There were two fleets rushing to Terra from Helion.

One fleet was led by Laurent, with sixty warships. That's a staggering amount. The Imperial Navy fleet, which is usually responsible for managing a star sector, only has 50~75 ships.

The reason for this is that more than a dozen Space Marine warbands have sent at least one warship to join the fleet, as well as a few warships from the Mecha Sect, plus the ships of the Imperial Navy that came to support and witnessed Sivir's heroic appearance in person.

Laurent led the fleet to carefully avoid the rest of the Empire's fleets and headed for Terra. And now, not long after they arrived in the Sun Star Domain, they received the news that Sivir was serving as regent of the Empire.

Now they don't have to hide their whereabouts anymore, and they can go straight to Terra, which greatly increases their travel speed.

The other fleet was a fleet led by Icarus. With fifty ships. Among them, there are 20 engineering ships and 30 scientific research ships. These are all things that Icarus collects resources on the planet Sara and builds them in the planet's orbit by building drones.

A construction ship is a non-offensive spacecraft whose main role is to build in space. Engineering ships are actually very large ships, containing very small living space and a large cargo warehouse with a large amount of construction materials and a team of machine workers.

A science ship is a type of ship that does not have any attack capabilities. The main role of research ships is to explore unknown space. The research ship can arrange scientists to preside over the investigation work, study anomalies and special projects, etc. It can also be used to investigate various celestial bodies, and by surveying the various resource reserves on a planet in two sections.

And these engineering and research ships are almost not loaded with weapons, and they can only flee when they encounter the enemy. There is no way to fight back.

So why didn't Icarus act with Laurent and let Laurent's warships protect these ships? There are many factors that go into this.

First of all, the Empire's subspace engine can open the subspace rift, allowing the ship to enter the subspace like a key opening a door. Therefore, engineering ships and research ships can follow the ass of other ships into subspace even if they are not equipped with subspace engines.

But the main problem is that these engineering and research ships are not equipped with Geller positions, which cannot isolate the influence of subspace. Although they are all robots on the ship and do not have mental distortions, there may be various subspace creatures on the ship and cause all kinds of destruction.

Moreover, the two fleets are combined, and the size of the fleet is even larger, which is not conducive to concealing their whereabouts.

On top of that, Icarus had other orders from Sivir, and he needed to take his fleet to the Sun Domain first to complete his mission before rushing to Terra. And Laurent: they're too slow.

So, although everyone had the same destination, they were divided into two fleets and set off.

Icarus did not have a navigator on board, so he determined the direction by positioning the departure number. If the signal for the Departure Ship disappears, they will still move towards the location where the signal has disappeared.

And because Icarus does not have a star map with hyperspace shipping lanes, in order to find a route that can travel safely without colliding with celestial bodies in space or some other phenomena such as black holes, Icarus will first have a research ship explore the path to find a safe passage in hyperspace, and then the large army will pass through.

Even so, Icarus was still faster than Laurent. By the time Laurent and the others were halfway through, Icarus had already arrived at his destination with the engineering and research ships and was about to start his work.

Approaching the coordinates of the Voyage, Icarus did not go directly, but instead sent his various research ships to explore the surrounding galaxy. Centered on the coordinates of the Sailing, use the research ship to find the surrounding mineral-rich planets.

Although the human empire controls millions of planets in the galaxy, the number of stars in the galaxy alone is between 100 billion and 400 billion, so there are many star systems that have no trace of humans.

For example, the Walpole system, this galaxy has ten planets, but each one is not suitable for human life, any unprotected human appearing on the planet will die instantly, temperature, poison gas, gravity, too many factors make many planets forbidden for humans to land.

So while many of the planets in this system are rich in mineral resources, the Empire does not have any presence in this system. If you want the miners to mine here, you need to give them some protective equipment, but equipment is worth more than human life, and the Empire is not willing to waste resources.

The harsh environment can greatly increase the cost of mining, and this cost is not offset by the cost of more lives, so this kind of planetary empire that takes a lot of effort to mine will generally choose to give up.

But this is not the case for Icarus, after the scanning and investigation of the research ship, after discovering that a certain planet is rich in mineral resources, the engineering ship will rush to the sky above the planet.

It's not for the construction of a mining station, it's too expensive. Instead, a base car is airdropped to the planet.

Each engineering ship has a hundred base vehicles in its cabin, and Icarus is tasked with dropping them onto various mineral-rich planets.

The official name of these base cars is "Forward Base Construction Plant". When dropped onto the planet's surface, they will choose a suitable location to deploy.

In this way, a construction plant was set up, which could build many production buildings. Yes, only production buildings can be built, these base cars are specially modified models, built specifically for the laying of mining buildings.

It can build mining machines, pumping stations, crude oil extraction stations, large mining machines; ore refineries, ore refiners; Mineral processing stations, gas collection shafts, crystal mines, and a series of other buildings to collect resources. It is also possible to produce a wide range of mining vehicles.

At the same time, it can also build wind turbines, thermal power plants, geothermal power stations, solar panels, micro fusion power stations; Magnetic energy reactors, nuclear reactors and other power facilities.

Through power induction towers, wireless transmission towers, satellite distribution stations; Transmission networks to deliver electricity to individual buildings or mining vehicles.

However, neither the construction yard nor the base vehicle has any weapons. While its sheer mass provides some protection against enemy weapons, base vehicles still need armed support to survive in high-risk environments.

If there are brutal beasts or other enemies on certain planets, or if some planets have very unstable plate tectonics, they are prone to large-scale earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Then these base vehicles could be destroyed.

But it doesn't matter, if this kind of base car is needed, just one Sara planet can build tens of thousands of vehicles a day.

Icarus's move is to first sow seeds in the galaxy, and after a while see if it can grow into a big tree and bear fruit.

If the seeds do not germinate, mark them for the time being, and send troops or research teams to investigate and carry out additional collection strategies.

If it bears fruit, then send troops and scientists to station and start building more advanced buildings to develop the planet. At the same time, depending on the situation, it is up to you to decide whether to develop the planet into a mining planet, a minted planet, or other uses.