From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 570

Whether it was Rear Admiral Stoner and his men, or the crew of the "Lighthouse" and the surrounding escort ships, they all knew very well at this moment that the enemy forces coming up from the bottom of the sky were targeting the "Lighthouse" heavy cruiser.

Therefore, the captain of the warship that was carrying out the guidance operation ordered without hesitation that all weapon units on the ship except the anti-aircraft firepower be taken offline, and all energy was supplied to the deflection force field and the induction signal transmitting device.

Soon, the attack from the 'ATLAS Kai', with Amber's control of the shooting timing and Lilith's auxiliary correction, accurately hit the heavy cruiser.

The people on the ship only felt a violent commotion in the surrounding space; that was the sound of the ship being hit!

Immediately afterwards, several crew members in a passage somewhere inside the ship who had not yet had time to secure themselves to the wall were knocked directly against the ceiling by the shock, and then thrown to the floor by the reaction force.

At the same time, the ship's broadcast also sounded a little late:
"Everyone prepare for impact. Repeat! Everyone prepare for impact."

"Damn it! You're just reminding me now that the collision has already happened. It would be better if I didn't remind me at all!"

A crew member who was thrown to the floor of the passage by the reaction force and felt that his back was almost broken started to complain. At the same time, he seized the gap and held on to the movable handles on the bulkheads on both sides of the passage to assist in movement in a zero-gravity environment.

But before he could help his other companions, further impact shook the hull and set off alarms on the ship.

The communicator's ship-wide broadcast was also blocked by the explosion transmitted from the outer armor of the ship. The impact was twice as strong as before, causing the bodies of these people to be thrown into the air again.

"Confirmed the loss! What the hell is going on with the air surveillance? How come they were hit continuously? Didn't the surrounding anti-aircraft ships intercept them?"

On the bridge of the "Lighthouse", the captain was firmly fastened to his seat by a safety belt. Fortunately, he was not thrown out by the violent vibration, but the continuous attacks still made him annoyed.

"Don't these people know what this ship is doing right now?!"

"Report! It's suspected to be an ultra-long-range sniper attack from the enemy's assault unit's heavy particle cannon!" The intelligence officer's roared reply quickly reached the captain's ears.

He quickly glanced at the ship status monitoring interface. Although the front part of the bottom deck of the ship was attacked just now, fortunately, the deflection force field operating at maximum power and the thickened external laminated armor still played a role. In addition, the opponent's sniping at an ultra-long distance caused a certain scattering of the heavy particle cannon, so the continuous attacks did not cause too much damage.

"Luckily it wasn't a large battleship-level heavy particle cannon attack, otherwise we would have been turned into space garbage by now!"

The captain calmed himself down. He knew that even though these attacks had not caused much damage, as the enemy assault units approached, he obviously could not use the bottom deck of the ship to fight back, so he quickly issued new orders.

"Helmsman, adjust the axis! Use the bow to meet the enemy!"

"Yes, Captain! Adjust the axis! Use the bow to meet the enemy!"

Upon hearing his order, the helmsman immediately repeated the order and set the compound steering system to the specified axis. The bow of the "Lighthouse" was quickly pressed down nearly 90 degrees. After discovering the movement of the "Lighthouse", the nearest escort ships immediately followed suit.

The captain of the "Lighthouse" knew that since the enemy's assault unit was charging towards him without any concealment, it meant that the enemy had realized the importance of the ship under his feet.

Although the captain couldn't understand why the people of Atlas Group realized the special nature of the "Lighthouse" so quickly, it didn't matter now.

What's important is how they will complete the guidance of the proton annihilation bomb now that they have been exposed.

"Has the composite image come out? What unit is attacking us?"

The captain asked loudly in the communication channel, and the intelligence officer, who had been sweating profusely during this period, quickly answered:

"We have captured an optical image, but it is very blurry! We are trying to integrate it with the synthetic aperture radar image!"

"Let it out first and see what happens!"

At the captain's command, a composite image was quickly projected onto a screen on the bridge.

Although the red object was still a little blurry in the processed image, the people on the bridge of the "Lighthouse" could still vaguely recognize that it was a unit similar to a large HCP.

But it seems that there are no legs
"Red. Large machine?" The captain, who had been exposed to some information, suddenly realized something and immediately summoned the shipboard control personality of the "Lighthouse".

"Maya! Put the composite image into the feature library for identification and prioritize the comparison with the units of the Atlas Group that have appeared before!"

"Identification completed, feature overlap 90%"

The Lighthouse's onboard control personality completed the identification almost instantly, and then projected the identification results onto the large screen.

