Five minutes later.
Shi Zhizi: "The invasion was unsuccessful. Their spaceship fled."
Jiang Ye was surprised.
So disloyal?
The ground forces on Yeyan Star were still resisting fiercely, and the mothership's spacecraft had already fled?
Without the network support of the mothership's spacecraft, the remote-controlled robots on Yeyan Star largely failed. Eventually, the main base fell, and they withdrew from the competition for Birong Star.
Only one faction remained, Machine Star, which was still resisting.
Machine Star's camp was a world of its own.
The above-ground buildings were unremarkable, but the depths below were unfathomable. Judging by the number of elevator floors, the Machine Star faction had built a twenty-four-story base underground.
And it wasn't a rectangular underground structure, but a pyramid. The deeper it went, the wider the area became, with more rooms, resembling a labyrinth!
The assault team had just reached the second underground level and had already suffered severe setbacks.
Fireproof rolling shutter doors lined the corridors, requiring them to be cut open one by one.
Each room also had alloy explosion-proof doors, which were extremely difficult to pry open and could only be cut little by little.
Upon entering the rooms, they were met with counterattacks from ambushing robots. These robots fought like madmen, ignoring any calls for surrender and being completely uncommunicable.
If they were living beings, they would feel fear or despair, or even run out of stamina and end their resistance after a while.
But robots were incredibly troublesome. They only followed their internal programming, fighting to the end, and their power cells were quite sufficient. Some robot models even had miniature nuclear reactors for power, capable of sustained combat for a hundred years.
Having only reached the second underground level, progress was already difficult.
Many damaged mechs were transported to the surface, flown away by the plane-load for factory repairs. The battle was quite brutal.
Jiang Ye's brow furrowed as he issued a series of orders.
"Hacker units, depart immediately for the Machine Star main base and see if you can crack those damned robots."
"Che Zhen, dispatch another two hundred thousand mechs to support the troops attacking the Machine Star main base. This place might take ten days to half a month to conquer. Hurry up and build fortifications nearby, preparing for a protracted war."
"For the troops attacking Machine Star, do not send any more living personnel down. If those robots realize they cannot hold, they might break protocol and open fire on humans. Only send mechs down."
Jiang Ye's prediction was correct. A full five days later, the battle to encircle and annihilate the Machine Star main base was still ongoing.
The troops seemed to have entered an abyss, the fighting endless, and the captured robots inexhaustible.
After five days and five nights of continuous combat, the mechs had been repaired a staggering twenty-four thousand times, and 1,980 enemy robots had been captured.
The underground portion of the enemy base was intricate. It seemed that during its construction, they had already anticipated a fight to the death in this place. Jiang Ye Star's troops discovered enemies in every room, ambushes behind every rolling shutter door, and sometimes entire platoons of enemies arriving via hidden elevators to reinforce, catching the mechs, who thought the enemies on that level had been cleared, off guard. Currently, forty elevators of various sizes and locations, and twenty staircases connecting different floors had been found.
Indeed, the entire underground structure was chaotic, like a tangled mess. If human soldiers were here, they would get lost every day, but for robots, no matter how tangled the architectural structure, it was as clear as a straight line. This purely robotic faction, in building its lair, had not chosen traditional human architecture but a structure akin to an ant colony.
In addition, there were hidden doors that could be pushed open, cabinets and floors with hidden compartments, and some mine-like small robots lay dormant beneath. "Mine-like" did not refer to them exploding when stepped on, but rather that these small robots were in a completely dormant state, emitting no electrical signals and no heat. However, if strong vibrations were detected nearby, they would quickly activate, jump out, and attack intruders.
Meanwhile, Machine Star's mothership was not planning to give up.
They intended to fight Jiang Ye to the bitter end.
Previously, Machine Star's mothership only sent three to four spacecraft to Birong Star daily, delivering goods and robots, in a very leisurely manner.
Now, Machine Star was dispatching over two hundred spacecraft to Birong Star every day!
The spacecraft were filled with reinforcement robots.
These over two hundred spacecraft did not even land. They hovered three kilometers above the main base. Once the cargo doors opened, they dropped a dense swarm of robots like bombers dropping bombs. These robots would activate mid-air, deploy white parachute-like canopies, form formations, and descend onto the main base and its surroundings, launching attacks on Jiang Ye Star's troops.
There were an average of five to six waves of these airborne troops per hour.
Often, before the previous wave could be dealt with, the next wave would descend with snow-white parachutes.
In the first two days, the Machine Star airborne troops almost succeeded, catching Jiang Ye Star's troops off guard, causing chaos, and compressing them into the buildings, nearly leading to their loss.
Fortunately, Jiang Ye arrived in time to rescue the situation.
He rapidly reinforced the Machine Star main base, increasing the troop numbers near the main base to 500,000.
He also dispatched a transport team of one hundred thousand people to handle logistics and transport prisoners.
Jiang Ye had originally planned to convert the main bases of Yeyan Star, Solaris Star, and Cyber Star into prisoner-of-war camps to house the captured robots.
However, the increasing number of enemy airborne troops made him uneasy. What if the enemy attempted to recapture the prisoners?
If such a large group of prisoners were rescued, they could instantly become a robot army again, potentially even turning the tide.
Therefore, Jiang Ye ordered that all prisoners be transported back to Jiang Ye Star.
Jiang Ye Star immediately began construction of prisoner-of-war camps, designed to accommodate one hundred thousand robots.
Human prisoner-of-war camps required facilities for eating, drinking, defecating, and sleeping. Robot prisoner-of-war camps were much simpler, with each robot needing only a charging slot. The charging slots were about the size of half a refrigerator. To expedite construction and save money, the camps were designed like large stadiums, with spectator seats replaced by charging slots.
Television stations and many online platforms eagerly purchased the rights to film the construction of the robot prisoner-of-war camps, broadcasting the progress 24 hours a day.
The citizens of Jiang Ye Star were highly interested, and many people watched the live streams. Large screens in shopping malls, small televisions in restaurants, and advertising spaces in subway stations all displayed real-time footage of the prisoner-of-war camp construction from different angles.
Whenever a section of the prisoner-of-war camp was completed and hundreds or thousands of robot prisoners were installed into their charging slots, the citizens of Jiang Ye Star felt immensely invigorated. After all, this was a victory of their home planet over another planet!
The amount of live stream donations continued to rise. Hundreds of thousands of citizens petitioned online, with the wealthy wanting to donate money to the troops and those without money wanting to enlist and capture enemies on Birong Star.
Some on-leave soldiers, wearing their uniforms, walked through the city. Many people approached them to shake hands, praising them, saying, "You are fighting very well on the front lines," "You have beaten the aliens severely on our behalf," and "You have brought honor to our home planet." Restaurants even offered them free meals, even though they repeatedly explained that they were garrison troops and had never been to Birong Star.
Shopping malls started offering discounts again, and some restaurants launched promotions like "5% of every customer's dining bill will be directly donated to the front lines." Children in schools began creating hand-copied newspapers and blackboard newspapers themed around the Birong Star war, and elementary schools across the country held essay contests.
Upon hearing this news, Jiang Ye was left speechless, unsure whether to laugh or cry. The situation was actually deteriorating, and he was overwhelmed by Machine Star's offensive, feeling utterly exhausted. Yet, the rear was so jubilant. Blackboard newspapers, hand-copied newspapers, themed essay contests – these tactics hadn't changed in over a thousand years!