Chapter 21 Control Zone

Under that horrific fire strike, chunks of planetary material were blown away, revealing the planet's liquid layer, magma spilling out into space in a rampant stream, like the blood of a warrior fighting on the frontier. 'Prepare for impact! Thirty seconds!" Edward alerted the troop carrier through the intercom. The Menil Star had collapsed much faster than Elina had expected, and by now the orbital thrusters had long since ceased to function, and even two of them had been thrown into space. The entire planet Menil had only a quarter of its original mass left, and the front side was already leaking out the planetary iron-nickel core that had long since gone cold. 'Ten seconds!" Edward shouted. Everyone held their breath and stared silently at the screen, even General Walter who was in the middle of a big battle stopped his deployment and looked up at Edward and the others. On the screen, the Menil star that had long been left with only its core slammed hard into Andre's star fortress. A flash of light appeared, and the hard exterior armor of the star fortress was pierced through a big hole so deep that it couldn't be seen from the bottom, and the surrounding armor actually undulated up and down like disturbed water, covered with splashes of plasma and fire. Several transports like flies fishtailed in, followed closely by the shattered swaths of material debris pouring over the outer walls of the star fortress like a meteor shower, the entire area smashed and on fire. 'Successful landing, we lost carrier three." 'Execute the combat mission assigned ahead of time, on-site command to Commander Winter." Edward finished and breathed a long sigh of relief, as long as he could get inside Andre Star Fortress, these selected top special operations personnel of the entire Federation would naturally not let him down. Aboard the Tilapia, Alphonse stared blankly at the image of Andre's Star Fortress on the screen, the large hole that had been pierced through felt like it had opened up in his chest, causing him to go into a trance. 'Too many boulders on course! Requesting to reduce speed to wait for an opportunity to disengage from the area!" The navigator shouted. 'Disengage and go for a Grand Fleet turn." Alphonse finished, sitting on his ass in the command seat grimacing. The navigator carefully controlled the cruiser to pivot from side to side, avoiding the constantly flipping planetary debris, such intense concentration made him nervous and sweaty. Alphonse said faintly from the command seat, 'Andre's Starfort is lost, and every Pride officer and soldier is guilty of such a battle." 'We should trust the combatants on Andre Star Fort, how much war power can be thrown at them with just those few troop carriers." Jan said, patting Alphonse on the shoulder as if in relief, and continued, 'The Grand Fleet is still there, and so is the Starfort." Alphonse smacked away Jan's hand in a bad mood and said, 'The star fortress has been silent for three minutes, the communication is not connecting, and we can't see them firing, don't you realize the seriousness of the problem by now?" At this moment, a piece of high-speed moving star fragment suddenly appeared on the monitor, it quickly grew bigger and eventually filled up the whole screen, then the horrible impact sound mixed with the gusty wind and the alarm rang out together. 'Report, we just collided with a piece of interstellar debris, the Tilapia's wheelhouse and folding module were severely damaged." Alphonse said as he held up his military cap that had turned into a visor, 'Disengage first, then go round with the main fleet." 'I can't, we've lost power, the wheelhouse is being repaired." Alphonse exclaimed, 'How long will it take to regain power, just slide in this direction the path is full of obstacles!" 'I don't know." 'All weapons systems activated! Target the star debris in orbit!" Alphonse gave the order decisively, only to see several red circles on the main display over the target, and then the pieces of astral debris were blown up into smaller pieces by several blue balls of light and drifted towards the Tilapia. 'Weapon systems are prioritizing large, relatively fast rubble attacks." Alphonse said and asked the point man next to him, 'Losing power, how much reserve energy is left then?" 'Enough for weapon systems that's nothing to worry about, but ......" he said pointing at the screen with a look of disbelief. Looking at the analyzed data on the main screen, the shattered mass was larger than even the Tilapia cruiser and the rugged cracks in it could be seen from a distance. 'Shit! Fire now!" Alphonse ordered hastily. The weapons operators didn't need to wait for his order, weapons at all levels were already firing recklessly towards the huge fragment. 