Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 816: Battle of the Ship
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Ke Lan tried to speed up the Yaguna Tor, but it was too late. Taking advantage of the disappearance of the energy shield, six high-speed landing ships had already attached to the top deck of the Yaguna Tor - they were like "fish stamps" attached to the big fish and the bottom of the ship, and no matter how Ke Lan turned the ship over, he could not get rid of them.
Just when Ke Lan thought of turning Yaguna Tor upside down and relying on the ground to "smash" away these landing ships, the six landing ships had already completed their mission and flew away from Yaguna Tor one after another.
These six landing ships are all equipped with teleportation devices. The troops on standby inside the ship do not need to leave the cabin at all, and can directly enter the interior of Yaguna Kotor through the teleportation device.
During the entire transmission process, Yagunakotor's own defense system was unable to respond at all.
This point is basically consistent with Ke Lan's previous guess - it is impossible to stop them simply by closing the transmission channel.
These troops that broke into the ship were directly teleported into the core power room of the Yaguna Tor without any obstruction.
Leading the charge were four heavily-armored mass-produced Fallen Angels. In addition to their own energy shields, each machine also carried three additional shield generators. Although the troops remaining on the ship launched a saturation fire attack as soon as they discovered the enemy, they still failed to break the defense field formed by the twelve layers of energy shields, allowing the enemy to gain a foothold.
These four heavily-armored mass-produced Fallen Angels were like a solid bridgehead, attracting most of the firepower of the Yagunakotor garrison. Behind them, follow-up troops were continuously pouring out of the transmission channel.
"Don't waste ammunition and energy on that damn shield!" Hound roared at the sight, "Tactical mecha troops! Encircle them from the side and cut into the enemy's two wings!"
More than a dozen highly mobile tactical mechas with air cushions on their feet rushed out immediately. They projected a series of hot smoke bombs, creating a continuous wall of smoke on their own moving trajectory. The gray-white smoke mixed with extremely fine metal wires almost covered most of the battlefield - in this kind of smoke, most detection devices would become useless, and precision guided weapons would all become blind.
In this kind of environment, all you can rely on is your fighting instinct and your sense of danger and timing...
The garrison troops deployed inside Yaguna Kotor were all veterans with rich experience, and the pilots were all "ACE". Although the hot smoke obscured all vision and detection equipment, the formation of these dozen tactical mechas was not chaotic at all - they drew two arc-shaped trajectories in the smoke and went straight to the flank of the invader.
When the dozen tactical mechas attacked, they had already replaced their main weapons with large-caliber rapid-fire shotguns for mechas, and the two leading mechas chose physical shields and flamethrowers for combat. The moment they received the order from the hound, the captain of the mecha squadron had already arranged the tactics: using the cover of thermal smoke bombs to directly crash into the invaders' formation. While the invaders had just come out of the transmission channel and had not yet formed their formation, they would directly disperse them. If there was a chance, they would kill through the invaders' formation from the side and rear, and destroy the four heavy-duty mass-produced Fallen Angels from behind.
This was not the first time they had used this tactic. Before they were incorporated into the Yagunakotor garrison, they often used this tactic to raid indigenous groups of creatures, splitting up the herds that had originally gathered together. Then, they would first concentrate their forces to eat up the small groups that had been scattered, and finally surround and annihilate the large group.
This tactic is not only effective against wild beasts, but also against intelligent enemies - after all, this tactic was evolved from the wars between humans in the old era.
"Keep moving! Don't fall behind! Start accelerating in fifteen seconds! Switch to a straight-line charge!" the captain of the tactical mecha squadron shouted in the internal channel. Although only the two mechas closest to him could receive the order, with the team members passing the order to each other, the entire squadron could keep up with the captain leading the way.
Suddenly, a ball of plasma flashing with faint blue light tore through the gray-white smoke and accurately hit the machine following closely behind the squadron leader - the machine didn't even have the chance to open its energy shield, and it directly turned into a blazing fireball.
