From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 342 The Navy has new warships, and the Army has
For the Federation and Imperial armies fighting fiercely on Pyla IV, and for the civilians who were disrupted from their normal lives and living in constant fear because of the war, the appearance of Atlas was like lighting a beacon in the chaos.

Especially after Atlas really started playing with the "projector light" in the sky, it attracted the attention of everyone near the airdrop zone.

In the memories of the civilians of the Pyla IV Empire, they used to see a huge star dragon emblem projected in the sky or a giant dragon animation soaring in the sea of ​​clouds during festivals and celebrations.

Over time, after getting used to this spectacular "performance", atmospheric projections can no longer arouse their enthusiasm.

But today, when these people saw the huge red cross in the sky and the Atlas logo that had appeared many times in these days, they found that their hearts were unusually excited.

Although most people may have never heard of Atlas before, at this moment, something called "hope" was born in their hearts.

This is also due to the previous statements and corporate videos released by Atlas.

Although most of the communication networks on Pella IV have been interrupted and communications are basically in chaos, there are still some public regional network frequency bands that can be used.

These local network-like things are usually insignificant, but at this moment they have become a way for refugees in the area to find organizations to form groups, or to inform everyone of war areas so that they can avoid them.

Some time ago, these local network frequency bands, which were theoretically isolated from networks outside the planet, inexplicably began to spread these two pieces of content.

No one knows how these two high-definition videos were transmitted to the local network, but this does not prevent them from spreading like a virus among the refugees.

Sometimes, the power of word of mouth cannot be underestimated.

When many people encounter other refugees while foraging near war-torn cities, the first thing they ask is: "Hey! Did you see the video on the local network?"

"What video?"

"It's that 'Atlas' propaganda film!"

"Oh, I've taken a look! Oh, it's probably just a show. I don't know if they will come to our place."

The last sentence is also the common thought in the minds of the refugees after watching the propaganda film.

But now, when this logo appeared in the sky along with the red cross, the refugees on Para IV finally realized that the company in the promotional video had really come.
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"Look! Something's falling down again!"

"Hey, it looks like eggs are being laid."

In a small town near a certain airdrop zone where most of the buildings had collapsed, people gathered in an open area on the edge of the town, watching a series of "meteors" falling from the huge red cross in the sky.

In addition to them, the two armies fighting near the airdrop zone were also conducting close air surveillance.

Although the commanders of both sides have restrained their troops, at this critical moment, their frontline troops are still very nervous. Both the air defense units and the HCP are now locking onto these falling unidentified objects. If there is any abnormal situation, no one can say whether someone will rashly open fire.
Fortunately, Atlas has no plans to do anything for the time being, and these falling "beehives" are landing obediently along the established routes.

When they were several hundred meters away from the ground, the reverse thrust engines of the black regular hexadecahedrons, which had already discarded the thermal insulation covers at the bottom, began to operate, and the attitude control nozzles on other surfaces were also activated simultaneously, bringing these black regular hexadecahedrons down steadily to the ground while constantly decelerating.

"Salamander Squadron calling Mothership, Beehive has landed. Repeat, Beehive has landed."

The HCP squadron near the drop zone also quickly rushed to the landing point of these "beehives". After confirming that these "new toys" were normal, they also reported to the fleet in orbit.

Soon, an activation command from the fleet was sent to these autonomous unmanned mechanical control terminals code-named "Beehive".

And these hexahedrons that fell to the ground also came to life. When the outer surface armor plates were unfolded, the autonomous unmanned machines that were "wrapped" layer by layer in a special configuration were revealed.

Starting from the outermost layer of unmanned machines, green lights symbolizing "power on" lit up one by one. These things that were originally like square boxes spread out their curled up mechanical legs, turned into spider-like robots and crawled to the ground.

These spider-like robots, which have a main body diameter of one meter and can reach a maximum of three meters when their mechanical legs are extended, are the new toys of Atlas' ground forces.

As the basic component of the 'Beehive' unmanned combat system, these small robots code-named 'Worker Bees' are also the first unmanned units in this system to appear in the war zone.

In addition to mechanical legs and training wheels for walking, they also have four robotic arms with replaced components, and can also act as temporary porters after installing a load-bearing module.

After the initial construction tasks are completed, some worker bees will continue to be responsible for the daily maintenance and expansion of the base.

Other worker bees will mount additional armor plates and sensor units on their own after subsequent equipment boxes land.

The tools on the mechanical arms were replaced with electromagnetic rifles, small charged particle cannons and other weapons, transforming from "worker bees" to "soldier bees", becoming auxiliary combat and reconnaissance units of ground forces.
According to the current settings of the 'beehive' unmanned combat system, a group of 'beehives' is generally composed of twenty autonomous unmanned mechanical control terminals - those hexahedrons.

In addition to the core terminal components, each control terminal can also carry 50 worker bees in a special 'package mode' as the most basic working unit.

When these 'beehives' are put into place, preliminary construction work will begin according to the scheduled tasks, just like now.

While the HCP squadrons were on guard in each drop zone, the worker bees began to quickly gather the core control components scattered around, and with the help of cutting guns, welding guns and other tools on the robotic arms, they used the remaining frames and armor plates of the hexahedron to protect these cores.

Then, some of the worker bees quickly and efficiently dismantled a pile of supply boxes that were thrown down at the same time, and used the construction materials and supply boxes loaded inside to start the construction of the basic camp.

Another group of worker bees gathered around several airdrop boxes containing "worker bee tool boxes", replaced the tools on their robotic arms, and then began to open up a large landing field in the airdrop area.
Behind the efficient collaboration capabilities of the worker bees is a set of 'Queen Bee' controls developed by Lilith based on the cluster thinking-like abilities of her own 'clones'.

This set of 'Queen Bee' controls allows all unmanned units under the 'hive' system to act as one under the control of each set of hive cores. In theory, these hive cores are actually a 'simplified version' of Lilith's clones.

This also means that this strong artificial intelligence can access these hive cores at any time and directly control the unmanned units under the cores.
(End of this chapter)