"By the Lord of Starlight, is that Li Yali woman really this strong?" Irina turned to ask Elena: "My dear Elena, what are your odds against that woman?"
"Currently about fifty percent. There's too little known information to verify anything." Elena continued directing the fleet to expand their encirclement expressionlessly. She wasn't satisfied with just scattering the enemy - she wanted to completely devour them.
Irina fell silent. Fifty percent odds? Wasn't the opposing commander from civilian origins? Why wouldn't someone with such natural command talent from civilian background join the military?
Meanwhile, Li Yali and Liu Hai paid no attention to what Irina might be thinking. They were fully focused on directing the fleet's combat operations - after all, this was the first battle for both of them and their crew. Everyone's nerves were stretched taut, with even contingency plans for extremely low-probability leapfrog warfare scenarios prepared by the staff.
"How many fighter mechs have launched?" The thought had barely formed in Li Yali's mind when the control officer answered: "Currently 30,000 fighter jets and 10,000 mechs deployed."
"Cease fighter deployment." Li Yali began maneuvering the aircraft groups.
Over five minutes, both sides exchanged ten volleys of ship cannon fire. While the first three salvos scored repeated successes, subsequent volleys were largely blocked after the enemy reorganized their formation. Though over a dozen warships suffered severe shield armor damage, none were destroyed - their cannons remained operational, maintaining the threat.
After losing their command center early on, a heavy cruiser captain from the Katon Fleet stepped up, quickly regrouping ships into defensive formations while retreating under fire.
With light cruisers forming the main line and destroyers providing support, the mixed fleet's cannon fire was alternately absorbed by the enemy's rotating defenses, preventing their collapse for several minutes.
Fortunately, the fighter mechs deployed in waves had successfully approached the enemy fleet under cannon cover after these minutes. Divided into hundreds of attack groups, the aircraft began patrolling the enemy fleet's periphery, waiting for opportunities to dive in and focus fire on single or multiple targets.
Corvettes and destroyers had activated their close-in weapon systems at full power, energy output exceeding 15% of their reaction furnaces' capacity - severely impacting main gun recharge rates.
The aircraft groups' true strength lay in their numbers. While individual hits only dealt single or double-digit damage, attacks came in thousands. Combined with the rapid-fire nature of fighter aircraft guns - even sustained laser strikes could be maintained for over ten seconds.
Boom!
A silent firework bloomed in the void as a Katon Fleet corvette, after enduring concentrated fire from over a thousand fighters for fifteen seconds, had its armor layer penetrated and reaction furnace melted, triggering a catastrophic explosion.
With the first ship destroyed by aircraft, soon a second and third fell as fighters drew close-in fire, allowing mechs wielding dual high-frequency ship-slicing blades - supported by plasma floating cannons firing wildly for cover - to breach warship defense networks and make contact with hull armor.
After the Mecha landed on the outer armor of the warship, their high-frequency vibration ship blades operated at full speed, swiftly dismantling the ship's cannons under a flurry of slashes. In just over thirty seconds, the turrets and engines of a Corvette were destroyed, leaving the entire warship drifting on inertia.
With over a dozen Mecha now boarding the warships, the covering fighter jets quickly turned away, shifting targets to repeat the same scene elsewhere.
As the enemy canceled most of their main gun counterattacks, the fighter jets went into a frenzy, unleashing defensive firepower. The flowing defensive network formed by dozens of warships wiped out over three thousand of Liu Hai's fighter jets within just over ten minutes.
Even as the hybrid fleet's Intelligent Nexus coordinated the fighter jets to support Li Yali's operations, the main guns of Cruisers and above continued targeting enemy warships of the same class.
Even if Fighter Mecha happened to block the line of fire, the bombardment proceeded regardless—after all, they were just drones, easily replaceable by mining any planet. They were practically worthless.
Half an hour later, under Li Yali's systematic dismantling, the Katon Fleet's hundred-plus warships had been reduced to less than half. The Corvettes were completely annihilated, while only a handful of severely damaged Destroyers remained.
Only the Cruisers and above, with their superior shields, armor, and firepower, retained a fraction of their strength under the relentless bombardment and fighter jet assaults. But even they were now heavily surrounded, with little chance of breaking free.
Nearly thirty thousand fighter jets and Mecha, deployed in skirmish lines by the Intelligent Nexus, launched coordinated strikes on the enemy warships. Under the barrage of lasers, the already weakened Energy Shields and Deflection Fields collapsed instantly.
Thousands of Mecha seized the opportunity to land on the warships' surfaces, their ship-cutting blades leaving afterimages as they reduced the external turrets to scrap.
After dismantling the turrets, the Mecha breached the outer armor and infiltrated the warships, systematically clearing out the Katun Civilization's forces through the corridors.
The warships themselves were of no value—the goal was simply to eliminate the enemy's combat strength. Warships of different races had little practical use, as their systems and operational habits were incompatible. At best, the metal wreckage could be salvaged; otherwise, they'd be obliterated with a single shot.
Perhaps realizing escape was impossible, the boarded warships—now stripped of their turrets—quickly chose to self-destruct their Reaction Furnaces, dragging some Mecha and fighter jets into oblivion.
Witnessing this, Liu Hai nearly jumped in fury. The self-destruction of a Cruiser's Reaction Furnace created an Annihilation Cloud spanning thousands of kilometers—any fighter jets or Mecha caught within that radius were instantly annihilated by the Antimatter, leaving not even ashes behind.
The remaining twenty or so warships seemed to have found a way out. Nearly simultaneously, the outer warships detonated their Reaction Furnaces, wiping out over half of the attacking fighter jets—more than double the losses sustained since the battle began.
"Damn it, Li Yali! You have to keep them here! My tens of thousands of fighter jets and Mecha—gone! Billions of Credit Points up in smoke!"
Liu Hai's heart ached as he bled internally. This skirmish had yielded no spoils of war, and he had instead lost several billion Credit Points. Even though annihilating the entire Katon Fleet would earn him approximately twenty-three military merits, he still had to split half—eleven points—with Irina.
Converted to Credit Points, the gains would barely exceed ten billion, which paled in comparison to the losses incurred along the way. It was still a devastating loss.
While Liu Hai wallowed in sorrow, Li Yali knew she bore partial responsibility for the outcome of this skirmish. She had been determined to wipe them all out to recoup some of the boss's losses.
On the other side, Irina and her crew were also seething with frustration. Despite commanding three Battleships, their combat performance hadn't even reached half of what the Starsea Fleet had achieved. Sure, the enemy's mecha squadrons had given them an advantage, but their showing shouldn't have been this pathetic!