Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 809: Fighting!
The Black Fleet drove all the way to a place only 20 kilometers away from Fleet Zero - this was basically the final warning line. According to the regulations of the Ark Fleet, if any non-friendly target entered within 20 kilometers of the fleet's stationed area without permission, the captains of each ship had the right to decide whether to open fire.
This is also to prevent the command center from being disturbed and the orders from being delivered in time, resulting in missed opportunities... A distance of 20,000 meters is already quite close for a battleship. It only takes a blink of an eye for the plasma ejected by the plasma cannon to cross these 20,000 meters.
As Yeager approached his mothership "Betelgeuse", he saw another Raven-class high-speed fighter numbered 017A flying out of the mothership's hangar.
That was Hans's phone.
Hans was not flying very fast. When he was heading towards Yeager, the signal light on the nose of the plane flashed rhythmically a few times - that was the signal for requesting laser communication.
Yeager released the joystick and switched the fighter to hover mode. A red communication laser shot out and connected to the opponent's receiver.
"The situation is worse than we expected." Hans said straight to the point, "To use the Chinese proverb, those who come with bad intentions will not come..."
"What did the captain say?" Yeager asked. Hans set out so late, obviously he must have communicated with the captain of "Betelgeuse".
"The captain said that we should never open fire unless it is absolutely necessary...Once we fight at this distance, even if we win, it will be a pyrrhic victory," said Hans.
"...Is the captain confused? The other party has already opened the interference field and is forcing us in the face. Is there still a possibility of peace talks?" Yeager frowned.
The main engine of the Night Owl-class high-speed fighter is powered by energy crystals, and the fuel of the external thrusters is almost not consumed. As for ammunition, except for the hundreds of machine gun shells previously used to sweep the ground and the unguided missile that "blew" the black fleet out, there was basically no loss. Yeager simply did not plan to return to the hangar for supplies and stayed outside. Once the situation changed, he would react faster.
(I have something to explain here. I have written about the term "missile" before, and then a reader asked me in the comments if I was from the island. At first I didn't react, but later I checked online and found out that we call them missiles here, and missiles are the name for missiles on the island... Let me solemnly declare here that the author is not from there. As for why the missiles mentioned in the article refer to rockets that use rocket thrusters to drive the warhead warhead, rockets without guidance systems, and weapons similar to RPGs.)
…
Inside Yagunakotor, the "front-line supply base".
"What? An unknown fleet?! And an unidentified aircraft carrier and battleship?" The Hound, who had no time to eat lunch until three in the afternoon due to his busy work, threw aside the half-remaining lunch box in his hand and jumped off the chair with his eyes wide open.
He supported the table with one hand, flipped over from behind the table to the front of the table, and grabbed Zhuoligetu's shoulder who ran in to report the news: "What's going on?"
"Four and a half minutes ago, Fleet Zero reported that a radio interference field covered the entire airspace, affecting all communications and radars. We dispatched fighter jets to conduct reconnaissance in the direction of the estimated interference source... As a result, a Raven-class ship casually fired a missile that blew up a stealth fleet approaching... If the pilot of this Raven-class ship hadn't discovered the anomaly, I'm afraid the enemy would have already been right under our noses by now."
"What about now? Has a fight started?!" the Hound asked.
“Not yet .”
…
Outer airspace, the Zero Fleet’s stationing point.
More than a dozen cruisers were lined up in a row, their energy shields were fully deployed, and various medium and long-range weapons were ready to go - as long as the black fleet got closer by another half a kilometer, fierce fire would immediately break out between the two sides.
"It seems that fighting is unavoidable." Yeager sighed and suddenly lowered his voice. "Hans, find a chance later to retreat to the back, and then find a chance to leave the battlefield... Anyway, all radio communications have been cut off now. You can make up any excuse after the war. Those guys shouldn't hold you accountable..."
"What are you talking about?!" Hans' somewhat annoyed voice sounded in the one-on-one laser communication channel.
"I have observed the configuration of this black fleet up close. Not only are the number and level of their warships stronger than ours, but even warships of the same level are far superior to ours... If the big guy in the rear cannot join the battle, we cannot win." Yeger did not say the rest of the sentence - even if the "Aguna Tor" joined the battle, the No. 0 Fleet would have suffered heavy losses before that.
Once the battle begins, at least half of the tens of thousands of officers and soldiers of Fleet Zero will die here.
Hans fell silent, and the communication channel fell into silence.
Yeager thought he had successfully persuaded Hans, and continued to persuade him: "Fleet battles of this level are all about cannons bombarding each other, and seeing whose energy shield collapses first and whose armor is penetrated first... Let alone old-fashioned fighters like us, even the cutting-edge transformable flying mechas can't play any role in this kind of battle. If we stay, we can only serve as cannon fodder."
"Then why don't you run?" Hans asked back.
"I am the captain of the air combat force of 'Betelgeuse'. If I run away, who will command the others to fight? Besides, didn't you just get married last month? I remember your wife just got pregnant, right? Do you want your child to be born without a father?" Yeager asked.
"Stop talking." Hans said firmly, "I won't be a deserter. If you say that again, I will report you to the captain."
Hans, sitting in the cockpit, glanced at his old partner's plane 300 meters away with a complicated look - he knew Yeager was doing this for his own good, but this matter still crossed his bottom line...
If there is really no other choice, they can only choose to put Yeger in the confinement room - as long as the "Betelgeuse" is not sunk, Yeger's life will most likely not be in danger. As for the trial by the military court after the war, at least he will not be sentenced to death 100%.
This matter can be big or small. To put it in a small way, at most it is "issuing wrong instructions to subordinates", and at most it is dismissal... To put it in a big way, it will be regarded as "inciting mutiny", which would probably be more troublesome.
