Chapter 388: The Great Battle!
"The enemy’s trajectory... it’s a straight line! They haven’t figured out how to maneuver while in warp!"
"Excellent. As long as they remain in warp, they can’t dodge a head-on assault. The first wave of concentrated fire will absolutely be in our favor!"
As the hostile fleet drew closer, Jason felt a strange sense of anticipation. Occasionally, a stray long-range laser would score a hit on an enemy vessel, a silent herald that the true battle was about to begin.
This kind of close-quarters void combat was breathtaking and thrilling.
It perfectly fulfilled the ultimate sci-fi fantasy of interstellar warfare. It possessed a unique, cold, and cruel beauty that only space battles could offer.
Cosmic combat was defined by fleeting flashes of light in an absolute, silent vacuum. Ironically, no matter how devastating the firepower deployed by either side, it all seemed utterly insignificant against the vastness of the universe. The entire battle played out like a silent pantomime.
The combined might of two advanced civilizations amounted to little more than a fleeting spark in the dark. The sheer insignificance of humanity was vividly laid bare in this war.
Jason clenched his fists tightly. Even though we are still running, the Federation finally has the power to resist. This... is our progress!
Streams of data cascaded across the main screen. The tactical computers constantly calculated the enemy’s speed and projected positions. The two sides were closing in fast. The tension on the bridge was so thick that everyone could hear the pounding of their own heartbeats.
"Fire the railguns!" In that defining moment, Jason solemnly issued the final battle order.
It would be the final manual command given. From this point on, the frontline artificial intelligence would take autonomous control of the engagement.
Upon receiving the authorization, the Sparrow interceptor drone formations unleashed a relentless barrage of kinetic slugs.
Streaks of intense white light tore through the darkness, massive arcs of electricity generated by the railguns firing at maximum capacity.
A frenzied mix of railgun slugs, swarm missiles, nuclear warheads, and high-energy lasers quickly formed a high-speed wall of death across the designated kill zone. This lethal wave advanced toward the unknown enemy at a staggering speed of 10,000 kilometers per second.
The recklessly charging enemy warships would slam directly into this initial strike wave... right as they exited warp!
To delay the pursuers as much as possible, the Federation had deployed multiple defensive layers, including the forward missile swarm, the Titan-class warships, and thousands of automated combat drones.
Furthermore, they had dropped a massive network of signal jammers into the oceans of Dige! These jammers were designed to mimic Elara’s biological signature, creating the illusion that she was still on the planet.
Eventually, the aliens would realize she was gone... and that realization would spark an irreconcilable hatred.
"Why go this far?" a young officer whispered, his voice trembling so much he could barely hear himself. "We already took her away. If they can’t have her, they’re just going to destroy everything?"
To him, this was simply an opportunity the universe had granted to the Federation; if the enemy lost out, they should just accept it. There was no need for such fanatical, destructive rage.
Of course, the brutal reality of war cared nothing for such naive sentiments.
The Federation fleet poured continuous fire into the void for several minutes. The forward wave of missiles slammed into a few unlucky enemy ships that were still desperately decelerating, triggering massive explosions.
A dense cluster of light bloomed in the dimness of space, the unmistakable signature of miniature nuclear warheads detonating on target!
Those explosions officially marked the beginning of the final battle.
Within a minute, the number of fiery detonations rapidly multiplied. The enemy ships fiercely returned fire. Invisible laser strikes and blinding ion beams tore through the Federation’s front lines, shattering one Sparrow drone after another.
The battlefield quickly descended into absolute chaos.
Even now, the Federation’s technological tree was highly uneven. Thanks to the ruins discovered at the Mars, their materials science and quantum computing capabilities were exceptionally advanced. Because of this, the combat AI managing the drones was incredibly powerful, boasting phenomenal processing speeds and tactical adaptability.
However, foundational technological accumulation and energy generation were their glaring weaknesses.
Humanity’s modern scientific era had only existed for a few centuries. Even with the inherited legacy of the Nix Civilization, they were severely lacking in countless technical details. When compounded, these minor details created a massive gap in overall spacecraft performance. It was like comparing a World War II propeller plane to a modern stealth fighter—perhaps an even wider gap!
The second major disadvantage was energy generation. Most of the Federation’s small combat drones still relied on nuclear fission, whereas only massive warships like the Titan were equipped with true fusion reactors.
