Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 440

Chapter 439, I am not the executioner

In the void, on the Interlude, Du Shiliang stared at the fireball that was getting farther and farther away in the universe.

He had a blank expression on his face, like a cold general.

But his hands would still tremble unconsciously.

At this moment, two days had passed since the Interlude dropped the Burning Sky Torpedo on the surface of Temir 2. The flames burning all over the world were also becoming more and more intense in front of their eyes.

After completing the drop mission, the Joint Fleet observed near Temir 2 for a day. They left only after seeing that the entire planet was indeed ignited by the Burning Sky Torpedo and the extermination order was effectively implemented.

He dropped the Burning Sky Torpedo.

In fact, he was not even sure whether he had the power to issue the extermination order.

At first, he did not expect that he would have to shoulder such a responsibility.

He and his war staff, including a part of the staff team of the Alliance Army, evaluated the situation on Temir 2 together.

They came to a unanimous conclusion: it was unrealistic to carry out a ground attack on Temir 2, even with orbital support from the Joint Fleet.

This brings us to their war goal of attacking the Jinguan Star Region, which is:

on the premise of ensuring the safety of the fleet, 1. Strike the Irontooth Orcs’ manpower. 2. Evacuate the Empire’s soldiers and civilians from the occupied areas. 3. Occupy the planet and build forward defense positions.

These three tasks have priorities in order.

Striking the manpower is the most important and evacuating the Empire’s soldiers and civilians is also important. Which one is prioritized depends on the battlefield situation.

Relatively speaking, occupying the planet is the least important. This

is mainly because it is not necessarily possible to hold it even if it is occupied.

If there is a chance to occupy it, then occupy it, put a small force there as a nail, and when the greenskins come back again, it will also become an obstacle to the orcs’ attack. For the human side, it is also a position that can be used. At the very least, it is also an early warning post.

But if you have to invest a lot of manpower to occupy the planet, it will not be worth the loss.

Striking the manpower and evacuating the Empire’s soldiers and civilians are not the same. This is a serious way to weaken the enemy and strengthen yourself.

For Temir II, obviously, the option of occupying the planet can be almost ignored.

There are nearly 500 million orcs on it, and no less than 2 billion other greenskins – mainly fart spirits.

Most of these people are not grown from the planet, but have been transported here on greenskin ships in the past period of time.

After all, it has only been a few months since Temir II was completely occupied, so there shouldn’t be so many greenskins.

The purpose of transporting so many greenskins here may be to spread more spores, hoping that many greenskins will grow in the future.

At this level, the combined fleet carries 60 million human troops from three army groups. Even if they are all thrown down, plus there is orbital support, it is not an easy task to clear the enemy.

If they really fight like that, the war is likely to turn into a protracted tug-of-war. At that time, humans may have to face the orcs that keep growing out of the greenskin ecosystem and engage in equal consumption.

In addition, orbital support cannot be available at any time. The greenskin fleet is still there. When the time comes, the two hundred garbage ships that escaped from the Steel Wing Star will reunite and attack again. Even if they cannot defeat the combined fleet with more main ships, it is always possible to tie up and prevent human ships from supporting the surface recklessly.

In this case, the hope of a quick victory in the ground battle is even smaller.

Their mission is to find an opportunity to destroy the enemy’s manpower, not to use their own manpower to consume the enemy.

As for saving people… the same principle applies.

Doesn’t Du Shiliang know that there are still many survivors on the surface?

Of course he knows.

Even if 95% of the people were slaughtered, the remaining 5% also represents more than 200 million people.

But the key is that these 200 million people are scattered all over the world of Temir 2!

If they gather together, it will be easy to say. With strong orbital firepower cover, troops will be deployed to the ground, a defense circle will be established, and they will guard for a month or so. During this period, try to transport the population from the ground to the ship and withdraw it. When it is almost done, the troops will also be withdrawn, and then the Burning Sky torpedo will be deployed…

If this can be done, of course everyone will be happy.

But unfortunately, these 200 million people, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands at most, are scattered all over the world and cannot be saved.

