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Chapter 90 Air Superiority Fighters

On the deck of the Imperial Navy's attack cruiser, the catapult hydraulic arm was locked in place.

An entire squadron of Lightning fighter jets was neatly arranged on the magnetic track, and the cockpit canopies closed one by one as they were pushed by the robotic arm.

The ground crew completed the final load check and then quickly withdrew to the safe zone.

Squadron Leader Karen of the Griffin Squadron had been sitting in the cockpit for almost twenty minutes. Her flight suit clung to her body, the anti-G pants airbags were ready, and rows of bright green instrument data were reflected on the inside of her helmet visor. Fuel at 98%, weapons all green, communications normal, avionics self-test passed.

Twenty-five years have passed.

Karen flew across various battlefields in the Baka region for a full twenty-five years, starting by piloting bombers in and out of the Orcs' anti-aircraft fire, and later switching to Lightning. She participated in escort missions for three large-scale fleet battles, and her kill logbook was filled with various types of enemy aircraft.

Orc fighter jets, Chaos Hellblade daggers, pirate raiding ships, and one mission he didn't want to mention: a friendly Thunder Bomber corrupted by Chaos.

Today's briefing is simple.

An unidentified flying object shot down a Predator attack aircraft right under their noses.

"The griffin leader is calling the entire team to check the communication channels."

"Griffin II, clear."

"Griffin III, signal strong."

"Number four, no problem."

The reports rang out one after another, brief and concise, without any unnecessary words. This squadron had been working together for several years, and their tacit understanding was ingrained in every detail.

"We're ready to depart at any time, sir!"

The last sound emerged, its ending tinged with barely concealed excitement.

The youngest pilot in the squadron graduated from flight school less than a year ago and only passed his combat qualification certification last month.

Karen didn't say much. It's not a bad thing for young people to be spirited; once they're on the battlefield and their planes have been grazed by a few shells, they'll naturally become more disciplined.

"Attention, everyone." Karen lowered her voice. "The target is one, again, an unidentified flying object. It shot down one of our Marauders two hours ago. It's highly maneuverable and can change course without slowing down."

He paused for a moment, letting the information circulate in everyone's minds a little longer.

"Don't treat it like any of the pirate ships or orc fighters you've fought in simulators, and don't apply your conventional air combat experience to it. This thing flies in a way that's unlike any other aircraft we know. Maintain formation discipline, don't break away without permission, and follow my commands."

"Received, team leader," came the unanimous reply from the channel.

The electromagnetic field of the magnetic rail catapult instantly reached its maximum, and Karen's Lightning fighter was thrown out as if by a giant hand.

The gray hull of the Unbeliever's Disaster rapidly shrank behind, while the boundary of the planet's atmosphere unfolded in front, like a thin veil between the starry sky and the earth's surface.

Karen pulled the stick, and the Lightning fighter plunged into the atmosphere.

The fuselage was rubbing intensely against the upper atmosphere, and the numbers on the temperature sensors were climbing rapidly. The thermal insulation was doing its job faithfully, but the temperature inside the cockpit still rose a few degrees, and a thin layer of sweat seeped into Karen's flight gloves.

After passing through the hottest area, the view suddenly opened up.

The gray-brown wasteland stretched out at my feet, with undulating mountain ridges in the distance. Further away, a huge basin was clearly visible, with several buildings emitting a faint blue light in the center of the basin, standing out starkly against the desolate landscape.

Within three minutes, all twelve Lightning fighters completed their atmospheric entry. The automatic formation system reorganized them into three standard four-aircraft formations, advancing at high speed towards the mission area in a zigzag array. The wings sliced ​​through the increasingly thickening lower atmosphere, the sound of them cutting through the air sharp and piercing.

"Switch to target acquisition mode," Karen ordered.

Conventional radar scanning would encounter too much interference in this terrain. Gravel, metal veins, and the jumbled piles of scrap metal in the orc camp would all create a dense cloud of clutter on the radar screen. Moreover, according to the briefing, the target might have counter-detection capabilities, making the radar unreliable.

The enemy detection system was activated, and the multi-band optical probe under the nose of the aircraft extended from the fairing and began scanning the airspace ahead.

"Team leader, 12 o'clock position, 80 kilometers away, signal detected!" Lion III was the first to acquire the target, its voice tense. "And no thruster thermal exhaust was detected."

There is no hot wake.

