Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 77
Chen Ming thought very well about the harvest aspects of the mission.

But in a real fight, he might not really be able to avoid these goods.

And because he has few ships, there are more issues in combat that deserve more attention than these cargoes.

That's why he determined in advance the route the pirates would take back and where they might encounter them at different points in time.

And came here early and made some arrangements specifically for them.

These arrangements will be immediately reflected on the battlefield.

At the same time that the Centurion-class sensors scanned the pirates.

The pirates obviously also noticed the three spaceships blocking their path.

Fighter Kai, Centurion and Shimmer.

The fighter is now controlled by Gamma B.

Centurion and Shimmer are both under Chen Ming's personal control.

Although he had to operate two spaceships at the same time, Chen Ming actually did not feel awkward at all when he did it. Instead, he seemed to be controlling his own hands and feet very smoothly.

It was almost the same when he controlled the Iron Ore.

Obviously, the various functions on the Iron Mine are complex and diverse, but actually controlling them is completely hassle-free. This is also one of the hidden benefits of the panel.

At this time, the three ships were maintaining a certain distance between them, blocking the way for the pirates to continue moving forward along the hyperspace channel.

Although the three lonely frigates are a bit shabby compared to the pirates' two ships that drove away six escorts.

But the pirate leader on the pirate ship did not dare to act rashly at this time. He only dared to frown and observe the front.

The reason lies in this strange ship configuration.

This Yuhui ship was mixed in with a fleet of ships that looked like the military. It looked strange and something was wrong.

Before figuring out the details of these three ships.

The pirate leader directly ordered the fleet to slow down, deploy the shield, and send a communication request while advancing slowly.

But their communication requests received no response.

After seeing this, the pirate leader almost knew what these three spaceships were here for.

At this time, there was a pirate beside him who couldn't help but said: "Boss, do you want to take action directly?"

The pirate leader waved his hand and said: "Don't worry yet, the two military ships are a bit difficult to deal with, and there seems to be some problems with the fighter."

"Let's test it first. Our current condition is not good. It's best not to fight if we can. Even if we fight, we must first leave a way out."

"How is the situation outside the channel now?"

A pirate's voice came from the communication device in the pirate leader's ear: "There is nothing abnormal. The sensor did not scan anything. You can go out at any time."

The pirate leader was not relieved by this relatively good news. Instead, he felt that something was wrong with the situation.

"Only these three ships? Then why do they come to us?"

"No, keep getting closer, keep sending messages, and see what they want to do."

The pirates wanted to try to contact Chen Ming, but Chen Ming refused to accept it at all.

Instead, he directly issued the order to let Gamma B perform on its own, and at the same time activated the shields of the other two spacecrafts.

At the moment when the shield was turned on, Chen Ming saw that the energy values ​​on the panels of the two spacecrafts continued to increase by more than ten points.

However, this increase in the amplitude energy value of maintaining the shield was immediately offset by the amplitude energy dissipation of the spacecraft, and the amplitude energy value still remained at zero.

Only when the battle actually starts will the amplitude value rise again.

After confirming that there was no problem with the most basic and important function of the combat spaceship, Chen Ming also accelerated the two spaceships and prepared for battle.

The pirates, after noticing the movement of the spacecraft, also knew that this battle had to be fought.

Their two destroyers and six escort ships faced off against three escort ships. The advantage was on their side, so there was nothing they dared to fight against.

And he also directly planned to confront Chen Ming head-on.

Chen Ming was not afraid at all. When both sides were about to enter the firefighting range, he gave the order to Diopter, who had been hidden for a long time, to enter the hyperspace channel.

A few seconds later, Diopter suddenly appeared in the hyperspace channel, behind the pirate fleet.

The sharp blade in his hand was thrust out from behind the pirate's butt.

Even if Diopter is an auxiliary ship, its combat capabilities are still guaranteed.

