Chapter 60: All Annihilated
In the vast and deep expanse of space, with the dark red God-Enemy Star as a backdrop, an intense battle began.
But this battle seemed a bit strange.
Tom’s Mercury-class Battleships seemed to only care about charging forward, ignoring everything else.
They did not retaliate, did not perform tactical evasions, did not conduct interstellar reconnaissance; they did nothing.
They merely charged forward.
And so, projectiles from these unknown battleships rapidly struck these 250 "battleships."
The next moment, more than a dozen battleships exploded with a roar, turning into debris.
Tom felt no heartache; he simply endured the communication delay of over four minutes, doing his utmost to control the Clones, and going all out to collect combat data from those unknown battleships.
"They also use projectiles as their main means of attack. However, these are clearly not gunpowder bullets. Gunpowder bullets cannot reach such high speeds."
The maximum speed of gunpowder bullets is about seven or eight kilometers per second; it is absolutely impossible for them to exceed ten kilometers per second.
The reason is simple: the maximum detonation velocity of gunpowder is also around seven or eight kilometers per second; how could it give a projectile a speed of ten kilometers per second?
But at this moment, the projectiles launched by the opponent, observed by Tom, had a speed of at least 40 kilometers per second!
These were clearly not gunpowder bullets. Based on Tom’s understanding and future outlook on Human Civilization’s technology, he quickly made a judgment.
These were electromagnetic cannon projectiles!
Adopting a propulsion principle similar to High-Speed Ion Propulsion Technology, and using an electromagnetic field to accelerate the projectile, the bullet speed could be increased to approximately 40 kilometers per second at this moment!
Although the mass of a single projectile was very small, their speed was high enough. And with high speed, the kinetic energy naturally became high, and the destructive power naturally became high.
Thus, compared to gunpowder bullets, electromagnetic cannon projectiles simultaneously achieved multiple advantages such as high speed, high destructive power, and small mass for easy portability.
Tom’s bullet had a mass of 10 grams; carrying 400,000 bullets, the total mass reached 4 tons. However, an electromagnetic cannon projectile could be made with a mass of only 0.5 grams, so 400,000 bullets would only weigh 200 kg, greatly reducing the spaceship’s load.
Furthermore, electromagnetic cannon projectiles had even greater power.
However, electromagnetic cannon projectiles had extremely high demands for power supply. At the same time, High-Speed Ion Propulsion Technology also had the same characteristic.
Therefore, these enemy battleships must possess extremely high power supply capabilities. And such enormous power consumption could not be met by chemical fuels at all.
Even nuclear fission reactors would struggle.
Then...
They most likely used miniature nuclear fusion reactors as their energy source!
Another technology that Human Civilization in its peak era had not even mastered!
Generation gap! His current battleships and these enemy battleships had a generation gap of even more than one generation!
The difference was like fighting against airplanes, cannons, missiles, and drone swarms with a Maxim machine gun during World War I!
This battle simply couldn’t be fought!
But it didn’t matter; Tom hadn’t intended to fight anyway.
Even without a generation gap, his main body was on Loshen Star, and the battle was taking place on God-Enemy Star, with a two-way communication delay of about 4 minutes. How could he fight?
Then he simply wouldn’t fight! I’ll just go die, how about that?
So, after a short while, most of Tom’s 250 "Mercury-class Battleships" were destroyed. The remaining small portion self-destructed directly, taking advantage of the enemy not having caught up yet.
At this point, the opponents also seemed to realize that something was amiss.
Through spy satellites deployed in the distance, Tom observed the opponents’ subsequent actions.
They slowly maneuvered their battleships forward and began salvaging and analyzing the wreckage of his battleships.
These opponents were too strange; facing an attack, they neither dodged nor retaliated. Were they really here to die?
Given these doubts, it was normal for them to conduct further inspections. And Tom hadn’t expected to hide it from them.
That’s right, the so-called "Mercury-class Battleships" he dispatched to attack the God-Enemy Star’s stronghold were not battleships at all!
The machine guns, autocannons, missiles, radars, and other equipment on them were actually just empty shells, mere appearances, completely useless.
They were simply disguised by him using the shells of previous cargo ships.
The real Mercury-class Battleships were still safely hidden in the ground factories!
They were just some obsolete, old cargo ships; if they were to die, then so be it, Tom didn’t care.
As long as it could buy him time!
In the spy satellite’s view, Tom saw several battleships that had come to inspect the battlefield return to their mothership, looking somewhat exasperated.
If they weren’t exasperated, why would they vent their frustration by firing a few more shots at the wreckage?
Now that they discovered they had been deceived, what would they do?
Tom continued to observe closely.
Several days passed, and the unknown battleships still stayed by their mothership, not leaving, so Tom breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew he had guessed correctly once again.
The enemy indeed chose to continue defending, to continue waiting, waiting for his second fleet to arrive.
Tom believed the enemy’s choice was very reasonable.
After all, although the first fleet had no combat power whatsoever and was purely a deception, who could guarantee that the second fleet also had no combat power?
Perhaps the opponent’s intention was precisely this: to deceive them with a fleet that had no combat power, making them believe that the second fleet was also a deception, and thereby abandoning their defense of their home territory?
Since they had waited for several months, why not wait a little longer? Once the second fleet also arrived, whether they were battleships or disguised cargo ships, they would be completely annihilated. Then they could embark on a distant expedition to the opponent’s home territory without any worries.
Under these circumstances, Tom procrastinated for more than another month before the second batch of 25 small fleets finally arrived near God-Enemy Star and completed their assembly, then launched another charge.
It wasn’t that Tom didn’t want to procrastinate longer; he simply couldn’t. If he procrastinated any longer, the enemy might truly disregard everything and launch an attack.
But it didn’t matter. At this moment, he had completed the subsequent arrangements on Loshen Star’s home territory, and all necessary tasks had been done. This second fleet could go to its death.
The process of this battle remained without suspense. The 250 cargo ships disguised as battleships were all annihilated in less than a few hours.
Through the spy satellite’s view, Tom saw the opponent’s subsequent actions.
A total of 45 battleships, all converged around the mothership with unprecedented efficiency, completing resupply in the shortest amount of time, and then assembling in the shortest amount of time. The next moment, they simultaneously started their engines, eager to launch a distant expedition and eliminate this annoying opponent.
But the next moment, Tom saw that these 45 powerful battleships, at least two eras ahead of his own, simultaneously stopped their propulsion and returned to the mothership with a slight sense of panic.
Although there was no information exchange between the two sides at this moment, Tom seemed to hear their shouts of shock and anger.
"What’s going on? What’s happening?!"