"Open fire!"
"Get as close to the enemy's outer shield as you can."
"All craft, lock the shield at position XX; missiles away in ten seconds. Tear the shield open and get inside!"
"Don't slow down; don't let their close-in guns lock you!"
"Use the enemy ship as cover against the other warships' fire!"
Zhao Chen's words came one after another over the channel.
The ship before them was a T4-grade interstellar destroyer.
Of what model there was no telling.
Zhao Chen had no leisure for that now.
"Missiles, launch!"
At one order, over a hundred missiles struck one point of the shield.
A huge explosion followed.
A gap appeared in the destroyer's star shield.
This is a weakness of nearly all star-shield technology, and the lower the warship's grade the worse it is.
Namely that when one point of an enclosing shield takes a heavy enough strike, a hole opens.
And that hole takes a dozen-odd seconds to repair itself.
As a starship engineer, Zhao Chen naturally knew this very well.
And now a gap had opened in this destroyer's shield.
"Get inside!" Zhao Chen ordered without hesitation.
And led his squadron in, first of all.
Killing the first enemy ship was the first step toward this squadron's living through it, and a vital step!
"Strip every close-in gun off this ship!" Zhao Chen ordered.
"Yes!"
The hundred-odd fighters that had swarmed inside at once hugged the hull and began knocking out the close-in gun mounts one by one.
Blasts of fire and smoke broke out across the warship's hull.
This T4 destroyer, under these fighters' attacks, had for the moment no power at all to answer.
Zhao Chen glanced toward the great meteorite belt.
The breach, he had found.
Whether it could be seized was for the Alliance's generals to decide.
……
"Reporting, a flight squadron has broken through the enemy's warship line and is engaging enemy warships at close quarters!"
Aboard a T6 fighter hovering within the great belt, the pilot heard his subordinate's words.
Had Zhao Chen been there, he would have been startled to find.
That this was none other than the brigadier general and commander who had first made him an interstellar fighter pilot.
Most likely no one would have expected a brigadier general to fly a fighter himself and risk the front line to oversee the battle.
He flew a T6 fighter, with thousands of escorts around him.
But the risk was great all the same.
"What? Less than five minutes' fighting and someone has broken through their fire? Who has shown such valor!" the brigadier general cried.
"The Third Flight Group's Eighteenth Squadron, from your own flagship! Squadron commander Zhao Chen!"
At that name,
the brigadier general was taken aback a good while,
before he realized this was the very man whose gift and skill he had picked out and recruited himself.
He had never thought so dazzling a showing would come so soon.
"How did he do it?" the brigadier general asked, still somewhat doubtful.
"Please see the combat footage." His subordinate sent over a recording.
The brigadier general watched it.
Surprise upon surprise showed in the brigadier general's eyes.
"Using an interference mist round, then flying blind into the enemy's ranks with no outside aid at all. And that looks like some kind of tactical formation too, shortening the intervals between craft so the squadron's exposed area is cut right down! Remarkable! How did this Zhao Chen think of it? And how did he dare?"
The brigadier general praised him again and again.
To be honest, using a mist round is not so very special.
The point is that he dared!
And to fly blind inside that mist, a whole squadron flying blind, is extremely hard.
It takes a squadron commander with both courage and wit to have any chance of it.
"I had thought we would lose hundreds of thousands of fighters before we could hope to tear their fire open. I never thought this lad would give me so great a surprise. Then we must not let his effort go for nothing. Pass my order. All flight squadrons, press the breakthrough toward XX/XX/XX! Tear this gap wide!" the brigadier general ordered.
Through the gap the Eighteenth Squadron had torn, the enemy's defensive fire at that point was plainly weakened, and had fallen off a great deal.
They carried no mist rounds themselves.
But breaking through at that point, their chances of success were far greater.
Besides, the Eighteenth Squadron was fighting hard in there.
They could not watch them die without helping.
And it was a good chance too!
At their superiors' order,
great numbers of flights charged with everything they had along the route Zhao Chen's Eighteenth Squadron had flown, straight into the enemy's fire,
which naturally cost many dead and wounded.
But before long a warship opposite blew apart, and in that instant every pilot's blood was up.
And a message on the all-channel transmission,
fired them up further still.
"This is Song Jiawei! Supreme commander of this operation. I hereby specially commend every pilot of the Eighteenth Squadron, Third Flight Group, aboard T5 Colossus-class Medium Carrier Starship X092. They were first to cut their way into the enemy's warship positions, and first to destroy an enemy warship. I therefore declare, here and now. The Eighteenth Flight Squadron's number is preserved in perpetuity, and it is raised to the Eighteenth Flight Group! The Eighteenth Flight Group's leader, Zhao Chen, is promoted directly to captain! Every soldier of the Eighteenth Flight Group is promoted one grade, effective now! Further commendations after the battle. And I declare further: any flight group or squadron that cuts into the enemy's ranks and shows well will be heavily rewarded, without exception!"
This commendation on the open channel,
set the charging pilots' eyes blazing red, every one.
A fighter pilot made captain outright!
One step short of field-officer rank.
Broadly, if this Zhao Chen came back alive from this battle, a major's rank was as good as nailed down.
Add to that the legend already told of this Eighteenth Squadron leader.
Two full ranks in the space of a single campaign.
That could surely be called a legend in the Star Alliance's history!