Zhao Chen drew a deep breath.
He looked again at the control interface before him. "Pass my order. Change the earlier battle plan. Execute battle plan S."
"Battle plan S?" Deputy Leader Li asked in surprise.
"Yes. Any problem?" Zhao Chen's voice allowed no doubt.
"No… no problem." Deputy Leader Li in fact had a great many questions, but his long trust in his leader made him trust him without condition.
And this so-called battle plan S was more precisely a combat formation.
It had every fighter fly at the closest possible interval.
Suppose two fighters' ordinary flying interval was 'ten'; under Zhao Chen's plan that distance had to come down to 'three', or closer.
Which meant a great many fighters crowded into a narrow space.
And easily destroyed by the enemy's blanket fire.
It also tested their coordination severely, for it was not a safe interval; the least error might send friendly craft into one another.
When they trained this formation,
no few had questioned it.
Holding that the tactic had no use at all.
They had never thought it would be used at a time like this.
"Ready?" Zhao Chen asked.
"All hands ready."
"I'll take the lead; keep close behind me!" Zhao Chen said.
"Yes!"
Zhao Chen's dragon-marked fighter took the lead, the three hundred-odd behind him following close.
With the intervals so tight, they looked like a single huddled ball.
Aim blanket fire at that area and the effect would surely be terrible.
At first the squadron did not fly very fast.
For it took coordination from them all.
Once Zhao Chen saw the formation was broadly sound, he began working the speed up.
Only, as they cleared the belt, the speed was still only seventy percent,
which was quite good all the same.
Zhao Chen brought up his secondary weapon.
Two missiles launched.
Behind him, Deputy Leader Li was astonished.
Launching missiles at such a range from the enemy?
They could never hit.
But what followed answered him.
Those two were no missiles at all.
They flew some distance and then simply burst.
Producing a huge region of white mist!
And then Zhao Chen's squadron plunged straight into it.
"Mind your flight radar. Don't fall behind. Stay calm! Just do as we trained!"
Zhao Chen's voice came over the channel.
Having worked together through several battles,
they were neither very tense nor very error-prone.
They kept their heads down over their radars, fixed on the fighter ahead.
Zhao Chen judged his distance and launched two more,
to the warships opposite.
It looked as though a patch of white mist had suddenly bloomed in one small area of the belt.
And the mist kept growing.
There was no seeing what lay inside it.
"Fire! Fire into the mist!" the captain of one warship covering that sector roared.
He did not know what the mist was, but it was surely nothing good.
Yet the warships firing blindly into the mist had no idea what effect they were having.
And massing too much fire on that area left other sectors thin.
"Light it with radar!" the captain ordered.
"Captain, that's no ordinary mist. There must be interference particles mixed into it. Our radar can't see into it at all!" a subordinate said, pointing at the radar, at where the mist lay.
Nothing there but a mass of black,
with no knowing what was inside.
"Damn it, then fire! Fire hard!" the captain swore.
Zhao Chen, for his part, did not know the situation outside either.
For this white mist of his own making,
interfered with radar both ways.
It blinded the enemy's radar and his own alike.
His radar's reach was very short.
But just enough for the squadron's fighters to keep with the craft ahead.
"Squadron Leader, when did you fit that thing?" the deputy could not help asking.
"Mind your mission!" Zhao Chen snapped.
The deputy dared say nothing more.
In fact it was a secondary weapon Zhao Chen had added when 'customizing' his fighter.
With his authorization, Zhao Chen could spend a certain sum on modifications.
Many higher-ranking pilots did the same, to make their craft stronger and so improve their fighting power and their chances of living.
Zhao Chen had not modified much.
The airframe being what it was.
He had added one secondary weapon module.
And what that module carried was this interference mist round,
with specially made interference agents mixed in.
This produced the present effect.
Such rounds cost a great deal.
More even than a conventional missile.
So generally no one used them, and the service would not fit them to a fighter.
Zhao Chen had added it against emergencies, to improve his craft's all-round ability.
To put it another way,
it was handy when running away!
But he had never thought it would be used here.
Zhao Chen steadied his thoughts.
Radar was useless, and the eye could see nothing.
Now it rested wholly on Zhao Chen's own ability; the chart of this region rose in his mind,
and the positions of the enemy warships.
At intervals he fired two more mist rounds, hiding his squadron's track.
As for flying in so tight a mass,
that was to lessen the area under fire, so that their star-shield energy could protect more fighters.
For what came next might well be a savage fight!
Zhao Chen had to be ready for the worst.
Those shield reserves might in the end be the straw that saved them.
Zhao Chen flew on through the mist; he could not see outside, but the steadily falling shield energy,
and the rippling patterns on the shield beyond his canopy,
told Zhao Chen they were advancing through a storm of fire!
"Pass the word! Make ready to fight. And keep close to me; on no account break up!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
His tone was very severe.
"Yes!" They all knew their leader was in earnest now.
At last!
Their squadron came out of the mist.
And there before them was an enemy warship!
They could even see the viewports along its hull!