Before the Commonwealth Fleet entered its jump trajectory, I Earl Odgar led his only battlecruiser into the Asteroid Belt.
This was a world formed by an endless expanse of ice-sealed meteorites, emitting a hazy glow under the dim reflection of the two binary brown dwarfs. At first glance, it was as if one had entered a crystal labyrinth from a fairy tale.
This was a dreamlike beautiful scene, but most of the crew on board had no mind to appreciate it.
This Clear Sky-class heavy cruiser, nominally belonging to the Bakerville Republic Navy, had been launched less than two months ago and still used the Imperial designation “Test 24.” In the Imperial Royal Navy’s sequence, this meant it was for testing.
Because it was for testing, the Empire provided such advanced weaponry, hailed as a perfect cruiser, to its loyal core allies (subordinates). Because it was for testing, and also to perform some secret mission, most of the crew were Buckwheat Birdmen, except for important command and technical positions.
There were even a few Bakerville officers on board who could “perform” the duties of Captain when necessary.
The Buckwheat Birdmen crew inside the ship were well-trained and quickly took their positions. However, the tension inside the ship was still so thick it seemed to condense into an unyielding haze.
Although the Bakerville Republic was an ally of the militarily robust Empire, we also know that within an international alliance, not everyone is a muscle-headed warrior. Relatively speaking, the Buckwheat Birdmen were more prudent pacifists, excellent at long-distance trade and hyperspace Explore, but their combat capabilities had always been unsatisfactory.
In a direct battlefield, the Empire would even rather trust those Kaitai who always loved to rampage.
The main Bakerville Fleet had always been on the other side of the Far Shore Nebula, coordinating with two small nations also subordinate to the Empire, confronting the Distant Shore Defense Fleet across the I Earl Star Gorge and the Luknar Corridor. But after confronting each other for half a century, not only had no war broken out, there hadn't even been minor accidental firings.
Aside from beating up pirates and smugglers, the last time the Bakerville Fleet participated in combat was forty years ago during the Commonwealth Independent War and the subsequent Milky Way Civilization War. Moreover, even in a war of that scale, their performance was not particularly noteworthy.
For these Buckwheat Birdmen who were not particularly martial, this was a very distant memory indeed.
This meant that the crew here lacked actual combat experience.
“How dispirited!” The Imperial Army officer on the bridge couldn’t stand it.
“It doesn’t matter, the Earthlings on the other side won’t have any real combat experience either! This is clearly a small patrol fleet!” The loud-voiced “official” First Officer Lainong encouraged the morale of the entire ship. His voice was indeed very loud, as if it could spread throughout the ship without the need for a communicator.
The Bakerville crew felt a little relieved, not because the First Officer had high prestige, but because his fierce reputation preceded him. After all, he was a Wolfgang, one of the minority ethnic groups within the Empire, who at first glance looked like a giant upright black wolf, and a particularly hairy one at that.
He was truly like a hungry lone wolf; if he found soldiers who were undisciplined or disobedient, he would “eat” them.
“Making your soldiers fear their officers more than they fear the enemy is also a basic military principle!”
And so, the tension, as if gnawed by two rows of blade-like teeth, immediately dissipated at a visible speed. The Buckwheat Birdmen, trembling, began operating the battlecruisers with almost numb and mechanical movements, but their efficiency also visibly improved.
Soon, the Test 24 battlecruiser indeed entered an electromagnetic quiet state. The kinetic main guns also completed shell loading.
The reason for not using energy main guns was, of course, to allow the battlecruiser to conceal itself as much as possible. In addition, the Clear Sky-class adopted the Empire’s most advanced energy hub and a redesigned conduction system, with its energy reserves and energy conduction efficiency being the best in history. As a result, a heavy cruiser with a total mass of only 570,000 tons was equipped with Dragon’s Breath Type 7 kinetic main guns, which are battlecruisers-class weapons for ships over a million tons.
Once fired, the shells would instantly traverse hundreds of thousands of kilometers at sub-light speed, piercing through enemies.
During testing, the Clear Sky-class kinetic main gun could easily penetrate asteroids, and even the four layers of armor on Imperial capital ships would be pierced.
