"There's no 'but' about it. Before, one after another you were all grumbling that the Emperor's Guard Fleet doesn't see so many battles, that you couldn't win merit and make your names like the other soldiers of your year in the other legion fleet groups. Now a chance like this is set in front of you, and you're starting to lose your nerve? Pass it down: anyone who loses her nerve can get off this interstellar warship of mine. My interstellar warship has no use for cowards!" the captain shouted; her voice rang through the whole bridge, as if it would punch through the ceiling.
"Yes." The secretary-officer turned helplessly to go and pass the word on.
But just then the captain called her back and said in a low voice, "But remember, don't forget our contingency plans for emergencies. If a barrel really does overload and blow itself apart, carry out the emergency plan. Understood? Make sure there are no casualties among the crew!"
"Yes!" The secretary-officer felt a jolt in her heart. She knew the captain did not care nothing for the lives of those below her; she was demanding that they keep themselves safe while they completed the task.
Such a demand sounded somewhat overbearing,
but it was also a responsibility the captain had to bear.
Very soon these instructions were passed down to every department below.
"Nobody sit idle. Make sure every module keeps running." A department head, her forehead streaming with sweat, watched the soldiers of her department working at their instruments.
She glanced at the temperature in this department's compartment section at that moment; it was over forty degrees.
She undid the buttons of her jacket and glanced at the ventilation overhead.
It was already running at full power. It was not that their starship's ventilation was poor;
it was just that every time the heavy guns built up energy and fired, they gave off a great deal of heat, and what it hit directly were the departments at the rear ends of those heavy guns, the ones charged with keeping them running.
And each department's compartment section had to control the running of thirty heavy guns.
So the temperature in these compartment sections of theirs stayed high the whole time.
"Report, the barrel of gun No. 057 has deformed!" a crew soldier cried out.
"Don't panic. Work out how far it's deformed, and whether it's reached the point where the gun has to be shut down. Remember the contingency plan: if there's a problem, go straight into the emergency procedure," the department head shouted.
"Yes…" The crewwoman took a deep breath and kept a close watch on her work.
Suddenly she saw one of gun barrel No. 057's readings go from flashing red to steady red, and every display connected to it was sounding the alarm.
Had anyone been watching this heavy gun from outside the starship just then, they would have seen its barrel already starting to cave in, something that happened only under severe overload.
This sudden turn left the crewwoman stunned for a moment; her mind went blank all at once.
Contingency plans and everything else seemed to have been thrown clean out of her head.
And just then a pair of hands appeared beside her.
"What are you standing there for? Start the contingency plan!" The department head had appeared beside her, who knew when.
Then she took over the crewwoman's work outright. First she pressed the separation button, and in that instant the heavy gun's barrel came clean away from the hull, leaving only the gun mount.
At the same time a great quantity of coolant sprayed out and covered the gun mount, letting the mount, already at its limit, cool down.
Then came checking every reading.
Only when the alarms had stopped did the department head let out her breath.
She glared at this green recruit of hers who had only just been promoted. "I warned you all: don't fall apart at a time like this. This once! If there's a next time, you go back where you came from. I can't be lucky enough to clean up your mess every time!"
"Yes… yes… thank you, ma'am." The crewwoman let out her breath.
For she knew she had very nearly made a serious mistake just now.
If her superior had not stepped in and handled it for her, she might well have been facing a court-martial, and been knocked down several ranks.
"Say it back to me: how do you handle each kind of emergency?" The department head looked sternly at the young crewwoman.
The young crewwoman said at once, "If a barrel overheats or deforms or the like, jettison the barrel at once and cool the gun mount in time. If the gun mount itself goes wrong, seal off the compartment section the mount is in at once and pump in coolant, to make sure nothing serious like an explosion happens. If there's an explosion or the like, sound the evacuation alarm at once; everyone in that compartment section and the sections around it evacuates immediately, and the fire-safety systems are switched on. …"
"Remember these things." The department head patted her on the shoulder, then went back to her own post,
and went on keeping a close watch on the work at every post.
