The 24th Gamma Scorchers Warfleet and the 76th Dominators Warfleet both demonstrated different technologies that the Polymath and her legion of R&D personnel had developed and refined over the span of half a century. Everyone who expected the two warfleets to dominate and crush the native alien forces did not come away disappointed. Many people became happy when the Cybers introduced more than one miracle solution to the transphasic energy shield problem. The native aliens had been taking advantage of their superior access to phasewater for too long. Their transphasic and azure energy shields often proved to be the bane of defenders who possessed the courage but not the gear to defeat enemies that hid behind such luxurious defenses. The people who fought against the native aliens out of duty or out of necessity finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel. So long as they gained parity in terms of tech and materials, many mech pilots did not believe that they were inferior to their alien adversaries! Still, Ves believed that many folks were celebrating too soon. Whether the newly developed tech would fall into the hands of the masses remained to be seen. The Cybers at least wanted to earn a hefty profit out of their technological achievements. "Let us switch to the playback of the third battle." Gloriana suggested after they had exhausted their discussion on the Gamm Scorchers. "Yes, let's do that. I have been saving the best for last." When Ves and Gloriana switched the feed to the third battle, they expected to observe a very different kind of battle than the last two ones. The 27th Assimilators Warfleet did not disappoint them in this regard. Just like with the other two warfleets, the Assimilators entered a star system that had already fallen to the enemy. The difference was that this time the star system was occupied by swarms of mutated voribugs. It was frightening to see how much they expanded their numbers since they took over the star system from the Rubarthan colonists. Their greed for mid to high-quality materials was insatiable. To that end, the insects completely broke down all forms of life and construction and even began to burrow into rich ore veins. Live a superorganism, the voribugs all moved in coordination with each other, passing on resources to special hives and other locations where the materials went through further processing. Ultimately, the materials ended up inside eggs and cultivation fluids where they would be used to grow and strengthen the next generation of voribugs! At this time, it was impossible to count the number of voribugs in the star system. There were simply too many of them, and they were constantly multiplying their numbers with each passing second. Even if 90 percent of them consisted of variations of the most basic cannon fodder bugs, the remaining 10 percent or so still amounted to billions of more advanced mutated bugs! Of course, their quality still varied. There shouldn't be too many large and formidable mutated voribugs that could fight and win against mechs in a duel. The voribugs did not ascribe to quality in the first place. They would much rather produce a lot more cannon fodder with low-grade exotics and hypers that were easily available in many star systems. It was already frightening to behold all of these hostile and dangerous alien creatures when they were peacefully nesting and gathering resources. From the moment the starships arrived, their behavior completely shifted. The mutated voribugs instantly knew that 'their' territory received unwelcome visitors! The nearest bugs placed in the edge of the star system began to maneuver around and monitor the arriving warships, carriers and support vessels. It remained unclear whether the voribugs possessed the intelligence to understand the fleet composition of the Assimilators, but they definitely took the new arrivals seriously. "The voribugs are spread out across the entire star system." Ves observed. "They are particularly concentrated in most terrestrial satellites and more mineral-rich parts of the asteroid belts. That means that it will take time for all of these voribugs to converge on a single enemy force. I wonder what the Assimilators will do now that they have clearly kicked the hornet's nest." The Assimilators clearly did not hesitate and already began to move as soon as they excited their FTL travel. The starships of the 27th did not move straight into the inner system where the concentration of mutated voribugs was the highest. They instead made their way over to the furthest planet from the system. It was nothing more than a small icy terrestrial globe that contained small amounts of mid-grade exotics. That was an interesting choice. Ves had already an idea why the Assimilators wanted to start off their action plan at a relatively small and remote location. Once the warfleet approached orbit of the furthermost planet in the star system, the voribugs that had been doing their own thing had already mobilized to fight against the intruders. Many voribugs did not possess the ability to traverse through space, but that did not matter when they could just board larger and more specialized voribugs that did happen to possess this capability! Although these bugs required an injection of phasewater to unlock their speed, once they satisfied this requirement, they were not that much slower than a typical human vessel! Tens of thousands of teardrop-shaped voribugs therefore propelled themselves into space and flew straight towards the approaching warfleet with many more voribug combatants sheltered inside their sacks or clinging outside their fleshy forms! A sensible human force would take one good look at the sheer amount of voribugs closing in and decide it was better to turn around and maintain distance! While the voribugs had already mutated numerous species that specialized inflicting damage at range, this was not their preferred mode of combat. They would much rather get into point blank range and take a bite out of their adversaries! This desire was so strong that few if any of the bugs in space bothered to launch more than a pittance of inaccurate plasma bolts and spore projectiles. The Assimilators