Charlotte issued a string of battle orders without hesitation. "T3 Blizzard, make straight for that T3 Arkham at full speed; bow cannon to standby. Main guns and secondary guns, target every T2 warship within firing range; close-in guns, ready to intercept the enemy's incoming fire. Interstellar missiles, to launch-ready state."
"Yes!" Secretary Aili at once began relaying Charlotte's orders one by one.
The crew on the bridge fell to their work, one and all. Facing an enemy fleet hundreds of times their own number, these crewwomen felt not the least fear.
This? Nothing at all — nothing next to when we charged that swarm of 1 million bugs. They'd been through a battlefield that thrilling, that deadly; this was a small scene entirely.
The T3 Blizzard began to accelerate — from the few tens of star-knots at which it had first pulled away from the planet, within a few breaths it reached over 100, and still it climbed.
"What's that T3 ship trying to do?" The Fire Salamander commander watched in puzzlement as the T3 ship charged straight at their fleet; the move baffled him.
"Maybe it means to break through head-on? Carry out a decapitation strike?" the adjutant beside him guessed at the enemy's intent.
"A decapitation strike? A mere medium cruiser?" The Fire Salamander commander laughed till he clutched his belly, tears in his eyes. "I've only ever heard of medium cruisers running missions like interception, sniping, harassment. Never once have I heard of anyone daring to run a decapitation strike with such a ship! What — does it take all our warships for scenery? Does it take this T3 Arkham of mine for scenery? Pay it no mind! Let it charge in — as it happens, I was just thinking that if it fled, our warships might not even catch it. Now it's delivered itself to our door. The wreck of a T3 warship like that will fetch a good deal of money later on."
The Fire Salamander commander stuck out his long tongue and licked his lips. The adjutant beside him thought nothing more of it either — for by the database, this was a medium cruiser. That flimsy hull armor could never withstand the furious bombardment of so many warships, to say nothing of the T3 Arkham presiding here.
Soon the T3 Blizzard, its speed climbed to 210 star-knots, its bow shield thrust forward, plunged into the Fire Salamander fleet's "encirclement." The Fire Salamander T2 and T1 ships around it opened fire one after another.
But an unexpected sight unfolded. This so-called T3 medium cruiser displayed an utterly terrifying interception ability. The 72 medium close-in guns mounted on its hull fired without cease, intercepting the Fire Salamander ships' attacks — chiefly the attacks of the T2 Fire Salamander ships. Its interception rate against the T2 ships' fire reached, at times, as high as 90%! Against the T1 ships, the interception rate was under 50%. And yet the T1 ships' attacks, landing on this T3 medium cruiser's hull, did no more than strip off a little paint?
"Strange… there's something not right about this cruiser's hull armor." The Fire Salamander commander shrewdly sensed something amiss.
Just then, several T2 Fire Salamander ships' attacks struck the T3 medium cruiser's hull — and left nothing but tiny craters, less than 20 centimeters deep!
"This is not the hull-armor strength a medium cruiser ought to have!" Only now did the Fire Salamander commander realize something was wrong.
"Report — a cluster-laser weapon detected charging in the enemy ship's bow cannon!" the adjutant reported.
The commander's face turned somewhat grim; this ship was strange! But there was no room left for choice now — that T3 medium cruiser had already entered the range at which the two sides could exchange fire, and with the enemy ship's astonishing speed, this was one clash of arms there'd be no dodging.
"I refuse to believe a mere T3 medium cruiser can best my T3 Arkham!" the Fire Salamander commander said in a low, hard voice. And the next moment, he ordered his T3 Arkham's bow cannon to fire!
A cluster-laser weapon likewise — a red cluster-laser lanced out and struck square on the T3 medium cruiser's bow shield.
"Let's see how long a mere medium cruiser like you can hold up against my bow cannon!" Just as the Fire Salamander commander sat back with a savage grin, waiting for the T3 medium cruiser to bring ruin on itself, the enemy's bow cannon fired too — a blue cluster-laser slamming into his T3 Arkham's shield.
Red and blue, the two cluster-lasers shone against each other, held for the moment in a kind of parallel, each battering away at the other ship's shield. The scene, it had to be said, was rather magnificent.
"Alert! Alert! Alert! Star shield under attack, star shield under attack…" The star-shield system's voice sounded.
At first no one paid it any mind. After all, a mere medium cruiser trading bow-cannon fire with a medium battleship — whose was the greater power, one could well imagine.
But before long, the matter took a turn.
"Something's wrong! Something's wrong! Commander, this isn't right — the rate our ship's star-shield energy is dropping isn't right!" the adjutant now cried in alarm.
The commander noticed it too. Their ship's star-shield energy was dropping too fast — unimaginably fast!
"By these attack figures, that bow cannon of theirs is even more powerful than our own! That's no T3 Hummingbird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser at all — that's a battlecruiser!" the adjutant cried out.
The commander's eyes went wide. "But even a battlecruiser — how could it possibly match the bow-cannon firepower of a battleship?"
This was common knowledge they'd always held to. And at this moment, it was overturned.
T3 Blizzard — Bridge
"Alert! Alert! Our star shield is under attack, our star shield is under attack…"
Charlotte listened to the alert without a flicker of expression, watching the red cluster-laser blazing against the shield. A scornful smile touched the corner of her mouth.
That T3 Arkham-class Medium Interstellar Battleship mounted only a T3-grade medium cluster-laser bow cannon. Whereas their T3 Blizzard mounted a T3-grade heavy cluster-laser bow cannon. Set aside the technical gap between the two bow cannons themselves — the class alone put them on entirely different levels.
Were the Fire Salamander commander to hear this, he'd surely curse: What kind of "light" battlecruiser mounts a heavy cluster-laser bow cannon? This is barefaced fraud!
"Ready the four-cell interstellar missile silo. Interstellar missiles, target that T3 Arkham — six volleys, 24 missiles in all!" Charlotte gave the order.
The T3 Blizzard's four-cell interstellar missile silo opened, and four Blizzard light interstellar missiles launched out at once. Trailing tail-fire, they set off to hunt their prey!