Chapter 37 Escape

The Silver Dragon slammed on conventional power propulsion and rushed after the elevator silo. Quickly, the Silver Dragon caught up with the spinning elevator silo. But in the crowd's frame of reference, it wasn't the elevator that was spinning madly, but the Silver Dragon. 'Efforts are being made to remain relatively stationary with the target." The frantically spinning Silver Dragon in the eyes of the crowd activated its orbital fine-tuning thrusters, and it began to gradually stop spinning in an effort to keep its rate in sync with the elevator silo. With bloodshot eyes, Edward looked at the wobbling Silver Dragon and said through gritted teeth, 'Come on boy!" 'Synchronization complete! Capturing target in progress." The Silver Dragon completed its rate synchronization, and a small mechanical claw protruded from underneath the ship's hull, which wobbled around and grabbed the elevator silo in one hand. The metallic iron claw grip made contact with the glass of the elevator bin, scratching out a sharp sound that made a few people's hearts skip a beat. The mechanical arm gently retracted the elevator silo back into the silo, and a few people finally let go of their hearts when they saw that they had returned to the interior of the ship. The elevator bin passed through the airtight door, then Elina saw that the hatch had been closed and pressurized, and was busy shouting, 'Silver Dragon! Open this elevator!" After a burst of violent dismantling by several of the Silver Dragon's mechanical arms, several people were finally rescued. AI opened a window floating in front of the two of them in front of Edward and said, 'Due to the firing and acceleration just now, we have been discovered by the Imperial Destroyers. They are coming in this direction with two targets, if you need to accelerate to escape please head to your seats first." 'How long until we are in range?" Edward asked as he ran towards the bridge. 'Ten seconds." AI answered truthfully without a hint of anxiety. 'Open the shields now!" Elina said as she ran. As soon as Jo picked up her already unconscious mother on her back she used all her strength to run after her and said, 'Don't worry about us, we can keep up." Edward turned back and smiled faintly at Joe and said, 'I know you can keep up, try harder, don't worry, this ship is not an ordinary ship, the destroyer is afraid that it is not its opponent." A slight vibration came from the ship, followed by the sound of an AI voice, 'They have fired at us, and have not penetrated our shields, are they returning fire?" 'Return fire, free to choose your target." Elina said. The abundant power provided by that powerful Super Fusion Reactor made their shields not at all afraid of the other side's planetary level gunfire. The Silver Dragon's gun doors opened, and the two compact planetary-class main cannons rose up, exposed beyond the hull, and began to rotate while firing back towards the opposing destroyer. Although the Silver Dragon was at a disadvantage in terms of the number of main cannons, the surging energy supply allowed the rate of fire of the planetary energy cannons to increase significantly, somewhat making up for the Silver Dragon's lack of firepower density. Very quickly one of the pursuing enemy ships was so badly beaten that it began to slow down and withdraw from range. They arrived at the bridge position in no time at all, Elina and Edward took their places in the front seats, Joe placed his newly awakened mother in the back seat and fastened the seatbelt, and sat down himself, wiping a sweaty face. Edward looked back at the mother and son, who were already in position, and said to the AI, 'Already in position, let's ditch them and head for the edge of the nearest galaxy, reaching an area where we can fold as soon as possible." No sooner had he finished speaking than the ai began to execute the order. The orbital trimmers ignited again, and the Silver Dragon slowly stopped rotating, its bow pointing towards the edge of the galaxy. In the brief gap before accelerating, Edward glanced at the planet Toronto through the wide portholes of the bridge. The emerald green surface of the planet now had many scorched black patches, traces from the war, clearly visible in space. The original delicate green plum-like appearance had disappeared, becoming as sickly as if it had moldy spots. Edward murmured, 'Alas, what a beautiful planet you once were, I was too late to appreciate you." Meanwhile, in the center of the Milky Way, on military starport nine on Leviathan, Alphonse, who was receiving the fleet, paced slowly in the tower control center. Jan looked at the information about the ships on the operations panel and said, 'As you expected, a modest fleet indeed. Two starships, five cruisers, and ten destroyers." Alphonse slowly returned the word, 'Hmm." His thoughts were occupied with other things at the moment, the resistance on Toronto had formed a coalition and had begun to organize an orderly attack on all parts of the planet. The sight resembled the Dosas Resistance of twenty years ago that he had seen in the wartime archives, and he pondered