Chapter 499: Despair
The battlefield was no child’s play, and the situation was not something that could be unilaterally decided. Although the central commander of the coalition had issued the order to retreat, whether it could be successfully executed depended on whether the Swarm would cooperate.
But the answer was obvious. The Swarm had sacrificed many Primordial bodies to achieve the current situation. How could they easily let the coalition forces leave?
The Swarm’s central forces, which had been retreating step by step, now fiercely counterattacked as the coalition forces turned around, forcing them to abandon ships with damaged propulsion systems.
On the other side, the coalition commander was as anxious as an ant on a hot stove. The central forces were the elite of the coalition. If they were lost here, the remaining ragtag forces wouldn’t just determine the outcome of this battle—they might not even be able to defend the surrounding star systems.
“The rear forces must push forward and extract the central forces! If anyone dares to falter, I’ll skin them alive when this is over!” The coalition commander raged in the command room, while the other commanders and staff remained silent.
If this were a single race, the hierarchical relationships would be clear, and even internal disagreements could be resolved relatively easily. But in a joint operation involving many civilizations, things worked fine when the battle was going well. However, once the tide turned, all sorts of problems would arise.
At this point, the coalition commander found it extremely difficult to coordinate the relationships between the fleets of different civilizations. Factors such as closeness, the strength of the civilizations themselves, and the number of troops each civilization had on the field would all influence his judgment and decisions.
But in the current situation, which civilization’s forces should be sent forward? His own Troi civilization’s fleet was mostly trapped in the central forces, so they certainly didn’t have enough troops to mount a rescue.
As for the fleets of other races, when faced with his orders, they all responded with various issues, but the underlying message was the same: they refused to go.