It would take a long time to gather and evacuate them one by one.

The main greenskin ships can arrive at any time, and the greenskins on the ground can entangle the human deployment forces at any time.

The cost performance is too low.

In contrast, while the orbital defense system of Temir 2 itself is not very good, the greenskins have not had time to build their own after they occupied it, and the main greenskin fleet is not in this galaxy, and they are fully equipped to launch the Burning Sky Torpedo, it is the best solution to quickly smash this extinction order weapon.

Otherwise, if the situation changes, they may not even have the opportunity to launch the Burning Sky Torpedo.

After all, if the main greenskin fleet arrives, they will not let the human fleet do this.

The process from the launch of the extinction order weapon to the explosion is very fragile and can be easily intercepted.

However, at this point, launching the Burning Sky Torpedo is still just a “plan”.

Although it seems to be the best solution and the most rational choice. However, Du Shiliang never thought of doing this.

In other words, he didn’t expect that he would have to make this decision.

He has never released a Burning Sky Torpedo and has never executed an Extermination Order.

Even the Pegasus Fleet itself does not have a reserve of such extermination order weapons.

Even the star domain government itself may not have such a thing. At most, the Inquisition in the star domain has one or two in stock.

Now, the two Burning Sky Torpedoes on his ship were transported from the Angry Owl Star by Governor Gu.

He no longer wanted to think about why Gu Hang had such a powerful weapon.

But it shouldn’t be me who has the final say on whether to release the Burning Sky Torpedo, right?

The Empire lacks particularly clear regulations on the units and individuals that issue extermination orders. Judging from past records, the Inquisition has done the most, followed by the commanders of the interstellar regiments.

The former is easy to understand, this is their job; the latter is also easy to understand, the Space Marines always fight in the most critical and harshest battlefields, and the probability of encountering problems that can only be solved by extermination orders is much greater than that of ordinary imperial troops. In addition, they have this power, so they will naturally issue more.

Apart from these two, the number of times other personnel use extermination orders has dropped drastically.

Of course, in such a large universe in ten thousand years, anything can happen. Marshals of the Astra Militarum, Admirals of the Navy, commanders of war zones, senior government officials, senior clergy of the Ecclesiarchy and the Mechanicus… Although few, they all have records of issuing extermination orders.

But no matter who it is, it’s not me anyway.

I’m just an ordinary rear admiral, and I can’t make such a big decision. Although he doesn’t understand who can sign, there is always someone. Send the combat report back, and then wait for orders, I will execute it.

Then, the order he waited for was to make the decision for the person in charge of the forward campaign, that is, Major General Du Shiliang himself. Gu Hang, as the governor of the alliance, the head of the star zone, and the leader of the Seven Horses Alliance, gave him full authorization and took all the consequences for his decision, so that he could make the decision with confidence.

This is not to pass the blame, after all, Governor Gu said that he takes all the responsibility.

This is to delegate authority, so that the front-line commanders have full autonomy to make the decisions they think are correct, and not to cause big problems on the front line because of such a thing as “I can’t make a decision”.

Then, Du Shiliang was numb.

Me?

He was caught off guard.

After another round of discussion, they still believed that this was the best solution.

Then let’s do it.

But when Du Shiliang witnessed with his own eyes that the whole world had turned into a sea of fire because of his decision, and when at least 200 million people had died because of his decision, he felt his whole body trembling. He

had been trembling for two days.

He couldn’t sleep at all in the past two days. As

soon as he closed his eyes, he saw a burning world and the wailing of the Temir people, who he had never heard with his own ears but always lingered in his ears.

He always told himself that it was not his fault, it was the fault of the greenskins, and it was the invasion of those aliens that caused all this. I just did my duty, I just wanted to reduce casualties and avoid more deaths…

However, no matter how many and how correct the reasons were, they could not dispel the heavy pressure on the 200 million innocent souls.

However, reality did not give him the opportunity to escape and relieve his mood.

He was about to make the next decision.

The battle situation of Temir No. 4 and No. 5.

In these two places, there was no condition to launch the Burning Sky Torpedo.