At least, it was certain that the Commonwealth’s small ships would absolutely not be able to withstand this level of attack.
“Enemy fleet… jump completed!” The radar officer reported the latest intelligence to the bridge. He probably already knew the Marquis’s plan and automatically began referring to the Commonwealth Fleet as “enemy.”
The Empire had already generally understood the location of the gravity well and had placed probes smaller than drones nearby. This way, when their side discovered the enemy, the enemy would likely still be unaware of their presence.
I Earl Odgar opened his silver pocket watch, adorned with a ruby. It was precisely 18:21 on November 12, Commonwealth Year 830. He once again felt deeply impressed by his own brilliant and prescient foresight. Two hours earlier, when he learned that the pirate fleet had been ambushed, he had already ordered the crew to have dinner early.
The Marquis gazed deeply at the silver pocket watch, a gift from his goddess, the singer Miss, before they parted ways. The girl wasn't particularly famous, only a third-string understudy in an opera house full of geniuses. This must have cost her several months of income.
I Earl Odgar took a deep breath, pushing these distracting thoughts to the back of his mind, and returned to his stance as Captain: “Lainong, begin charging that!”
Kieyang Sky Knight’s eyes narrowed, his topaz-colored vertical pupils easily bringing to mind a venomous snake about to strike. He did not question, and swiftly relayed the Captain’s order.
“Seidel Torpedo! Begin charging!”
This was one of the experimental weapons carried by the Clear Sky-class battlecruiser, a mature anti-matter bomb.
Nations with even a little technological reserve were now developing anti-matter weapons, but the Empire was once again ahead of all other nations, having entered the final testing phase.
However, the Seidel torpedo was not simply an anti-matter weapon. In fact, its official designation at the Tiangong Institute was “Hyperspace Maneuvering Torpedo.” Rather than a torpedo, it was more like a small unmanned spacecraft equipped with a dimension bubble generator.
Seidel was the name of the God of the Firmament and God of Space in Imperial classical mythology, and so the Imperial Army referred to this new type of weapon as such. Of course, it could also be more directly called a “Space Torpedo.”
Dimension bubble generators, this was also a new technology that all major technological nations wanted to develop. According to scientists’ deductions, if fully mature, spaceships might no longer need gravity wells to perform hyperspace jumps. At that time, the development of shipping throughout the entire universe would enter a new era, a great era that everyone could hardly imagine.
But so many years had passed, and the dimension bubble still couldn't achieve hyperspace jumps for matter. The scale of its generator had also remained neither large nor small; it couldn't be miniaturized, nor could it be enlarged to create large space bubbles that could encompass ships.
Then, an Imperial scientist had a sudden idea and thought of weaponization.
Since the dimension bubble generator was neither too big nor too small, wasn’t it just right to encase powerful bombs?
When a weapon encased in a dimension bubble roared forward, all obstacles along the way, in a physical sense, ceased to exist before it hit the enemy.
Theoretically, one could even attack an enemy on the other side of a star—of course, this was impossible, even a larger planet would be impossible. Whether it was a star or a planet's core, the energy changes within them were quite complex and would inevitably have immeasurable effects on space generation.
But no matter what, this was still a new type of weapon that maximized stealth, suddenness, and “armor penetration.”
This thing was larger and heavier than a typical fighter jet. Even a heavy cruiser like the Clear Sky-class only carried twenty of them in total, and five had already been used in previous tests. However, the feedback from the experimental results was indeed quite good. I Earl Odgar was certain that a single shot would be enough to instantly kill the enemy’s largest ship type.
Of course, Imperial scientists believed that keeping dangerous anti-matter fuel inside the relatively fragile torpedo posed a significant safety hazard to the entire battlecruiser. According to weapon safety management regulations, fuel should be injected into the torpedo warhead half an hour before use.
Did this mean that the Marquis believed the battle should begin within half an hour?
The Imperial Army officers were eager to try, and the Buckwheat Birdmen crew, seeing the blood-thirsty Imperial officers, could only hide their fear in their hearts once again.
“Your Excellency, enemy fleet ship types have been confirmed!” Captain Balubek, the bridge intelligence technical director, began to report.
