Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 88 - A Do-or-Die Battle

Commander Vinok's orders were clear and cold.

"Sol" Fleet, maintain standard battle column, advance in a straight line at full speed!
The Mardrud Combat Squadron and the Jospro Combat Squadron, like two giant steel wings, firmly guarded the sides of the formation.

This group, consisting of three formations, is the core force of the left flank of the Allied Fleet, and is also the largest but slowest.

This is mainly attributed to the fact that the massive Himrsia heavy carriers in the formation slowed down the advance.

A total of 270 warships formed a solid barrier on the left flank of the alliance.

"Commander, the Himilsia battleship reports that it can't keep up with the main force's speed." Captain Hathor's voice came through the narrow-beam communication, tinged with anxiety. "Their heavy carriers can only maintain a maximum acceleration of 300 bars."

"Get the frigates out of formation!" Vinok made a decisive decision, his voice leaving no room for doubt. "By shaking them off, we can save at least half an hour of travel time! We're at the rear of the battle line, so as long as their Light Attack Aircraft (LACs) can get to the battlefield in time to join the fight, it shouldn't be a big problem."

“LAC?” Hathor didn’t react for a moment.

“It’s an abbreviation for Light Attack Craft,” Vinok explained.

“That abbreviation does sound good, I admit,” Hathor muttered under his breath. “Understood. I’ll pass on the order immediately. And… what about the reinforcements from Kolumex?”

The original plan of the Five Star Sector Community was to assemble all available warships in Kolumex to form a powerful joint defense fleet before sending them to support Centares.

However, they clearly underestimated the speed and intensity of the Republic's offensive.

Kolmex was a full 1500 seconds away from Centares. The time difference between the fastest cruiser and the heaviest battleship reaching the battlefield could range from several hours to a whole day.

If the community insists on waiting until all warships are assembled before setting sail together, then the reinforcements they send will probably never arrive in time for the battle.

"We can only pray that they are rushing on their way at all costs; there's nothing else we can do," Vinok said with a hint of helplessness.

Hathor seemed to chuckle on the other end of the communication line, "Judging from this, the enemy is determined to bite us off, sir. It seems they want to fight a head-on annihilation war."

Communications cut off.

Beside Vinok, the sensors of his newly equipped tactical robot TJ-912 flickered faintly.

The robot pointed its cold, robotic arm at the dense enemy engine signals on the tactical display screen: "Commander, they are not without strategy. Analyzing the engine contrails' spectrum and size shows that there is a certain degree of coordination within the enemy fleet. They deliberately mixed in a large number of light ship contrails to confuse our judgment. But if we ignore the smaller, weaker contrails and focus on the engine cone characteristics of the large warships, we can clearly observe that their main battle line is maintaining a fairly neat parallel formation."

Vinok squinted, carefully examining the data stream on the screen.

The tactical robot is right.

The main force of the "Long Spear Fleet" was cleverly concealed behind a "smokescreen" created by a large group of light cruisers, frigates, and corvettes, forming two parallel main battle lines.

Their seemingly reckless and violent acceleration was actually a carefully designed smokescreen, attempting to achieve tactical deception under the illusion of chaos.

He quickly glanced at the data on the tactical repeater.

The distance to the interception point is still 30 million kilometers, and that number is rapidly decreasing.

Although he couldn't see the enemy ships with the naked eye, he could already discern from the sensors that the engine signals of the light attack aircraft group dispatched by the Jospro Fighter Squadron were gradually appearing in the void behind the enemy fleet.

More than 200,000 vulture robot fighters have swarmed out like a bee leaving its nest, speeding ahead of the mothership.

More than 600,000 aircraft are continuously pouring out from the depths of the hangar.

These fighter jets moved in perfect unison with terrifyingly precise rhythm; only a robotic brain could achieve such precision.

Vinok watched as the fighter formation spread out wider and wider, weaving together into a vast curtain of shimmering lights in the starry sky, as if offering a sacrifice to some ancient god.

He sneered inwardly.

Those guys in the Republic have absolutely no idea what they're about to face. 'Come on, you loyal lackeys.'

Vinok cursed viciously, his teeth clenching involuntarily.

"Open your eyes wide and take a good look at the feast we've prepared for you!"

……

"Speed ​​of 23,000 kilometers per second, entering the effective range of the main gun in 14 minutes."

Godell's tense voice broke the silence on the bridge of the "Repulsion".

Faced with the three-pronged fleet of 700 warships from the separatists, the Republic's fleet showed no intention of slowing down or changing course, charging straight ahead.

On the tactical screen, Raine could clearly see the outline of the battle line formed by their capital ships.

"Damn, these lunatics!" he muttered under his breath. "Just how close do you guys want to take this 'who's the first to back down' death game before you stop?"

Ironically, in this head-on confrontation, the Republic's fleet gained the upper hand.

It wasn't because they had more warships, but because the core of their battle line was the "Victory-class Star Destroyer".

Apart from the old "Jäger-class" ships at the rear, the main force of the Republic's battle line consisted entirely of these fiercely armed conical warships.

There were approximately ten larger and more advanced "Knight-class Star Destroyers".

Facing the right flank of the Alliance fleet, it was directly opposite Carly's "Clem" fleet.

Let's get back to the Star Destroyer.

The "Victory-class" ships had ridiculously large blind spots in their hull firepower. Even with the addition of new hangar deck guns, the makeshift gun positions could not fire vertically downwards, nor could they even reach directly behind.

But their frontal firepower density is simply terrifying!
The conical hull design allowed most of the turbine laser cannons on the main gun deck to point forward without obstruction, not to mention the huge turrets on the back of the ship.

Of course, this means that their rear is almost completely undefended, but on the other hand, the Republic people seem to care nothing about exposing their rear, or rather, they rarely run away.

In this respect, the design concepts of the separatist "Generosity-class light destroyers" and "Disobedience-class light destroyers" are similar, also focusing on frontal firepower.

The main force of the Allied Fleet's battle line consisted of the cylindrical "Divine Will-class destroyers".

It aims for 360-degree horizontal fire coverage, at the cost of diluted fire intensity in each individual direction.

This tubular shape also means that its forward firing range is quite narrow.

Ryan glanced at the readings.

At this moment, the interception distance of 23 million kilometers is being shortened at a breathtaking speed.

The Alliance fleet maintained a constant acceleration of 1000 units, speeding through the void to a speed of 24,000 kilometers per second.

This speed puts a huge strain on the ship's structure, but most separatist capital ships are equipped with powerful inertial dampers that can theoretically withstand overloads of up to 2500 grids.

However, 1000 grids already make the controls very difficult.

He wasn't that crazy woman with purple hair, and he didn't want to just pierce through the enemy lines.

She always seems to have something different to do.

What's her name?

(End of this chapter)