From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 546 Reinforcements Arrive Tomorrow
Then, Guterres, a former vice admiral of the Federal Navy with rich experience in fleet command, gave Randall his suggestions based on the current situation and the casualties of the fleet that had just been counted.

After the battle just now, although the Third Task Force defeated the main force of the Rubion Galaxy Garrison Fleet and captured a large number of ships, it also suffered losses.

Although the fleet's flagship, the super-heavy battleship Infinity, had survived the radical tactics just now, damage to the ship was unavoidable.

Randall still felt a little scared when he thought about using the deflection field to ram the ship. Although the collision was successful, the deflection field generator array at the bow still experienced a 65% equipment overload.

Among them, 30% of the generators are directly scrapped and need to be replaced urgently.

At the same time, some ship wreckage that passed through the deflection field and hit the bow also caused damage to the gun ports of 12 heavy particle cannons.

All I can say is that it's a good thing that the Infinity closed all the gun ports of its main weapons before the collision, otherwise the acceleration track, which is more difficult to repair, might have been damaged.

At the same time, the 'overload shooting mode' of the electromagnetic reconnection gun also caused damage to part of the electromagnetic gun's acceleration track, which required urgent replacement.

While the various ships were recovering the HCPs and heavy armored combat boats, the 'Swarm' on the 'Infinity' had already been dispatched to carry out repairs and replacements.

As for the six battleships of the battleship division, four were slightly damaged and two were seriously damaged.

Of the two seriously injured battleships, the one that was more seriously damaged was a Kraken II-class battleship captured from the joint fleet of the military-industrial complex. The captain had even reported the possibility of abandoning the ship.

According to reports from the ship's engineers and damage control team, the battleship was not properly maintained by the military-industrial complex, resulting in many hidden dangers that were not discovered during routine inspections.

As a result, when the battle intensity just increased, the deflection field generator of this battleship was overloaded when it used its better protection to act as a 'meat shield' to cover several of its own warships that were under concentrated fire from the enemy.

The final result was that the bow was almost torn off by half by several heavy anti-ship penetrators, and the middle section of the ship was swept by a jet of heavy metal particles from a heavy particle cannon. A large area of ​​the external armor was completely stripped off, and even the cabins behind the armor were hit into "sand holes".

If that were the case, the captain of the battleship would not consider abandoning ship.

Because the damage control and self-sustaining capabilities of these space battleships are much stronger than most people imagine, and these extremely expensive battleships cannot be abandoned at will.

After all, fighting in space is different from fighting in the atmosphere. There are no restrictions on aerodynamic shape. There is no need to worry about water entering if a few holes are punched in the ship. You can simply close the airtight doors of the adjacent compartments.

This is also why after every large-scale fleet battle, in the fleet withdrawing from the battle, you can see many warships whose external armor has been basically destroyed, or even whose bows have been mostly swept away, but they can still continue to sail and jump.

However, the reason why the captain of this "Kraken II" class battleship considered abandoning the ship was mainly because the heavy particle cannon had some impact on the fusion reactor after part of the hull was rubbed by it. The output power has been steadily decreasing, and there was also a problem with the "environmental control equipment" of the superconducting battery stack.

According to the calculations of the shipboard control personality, if it cannot be repaired in time, the battleship may completely lose power in 8 hours.
If repairs are required, the entire fusion reactor must be dismantled for inspection, but it is clear that the Third Task Force does not have the ability to do so at the moment.

So Randall finally agreed to the battleship captain's request, and asked other ships to assist in the evacuation of personnel, and finally let the battleship execute the self-destruction procedure.

As for the remaining cruisers, destroyers and frigates of various types, many of them were also lost in the battle. The number of heavy cruisers has dropped from 10 before the war to 7 now, while there are 18 light cruisers left, and a total of 58 destroyers and frigates left.

However, the casualties were actually much lower than the predictions made by Randall and the fleet combat staff before the war.

