Chapter 550, Life and Death Chase
The three Holy Grail ships, which were maneuvering at full strength, found a direction and evacuated.
The way they were evacuating was quite embarrassing to be honest.
The enemy fire was a little too intense.
Before it was out of the enemy's fire attack, the combined firepower of Retribution and the two battle barges was about 2.5 times that of the three Holy Grail ships. After being hit hard, one of the Holy Grail ships was hit by a concentrated fire, and the void shield was overloaded and shattered. The hull also took two hits from Tadashi's Wrath Macrocannon.
Fortunately, the Holy Grail class is comparable to a battleship. Compared with ordinary moon-class cruisers, its armor thickness is still better than that of ordinary moon-class cruisers, and it will not be destroyed by two hits of Tadashi's Wrath.
The hull was damaged, but not fatally, at least the power system was not damaged.
This is critical.
It is definitely impossible to defeat it. If you want to survive and save the ship, the most important thing you can rely on is the power system.
The fleeing Alliance fleet also made the decision to disperse its forces. Several moon-class ships took other small ships and chose many different directions to run.
However, the Furious Flame Fleet did not care about these interference items at all. Although they had a complete advantage in the number of ships, they were not even interested in dividing their forces for hunting. They just stared at the alliance's three battle cruisers.
The biggest fish has been caught, so of course no one wants to look at those small fish and shrimps.
Bai Qifan could only take pleasure in thinking that at least there were more than a dozen ships running separately, and he would definitely be able to save his life.
As for the three battle cruisers under his direct command, he did not choose to disperse.
If they were completely separated into three directions and fled, then at the speed of the battle cruiser, it would really be possible to escape from one or two ships. However, just as he did not choose to start the jump engine immediately and run to the other side at the expense of one or two of them, Bai Qifan's pursuit so far is to save all three warships.
If they escape separately, without mutual cover, losses may still occur.
This is what Bai Qifan doesn't want to see.
He did not deny that he stepped into a trap and was responsible for it; but because of this, he had to personally lead the troops out of the pit.
The three battle cruisers, which gradually picked up speed, alternately covered their teammates, and at the cost of one shield being shattered, they were out of the attack range of the enemy's Retribution-class battleship, which had the strongest firepower.
Once the Holy Grail class increases its speed, the Retribution class will definitely not be able to catch up.
However, the two battle barges, the flagships of the two Space Marine Chapters, the Fury and the New Torch, are not slow things.
The battle barge is a rare ship in the human empire that is only used by space warriors. It is the flagship of a general battle group. They do not have a unified standard design. They are completely customized according to the needs of each chapter and from some familiar and well-connected forging worlds.
Some battle barges pursue speed and flexibility, which are similar to battle cruisers; some pursue ship strength and gunpower, just like normal battleships; and some have aircraft carrier design tendencies.
But because it is custom built, many of the performance conditions of its ships are different. Some powerful combat barges that are willing to spend extra money and don't care about cost-effective investment can even have the projection capabilities of aircraft carriers and the firepower of battleships, while not being slow at the same time.
Of course, to achieve this, you must first accept the customized foundry world, and your technical capabilities must be outstanding enough; on the other hand, with such stacked performance on a ship, the price/performance ratio is definitely not as good as that of spending the same money and resources. , to build two or even three warships of the same level.
In addition, battle barges, or Space Marine-specific warships including strike cruisers, all have one feature: dedicated Space Marine crew positions. From firepower, to ship management, to communication and command, there are dedicated positions that allow space warriors to directly control them as if they were using genetic nerve cords connected to the black carapace.
In this way, the performance of the ship can be improved based on the original hardware.
In any case, the level of manual manipulation of the mortal crew is certainly not as good as the direct neural connection of the Space Marines.
The two battle barges of Raging Flame and New Age Torch were not too extreme.
After a brief observation, Bai Qifan roughly judged that the performance of these two battle barges was between that of a battle cruiser and a battleship. The firepower is worse than the Retribution class, but it also has two X-class cannons; the speed is a little worse than the battle cruiser, but not much worse, at least it can bite.
In space, this formed a long, see-saw chase.
After running and chasing, Bai Qifan successfully led three battle cruisers to another jump point and made a jump to the south of the star map.
Just before they entered the transition state, the two battle barges brought the destroyer group to the transition point.
Can't catch up.
