Chapter 262: The Truth?
“Hmph, I already know that,” Major General Porter snapped, his tone sharp as he finally addressed General Masai, who had been ‘resting’ for so long. “But the longer this drags on, the slimmer Cross’s chances of survival become. If she dies, none of us will have an easy time explaining it.”
Although General Masai outranked Major General Porter by a level, Porter was a general with real authority. If he decided to make an issue out of it, Masai would still have to give him some face.
“So, what do you suggest? We’ve already deployed nearly a hundred thousand personnel to search the area. Yet this nest is bizarre—we haven’t even found their food storage to this day.”
The rescue efforts for other bases had been proceeding smoothly. Not only were numerous personnel saved, but the operations were also carried out with minimal losses.
The various units dispersed across the bases didn’t rest after completing their missions. Given the retaliatory tendencies of the Swarm, evidenced by the Cross base incident, it was clear that digging up so many “granaries” would likely provoke more retaliation.
Thus, some forces returned to guard their respective bases, while the rest converged to conduct a grid search of the area where Cross had disappeared.
Over the past two days, the forces had advanced over a thousand meters through underground tunnels and excavated pits over a hundred meters deep, all in search of hidden passageways. Yet oddly enough, they still hadn’t found this Swarm nest’s granary.
Of course, they couldn’t find it—this nest’s food storage hadn’t even been built yet. The overwhelming response of the Riken forces had greatly startled the swarm.
For the Riken to mobilize such massive resources over a missing base commander, this young Riken female must be far more important than the swarm initially thought.