After thirty volleys, the surviving pirate ships finally reached a range of one light-second, barely close enough to scan the Meteor Fleet's position. The pirates, who had been forced to take fire without being able to fight back, could no longer hold back and launched a counterattack against the enemy ships.
Of course, unless they had Long-Range Artillery, firing from the edge of radar detection meant that shells launched from a distance of 30 kilometers would be nowhere near their targets by the time they arrived.
The Meteor Fleet made no attempt to dodge and kept firing. After six volleys, the closer range greatly improved their accuracy. The pirate fleet was nearly wiped out, with only the badly damaged Pirate Pursuit Cruiser left, crippled and barely clinging to life in space.
Two squadrons of Space Fighters then moved in. After three consecutive volleys of beam fire, they finally destroyed it completely.
The relatively long battle finally came to an end. The Meteor Fleet had won both of the battles it had fought in succession.
At that moment, he had a thought and looked at his personal panel.
Name: Lin Zhichen Elite Red Gender: Male Age: 21 Talents: Heaven Rewards Diligence Purple: Effect 1: Hard work brings rewards; practicing skills improves them. Effect 2: Members of his faction are also affected by this talent; Gate of Time and Space Blue: Opens once a month, searches for Spacetime Marks, and opens temporary instances; Psionicist Red: Effect 1: Awakens Psionics; Effect 2: Skill Learning Speed +10%; Class: Captain Elite Red, Expert Skills: 1-Psionic Cultivation Red, Warrior 38.12% -Fatal Strike Red, Beginner 41.23%: Fatal Strike +2% -Fleet Command Red, Expert 1.03%: Fleet formation change speed +18% Psionic Combat Skills: 1: Ship Command Elite Red: Effect 1: Ship evasion +25%*10; Effect 2: Sublight Speed +25%*10 Psionic energy cost: 50 Duration: 30 min -Sublight Assault Elite Red: Effect 1: Sublight Cannon Barrage precision +25%*10; Effect 2: Sublight Cannon Barrage damage +25%*10 Psionic energy cost: 60 Duration: 30 min Psionics: 317 Evaluation: Behold, my Flying Immortal from Beyond the Heavens!
"I've already advanced to Expert-level." Lin Zhichen smiled.
At this level, a skill could be psionically infused. But he certainly wasn't willing to start the transformation before it reached its peak, in case the bonus he gained fell short of its maximum.
"Big Brother, look at this." Wu Tianyi sent him a communication, transmitting a set of data. After it was decrypted, it turned out to be a map of an Asteroid Belt.
"This is data we recovered from a hard drive on the battlefield. Once converted, it became a holographic map."
Data hard drives were fairly common spoils of war. They often contained valuable data: perhaps rare technology, perhaps the location of a pirate treasure that could be opened to claim its contents, or some other item of value.
"Where is this?" he asked.
"I've already compared the data. The target star region is in this Asteroid Belt," Wu Tianyi replied. "It looks like pirate treasure, but it probably isn't worth much. After all, it was only a white-light drop."
Loot could roughly be divided by color into gray, white, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple. The categories weren't absolute, though; sometimes large, low-color loot could be worth as much as colorful loot.
"If it's on the way, let's go take a look," Lin Zhichen said casually.
After some comparisons, they quickly pinpointed the pirate treasure. It was on a small asteroid about eleven light-seconds ahead of the fleet.
After collecting the spoils and making a few minor repairs, the entire fleet set out once more.
With radar support from the Aircraft Carrier, the surrounding five light-seconds of space were within scanning range.
A squadron of Space Fighters flew around the moving fleet. Their small size was especially advantageous here: the dense Asteroid Belt posed no obstacle, and they weaved through it freely, guarding against any possible enemies.
With the carrier's support, Lin Zhichen could finally relax a little. From time to time, he spared a thought to adjust the fleet and keep it in the best possible combat formation.
A light-second was a negligible distance in space. They reached the target asteroid after just one day.
But the fleet stopped there. According to the radar and Space Fighter scans, a concealed Space Base stood on the asteroid, its automated turrets constantly turning as they watched the surrounding star region.
Lin Zhichen ordered the Space Fighter Swarm to probe the defenses. Dense Energy Beams and Electromagnetic Cannon shells immediately covered the surrounding space. If the NPC pilots' skills hadn't already reached Expert-level, they would have suffered casualties.
"Dapeng, can we take it?" Link asked on purpose.
Wei Peng rolled his eyes. "There's not even gravity. You can't keep your footing in a fight. How's the army supposed to fight?"
"Big Brother, I think we should just use the Space Fighters. We can burn those turrets down with beam cannons." Wu Tianyi pondered for a moment.
"Anyone below Expert-level should stay back. Send no more than twenty fighters at a time, and we should be fine. It's obvious those are automated turrets."
Automated turrets reacted faster than NPCs, of course. But their weakness was their rigidity and limited attack patterns. Once their vulnerabilities were figured out, they were just piles of Scrap Metal.
"Send an elite squad to test them," Lin Zhichen ordered.
In the end, Space Fighters were essentially cannon fodder, and their pilots had always faced a relatively high death rate. In the military, Natural Person pilots were more often responsible for directing NPC pilots than charging into the front lines themselves. The army worked the same way.
A squad of twelve fighters was immediately dispatched to attack the fixed turrets.
They were a handpicked group of elite pilots, most of whom had reached Expert-level in their personal skills. They were the most skilled personnel in the fleet at present.
"Bzzzz!"
