The battle against the imperial noble over the giant ring structure Huang surrounding a planet has begun.
Due to stuff like shield technology, they’ve given up on long range attacks, and a destroyer dog fight has broken out. It’s not rare, but it’s really troubling.
“Focus on the enemy destroyer and fire!”
The destroyers are charging here, but not particularly fast, so Tortilla Double can chase them.
The shape of the one coming my way is simple, an elliptical pillar, or maybe a beautifully baked rolled omelet. The ship is actually yellow, so when it’s vertical from my point of view it really is a rolled omelet.
It has two large turrets on both of its flat sides, and all four are firing at the Shiitake.
The torpedoes from before gouged its underside, but it doesn’t look like it’s burning or anything is leaking.
“Fire smart missiles, and guided missiles next.”
“Guided missiles loaded!”
The large laser cannon turret keeps firing and scraping its shield, but the missiles we fire towards its large turrets are all shot down.
“There are too many defensive turrets to even approach and fire torpedoes…”
I’m also firing the secondary guns, the pulse lasers, but this rolled omelet is tough. It’s taking on me, other mercenaries, and the Shiitake’s turrets, but its shield shows no sign of depleting.
“<To the ones above! Let’s fire missiles at the destroyer at the same time! Three! Two! One! Zero!>”
“Fire~… We’re not firing?”
“They’re not loaded yet!”
The mercenaries and Shiitake execute a saturation attack, but while missiles hit and scrape away the bottom of the rolled omelet, it’s still fighting.
“Three armors clinging to the turret!”
“Connect! Shine! Gather! Sweep! Chain Lightning!”
The filming drone’s perspective is adjusted so it’s like a third person shooter, and lightning appears among the three armors. It moves looking for targets, connects between the armors, and causes a small explosion.
The impact peels them off the ship, and they’ll become space dust.
“Genma! A frigate from behind.
Says Suzuri, and I turn both the ship and the turret to get it in my sights even just a little faster, as a torpedo flies past me and the rear monitor.
When it’s in my sight, I fire the laser cannon, and it bursts past the frigate’s shield. The ship that looks like a horseshoe crab takes big damage to its right wing.
I fire again, this time at the center, and it explodes.
“Three combat ships above!”
I hear Saratha and point the turret directly above, and fire it in spread mode before I can even see anything on the monitor.
Unfortunately, none of their shields are broken. They keep coming after being hit with the lasers, and spread to the sides just before reaching me.
“<Hey Tortilla Double! We’ll help you.>”
“Anders? Thanks!”
“His ship… Is a U shape like a horseshoe. Because he’s a centaur?
He goes after one of the ships at high speed, gets really close, and shoots it down with a pulse laser.
We’re not so fast, so we dodge with a random pattern, and shoot missiles at the combat ships. And they don’t get hit and escape!
“Armors are coming! Port!”
Uwah, six armors with big tower shields. I fire the large turret at them in spread mode a few times, and blow them all away.
“<How about a collab stream?>”
“Anders! We’re too busy for that!!”
“There is still one behind us!! Shield is at seventy percent!”
I turn the turret and ship right as I go up and a little far from the Shiitake. I was going to fire, but the Shiitake fires three missiles that hit the combat ship following us directly, and it explodes.
“We borrowed control of the upper missiles from Shiitake. They will send the bill later…”
“Fire them!!”
“Firing all.”
About fifty missiles are fired around Tortilla Double, all altering their course to chase the ships like starving dogs, but we have less than ten direct hits. And only eight explode.
“Can’t Shiitake do this~?”
“Sebastian’s calculations are busy dealing with four destroyers and controlling Shiitake, so I easily received permission.
There’s fighting going on all sides of Shiitake, so even a mechanical intelligence can’t handle it.
I hear a metallic sound on the right. I point the turret there, and there is an armor with a big tube, but it’s shot down by Anders’ hoof ship.
“Thanks Anders!”
“<Ah? For what?>”
“If you don’t get it, just accept the thanks!”
He saw it coming after me. This battle is a mess. The destroyers have gone behind Shiitake, and it’s going forward at full speed.
Being one and a half kilometers long means all it can do is go forward fast. It can turn with the thrusters and stuff, but it’ll split in half if it turns too fast. And if they have the time to change position slowly, they’re better off flying away with the engine.
That would make them weak when they can’t dodge torpedoes with lateral movement, but…
“Are shield ships supposed to be this armed!?”
A combat ship right in front is blasted with a pulse laser, and a corvette right behind us is blown away by the large laser cannon. Both are out of action.
I wouldn’t be doing these acrobatics without the brain optimizing nanomachines and thought processing implant, but fire missiles! A combat ship approaching us is shot down.
Dozens more missiles are fired from the Shiitake, and the combat ship count drops fast. I’m scared of the bill!
“I feel as though a ship that sturdy with those facilities and that many laser cannon turrets would not have enough energy even if they had a hundred nuclear fusion reactors.”
“They are equipped with a black hole engine.”
“That’s so dangerous that I feel like leaving right now!”
A group of armors fly this way, but collide with a mercenary ship and are vaporized. The mercenaries are okay, and regain control after spinning.
“Boss! A big explosion just happened in the back!”
“What!?”
“We lost a reaction of an enemy destroyer! The one that was fighting us!”
I look at the rear monitor, but all I see are the Shiitake’s defensive drones going at it with a frigate, so I shoot the frigate with the large laser cannon turret. Good, it exploded in one hit.
Then reactions start disappearing from the radar. A destroyer attacking Shiitake, a frigate, corvette, and combat ship.
Also, it was out of our area, but Huang was being attacked by a shield ship, destroyer, and combat ships, but lost most of them.
“Enemy ship lost from radar… They ran away.”
“They must have decided they couldn’t afford to lose more after the destroyer went down. They ran into hyperspace.”
Hyperdrives don’t have to be loaded or anything, so they escape fast… and attack fast too.
“Hn? We’re getting a transmission from Huang~!”
“<This is Yue, the manager of the Huang circle. I want to thank the Shiitake and mercenary ships. I wish you all pleasant dreams.>”
Can we call this mostly over? Is it okay? Is it salvage time?
“I want to salvage the scrap for extra income…”
“We received a transmission from Sebastian. There are still power armors clinging to Shiitake, and a few combat ships. He wants them destroyed.”
Wah, we have power armors stuck to the bottom! Taking care of stragglers is a pain… Ah? They’re surrendering? I see.
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