Among all known fuel sources, antimatter offered the highest energy density. If harnessed correctly, it could achieve total mass-energy equivalence, yielding an energy density of roughly 8.99 × 10^10 megajoules per kilogram.
However, antimatter was virtually non-existent in nature; no natural reserves of it had ever been found. It had to be artificially synthesized, requiring immense industrial effort and energy, making it highly inefficient to produce at scale.
Next was nuclear fusion. Hydrogen fusion provided an energy density of approximately 6.45 × 10^8 megajoules per kilogram, which was two orders of magnitude lower than antimatter.
Below that was fission, used in the smaller drones. Uranium-235 offered an energy density of about 8.83 × 10^7 megajoules per kilogram—an order of magnitude weaker than fusion.
Still, even fission was over a million times more potent than traditional chemical propellants.
Yet, raw technological and energy disparities did not solely dictate the outcome of a battle. Tactics mattered.
Operating under extreme urgency, the enemy fleet had abandoned all complex tactics. Their only goal was speed. They were perfectly willing to sacrifice a massive portion of their own fleet just to reach the battlefield in time to prevent the Federation’s escape.
The Federation, on the other hand, had utilized their head start to establish highly refined, pre-planned tactical formations.
Over ten thousand Sparrow drones had been launched by the Deep Space using its massive railguns.
They were traveling at an incredible 6,000 kilometers per second, roughly two percent of the speed of light.
This extreme kinetic velocity helped compensate for their weaker fission reactors. Usually, reaching that speed required a warp drive; even a fusion-powered vessel would need a very long acceleration period to achieve it conventionally.
As a result, the enemy ships, having just violently dropped out of their warp bubbles to decelerate—were currently moving at relatively low conventional speeds.
They couldn’t match the agility of the Sparrow interceptors! This was the Federation’s distinct advantage.
Furthermore, the drones were flying in a tight grid formation. This allowed for overlapping fields of fire, which was vastly more effective than scattered, individual skirmishes.
The initial clash proved the effectiveness of these tactics: the Federation drones were actually gaining the upper hand! Fission-powered craft were successfully pushing back fusion-powered warships, relying entirely on the advantages of perfect timing and strategic positioning.
The Sparrow formations focused their formidable, concentrated firepower on a large enemy vessel, unleashing a devastating barrage. The dense grid of weapon flashes was chillingly beautiful.
It was abundantly clear that human pilots were no longer suited for such high-speed, high-lethality battlefields. AI was an absolute necessity.
However, maintaining such an orderly formation was impossible for long. Minutes later, the two fleets crashed into one another, and the battle lines devolved into absolute chaos.
After spinning around at high velocity to launch second and third attack waves, the Sparrow drones could no longer hold their grid. The battle turned into a chaotic, close-quarters dogfight dictated entirely by hyper-fast AI calculations.
At this stage, it became a brutal contest of raw attrition.
Mere seconds after the Sparrow arrays fully broke apart, several teraton-class thermonuclear warheads detonated.
The blasts brought the brilliance of a miniature sun to the dark battlefield, unleashing massive electromagnetic pulses that jammed all standard sensors and communications.
This was, of course, a deliberate tactic executed by the Federation AI! The military strategists had heavily drilled and pre-planned this maneuver.
Interference-free neutrino communication was highly advanced technology. Capturing neutrinos required massive, heavy equipment due to the elusive nature of the particles.
Therefore, it was impossible to equip small and medium-sized combat drones with neutrino communicators. This was evidenced by the fact that the enemy’s neutrino transmitters on Dige had been housed in massive ocean bases rather than on their ships. The equipment was simply too bulky and complex.
Flooding the battlefield with electromagnetic interference heavily favored the technologically weaker side.
Regardless of the tactical maneuvers deployed, the Federation’s goal was never to defeat the enemy. Their only objective was to buy time!
Yes, stalling for time... just enough time for the Deep Space to escape the system!
But the enemy reinforcements continued dropping out of warp one after another. Their numbers rapidly swelled past three thousand. These were all heavily armed, warp-capable warships.
According to the long-range sensors, there were already seven or eight massive battle-fortresses easily the size of the Federation’s Titan-class!
And most terrifying of all... these were just the automated vanguard! The enemy’s main manned fleet was still on route!
Even if the Federation somehow won this engagement, would they ever dare turn around just to scavenge the wreckage?