As soon as the fighters drew near the asteroid, the pirate turrets swung around under radar guidance and opened fire on the incoming squadron.
Metal projectiles weighing hundreds of grams apiece swept across a vast stretch of space like a sudden downpour.
The fighters came under attack and accelerated rapidly, carving winding arcs through space as they did their best to evade the Electromagnetic Projectiles.
Every so often, yellow-glowing Energy Shields rippled as they blocked incoming projectiles. The fighters' sturdy hulls were pocked with dent after dent.
Back in the Planetary Era, planes could be brought down by birds. If that were still the case, the first ten Space Fighters would already have been wiped out. Fortunately, this was the Space Age. The Energy Shields covering the fighters absorbed most of the attacks, and their outer armor resisted what remained. As long as they weren't hit repeatedly, they could last for several volleys.
The NPC pilots, sensing that their lives were in mortal danger, drew on everything they had learned to dodge the projectiles raining down like a storm. Their comrades, who had caught a moment to breathe, immediately fired one Energy Beam after another at the pirate turrets.
Although Energy Shields were fairly resistant to Laser Beams, the metal turrets gradually melted under the combined fire of several fighters.
A dozen seconds into the battle, one Automatic Turret, hit repeatedly, was finally destroyed by the intense heat and exploded in a ball of fire.
Some Space Fighters had already suffered hull damage after being hit by multiple shells and had to retreat at once. Other fighters quickly took their place and joined the battle.
In just a dozen seconds, the fighters on the scene had already rotated through one full cycle. By then, all three pirate turrets had finally been destroyed.
With the threat gone, the dozen or so fighters swept their fire back and forth, melting the alloy gate. After it cooled a little, Engineering Machinery was sent to the asteroid to open the pirate treasure.
"Big Brother, it's a collection of valuable antiques. According to StarNet's estimate, they're worth around 300 Energy Coins." Wu Tianyi quickly compared the data returned by the Mechanical Person and reached his conclusion.
There was no big surprise, but that was what most pirate treasures were like. It might have been loot from some robbery.
"A small haul," Lin Zhichen replied. He looked at the NPC pilots who had taken part in the battle. Three lucky ones had already advanced to Master-level during the brief, intense fight.
Pilots of this caliber were aces even in the Federation military!
"According to some analyses on the military network, a single ace pilot can easily take down a hundred rookies!" Link had seen what happened, too. His perpetually frozen face showed a faint smile.
"Big Brother, your talent is truly incredible."
After gathering up their unexpected spoils, the fleet set off again, beginning its journey around the Solar System.
After destroying four pirate fleets in a row, the Meteor Fleet had been traveling for nearly a month when it finally encountered its first difficult target: a newly spawned Small Pirate Base!
By the scale categories of mini, small, and medium bases, this Small Pirate Base was far from insignificant. It occupied most of the volume of the five-kilometer-wide asteroid.
Among the fleet patrolling around the base alone were more than a dozen Pirate Pursuit Cruisers—space warships comparable to Cruisers!
There were also as many as three hundred pirate Artillery Fire ships and Pirate Raiders, bringing the base to the peak of a Mini Pirate Base's strength.
"This Pirate Base spawned less than half a month ago. Otherwise, we'd be facing more warships than this," Wu Tianyi judged from the scale of the base.
"According to information on StarNet, some Small Pirate Bases at their peak have fleets of more than a thousand ships, including at least fifty Pirate Pursuit Cruisers!"
"Big Brother, this base looks pretty strong. Shouldn't we think this through first?" Wei Peng advised. If they went with a head-on fleet engagement, they would inevitably suffer heavy losses against such overwhelming odds.
Lin Zhichen didn't answer. He opened the Gate of Time and Space. A month had passed, and this talent had refreshed once more.
A new instance? He was delighted, but when he looked closely, he was startled. It's Transformers?!
He barely hesitated before opening the Transformers instance, and soon learned the plot.
The instance followed the movie fairly closely. The Transformers, divided into two factions, came to Earth in search of the AllSpark, the artifact that had created them. The Decepticons wanted to take over Earth, and the people of Earth joined forces with the Autobots to fight them.
Civilization Relic*AllSpark Gold Passive effects: 1: Within a radius of one light-second centered on the AllSpark, allied mechanical units' attributes +30%; 2: Allied mechanical units within the AllSpark's area of influence gain the "Mechanical Life" trait, hull recovery +1% Activation effect: Consume 10-300 energy units to turn a designated mechanical construct into a controlled Transformer. Transformed Transformers have a small chance of becoming elite units and a tiny chance of becoming Hero units. Energy units: 300/300 Cooldown: 1 month
A metal cube with sides one meter long floated above the bridge deck, making the already cramped space—where the Psionic Crystal had been installed—even more crowded.
Lin Zhichen looked at the mysterious cube before him, a genuine smile on his face. This was the first piece of Gold equipment he had ever obtained.
Even the Psionic Crystal was only Red equipment. Between the two colors lay Yellow, a transitional tier. This Civilization Relic had to be quite a valuable treasure even in the Federation.
Leaving aside the question of what Transformers were, the passive bonus alone would cause the fleet's strength to increase dramatically, with immediate results.
"Big Brother, what did you do?" Wei Peng's loud voice came through the holographic projection. He had been checking their warships' attributes when, without warning, they had suddenly jumped up a notch.
After checking carefully, he discovered that the fleet had gained a 30% bonus to everything from firing range, shooting accuracy, and turret Charging Speed to radar detection range.
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