107: Crab meat? Captains, it's not time to take off yet.

The strategic deployment on Xi Hai's side was basically complete.

Except for the 2000 clone bodies of the Pilots, everyone in the space station had already boarded their ships in an orderly manner to carry out a strategic transfer—

After all bases were retracted into base ships, the fleet engaged warp travel, transferring to a position approximately 20 AU along the Kuiper Belt, where they would redeploy to serve as a logistics base to support the battlefield.

Taking advantage of this moment, first the Ultramarines, then the Warship crew, and subsequently—everyone—switched into their clone bodies.

Their original bodies had already been left on the base ships and taken away, while the clone bodies remained with the Warships just 2 AU from the Node Space Station, clinging to the far side of an asteroid, waiting to strike.

Nominal supreme decision-making authority for the battlefield undoubtedly fell to Xi Hai, but command authority was partially delegated to Speer and White Shark; after all, Xi Hai had no experience in commanding space Warship operations.

Speer had professional knowledge, White Shark had combat experience, and Xi Hai... had ideas, as well as an understanding of his own Warships. The three of them together were better than fighting alone.

The warp coordinates around the Node Space Station had been calculated, and the warp points for the "Swallow Return" were being selected.

("Swallow Return": A tactic from setting, which involves setting up zero-health outposts [stable warp points] in the frontline area; if a formidable enemy that cannot be defeated is encountered or if caught in a pincer attack, one can quickly disengage from battle by retreating and then rapidly return to the battlefield)

All 7,000 fighter aircraft were fully loaded with live ammunition, ready to strike; Xi Hai couldn't wait to deliver a bombing blessing consisting of 2,000 sets of "little flying sticks" to the invading enemy.

Oh, there was a small interlude during this, regarding the mecha that Gunnar and his Mechanic had concocted together.

Under Xi Hai's insistence, the official designation for those mechas was finally finalized as "refrigerator" (although everyone present preferred the name "dreadnought" that he had shouted when he was startled).

And because they were Clones, some Pilots even requested more extreme modifications—making the cockpit smaller, removing the limbs of the clone body, fixing it directly inside using a life-support system, and then welding the cockpit shut from the outside to prevent the openable hatch from reducing defensive integrity.

Furthermore, after the Mechanic cobbled one together according to those outrageous requirements, the wounded guy who had been operating the prototype immediately declared he wanted to go first, and after experiencing it, exclaimed that it was simply too WAAAAAGH!

Then the Mechanic realized something was wrong—this guy was using his original body.

In short, the first generation of dreadnoughts—oh no, refrigerator—was thus hastily finalized and began mass production.

"How are things going over at the Node Space Station?"

At this moment, on the Bridge of the storm, Xi Hai looked at the pitch-black void outside the window and asked casually—it had been over an hour, and logically speaking, the main force of the Cosmic Army following behind should have arrived by now.

After all, when Xi Hai went to the Order Seat V01.01 before, he had only flown in the channel for a few hours.

"Report!"

"No enemy fleet has been detected at the Void Channel entrance yet."

"However, according to radar detection, a large number of small units, a dozen meters long, have appeared; they are suspected to be probes."

Ho, it seems the other side has already arrived, just being cautious and not showing their heads yet.

"Send a message to the ambushing Pilots, tell them to hide themselves well and absolutely do not expose any communication signals or the like..."

Before he could finish, the communications officer's voice suddenly became tense—

"Some probes are flying into the interior of the space station!"

Xi Hai turned his head sharply, looking at the displayed feed.

A few unmanned probes with very thin bodies and very large drum-like bellies slowly approached the Starport of the Node Space Station.

After being captured by gravity, six flexible, tentacle-like mechanical arms extended from their large bellies, standing steadily on the surface of the Starport.

However, just as they were wriggling and about to enter the space station, several things with slightly different designs suddenly rushed over as if they were drunk—compared to those large-bellied probes, these incoming probes had a large head and a thin, drum-like belly.

"Bang!!"

The sound of a collision came from the feed.

Xi Hai looked up at the air; the same big-headed ones were also unanimously flying towards the nearest big-bellied ones, inexplicably giving the impression of a certain species that would shout "Banzai!"

"What are they doing? AI infighting?"

