The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2751 Sacrificing one’s life for the country
2751. Sacrificing one's life for one's country

Bang! Sizzle sizzle~~~~
The sound of crackling electrical sparks rang out all around, the metal bulkhead was scorched with blackened cracks by the electric current, and some sparks flew onto his face, waking Dennis Henker from his coma.

He jolted open his eyes, trying to sit up but finding his left leg pinned down by the broken control panel. He gasped in pain, cold sweat beading on his forehead. He cried out in agony, desperately pushing against the heavy metal debris with both hands.

"Boss! Gevar! Is anyone still alive?" Henk shouted, but the only response was the hiss of short circuits and the distant roar of a ship breaking apart.

He looked around and saw a TIE-Avenger fighter jet crashed into the turret of his B-16 and shattered into pieces. Blue coolant seeped from the wreckage of the cockpit, and he could see the pilot, dressed in a black flight suit, hanging in mid-air from a bunch of wires, swaying back and forth like a puppet.

“What…what…” Henk shook his head.

A jumble of memories flashed through Dennis Henk's mind. He only remembered that their Star Destroyer, the 'Punk,' was originally positioned on the left flank, happily firing at the enemy's escort fleet.

He had no idea what was happening elsewhere on the battlefield. He just felt that his mission was quite easy; apart from the new model frigates being very agile and difficult to hit, nothing else happened.

However, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse after the Punk suddenly engaged a Hells Angel-class battlecruiser!

The Hellsangel-class battlecruiser's firepower was incredibly intense, though from Henk's perspective it wasn't particularly spectacular. There were no overwhelming missiles or dense barrages of blast beams, only a few multicolored flashes, the trajectories of which were indistinguishable to the naked eye.

However, above his head, the ripples of the deflector shield continued to undulate, indicating that the shield was enduring extremely intense firepower. Moreover, it seemed that their warship was also under attack from other directions. Then, the warship suddenly began to turn violently, with such a large turn that even the gravity generator inside the warship could not rotate in time. The violent centrifugal force tore at his body, and the seat belt dug deeply into his flesh.

Then, he witnessed a terrifying sight he would never forget!
A huge, disc-shaped structure appeared before him, almost filling his entire field of vision.

It's a separatist Titan!

And it was quite obvious that the Titan warship was charging its main guns!
The Punk frantically swerved to avoid the impending devastating attack, but it was too late. The deep muzzle in the center of the disc was already brimming with terrifyingly powerful energy. Then, Henk's vision was blinded by the light that tore through the universe. He could see nothing and could only scream at the top of his lungs, "Fire! Fire!"

Henk was quite lucky, to say the least. His Punk wasn't the target of the doomsday weapon, but when his vision returned and the Punk turned, he witnessed the truly terrifying side of the war!
Countless missiles streaked across the sky, a dense barrage of turbo laser cannons fired wildly, and drones and fighter jets blanketed the sky like dark clouds!
Even with the aid of fire control tactical goggles, he couldn't see anything else on the battlefield. Apart from the various nets of destructive fire, he couldn't distinguish anything.

Explosions were constantly breaking open the deflector shield overhead, and even when there were no explosions, the deflector shield was constantly flashing, which was undoubtedly due to being irradiated by laser weapons.

A cacophony of noise filled Henk's eardrums, driving him almost insane. Explosions, alarms, and shouts blared incessantly. These sounds pounded at his brain with an extremely high frequency, indicating that his warship was under concentrated attack.

And no matter how far back the B-16's turret was positioned, it was still one of the most directly exposed to the battlefield on the entire warship. The countless cannon fire felt like it was being fired directly at its face, subjecting it to immense pressure.

Dennis Henk could only instinctively scream in agony; this feeling of facing death was something only he could experience inside the entire turret. The others, however, only needed to look at the data on their respective system interfaces.

Then, the deflector shield flickered and shattered completely! Immediately afterward, Henk watched helplessly as a missile flew straight towards him!
The fire control eyepiece clearly marked the missile, and it was obvious that the automatic combat command system was instructing his turret to intercept it.

