Captain Winter and his 101st Company had rushed over to provide support aboard the Wahoo 211, an assault landing ship. As we've mentioned before, it was a small warship designed for boarding actions and orbital raids. Alongside assault ships, it was the smallest of all the various types of spacecraft—a runt among runts—and naturally had no orbital bombardment capabilities.
And so, ever since the fighting began, the Wahoo 211 had been lying in wait in New Jade Gate's low orbit. The most it could do was serve as a reconnaissance satellite—and not a particularly good one.
The crew had assumed they'd be among the safest people in the conflict, and had been a little careless. So when they spotted three unidentified warships on radar, they were understandably thrown into a panic.
They'd already reacted a little too slowly. After all, space warfare went both ways: if you spotted the enemy, they'd spotted you, too. At the thought, the faces of many young crew members who'd never seen combat turned white with fear.
Fortunately, the other side didn't seem ready to attack. They simply activated their shields, opened the main gun ports, and kept advancing.
"C-Captain, what do we do...?" The crew panicked even more this time. They could tell all three ships were destroyers, each more than three times the size and tonnage of their own vessel, with firepower at least ten times greater.
Lieutenant Jeff, the captain, had a clearer view of the situation. He recognized all three as Imperial-designed Apocalypse Hawk-class destroyers. These ships were highly versatile, and the Empire had even granted its allies and vassal states permission to build them. Judging by their paint and insignia, they belonged to the Kaitai Kingdom's space fleet.
The captain took several deep breaths, trying to calm his pounding heart.