Of course, there is another possibility - the pilot had already deployed the shield of the machine at the critical moment, but the shield still failed to block the plasma cannon carrying huge energy.
"Unit 2 is destroyed! Lieutenant Zara is killed! Repeat! Unit 2 is destroyed, Lieutenant Zara is killed!" The bad news was repeated over and over again in the team's communication channel, which made the squadron leader feel a bad feeling for no reason, but he knew very well that as a commander, he would never panic... If he lost his composure on the battlefield, the entire squadron would be finished.
"Don't panic! It must be a stray bullet... Lieutenant Zara just had bad luck..."
Before he finished speaking, Unit 3, which had just rushed over to fill in the gap, was also blown up by a burst of plasma...
"Unit 3 is destroyed! Bliss..." The pilot of Unit 4, who was following closely behind , hadn't finished his words when his unit also exploded. After a short explosion, the internal communication channel fell silent in an instant.
The squadron leader could barely convince himself that the first bullet was a stray bullet, but the second and third bullets could definitely not be explained by luck.
"Disperse! Everyone disperse!" the squadron leader shouted, "The enemy can see through the smoke! Disrupt the original formation, everyone, plan your own evasive routes!"
Although the air-conditioning was on in the cockpit and the temperature was maintained at a pleasant 24 degrees Celsius, beads of sweat appeared on the squadron leader's forehead and the palms of his hands felt sticky. If he had not been wearing gloves, even the joystick would have slipped.
My heart rate had soared to over 170, and a glaring red warning icon kept flashing on the heads-up display.
The squadron leader knew very well that his own machine might have been locked onto by the enemy. The reason why the enemy's priority target was not him who was at the head of the team was entirely because he was carrying a thick solid shield. Even if he was hit by a plasma cannon, he would have a certain chance of escaping... and the destroyed machines 2, 3 and 4 were all equipped with dual rapid-fire shotguns and did not carry any defensive equipment at all.
Unit 5 failed to fill the position in time, and the squadron leader himself was not sure whether Unit 5 was out of touch with him or had been killed by the enemy. But no matter which the situation was, he had now become a lone wolf approaching the enemy camp.
"So be it, I'm a lone wolf... Anyway, I've experienced worse situations... " The squadron leader gritted his teeth, threw away the flamethrower in his hand, and removed the fuel backpack on the back of the machine. Since the enemy could already see his movement trajectory, short-range and medium-range weapons like flamethrowers which were used to create chaos but had more killing power than actual killing power, were no longer meaningful. The heavy fuel backpack would not only slow down the speed of the machine, but once hit, it would also directly ignite the entire machine.
The squadron leader pulled out the mecha combat axe from his waist, held the shield in front of him with his left arm, and raised the axe with his right arm, ready to chop forward at any time.
At this moment, an indescribable feeling of palpitations spread throughout his body like an electric shock. Before his brain even had time to think, his arm had pushed down the joystick under the effect of muscle memory, and swung the right arm of the machine holding the axe forward!
An armor-piercing sword with a thick blade and emitting a dark red glow silently cut through the smoke, first cutting off the fighting axe that was across the path of the blade, and then slicing through a solid shield weighing several tons, and even cutting off the arm holding the shield!
"It's the machine called 'Fallen Angel'!" The squadron leader sitting in the cockpit couldn't help but widen his eyes. Although he, like Yeager, had never seen the performance of the mass-produced Fallen Angel in the Battle of the Ancient Bronze City Ruins with his own eyes, but not long ago, Mr. Layton of the God Hunters had described the approximate performance and data of this secret machine to everyone in the mecha unit... As "ACE", they knew very well that the performance gap between the Fallen Angel mecha and their own machines was so large that it could not be compensated by operating technology .
What's more, the mass-produced fallen angels who possess living CPUs are not necessarily inferior in operating technology to those "ACEs".
The air cushion nozzles at the feet suddenly turned, and the squadron leader's body suddenly retreated several meters. The Vulcan cannons installed on the wrists, chest and head fired fiercely in the direction of the sword at the same time.