Shown here alongside the blurry image just captured is a photo of the 'ATLAS' super-heavy HCP that was taken by unknown means.

Judging from the information such as the shooting time next to the photo, the background should be during the Battle of A-Bawa-Ku.

"Oh no! This is the enemy's real 'ace'. Quick! Mark him as a high-risk unit! Notify all nearby anti-aircraft ships to concentrate fire and intercept him! We must not let him break through!"

The captain of the "Lighthouse" actually reacted very quickly, but he and the rest of the Federation Navy still underestimated the speed of the "ATLAS Kai".

When he just gave the order, the 'ATLAS modified' in the optical monitoring window was just a fuzzy bright spot in the distance, but just over ten seconds later this fuzzy bright spot had turned into a red phantom.

Although all the HCPs on nearby warships had been deployed and rushed forward to intercept, the heavy armored combat boats that had been following closely on both wings of the 'ATLAS Kai' were not there to act as an atmosphere group.

MA-01B block5 is the fifth batch of products produced after the modification of Atlas Military's first heavy armored combat boat. In fact, it has undergone substantial improvements compared with the previous four batches.

The designers racked their brains to cram a 25-meter-class twin-mounted heavy particle cannon into the 30-meter-long hull, which also gives this combat boat an absolute advantage in firepower when facing HCP.

Even if you don't use plasma torpedoes specifically designed for anti-ship operations, this twin-mounted heavy particle cannon alone can pose a threat to destroyers and even light cruisers if the angle and timing are right.

So when two clusters of heavy armored combat boats, strictly arranged in a box-shaped formation, attacked the hundreds of HCPs and the warships behind them that came to intercept from the left and right, the latter soon suffered a great loss.

This kind of line-up shooting style of attack naturally makes the fighter boats look like targets, but if the firepower of the fighter boats prevails, the situation will be completely different.

The Federal Navy's intercepting HCPs simply could not break through the fire zone formed by the salvos of the combat boats, or they simply did not dare to break through.
The reaction of the few new recruits was probably a little slower than that of the veterans, and as a result, their bodies were instantly smashed into a pile of unrecognizable wreckage by the dense rain of light.

Seeing this scene, the commanders of the intercepting HCP immediately shouted in the blue-green laser communication command link:

"Turn! Disperse! Get out of the enemy's direct fire range and try to go around from other directions. The combat axis adjustment of these combat boats is not that fast!" It can be said that the judgment of the HCP commander was not wrong. He knew very well the differences and advantages and disadvantages between HCP and heavy armored combat boats, so he decisively adopted a strategy of playing to their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses.

Since HCP cannot compete in frontal firepower and defense, try to use HCP's flexibility to create opportunities.

HCP pilots usually maintain control of the follow-up control system during close combat. In this mode, the HCP maneuvers are extremely flexible, and the ability to turn along the center of mass and adjust the directionality with the AMBAC maneuver bonus is terrifyingly high.

Therefore, when the heavy armored combat boat is rushing in one direction like a bulldozer, there is absolutely no problem in taking advantage of the HCP's flexible tactical maneuvers.

But the problem is that this HCP overlooked two issues.

1. These heavily armored combat boats are not equipped with only twin-mounted heavy particle cannons.

Second, the battleship cluster was not advancing to attack the fleet, but to cover the advance of a more critical unit. They hoped that the attention of the surrounding intercepting forces would be attracted by themselves.
"Boss! The main force can only take you so far! We will tie up the enemy's interception units!"

Jacob's deputy, the temporary commander of all heavy armored combat boats in the First Fleet, spoke to Amber, and then issued new instructions on the command channel.

"Attention all combat boats! Three boats in a group, free fighting!"

As the order was given, all the combat boats activated their external chemical booster rockets, which was another means of propulsion besides their plasma propulsion arrays.

It's just a one-time thing and it doesn't last very long.

But this thing was hung on a heavy armored combat boat, not to enhance the conventional cruising capability of the combat boat, but to provide a burst of thrust in a short period of time.

As the lights of a large number of chemical booster rockets lit up, the two 'box formations' immediately disbanded and quickly split into three-machine formations and rushed towards the surrounding federal HCPs.

Adjusting the axis and course at high speed is a very dangerous behavior, but the drivers of these heavily armored combat boats did not hesitate to perform maneuvers that would cause ordinary people to break their ribs.

At the same time, these heavy armored combat boats also opened their auxiliary bomb bays and dumped out all the round plasma warhead guided rockets and combat bombs.

