't speak again, just stared at the star map quietly, it must be too late to withdraw the three city-level fleets now, the bugs can easily defeat these three fleets that have broken away from the defensive base, and the main force can't use its firepower normally because of the consideration of friendly forces.

"General, come with me." While Xie Si stared at the star map without speaking, the chief of staff patted him on the shoulder.

The two walked to a side room, and the chief of staff opened the door and looked left and right to make sure that no one was there before closing the door.

"Tell me, what's so mysterious, we're in a bad enough situation right now, and we don't care about a worse future." Xie Si dragged a chair and sat down, his right hand lightly pressing his faintly beating temple.

"General, the bugs have not attacked until now, whether it is to wait for our Planetary One base to lose contact with us, or to replenish their forces, it shows that they are not in a hurry to annihilate us. That is, we are now practically in a state of complete isolation, and it is likely that the remaining fleet has ...... It's been completely defeated by bugs. The chief of staff did not take the chair, but frowned, stood and finished all the words.

Xie Si's right hand paused, his eyes still staring at his shoes: "I see, you want me to break through, right?" ”

"That's right, General, if we want to escape from here now, we have to break through!" The chief of staff said categorically.

"But where can we escape?" Xie Si raised his head and looked at the Chief of Staff with bloodshot eyes, "This entire galaxy is completely surrounded by bugs, just trying to highlight this galaxy, I'm afraid we will lose more than half of our fleet." And even if you break out of this galaxy, our wormhole generators and jump engines are still unusable, do you think our thrusters alone can outrun the more fast-moving bugs? ”

"Sir, are we just waiting here to die?" The chief of staff gritted his teeth and said unwillingly.

"Let's stay here for now, and I'll take care of the rest." Xie Si stood up and patted the chief of staff on the shoulder, "Don't worry, even if we all die here, we will definitely not let the bugs have a good time." ”