The Burning Sky Torpedo was very expensive.

Although, the Alliance did not have a production line to build the Burning Sky Torpedo. These two Burning Heaven torpedoes are in stock, and they are produced by the black box, which means they are free. But the black box can only pull out three Burning Heaven torpedoes in two years, and the Alliance’s stock is not much.

Moreover, Du Shiliang didn’t know this.

He only knew that it was worthwhile to exchange 2.5 billion greenskins for one Burning Heaven torpedo.

However, there were not so many greenskins on Temir 4 and 5 for him to bomb.

Moreover, there may be more than 80 to 90 billion people alive in these two places.

Whoever bombs them will be a war criminal.

For these two planets, the plan in the previous military meeting was to make preserving the empire’s population the first priority.

The plans for the two planets can be discussed separately.

There may be about 100 million greenskins on Temir 4, half of whom are fart spirits. They collect raw materials and waste materials in the occupied areas, and build greenskin factories on the spot to build various primary processed “garbage”.

On the one hand, they are directly manufactured into weapons and equipment and provided to the army.

On the other hand, they are stored. It seems that there will be greenskin ships coming regularly to transport these “garbage” away.

This is also in line with the positioning of Temir 4 as a mining and industrial planet.

However, the natural environment of this planet is not very good. Outside the mining area and the hive city, it is almost unsuitable for organic survival.

The greenskins are very adaptable, and their spores can take root and sprout anywhere. However, the quality of the environment will still affect the development speed and “yield” of the spores. They have also initially built an ecosystem, but it is not large and not critical.

In the past, the greenskins on Temir 4 mainly relied on Temir 2, which has a large population next door,

to replenish their personnel. Now that Temir 2 has burned down, the greenskins on Temir 4 need to rely on when the main fleet of the greenskins will come and whether they can transport more troops from their home base when they come.

In addition, on Temir 4, humans still have a well-organized defense force, and the government has not collapsed yet. Although their remaining ground anti-orbital forces were relatively weak and they dared not confront the greenskin fleet, they could sacrifice their forces when necessary to cover the attack or retreat of the defense forces, which could play a role to some extent. At the critical

moment, Temir 4 almost maintained a defense force of more than 500 million people, and they kept pulling and consuming the greenskins in mines, tunnels, and huge industrial areas.

They were no match for the greenskins, and they lacked supplies, especially food supplies. They often had to pay ten times the casualties to defeat the enemy.

However, they knew that this was a battle for survival, a battle between species with no retreat, and there was no surrender or giving up.

They gritted their teeth and fought. The greenskins were not in sufficient numbers, so although they were very happy to fight, their progress was not fast.

It would be easy to save Temir 4.

They planned to send four armies to take the lead; contact the defense forces on the mainland and provide them with a large amount of logistical supplies. Food was the main source, and the production line of weapons and ammunition was the supplement.

The former can solve the urgent problem, while the latter can update the local weapons and equipment.

Temir 4 is not short of raw materials, but the production line of good weapons is lacking. Many of their defense forces are still using homemade guns and cannons.

The Alliance has smashed the productivity of G9 rifles and ammunition, plastic steel production lines, individual armor, shells, artillery and other series. It does not seek to smash it into a production base, but with more production capacity, the combat effectiveness of the 500 million planetary defense forces can be improved.

With the five ships of the United Fleet stationed here and the assistance of 8 million elite troops of the Alliance, it should not be a problem to push back the group of greenskins.

At the same time, civilians can be evacuated from large settlements.

The supply fleet and transport ship capacity of the United Fleet are enough to transport 300-500 million people in one wave.

First, transport them to Steel Wing Star, which is considered safe, and then transport them. As for how to arrange the transportation capacity and where to receive so many people from Steel Wing Star, it was not for Du Shiliang, a general fighting on the front line, to consider. The officials of the alliance would take over.

When a series of plans for Temir 4 were made and really implemented, Du Shiliang’s mentality finally improved a little.

It was only at this time that he could tell himself:

“I am not an executioner, I am a savior.”

(End of this chapter)