I Am The Swarm

Time flows on, never stopping.

For the Riken people, the conditions were relatively lenient and simple after their surrender. Without the need for constant militarization, the lives of ordinary citizens actually improved significantly. With the gradual increase in the proportion of Intelligent Entities controlling public opinion, any minor resistance groups or insurgent forces were quickly eradicated.

As a result, the Riken people would not be consuming much of the Swarm’s energy for the foreseeable future. This gave Luo Wen the time to carefully ponder how to deal with the behemoth backing the Daqi people.

Prince Diallo, after reorganizing his fleet, had been waiting for an opportunity to strike a significant blow against the Swarm.

However, he was unlucky enough to be dealing with the Swarm.

The Swarm was unlike any civilization he had encountered before. Compared to other civilizations, the Swarm’s approach could only be described as excessively passive.

Take the Riken people, for instance: currently, the Twin Star Defensive Zone encompassed the Riken homeworld, Planet Cloud Return, and two other planets. Other than the homeworld, the colonies on the other planets, limited by their size and population, could not sustain fully developed industries.

Thus, there was frequent movement of transport ships between these planets to exchange resources and supplies. Many of these transport ships operated without the protection of warships, making them excellent targets for ambushes.

However, the planets governed by the Rikens were relatively close to one another and equipped with extensive defensive facilities and patrolling warships. Any ordinary space pirate who ventured in would likely find it impossible to leave.

Prince Diallo’s fleet certainly had the capability to penetrate these defenses, but the Rikens were not his ultimate target. In fact, he had covertly communicated with the Rikens, who used the Swarm as their shield. Their message was clear: if he could take down the Swarm, the Rikens would unquestionably pledge allegiance to him. The Rikens painted a picture that was as appealing as possible. Although something felt off to Diallo, he couldn’t quite pinpoint the problem.

Meanwhile, the distances between the Swarm’s bases were far greater. The Planet Izumo base and the Stellar Orbital Swarm Base were separated by the entire Riken territory. Similarly, the distance between the Planet Izumo base and the Planet Raze base spanned hundreds of millions of kilometers.

With such vast distances, any routine communication or transport activity between the Swarm’s bases would have allowed Diallo to demonstrate the Daqi Empire’s harassment tactics.

Unfortunately, the Swarm’s bases truly did not require any routine communication. The Swarm’s bioweapons had the unique ability to grow stronger just by resting. They often drifted lifelessly in space, completely ignoring the Daqi fleet even if it passed nearby.

This left Prince Diallo extremely frustrated. Deploying small units to provoke and lure the Swarm proved futile, as the Swarm simply didn’t engage. On the other hand, launching a full-scale assault against a Swarm base was something he dared not attempt. Even the weakest Swarm base, located on Planet Raze, could easily render his fleet a one-way trip.

The awkward situation didn’t end there. The Swarm was naturally indifferent to the passage of time; every day that passed only meant further growth. Diallo, however, did not have that luxury. While the flexibility of his mission allowed for delays of several years, there was one major constraint: the dwindling supplies.

Energy and fuel were less of an issue, as the fleet had departed well-stocked, sufficient for several decades of travel and even a couple of high-intensity battles. The real problem lay in the lack of food.

Water, at least, was manageable. Each warship was equipped with a recycling system capable of purifying wastewater and other byproducts to potable standards. With a bit of mental fortitude and a blind eye, it was just about tolerable. Food, however, was another matter entirely. It wasn’t as if they could process their waste into something fit for the dining table.

Although every warship was equipped with an ecological cabin, a warship was, after all, a warship—not a specialized supply vessel. The ecological cabins were modest in scale, typically enough to meet the needs of high-ranking officers, but with very little surplus, making it impossible to supply the entire Daqi crew.

Prince Diallo’s original plan was to conquer the Swarm and the Rikens, taking over the Riken homeworld. While the Riken homeworld differed slightly from the Daqi homeworld in various parameters, it was still a habitable planet. Slightly modifying the land would have allowed for the production of food consumable by the Daqi people. At worst, the Riken food supplies could have been adapted for their use. With this resource secured, they could have stayed indefinitely. This was why Diallo had only brought two supply ships on this expedition.

But with the unfavorable progress of the war, compounded by the constant state of readiness for potential battles, the crew remained fully active, consuming resources at an alarming rate. Although Diallo had established clandestine ties with the Rikens and managed to smuggle some food from them, the Rikens, wary of overstepping, eventually stopped cooperating after a “generous donation” of supplies. The lack of a shared currency further hampered transactions.

Frustrated, Diallo’s temper flared to the point where the cracks on his molten visage deepened, swearing to make the Rikens suffer in the future. However, such impotent rage did nothing to resolve the current crisis.

Moreover, the food smuggled from the Rikens required extensive reprocessing to remove toxins harmful to the Daqi people before it could be consumed. This process was exceedingly tedious, and the Daqi warships lacked the equipment for large-scale processing. Even if the Rikens had provided unlimited food, Diallo’s fleet would still have struggled to escape the specter of starvation.

Despite these challenges, Diallo stubbornly continued to roam within the Riken Star System, searching for opportunities. Unfortunately, their reconnaissance only revealed encrypted communications between the Swarm’s bases—suggesting potential secure transmissions. Beyond that, the Swarm’s bases exhibited no interaction. Even the intercepted communications, encoded with baffling complexity, yielded no decipherable information despite numerous attempts.

Amid this stalemate, a sudden opportunity emerged.

As previously mentioned, Diallo had brought two supply ships on this expedition, the largest models in the Daqi fleet. Each was equipped with massive ecological cabins capable of supporting the daily needs of personnel from 200 warships. However, due to their massive size—each measuring 3,000 meters in length, even larger than Diallo’s flagship—their movement was exceedingly slow, rendering them unsuitable for military operations.

If these ships appeared on the battlefield, they would merely serve as easy targets. Thus, during wartime, supply ships were typically hidden in secure locations within friendly territory, where they could safely provide logistical support to the front lines.

Diallo had hidden his two supply ships in a debris field on the outskirts of the Riken Star System. Over this period, the supply ships had produced a significant stockpile of materials, awaiting the fleet to retrieve them. With careful rationing, these resources could sustain Diallo’s fleet for another year or two of operations.

However, Diallo was acutely aware that, although the Swarm seemed indifferent, they were undoubtedly monitoring the fleet’s movements through various means. A large-scale fleet movement toward the supply ships would likely alert the Swarm, placing the slow-moving supply ships in considerable danger.

Therefore, unless they reached the point of absolute desperation, Diallo would not risk retrieving the supplies. Nevertheless, the presence of the two supply ships brimming with resources gave him a much-needed boost of confidence.

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