In the endless void, Xiao Yu’s massive fleet followed a faint, intangible trail, rapidly chasing the target ahead. These traces were found from ti to ti, only to be ruled out again. Many tis, Xiao Yu would follow such a trail to the end, only to discover it was rely a false target laid out by the Molian fleet. Sotis, mid-pursuit, the trail would simply vanish, Xiao Yu knew this was because the decoy had dropped out of curvature flight. Google seaʀᴄh novel{f}ire
However, thanks to his vast number of ships, Xiao Yu could keep this tracking effort going without worrying about a shortage of forces.
Persistence eventually paid off. When another force of more than eight hundred thousand ships, led by the Nation-Class United States, arrived at Star System Number 2, the Nation-Class Russian ship formation finally caught sight of their quarry. Tachyon scans indicated that about thirty billion kiloters ahead was a massive fleet of more than one hundred thousand ships, fleeing for their lives.
The fleet that had locked onto the target was a detachnt from Xiao Yu’s Russian Nation-Class formation, consisting of about forty thousand combat starships. Once the target was confird, this detachnt imdiately closed in tightly, refusing to let go. anwhile, other units, after leaving behind so ships to continue searching ahead in case the enemy also split up to scatter, quickly began converging in this direction. But because of the great distance, it would still take ti.
“No problem. Of these one hundred thousand Molian ships, no more than ten thousand are combat vessels. For them, this small detachnt is enough. Once they’re crushed, the rest of our forces can encircle and block them, wiping them out completely. Not a single mineral transport ship must escape, each one is a fortune.” Xiao Yu thought, as he ordered the forty thousand combat ships to launch their first wave of attacks.
At this mont, both sides were still in curvature flight. One major advantage of the Negative Matter Cannon was that it could be used during faster-than-light travel. Thus, countless invisible negative-matter tachyons shot toward the target, rapidly draining the Molian ships’ shield energy.
Xiao Yu could almost hear the desperate cries coming from the Molian ships. One hundred thousand mineral transport ships against forty thousand combat ships, the outco was beyond doubt. From the mont they were discovered, their fate had been sealed.
Xiao Yu saw about ten thousand ships break away from the main formation, positioning themselves in a defensive stance ahead of him, while the remaining ninety thousand ships continued fleeing at full speed.
“So this is your escort force? Useless.” Xiao Yu sneered inwardly. His forty thousand ships did not slow down but charged straight toward the enemy formation.
Battles fought during curvature flight were peculiar. Since both sides were in the sa state, the only weapon that could be used was the ship-mounted Negative Matter Cannon. This weapon did not deal damage through sudden, massive bursts of energy. Instead, it used its negative-energy nature to cancel out the opponent’s shield energy. Once the enemy shields were broken, it would then annihilate the ship’s hull, inflicting damage in that way.
This made the current battle a war of attrition. In terms of expertise with ship-mounted Negative Matter Cannons, the two civilizations were about equal. Now, the fight ca down purely to endurance. Could ten thousand ships outlast forty thousand?
The answer was no. In a conventional battle at sublight speeds, the ten thousand ships might have been able to put up a fight. But in the current situation, they could not drop out of curvature flight. Their mission was to protect the ninety thousand mineral transport ships behind them. If they stopped curvature flight, Xiao Yu’s ships could simply ignore them and continue chasing the transport ships at faster-than-light speed, and then what would happen?
It was a helpless situation, one tinged with a certain tragic grandeur. Those ten thousand combat starships, like moths rushing into a fla, bravely charged toward an overwhelming force they could not possibly resist. While they used their own lives to buy ti, the ninety thousand mineral transport ships suddenly broke formation, no longer maintaining an orderly queue, each fleeing for its own survival.
This was a last resort. By scattering and fleeing separately, they might, if luck favored them, manage to let one or two escape. But if they stayed together, their fate could only be total annihilation.
The silent, pitch-black void seed utterly empty, but within this nothingness, a sudden burst of fla erupted. The fierce blaze instantly lit up the surrounding space for dozens of kiloters. One of the Molian Civilization’s combat starships had been destroyed. Having lost the support of its powerful energy systems, it instantly dropped out of faster-than-light travel and exploded in the calm emptiness of space.
