Chapter 150 (1/2)

Chapter 150

Plan Start

An hour before the start of the invasion, Lucas started lining up s.h.i.+ps. Placing his stealth s.h.i.+p in orbit around the seventh planet, he ordered its stealth systems to be activated ten minutes before the enemy usually invaded.

Communicating with the AI, he coordinated their attacks. Aslo, Chu Shen, and Chrissa were not allowed to partic.i.p.ate in this fight. He was worried they might do something dumb like activate their teleporters.

Currently the only technology they wanted to reveal was the railgun turrets. Just that should be enough to make the drones want to run and inform their ‘masters’ of the advanced technology they had. There was no need to inform the enemy of their other capabilities such as the tachyon cannon.

Right now they had matched the enemy's numbers with the AI’s s.h.i.+ps. It apparently had never stopped manufacturing s.h.i.+ps, even though its industrial capabilities was badly outmatched.  The battles.h.i.+ps were the only s.h.i.+ps that were not made by the AI and had been replaced by Lucas’ battles.h.i.+ps.

This fleet had positioned themselves in orbit around the sixth planet, placing the planet between them and the emergence point of the invaders so as to avoid detection. At the expected time, the enemy jumped in. Now it was time to wait.

Finally, it was time to enact their plan.

First, the AI moved all of its s.h.i.+ps towards the enemy. Fighters launched and engaged in dogfights with the enemy’s fighters. Lasers and plasma bolts streaked across the void of s.p.a.ce, causing s.h.i.+elds to flare to life all over the arena. s.h.i.+ps exploded as their s.h.i.+elds failed, exposing their weak armor to the rigours of superheated plasma.

After thirty minutes, the entire AI fleet had been wiped out. The enemy only had a third of their fleet left with most of it being the heavy battles.h.i.+ps and some destroyers. Without the support of their own battles.h.i.+ps, since Lucas’ was withholding them at the moment, they didn’t have enough firepower to take down the heavily s.h.i.+elded behemoths.

As a result, they were limited to harrying actions on the battles.h.i.+ps and mainly focused on the less-protected destroyers and fighters. At the same time though, the enemy battles.h.i.+ps only had large-bore plasma cannons and laser arrays.

The huge weapons, while powerful, couldn’t turn as fast as their smaller counterparts. As a result, they couldn’t keep up with the smaller s.h.i.+ps agility, though they were able to come to bear on some of the destroyers. It had come down to each sides smaller s.h.i.+ps clas.h.i.+ng with the occasional lucky hit landed by the enemy battles.h.i.+ps.

Now that the AI’s fleet was destroyed, it was Lucas’ time to s.h.i.+ne. The enemy s.h.i.+ps turned towards him and lit up their engines. The handful of fighters shot towards the front of his formation. Before they came into laser range though, the suddenly split apart, going completely vertical.

Lucas realized they were just trying to distract his s.h.i.+ps and draw fire. Ignoring the pitiful attempts at distraction, he ordered his battles.h.i.+ps forwards in an arrow formation. His s.h.i.+ps were layered so that each one had a clear view of the s.p.a.ce in front of it.

Firing their railguns, Lucas’ battles.h.i.+ps focused on the enemy battles.h.i.+ps, completely ignoring the more agile destroyers. The railguns range was, theoretically, unlimited. The projectiles would continue through the void of s.p.a.ce, unhindered by the confines of gravity. Lasers and plasma, on the other hand, would lose focus and dissipate.

As a result, Lucas’ battles.h.i.+ps was able to fire as soon as he ordered. They were currently outside of laser range, meaning there was no return fire yet. Soon, the enemy started to realize something was wrong.