A ball of electromagnetic pulses flashing violently with arcs was instantly emitted from the opened electromagnetic capture cabin, paralyzing the three spacecraft closest to the diopter level.

Two ordinary frigates and one destroyer mule class.

There is no cargo on the outside of this mule-class ship, so it should not be the leader's ship.

However, this does not affect anything. Being able to directly paralyze a destroyer, no matter which destroyer it is, is already worth the price of Chen Ming's early arrangement.

You must know that his Iron Ore was affected by a diopter-level electromagnetic pulse last time, which directly caused many equipment in the ship to be completely damaged and needed to be repaired.

But the pity is that these pirate ships all have military subsystems. No matter whether they are good or not, they are suitable or not, but they can still be activated.

Being able to start up means that the radiant energy system can relieve the pressure of electromagnetic pulse on the equipment.

Before the arc ball actually comes into contact with the spacecraft, at most it can only temporarily paralyze some of the spacecraft's equipment, and only needs to be restarted and simple maintenance can work again.

However, there is more than one arc ball that the diopter class can launch, and the arc ball is not the only attack method on the ship.

At the moment when the three spacecraft were paralyzed, the ion beams and pulse laser cannons on the diopter class also focused their firepower on the engine of the mule class.

intending to completely destroy its ability to escape.

However, the ion beam itself is only an auxiliary weapon, so the actual damage effect is not ideal.

However, the pulse laser cannon that fires multiple energy shells is very effective when hitting the hull.

Groups of shuttle-shaped energy aggregates launched at high speed continued to peel off the armor of the pirate spacecraft at the location where they hit, and at the same time destroyed the engines of their spacecraft.

Even if there is a situation where the diopter level firepower is really not enough to destroy the target in a short time.

Those arc balls alone were able to paralyze these three spacecraft until the refractive energy ran out of fuel.

And all this happened in just a few seconds.

It was only now that the pirate leader had just reacted. They suddenly lost the communication between the three spaceships and noticed the diopter level behind them.

"What's going on? Why are there new afterglow ships coming to attack us?"

The pilot of the Pirate Mule class clearly saw the appearance of the diopter class on the external camera of the spacecraft, and the expression on his face seemed a little panicked.

He immediately reminded the others loudly: "That's an electromagnetic capture ship! It has an electromagnetic shielding device on the ship, which blocks all sensor signals. Even now, we haven't detected it on our sensors."

"That electric ball can create EMP over a large area. You must not get close."

Listening to the story of his men, the pirate leader's face looked a little ugly. He knew very well that they were in trouble now.

Just the afterglow electromagnetic ship, which used technology that was infinitely more advanced than theirs, was enough for them to drink.

What's more, there are the three frigates in front of them that all have problems at first sight.

If you are attacked from both sides, there will definitely be a big problem.

Therefore, their only choice now is to temporarily abandon the three ships that have been controlled and find a way to break through the current situation of being flanked.

Then consider whether to fight or run.

Now that we have decided to do this, it shouldn't require too many choices to break through a 200-meter destroyer with a powerful electromagnetic pulse device, and break through three frigates that are not even [-] meters together.

The Pirates' choice was clear and correct.

But in actual action, things may not develop as the pirate leader wants.

Facing the overcoming pirate fleet that had expelled four escort ships, Chen Ming directly controlled the centurion and rushed forward with a shield.

It rushed into the fire range of five pirate spaceships.

Chen Ming's specially installed and modified two-door Ripper and six-door Light Needle were the first to enter the range.

A large number of high-explosive armor-piercing shells and high-speed needles rushed straight towards the fleet.

Immediately, there were violent fluctuations in the shields of the two frigates at the front.

The two frigates were forced to slow down and close their shields, and hid behind other ships.

A counterattack by the pirates followed soon after.

When you are a pirate, your ship can be bad, but your weapons must not be bad.

Although their spaceship weapons are no match for Chen Ming's carefully modified weapons.