This was the first Molian ship Xiao Yu destroyed. And like an opening act, more and more bursts of fire began appearing in this starless, planetless, asteroid-free region, where only thin interstellar dust existed. Each burst of fla marked the destruction of a starship. Among these wrecks were so belonging to Xiao Yu, but far more belonged to the Molian Civilization.
Alongside the bursts of fire ca one damaged ship after another. These ships, having suffered damage during faster-than-light combat, were forced to drop out of curvature flight, though they still retained the ability to fight at conventional speeds. Thus, outside the faster-than-light battlefield, a second battlefield was opened.
Combat in conventional space was far more intense than battles fought during faster-than-light travel. Here, weapons such as antimatter bombs, death ray weapons, gravitational bombs, and material disintegration beams could all be used without restraint. Starships of every shape and style chased one another desperately through the void, each either blowing up the enemy or being destroyed in turn.
Xiao Yu’s forty-thousand-ship detachnt was, at last, held back by the ten thousand Molian vessels. But Xiao Yu was in no hurry. In front of, below, above, to the left, and to the right of those mineral transport ships, other detachnts were already converging. The forces that had earlier been scattered by decoy targets were now in the most advantageous positions for an encirclent.
With the arrival of reinforcents, the more than ninety thousand mineral transport ships were successfully surrounded. Any that slipped through the net were quickly pursued by combat starships. With a maximum speed of only six tis the speed of light, they had no hope of shaking off pursuit. In the end, they could only have their propulsion systems precisely destroyed during curvature flight, forcing them back into the visible universe, where they beca Xiao Yu’s captives.
Under the assault of ships numbering ten or even dozens of tis their own, the ten thousand combat vessels were swiftly annihilated. Without their escorts, the mineral transport ships were nothing more than fish laid out on the chopping block, entirely at Xiao Yu’s rcy.
“Trying to run? It’s not that easy.” Xiao Yu sneered coldly, moving efficiently to the next stage of the operation.
In the Molian Civilization’s culture, there seed to be no such concept as surrender or compromise. Xiao Yu watched as these more than ninety thousand mineral transport ships, completely unard or only minimally ard, faced hundreds of thousands of heavily ard warships, and still tried to resist. Vessels with no real fighting capability even began ramming one another, clearly intent on destroying their cargo rather than letting it fall into enemy hands.
This behavior left Xiao Yu slightly disgruntled. With no other choice, he acted decisively, directly blasting these ships open, sending in boarding-type combat robots to slaughter every Molian aboard, then having robots take control of the vessels. Only by doing this was he able to bring the more than ninety thousand ships under his control.
By this point, the Nation-Class Russian ship formation had completed its strategic objective. The entire process had gone without any accidents or unexpected twists. Aside from so effort in finding the target, everything could be described as smooth sailing.
But Xiao Yu knew that smooth sailing could not last forever. At this mont, a tough battle awaited him in Star System Number 2.
After assigning ten thousand ships to escort the newly captured mineral transport vessels, the remaining two hundred and eighty thousand ships swiftly changed course, heading straight for Star System Number 2, two light-years away.
The Nation-Class United States formation, totaling eight hundred thousand ships, was at that mont quietly stationed one hundred billion kiloters from Star System Number 2, waiting for sothing.
They had been there for so ti, and it was obvious that the Molian Civilization’s military base had noticed them. Yet neither side had made any rash moves. During this period, there had been no large-scale offensives, only small-scale skirmishes involving things like small spy ships and miniature reconnaissance satellites.
“Star System Number 2’s defenses are sowhat beyond my expectations. According to intelligence gathered by optical detection, there are at least six hundred thousand ships stationed there, and no fewer than ten Star System-Class Negative Matter Cannons. Other system defense weapons are also plentiful. This is a tough nut to crack… With only these eight hundred thousand ships, I’m not confident I can take it. Better to wait for the Nation-Class Russian ship formation to arrive, then launch a pincer attack and seize it in one decisive strike…” Xiao Yu thought silently.
User Comments
0 comments from readers