Chapter 227: Interception
“Structure limit 83, 211 Punishers have lost combat capability, 389 missiles intercepted.”
After the first round of missile explosions, A’dai immediately compiled the data statistics and sent them to the display screen.
A trace of regret flickered in Liu Shengzhan’s eyes, but it quickly turned firm again.
“Order, Young Dragon 10th Team stays in place, responsible for rescuing combat personnel.”
His gaze swept toward the Punishers on both sides of the spaceship that had been hit by missiles and completely lost their operational capability, then he continued: “Order, Young Dragon 1st and 2nd Teams veer left, Young Dragon 3rd and 4th Teams veer right, advance at full speed past the enemy fleet, and deploy high-strength dense bombs on the enemy’s advance route to intercept the enemy fleet.”
“Order, all Punishers disperse to 20 km intervals, formation unchanged, speed reduced to 2000 km per second.”
“Execute immediately!”
In this battle, the Young Dragon was equipped with a full ten teams totaling 10,000 ships.
And now, Liu Shengzhan had released five teams at once.
Originally, these Young Dragons were meant to counter the carrier-based aircraft from that small aircraft carrier flagship, because according to Fox’s explanation, the small aircraft carrier’s combat carrier-based aircraft generally had superior high agility, high speed, and extremely strong single-unit attack power.
These carrier-based aircraft generally only handled one round of firepower, so they were mainly equipped with the fiercest single-use bombs.
The Young Dragon’s existence was precisely to prevent those carrier-based aircraft that could inflict massive damage on the Punishers, used for air defense.
But now there was no time for that.
If they continued chasing like this, they might catch up to the enemy fleet, but Liu Shengzhan felt that even if they did, their own large-target Punishers would suffer unacceptable losses.
Just one round of bombardment had wiped out 1/10 of their numbers.
The Azure Phoenix Legion’s execution was extremely high; even after suffering heavy losses the instant combat began, facing Liu Shengzhan’s orders, these space force members showed no hesitation and quickly made the corresponding operations.
In deep space, after enduring a round of 500 heavy missiles, the Azure Phoenix fleet seemed to exhibit chaos in that brief instant.
But merely half a minute later, after the smoke and dust fully dissipated, a series of super high speed small cruisers burst out from both sides of the Azure Phoenix Legion emerging from the dust.
T2 Young Dragon, max 12% speed of light, carrying intercept high-yield, point-deployable dense bombs.
When the hybrid thrust engine group advanced at full power, one could clearly see the engine tail flashing wildly with bursts of white light.
“What kind of thrust engine is this!”
On the Hans Civilization small aircraft carrier flagship, that commander had already noticed the opponent’s combat strategy, but at this moment he was still briefly stunned by this never-before-seen thrust engine.
When he came back to his senses and was about to issue the second round of attack orders, he was surprised to discover that the battleships behind him had already reformed their formation.
The entire fleet was spaced at very wide intervals and had reduced their follow-up speed, hanging far back.
The commander understood; this was a helpless choice knowing the power of their missiles.
Though he felt some pride, the current situation didn’t allow him to show such emotion.
On both flanks of the fleet, those high-speed cruising cruisers were gradually overtaking their own fleet.
To be honest, these cruisers facing their battleship formation alone, even at a one-to-ten ratio, he had confidence to crush them relying on the battleships’ powerful firepower and extremely thick armor.
But clearly, the opponent’s commander wasn’t arranging it that way.
The Young Dragon gradually overtook the Hans Civilization Fleet and continued sailing forward at high speed.
The commander watched this situation and suddenly fell into a dilemma.
Time passed slowly, and the distance between the two fleets’ main forces gradually widened.
At the farthest point, when the Young Dragon reached 10,000 km, these 2,000 Young Dragons began to concentrate, and their formation also changed.
Ahead, these Young Dragons formed a massive net-shaped formation, their engine tail flames densely packed like dazzling twinkling stars.
“Decelerate! Prepare for impact defense!”
The commander’s eyelids twitched, and reason ultimately triumphed over madness.
He didn’t dare to gamble.
And as his words fell, ahead of the Hans Civilization Fleet, a violent dazzling white light suddenly erupted.
Instantly, the pitch-black universe seemed covered by a white canvas in that split second.
The Young Dragon didn’t stop; they continued forward to evade the shockwave from the dense bomb explosions. This battlefield segment was now the Punishers’ stage.
“Accelerate! Close in!”
The instant the dense bombs exploded, the Azure Phoenix Legion Punisher fleet that had been hanging back in the distance suddenly surged in speed, engines thrusting to maximum, swiftly closing in.
“Punisher 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Teams activate follow mode, follow the team leads in up-down-left-right maneuvers.
Upon entering range, each team follows fleet broadcast to lock and fire!”
Liu Shengzhan’s command ship slowed down; his warship needed to coordinate command of the entire battlefield.
And he still needed to use the remaining five Young Dragon teams in hand to deal with that small aircraft carrier flagship surrounded in the middle.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
As soon as Liu Shengzhan finished speaking, the Punisher fleet quickly dispersed in four directions and rapidly closed in on the Hans Civilization fleet.
And seconds later, when the fleet entered 2000 km range, the Hans Civilization fleet ahead also recovered from the explosion shockwave.
“Shut down afterburners immediately, all warships activate armor repairers!”
The Hans Civilization commander endured the dizziness from the dense bomb shockwave and calmly reacted swiftly.
The opponent’s battleships’ never-before-seen propulsion systems were extremely effective.
Their rapid afterburn performance even exceeded their own afterburners under overload by 20%.
Now, with the intercept bombs left by those cruisers ahead, being caught was inevitable.
The current response was to fight a positional battle.
“All warships divide into 5 teams, target and attack according to each team’s fleet broadcast.
Prepare!
Fire!”
The commander’s voice cracked as he shouted it out when the Punisher warships reached 1500 km distance.
On the other side, Liu Shengzhan watched the heavy attack missiles dispersing toward them again, his heart inevitably skipping a beat.
After upgrades, the T2 Punisher spaceship’s range had increased from the original 100 km to the current 200 km.
But now, clearly, facing what seemed like extremely outdated missile-type weapons, the electromagnetic railgun was still comparatively behind in range.
