He had even boasted to the generals who questioned him during the combat briefing, declaring that any resistance was meaningless before Peace Maker's nuclear fire. Yet reality had shattered all his confidence and arrogance in the most ruthless, humiliating manner possible.
With just the first blast, more than half of the Earth Alliance's proud massive fleet had been lost.
The gigantic beam that pierced through the sea of stars possessed power beyond the scope of conventional weapons. The ships lucky enough to escape the beam's path were immediately besieged by the ZAFT MS forces, fired up as though they had been injected with stimulants. The returning ships and MS had suffered severe damage, but compared to the material losses, what troubled him more was the vacant look in the eyes of the surviving pilots and soldiers, now dominated by overwhelming terror. Their spirits had already broken, their morale utterly gone. There was no hope of them playing any role in the battles to come.
However, Djibril no longer had the energy to care whether those expendables lived or died.
"Captain! The Churchill has sent an emergency transmission!" A communications controller suddenly turned around, his voice shrill with tension. "Their main engine section has suffered severe damage, and their life-support systems are failing rapidly! They request that we immediately dispatch rescue forces to assist with the crew's evacuation!"
Although it had barely managed to flee to this relatively safe sector of space, the Churchill had clearly reached its end. The structural damage inside the vessel was beyond recovery, and its only remaining hope lay in rescue from the flagship Doolittle.
Upon hearing this, Colonel Sutherland merely cast an indifferent glance at the blinking point of light representing the Churchill on the screen, then issued his order in a completely emotionless tone.