"Our tactic is a blitzkrieg — to destroy the T4 Hive Mothership opposite in the shortest possible time! And then withdraw swiftly!" Charlotte said, looking at Chu Xuan.
Chu Xuan, listening to this tactical notion, knit her brows and pointed at the position of the distance to the T4 Hive Mothership. "The distance is too great; by the time we charge up before the T4 Hive Mothership, our fleet will, by all estimates, already have been scattered by the swarm. Never mind dealing any effective damage or threat to the T4 Hive Mothership."
Charlotte pointed at that drawn-out attack route and said, "We have no need to get too close to the T4 Hive Mothership; we need only reach within the strongest range of the T4 Boreas's bow giant cannons. Right here!" Charlotte pointed at a point along the attack route.
"Then there's still a problem: even if our fleet reaches this position — mind you, the swarm is exceedingly vast, and its consciousness of guarding the mothership is very strong. They'll gather a great quantity of hive-race units in this middle region; never mind those T4 Guardian-class Leviathans — the dense hive-race units within this region alone can, before the T4 Boreas's bow giant cannons' attack strikes the target, sap its power to half, even to under 30%! Under such circumstances, even a salvo of three T4 Boreas would find it very hard to destroy that T4 Hive Mothership in a single round of attack!" Chu Xuan raised a point of doubt.
Charlotte fixed her gaze on Chu Xuan and said in earnest, "This you needn't worry over; our Owl Dragon Fleet will pave the route of attack smooth for your Boreas. Your Boreas need only, following this route, take aim at that big bug and fire!"
As she spoke, she sent Chu Xuan a detailed combat procedure. Chu Xuan looked it over a few times, and stared at Charlotte; this combat deployment truly was far too bold.
"Good — let's do just as you say!" Chu Xuan said. Though this combat plan was very risky, in theory it could be realized!
……
T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship C07 · bridge.
"I hadn't imagined the Owl Dragon Fleet could truly clear an attack route out for us. The fighters open the way, then the interstellar missiles set out later yet arrive first, and at the last the firepower output of that never-before-seen interstellar stealth bomber, and of the T3 Blizzards. They genuinely pulled it off," Chu Xuan said in admiration. Then she looked to the one-star Brigadier General beside her, serving as captain. "Tell me — can this round of attack of ours destroy that big bug? They kept their word and paved the attack route smooth for us. If we still can't take down that big bug, it'll rather lose face for our Chu family fleet."
The Brigadier-General captain looked, with a certain admiration, in the direction of the six beams of light streaking out. "Eldest miss, this Owl Dragon Fleet's combat will is indeed very strong. When I learned of this combat plan you meant to carry out — to speak the truth, in my own heart I wasn't necessarily sure we could win. Were it not that I had the assurance this T4 Boreas could, in any situation whatsoever, carry you clear of danger, I might not necessarily have agreed to this risky combat plan."
Chu Xuan rolled her eyes; she knew that these fleet captains her grandfather had cultivated, though they'd obey her orders, would surely take her, the eldest miss's, safety as the first priority. Even were she to give this Chu family fleet an order to certain death, they'd carry it out — but only if Chu Xuan's own safety were guaranteed. This feeling of being protected was, in truth, one Chu Xuan herself found quite distasteful.
The Brigadier-General captain sensed Eldest Miss Chu's mood too, and at once returned to the business at hand. "By the T4 Hive Mothership data we've obtained, under these circumstances, a salvo of three T4 Boreas has an 80% probability of taking down this T4 Hive Mothership."
And just as the Brigadier-General captain's words fell—
from the distance came an enormous explosion, its blast-wave several dozen times greater than before!
"Report — the T4 Hive Mothership's energy signal on the ship radar has vanished!"
This piece of news sounded almost simultaneously on Chu Xuan's bridge and on Zhao Chen's. Chu Xuan couldn't help pumping her fist in excitement. Zhao Chen, for his part, returned to his captain's chair and sat down properly. "Charlotte's fleet's present position — and how does the situation stand?"
The T3 Blizzards and T3 Phantom Assassins led by Charlotte had, after completing their combat task earlier, made an emergency evasion, dodging clear of the T4 Boreas's attack path. The video display was transmitted before Zhao Chen. 20 T3 Blizzards and five T3 Phantom Assassins were withdrawing at high speed! Along the open region left behind by the T4 Boreas's six beams of light, the withdrawal went tolerably smoothly. And the Owl Dragon Fleet and the Chu family Third Fleet, cooperating exceedingly well, gave them covering fire — so that these 25 interstellar warships led by Charlotte, as if by a miracle, returned safely without a single one lost.
"Whole fleet, return by the original route!" Zhao Chen and Chu Xuan gave the order almost at the same instant. The Owl Dragon Fleet and the Chu family Third Fleet began to withdraw along the route by which they'd come; the incoming route, under the maintenance of those defense points one after another, was still within their control. So this round of withdrawal, too, went exceedingly smoothly.
The 20-fifth minute.
The Owl Dragon Fleet and the Chu family Third Fleet withdrew back within the star gate's fourth defensive line.
"Fleet, regroup at once! Make ready for the coming battle!" Charlotte swiftly made her deployment. The T3 Virgo-class Heavy Interstellar Supply Ships at once began carrying out brief repair work and resupply work on the warships in need.
"We actually succeeded." Chu Xuan laughed happily on the other end of the video window; one could see how worked up she was! The interstellar fleet under her command had completed so exquisite an annihilation operation, destroying a T4 Hive Mothership — this, too, was a battle-record enough to be a source of pride to her.
"Our battle isn't over yet; before this crisis is thoroughly ended, we can't slacken in the least." Zhao Chen reminded her.
"Understood," Chu Xuan said with the utmost assurance.
"Tally the state of our two fleets' losses," Zhao Chen said.
Before long, Lilith had arrived at the state of the two fleets' losses in this strike task. The Owl Dragon Fleet had once again lost three T2 Black Rhinos, their personnel evacuated in advance, with no personnel-casualty report for the moment. At the same time, one T3 Blizzard's hull was severely damaged, unable to fight any further, and with a risk of its ship core module exploding, so this T3 Blizzard had been withdrawn to a safe position within the defensive line, its crew all evacuated and dispersed for the time being; once the battle was over, this T3 Blizzard would be dealt with. And the T3 Black Phoenix-class medium drones aboard the T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship had all been spent to the last — this could be called a considerable loss indeed.
And to look at the Chu family Third Fleet: they'd lost close to 32 T3 warships — respectively, 19 T3 Nightwatch-class Interstellar Heavy Frigates, seven T3 Cavalier-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers, three T3 Shortsword-class Medium Interstellar Cruisers, two T3 Flame Lion-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers, and one T3 Flame Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer. Personnel fallen came to close to 10,000. The Chu family Third Fleet's loss rate reached 10%. And it stood to reason — so aggressive a tactic had bought the annihilation of a T4 Hive Mothership, along with Hive Motherships of every grade and the swarm besides; this much loss was wholly acceptable.
And what they were to do next was hold the fourth defensive line to the death!
With that whole maneuver of the Owl Dragon Fleet at the fore, and the coordination of the Chu family Third Fleet at the rear, the star-gate defense battle had already gone on for two hours. And after that, coordinating with Xu Yifan's defenders, they held on for another hour and more.
The Morton star gate once again blazed with high-frequency light, and a great mass of interstellar warships came swarming out. This was the first batch of North Wind Star Region Empire-military warships to arrive in support!
Seeing these interstellar warships arriving hard on one another's heels, Zhao Chen and Chu Xuan met each other's gaze across the video window, and looked at each other with a smile.