As long as some unlucky HCPs are hit by such plasma warhead weapons, their deflection fields will be neutralized quickly, followed by a salvo of charged particle beams.
Of course, the Federation's ship-borne HCPs are not completely defenseless. Some pilots with superb driving skills can often use plasma heavy swords that are powerful enough to split the battleship's outer armor into two at the moment when the two sides cross at high speed.

Or after entering a dogfight, multiple HCPs quickly formed a small "box formation" back to back, and then forced the combat boat to make a large angle turn around the periphery, and then took the opportunity to attack the opponent's rear propulsion array.
Fireballs continued to light up around the 'ATLAS Modified', rapidly increasing the bloodiness of the battle zone. However, Amber in the cockpit was not distracted at all, because he knew that his path to advance was paid for with the blood of these heavy armored combat boat pilots, so he must not make any mistakes.

Although Amber had performed the trick of breaking into the fleet alone more than once in the game in his previous life, that was a game after all, and he could be resurrected by clones if he died. But now he was really playing with fire with his life, so he had to admit that he was indeed very nervous at the moment.

Fortunately, this tension did not distort his operation, and the large amount of adrenaline secreted made him more and more sharp and focused, allowing him to shuttle through the anti-aircraft firepower of a large number of warships in an almost cheating state.

During this process, Amber tried many times to attack the vulnerable side of the "Lighthouse", but it never worked. The escort warship near the heavy cruiser acted as a "meat shield" for the former as if it was risking its life, and directly blocked the shooting axis of the "ATLAS Kai".

"No, there's not enough time to test it. I can only approach it by force."

After several attacks failed, Amber frowned, then controlled the 'ATLAS modified' and rushed directly towards the 'Lighthouse'.

However, just when it was about to enter the enemy's final air defense circle, the two nearby heavy cruisers responsible for escort suddenly made a crazy move.

Regardless of the fact that there were other friendly warships at the far end of their own beam axis, they directly opened the gun ports of the bow main guns, preparing to attack with heavy particle cannons.

"Are you crazy?! There are friendly troops behind me waiting for me."

Amberfort suddenly realized something, and immediately crossed the two heavy shields mounted on the auxiliary mechanical arms of the ATLAS Modified and placed them in front of him. At the same time, he shouted to Lilith, the combat auxiliary AI of the machine:

"Lilith! Full activation of the body deflection force field! Overload mode in operation!"

Lilith, who has always been a curious baby, did not hesitate or question at this moment, and followed Amber's instructions without hesitation.

The next second, the captain of the Lighthouse, who temporarily took over the command of the two heavy cruisers, fiercely issued the order to open fire:

"Lock on the target position! Thunderstorm, Prominence! Aim at the beam axis, open the angle to 2 degrees and 3 minutes, and start irradiation!"

Two blue scattered 'beams' emitted by the two heavy cruisers on the left and right quickly covered the position of the 'ATLAS modified'.

In the diffuse irradiation mode of this heavy particle cannon, even the highly maneuverable 'ATLAS modified' cannot escape the opponent's irradiation range within these few seconds.

At the same time, although there were other friendly warships on the beam axis of the two heavy cruisers, the power of the heavy particle cannon in the scattering mode was obviously not that great. It only caused the deflection force fields of several warships to flash, but did not cause any substantial damage.

But the statement that "it's not that powerful" obviously only applies to battleships.

In any case, these are the main guns of the two heavy cruisers. Even in the diffuse fire mode, they can still pose a threat to large HCPs such as the 'ATLAS modified'.

Amber only felt the full-circle display in front of her flash for a moment, and then it automatically disconnected the optical sensor screen due to excessive brightness. Then Lilith issued a warning:
"Master! The machine's surroundings are overheating! The surface armor is saturated! The outer armor has begun to melt!"

"Warning! Heat energy is transmitted to the internal titanium alloy frame structure! Emergency cooling procedure has been activated!"

As the warnings reached Amber's ears, everyone in this space also saw the large red HCP being swallowed by the intersection of the two 'beams of light'.

"Amber!"

"Boss!"

"Good! Hit it!"

"It should be destroyed now!"

The reactions of the people from the Atlas Group and the Federal Navy at this moment were completely opposite, with some happy and some worried. There was even a moment of silence on the battlefield.

But as the 'pillar of light' disappeared, a machine with almost completely melted outer armor, while armor fragments continued to peel off and fall off, forcibly passed through all interceptions, and crashed into the deflection field of the 'Lighthouse' to complete deceleration, and finally smashed into the deployment bay hatch on the side of the heavy cruiser.

The emotions of both sides reversed again!

(End of this chapter)