In the hangar, all at once everyone felt a wave of dizziness in their heads; they seemed to hear some kind of wailing cry!
"This is the brainwave-resonance phenomenon of a high-grade hive mother-ship… that T3 hive mother-ship… is wailing in agony!" a professor-instructor who'd made some study of hive mother-ships cried out, clutching his head.
Then an unbelievable scene appeared.
The blue beam, which had been at a stalemate, of all things punched through the T3 hive mother-ship's biological heavy armor; and then that vast T3 hive mother-ship was shot clean through, from head to tail, by the blue beam.
One could see the blue light flashing without pause within its body.
Then explosions of every kind kept erupting inside it, green juice spraying like a volcanic eruption, spattering everywhere around.
At the last, a few seconds after the blue beam dispersed—
—this T3 hive mother-ship exploded, the great blast catching even the surrounding T1 flying-bugs, T2 Thorny Serpents, and other bug-race units in its reach.
"That struck the organ inside the hive mother-ship that stores biological energy!"
"This… this one shot actually killed a T3 hive mother-ship — how could that be!"
"Incredible! Utterly incredible!"
The professors and instructors all marveled at the scene.
And more of the teachers and students cheered in excitement, for this meant that the warship they rode aboard held out hope of carrying them clear of this sea of bugs!
"Wan'er… when did your brother get so amazing a ship?" Senior Su Lan, seeing this scene, was astonished all over her face, and couldn't help asking Zhao Wan'er beside her.
Zhao Wan'er didn't know how to answer either; she'd known before that her brother had astonishing starship-development and manufacturing skill, but she'd never once heard that this brother of hers could build so strong a T3 warship.
And from parting with her brother Zhao Chen at the Arctic Fox Starport until now, it had been under five months.
He'd made a T3 warship?
She felt she could see through this brother of hers less and less.
Chu Xuan was present too at this moment; she watched the scene of that T3 hive mother-ship exploding, and was long silent.
Before, she'd only sampled the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser's astonishing speed.
But now, this so-called light interstellar battlecruiser had, of all things, shown fighting strength no less than an interstellar battleship's!
What could shake her more than this.
Astonishing speed, formidable attack power.
Just how had Zhao Chen gotten so strong a T3 warship!
T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser · the bridge.
Zhao Chen, seeing the first T3 hive mother-ship killed, was a touch surprised.
Though he'd looked over the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser's bow-cannon data — utterly formidable!
—no less, even, than the loadout of a T3 heavy interstellar battleship.
—still, to kill a T3 hive mother-ship with one shot was rather beyond his expectation.
By the look of it, there was likely some element of luck in it.
At the same time, the T3 Blizzard's attack hadn't stopped.
The four 2,500mm-caliber Medium Electromagnetic Railgun main guns fired; the 2,500-caliber solid shells, accelerated by electromagnetic technology, shot from the barrels at terrific speed.
They struck, respectively, the four T2 hive mother-ships ahead, and these four T2 hive mother-ships then burst apart, forming a fine sight amid the stars.
"Bow-cannon weapon module, attack complete; reset-charge requires 300 seconds."
"Main-gun weapon module, attack complete; reset-load requires 120 seconds."
Both these of the T3 Blizzard's weapon systems had long reset-charge times; luckily the 16 Medium Pulse-Laser secondary guns had a reset time of under a mere 10 seconds.
Set against the former two, this "fire-rate" was already quite fast.
"Raise speed to 200 star-knots!" Charlotte ordered now.
The T3 Blizzard's speed began to climb, for the path the bow-cannon's cluster-laser had just cut had detonated a corridor through the bug-swarm.
Unwittingly, it counted as clearing a lane for the T3 Blizzard.
Even so, the remaining bug-swarms still howled in, heedless, upon Zhao Chen's T3 Blizzard, so near now that they even affected the T3 Blizzard.
A very few T1 flying-bugs and T2 Thorny Serpents had already charged up against the hull armor's outer face, mounting attacks on the ship's armor.
Because the star-shield could defend only one direction, these little things could only be left to the close-in guns and interstellar drones to handle.
Luckily they weren't many, and for now could pose no effective threat to the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser.
Zhao Chen looked to Charlotte, her face composed at this moment, the tail behind her hanging utterly still — sign enough of how she felt just now.
"Report — detected two high-intensity energy attacks have locked onto our ship!" a crewwoman reported hurriedly.
Charlotte at once raised a hand and swiftly reckoned out the enemy's attack trajectory; she gave the order straight to the crew in charge of the star-shield: "Adjust the star-shield's position to the frontal [redacted] zone!" The crew worked quickly.
In the few breaths after the star-shield's position shifted, Zhao Chen and the others saw two green beams tear open the bug-swarm ahead and strike true on the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser's star-shield!
In the hangar.
"That's a T3 hive mother-ship's bio-plasma cannon! It's a T3 hive mother-ship's strongest means of attack, its power several times an interstellar battleship's main gun! An ordinary warship of the same grade simply couldn't withstand that shot!" the bug-race professor-instructor cried, looking at that green beam.
They could only stare, dumb, at that star-shield still standing firm at the ship's bow, the green bio-plasma cannon striking upon it, sending countless ripples spreading out.
"There's no telling whether this ship's star-shield can hold off these two shots!" a student muttered, quaking with dread.
The other students at this moment were all praying in their hearts for this unknown warship.
For it was their one and only hope of going home!
On the bridge.
Zhao Chen watched the data panel standing for the star-shield.
The number, which in the earlier fighting had dropped very slowly, was at this moment dropping fast, falling a percentage point every second.
And Zhao Chen could see, more directly, the scene of the star-shield under attack — quite gorgeous, and beneath the gorgeousness the deadliest peril.
But set against that pack of teachers and students in the hangar, Zhao Chen was more composed — or rather… confident.
For this was his, Zhao Chen's, warship; the spit of two paltry bugs — could it not hold that off?
What a joke!