But the concentrated fire from the remaining spaceships still caused the Centurion's radiation level to soar by several hundred the moment they exchanged fire with them.

Chen Ming could easily see the power of this round of concentrated fire on the panel he kept in front of him.

[Radiation capacity: 877 (806)/900]

The Centurion's energy capacity was almost completely filled up, and there was an extra value in parentheses.

And when the Centurion's energy was dispersed in the gaps between the firepower of the pirate ships, it was dispersed to the value in the brackets.

The radiation value did not continue to fall, but was completely stuck here.

Because the radiation energy of the spacecraft is actually divided into two types.

One is that the spacecraft automatically increases its energy.

That is, the amplitude energy generated when the spacecraft maintains its shield and uses high-intensity weapons.

The radiant energy produced in this way can be discharged unconditionally on its own under the premise that the spacecraft itself is deliberately designed.

Generally called soft amplitude energy.

In addition to soft amplitude energy, there is another kind of amplitude energy.

It is the amplitude that passively increases when the ship's shield is hit.

This part of the radiation energy is not part of the initial pre-design of the spacecraft, and this radiation energy will also fluctuate differently depending on the type and angle of the weapon being hit, making it impossible to prevent it in advance.

Therefore, such radiant energy cannot be quickly dissipated during the operation of the shield. Instead, it will continue to accumulate in the spacecraft power grid.

Only by completely shutting down the shield system can this part of the radiation energy, usually called hard radiation energy, be dissipated.

Therefore, when the Centurion was almost hit by a round of fire and reached the radiation limit, Chen Ming directly closed its shield and symbolically fired a missile.

Then the Centurion's own damping stance device was activated.

Although it must turn off the shield and stop using weapons when it is activated, it is indeed a device independent of the radiation system.

Therefore, when it is turned on, the Centurion can continue to dissipate radiation normally.

Before the end of the time that the damping stance equipment can be maintained, it is enough for the Centurion to dissipate the radiation to a safe level.

Then continue to take the next round of damage.

While the Centurion was already exchanging fire with the pirates, the Fighter class controlled by Gamma B also broke into the battle area from the flank just in time between the pirates' firepower.

The target it wants to attack is naturally the core of this group of pirates, the Mule-class ship with several cargo holds mounted on the outside.The Fighter-class approached the mule at the fastest speed it could achieve in the channel, and the two cyber SRM missiles that had been prepared on the left and right were launched one after another.

Rushing towards the mule, which was protected by shields and other ships.

The pirate spaceship immediately activated the point defense weapons on their ship, hoping to destroy the missile midway.

But missiles like the Cyber ​​SRM, like the Fighter Kai, are products of Tachyon technology.

The built-in sensing system on the missile body allows it to automatically trigger a secondary explosion when it detects that it is about to be intercepted and destroyed by a point defense weapon.

A large number of high-speed needles will fly out with the secondary explosion of the missile.

It has extremely strong damage to shields.

As for the Mule-class target that the missile was facing, its energy system and shield system that were removed from the frigate instantly behaved like the Centurion when it was set on fire by all the pirate ships when faced with this attack.

There was an unnatural vibration on the shield, and it could be overloaded at any time.

Chen Ming deliberately reset the missile launch bay of the Cyber ​​SRM and repaired it with the help of many combat materials he prepared before setting off for the hunt.

A new warhead instantly appeared in the launch chamber and could be launched again at any time.

As long as one hits, the mule will be directly overloaded.

However, Gamma B did not fire the second round.

Instead, immediately after the first round of missile launches, the plasma thruster installed when Tachyon Technology transformed the Fighter class was activated.

The fighter-class tail engine was instantly activated at full power, and a large amount of bright green plasma was sprayed from the tail flame exhaust port.

The surge in mobility instantly distanced it from the pirate fleet.

Once this distance is extended, missile weapons will not be able to function well.

Chen Ming knew that Gamma B didn't do it on purpose, it was just a mistake in cooperation because they were not familiar with it yet.