Only five minutes had passed since the Commonwealth Fleet jumped into this star system, and he had already completed a comprehensive analysis of the enemy fleet’s formation.
“Ten assault ships, eight Hammer 6 types, two Hammer 3 types; five destroyers, four Fletcher 4 types, one Kagerou 2 type; four light cruisers, model…”
Captain Balubek hesitated for a moment, which surprised I Earl Odgar.
“This ship type is not in the database! There’s an 80% chance it’s a modification.”
“Modification? A naval fleet?” Lainong was shocked. Pirates, smugglers, and other less reputable forces often madly modified ships, but he had never heard of a legitimate major power’s navy doing such a thing.
After all, your Blue Star Commonwealth is a member of the Galactic Civilization Council, are you really so undignified?
I Earl Odgar fell into a brief contemplation. Modified battlecruisers were either makeshift, ramshackle affairs full of a wasteland aesthetic that could fall apart at any moment, or they were often incredibly sharp and beyond common imagination. He certainly hoped for the former, but as an excellent Imperial military noble, he absolutely could not think that way.
“Can you confirm the original ship type?”
“Please give your subordinate five more minutes.”
“No rush, I’ll give you ten minutes.”
“Your Excellency, the enemy is beginning to broadcast across the entire star system,” the communications officer interjected.
“...Patch it through.” I Earl Odgar didn’t hesitate much. Then, a baritone voice echoed in his ears.
“Blue Star Commonwealth Wander Strike Fleet, final ultimatum to all XXXX in the Far Shore Nebula! You space rats gnawing on nebula droppings, Earth Dad is here to teach you how to behave! If you have any backbone, then obediently raise your XX and wait for X, do you hear me? I don’t care if you are Bakerville’s XX chickens, or Imperial XX rats! All of you, get spirited! If you don’t have the guts, then quickly flee in disarray and expose your XX for Earth Dad to see clearly! Don’t worry, we Earthlings are noble gentlemen, unlike you XX full of insidious schemes, we would never shoot you in the back! So, what’s it going to be? Give us a definite answer!”
The censored words were utterly unlistenable, and the entire message was delivered in elegant Imperial court language. For the Imperial citizens Present, the mockery effect was simply godlike.
I Earl Odgar scoffed, thinking that this kind of rogue tactic was only useful against pirates! How could I, a distinguished graduate of the Imperial Royal Knight Academy, be so easily provoked?
Most of the Imperial Army officers on the ship were also Imperial elites who graduated from the Royal Naval University and the Aerospace Academy, professionally trained, and no matter how angry, they would not lose their minds.
“Your Excellency! Shall we fire?” Major Lagdulo, the artillery chief, sent a request to fire, as if anger was suppressed between his teeth.
“...Not yet!”
“...Understood, understood.”
They didn’t disobey orders, which proved they hadn’t lost their minds, I Earl Odgar told himself.
At this moment, off-key singing suddenly echoed through the bridge, still in elegant Imperial court language.
“I Earl Odgar goes to invade, thrashed!”
“His Majesty the Emperor plays rogue, ran away!”
“Met a bunch of Earthlings, beat him to death, dead!”
“One, two, three Marquis Odgar, hand in hand to play with cannonballs! Hand in hand to play with cannonballs!”
“One drives the ship halfway, cut in half by a cannonball oh~~~~”
“Two hide out of sight, steamed in a pot by a beam oh~~~~”
“Three are still in their honeymoon, sawing logs in the Arsenal, whoa oh oh oh oh~~~~”
“New Marquis takes over, comforts the bride day and night~~~~”
“I Earl Odgar is a basket, putting all sorts of messy things inside~~~~”
“Putting them in ah ah ah ah~~~~”
“How many Marquis Odgar are left? How many Blue Eagle feathers remain? Still not going home to sleep, comforting the bride towards the future?”
The entire bridge fell into an awkward silence, lasting for almost a minute. Everyone was utterly shocked and speechless by such antics.
After a long while, I Earl Odgar exhaled a chilling breath through clenched teeth: “Are the space torpedoes not ready yet?”