Chapter 80: Steamroll
In the vastness of space, Li Qingsong’s only Venus-class Warship was undergoing a full-load acceleration test.
First, the four Thrust Devices on one side of the spherical spaceship fired at full power, pushing it to accelerate rapidly at 30 meters per second squared. The burn continued for two minutes, increasing its speed to 3.6 kilometers per second. Afterward, the four Thrust Devices on that side shut down as the four on the opposite side fired in unison, forcing the ship into a violent deceleration.
Yes, this spherical spaceship had engines on every side!
Across its entire spherical surface, Li Qingsong had installed a total of 12 high-thrust methane-oxygen engines. At any moment, any one of the engines could be easily activated.
This eliminated the time needed to change its orientation. These 12 engines worked in coordination, allowing the ship to react instantly regardless of the desired direction of maneuver.
An acceleration of 30 meters per second squared produced a force roughly equivalent to three times Earth’s gravity. As the Venus-class Warship performed its sudden accelerations and decelerations, the Clones strapped inside the cabin were slammed against their seatbacks one moment and pressed against the forward control consoles the next, only to be crushed toward the ceiling an instant later.
Fortunately, every Clone was wearing a seatbelt, which held them firmly in their seats.
Amidst this violent process of acceleration and deceleration, the Clones did their utmost to manage the instrument panels before them, coordinating with one another to control the entire spaceship’s movements.
After a period of these maneuvers, once the test stabilized, the weapons systems trial began.
Ahead, more than twenty decommissioned, old-model Mercury-class Warships appeared.
The radar detection systems of these Mercury-class Warships were already on at full power, carefully scanning all surrounding space.
The scanning range of this first-generation radar could reach about 5,000 kilometers.
At this moment, the distance between the two sides was still about 12,000 kilometers. The Venus-class Warship had not yet entered the radar scanning range of the old Mercury-class Warships.
But even from so far away, the radar on the Venus-class Warship had already detected the Mercury-class Warships.
The detection range and precision of the new-generation high-speed scanning radar were just that outstanding.
The next moment, the Venus-class Warship began to accelerate with all its might. At the same time, on the side of the spherical hull facing the Mercury-class Warships, 50 dark gun muzzles appeared, and a massive number of bullets instantly poured out.
The rate of fire for these new machine guns reached 3,000 rounds per minute, with a muzzle velocity of approximately 3.1 kilometers per second!
Thanks to the spaceship’s own acceleration, the bullets gained an additional 200 meters per second, building on their initial velocity of 3.1 kilometers per second.
Thus, their speed reached 3.3 kilometers per second.
In a near instant, tens of thousands of bullets streaked toward the distant Mercury-class Warships. It wasn’t long before one of the unprepared warships was blown to pieces.
Only after coming under attack did the remaining Mercury-class Warships begin to return fire in a panic.
Their radars still hadn’t detected the enemy’s silhouette, but by observing the bullet trajectories, they could roughly locate their opponent’s direction.
Thus, the twenty-odd Mercury-class Warships began a fierce counterattack with a total of 40 machine guns firing simultaneously.
But, before they had been firing for long, the Mercury-class Warships were forced to slow their rate of fire.
The reason was simple: their ammunition reserves were about to run out.
Meanwhile, the attack from their opponent continued unabated, showing no signs of slowing down!
’The Venus-class Warship has more machine guns—a total of 100 across its entire spherical surface. Its ammunition consumption should be greater, so its firing duration ought to be shorter.’
But that wasn’t the case.
Each Venus-class Warship carried a standard load of 40 million bullets. That averaged out to 400,000 bullets per machine gun—double the per-gun capacity of a Mercury-class Warship, which only had two guns!
At the same time, thanks to an all-new design and more advanced technology, although the muzzle velocity of these new bullets had increased, their overall mass was drastically reduced.
A single bullet weighed only 5 grams. Forty million bullets amounted to 200 tons, a mass well within the cargo capacity of the Venus-class Spaceship.
After only a brief exchange, the twenty-odd old-model Mercury-class Warships were completely powerless to retaliate. In just a short while, three of them were blown apart.
The remaining Mercury-class Warships scattered in unspoken agreement, attempting to attack their opponent from multiple directions.
But this tactic, which had been tried and true in the past, was ineffective at this moment.
The reason was simple: the Venus-class Warship was spherical. Its 100 machine guns were distributed across every direction of its surface.
It had no offensive blind spots!
Thus, more machine gun muzzles were revealed, firing fiercely into space in all directions at once.
Another five Mercury-class Warships were blown apart.
The remaining 15 Mercury-class Warships finally gave up and attempted a full-speed retreat.
At this point, the Venus-class Warship changed tactics again.
The machine gun fire ceased. A total of 10 autocannon barrels, distributed across the spherical hull, were revealed, their muzzles exuding a murderous aura.
Shell after shell flew out, moving even faster than the bullets.
These were not ordinary shells that flew purely on inertia after leaving the barrel, but rocket-propelled shells with a certain degree of trajectory-adjustment capability!
While their trajectory adjustment wasn’t as powerful as an Interstellar Missile’s, they were lighter and more numerous. As long as they were aimed in the general direction of a target, they could lock on and close in on their own, provided the target didn’t stray too far.
In one salvo, 8 of the 10 rocket-propelled shells hit their targets. Four ships were destroyed, and the other four were heavily damaged, then finished off by a volley of machine gun fire.
Only 7 Mercury-class Warships remained!
By now, they had fled a considerable distance, making it difficult to cover the targets with machine guns alone. The same was true for the rocket-propelled shells.
But it didn’t matter.
A panel on the side of the Venus-class Spaceship’s hull slid open, revealing the new model of Interstellar Missiles within.
Propelled by the newest Thrust Devices, the Interstellar Missiles accelerated to over 15 kilometers per second in an extremely short time. They weaved nimbly through space, keeping a firm lock on their targets the entire time.
After a pursuit of more than ten minutes, the Missiles accurately hit their targets. In an instant, several massive fireballs erupted in space.
The entire live-fire exercise lasted less than an hour, and all twenty-plus old-model Mercury-class Warships were annihilated!
And the Venus-class Warship hadn’t even gone all out. It never used its superior maneuverability for pursuit, opting instead to simply eliminate the enemy with long-range attacks.
Having completed the exercise, the spaceship accelerated rapidly once more and returned to its ground base.
A group of Clones rushed up to inspect it carefully. They saw that although it had been hit by at least a thousand bullets during the battle, there was no other damage to the armor apart from some minor dents.
Li Qingsong sighed in satisfaction. ’Now this is the kind of warship I wanted.’