But how could the XX-9 heavy turbo laser cannon possibly intercept a missile?

Henk could only watch helplessly as the devastating missile hurtled toward his face.

Then, all the surrounding sounds disappeared...

In that instant, Henk felt as if he had been struck hard in the chest by a heavy hammer, and then his whole body felt as if it had lost its weight.

Then, he knew nothing.

In retrospect, it seems that the missile did not hit the turret directly, but was instead struck by the crashing TIE-Avenger fighter jet.

Whether it was a misfortune or a stroke of luck, the crashed TIE-Avenger fighter jet happened to plug the gap in the torn turret, making the otherwise negligible self-sealing gel work.

Henk looked at the sticky, milky-white gelatinous substance around the wreckage of the fighter jet. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't be able to see this alive—because when this self-sealing system activates, you're pretty much dead too.

He paused for a moment, feeling some strength return. He tried again to push away the wreckage of the control panel that was pinning his left leg, but it was no use; the metal debris remained motionless.

"Help...help me!!" Henk shouted, but all he got in response was the crackling sound of sparks flying.

Just as he was about to lose his voice, a heavy footstep sounded, accompanied by the clanging of metal. Then, a KX series security robot approached, equipped with engineering modules for ion welding and cutting.

“Hey! Get me out of here! Hurry!” Dennis Henk shouted.

However, the robot merely glanced at him, raised a pair of iron bars, and began to move the twisted and deformed turret hatch. The creaking sound of twisting metal was sickening, but Henk finally saw a glimmer of hope for survival.

“Yes! That’s the hatch, open it! And get this damn control panel off me!” Henk shouted.

However, he discovered that the robot was applying force in the wrong direction.

"No! Wait a minute! You're going the wrong way! This hatch should open to the right!" Henk warned. *Screech* *Boom!* The metal hatch slammed shut, and the KX-series security robot looked at him through the gap in the hatch, coldly stating, "This is the correct direction."

"No! Wait! I'm still inside! You should get me out first! No!!" Dennis Henk roared.

"This ship is about to continue its combat mission and enter hyperspace navigation mode. Turret B-16 may be damaged due to a tear in its outer armor belt, so it needs to be sealed in advance," the KX security robot said coldly.

At the same time, it began to seal the gaps in the hatch with a welding torch.

"No! I'm still inside! You should rescue me before sealing the turret!!" Henk roared.

The KX security robot paused briefly, its electronic eyes scanning Henk's condition before resuming welding. It then stated, "The turret beam bent, crushing the control panel and then you. The control panel's flat surface protected your body, preventing your death. However, rescuing you requires a large cutting machine. According to instructions, I need to seal the turret within 10 minutes. Rescuing you is outside the scope of these instructions."

"No!! I'm human! You should save me first! Save me!" Henk shouted.

But the KX security robot ignored him and continued welding.

Henk suddenly realized something and quickly asked, "You mean we're going to continue our combat mission? Where are we going? The Punk is clearly damaged! Why are we still going to fight?"

“The damage to the Punk is not serious. Including this place, there are a total of 172 points of damage, all within a manageable range,” the KX security robot said. “Our orders are to immediately attack the planet Bilblin.”

"Bilbrin Planet?" Henk felt his blood freeze. He could almost see the horrific scene from the battlefield replaying itself. "No... Bilbrin Planet is a fortress planet! We just finished a battle, why are we going to launch a full-scale attack on it? We'll die! We'll die!! Get me out of here! Get me out of here!"

"Attack the planet Bilblin, that's the order." The KX robot gave him one last look, then slammed a metal plate into the gap, completely silencing Henk's screams.

……

An hour ago, the flagship of the Galactic Empire's First Star System Army—the Reaper, an Executor-class super star destroyer.

