From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 125 Proton Annihilation Bomb

When Isabel's elf friend arrived in a top-notch armed cruise ship as promised, the battle between the federal and imperial fleets near Robert 4 was basically decided.

The entrance of the Fortress of Sorrow was like placing the heaviest weight on the imperial fleet on the scale that symbolized victory or defeat.

Although the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Fleets are not the most elite ace fleets of the Federation Navy, their comprehensive combat capabilities are by no means bad, and there is no problem in competing against the Empire's fleets of the same level in terms of hardware.

But this time the two fleets encountered an artificial celestial fortress.

This kind of strategic unit, which can no longer be simply measured by cost, has been designed to suppress or even annihilate multiple fleets with a single fortress since the first day of its birth.

In the mind of the project leader of the Imperial Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Wall of Sighs project.

An artificial celestial fortress is a kind of existence that can be deployed in warring galaxies for a long time, taking into account strategic long-range strikes, wide-area battlefield surveillance, ship repairs and supplements, and serving as a strategic offensive and defensive support point.

When the number of such strategic fortresses increases, the Star Dragon Empire's overall military strategy will undergo certain changes.

Whether it is attacking or defending, whether it is fighting against foreign enemies or suppressing civil unrest, or even conducting deep space exploration of areas beyond human territory.

The first thing the decision-maker has to do is - 'I will first place an artificial celestial body fortress here'.

According to the project leader, this is called 'throwing stones to ask for directions'.

First jump to an artificial celestial body fortress, and then decide the subsequent actions based on the actual situation.

And in his opinion, with the current technological level of humans and elves, it is extremely difficult to destroy a fortress in a short period of time.

Therefore, these strategic fortresses can be deployed boldly and radically.

To some extent, his conclusion is not problematic.

The only 'small problem' is that he is a little too optimistic about the construction cost and construction period of the artificial celestial fortress.

In the initial stages of the Wall of Sighs project, the plan was to have 20 first-generation fortresses and five improved second-generation fortresses within 10 years.

As a result, 25 years later, the empire only took over five first-generation fortresses.

Just like all large-scale plans across the ages, there are problems encountered during the implementation process.

The man-made celestial fortress, which uses a large number of new technologies, will have new problems every day after formal construction begins.

In addition, many new technologies and materials were 'built and tested' during the fortress construction process.

As a result, the progress of the entire project was significantly delayed.

But no matter what, the effect of the Empire's man-made celestial fortress being put into actual combat for the first time is still full.

It can be said that it opened the eyes of the federal combined fleet present.

The central fleet was 9% destroyed by a Focusing Iris shot, and the surviving task force commander, Brigadier General Duwell, was also killed on the spot.

However, even in the face of this disastrous start, Lieutenant General Guterres decided to organize a wave of attacks.

Although this huge fortress really shocked him.

But as the commander of a fleet, he still couldn't face the enemy's new units and run away without firing a shot.

Even if we can't win, we should at least collect more information and provide it to the decision-making organs behind the scenes, so that they can think about how to respond.

So after the remaining left-wing and right-wing fleets merged, Guterres adopted a very familiar tactic to the Marquis of Ascania.

The huge fleet formed a huge spindle, and then rushed towards the left wing of the imperial fleet at high speed.

"Your Excellency, the federal fleet may break away at high speed after the rendezvous, and then jump out."

In the combat command center of the Fortress of Sorrow, Marquis Ascania turned his head and reminded Duke Duke in a low voice.

"What? Have you ever suffered a loss in this tactic?"

"It's not like I'm at a disadvantage, sir."

Marquis Ascania was a little embarrassed, but he briefly explained the situation when the Eighth Expeditionary Strike Group first encountered the federal fleet.

"Well, it seems that these commanders of the Federation fleet are a bit academic and rigid."

Duke Duke thought for a moment, and then issued new instructions:

"In that case, calculate the trajectory of the federal fleet and prepare for the second irradiation of the Focusing Rainbow!" The huge Fortress of Sorrow began to adjust its axis under the work of a large number of attitude control engines.

While Lieutenant General Guterres led the fleet in a high-speed assault, he also collected some characteristics of this man-made celestial fortress during the fleet's continuous attacks.

First of all, the deflection field generator of this thing should be the most powerful one ever created.

Regular battleship heavy particle cannon fire can be completely ignored by it.

Guterres roughly calculated the power based on the shipboard control personality, and estimated that it might take 3 to 4 salvos from a full attack fleet to overload the deflection field generator.

Secondly, this man-made celestial fortress can perform emergency repairs on damaged warships that have retreated to the rear.

Based on the footage captured by the optical sensor, the fortress released densely packed autonomous engineering maintenance robots.

These swarm-like robots, carrying equipment such as foamed metal and inert gas compression tanks for emergency treatment, assist damaged ships in emergency damage control.

With their assistance, the damaged warships were roughly repaired at an unprecedented speed and then returned to battle.

However, Guterres ultimately collected only this information.

Because the Fortress's Focusing Iris fired again.

This time, in order to attack before the federal fleet left, the Focusing Iris only illuminated at half power.

But even so, it easily swept away the tail of the 'spindle' of the federal fleet.

In this case, Guterres did not hesitate to make a jump with the fleet that had reached the speed requirement.

When the fleet escaped from the jump from the emergency escape coordinate No. 12, Guterres immediately ordered the fleet to maneuver quickly, and then blocked the Robert II on the line between the fleet and the fortress.

Although the empire's man-made celestial fortress has not yet demonstrated the ability to strike at ultra-long distances, with the current power of the Focusing Rainbow, Guterres believes that this thing can definitely threaten his fleet.

So to be on the safe side, he used Robert II as a shield in front of the fleet.

"No matter how powerful it is, it won't be able to penetrate the planet, right?"

While Guterres was thinking this, he immediately used his identity authority to unlock the last encrypted message left by Marshal Trafalgar.

Although before departure, Lieutenant General Guterres did not know what the old marshal said was that "the war has become so tense that it may be irreversible."

But now he knew it couldn't get any worse.

The encrypted file was opened quickly, and Guterres just glanced at it and closed the file.

"I must have opened it the wrong way."

Ten minutes later, in the battle conference room of the Destiny.

"You mean, the Marshal asked you to use proton annihilation bombs to attack Robert IV?"

Griezmann, sitting opposite Lieutenant General Guterres, had a look of disbelief on his face.

"Yes, the document is very clear, and it also includes the authorization command code for the proton annihilation bomb of the Thirteenth Fleet."

Guterres pinched his eyebrows with his hands. He never thought that the first battle would end in this situation.

"According to the old marshal's request, if we are sure that we cannot fight against the Empire's invasion fleet and prevent the Empire from occupying the Robert system, we will launch proton annihilation bombs at Robert IV."

"Lieutenant General, you need to think clearly."

Griezmann said with a serious expression:

"If you issue an attack order, everything will be irreversible. You may be reviled by the people, and even politicians who are worried about finding a target will open fire on you."

"No, no, no, you made a mistake. I was not the one who pulled the trigger."

Guterres stared into Griezmann's eyes and shook his finger.

"Marshal Trafalgar is the one, I'm just the trigger."

(End of this chapter)