Chapter 278: Countermeasures against Countermeasures

The Red Flag pirate base in the Shinoskia system has been completely wiped out, and this time around, we were gonna depart for the next target system the following day. We managed to clean up the Shinoskia system faster than expected so we got about half a day of rest, but if that wasn’t the case, then we would have departed for the next system – the Shore system – without any breather in between.

“They sure are in a rush.”

『Lt. Col. Serena doesn’t want to give the pirates that much time. The longer we take, the more trouble we’d face.』

“That’s a convincing reason.”

Mimi, who was checking the sensor systems, nodded in agreement. A few hours ago, a holo-video recording of the battle with the pirates in the Shinoskia system was sent over to us. The content of the recording was the battle of the marines against the half-humanoid mutant creatures that have already lost all reason. It showed the marines peppering them full of holes as the mutants rushed at them in a frenzy.

I told her that she didn’t have to force herself to watch it, but Mimi ended up sticking with it until the end of the video. Well, I didn’t insist that strongly anyway. After all, if you experience something like this even via holo-video, you might be able to react more calmly if you end up getting involved in something similar. In the end, she said something like ‘Space pirates really are hopeless fellows, aren’t they?’ and sighed. Her sense of pity for space pirates might have gotten worn down a bit as a result. Usually, even if you show mercy to space pirates, chances are they won’t appreciate it and even snap at you, so this might have been a good thing.

“What’s our estimated arrival time at the Shore system?”

『We are going to warp out approximately 15 minutes from now, Master.』

“Roger that. We better prepare so we can launch right away then. You can go ahead and take this chance to go to the toilet, guys.”

“I’m good here.”

“Me too.”

“Okay then. Let’s take a quick break first before warp out.”

I’m not inclined to do my business inside the toilet right now either.

By the way, after a full day’s rest, the mechanic sisters have already managed to revive completely. Well, they would have recovered in one shot if they went inside the med-pod for treatment though. They didn’t feel like it was necessary, so they didn’t undergo treatment in the end. Come to think of it, Mimi and Elma were also the same. Maybe it was a tacit understanding or some sort of common sense unique to this dimension that I wasn’t familiar with.

Was it Elma who said that pirates weren’t all stupid? I was also of the same opinion, and likewise, the imperial military soldiers weren’t stupid either. Or rather, soldiers and the officers who command them can be considered as elites among the people.

Of course, most of them were smart. There are some disappointments occasionally, but at the very least, Lt. Col. Serena was a very competent officer and commander.

“And this is the result.”

The pirate base assault fleet didn’t directly rush to attack the pirate base in the Shore system the moment we came out of FTL navigation.

“Well, of course, this was gonna be the result.”

“They sure are going at it.”

The large-class ships such as battleships and heavy cruisers mercilessly wiped out large swathes of mines with laser cannons set to rapid-fire mode. Their guns had much longer ranges compared to those sported by small and medium-class ships, so they can effectively clear minefields using rapid-fire barrages from a great distance.

In other words, the pirates scattered tons of mines in advance at the warp-out point, but Lt. Col. Serena predicted that, maneuvered the fleet to a different spot, and was now splendidly destroying the trap.

Of course, doing things this flashily practically announced our presence to the enemy pirates. But their escape routes have already been blockaded by the second fleet, so it wasn’t that much of a problem.

“In the end, hastily deployed mines can only amount to this much. I’m not sure if they only have normal charges or reaction charges, but this move simply sweeps all of them away with absolute force.”

“It kind of feels like this is something only the imperial military can afford to employ effectively.”

“Won’t they end up missing some though?”

“Even if they do, the ones going up first would be the battleships and heavy cruisers. I don’t think those mines have energy shield neutralizers like reactive torpedoes, so even if they end up triggering some, they probably won’t suffer much damage. After all, even Krishna’s shield can barely block an anti-ship reactive torpedo explosion once.”

The shield capacity of battleships and heavy cruisers was much higher than Krishna’s. In fact, their total output can be more than three times that of Krishna’s, and even Black Lotus, which can be treated as a nearly large-class ship. Furthermore, military battleships and heavy cruisers were equipped with energy shields sporting even more output than standard ones. It was very difficult to deal damage to them unless you used weapons that are capable of directly disabling or piercing their shields like anti-ship reactive torpedoes or the shot cannons Krishna sported.

“Does this mean we won’t have anything to do again?”

“I wonder.”

After all, large-class ships like battleships and heavy cruisers are absurdly powerful when conducting a group attack. They weren’t suitable to use in dense asteroid fields since they were ponderously slow and couldn’t turn fast for the life of them, but apart from that, they were pretty much unrivaled. That’s especially true when assaulting a fixed target like a base. Their overall range and firepower are simply leagues beyond small and medium-class ships.

In the first place, they’ll be facing off with ships capable of firing difficult to avoid large-caliber laser cannons from extremely long range. Most enemies would get destroyed on the spot. That’s what these ships were designed to do after all. Eh? What they’re doing was basically similar to seafaring warships unloading their ammo on the sea? Yeah, that’s basically it, I guess. In the end, all that matters is how capable they were to accurately destroy their enemies from long range.

Missiles weren’t widely used during space combat because of three critical weaknesses: slow projectile speed, short range, and extreme susceptibility to laser interception fire due to not having any shielding.

Missile-type armaments were no match for laser cannons in terms of range, projectile speed, and accuracy against moving targets. But since they were still fairly destructive and had the ability to lock an opponent’s movements by firing swarms of them, they were still popular to use in battles between small-class ships or chaotic outer space melees. But in long-distance bombardments like this, they weren’t all that useful.

There were also special missile types equipped with miniature FTL drives in SOL, but those were treated as tactical weapons exclusively used by NPCs. I wonder if they were also available in this dimension? Since they had stuff like suppression ships and reactive torpedoes, maybe they had those too.

“If the pirates can launch a destructive saturation attack against Lt. Col. Serena’s large-class ship formation, maybe there’s a chance they can still turn things around, but……”

While saying so, I kept a watchful eye on the asteroid field toward the port side. There’s a possibility of an ambush coming from there. Maybe we’ll get to play a part in this battle after all.

“Huh? The vanguard’s secondary guns are all turning toward the port side.”

“Whoah, are they really gonna come from there?”

“They might have deactivated their generators and hid inside there. At this distance, we can expect some to come barrelling in and launching torpedoes at the fleet.”

Although Krishna’s sensors haven’t detected any enemies yet, judging from the movements taken by the battleships and heavy cruisers serving as the vanguard, they might have caught on to something.

“This is shaping up to be a defensive battle. Let’s be careful and avoid getting caught up in friendly fire.”

“Yes!”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

After Mimi and Elma’s spirited replies, the vanguard finally reported the presence of enemies to the entire fleet, and an interception order was given out.

I wasn’t that used to defensive battles, but I guess I’ll just have to do my best.