It's not a big problem.

Because in addition to the Cyber ​​SRM missiles on the Fighter class, there are two ion beams that are continuously attacking the Mule class.

Although the ion beam performed poorly at the diopter level just now, it was because it did not encounter a suitable environment.

And now.

I saw two ion beams hitting the mule-class shield at the same time.

There are also a large number of arcs flashing where the ion beam hits, and arcs and indirect electromagnetic pulses are constantly damaging the Mule-class hull.

This is the special effect of ion beams.

Its beam can intensify this part of the hard radiation energy while the hard auxiliary energy of the spacecraft rises, producing these arcs that can directly penetrate the shield.

The arc and electromagnetic pulse instantly paralyzed the mule-class weapon, and the flickering arc was still spreading to the side.

Possessing very terrifying suppression capabilities.

However, the pirates were not fools. They immediately closed the shield after clearly noticing the special effects of the ion beam.

Choose to make the armor hard to resist ion beam attacks, which are not very destructive.

The limitations of the ion beam itself were once again revealed.

However, there is one more thing on the Fighter level.

High energy focusing system module.

Chen Ming deliberately did not let Diopter, who also had this module, use it before, just to prevent pirates from being prepared and to be able to play its role in more critical places.

The moment the mule class closed its shield, the fighter's high-energy focusing module immediately activated.

Visible energy fluctuations like ion balls appeared on the ion beams at the two medium-sized load-bearing points on the outside of the ship.

The ion beam that could only slowly cause damage to the spacecraft's armor suddenly became thicker several times.

There was even a metal explosion where the outer armor of the Mule-class spacecraft was hit, and a large amount of molten iron spattered out as the temperature difference between the inner and outer layers squeezed and cracked.

However, such power and destructive speed are still a bit slow for a Mule-class ship with a length of about 130 meters.

With the cover of other spacecraft, it is impossible for the Fighter class to directly attack the engine.

Before the radiation energy value of the mule stage is dissipated, such an ion beam is not enough to paralyze it.

If it reopens its shield, the next wave won't have such a good chance for the fighter to get close.

But Chen Ming actually prepared something else at the fighter level.

Overloaded grid.

This is a modification that Chen Ming chose to install on the Fighter class after thinking about it two days ago.

After all, the explosion in all aspects in this instant is really useful.

Moreover, the overload power grid installed by Chen Ming was an overload power grid technology that he found on the Internet after 30 years of development and improvement.

And when he was checking out the new overload power grid technology, Chen Ming also realized where he had seen the term Ludd before.

It was on his terminal, the name of the professional book that recorded overloaded power grids and a series of other dangerous modification techniques.

The modification of the overloaded power grid was made by the people of Lourdes Zuoding.

They seem to be using these technologies to announce their existence to the outside world.

However, apart from the updated professional book, Chen Ming did not find any other records about the people of Ludzuo Path.

Chen Ming doesn't know how the people at Ludzuo Path are doing, but their technology is really useful.

So Chen Ming didn't care who invented this technology.

It's enough if it works and is easy to use.

like now.

With the dual support of overloaded power grid and high-energy focusing system.

The intensity of the ion beam emitted by the Fighter class is enough to generate an electromagnetic pulse on its own, bursting out with terrifying power that the Mule class's armor cannot withstand.

The armor was penetrated almost instantly, forcing other ships to stay close to the Mule class to block the ion beam that could ionize almost everything.

At this moment, the modified fuel ship that Chen Ming had been paying close attention to finally took action.

Although it only has a very rudimentary shield directly in front of the hull, and the armor on the sides looks almost the same as none.

But the armor on its front is very thick and seems to be able to withstand most attacks from the front.

Chen Ming can probably guess why it has such a design.

In order to be able to rush to the target, the armor will also become fragments that increase the power of the explosion.

Just as Chen Ming thought, the fuel transport ship suddenly broke away from the fleet from the side away from the Fighter class.

