Chapter 64: Taking Army In Person
With a 6-gram warhead and a muzzle velocity of 1 kilometer per second, each projectile possessed a kinetic energy of 3 kilojoules, and they were fired fiercely at one-quarter of the maximum rate of fire, or 500 rounds per minute.
Thus, a single Mercury-class Battleship could fire a thousand rounds per minute.
With 480 battleships currently active, that amounted to 480,000 rounds per minute.
The auto-cannons also roared, their heavy, high-velocity shells targeting the mothership and the combat spacecraft from over a hundred thousand kilometers away, flying towards them one by one.
Over a thousand interstellar missiles, trailing long plumes of exhaust, accelerated to a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per second, hurtling violently towards the enemy’s mothership and battleships.
Not only that, but they also flexibly changed their trajectories during flight, always firmly locking onto the enemy’s figures.
Such a fierce assault, even with weapons from the gunpowder era, was unbearable for the enemy.
Therefore, as the Mercury-class Battleship fleet approached a certain position, and their attacks grew even more intense—after all, the closer the distance, the higher the accuracy, the shorter the projectile flight time, and the higher the interception difficulty—the enemy battleships finally couldn’t hold back.
Another 20 or so flew out, attempting to annihilate the Mercury-class Battleship fleet.
Tom did not hesitate, decisively engaging the engines at maximum power, while simultaneously shutting down the spacecraft’s attitude control system.
He even utilized the recoil from the bullets and shells, not caring if he could aim at the targets, only blindly firing projectiles while retreating with all his might.
Under these circumstances, the reverse acceleration of the 480 Mercury-class Battleships reached an unprecedented power.
Although more than 30 battleships were destroyed again, the remaining approximately 450 battleships ultimately escaped.
At this point, Tom was unable to launch a second wave of attacks.
The reason was simple: the spacecraft’s fuel had run out.
Not only the battleships, but even the supplies in the cargo ships were depleted.
But it didn’t matter.
At this moment, the first wave of supply containers had already arrived.
So these battleships swarmed and gathered before the containers, completing their resupply directly during high-speed flight, and then, like a swarm of bees, began their desperate charge towards the mothership again.
They attacked the mothership while strafing the surface of God-Enemy Star.
When the number of battleships dropped to less than 400, new battleships from subsequent resupplies arrived, and thus the number of battleships finally stopped falling and began to rise, increasing the intensity of the harassment attacks once more.
After several such repetitions, the enemy seemed to gradually realize that Tom merely intended to harass them, forcing them to counterattack and thereby deplete their already limited supplies.
So they also changed their tactics.
They stopped attacking Tom’s battleships and instead began to intercept the supply containers flying from Loshen Star!
If we don’t have supplies, we’ll destroy yours too!
Without supplies, let’s see how you’ll harass us!
At this point, Tom chose to remain quietly on the sidelines, allowing them to destroy the supply containers that had traveled over 40 million kilometers, appearing completely unconcerned.
Are you kidding me? What was my original goal?
Wasn’t it to deplete your remaining fuel?
Forcing you to attack my battleships is a consumption; is it not a consumption for you to set out to intercept supply containers?
Intercept, go ahead and intercept, let’s see how many you can intercept.
I’m not afraid of you using that fuel for yourselves.
Can your sophisticated spacecraft use gunpowder bullets? Can they use gunpowder shells? Can they consume coarse fuel like chemical fuel?
Sometimes, backwardness is also an advantage.
So, after destroying over a thousand supply containers, the enemy seemed to realize their mistake again and began to stay quietly around their mothership, no longer setting out to intercept.
"Oh? Not intercepting anymore? If you’re not intercepting, I’m going to resupply now."
Thus, the Mercury-class Battleship fleet swaggered over to the supply containers, refueled, reloaded with bullets and shells, and after filling their missile launchers, they once again launched a desperate charge, then, facing a counterattack, desperately fled again.
But this time, the situation seemed somewhat different.
They were supposed to return after pursuing for a certain distance.
But this time, all the other battleships returned, while one of them continued its reckless, desperate charge, accelerating frantically, as if it wouldn’t stop until it destroyed itself.
Tom was overjoyed.
"This is despair and collapse. This battleship has collapsed, and the crew of your other battleships must be close to it too, right?"
Tom held nothing back, directly enduring the fierce bombardment of electromagnetic cannon shells, and engaging with machine guns and auto-cannons.
After paying the price of over a dozen battleships being destroyed, Tom finally achieved his first victory.
One enemy battleship destroyed!
While this battleship was being besieged, all the enemy’s other battleships remained by the mothership, not moving at all.
No rescue efforts, no forward cover, nothing.
They just watched as this battleship was destroyed.
A wave of sorrowful despair began to spread across the battlefield.
Of course, that was for the enemy.
Tom, however, was in high spirits and full of fighting spirit.
Upon realizing that the enemy’s morale was about to collapse, Tom finally made the most significant decision since the start of the war.
Leading the charge personally!
It was time to reap the rewards of battle!
The ten newly constructed battleships formed a squadron, and Tom’s consciousness transferred to one of the Clones, flying towards God-Enemy Star, 40 million kilometers away.
When Tom’s main body finally arrived, the enemy’s battleships had been reduced to only 5, and all of them were riddled with holes and severely damaged.
The mothership, due to Tom’s deliberate restraint, although also damaged in multiple places, still maintained its overall integrity.
With the arrival of Tom’s main body, the communication delay that had long troubled Tom finally disappeared.
Thus, the greatly enhanced Mercury-class Battleship fleet did not take long to eliminate the last five stubbornly resisting battleships.
Finally, one battleship arrived next to the mothership.
After violently blasting open the hatch, fully armed Clones rushed inside.
In front, a sentient being with silver-white scales covering its body, roughly human-like in size, lay prostrate on the ground, as if expressing submission in this manner.
Tom did not stand on ceremony and immediately took control of him.
Thousands of subsequent Clones quickly poured in, searching every room of the spacecraft and capturing all 300-odd surviving aliens.
The aliens who had previously hidden in the underground base on God-Enemy Star and fortunately had not been killed were also all ferreted out and confined together, their total number reduced to only about 1,000.
They chattered incomprehensibly, but Tom couldn’t understand them at all.
However, it didn’t matter; any language and writing have inherent logic and patterns.
As long as the sample size was large enough, he would be able to master their entire language system.
Tom allocated over 1,000 units of mental power to the analysis of their language and writing.
Thus, after only a few days, Tom had completely mastered it.
Interrogation could now begin.