Interstellar Age

Chapter 402 Delving Beneath the Surface

Erich sat in his office, watching the screen which displayed the helmet camera footage from the soldiers who had pierced into Andromeda. The ship they were on was small and was capable of advanced cloaking technology invented by Tia.

Theoretically, with their current knowledge of the Naraku and their military capabilities, this ship should be able to slip past their defenses and land on the primary Hive World within the Andromeda Galaxy.

From there however, it was a matter of burrowing deep within the hive world's surface, penetrating through the crust, while guiding a planetary annihilator torpedo, or a modified variant which was capable of the same level of destruction, but could be carried on a man's back, down into the deepest part of the Hive. Where the team would self destruct the weapon, killing themselves and the entire world with them.

It was a true suicide mission, one that none of the men regretted undertaking. Erich, Mirage, and Tia watched the video footage of the operation with beers in hand. Mirage had brought a bag of chips with her, causing Erich to shift his attention to the blue-haired beauty every time an audible crunch was heard.

Normally Erich would not care about this, but in an incredibly tense moment like this, which would literally determine the fate of the Milky Way Galaxy, he couldn't help but chastise her.

"Must you seriously eat those right at this moment?"

Mirage shot Erich a look of "what did I do wrong?" before defending herself from her lover's harsh words.

"You're the one who provided the beers. Don't blame me for having a salty snack with them..."

Erich simply rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the holographic projection of the ongoing mission. The ship came out of FTL, and began to slowly descend towards the world, which was surrounded by Naraku Hiveships.

Thankfully, the fleets in Andromeda appeared to be at the same level of technological advancement as the ones Erich had encountered in the Milky Way, or perhaps even less so as they were not scouting fleets designed to pierce the void of space and survey new galaxy ripe for conquest.

This was mere speculation on Erich's part as he watched the scene intensely, while also sipping on his beer. Soon enough he ran out of the tasty and intoxicating liquid, handing his bottle over to Mirage who put it aside and grabbed Erich a new one, popping off its bottlecap with the edge of the desk as if she had done so a million times before.

Once she had done this, she handed the chilled beer over to Erich, who began sipping on it like the last one. Erich's heart was pounding as the Germanic starship landed on the planet's surface, still invisible as the men exited from the vehicle, cloaked by a similar degree of technology, just scaled down to personal level.

The man carrying the explosive device which would annihilate the planet was kept safely in the middle of the formation, while the WRAITHs by his side all kept a close watch on their surroundings.

Erich had never seen a world rebuilt by the Naraku, as in this galaxy all they did was strip worlds of their biological material. It was a truly disgusting display, almost as if the entire world was the inside of an insect hive.

Previous attempts to survey the planet were conducted with small autonomous rovers, which over the past few years had surveyed the surface and the tunnels which led deep into the planet's interior.

Luckily for them, none of these little robots, controlled remotely by an artificial intelligence subordinate to Tia's control, had ever been detected by the Naraku, proving they lacked the capability of detecting robotic technology that was sufficiently cloaked.

However, the same could not be said for the biological lifeforms who were conducting this operation. It was entirely unknown if the Naraku could detect cloaked biological life forms.

Why had the Empire resorted to using live men to transport the weapon instead of robotic drones? Because after a certain distance within the tunnels, the robots stopped responding to Tia's controls. Not because they were detected, but because something within the planet's crust cut off her signals to them.

Because of this, only so much of the world's interior was mapped, and once these soldiers went past, that point they would be working entirely on new information. The Germanic warriors were luckily well trained in stealth and evasion.

Doing their best to silently and covertly manner through the planet's surface and into the tunnels, avoiding the Naraku drones as they did so. After all, the Naraku were not expecting any alien lifeforms on their planet, and were not on high alert.

Because of that, the drones were quite easy to evade, as they were not even running patrols, seemingly believing that there were no threats to the planet or those on it. Why would there be? The entirety of Andromeda was either conquered and devoured, or outright settled exclusively by the Naraku.

And until now, they had only detected surveillance probes entering the galaxy. The Hive Mind never suspected the lifeforms of the Milky Way Galaxy to actually land a strike team on their world.

Hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks as the WRAITHs continued to make their way towards their destination. During this time Erich had seldom left his seat, nor had Mirage. Only for meal breaks, restroom breaks, and to perform basic hygiene.

After all, their species was genetically enhanced to the point where going a few weeks without any sleep was not a problem for them. And thus, after nearly three weeks of dredging through the Naraku Hive world, three weeks which were full of nail biting near contact events, the strike team finally made it past the area that had been mapped out by the Drones.

Where they finally discovered why all the robots sent before them had lost contact. Lying deep beneath the surface of the Hive World was an antechamber filled with larvae whose purpose was to one day become Naraku Hive Queens.

Knowing that each of these Larvae would one day spawn a terrifying hive fleet of their own, Erich and Mirage shuddered in horror, as they suddenly realized that their hypothetical scenario of the universe most likely being filled with Naraku infested galaxies was almost certainly true.