After entering the astral tunnel, Bai Qifan finally let go of the worries he had felt over the past few days.
Should it be safe?
But soon, news came from the Navigator.
The enemy did not give up the pursuit.
They followed closely and also started the jump engine and entered the same astral tunnel. In the astral tunnel, the two sides would not fight. There is no concept of space in the astral tunnel. The two ships are said to be in the same tunnel, but in fact they cannot touch each other at all.
However, this raises another problem: the time to complete the astral tunnel transition does not depend on the normal speed and flexibility of the ship, but only depends on the specifications and performance of the transition engine.
The three Holy Grail-class ships built by the Alliance all use good jump engines. However, due to the limitation of the battlecruiser's own ship power supply module, which is not as large as that of a battleship, some trade-offs need to be made in terms of conventional engines, firepower output, jump engines, energy shields, etc.
In this case, the materials used for the jump engine are good, but the specifications are somewhat limited.
Generally speaking, the jump engine is important, but not the most important. When there are trade-offs, jump engines with a single purpose are often cut down on specifications and some performance to save more energy supply for other systems.
This was also done when designing the Holy Grail class.
So the question arises, are the two battle barges on the opposite side, and the Retribution-class ship that is lagging behind but can reach the jump point in up to half a day, castrated on the jump engine?
Don't wait until the time comes. He obviously started the astral jump first, but ended up arriving at the other side later than the other side.
If this is the case, it's all over.
At that time, they would activate the void shield and have their firepower ready. As soon as they appeared in the real universe, they would immediately start to search for the enemy, lock on, and fire. Our own crispy battle patrol is about to receive the harshest blow before it has time to open its shield.
It is not easy to retrieve and explore information in the astral tunnel. However, no matter how difficult the objective conditions were, under Bai Qifan's strict orders, the navigation psykers and astrology psykers on the three ships tried their best to search and detect the enemy's situation.
During the two-day or so interstellar transition, Bai Qinian's mood changed drastically.
The main reason is the reported situation, which is very different.
Let’s just say that the enemy’s transition is not in good condition, and it is estimated that he will arrive at the target location one day behind our own. But before Bai Qifan could be happy for a while, the next news was the correction of the latest exploration situation. The enemy was faster than his own, which made him worried again.
Even sometimes, astropaths and navigators often give different situation reports.
It wasn't until the entire jump journey was almost over that the information gradually became unified: both parties should arrive at the target location at about the same time.
Bai Qifan was not very satisfied with this answer.
What do you mean by almost?
How much is the difference?
The time after completing the transition is a very precious golden moment. A difference of five or ten minutes may not be enough to turn the battleship around in normal times, but at this golden moment, it is the difference between life and death.
If someone arrives ten minutes before you, when you come out, you will face a group of enemy ships with their shields open.
If he had arrived ten minutes earlier, not only would the shields have been activated, but after switching to the conventional engine, he would have had ten more minutes to increase his speed so that the enemy ship could not catch up.
However, the psykers really had no way of coming up with an exact time.
Bai Qifan couldn't continue to force them.
What is the use of persecution?
Putting a knife on your neck and forcing people to tell you for a certain period of time is just nonsense. Making judgments based on incorrect information will lead to bigger problems.
He could only prepare for the worst-case scenario.
And when the transition was completed and the ship arrived in the real universe, this worst-case scenario really happened.
The enemy ship is right in front of you.
The two battle barges of the Raging Flame Fleet, as well as the fleet group they led, arrived first!
When he saw the figures of the two giant ships appearing on the giant observation screen in the bridge command center, Bai Qifan almost suffered a cardiac arrest.
However, the next moment, he realized life again.
The enemy ship's shields are off!
Only a few patrol ships were lit up!
This also means that the enemy may arrive a little before them!
There's still a chance!
He stood in the center of the bridge, his hands clenched tightly.
He said nothing and did not take advantage of this moment to issue any orders.
Because there is no need for that. As early as the past few days, all relevant plans have been arranged. The moment he arrived in the real universe, the shield system and engine system were already fully activated. Everyone on the ship knows what they should do, and they all know that this is a matter of life and death.
If the ship explodes, no one will survive.
At the critical moment, the opponent's shield hadn't lit up yet, but the artillery fire was one step ahead, blasting at the Alliance ships!
The opponent chose to concentrate their efforts first and fire the power system!
(End of chapter)