'Don't panic! Aim the main cannon at the large fragment, the secondary cannon hit the small high-speed fragments that flew out, and leave the relatively small fragments alone for now." Alphonse's shouts mixed with spit sprayed on his visor, and he couldn't care less about the danger of impact, disengaging his helmet to stare at the screen in death. A violent jolt came over the bridge and all the officers and men on the bridge were lifted into the air, floating and crashing around in the bridge. 'Our gravity system is not functioning, sir, abandon ship, if this continues we will all die here, we are not afraid of sacrifice, we just don't want to sacrifice senselessly." 'If we're going to abandon the ship we should wait until we flush out, what's the difference between abandoning the ship now and waiting to die." Alphonse's eyes widened as he tried to see the screen through his blurry visor, but he failed. 'Report, we have slipped out of range of the matter stream." Alphonse removed his helmet and wiped it briefly with his cuffs, glancing up to find a behemoth of a figure emerging from the wide porthole of the bridge. 'What's that?" He asked. 'I think it's the Gunslinger, flagship of the Federation Grand Fleet, our radar system is broken and unable to recognize the target." 'Broken again! Is anything else on the ship good?" Alphonse asked in exasperation. 'Ah, the air conditioning system is still functioning." Alphonse's eyebrows jumped up in anger as he shouted, 'What the fuck, the fortress can't be contacted yet? This acceleration it's headed for the Star Fortress." 'Can't contact it." 'Then hurry up and contact the Grand Fleet and ask them to send warships to intercept it!" Alphonse said. The correspondent said in horror, 'That...the Grand Fleet is surrounded." The correspondent's words were like a splash of cold water that instantly doused the remaining shred of wariness in Alphonse's heart, and he spread out his limbs, letting inertia carry him around the bridge, his heart as if he was dead. On the Gun Cavalry, Edward couldn't stop praising the well-trained special operations personnel as they methodically occupied compartment after compartment. Those battle-hardened special operations personnel encountered the other side's commanding officers who had been operating the instruments all day like nobody's business, smoothly capturing one control area after another. 'We have located the main control line and are ready to upload the caterpillar virus." Lieutenant Colonel Winter's voice came out of the communicator. Edward did not answer as he turned his head and nodded towards General Walter. 'Alright, it's our turn!" Admiral Walter said to the command console, 'All fleets, unfurl your formations in accordance with preexisting command three, get to where you're supposed to be!" 'Virus upload complete, Andre Star Fort communication systems, weapons systems, detection systems, and fort self-defense systems have been paralyzed." Lieutenant Colonel Winter said. 'General Control is a tough nut to crack, good luck with the occupation." Edward stopped caring about the special ops personnel on the star fort after that, he turned and walked behind General Walter, watching the long planned stranglehold with interest. After a series of in-position prompts on the main screen, General Walter gave the order for a general attack. For a moment the desolate and dark space seemed to be filled with countless small blue suns, and the Federation's large fleet totaling seven hundred and seventy battleships simultaneously launched an attack on the Imperial fleet. Where did the Star River Empire's Grand Fleet know that the powerful fire support behind them had been paralyzed. Their flanks had long since lost the fortress cannons to assist in their defense, and they suffered heavy losses as soon as the battle started, with dozens of battleship shields instantly pierced, turning into wreckage floating in the air. The federal battleships on the flanks quickly staggered up and down after a successful attack, avoiding the wreckage of the destroyed imperial battleships to continue attacking the enemy ships in the rear. At this time, the imperial fleet also reacted, quickly shrinking its formation to form a huge sphere around the flagship for defense and counterattack, for a while it was like a hedgehog full of glowing spikes. 'It's become a war of attrition." Edward said with slight disappointment, he had expected a classic encirclement and counter-encirclement interstellar battle at this moment. 'They chose to hold on because they don't know what's going on at Andre's Star Fortress, which is to be expected." General Walter said to Edward, 'Being able to take Andre Star Fortress is acceptable to the Commander-in-Chief even if the fleet is knocked out." Edward shook his head helplessly, how many young lives would be lost in space, a war of attrition, this was the last situation he wanted to see. If he could take the star fortress sooner, the war of attrition would end sooner, thinking of this he said into his communicator, 'Commander Winter, how long will it take you to take the general control?"