103: Then let's fight!

(Woke up this morning to see two more major contributors (Who is calling the fleet, Not enough, simply not enough kan) sent rewards and accompanying gifts.)

(The debt has reached 22 chapters again.)

...

At almost the same time, outside Ursa Major V12.23, at the entrance of the Void Channel.

The joint fleet composed of the Empire and The Consortium had fully entered combat readiness—

Over ten thousand Warships, including 6,000 small vessels like Frigates and destroyers, 3,000 cruiser, 800 battlecruiser, as well as 22 Battleship and 2,000 supply ships,

Among them, the proportion of relic Warship from the fourth era was about 10%.

They silenced communications, dimmed their lights, and floated motionless in mid-air, waiting for the order to depart.

"Report!"

"The intensity of the Void Channel fluctuations has dropped below the stability threshold!"

"The Void Channel has been restored!"

Inside the Bridge of the Battleship "favor", the communications officer reported immediately upon receiving the news from the detection station.

Gould heard this news, opened the holographic command console on the Warship, and the previously recorded distribution map of the Ursa Major V12.22 star region was immediately projected in mid-air.

During the waiting time, the operational plan had been refined several times. Contingency plans were left for any unexpected situations they could guess might occur, including how to handle unplanned circumstances. Everything was ready; they were just waiting for the east wind—

Now, that east wind had arrived!

"Depart!"

"Target the Node Space Station in Ursa Major V12.22!"

At the command, the preheated engines suddenly emitted incredibly dazzling spots of light.

The scorching and powerful exhaust flames seemed to distort space, and the massive hulls slowly moved forward,

Immediately, a huge circular void appeared in mid-air—that was the channel opened by the external star marker.

The fleet of The Consortium formed a dense formation and slowly moved forward, first the reconnaissance squadron, followed by the main force sandwiching the supply fleet.

After the last Warship of The Consortium entered the channel, the Empire's fleet unhurriedly started their engines and slowly followed.

After the Empire's Warship also drifted into the channel, the long-blocked entrance was finally cleared.

The dispatcher, who had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown from being tortured by those big shots, sighed, "These guys are finally gone...", then slammed their head onto the console in front of them and fell into a deep sleep.

...

...

Ursa Major V12.22, Node Space Station.

Xi Hai brought the fleet back to the port area.

After the Gravity Conduit generation device was recovered, Xi Hai handed it to night lamp for analysis.

Perhaps because the technological content of this thing wasn't high, or perhaps because the sample sent in was very complete, this time night lamp didn't pull any stunts with loading bars and readily provided the complete blueprint.

"Commander!"

"Our connection with the outside world is beginning to recover!"

A communications officer sitting in front of the contact console suddenly received a blurry advertisement—

"For intergalactic travel, choose Pegasus Hotel!"

The content was very blurry, and even the most crucial contact information and address were unclear,

but that wasn't the point.

The point was—that was a message from outside Ursa Major V12.22!

The Void turbulence had ended?

Xi Hai's expression changed immediately:

"Check quickly, has the Void Channel also recovered?"

In less than a minute, the definitive news came—

"Yes!"

"The status of the external star marker has changed to passable!"

Upon hearing this, a feeling of deep trouble arose—

this was simply terrible news.

He had originally thought the state of total disconnection would last at least a week!

It was gone now?

And it happened exactly at this point in time?

The fleet he had managed to scrape together over these two days wasn't large, and they had just finished a fight; many Warship were in a damaged state!

According to Suhart's testimony, even for a second-line combat unit of the Cosmic Army,

a single fleet formation had a full 7,000 starships!

And in his hands, the kalilein he had built the most of only numbered over a thousand.

Oh, right, it seemed there were also 2,000 groups totaling 7,000 fighter aircraft.

But... except for new constantine the great, he didn't have any Warship with professional hangars.

The original hangar design of a new constantine the great could only carry 2 groups of fighter aircraft. Even if he utilized all the wasted tonnage inside the ship, it would only increase the carrier capacity to 10 groups.

Moreover, this modification was specifically done for the Vesta B021 and Misrat he had on hand; its versatility was extremely low, and the launch efficiency wasn't high either.

Trouble,

he thought.

"Can the star marker be closed unilaterally?"

He tried asking night lamp,

"Through my query of external information..."

"Network busy, please try again later..."

"Parsing..."

"After my query of external information,"

"It can be closed, but once closed, it cannot be opened."

Xi Hai asked curiously:

"Are these star markers one-time use?"

night lamp:

"No, but every star marker now is an antique that has been running in overload for tens of thousands of years."

