I Am The Swarm

This skirmish erupted suddenly and ended just as quickly. The entire engagement lasted less than two hours, during which both sides exchanged over a dozen salvos. The swarm lost more than 30 Primordial-class bodies, while the Riken fleet suffered the loss of eight warships.

From a numerical perspective, it might appear that the swarm suffered greater losses.

However, the Primordial-class bodies of the swarm were essentially juveniles slowly growing into maturity, with the primary cost being time. As long as time was abundant, the swarm could produce as many Primordial-class bodies as needed.

Moreover, in this battle, none of the Primordial-class bodies were truly destroyed. They only needed a period of dormancy to repair themselves before reentering the battlefield, fully restored.

In contrast, the Riken fleet’s warships required a complex construction process involving vast amounts of manpower and resources. Each warship needed to be staffed by hundreds of crew members.

The training of these personnel also demanded significant resource investment.

From the perspective of practical losses, the swarm had clearly profited greatly.

Yet, the Riken fleet believed they hadn’t suffered a net loss, and perhaps even gained a slight advantage. Despite losing a few warships, they had acquired a crucial piece of information and managed to destroy over 30 enemy units. By their calculation, it was a fair exchange.

After the battle concluded, both sides astonishingly considered the engagement worthwhile. As for which perspective was more valid, it depended on one’s interpretation.

Since the Riken fleet had voluntarily withdrawn from the battlefield, the wreckage of the destroyed warships became spoils for the swarm. The Primordial-class bodies leisurely drifted over, encircling the debris.

Space octopuses firing electromagnetic cannons weren’t without cost; the projectiles required them to draw from their internal reserves of metal elements. Even though the atomic furnaces could supply the electromagnetic cannon’s energy needs, the projectiles themselves weren’t infinite and occasionally needed replenishment.

The wreckage of these warships was an excellent source of raw materials.

The space octopuses were creations of the fungal carpet and could even revert to fungal carpets when necessary. Growing root-like appendages was, therefore, routine for them.

The wreckage, now entirely encircled by the swarm, was soon covered in root-like tendrils. These appendages secreted a special liquid that continuously corroded the debris, absorbing the resultant solution and channeling it back into the Primordial-class bodies.

By the time the Primordial-class group departed, the smoldering remnants of the warships, occasionally sparking with small explosions, had completely vanished. Even the armor plates flung outward by the explosions had disappeared without a trace.

The Riken fleet, observing the battlefield through optical systems, assumed the swarm had dismantled the warships but couldn’t fathom how they had cleaned up so thoroughly.

“Those warship remains are so challenging for us to dismantle. Why would a biological civilization even bother with them?” A voice meeting was promptly convened among the First Space Fleet Command immediately after their withdrawal.

“Maybe they’re taking them back for research. After all, whether it’s a mechanical or biological civilization, foundational theories are universal,” replied Novaalu of the Second Fleet.

“But hadn’t they already captured warships from our expeditionary forces before? They shouldn’t need more wreckage. Besides, these remnants are difficult to transport, and our technology hasn’t made any qualitative leaps in recent years,” one of the captains questioned.

“But they don’t know that! If I were them, I’d also haul the wreckage back to see if there were any differences,” another captain retorted.

“You haven’t been paying close enough attention. Even when our warships are destroyed, the main wreckage typically remains hundreds of meters in size, far larger than their combat units. But look at the current reconnaissance images—there’s no trace of any debris.”

“Heh, maybe they ate it. If those combat units are alive, they could get hungry, and hungry things need to eat,” one captain joked.

“Your guess might actually be correct. We know far too little about their technological system. In the next battle, we must capture some of their combat units to figure out exactly what they are.”

“What was the reason for halting the operation?” A sudden, unfamiliar voice interrupted—it came from the Riken Homeworld’s Command Center.

Because the battlefield was far from the Riken home system, even light-speed communications took about 30 minutes to reach them. The three frontline legions had been discussing the situation for some time before the homeworld’s response finally arrived.

Only then did the officers recall that the critical issue wasn’t the whereabouts of the wreckage but the unexpectedly advanced computational capabilities of the swarm.

At this level of warfare, where neither side’s weapons and equipment provided a decisive advantage, the conflict revolved around computational power.

For instance, during the recent exchanges of fire, although most projectiles missed their targets, every single shot had been meticulously calculated. Without such precision, they wouldn’t have even forced the enemy to evade.

“The plan must proceed as scheduled. We can’t abandon an operation that has been in the works for so long just because their computational capabilities exceeded our expectations.” Despite their prolonged discussion, the Riken commanders failed to devise a countermeasure.

There was no alternative—this was a matter of raw capability, one that could only be addressed through direct confrontation.

“We’ll deal with it head-on. Our weapons have faster projectile speeds, so even if their computational power is superior, we should have the advantage.”

“Exactly. And who knows? Their computational abilities might not actually surpass ours.”

“However, they do have another advantage: their weapons are not standardized. They come in a variety of specifications, which forces us to rely on average values for our calculations, introducing errors in predicting their trajectories,” said a staff officer in charge of supercomputer maintenance.

He wasn’t wrong—this was indeed one of the swarm’s strengths.

The Riken warships were mass-produced on assembly lines, with identical modules and components. For any given model, all parameters were uniform. If a weapon’s maximum range was listed as 50,000 kilometers, it wouldn’t reach 50,001. If a shell diameter was specified as 50 centimeters, it would never be 51.

In contrast, the Primordial-class bodies were entirely different. Since each one grew individually from a juvenile stage, variations in incubation and development times meant that even among units classified as Primordial-class, their sizes differed slightly.

Even when their external dimensions matched, their electromagnetic cannons, as separate growth components, varied in size.

A 300-meter electromagnetic cannon and a 350-meter one didn’t fire projectiles at identical speeds.

Moreover, differences in projectile material and size further affected related parameters.

For each salvo, the swarm’s projectiles reached the target at slightly staggered times. While this had little impact on the swarm, it significantly increased the computational workload for the Riken forces, causing them considerable difficulty.

“I can’t understand how they manage it. Without mass production, how could they manufacture so many weapons?”

“Maybe they really are living organisms. Based on their behavior in the asteroid belt earlier, some of them appeared to grow noticeably larger.”

“Ha, are you suggesting they just grow to this size on their own?”

“Who knows? Haven’t you noticed that their combat units, regardless of size, all look more or less the same?”

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