Flying at twice the speed of sound, with a propulsion system that generates no heat, or with a temperature completely consistent with the surrounding atmosphere—either possibility—far exceeds Karen's understanding of engines.

"Visual confirmation." Karen linked the helmet visor's target acquisition system with the nose optical probe, instantly magnifying the image in her field of vision dozens of times.

He saw it; on the hazy horizon, a silhouette was rapidly rising.

It lacks the bulky fuselage of traditional aircraft, external engine bays, and protruding weapon racks; the entire fuselage is long and streamlined, with not a single superfluous line to be found.

The dark blue armor surface is covered with a layer of slowly flowing golden patterns. It is not paint, but some kind of energy vein emanating from inside the machine, spreading like blood vessels across the wings and fuselage.

The air around the fuselage was distorted by an almost invisible force field, and sunlight passing through it was slightly refracted, making the edges of the entire aircraft appear somewhat blurry.

Karen's fingers tightened slightly on the joystick.

Fifteen years. He had seen orcs, heretics, and Eldar flying machines, but this thing before him was unlike any of them.

It's too clean.

There was no frenzied twisting, no organic curves of spirit bones, no rough patchwork of orcs. Every component, every line, was perfectly formed, like a weapon that was designed from the moment it was created, allowing no flaws whatsoever.

"What the hell is this thing?" someone muttered in the channel.

"Shut up." Karen immediately silenced the noise. "Griffin Squadron One and Two, spread out from the left and right flanks and create flanking distance. Squadron Three, follow me and press forward head-on. Load armor-piercing rounds into the automatic cannons, observe its reaction, and force it into a low-speed dogfight zone."

The order was given, and the eight Lightning fighters separated from the main formation, each venturing to the left and right in massive arcs, their wings cutting white vortices as they turned. Karen, leading her four-plane squadron, pushed the throttle to combat power and charged straight in.

The distance is visibly shortened.

Sixty kilometers, forty, twenty —

The target was neither avoided nor even changed course. It maintained its steady climb, seemingly oblivious to the twelve Imperial fighters closing in from three directions.

Or, they noticed it, but didn't intend to avoid it.

"Entering effective firing range." Karen aimed at the halo and locked onto the midsection of the target aircraft.

"Fire."

The long-barreled automatic cannon under the fuselage spat out flames, pulling a trailing ammunition belt toward the gold and blue figure. The armor-piercing projectiles flew at more than three times the speed of sound, leaving trails of orange-red bullets.

Lion No. 3 and No. 4 opened fire simultaneously, with the three firepower lines converging from different angles.

The warhead hit its target, or rather, it reached the location of the target.

Then it felt like hitting an invisible wall.

About two or three meters away from the aircraft's outer shell, each armor-piercing round exploded on an invisible barrier, bursting into clusters of orange-red sparks. The surface of the shield rippled with pale blue waves, which spread to the edges and then quickly dissipated, while the shield itself remained completely still.

The three Lightning Bolts unleashed a barrage of fire for nearly two seconds, shattering dozens of armor-piercing rounds on the shield's surface.

Not a single one was worn.

"Shield system! Repeat, target has an energy shield! Solid projectiles cannot penetrate!" Karen reported as she pulled the lever to disengage, preparing to create distance and re-enter.

Damn it, when did Void Shield get installed on fighter jets?

The Void Shield generator on the cruiser was already larger than their fighter jets.

Then the thing moved, and Karen's optical targeting system faithfully recorded everything that followed, but it took his brain several seconds to truly understand what he had seen.

The alien aircraft did not turn, tilt its wings, pull up its nose, or make any aerodynamic yaw maneuvers.

Its entire body moved horizontally, flicked its tail, and continued to move horizontally while changing direction.

"Second team, spread out! It's heading your way!"

Karen's warning rang out on the channel, but it was too late.

Just as the four fighter jets of the Lion 2 squadron, which were flanking from the left flank, completed their deployment, that golden-blue shadow had already cut to the center of the formation, less than 300 meters away from the nearest Griffin 5.

Two cannons extend from under the aircraft's wings.

Two beams of light shot out.

There was no muzzle flash, no firing sound, and no recoil.

Only two straight, high-energy beams of light, between deep blue and purple, reached their target at the speed of light.

The right engine of the Griffin V was directly in the center.

The F100-XB turbofan engine's outer shell armor is a three-layer composite structure: an inner layer of ceramic steel, a middle layer of heat insulation cotton, and an outer layer of alloy plate. It is designed to be 30mm thick, but in the face of that beam of light, its protective capability is practically zero.