It adjusted its direction and aimed at the front of the pirate fleet. It had just dissipated all the radiation and reopened the shield of the Centurion.

After Chen Ming paid attention in advance and explained to Gamma B before, the second priority target was it.

The Fighter class, which had just used its maneuverability to pull away the pirate ship and completely paralyze the Mule class, changed its target and prepared to deal with the fuel ship from the side.

But what Chen Ming didn't expect was that the tail of this heavily modified fuel ship suddenly spewed out a large amount of red-orange tail flames like a fighter starting a plasma thruster.

The surging flames pushed the fuel ship to an extremely exaggerated instantaneous acceleration, reaching the fastest speed that could be achieved in hyperspace in less than two seconds.

It crashed into the Centurion class.

Even if the fighter class rushes back at the fastest speed, it will be too late to deal with it.

The Centurion, which had just recovered, had no time to speed up and avoid it, and its firepower was not enough to instantly penetrate the ridiculously thick frontal armor, so it could only resist the self-destruction attack.

In the blink of an eye, the fuel transport ship hit the shield that the Centurion had activated in advance.

Under the high-speed impact of the massive entity, the radiation energy of the Centurion class surged instantly.

Before Chen Ming had time to react, the radiation energy generated by the Centurion's attack was already close to the upper limit of its capacity.

Fortunately, there is a trigger device on the Centurion class that he specially installed earlier.

When the spacecraft's radiation energy is about to reach its limit, it will activate and automatically close the spacecraft's shield.

Unless there is a more powerful weapon that can instantly overload the Centurion-class radiation, it is absolutely impossible for the Centurion-class to be overloaded due to the shield.

In addition, according to another design of Chen Ming, this triggering device will also activate the damping position device when it is triggered.

The moment the Centurion-class hull was covered by the damping mechanism, the modified Drum-class fuel transport ship automatically detonated itself.

A fireball several hundred meters long suddenly appeared in space.

Chen Ming became nervous unconsciously when he saw this.

The boss had reminded him of the craziness of Lourdes Left Path before, but he didn't expect that he still fell into the trap even though he was prepared.

However, he immediately noticed that the Centurion was not disconnected from the spacecraft he controlled.

It has withstood this wave of explosions.

The three-dimensional imaging of the panel also showed the Centurion-level situation in the fireball.

Its frontal armor mixed with dolomite steel has been completely damaged, revealing a hull structure covered with a large number of melting traces and impact cracks.

Although the armor in other directions did not suffer the damage caused by the self-explosion head-on, it also suffered a lot of damage.

In addition, the Centurion-class internal equipment also suffered many minor damages due to the impact of the explosion, and it may directly shut down after running for a while.

But at least the Centurion is still running.

As long as it is not destroyed instantly, Chen Ming can save it.

Chen Ming immediately selected repair on the panel.

A large amount of material in the storage compartment of the Iron Mine melted into a liquid state, flowed into Chen Ming's palm, and disappeared from Chen Ming's eyes.

After consuming a considerable amount of mental power, these disappeared metallic liquids appeared in the Centurion cabin in the fireball.

The damage to the spacecraft's hull, armor and weapons was quickly repaired.

At this time, the damping equipment just shut down due to imminent overload, and the fireball also dispersed.

The fuel transport ship was self-exploded and no trace of wreckage was left.

But the Centurion emerged unscathed from everyone and everyone on the battlefield, and everyone who wasn't.

On the Mule class, which has been penetrated by the Fighter class and all the frigates protecting it, and its engines have been disabled.

The pirate leader looked at this scene with some numbness.

Feeling the desperate atmosphere in the spaceship, he slumped down on the chair.

He knew very well that even a destroyer or even a cruiser would suffer at least some damage as long as the self-destruction ship modified by Lude's Left Path came close to it after suffering the horrific self-destruction.

There was only one possibility of an unscathed situation like the military ship in front of me.

"Psyker..."

(End of this chapter)