These Fire-Qilin interstellar fighters and interstellar drone swarms, by the several requirements of their tasks, formed swiftly into one combat formation after another, and launched their attack upon the demon legion fleets that were about to tear this line of defense open.
The manner of fighting was very simple.
The Fire-Qilin H-V multi-function combat interstellar drone, working with the Fire-Qilin H-I regular interstellar fighter and the Fire-Qilin H-II heavy interstellar fighter, formed a comprehensive attack formation.
The drones made an attacking environment for the two classes of fighter.
And the task of the two classes of fighter was to strike the interstellar warships themselves!
If a target of attack had star-shield protection, then the heavy fighters would use a kind of antimatter beam weapon with which they were equipped; the range of this beam is exceedingly short, but once it strikes a star-shield it can form a brief gap in it.
And the fighters would then rush into that gap and attack the interstellar warship's own body.
It was by such a manner of fighting that even a T4-grade interstellar warship could hardly ward it off, still less those T3-grade.
Some interstellar warships were destroyed outright even with star-shield energy in plenty.
The sight of it was as terrible as a passage of locusts!
What? You ask about the enemy's interstellar fighters and drones?
Forgive me — once these enemy fighters and drones entered the attack compass of the Fire-Qilin's drones, it was like throwing a husky into a school of piranha.
The more you struggle, the more excited it grows.
Perhaps some will ask further: are the demon legions' interstellar escort ships eating their rice for nothing? What of their capacity to intercept an air attack?
These escort ships were indeed intercepting the fighters and drones, and to some little effect.
But the Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship had its counter-measures too.
As often as not, those interstellar warships that possessed the means of air interception would be locked as targets of the first round of strikes.
And against these ships, the Fire-Qilin H-IV heavy interstellar stealth bomber, resting upon its stealth technology, would first close with them and use another sort of high-explosive interference bomb, which likewise could tear several openings in their star-shields.
What followed wants no telling.
Beyond this there were certain hidden killers besides.
The Fire-Qilin F-I electronic-interference interstellar stealth drone!
Though in ordinary war they might never appear at all, the part they played upon a field was likewise of great importance.
As often as not they could, unseen, work with their own flying formations to destroy certain important targets.
One bare T5 Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship, and the opening that was about to be torn wide was thus stopped up.
Of course, this was very far from the end of it.
The three T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers with which the demon fleet charged with the assault upon this district was fitted could hardly stand staring.
They launched their fiercest attack on the instant.
Their thought was that a carrier starship's fighters and drones, limited in the ordnance they can carry by the size of their frames, cannot fight for long and must return to the mother ship for supply.
Was that not the very chance to strike upon the turn?
"Reporting — the enemy attempts a counter-attack!" a subordinate reported to Commander Su Lan.
"Is all in readiness?" Su Lan asked coldly.
"All in readiness."
Su Lan raised her hand. "Send out every one!"
Thereafter yet more interstellar fighters and drone swarms joined the fighting.
Do not forget that Su Lan herself was the commander of the Owl Dragon Fourth Legion, and that this Fourth Legion was at present built upon a carrier-starship system of battle.
It held the largest number of carrier starships of any Owl Dragon legion at present!
Though not T5 Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starships.
Yet they were T4 Fallen-Angel-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starships and T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starships.
Fifty T4 Fallen-Angel-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starships, and 2,000 T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starships.
Understand that the Owl Dragon Fourth Legion, having completed its first-phase expansion, came to no more than 10,000 interstellar warships in all!
From which one may judge what the Owl Dragon Fourth Legion's style of fighting was.
At a single order of Commander Su Lan's, this trump of the Owl Dragon Fourth Legion's, long since made ready, was played.
Through the twenty-odd hours of fighting before, the Owl Dragon Fourth Legion had held itself all along in restraint.
This sword, so long forborne, could be drawn at last.
Fighters and drone swarms in such numbers led straight to this: that no few of the enemy's T3 interstellar warships, whose radar wanted the computing power and the precision, could not scan how many fighters and drones were in that district at all — could not even scan how many interstellar warships were there.
The same case arose upon the angel interstellar warships as onlookers.
Happily the ship the angel Tilia stood in was an angel T5.
"Past all belief. The proportion of carrier starships here…" the high-order angel Jessie exclaimed.
"This carrier starship's system of battle is far too thorough all round. In this field our Angel Race falls far behind them." The high-order angel Berkeley too owned frankly at this moment to his own race's backwardness in the matter.
A yet greater swarm of locusts began to fall upon the demon legion fleets.
Though this assault fleet had 10,000 T4 interstellar warships, in such a case as this it could hardly ward it off either.
Its one hope was perhaps those three T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers.
And these three had been locked by Commander Su Lan, who held the whole board in her hand, as her next target.
The jade fingers of Su Lan's two hands moved slightly; the holographic image before her was drawn wider and wider, and the images of the three T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers were drawn close before her eyes, hovering above Su Lan's palm like three little toys.
"The next object of battle: annihilate these three T5 Terror-Blades!"
In the fighting that followed in this district, the other T4- and T3-grade demon interstellar warships were all left to the other interstellar warships, or to the fighter and drone swarms.
While the fighters and drones the Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship had sent out bore one task only.
The T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers!
The means were the same as before.
First the stealth bombers to open a gap in the star-shield, then the drone swarms to cover the fighters and heavy fighters in closing.
Because the targets this time were T5-grade interstellar warships, the star-shields were of higher strength.
As often as not a gap newly opened would close again in an exceedingly short time.
Certain unlucky fighters would strike it at the very last second of the shield's recovering, which would cut the fighter clean in two at the waist, or destroy machine and pilot together.
At which the pilots of the other fighters did not change countenance, but went on carrying out their task.
Went on opening gaps.
And in the course of it, electronic-interference stealth drones would interfere with these three T5 Terror-Blades, so that certain of their electronic equipment was affected, and they could not establish contact with the other interstellar warships, and so on.
When these steps were complete.
There might yet be certain troubles.
Namely that a T5's hull armor is far too thick, and the hull too vast; destroy a few positions and there is simply no effectively wrecking such a ship.
And here the Fire-Qilin H-III transformable dual-purpose interstellar fighter came upon the stage.
In one tactical squad at this moment, for instance, some tens of Fire-Qilin dual-purpose fighters rushed at the hull surface of a T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruiser, and at the point of striking it.
The whole frame transformed.
Fire-Qilin interstellar mecha mode!
What had been fighters turned, in the turn of an eye, into crimson battle mecha!
Thereafter these Fire-Qilin interstellar mecha stood straight upon the surface of the hull armor and used a kind of thermal-fusing weapon to wreck it.