At that moment, General Mergash aboard the Radiant Knight had no time to worry about the movements of those "sub-light-speed bombing boats." He was focused on ordering the fleet to turn, keeping an eye on the carrier's movements and the landing battle, while trying to cover the Phoenixes' approach with gunfire.
It was true that his side had been forced into the inferior position in the artillery engagement, but that was a price worth paying. If their position was unfavorable, then they would have to overcome it with better gunnery and heavier firepower.
So the Imperial fleet's gunners simply tossed their gunnery manuals aside and kept firing on the Commonwealth fleet at a rate more than twice the safety standard. Whether the capacitors would overload or the wiring overheat was no longer something they needed to worry about.
The Imperial military's damage control teams had always been highly capable, even more renowned than the gunners and assault troops. Surely they wouldn't let the ships suffer any fatal damage. As for whether the main guns might burn out from overloading... that was a problem for after the battle.
Then, in the brief span of fifteen minutes, the Imperial fleet, already at a disadvantage in the artillery exchange, took six orbital cannon shells, two laser-lance strikes, one ion-cannon blast, and a sub-light-speed missile to the face. Taking a few hits was one thing, but the sub-light-speed missile appeared to have carried some unknown specialized warhead. When it struck the battleship Great Inquisitor at the front, intense electromagnetic radiation and powerful photon interference spread at once, knocking out the battleship's communications.
They were in an age of interstellar colonization, and their warships still had to communicate with signal lights?
Still, it was a price worth paying. General Mergash thought that, compared to the