Very luckily, when the ten minutes of saturation fire were at last complete, the thirty heavy-gun positions their department was charged with had had no serious breakdowns, apart from a few barrels jettisoned for overload.
That let everyone breathe easier.
"Leave one shift team here to keep watching every position. The rest of you can go out to the next compartment section and rest." The department head wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead and came out.
With only a single door between them, the two compartment sections were like a volcano and the ordinary world.
In an instant everyone felt a great deal better all over.
Some were so tired that they collapsed outright in the outer compartment section; nearly everyone who came out left wet footprints behind, the sweat from their bodies.
"Mind you drink, don't let yourselves dehydrate." Tired as she was herself, the department head first of all reminded her subordinates what to look out for.
Then she opened the liaison channel with the other department heads and could see the information everyone had shared there.
It was mostly the state of each department.
Most had been fairly lucky, with no great losses.
But when she saw a report that thirteen gun mounts in one department had overloaded one after another and exploded, the department head knit her brows.
She asked about it at once.
Fortunately, once that department's people had found the emergency, they had evacuated and dispersed everyone involved.
It meant the thirty heavy guns that department controlled could no longer be used, but at least no one had been lost.
Seeing that no one had been lost, she let out her breath too.
She steadied herself.
The department head looked at her department's crew and called out loudly, "Ten minutes' rest: change your clothes, drink some water, take some nutrient tonic. After ten minutes, back to your posts at once, and work with the repair department to repair and replace our gun barrels. In the shortest possible time, get every gun position in our department back into fighting order."
"Yes."
Under ten minutes of saturation fire from the interstellar heavy-artillery ships, the Owl Dragon interstellar warships had indeed won their chance to close the distance to the enemy.
When the smoke of the explosions hanging over the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet cleared, they saw those Owl Dragon interstellar warships almost close enough to touch.
The attack range could hardly be called medium at all; it was short range.
The close-in defense guns on the interstellar warships could even hit the enemy's interstellar warships.
The next second,
these onrushing Owl Dragon interstellar warships opened fire.
The guns on those interstellar warships locked onto the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's interstellar warships and poured out their barrages.
Because the distance was so short, there was hardly any need to aim; they could simply fire.
Because the distance was so short, the effect of the attack was plain to see too.
The Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet did react in time, but unfortunately the Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships opposite were far too much stronger than theirs, ship for ship.
They did have T6-grade interstellar warships on their side too,
but the moment the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's T6-grade interstellar warships appeared within the attack radius of the Owl Dragon interstellar warships opposite, they were nothing but targets!
There were the T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ships in the Emperor's Guard Fleet!
With their power of ultra-long-range sniping, they used their Seraph Ballistas to snipe down the enemy interstellar warships within their attack range one by one.
Because they had the Dragon Emperor Interstellar Command Ship, a cheat that commanded the whole field, and because the reconnaissance companies the Phantom Scout ace fleet group had placed all around gathered the information on the battlefield together,
these T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ships did not even need to look for prey themselves; everything about their prey would appear before them.
They needed only to enter the matching attack coordinates in the weapons system, then press the fire button.
That terrible attack would destroy the target opposite in the shortest possible time.
And these targets, without exception, were the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's T6-grade interstellar warships.
But the long-range sniping of these T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ships alone was still not enough.
After all, there were a thousand T6-grade interstellar warships in this Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet.
And now the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships mixed in among the charging fleets began to bare their fangs.
They did not attack wildly like the other interstellar destroyers and interstellar cruisers; like hidden dragons, they sought out their prey.
Once they found their prey, they bared their fangs and sharp teeth without the least ceremony, and tore the target to pieces in the shortest possible time.
This was about the second battle this interstellar battleship class had fought; the first had been against the Devourer Civilization's invasion fleet in the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's universe.
The second was against a Devourer Civilization interstellar fleet as well, but the battlefield was the very opposite: this time it was in the Devourer Civilization's home universe!