The pouring rain of bullets greatly disrupted the smokescreen, and the squadron leader did not see the effect of the hit - but he knew in his heart that this 12.5mm caliber machine gun could only play a diversionary role at best against most enemies except for unprotected personnel and lightly armored targets, and the mass-produced Fallen Angel's armor had a Nino alloy content of more than 75%, and its strength was even enough to withstand direct depleted uranium armor-piercing shells.
"The 'Fox' mecha squadron is calling the command center! There are also 'Fallen Angels' in the enemy's follow-up troops! And they have the ability to lock onto targets in hot smoke! Please pay attention, command center!" The squadron leader didn't care whether the command center in the rear could receive the message he sent. While shouting into the microphone, he controlled the mecha to retreat quickly.
The smoke screen that was originally used to provide cover has now become an obstacle - the enemy can see me through the smoke, but I can't see the enemy. I am already at a huge disadvantage in terms of information alone, not to mention the performance of the machine.
With such a mass-produced Fallen Angel blocking the way, the captain of the "Fox" squadron knew that it would be impossible for him to break into the enemy camp alone... Only by joining forces with other machines in the squadron and relying on the advantage of numbers to besiege the Fallen Angel, would they have a chance of winning.
"All the machines in the Fox Squadron, if you can hear me—" the squadron leader continued to try to communicate with other machines, "Attention, from now on, it is forbidden to fire thermal smoke bombs. Those things cannot cover the enemy's 'eyes'!"
But what the squadron leader did not notice was that the mass-produced Fallen Angel that was originally located right in front of him had now circled around his retreat path with its far superior maneuverability than his own, and stabbed forward with its heavy armor-piercing sword!
With the sound of metal being forcibly torn apart, the heavy armor-piercing sword pierced through the chest of the squadron leader's body from back to front - that was where the cockpit was located.
The captain of the Fox Squadron didn't even react to what was happening before his entire body was carbonized by the ultra-high temperature sword blade, and the remains of his body were directly mixed with the molten metal.
"The Fox Squadron is completely wiped out! The first, second, and third lines of defense have been breached by the invaders! They are still advancing!" A soldier rushed into the command room of the base and reported to the Hound.
"You don't have to tell me! I'm watching!" The Hound shouted in exasperation, his hands resting on the edge of the holographic sandbox, his shoulder blades bulging backwards, making his already thin figure look even more bony.
"Since the battle began, there seems to be no good news coming back from the front." The Ghost Owl of the Gray Bird Hunting Group stood aside with a frown.
"Ke Lan! Ke Lan, can you hear me?" The Hound raised his head and shouted at the ceiling, "Doesn't this damn battleship have an onboard defense system?"
"No." Ke Lan's voice rang in the hound's ears, "The Alpha civilization has tampered with this battleship, and almost all the weapons that can be dismantled have been dismantled... You guys hold on for a while, I'm trying to find a solution."
"Given the current situation, you can only hold on for fifteen minutes at most. If you can't think of a solution to the problem after fifteen minutes, then forget it. You might as well think about how to collect our bodies!" said the hound.
"How about we retreat to Block 1?" Ghost Owl tried to suggest, "During this period, the hunters have already explored Block 1 thoroughly. With the area of Block 1, we can definitely use space to buy time... If we retreat there, it will be enough for us to hold out for a few more hours."
"No!" The Hound rejected Ghost Owl's proposal outright, "We can't retreat. The core power room is our last line of defense... We absolutely cannot give this place to those guys. Yes, retreating to Block 1 can indeed allow us to live a few more hours, but what's the point? We are holding these guys back to buy time for Ke Lan, but if the control of Yaguna Kotor is taken away by these guys, then the time we have bought will be of no use!"
"Can we try to blow up the control console?" Layton said cruelly, "Since Ke Lan used the control console to gain control before, if we destroy the control console, even if these invaders occupy the core power room, they may not be able to control Yagunakotor!"
