A collective, barely suppressed gasp echoed through the bridge.
Artillery Execution.
Everyone knew exactly what that word meant.
It meant using the ship's main cannon to blast the deserter's vessel into dust right in front of everyone.
No matter how many people were on that ship.
No matter if those people were innocent.
To flee was to die.
Captain Anderson's face also paled slightly.
But he quickly regained his composure.
He turned and shouted at the communications officer.
"Communications officer, transmit that order immediately!"
The communications officer froze for a second.
Then, snapping back to reality, he swiftly replied.
"Yes, sir!"
His fingers danced rapidly across the control console, encrypting and sending Fox's command.
On the screen, a thousand starships began to move slowly.
They were the second wave of cannon fodder.
N-12 Jump Point, battle airspace.
The fighting here was far more brutal than in the Z-78 sector.
This wasn't a one-sided slaughter.
This was a meat grinder.
The Army Breaker Fleet and the General Slayer Fleet, with over forty thousand warships, were fiercely assaulting the Erebus Fleet's direct-attached combined fleet.
But the pace of the assault was being stubbornly bogged down by an utterly shameless tactic.
Those retrofitted civilian starships were pushed to the very front.
Each hull was hastily welded with a few cannons and several torpedo launch tubes.
They formed a dense formation, like a moving wall, blocking the path of the Imperial regular warships.
And the Empire's regular warships.
The real T5-class Battleships, T4-class Cruisers...
All hid behind that wall.
Everyone could see it.
Those retrofitted ships, those forcibly conscripted civilians, those ordinary people who didn't even have their military uniforms on properly.
They were there to take the bullets.
To stand in front of the regular military.
To trade their lives for the regulars' survival.
And the moment the Federation Fleet chose to attack those retrofitted ships,
The Imperial regular warships in the rear would seize the attack interval, peek out from behind the wall, and take a vicious bite.
A Federation Destroyer had just sunk a modified cargo ship and hadn't had time to reload.
Three Imperial Cruisers suddenly surged out from behind the wall.
Beams, missiles, torpedoes.
All slammed into that Destroyer.
The flash of a sympathetic detonation erupted where the Destroyer had been.
Similar scenes were playing out in every corner of the battlefield.
A Federation Cruiser was simultaneously besieged by over a dozen retrofitted ships.
The artillery fire from those ships couldn't even pierce its shield, but they were closing in.
Then ramming into it.
And the Imperial regular warships behind them charged out as well.
One volley, even though their allied forces were still within range, the attack didn't stop.
That Cruiser suffered devastating damage, and the retrofitted starship beside it fared no better.
Both were destroyed together!
On the bridge of the Army Breaker Fleet Flagship City Crusher, Admiral Chen Song stared at the tactical screen, his face ashen.
On the screen, the blue dots representing the Federation Fleet were slowly retreating.
It wasn't a rout.
They were being forced to adjust their formation by that shameless tactic.
And those retrofitted ships blocking the very front.
Those red dots.
Were extinguishing at an alarming rate.
One after another.
Batch after batch.
But behind them, there were still more.
Endless.
Like it could never be filled.
Chen Song's fists clenched until they creaked.
He slammed the armrest beside the Command Seat with a sudden force.
That loud noise exploded throughout the entire Bridge.
"Damn it!"
His voice echoed in the Bridge, carrying an uncontrollable fury.
"Those damned Imperial barbarians!"
He pointed at the retrofitted ships on the screen, his voice growing louder.
"They're throwing every dirty trick at us!"
A staff officer beside him whispered.
"Commander, they're exploiting loopholes in the Interstellar War Law..."
Chen Song glared at him.
"Of course I know that!"
He pointed at those retrofitted ships on the screen.
"Civilian starships, fitted with a few close-in defense laser cannons, and they're suddenly warships?"
His chest heaved violently.
"And they can just openly use them to block fire?!"
No one in the Bridge dared to respond.
Chen Song took a deep breath and sat back in his chair.
He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.
A few seconds later, he opened them.
Those eyes no longer held the earlier fury.
Only a cold, calm chill remained.
He spoke.
"Since the Empire has sunk to such shameless depths..."
He paused, then continued.
"Then we have nothing left to hold back."
The Communications officer looked up at him.
Chen Song stood up and walked to the Command Console.
His gaze fell on the Tactical Screen.
His voice rang out in the Bridge, each word clear.
"Full Fleet, press forward."
"Fight with everything you've got."
"Don't spare ammunition or energy."
He paused, his voice suddenly rising.
"What we need to do now..."
"Is to capture this Warp Point as quickly as possible!"
The orders spread throughout the entire Fleet in a thousandth of a second.
The Federation warships that had been holding position in the rear all began accelerating simultaneously.
Battleships, Cruisers, Escort Ships, Aircraft Carriers.
One after another, they surged out from the rear formation, merging into the fleet already engaged in bitter combat on the front line.
The artillery fire on the battlefield instantly intensified by more than double.
Beams shot from the gun muzzles of the Federation warships, no longer tentative burst fire, but sustained, furious sweeping fire.
The retrofitted ships blocking the front were pierced, torn apart, and vaporized one after another.
The Federation Fleet no longer cared about their survival.
No longer cared about how many people were on those ships.
No longer cared if they were innocent.
Because war never cared about such things.
A modified cargo ship had just charged forward when it was simultaneously hit by three Main Cannons.
It disintegrated in the explosion, turning into a cloud of Debris.
Another passenger ship, before it could even get close, was ripped open by dozens of large holes from concentrated secondary cannon firepower.
A mining ship attempted to ram a Federation Battleship, but while still thousands of kilometers away, it was blown in half by Interceptor Missiles.
Meanwhile, on the opposing Imperial Fleet.
Eternal Night Battleship, Bridge.
General Rockwell stood before the Command Console, staring at the Tactical Screen.
On the screen, the situation on the battlefield was rapidly deteriorating.
The wall formed by the retrofitted ships was being peeled away layer by layer by the Federation Fleet.
One ship after another.
Batch after batch.
Starships kept exploding, their flames filling the entire Viewport.
Rockwell's brow was tightly furrowed, almost knotted in the middle.
He had known this moment would come.
The Federation wasn't stupid.
They couldn't be held back forever by such rogue Tactics.
But he hadn't expected it to come this quickly.
The adjutant's voice sounded behind him, tinged with a barely suppressed tension.
"Reporting, Commander!"
He paused, then quickly recited the data.
"Currently, the number of remaining retrofitted starships is forty thousand."
"Those destroyed by the Federation..."
His voice trembled slightly.
"Exceed thirty thousand."
Rockwell's brow furrowed even tighter.
The first batch of conscripted starships had allocated fifty thousand for rotation.
Later, half of those were assigned to the L-7 Jump Point.
Thus, the N-12 Jump Point possessed only a little over seventy thousand retrofitted starships.