The fleet's staff officers were celebrating wildly, cheering as they successfully recaptured Palancie. The Goalkeeper Plan hadn't been initially viewed favorably by them, but now, with the successful recapture of their target and the repelling of the Dawn Kingdom's fleet, how could they not be incredibly elated?

But Marshal Oswald Tesick couldn't laugh. He knew he had been completely outmaneuvered by the enemy commander. The enemy commander had used a feigned retreat, employing Palancy as bait to divide his fleet, and after severely damaging Battle Group A, he had left triumphantly.

In the previous battles, although the Dawn Kingdom's fleet also suffered heavy losses, many warships were only damaged but not sunk thanks to the fleet shields of the Taotie Titan warship and the emergency repairs by a large number of logistics and repair ships with long-range repair technology.

After their successful withdrawal, the warships only needed repairs to be put back into battle, which was much faster than building new warships.

Moreover, although Palancy has been recaptured, its factories and defense facilities have been completely destroyed. This includes the orbital defense system that the Galactic Empire had built at great cost, all of which has been wiped out.

In other words, to rebuild Palancy's defense system, the Empire would need to invest heavily again, spending countless manpower and resources to complete the task.

Looking at the bewildered expression on the Governor of Planet Palancy's face in the holographic communication, Oswald Tessik realized that he had actually lost the battle.

He still hasn't figured out what the Dawn Kingdom's battle plan is.

In this battle, the Galactic Empire's First Star System Force's Battle Group A suffered the loss of over 170 Star Destroyers, over 100 light cruisers, and almost all of its escort ships. Most of those escort ships were slaughtered by the Dawn Kingdom's drone swarms after the Imperial fleet's formation was stretched and disjointed in the later stages of the battle.

Moreover, the Reaper super star destroyer also suffered considerable damage. Not to mention anything else, more than 1700 of its 5000 main guns were destroyed, which is enough to show how serious the damage to the warship was.

The greater loss was the complete destruction of all 40 Type II Aegis destroyers. This means they now only have 30 Aegis destroyers remaining in Battle Group B. If the enemy's Titan-class destroyer, the Divine Messenger, attacks again, the Imperial fleet will have to gamble its lives on the hit rate of its doomsday weapons.

Oswald-Tesick sighed. In any case, this was at least some progress, and he should be able to give an explanation to His Majesty the Emperor.

After the battle, he immediately sent his adjutant to deliver the victory report to the Imperial Center. In the report, he instructed the clerk to write it as eloquently as possible, declaring that thanks to His Majesty the Emperor's wise decision, the First Star System Army, after valiant fighting, had finally and painstakingly recaptured the planet Palancy, firing the first shot in the counterattack against the Dawn Kingdom's homeland.

However, to this day, there has been no response from the Imperial Center; it remains eerily silent.

The longer the wait went on, the more desperate Oswald-Tesick became. He knew that under normal circumstances, the Imperial Central Government should have responded to the report on the outcome of the battle within an hour at the latest, providing an explanation whether it was a reward, consolation, or punishment.

However, the Imperial Center is now deathly quiet, as if the Battle of Palancy had never happened!
More than an hour later, Oswald-Tesick finally despaired. He now understood what the Empire meant. No, it should be His Majesty the Emperor's meaning.

He abruptly stood up and said to his adjutant, "Send another message to the Imperial Central Command! I, Marshal Oswald Tessik, will personally lead the army in a desperate assault on the planet Bilbrin! Long live the Empire! Long live the Emperor!"

“Marshal! You…” The adjutant wanted to say something, but seeing the resolute look in Tesik’s eyes, he understood completely. His throat bobbed, and he swallowed back his words of dissuasion. He could only nod heavily and say in a trembling voice, “Yes… Marshal.”

This time, the Imperial Central response was swift, though it consisted of only one short sentence: "[Please ensure the safety of the super star destroyer.]"

Marshal Tesik trembled and said in a deep voice, "Order! Organize a squadron consisting only of Imperial-class Star Destroyers, which I will personally lead, to Bilblin... to conduct probing reconnaissance!"