But no matter which situation it is, it is better than driving the "Raven-class" towards the opposite black fleet - Yeager was right about one thing, in a combat force of this scale, their air combat forces are just cannon fodder.
Even if the enemy's warships turned off their energy shields, Raven-class weapons would not be able to penetrate the physical armor of these warships.
At this moment, the aircraft carrier battleship leading the Black Fleet suddenly fired a series of colorful flares into the air.
"This is..." Yeger took a look at the flares and was stunned.
This is a means of communication invented by the Ark military. When radio, sound wave and laser communications are all unusable and flag signals or other means of communication are also restricted, flares can be used to communicate with friendly forces in the distance. A simple single-shot monochrome flare can mean "attack" or "retreat", and multiple flares of different colors can also piece together some short words and sentences.
"What this sentence means is..." Yeger muttered as he looked at the trajectory of the colorful flares in the sky.
"If Fleet Zero chooses not to intervene in our next operation, we will not launch an attack on Fleet Zero." Hans continued with Yegel's words - he particularly liked to study this kind of thing during his working hours, so naturally he could read the meaning of the flare faster than Yegel.
"The next move? Let's not interfere?" Yeager looked at the black fleet, and then, as if he remembered something, he suddenly looked back, "I understand! Their target is not us, but the big guy we are guarding!"
This black fleet was heading for "Aguna Tor".
The next second, Fleet Zero launched an attack on the Black Fleet!
The opponent's intention is very clear, and the purpose of Fleet Zero since its inception is to protect the "Aguna Tor". The commander of the fleet naturally cannot hand over the "Aguna Tor" to this fleet of mysterious identity and unknown origin just because his own fleet is weaker than the opponent.
"Retreat quickly! Get behind the mothership! Be prepared to withstand the impact!" The experienced Yeager shouted in the team channel. At the same time, he pushed the joystick hard and drove the Raven fighter towards the tail of "Betelgeuse".
But because of communication interference, only Hans heard his command. As for the other fighters, they were still hovering around "Betelgeuse" in a daze.
Most of the pilots flying these fighter jets are rookies who have just graduated from the Air Force Academy and were added to the Zero Fleet not long ago. Not to mention combat experience, even their flight hours are pitifully small.
Just when these recruits didn't know what to do because they didn't receive orders from their superiors, the black fleet's counterattack had already arrived!
More than 50% of the fighter jets were directly evaporated, and the remaining few "lucky ones" were swept into the air waves of the aftermath of the explosion, lost their balance, and crashed into the energy shield of the friendly warship, turning into a firework blooming in mid-air.
In the first round of bombardment, all the fighter planes of the air combat force of the "Betelgeuse" cruiser were wiped out, except for the captain and the vice-captain, Yeager and Hans.
"Ah!" Yeager punched the armrest of the seat angrily. He and Hans hid behind the battleship to avoid this wave of counterattacks - and those rookies who died had no idea how insignificant their fighter jets were in this kind of battleship battle.
There is no energy shield, the armor is thin, and the firepower is weak... The air combat troops deployed on the battleship are only used to perform low-intensity tasks such as reconnaissance or clearing out a small number of indigenous creatures on the ground. On this battlefield, their existence is simply insignificant.
The reason why the aircraft carriers of the old era navy were so deterrent was that the nuclear warheads carried by the carrier-based aircraft had the ability to carry out long-range devastating strikes. A fighter jet with a length of about 20 meters and a combat weight of only 20 to 30 tons could carry enough weapons to flatten a metropolis with a population of hundreds or even tens of millions... This extreme imbalance between the spear and the shield disappeared after the discovery of the energy shield.
A military expert on the Ark said that if a "modern war" broke out between humans now, it would most likely become a war of attrition at the "energy level": the weapons of both sides would bombard each other's energy shields, and whichever side's energy shield could not withstand the bombardment first would be defeated.
Due to the re-balancing between offensive and defensive forces, the combat mode has become more primitive compared to the middle and late periods of the old era.
It was as if we had returned to the era of cold weapons overnight.
The Raven-class tanks driven by Yeager and his men were equivalent to the most "worthless" militia in the era of cold weapons - they had no armor, no mounts, and their weapons were just wooden spears and short bows with very weak penetrating power. As for the knights, who were called "iron cans", even if they stood there and let the militia chop them, the militia's weapons could not penetrate the plate armor and cause any damage to the knights.
If you want to kill a knight, you can only use the heavy lance and full metal hammer in the hands of the enemy knight, or a big killing weapon like a crossbow or a catapult.
"Yeger, should we... join the battle?" Hans asked. Although he had just firmly stated that he would not be a deserter, after witnessing the tragic plight of other fighters, he still felt a little shaken.
Yeger was right. If they stayed on this battlefield, they would be unable to do anything and would only die meaninglessly.
Moreover, without the ability to communicate with the mother ship via radio, they could not receive commands from the mother ship at any time on the battlefield, and everything had to rely on their own judgment.
This would increase the risk factor exponentially - not only would they have to dodge enemy fire, but they would also have to be on the lookout for indiscriminate attacks from behind.
Our warships will not stop attacking just because friendly fighters are within the attack range.
"Let's wait and see..."
Before Yeger could finish his words, a dense black shadow rushed out from the black battleship.
Yeger quickly recognized that they were the enemy's remote-controlled drones, each of which carried a large number of crystal energy bombs.
The only purpose of these drones is to crash into the energy shield of the warship.
"It seems we have work to do so soon." Yeger sighed.
Although he didn't know how the other party controlled the drones in the case of severe interference, since these things came out, it would be their air combat forces who would be responsible for dealing with them - the close-in defense guns of the warships could indeed clear out these self-destructive drones, but if the close-in defense guns wanted to sweep down these drones, they had to turn off their own energy shields first.
