Chapter 1141 The Second Battle of Pandora (Part 2)
The wait did not last long, and the small ships at the front of the imperial fleet quickly detected hostile signals.
The latest signal comes from those Chaos plundering ships, there are hundreds of them, most of them are scavengers that follow the main fleet of the Black Legion out of the Eye of Terror to fight the autumn wind.
Behind these small ships are the larger ships, those are the real targets, with the black Legion mark on their ax blade prows.
At this time, Iongra Speer was already fully armed and standing on the secondary command podium of the Vengeful Spirit, observing the final evaluation of the empire's formation, his amber eyes shining brightly under his gray-black eyebrows. , observing the void carefully as if he would tear it open with his own hands.
On the stepped deck below, the Black Legion warriors looked up at him, waiting.
All their expressions are tense with the desire for revenge, the desire to prove themselves, and the desire to kill.
Ion Grasper clung to the iron fence, leaned out, and crossed the cavernous bridge of the Vengeful Spirit.
"Start."
With a command, under the light of the superheated promethium hollow, the Black Legion's fleet ignited the engines layer by layer, activated the arsenal, and increased to attack speed.
First, the flanking cruisers skimmed the edge of the battlefield, engines firing into overdrive, trying to hit their targets before the Empire could react.
The Spirit of Vengeance occupies the central command position, and four frigate formations protect it in all directions. The Endless Fury, the Red Glory and the Immortal Steel form a loose triangular formation on the battle plane. Adjust the angle to direct the main firepower The perforation is expanded to its widest range.
The gap between the fleets narrowed, and the Imperial fleet formation remained the same, with each ship sitting next to the other based on the range of its main macrogun.
They did not try to catch up with the attacking speed of the Black Legion, but maintained a stable speed and united to form a classic lattice formation.
In space warfare, formation is everything. In the open void, the defense of a fleet relies entirely on its overlapping formations, especially since each Astartes warship is ferocious, brutal, and almost over-armed. ——They are built for all-out killing. Each warship puts firepower first, enough to unleash rounds of destruction from a distance.
Forming such warships into a geometric formation, with each warship protecting the sides of other warships, can achieve an exponential multiplier reaction, so most Astartes fleet commanders tend to be like gorgeous hunters. The eaters swarm like this, leaving no opportunity for the enemy to take advantage of.
On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to break an established fleet formation. Every captain of any battle group understands the importance of maintaining the formation.
Then what remains is only a battle of quantity and strategy.
Ion Grasper believes that the number of warriors can give them an advantage. Although they cannot match the firepower advantage that the Empire has gradually accumulated, they can still surpass their opponents in courage.
So the vanguard guards of the Black Legion rushed forward with a feral fervor, rolling to avoid the incoming gunfire - at this time, the light spears of the Imperial capital ships were already burning like stars.
The Imperial forwards immediately began to retreat, still maintaining a chain formation, absorbing the initial offensive.
A few seconds later, the battleships began to engage.
The Spirit of Vengeance launched a salvo first, followed by a barrage of broadside macro cannons and the frigate's lance strikes.
This ferocious firepower immediately damaged the Heart of Light, the flagship of the White Templar. The series of attacks shattered the void shield at the front of the battleship and bent the adamantine armor on the bow. Eingra Speer had previously ordered all commanders to overload their main weapons, risking system overload to deliver a vicious punch in an attempt to open a gap.
Soon, two more destroyers marked as Imperial Navy disappeared in the catastrophic explosion. Their power systems were overloaded, and the vortex generated by the explosion marked their death.
But this is not the main goal of the raid.
Soon, the hangar doors of each battleship of the Black Legion opened with a hiss, releasing wisps of oxygen into the void.
Wave after wave of boarding torpedoes rushed out of the launch tube, sometimes gathering and sometimes spreading out, until the attack target was locked.
Although the mothership was still at attack speed, the gunboat formation as the second wave of attacks was launched into the air according to the pre-planned attack vector, with the mothership's side guns deployed behind them.
Aingra Speer had already made his own move and ordered the fleet to enter a short-range assault. The small attack boats aimed at the behemoth ahead and roared towards the target. The hope of the legion relied on them.
The gang-hopping swarms of the Black Legion were launched from each flight deck in the first few seconds of the assault, and the boarding torpedoes and others of their kind passed through the battle ball area, spinning through plasma explosions, meditating The operators are performing trillions of calculations to deliver them to their target.
Although many were hit and destroyed midway, there were still quite a few torpedoes that found their targets.
With a disgusting cracking sound, the torpedo smashed into the trunk of the ship, and the head with the melta impactor smashed through several layers of armored decks, making a piercing scream like a banshee, Then it came to a screeching halt amid the entanglement of molten iron.
The melt opened fire, the clamps exploded, the bow door suddenly opened, and the roar of the escaping atmosphere overwhelmed the amplified thunder of the engine in the closed room.
The beasts restrained in the cage broke free from their safety gear, took out their bolters, and rushed out of the burning gap. Their helmet eyepieces flashed red in the whirlpool of light and shadow.
"Kill the false emperor and burn the galaxy!"
These traitors appeared from the flickering shadows, their armor dimmed under the gray lumen strips, and the hunting group was very The defenders near the landing point were quickly cleared. There were only mortals here, and they had no opponents.
Subsequently, the gang members gathered together to sweep the branch corridors.
But they have clear goals in their hearts, all act in unison, and their eager desire for revenge drives them to an even more barbaric level.
The two fleets were already locked in a close-range battle across the void. A large number of boarding torpedoes either hit their targets or were knocked off. A series of bright explosions lit up in front of the imperial fleet's cordon.
The only counterattack of the imperial fleet was to concentrate and stabilize laser firepower, passing through a chaotic group of battleships and shooting at the main ship on the opposite side. Lothar did not launch a jump team and seemed to prefer long-range strikes. , but in fact it is not the key to the problem. The key is that he simply does not have enough troops.
Ion Grasper guessed right. There were indeed very few troops left in orbit. Lothar could mobilize less than 300 troops, and they came from four battle groups.
And these limited forces must be used to defend the most important warships.
Therefore, Lothar has been carefully choosing tactics to keep the heavy warships at the core of the fleet at a safer distance, although the buffer zone in the middle is already full of burning frigates.
(End of this chapter)