"That's not right? The Order Alliance bans AI,"

"night lamp, did you do this?"

night lamp: "No, I can't hack into that."

Well, Xi Hai felt he had solved the case—it was highly probable that the code written by some overworked programmer had developed an inexplicable bug again.

Anyway, his Pilots had temporarily lost the risk of exposure, which was a good thing; he even had to thank that programmer.

If he met them in the future, he could have night lamp help them fix the code—of course, the kind where he would charge a fee and add a backdoor.

He just stared as the probes on the field were reduced one by one, thinking to himself about what tricks they would pull next once the probes were gone.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Watching his own probes dwindle, Gould was first puzzled, then furious—he watched helplessly as, in the feed of one of the probes, an Imperial probe slammed hard into a Consortium probe!

"Connect me to those religious lunatics!"

"Ask them what exactly they are planning to do!"

He shouted, his face red.

At this moment, the first officer walked over with a strange expression and said:

"We just received an inquiry from the Imperial side..."

"They say our probes... why do they keep crashing into them?"

"What the hell?"

Turning black into white!

Gould was even angrier—he knew that most of the Imperial Cosmic Army were unscrupulous and had poor character, but he hadn't expected them to be this shameless!

"Hello, hello, hello?"

"What's wrong? Friends of The Consortium."

With a "buzz," the communication console connected, and Kelaifu's cheeky voice came through.

Gould grabbed the microphone and shouted a question:

"What the f**k are you doing?"

"Attacking The Consortium's aerial units, are you planning to declare war?"

The other side did not show any weakness:

"What attack? It's clearly because your organic components are too stupid and blocked the flight path of our probes!"

"Also, in the current state of The Consortium, where you are poorer than dogs, do you really dare to declare war on the Empire?"

Gould's voice turned gloomy.

"We have video evidence."

"Also, you do not need to slander the great Marshal, because we all know that, at any time, he can lead us out of any predicament."

"Now, answer my question, are you declaring war on The Consortium?"

Kelaifu did not back down and retorted:

"We are here to join you in solving the problem of Ursa Major V12.22, yet you are still slandering your allies because of a few unmanned probes?"

"Did you come from the Fifth Seat?"

"Could it be that after the alien lifeforms from outer space invaded your home planet, they left their filthy alien bloodlines on it?"

"Also, stop always talking about declaring war; are you really prepared to bear the wrath of the supreme lord of ten thousand changes and the Emperor who rules over all people?"

Gould:

"At the very least, I can keep you here."

"If you are really here to get things done, then pay the price for your behavior of destroying the probes!"

"Now we need a Decoy Fleet to launch a feint attack to locate the enemy Warships!"

"The standard fleet composition of The Consortium is between 5,000 and 12,000 starships."

"You will be responsible for this decoy!"

Having said that, without giving the other side a chance to reply, Gould immediately hung up the communication.

In less than a second, the anger on his face vanished—yes, his "angry" emotion had almost disappeared as soon as the communication was connected.

After all, as a dignified Lieutenant General, would he get that furious over a few drones and face?

What he needed was an "angry" attitude.

Calculating, he quickly began to distribute tasks—

"The Imperial guys will likely provide the bulk of the Decoy Fleet."

"They are highly likely to go through the motions or even turn their guns on us when engaging the enemy."

"So don't count on having any coordination with the Decoy Fleet later!"

"The moment the enemy appears, bite down hard on their main force for me! Prioritize destroying enemy Warships above all else!"

"'The only use of a decoy is to lure out the enemy Warships!' This sentence must be instilled into every basic crew member outside of the Warships participating in the Decoy Fleet!"

Meanwhile, on Kelaifu's side, who had been hung up on, he was relaxed—this was already part of the plan.

"Decoy it is,"

"Remember! Later, when we engage the enemy, just go through the motions,"

"Prioritize self-preservation,"

"Remember to let the organic components with bad eyesight handle the manual guidance missiles and torpedoes!"

"Remember! Recording the opponent's data is the most important thing!"

"We need to evaluate whether these people are qualified enough for the Empire to cultivate!"

Hearing Kelaifu's instructions, the officers of the Imperial Navy on the Bridge stood at attention in unison and shouted—

"Yes!"

(Dragged off to the countryside)

(Really have no time to add more updates)