still did not choose to retreat. Their vessels continued to barrel forth with no disregard of how badly they were outnumbered. "Is this not the time for the warfleet to slow down and turn the other way so that they can kite the incoming voribugs?" Gloriana asked. "It would if this was a regular warfleet." Ves responded. "I have a strong feeling that this smart metal fleet will not fight like the other ones. It is based on substantially different tech that has radically different implications." As the distance continued to close, the Assimilators still did not stop or slow down. They did not even deploy their mechs. All they did was charge straight at the overwhelming swarm as if the disparity in numbers meant nothing. The two forces physically collided against each other! All of the starships of the Assimilators promptly disappeared. Their hulls became surrounded by millions and millions of mutated voribugs, each of which had their own special way of drilling through solid matter and claiming the lives that their master sought. "This is insane!" Gloriana gasped. "Are the Cybers truly confident enough in their warships that they are willing to let them drown in voribug bodies?!" "I guess so." Ves shrugged. "Keep watching. This is hardly over. It is just the beginning." Though Ves already predicted it, he still found it shocking that the Assimilation also did not bother to launch more than a paltry anumber of ranged attacks. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶 Seeing so many vessels getting surrounded by voribugs was like watching a catapult move forward until it was offering itself up the enemy side. Yet the expected outcome did not happen. The starships did not behave anything like other hulls. Slowly but surely, the activity levels of the voribugs and the engulfed Assimilators kept rising higher. Something was happening inside that caused the bugs to become a lot more active and vigilant! "Wait… is the swarm thinning?" Ves hadn't noticed it yet, but now that he directed his attention to it, he realized that his wife was correct! A situation like this should ordinarily lead to a reduction in human resistance. What happened instead was that the 27th Warfleet not only managed to withstand this test, but also launch a counterattack that was disturbing the voribugs increasingly further. Soon enough one of the warships became visible again, though it no longer looked like a traditional vessel anymore. Instead, massive chunks of internal compartments became exposed to vacuum. The voribugs kept crawling in from every direction and tried to gnaw at the warship's interior. Yet the vessel was also striking back. Not only did she rely on internal defense turrets and the like, but she also directed large swarms of tiny nanomachines to fight back against the native aliens! These smart metal swarms were gradually gaining ground. When faced with the voribugs, the nanomachines easily slipped between the cracks and overcame the resistance of every single voribug. Because these bugs largely consisted of relatively low-quality cannon fodder, the smart metal had a very easy time burrowing deep inside their organic tissue before beginning to break down their brains and nerves! As far as insect species went, the voribugs did not possess a particularly abnormal biology. Their organs resembled that of many other life forms in the Red Ocean and the Milky Way for that matter. When the smart metal ate up much of the brain matter, the voribug in question ceased functioning. These shutdowns happened intermittently at first, but they rapidly exploded in frequency as more and more voribugs lost all signs of life. As soon as these individual creatures died, the surrounding voribugs automatically devoured their deceased cousins as if they could not stand the waste of biomatter! The rate of bugs dropping dead increased exponentially. As quickly as the voribugs tried to recycle their deceased brothers and sisters, their ability to replenish their losses was not as fast as the smart metal that had infiltrated their bodies! In fact, devouring the bodies of the insects that dropped dead only exacerbated the problem as it delivered the lethal nanomachines directly into the bodies of other voribugs! Although the voribugs recognized the danger and attempted to stop what was happening by trying out several different maneuvers, nothing worked! Like an invisible plague, the smart metal continued to infiltrate their bodies and spread among their comrades. Even after the voribugs had ceased to devour their fallen and attempted to disperse their swarms, the infection still couldn't be stopped at this point! Many voribugs fell quickly while the larger and stronger ones exhibited greater resistance before they succumbed. The orbit around the furthermost planet eventually turned tranquil as the vast majority of voribugs that had participated in the attack had perished. No, it was not correct to state that the voribugs died. So long as their carcasses were not devoured by other voribugs, the nanomachines that had drilled into their flesh and multiplied by making use of the living tissue simply continued their work. This naturally caused more and more bodies to break down until lots of nanomachines had taken their place! The feed helpfully displayed an annotation that described that the nanomachines actually consisted of a mix of three 'basic' CE nanomachine models. The NanoGatherers were the basic scavenger units of this group of nanomachines. Their advantage was that they worked exceptionally fast wne dealing with weaker materials. The NanoSmiths took all of those raw resources and produced brand-new nanomachines, including copies of their template if there was need to expand their production capacity. The NanoWarriors comprised the basic fighter units at the nanomachine scale. They were good at damaging both big and small opponents. They accomplished the former by carefully studying their adversaries and determining their weak points. These three specialized nanomachine models each fulfilled their functions brilliantly! This was because instead of getting devoured by the voribugs, the Assimilators had assimilated all of the voribugs in the immediate area!