Chapter 2602: City Wall In Space (1/2)

One of the most dangerous aspects about space battles was the lack of cover.

Unlike on the surface of a planet where hills, valleys, urban structures and man-made fortifications could easily provide combatants protection against attacks, in most parts of space there was nothing but vacuum.

These empty pockets of spacetime contained nothing aside from errant space dust and background radiation.

Suffice to say, it was impossible for mechs and ships to take cover behind infinitesimally small bits of matter and incorporeal light.

Aside from battles that took place in the orbit of a satellite or in the middle of an asteroid belt, a lot of battles devolved into straightforward slugfests. With an extremely simple three-dimensional battlefield, there were only so many tactics that enemies could deploy.

One of the most problematic threats that a fleet could face was getting sieged by an onslaught of long-ranged attacks. While kinetic weapons and other physical weapons tended to be horribly inaccurate due to the enormous ranges involved, the same did not necessarily apply directed energy weapons.

Positron weapons fired destructive beams of antimatter particles at relativistic speeds, which was pretty fast. Laser weapons were even more ridiculous as their damage output traveled at the speed of light!

When a laser beam traversed 300,000,000 meters a second, it became viable to snipe at distant targets at such ranges!

In practice, the effective range of laser weapons and positron weapons was not that extreme. The inherent manufacturing and design flaws of laser weapons and the instability of mechs as a firing platform meant that accuracy at such ranges simply couldn't be guaranteed. Just a minute jerk or vibration could easily cause a laser beam to miss a target by several kilometers or even more.

The ever-present threat of getting attacked from extreme ranges also led to a vigorous development of ECM and interference technology. Perhaps they weren't very effective at fooling the sensors of attackers up close, but their effect was quite good at such extreme distances!

Therefore, the effective range of distant sieging attacks was a lot shorter than everyone initially thought. Yet even if all of these complicated factors basically made it impossible to snipe small and difficult-to-hit mechs from an extreme distance, ships were not as fortunate!

Ves thought about all of the non-combat sub-capital ships the Larkinson Clan had acquired. These ranged from cargo haulers, logistical support vessels and even a handful of civilian passenger vessels that provided some of the comforts of ark ships to the clan's civilian population.

While they were cheap and fairly mobile, they were much larger than mechs. That made them very easy targets to snipe from afar. No matter how fast they could accelerate in space, their lumbering forms and the difficulty for ships to overcome their own inertia in order to change direction meant that they were relatively easy targets!

How could the Larkinson Clan defend against this kind of threat?

This was what Vivian Tsai wanted to solve.

”When we look at our current fleet composition, it is very much split in two.” She explained as she summoned the familiar projection of their ship roster. ”As you can see, we boast a good amount of combat carriers that can take a hefty beating, especially if they rotate their hulls in order to disperse incoming attacks over a wider surface area. Our civilian ships are not as well-endowed. Their relatively thin hulls mean that they can easily be carved apart even if they employ the same trick.”

Ves sat back as he silently summoned Bygul and stroked the electronic cat's back. The virtual avatar responded just like a real cat and squinted his eyes in pleasure.

[Mew~]

”I do admit that our civilian vessels are horribly vulnerable against sieging attacks.” Ves remarked. ”We'll probably try to obtain more robust vessels once we reach the Red Ocean, but that is years away.”

”That is one of the reasons why my team and I came up with the Gorgoneion concept. Her wall configuration can form an oval-shaped curved wall that stretches at least three kilometers wide. While this defensive configuration cannot provide complete protection for over a hundred ships, it is still good enough to provide critical cover for our most vulnerable and crucial starships. In fact, you can even hide the Spirit of Bentheim behind the Gorgoneion!”

Ves chuckled as he tickled Bygul's chin. ”That won't be necessary. Back when I ordered the ship, I specifically chose a ship class that possessed adequate defensive capabilities. With her resilient structure, adequate hull armor and powerful shield generators, she can take care of herself. It's best to let a ship like the Gorgoneion cover the more vulnerable ships of our fleet.”

”My thoughts exactly.” Vivian gleamed with pride. ”Adding the Gorgoneion to our fleet presents us with additional options that we did not have before. While we can rely on the defenses of our combat carriers and the Spirit of Bentheim to withstand damage in battle, the value provided by the Gorgoneion in many battle situations is incomparable.”

The Gorgoneion was but the first of many ship concepts she came up with that she had always dreamed of realizing. Now that she had joined the Larkinson Clan, she eagerly wished to shape its fleet according to her own vision!

Ves did not mind Vivian's ambition. As long as her ship designs were good enough, he had no qualms about adopting her work. They still needed to make sense, though.

”Setting up a giant wall in space is not enough, Miss Tsai. The enemies the Gorgoneion is designed to face will not cease their attacks just because they have to drill through a giant wall. We need to hit back at them. What kind of facilities can this ship provide to our mechs?”

”Well, just like the Spirit of Bentheim, the Gorgoneion boasts 80 bunkers when she is in her normal travel configuration. I know it doesn't sound very impressive, but that is the limit of what I can add to her exterior without compromising her transformation capabilities.”

The complex hull and internal layout needed to make the Gorgoneion transformable took up a lot of space that could have been devoted to additional bunkers. To Ves, this was a shame because it meant that the Gorgoneion didn't possess as much teeth during ordinary travel.