System Mission: Rescue the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company
Mission difficulty: B-rank
Content: Rescue the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company; ensure the safety of the mission target, "Chitong."
Reward: 10 task points and 6,000 points.
Bonus mission: Annihilate the enemy fleet besieging the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company.
Bonus mission: Root out the mole within the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company.
Zhao Chen cast an eye over the System mission that had cropped up the very moment he'd set about rescuing the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company. The System had handed him a pillow just as he'd grown drowsy.
Zhao Chen took in the magnificent scene before him. The sight of the blue and the red cluster-lasers slamming together made the onlookers all suppose this would be a fiercely deadlocked, hard-fought clash. But who'd have thought the process would prove so simple and clean-cut.
A few breaths after the red cluster-laser touched the blue, the red began, ceaselessly, to "fall back" — or rather, it should be said, to be "dissolved" by the blue cluster-laser. And as it dissolved the red cluster-laser, the blue cluster-laser began gradually to bear down on the enemy's T3 Flame Lion King-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser.
At the same time, the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser opened its interstellar-missile silos, and one Blizzard interstellar missile after another launched out, trailing tail-flame, streaking toward the enemy's T3 Flame Lion King.
"Missiles too!" Scarface watched the sight dumbstruck; never in his wildest thoughts had he imagined that the enemy's weapons and equipment would be more terrifying still than his own T3 Flame Lion King!
"Intercept! Intercept! Have the point-defense guns intercept these attacks at once — and have the other warships cover us!" By now Scarface had seen it plainly: the enemy's T3 battlecruiser was very strong in combat power — even above his own T3 Flame Lion King!
But he'd best not forget: behind the T3 Blizzard stood all those T2 warships of the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company. Commander Chitong, too, was not idle just now; watching the tide of battle turn, she at once ordered her own T2 warships to work in concert with the T3 warship before them. This was their hope of living on!
Commander Chitong stood on the bridge of her flagship, watching the warship planted before her, and — for reasons she couldn't say — felt a kind of security. Before this, all along it had been she who protected her own crew, who protected the weak. This was the first time she herself had tasted what it was to be protected.
Back to the fight between the two T3 battlecruisers just then. The T3 Flame Lion King's combat power was not bad after all: though the T3 Blizzard's cluster-laser bow cannon had already pinned down the position of its star shield, its shield still held on stubbornly. Only, at this moment its hull was taking the assault of the interstellar missiles. Those missiles skirted around the shield and struck the T3 Flame Lion King's hull outright, their chief target the gun positions of this warship.
"Warning! Weapon Module No.17 secondary gun destroyed!"
"Warning! Weapon Module No.3 main gun damaged."
"Warning! Weapon Module No.4 main gun, No.7 secondary gun, No.8 secondary gun, No.9 secondary gun have malfunctioned and are temporarily unusable."
One piece of bad news after another came to Scarface's ears. His face had already turned decidedly grim. Never in his wildest thoughts had he imagined that a single T3 warship before him could turn the tide of battle here — even carry the momentum to steamroll his own T3 Flame Lion King.
"Damn it! Isn't the T3 Flame Lion King supposed to be the strongest battlecruiser there is right now?! So why does this battlecruiser sprung up from who-knows-where have the combat power to steamroll it!" Scarface raged and stormed.
Boom.
The bridge shook several times over again; at this moment his hull was taking the attack of the enemy's T3 interstellar drones. The T3 Flame Lion King's own drones had already lost half their number, the remaining half withdrawn to the hangar to resupply. Yet the enemy's drones carried an ammunition load that far outstripped their own; at just this juncture they charged straight up to the hull and poured out a barrage of attacks on it — and above all on the weapon modules that launched the drones. Very much the momentum of kicking a man while he's down!
And by now the T3 Flame Lion King's cluster-laser bow cannon had ceased firing, about to enter a reset-cooldown phase. The enemy's cluster-laser bow cannon, by contrast, was still pouring out its fire without let-up. His shield's energy value kept falling. By the time the enemy's cluster-laser bow cannon quieted down, his shield's energy value stood at just 50% remaining. But surely the enemy's shield couldn't be much better off — so Scarface consoled himself just then.
"This ship's bow cannon is far too terrifying — take two more shots from it and my warship, near as I can reckon, has no possibility of surviving at all. I must destroy the enemy's warship in the next round!" Scarface shot a glance at his bow cannon's reset-cooldown time. The total was 500 seconds, with about 400 seconds still left. If he could just endure these 400 seconds, the next round of attack could destroy the enemy's shield and deal damage straight to the enemy's ship. And don't forget — he still had a great many T2 warships.
T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser · bridge.
Zhao Chen glanced at the green figure that stood for his shield's energy value.
85%!
Somewhere along the way, Zhao Chen had come to find this green more and more pleasing to the eye. It was just as the saying went: if you want life to go along nicely, you'd best add a little green.
Then he looked again at the bow cannon's reset-cooldown time.
Bow-cannon weapon module reset time: 300 seconds.
Zhao Chen ran the figures in his head — at most two more rounds of attack, and perhaps only one, and this T3 Flame Lion King opposite could be destroyed. Though before that, the T3 Blizzard's four 2,500mm-bore medium railgun main guns and 16 medium pulse-laser secondary guns had by no means been idle. The instant a reset-cooldown finished, they fired without pause upon the enemy ship's shield opposite.
Scarface watched that ever-falling shield energy value and felt as though his own heart were being clutched and squeezed. What in the world was this warship? Before its heavy modification, the T3 Flame Lion's main weapon had been no more than a single 2,200mm-bore medium railgun! But this monster of a warship before him had actually mounted four 2,500mm-bore medium railgun main guns outright. Was this not simply a battleship?!
Under this round of attack, his shield soon dropped below 40%, and was about to close on the yellow warning line. And it was just then that the bow cannon of the warship opposite actually began to show the blue glow of charging.
"How can this be…" Scarface was dumbstruck. This — this was less than 300 seconds gone, wasn't it? He looked again at his own bow cannon: it still needed 100 seconds of reset-charging time.
A feeling of despair and helplessness bore down, pent up, upon his chest.