The alien commander in charge of the Ghirard Fleet clearly possessed a good understanding of human expert chs and the 77th Warborn ch Division in particular.
There were many arrogant alien leaders that never really made a serious attempt to understand their human foes in depth.
Those leaders were most prone to suffering catastrophic defeats where far too many of their expensive warships got torn apart by chs.
The longer the Red War persisted, the greater the likelihood of encountering alien commanders that showed serious respect towards their human adversaries.
The threat from another galaxy may have spread untold death and destruction across the Red Ocean, but the arriving humans had also introduced a lot of new technologies, ideologies, military doctrines and so much more.
The native aliens that weren't arrogant enough to assu that the customs of their race were superior to everything else all benefited a lot whenever they learned from the powerful humans.
The longer the war dragged on, the more the native aliens would begin to resemble their hated human foes!
The sa applied in the other direction as well. Red humanity had already begun to integrate in the Red Ocean by mastering phasewater technology and attempting to produce human phase lords.
These concurrent trends basically described the inevitability of convergence of two completely hostile groups.
No matter whether they were enemies or allies, continued exposure to each other's culture, technology, armies and so on resulted in greater mutual understanding, if only so that they could figure out how to defeat their adversaries more effectively.
As the warships began to train their massive guns towards the only Crosser expert ch to take part in this lengthy approach, Venerable Lothario Cross did as instructed and imdiately prioritized his survival above all other concerns!
The 80th Elent flew away from the loose formation and started to make a lot of lateral movents.
Perhaps Venerable Lotheria had already made that conclusion, because just before the barrage of attacks arrived, the expert pilot steered his machine in a direction that allowed it to avoid several primary gun battery strikes at the cost of getting hit by two different secondary gun battery attacks!
10:45
Hundreds of energy beams, kinetic projectiles and more exotic attacks proceeded to flood the space around the smart tal ch!
This ti, the Crosser expert ch was unable to avoid getting hit.
Perhaps Venerable Lotheria had already made that conclusion, because just before the barrage of attacks arrived, the expert pilot steered his machine in a direction that allowed it to avoid several primary gun battery strikes at the cost of getting hit by two different secondary gun battery attacks!
The 80th Elent's resonance shield managed to resist the attacks with great difficulty.
The difference in power was considerable even though the ch ended up getting hit by a pair of secondary gun batteries. Smaller caliber or not, the second-largest gun turrets mounted on a large alien warship were still larger than any weapon that a ch could reasonably wield. They were also powered or supplied by a huge vessel that could devote a lot of capacity to keeping the weapons supplied with enormous amounts of energy and munitions.
Yet despite the enormous disparity in size and power, the 80th Elent actually managed to withstand the incoming blows quite well!
The expert ch's resonance shield was one of the remarkable 'technologies' that the native aliens were still unable to replicate.
Based on willpower more than sophisticated engineering, the resonance shield's working principles were based on defying the laws of reality rather than exploiting them to the fullest.
In other words, the resonance shield easily resisted the pair of energy beams fired by secondary gun batteries because they weakened the principles that made the attacks so powerful.
In the end, the 80th Elent managed to get away unscathed from a physical perspective.
The result did not co without a cost, as Venerable Lothario Cross's willpower had already beco more strained from the exertion.
"I can't resist too many of these attacks!" Lothario inford the others. "My resonance strength is not as high as that of the rest of you. I think I can only keep this up for one or two minutes before I have to retreat in order to give enough rest to recover my resonance shield."
"Two minutes is enough, Lothario." General Ark responded. "The more firepower you attract, the less the nunser warships are working to wear down the defenses of our own expert chs. Keep doing what you need to do to survive. You may withdraw at your discretion once you judge you are close to reaching your limits."
"I will try to last as long as possible, sir."
Venerable Lothario was a younger mber of the Cross Clan who had grown up hearing about all of the famous battles that led to the rise of the Golden Skull Alliance.
He had spent his years in the academy hearing about all of the feats accomplished by the heroes of the Larkinson Clan and the Cross Clan.
Lothario was anything but a coward, or else he wouldn't have been able to break through in the first place. Both his duty and his personal desires drove him to contribute as much as possible despite the danger of getting targeted by several dozen warships.
Perhaps the only consolidation was that his expert ch was not being targeted by the tens of thousands of phasefighters that the Ghirard Fleet deployed in space.
The effective ranges of the transphasic energy weapons mounted on the fightercraft were not particularly high. Perhaps they might score a lucky hit on a ch at such a long distance, but the more probable outco was that they would waste their energy in vain.
No. The phasefighters were already moving to intercept and interfere with the other expert chs that continued on their approach to Duqaste XI.
While the 80th Elent continued to attract a lot of firepower, the remaining expert chs soon had to contend against the swarms of nunser phasefighter that were probably willing to do anything to hinder the human champions.