whether he should lead his fleet forward to assist in the suppression, or whether he should carry out orders within the confines of the mining planet. There was no doubt that taking the initiative at this time was the most correct choice, taking advantage of the fact that the Resistance's wings were not yet full, stifling the Toronto Resistance in its cradle was the most prudent way to get rid of the Resistance. However, in this way, most of the war credit will go to the governor of Toronto and his garrison, he thought for a long time, in the end, he decided not to assist, waiting for the development of the resistance to the point that the Toronto garrison can not be cleaned up and then suppressed. Alphonse sighed and thought in his heart, he ended up becoming the kind of person he hated the most, he defended himself in his heart, everything was for the plan, everything was for the Second Star River Empire. At this moment, several officers walked into the control center of the tower, and after lining up in a row, they saluted and shouted, 'Reporting to Admiral Alphonse, Imperial Fleet C37 has come to report to you!" After completing the transfer of command, Alphonse ordered the fleet to head towards the Toronto system and then left all matters in Jan's hands, sitting in the command seat of his flagship starfighter, the Melbin, and flipping through the battle reports coming in from Toronto. The populace had experienced a brief loss of control, followed quickly by a shift to organized resistance. The Resistance had a vast array of Imperial weapons, from electromagnetic rifles to warp guns, even troop carriers and armored shuttles. The Resistance clearly had a unified command, they covered each other well in offense and defense, and had basic military training. They had specialized medics. They were well supplied. ...... Alphonse looked at the one-line summary on the report and suddenly realized something, this matter had been premeditated, and the person behind the Resistance might not be the Federation, it might be the Imperial Consortium, or even the Governor of Toronto himself. A scary thought surfaced, what if this turmoil is the Governor of Toronto himself leading the local consortium to play a big show specially for the Empire to see? Then the nature would change from rebellion to independence. 'Sly foxes indeed!" Alphonse muttered. He couldn't help but tsk for the Governor of Toronto's versatility, and it occurred to him that if the situation was favorable, he would simply become independent as the leader of the resistance, freeing himself from the Empire's control and oppression. If the Empire sends someone to assist in the suppression, he will not only eliminate a group of opposing political opponents, but he will also be able to take credit in front of the Empire. How can I let you get what you want, Alphonse thought as he continued to look over the battle report. A civilian ship has heavily damaged two of our destroyers in the process of rushing out of the Toronto sector, this ship is silver-white in color, equipped with shields, two planetary-class main cannons, and extremely fast. 'Huh?" Alphonse couldn't help but be shocked when he saw this battle report. He said, 'Jan, I need detailed information on this battle report." Jan glanced at the location he was pointing at and directly contacted the destroyer cruising in Toronto and said, 'This is the flagship of fleet C37, this is the fleet chief of staff Jan, I need the details of battle report number 95, the sooner the better." Getting the few and far between details of this battle report, Alphonse frowned, the small ship's entry application said tourist, two members, left four hours after landing, and blew up the starport's space elevator before leaving. He shook his head as if to dispel some thought in his mind and murmured, 'Brother, this isn't the two of you running off on a trip, is it? With all this military chaos, isn't a place as big as the Xian Ying Cyclone Arm enough for the two of you to play in?" 'What's the problem?" Jan looked at Alphonse's frowning face and asked with a slight uneasiness. Alphonse said, 'No, I need the last heading and acceleration information of this ship, who made this battle report, why is it so scribbled." Aboard the Silver Dragon, several of Edward's men were faced with a serious problem, the ship only had enough fuel for one more folding leap before docking, by now the Silver Dragon had long since stopped accelerating and was gliding through space. Edward looked at the folding range at the ai markers on the star map and carefully screened the target, and in the end, he chose the Achilles system, which was at a more moderate distance. Edward's reason for choosing it was also relatively simple, it was a standard agricultural planet, and there were only two planets in this system one was Achilles, the other was a gaseous planet. He gave the ai the command to fold and after that moment of wonderful sensation, the ship ai replied that it had arrived at the target star system. Elina said, 'If there's another uprising on Achilles and we can't add energy, we'll be interstellar stragglers."