Chapter 158 (1/2)

Chapter 158

Wipeout

The huge manufacturing s.h.i.+ps floated silently through s.p.a.ce, completely oblivious to their doom hurtling towards them. Lucas waited impatiently for the ten minutes it would take for the railgun slugs to arrive.

Fifteen seconds before the first bombardment would arrive, something happened. Lucas’ s.h.i.+ps that were covering the outside of the manufacturing s.h.i.+p disappeared. He had previously ordered them to go into hypers.p.a.ce right before their bombardment time so as to avoid friendly fire.

The enemy still didn’t know that he could use hypers.p.a.ce modules inside a solar system. He could have ordered his s.h.i.+ps to jump away from the manufacturing s.h.i.+ps, escaping the stalemate they had previously been in. If he did that though, he had no idea what the enemy would do. Better to keep it the way he had.

Once his s.h.i.+ps were gone, the manufacturing s.h.i.+ps started to rotate their guns towards Lucas’ incoming fleets. Unfortunately, they had only just started to move when one of the six-hundred plus manufacturing s.h.i.+ps exploded! Lucas watched as one by one, the huge manufacturing s.h.i.+ps were destroyed.

Within one minute, a total of 100 s.h.i.+ps had been destroyed. Another 50 had been crippled in one way or another. Even more s.h.i.+ps came under fire as they went down the list of targets. Lucas had given his fleet orders.

a.s.signing each manufacturing s.h.i.+p a number, they would go from least to greatest, all s.h.i.+ps focusing fire on that one s.h.i.+p for two seconds before switching to another s.h.i.+p. In this manner, an enemy s.h.i.+p would be severely damaged by hundreds of thousands of railgun slugs for two seconds before another would suddenly come under fire.

One of the manufacturing s.h.i.+ps was finally able to point its gun barrel at Lucas’ incoming fleets. A surge of brilliant white energy shot out towards his fleets. Lucas was concerned but didn’t panic. Those fleets’ s.h.i.+elds were all at 80%. Previously, one of his fleets had taken a strike point blank and it had taken their s.h.i.+elds down by 40%. They had more than enough energy to block that one shot. That was, of course, a.s.suming that the energy beam actually reached them.

Lucas observed the energy beam as it shot out at half the speed of light. With such speed, it reached his fleet in a matter of seconds. The white beam had reduced to only a quarter of its original size by the time it reached his fleets.

This was caused by attenuation, when the energy would bleed off and separate into the void of s.p.a.ce. It was the same concept as shooting a stream of water. The water would stay together for a short distance but would eventually separate into many droplets of water.

For this reason, energy weapons were often much stronger the closer one was. It was the same reason that the destroyers’ plasma turrets were used only for close defense. They just weren’t powerful enough to go very far.

The energy weapon hit the s.h.i.+eld surrounding one of his fleets. It shuddered but held. Lucas looked at the energy drain. 5%. Clearly, the beam was severely weakened by the distance. Lucas let out a sigh of relief.

Then he jolted as he realized that there were still almost 400 other manufacturing s.h.i.+ps that could fire at his fleets. If each one could fire a single beam like that… It didn’t take a math genius to discover that his fleets would be destroyed if he didn’t think of something.

Giving panicked orders, all seven and a half-fleets suddenly started s.h.i.+fting and changing shape. All of the s.h.i.+eld fighters formed a huge square in front of the fleets instead of the seven large spherical shaped s.h.i.+elds and the one slightly smaller one. Lucas read the s.h.i.+eld as 730% percent compared to the original s.h.i.+elds. It would most likely be sufficient to block the enemy’s attacks.