Moreover, with casualties lower than expected, the Third Task Force can be said to have completely defeated the main force of the Rubion Galaxy garrison fleet.

Including the flagship "Balkanner", more than 60% of the fleet's warships were sunk directly in the battle, and all the remaining warships stopped resisting and surrendered at the speed of light.

Judging from the results of the battle, the Third Combined Fleet's battle of "defeating the majority with the minority" can be said to have exceeded its tactical goals.

Guterres: "Have the surrendered warships been taken under control?"

"Yes, teacher." Randall nodded.

"We have sent the marines with the 'Soldier Bees' on board. The crew members have now been divided into groups and isolated in different cabins. The shipboard control personality has also been replaced with the 'temporary personality' we brought on board. The original control personality has to be 'cleaned' by the group data center before it can be put back into use." Randall explained the current fleet, including its own maintenance, rescue, and management measures for surrendered warships. After hearing the end, Guterres couldn't help but sigh.

"It's really convenient for you to control the surrendered ship now. You can just change a 'temporary personality' and drive away. If we wanted to control the surrendered ship before, we could only force the other party's control personality offline and then operate the ship manually."

"The times are developing, technology is advancing, and we at Atlas are also at the forefront in this regard~"

"Advertising slogan?"

"Hahaha, you found out, teacher."

Randall scratched his head embarrassedly, and then heard Guterres continue:

"I looked at the plan you sent me. We are going to jump to an asteroid belt next, but I just reviewed the astronomical data of the Rubion system. I suggest you change the jump target to here."

As Guterres spoke, he sent a new coordinate.

After taking a look at the new coordinates, Randall asked in confusion, "Is this... another asteroid debris belt? Is there something special about it?"

"The asteroid belt is not only a place for the fleet to hide and repair, but if you choose the right asteroid belt, you can also replenish the fleet."

Guterres clicked on the detailed information of the new coordinates and said:

"There should be a lot of 'Worker Bee' robots on the Infinity, right? Other warships should also be equipped with some of them, right?
There are a lot of ice crystals and comet fragments in this asteroid belt. You can send out "worker bees" to mine methane ice and solid water. This way, by the time the entire fleet is finished resting, you can at least recover more than 70% of the working water and refrigerant."

Guterres told Randall in detail a lot of tactical decisions that were suitable for the current situation. Randall, as if he was back in class, carefully wrote down these suggestions and quickly organized them into new orders and issued them.

After the Third Task Force completed the recovery mission and completely controlled the surrendered ships, the fleet, which was larger than before the war, quickly jumped to the new coordinates provided by Guterres.

Then, all the warships released their own "worker bees", and let these robots equipped with "collection modules" to mine the surrounding ice crystals and gravel.

22 hours later, when a new batch of Atlas cargo fleet broke away from the jump, approached Rubion V and merged with the much larger Third Combined Fleet.

The commander of the cargo fleet finally figured out what had happened and felt terrible.

Especially after hearing that two federal fleets were eyeing them covetously and might attack at any time, he felt even more upset.

"Don't panic. Now that we're here, we can't go back with so much cargo, right?"

On the bridge of the Infinity, Randall patted the shoulder of the cargo fleet commander who came to report, and said:

"You dispatch all the aerospace transport fleets and deliver the most urgently needed materials and key spare parts to the Renaissance Alliance first - one-way tickets. The Renaissance Alliance will also purchase these aerospace transport aircraft and use them as their own transport fleet in the future.

According to our previous estimates, without the need to recover the space transport plane, the entire cargo fleet can deploy the transport plane while accelerating by the planet's rotation, and all operations can be completed within 40 hours. At that time, you can directly jump out. "

"What if the federal fleet comes to attack us?" The commander of the cargo fleet was still a little nervous.

"Don't worry, there is someone tall enough to hold up the sky if it collapses. Even if something unexpected happens, our combat fleet will be there to cover your evacuation. What else can we do?"

Randall gave the freight fleet commander a look that said, "Don't worry, I'm here."

"Reinforcements will arrive tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)