The significance of taking out an expert ch was too great. This was especially when it took place at an enormous range.
It was not unusual to take out expert chs over a hundred kiloters away in space. Battles that took place in the great void. It was especially easier to strike distant targets with most energy weapons.
The circumstances this ti were completely different. For one expert ch to be able to destroy a distant expert ch in a planetary environnt completely frightened the Bontue soldiers advancing towards New Kreon!
They had already endured a lot of suppression beforehand when the Iron Hedgehog took out one ch after another with every single attack.
When the ch pilots under fire thought they needed to endure this threat hanging over their heads, their enthusiasm for this battle sapped with each step taken by their chs.
Once the Blue Amazon ca under fire, these pilots beca even more discouraged.
Artillery chs weren't supposed to be able to threaten expert chs over the horizon. The delay between firing a projectile and impact was so great that the Blue Amazon should have ample ans to avoid getting hard.
What happened today completely broke the rules!
Not only did Venerable Irene Mox manage to do an excellent job at predicting the movents of the Bontue expert pilot, the Iron Hedgehog's explosive shells also exploded with much greater power than before!
The Bontues all thought that the Quillim invaders had reserved a secret stash of super-deluxe premium shells in case of ergencies!
Even if the Bontues suspected that the Quillims did not have a large supply of these premium shells, the wind had already been taken out of their sails.
Since the planetary invasion had already taken place for so ti, the Bontue defenders already possessed a good understanding of the expert chs at the enemy's disposal.
Several of them including the Iron Hedgehog were certainly awaiting the Bontue chs at New Kreon.
The Blue Amazon played an important role in constraining these powerful machines.
So far, the Iron Hedgehog managed to depress an entire ch force as well as take out its strongest combat asset.
Now that it had been taken out of the fight, the only other way to overco a disparity in the number of high-level chs was to sacrifice a lot of chs to overwhelm the powerful enemy murder machines!
The battle was bound to be tragic. Not only would many chs get destroyed, their ch pilots were unlikely to survive as well due to the excessively high attack power of expert chs.
In addition, it was one thing to gang up on an expert lee ch that could only effectively slaughter its opponents at close range. A typical expert swordsman ch's group killing efficiency was not particularly high.
The Iron Hedgehog was completely different in this regard. It gave up any pretense of being able to duel against other expert chs up close, but what it got in return was an unparalleled capacity to destroy entire areas!
So far, the Iron Hedgehog managed to depress an entire ch force as well as take out its strongest combat asset.
It did so by relying on just one of its howitzers!
The Bontues knew that once they ca closer, they would once again face the full brunt of the expert ch that had breached the fortifications of many of their cities and turned the tide of many skirmishes!
Even if the damaged expert heavy artillery ch had yet to regain the function of all of its formidable cannons, it still had plenty left intact that it could harvest half-a-dozen chs if not more with each salvo!
The officers and analysts on the Bontue side weren't stupid. They knew extrely well that launching a straightforward attack on a fortified position that was guarded by an expert heavy artillery ch was a recipe for disaster!
In the end, the Bontue commanders acknowledged that their offensive would likely fail if they insisted on pressing on. The premature loss of the Blue Amazon not only deprived them of an important lynchpin in their operation, but also had a strong negative effect on the morale of their remaining troops!
Once the troops lost their willingness to fight, their chances of succeeding had already dropped to the bottom.
"Our vanguard troops lack the heavy support they need to suppress the Iron Hedgehog and break through enemy lines. Let us pull back and wait for our main troops to catch up before pressing on to Dershin. The Quillims aren't going anywhere now that we have wrecked all of their starships."
"We can constrain and limit the movents of the stranded Quillim ch forces as long as we disperse our chs and have them fight a guerilla war for the following three or four days. The Iron Hedgehog may have an amazing range, but it cannot be everywhere."
The Bontue leaders all assud that ti was on their side. Even if their vanguard failed to press the attack, it would not change the inevitable outco.
Due to all of this, the Bontues made the logical decision to call for a retreat.
This surprised Venerable Irene Mox and many of her fellow Quillim soldiers. They thought that since the Bontues had managed to reverse the situation, their old enemies would be eager to finish the job!
"Damn, they're trying to take the Blue Amazon's fra away!"
A pair of Bontue chs had quickly approached the collapsed ch and tried to drag it away, but Irene wasn't having it. Letting the enemy take it back ant that it could quickly be repaired and put back into the fight a few days later.
This ti, she no longer held back. The Iron Hedgehog ard all of the howitzers and gauss cannons that it could bring to bear at this ti.
She intended to make another statent this ti. With Emma empowering the solid round loaded in one of the gauss cannons, the reinvigorated expert pilot intended to cent her victory!
"Hold your fire, Venerable Irene!" A voice instructed over the communication channel.
"What?! Why, sir?! The Bontue chs are well within the range of my Iron Hedgehog! I can promise you that I can easily wreck a hundred of them before they move too far away!"
"The battle is over, Venerable. You have done your part. Colonel Harvey Dost has just negotiated a 24-hour ceasefire with the Bontue commanders. Neither side is allowed to attack each other for an entire day. It may be frustrating to us to let our enemies retreat with a shred of dignity, but do not forget what we are fighting for. One of the clauses of the ceasefire agreent is that the Bontues are not allowed to get close to Dershin and New Kreon."