"If you dare close it, it will dare to retire on the spot."

"And it might even explode on the spot to celebrate its retirement."

...

Fine, then that route wouldn't work.

Xi Hai felt that compared to being blown up in the face by a star marker, the survival rate of facing the native army would be slightly higher.

Furthermore, given the current importance the Order Alliance placed on things like star markers,

destroying a star marker and cutting off the Void Channel,

would mean that for any reason,

if a single person outside found out, he would immediately be hunted by all of humanity, the kind that wouldn't stop until he died—

approximately equal to [Initial favorability with any organization within the human faction — ∞].

Excluding this method,

Xi Hai sighed; he didn't want to give up this space station just like that.

Looking at the still-busy port, a strong psychological struggle occupied his mind:

Fight or run?

After a bout of psychological struggle, Xi Hai suddenly realized—

actually, he had no choice.

If he didn't fight this battle, he couldn't get out.

Either he used the curvature navigation on his ships, which could only reach a maximum of 1/3 the speed of light, and flew hard to another completely unknown star system,

then exhausted himself to expand, and might not even be able to get the snowball rolling.

Moreover, after developing his base around this large space station,

and enjoying the pleasure of producing ships like dumplings, he felt he couldn't go back to the past—

the initial plan of "developing everywhere as an enterprise" was too inefficient.

He needed to do both.

So, he made his decision—

since he didn't want to run, and the other side would definitely come over,

then let's fight!

However, fighting shouldn't be reckless.

Fighting from a disadvantage against an advantage requires using one's brain.

Under the pressure of life-and-death matters, Xi Hai's brain spun wildly—

first, the comparison of enemy and his own strength:

He looked at the 8 Battlecruiser docked at the port,

and thought about the 2,000 groups of aircraft currently parked at the space station—

in the setting, any player digging for ruins who encountered his configuration of bomber squads would have to curse.

As long as the tactical configuration was appropriate, his odds of winning weren't low.

If that didn't work, he would use Old Man Huang's trick—

Terran/Chaos guarding the country's gate.

If he couldn't win, he would recklessly throw the activated Gravity Conduit generation device,

then slip away directly, letting The Consortium's Cosmic Army fight those bugs.

The real big trouble lay in the post-war handling.

The Consortium was, after all, one of the six big ruffians.

He might be able to block or even consume an entire fleet,

but then what?

The next two, three, four fleets?

What if there was a siege?

What if the ancestors of humanity had left something that could directly blow up the entire star system?

He could win the battle, but his scale meant that fighting alone, he absolutely could not win the war.

However, just like his dad said, only magic could defeat magic;

only a ruffian could check and balance a ruffian.

He didn't believe the six big ruffians of the Order Alliance could be close enough to wear the same pair of pants—

even the states of the Federation had constant conflicts of interest.

Six independent regimes, unless they encountered some completely irresistible external enemy, could absolutely not be united.

Conflicts would definitely be plentiful (this sentence is voiced by a certain uncommon molecule [Dong Xuelian]).

Conflicts are good;

there is nothing new under the sun.

Conflicts without total war, conflicts for the sake of profit, then proxies, mutual infiltration, diplomatic checks and balances... those were all too common.

Xi Hai considered himself to have many bright spots, especially the scientific research tree from the setting that night lamp brought.

That wasn't just a few epoch-making technologies; it was an entire healthy, complete, and continuous scientific research tree involving countless fields!

Not to mention anything else, just revealing something slightly backward that current humans didn't have, like a curvature engine—

looking at the latest experimental model on the tech tree, it had reached 1.5 times the speed of light...

Wait? What was the castrated version they gave him to use?

If he directly took out this current engine with one-third the speed of light, he would definitely have the qualification to be utilized by the other five big ruffians—at least showing his face wouldn't be a problem.

Being utilized wasn't scary;

having the qualification to be a pawn was the only way to get on the chessboard,

and only then would he have the opportunity to climb to the position of a chess player step by step.

Although he really didn't want to use this example, didn't the wild boars raised outside the pass by the civil officials of a certain dynasty to check and balance the imperial power eventually complete the act of devouring their master?

As for him not being very familiar with the international situation here?

What was night lamp, who could even hack through a mainframe, for?

Now that communication was restored, then—

"night lamp! Gather the current internal situation of the Order Alliance with all your might, focusing on real-time information!"

"Perform simple analysis and screening for intelligence that is beneficial to us! Quick!"

night lamp: "Yes."

(The curvature navigation speed set in the setting is too low, I'll change the setting a bit)

(Changed from one-third the speed of light to a maximum of 1.5 times the speed of light)