"The nunser race is characterized by high cohesion as well as a high degree of collectivism." General Ark Larkinson said. "Out of the major alien races, the nunsers are the most willing to engage in self-sacrificing behavior. In past battles, the nunsers have already demonstrated a proclivity for engaging in suicidal ramming attacks, especially against expert chs. I think that all of our chs will beco targeted by this thod attack soon. No matter whether your machine is a lee ch or not, be careful about approaching phasefighters and do not let yourself get pinned down in any way."
"I hear that the native aliens have begun to deploy more solutions against expert chs." Venerable Vincent said. "I think that a force as well-equipped as the Ghirard Fleet should have multiple tricks up their sleeve."
Ark agreed with that assessnt. "You are likely right, though intelligence has been unable to gather any details about these new solutions. Most of the solutions that the different major alien races have employed so far have focused on inhibiting our mobility. Think about nets, gravitic traps and so on. Our enemies know that our mobility is the main reason why we are able to wreak havoc on their forces. As long as they can pin us down, they can bombard our expert chs with their heavy guns, so do not let yourself get caught. Try to watch out for your fellow comrades and do your best to save any that have gotten caught."
Everyone silently nodded. Multiple expert pilots already suspected that these asures would soon be needed.
A short ti passed by. It was not until the expert chs began to get targeted by lots of phasefighters in earnest that the battle had entered a new phase.
A massive amount of smaller energy beams began to strike at the incoming expert chs!
Of course, most of the shots missed their mark, but it was inevitable that at least a few of them hit their targets.
The expert pilots all maintained their cool despite the huge amount of guns arrayed against them. This was because the attacks launched by the phasefighters were not that powerful.
Not only were the calibers of the energy cannons mounted on the phasefighters a lot smaller, but their phasewater concentrations were also a lot lower. The resonance shields of the 5 Larkinson expert chs easily withstood the damage as they were all derived from the willpower of 5 high-tier expert chs.
Even so, none of the expert pilots dared to underestimate the phasefighters. The enemy craft might not be able to attain any imdiate results, but as long as they kept enough hits, they could easily grind down the resonance shields over ti!
This was why the expert pilots still did their best to move in unpredictable trajectories and evade as many attacks as possible. Their efforts at the start of contact may directly determine whether they could get away from Duqaste XI with their chs intact!
"Have we identified what kind of starfighter models we are up against?!" Venerable Orfan asked as her Riot still had difficulty determining the exact capabilities of the small craft in front.
"Partially." General Ark answered. "The Ghirard Fleet has deployed many familiar starfighter models, but most of the known fighter craft are on the low end. The nunsers have deployed nurous new fighter models this ti that appear to be more powerful and better equipped. We lack the analytical support of our fleet, so my Lionheart's processors and analysis engines are working overti to decipher their capabilities. The results are limited so far as the new fighters have yet to unveil their full capabilities."
Rosa Orfan scowled when she heard that. This was yet another disadvantage of launching a raid without involving most of their fleet. In a risky operation like this, intelligence beca extrely crucial. The more they knew about their enemies, the lower the chance of getting caught off-guard.
Right now, Venerable Orfan did not like the look of so of the larger and heavier fighter craft. They did not look like pure combat machines, but instead appeared to be designed for specialized support functions.
The fact that they made her feel uneasy gave her the suggestion that they were designed to deal with expert chs like her Riot!
She would soon have a chance to see whether her hunch was on the mark as dozens of specialized fighter craft in green had separated from the greater swarm and proceeded to approach the C-Man, which arguably appeared to be the least versatile ch of the bunch.
"Be careful, Vincent!"
"Hah! I don't know what the fighters are up to, but I will smash them with my fists in no ti!"
Despite his boastful words, Venerable Vincent did not charge head-long towards the strange green-coated fighter craft.
Once the nunser craft ca close enough and surrounded their target from multiple angles, they simultaneously launched expanding nets made out of transphasic alloy cords at the C-Man!
"What?!"
Most nets missed the C-Man, but three nets successfully managed to entangle the C-Man!
The nets did not envelop the ch all that tightly as the resonance shield prevented them from touching the ch fra, but they still clung tightly nonetheless.
This soon beca a serious concern as the C-Man struggled to get rid of the nets.
"Damnit! I can't punch these nets apart! I need to retrieve one of my spare knives."
While the C-Man attempted to do so, the fighter craft began to fire a second salvo of nets.
This ti, many more of them managed to entangle the C-Man.
What was different this ti was that the green fighter craft were still connected to their nets via very sturdy but flexible lines!
The green phasefighters that managed to bind the C-Man on their leashes proceeded to fly in different directions until their lines grew taut!
The C-Man abruptly lost the ability to move where it wished. It had beco almost completely trapped in place as the green phasefighters did their utmost to turn the C-Man into a sitting duck, if only briefly!
"Eliminate those net fighters!"
The Lionheart already began to utilize its integrated luminar crystal cannon to shoot down the green phasefighters one by one, but the other expert chs either had to close in on the enemy fighters or use their backup pistols to damage the enemy craft at range.
It took far too long for the other expert chs to get rid of the net-launching fighters. This gave the enemy plenty of ti to launch a concentrated salvo of attacks towards the trapped C-Man!
"I'm in trouble!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers