Battle!
After completing the Acceleration Buffer Fluid filling, the Lyra, along with the Mount Huang-Class Warship and Mount Lu-Class Warship ships, ten Callisto-Class Warships, and one hundred Escort Ship, trailing fusion tail flames, emerged from behind the asteroids and headed towards the Kun-Tai Civilization's Fourth Warship Squadron.
"Commander Yue, my fleet is about to engage the enemy. The current straight-line distance is 19 light-seconds. The enemy fleet's speed relative to our ships is 6% of the speed of light, and the velocity vector angle is 154°."
19 light-seconds is 5,696,056.702 kilometers. However, because the main combat firepower at this distance is beam weapons, humans are accustomed to using light-seconds as a unit, as it is more intuitive than kilometers or Astronomical Unit, and one can immediately tell how many seconds it takes for the weapon to hit the target area after firing.
"Commander Yue, the enemy fleet is shifting from a three-dimensional goose formation to a rectangular square formation and is beginning to increase the distance between each other. The outermost ships are moving towards the surrounding asteroids, probably to avoid our gunnery line of sight."
"Commander Yue, the enemy fleet has spotted our ship. The first seven warships have begun to adjust their attitude, and their main guns are at an angle of 167° to our ship. It is estimated that our ship will be locked onto by the fire control system of the seven enemy warships in 56 seconds!"
"Commander Yue, enemy ships No. 1, No. 8, and No. 13 have begun vectoring. Estimated bearing: ***. Estimated completion time: ***."
"Commander Yue, environmental parameters have been corrected. The Positron Cannon is charging at 7%, 16%, and 22%."
The voices of the observer, helmsman, First Mate, Second Mate, and other crew members could be heard on the Lyra's channel. These voices were converted into information and sent to Yue Yuan, who then made a comprehensive judgment on the warship's next move.
After being processed by the ship's Supercomputer, the information was summarized and transformed into a dynamic visual battlefield map, which was displayed on the star map in front of Yue Yuan.
Yue Yuan stared at the star map for less than a second before giving the order, "Side up rudder 15, main guns aim at the predicted position of enemy ship number eight, then advance at full speed to the side of Asteroid Number 4569, avoiding the enemy ship's salvo line of fire!"
"Order the Callisto-Class Warship and Escort Ship to accelerate and disperse, using asteroids and meteorites as cover, to carry out harassing attacks on the outermost enemy warships! Provide cover for the Mount Huang-Class Warship and Mount Lu-Class Warship to hunt down the outermost enemy warships."
After issuing the temporary tactical orders, Yue Yuan once again focused his attention on Kuntai's warships that were the first to break into the Asteroid Belt, as well as his own Lyra.
In operations relying on the Asteroid Belt, Yue Yuan couldn't personally command the positioning of other warships. After all, each warship made its own judgments based on its own location.
Therefore, once they actually engaged the enemy, he could only issue a general tactical order and then let each ship perform its own tasks.
A few seconds later, the Lyra Positron Cannon was fully loaded, and the Fire Control Officer pressed the fire button without hesitation.
The positrons, which had been bound by the magnetic field for a long time, rushed toward their target like wild horses, leaving a faint trail of light in their path.
The first shot, unsurprisingly, passed through the space a kilometer away from the enemy ship.
At a distance of 19 light-seconds, it's normal for the missile to miss. Instead of waiting for the second shot to recharge, the Lyra changed speed and approached the asteroid as ordered by Yue Yuan to evade it, and then waited for an opportunity to fire a second shot.
When you see someone else, it means that person has also seen you.
So after the Lyra made a sharp turn to avoid an obstacle, seven faint streaks of light swept past its original location.
Once within the effective range of beam weapons or Directed Energy Weapon, both sides' warships launched various preemptive strikes.
For a moment, faint beams of light crisscrossed the outer edge of the Asteroid Belt, like searchlights piercing through the clouds in the night sky.
The beams of light varied in size and interlocked, and their diffraction and scattering light slightly illuminated the originally dark asteroid.
From God's perspective, it looks like there's constant lightning and thunder somewhere—no, there's no thunder, just lightning.
At this moment, after several unsuccessful individual firing attempts, the Kun-Tai Civilization's warships launched another salvo. Nine out of the twenty warships were in salvo position. And so, nine beams of light instantly—no, after 18.4 seconds—crossed a distance of 18.4 light-seconds, engulfing a Callisto-Class Warship that was just about to emerge to conduct harassment attacks.
Two of the nine laser beams fired simultaneously hit their targets.
In less than two seconds, the salvo of energy cannons heated up the armor of the Callisto-Class Warship and burned a large hole in it. The ensuing explosion instantly engulfed the warship, and the splashing molten iron shot into space like fireworks.
The remaining seven Laser Energy Cannons, though missing their target, continued their momentum and, three seconds later, slammed into a quietly floating asteroid.
In that instant, the powerful laser energy burned bright spots onto the asteroid's surface. The asteroid, which was mainly composed of silicon, iron, nickel and other elements, was instantly turned into flowing liquid where the laser Energy Weapon was concentrated. The instantaneous heating and expansion caused this liquid, which had turned into magma, to scatter and explode into space, looking like a fireworks display in the dark.
However, before the nine ships that fired the salvo could cheer, just three seconds after the Callisto Warship was destroyed, a small flare-like bright spot appeared on the port side of one of the outer ships. Then, a series of explosions were seen starting from the bright spot and spreading instantly from the port side to the starboard side.
After a series of explosions occurred on the warship, other warships noticed a faint beam of light approaching from afar and turning onto the port side of the warship.
The even brighter light from the explosion shone through the hull of the Kuntai civilization's Quek-class warship, splitting it in two and cutting it in half.
The explosion hurled molten iron and charred remains of limbs into space. The gases that had filled the warship also contributed to the explosion, accelerating the separation of the two ends of the vessel.
"Damn it, it's that human Quake-Class Warship from before! Its main gun is Positron Cannon!" A furious curse rang out from the Fourth Fleet of the Kun-Tai Civilization.
Only that kind of cannon could destroy a Quake-Class Warship with a single shot.
"Get out of there! Those who don't want to die, get moving!"
"Retaliate! Retaliate! Ship No. 8, Ship No. 18, Ship No. 6, and Ship No. 3, Attitude Adjustment in unison! Hurry, the salvo parameters have been sent! Don't let that damned warship hide behind the next asteroid!"
A salvo doesn't mean all the guns are fired at a single point. Instead, it targets a wide area in which the enemy warships might move next, creating a coverage area. Therefore, the hit rate is naturally higher than when firing from a single ship.
However, salvo firing also brings a problem: because all ships need to adjust their attitudes in unison, their next move is more easily predicted by the enemy, and they are then hit.
However, these five Kun-Tai Civilization warships didn't care about anything else now, because the flagship captain of this small squadron was very confident in his judgment that the Quake-Class Warship, which the humans had just finished firing, would move towards the asteroid next.
She felt there was a chance the volley would hit.
After firing, the five warships no longer maintained their salvo formation, but immediately changed their next course of movement in an irregular manner.
The five energy cannons, like rays of light piercing the darkness, carrying the hopes of the Kuntai People, traversed a distance of 18.9 light-seconds and fell toward the target area.
37.8 seconds after the salvo was fired, the flagship of the Fourth Fleet of the Kun-Tai Civilization observed the results of the salvo as expected.
"Captain, we hit them! Both main guns hit! One hit the enemy ship's back, and the other hit the upper port side! Hahaha!"
"Well done!!!"
A joyful cheer erupted aboard the Kun-Tai Civilization's warship, but the flagship captain of this squadron remained clear-headed. She shouted, "Human warships have strong armor; two hits shouldn't sink them. Ship number eighteen, ship number four, follow this ship and fire a salvo according to the following parameters. While its power is decreasing, give it a few more shots!"