There was no penetration process, no gradual melting of the metal. The instant the beam of light touched the outer shell, all solid matter within a half-meter radius of the contact point vaporized instantly. Turbine blades, compressor rotor, and combustion chamber lining all transformed from solids into a mass of expanding, high-temperature plasma gas within fractions of a second.

The pilot felt the entire aircraft veer sharply to the right, as if slapped. Immediately afterward, the right engine area on the instrument panel turned a deathly black, all readings went to zero, and a series of glaring red warning lights illuminated on the surrounding instruments.

"Right engine failure! Complete failure! I'm stalling!"

The pilot instinctively pushed the stick with both hands, trying to use the thrust of the left engine to counteract the yaw caused by the asymmetrical thrust. However, the Lightning fighter's design did not support prolonged single-engine flight. Losing thrust from the right engine, the aircraft began to roll uncontrollably to the right, the nose dipped, and it crashed to the ground.

"Eject! Eject now!" Karen roared.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot gave up struggling. He grabbed the ejection handle on the left side of the seat with his right hand and pulled hard. Explosive bolts detonated simultaneously around the canopy, blowing off the reinforced glass canopy and sending a rush of high-altitude wind into the cockpit. The solid rocket motors at the bottom of the rocket seat ignited, ejecting the pilot and seat from the tumbling fuselage.

The parachute automatically opens at the preset altitude, its white blossoms blooming against the gray sky.

The pilotless Lightning crashed down, trailing thick smoke, and a few seconds later slammed into a patch of rubble, exploding into a fireball. The alien fighter didn't even glance at it.

The aircraft made another impossible sudden turn, circling behind another fighter jet of the Lion Team 2.

The next three minutes were the longest three minutes of Karen's flying career.

That thing's fighting style completely overturned his understanding of aerial combat; it didn't need to bite tails, and its maneuverability far surpassed theirs.

Karen tried every tactic he could think of: scissor maneuvers, barrel rolls, separation maneuvers, high- and low-speed yo-yos—none of them worked. He could only watch helplessly as the fighter jet charged forward, shooting down his teammates one by one.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the basin, near the entrance to an abandoned mine.

Five giants clad in black power armor moved silently through the shadows.

Deathwatch. The sharpest spear in the Emperor's hand, experts in hunting down aliens.

The leader, Tiburn, a Space Marine who had served under the Fist of the Emperor and was now working for the Deathwatch, raised his power-armored arm. The entire squad immediately stopped, blending into the surrounding rocks.

-

"Target ahead." Tiburn's voice crackled through the squad's internal tactical channel. "Ready."

Within the squad, a Space Marine who had once been a Salamander was observing the area ahead through the multispectral scanner inside his helmet.

In the center of the open space ahead, there stood something.

It was about three stories tall, and even the Space Marines looked tiny in comparison. But as one of the top fighters under the King's command against the Xenomorphs and Chaos, it had killed even the Lion Demons or Xenomorphs that were several times or even dozens of times larger than this.

The standing thing was less humanoid and more like a mobile turret. Its lower body consisted of four thick, retractable mechanical legs, firmly planted in the ground, supporting a heavy, angular, armored torso. The torso lacked a clearly defined head, instead featuring a single blue-glowing, crystalline sensor. Most striking were its "arms": two enormous cannons.

A thin film of pale blue energy covered its entire body, occasionally shimmering due to dust in the air.

It just stood there, like a statue.

But Tyburn could sense what lay beneath that silent armor.

"Lion Demon Engine?" The youngest and least experienced Space Marine in the squad asked.

"It doesn't seem like it," Tyburn denied. "There's no trace of the corrupting aura of the warp."

It's too clean. This war machine doesn't have that kind of twisted and crazy decoration (it's not made of velvet and chaos). It shouldn't be the Lion Demon Engine.

"Who cares about worldly matters?"

Another soldier in the squad, who had once served under the Space Wolves, unhooked the chainsaw sword from the magnetic latch, and the engine let out a low growl, "It's in the way."

Just then, the mechanical behemoth moved.

The blue crystal-coated sensors inside the torso turned toward their hiding place, and the two cannons slowly rose, with a ghostly blue energy gathering inside the muzzles.

Tayburn rested the butt of his rifle on his shoulder and aimed at the machine.

"For the sake of Emperor Kang."

His voice rang out on the channel, "Purify this place."

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