Irene fell silent. She did not feel the fight was over at all. It frustrated her enormously that the Bontue soldiers who sought out to kill all of the Quillims trapped on Korinna V would be allowed to turn tail and run without suffering any further punishnt for their transgressions.
Blinky spoke up at this point. "Do not give in to your baser desires. Control yourself. You are a soldier, not a rogue ch pilot. Rember that keeping the Bontue forces away from Dershin was the whole point of making a stand in New Kreon. It doesn't matter how your side is able to accomplish this goal. If you can accomplish your objective without suffering further bloodshed, then we should take it. Just look and listen at the ch pilots around you. See what you have accomplished by successfully deterring the Bontue vanguard from committing its assault."
Venerable Irene had always set her sights on the enemy chs over the horizon. She had largely retracted her awareness of her imdiate environnt.
Once she pulled back her focus and paid attention to what was taking place around her, she noticed the joy and relief of her fellow Quillim comrades.
"We made it through! We bought ourselves a lot of ti!"
"I really don't want to fight while being heavily outnumbered."
"None of the Bontues can break our defenses as long as we have Venerable Mox on our side!"
The soldiers were not only relieved after learning about the cease-fire, but they also expressed a lot of gratitude towards Irene!
Hearing all of the praises directed against the expert pilot made her feel fulfilled in a way that was difficult to describe.
She had often received a lot of appreciation from her fellow troops, but with so many lives at stake this ti, the easy victory that she delivered to the Quillims tasted especially sweet this ti!
This was what she was fighting for. This was why she pursued greater strength!
Miew!
Even Emma grew excited! Her tail lifted upwards as she basked in the positive emotions that surged around the Iron Hedgehog. The companion spirit might be a force of destruction, but she was also a cat!
The Battle of New Kreon eventually ended abruptly before it could properly start. The Iron Hedgehog along with the support of the Quillim scout chs started and ended this engagent in a domineering fashion.
Every Quillim stationed in Dershin and New Kreon cheered Irene's na!
Once Irene pulled back her Iron Hedgehog and finally shut it down in order to enjoy a well-earned break, she continued to revisit the earlier battle and analyze all of the decisions she made during that ti.
She also took the ti to summarize all of the new capabilities she gained after she received her own companion spirit.
Miew~
The spiritual cat that only she and Blinky could observe in her current state brought unexpected benefits to Irene.
The expert pilot had always been fairly quiet and reclusive. Her identity among the Quillim soldiers was too high, and she even found it difficult to talk to other expert pilots due to their vastly different piloting styles.
Emma managed to dispel her loneliness to an extent. Perhaps Irene might have gone mad for treating the cat as a different individual rather than another aspect of herself, but the darkness in her heart eased a lot after she started to hug and talk to her invisible cat.
"My bestie…" Irene showed a rare mont of weakness away from prying eyes.
Ves respectfully remained silent during this ti. Though he still kept an eye on the expert pilot's thoughts and deliberations regarding the previous engagent, he had no interest in her private affairs.
Twenty-four hours ca and went without incident. The Bontues never showed any sign of breaking the ceasefire agreent. They instead spent their efforts on gathering their troops from across the planet in preparation to launch an overwhelming offensive.
The Iron Hedgehog may be able to deter a couple of thousand enemy chs, but it would be much harder for it to hold back enough machines to form several ch divisions!
The Quillims hadn't been doing nothing all of this ti.
On the surface, it looked as if the trapped invaders were preparing to make a last stand.
In reality, they had taken full advantage of the guaranteed period of quiet to accelerate the repairs on the Peyton Phoenix while preparing to evacuate with every available shuttle and transport that they could obtain and convert to their own use.
Once the reinforced Bontue ch troops had just begun to launch their general offensive, the Quillims finally pulled off their retreat!
Hundreds of shuttles and transports brought all of the surviving personnel trapped on the ground.
Not only that, but they also had enough transport capacity left over to bring away crucial chs such as the Iron Hedgehog!
Though the Bontues had a few ranged and aerial assets that could shoot down nurous vulnerable vehicles, the lack of preparation and the lack of proximity hindered this effort!
Most of the vehicles managed to reach the barely repaired Quillim fleet carrier without issue.
Although the engineers and technicians who secretly snuck aboard the Peyton Phoenix warned that the chances of pulling off a successful FTL transition was not high, the Quillims were more than willing to make the attempt!
The shuttles and transports that just delivered their important payloads to the Peyton Phoenix did not beco useless all of a sudden.
Many of them started to extend chains that attached to different points of the damaged rear half of the fleet carrier.
They soon began to fly in a unified direction. Combined with the minor thrust power that the Quillim engineers had just restored, the battered hull slowly managed to move to the nearest Lagrange point.
With the Iron Hedgehog and plenty of ranged chs and flight-capable chs on guard, none of the enemy's attempts to interfere with the evacuation had any chance of success.
Soon, the Payton Phoenix reached the Lagrange point. Though her systems groaned a lot, her recently-installed FTL drive finally did its job and propelled the shortened hull out of the Korinna System!
The crisis had truly passed at this point. Many Quillim survivors felt relieved and no longer remained on guard.
As the most important hero of the campaign, Venerable Irene Mox received a lot of thanks and appreciation.
She had no ti to bask in her accomplishnts. She withdrew to a spare room in order to hold one final talk with Blinky.
The expert pilot had a strong feeling that this may be the last ti they could communicate with each other.
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