Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 438 06.0437: "The 'Envoy' of Naval Gun Diplomacy"

"Captain, how can I help you?"

Ever since being pushed aboard by his brother, David Betty has seemed unhappy on the ship and has lost his former liveliness.

After all, most of my classmates had passed the lieutenant officer examination within three attempts, but I had to rely on connections to get a chance to be exempted from the written test.

However, since it is wartime, based on the command style of "use people if you have them, and make sure even a dog gets on board to steer the ship", Captain Horatio plans to find some work for the descendant of the old ancestor's close comrade-in-arms.

"Of course, sir. Mr. Collingwood is in charge of the command at this time, but the signal flags need to be handled by a dedicated officer. You understand flag language, right?"

"Of course, but Navy regulations stipulate that one must be at least a second lieutenant to command flag signals."

"You are just providing assistance to Collingwood. I believe you can do it. Just let Lieutenant Collingwood review it before sending out the flag signal."

"Thank you for your trust, Captain." The young man nodded his head and saluted.

"What's going on between you and your brother? I remember you were a prep student like Archie, but your father seemed to have died in the line of duty."

"Well... you know, I am the second child in my family. My eldest brother is the heir to the title, and he will become a hereditary admiral one day. He has looked down on me since I was a child, and he always finds reasons to criticize me, belittle my efforts, and constantly lecture me, saying that I am not a qualified successor to the Ravensburg family.

Once I exploded and told him that he ignored his success because he was the eldest son of the Ravensburg family, not because he was much better than me. Then he flew into a rage and beat me up.

Then, our father was ambushed and killed by the plague ship Terminus Est on the front line of the Eye of Terror. My brother inherited everything from the Ravensburg family. However, even after inheriting the title, he still didn't let me go. He tortured me more and more severely and finally threw me into the Abridar Loyal Academy.

And he relied on his father's legacy to become the captain of the Retribution-class battleship."

"Your family is really complicated." Horatio looked at the young man in front of him with sympathy.

Not all children born with a silver spoon in their mouth have a smooth life, some have a very torturous life.

But it is not worth regretting. After all, if the head of the Ravensburg family had not asked for it personally, how would this kid have the chance to board any warship he wanted?
However, for Horatio, the prestigious Ravensburg family owed him a favor, which was a sure win for him as the heir of Speyer.

But, is this Colonel Craig really a man who keeps his promises?

Judging from David Beatty's description, he seems to be utilitarian and good at speculation. I'm afraid it's not advisable to get too involved with this person, because after all, you are just using each other.

But it's enough to be able to use it.

As the four Fury fighters took off one after another, the effective reconnaissance radius of the attack ship was once again expanded several times.

In order to conduct electronic warfare against the Tau, the Skyhawk Squadron's fighters are all in teams of two, performing take-off and alert missions.

One is the pilot and the other is the weapons and electronics operator. The two pilots can take turns flying the aircraft to ensure energy and rest for long-distance routes.

Due to strict control of communication radiation, the talkative Veronica can no longer chat with her colleagues via radio.

However, she sat on Fasha's fighter plane as an operator and could chat with Fasha all the time, so it wasn't boring.

Anya Fasha, on the other hand, had to endure the chattering around her ears while keeping enough attention to fly her fighter plane on alert, which made her secretly groan.
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"It's amazing. Although we turned off all active detection systems, we didn't encounter an attack from the Tau Empire's commerce-breaking fleet during the nearly one-week voyage. It's incredible!"

The commander of the local Ultramar defense fleet in charge of the escort stood on the bridge, looking out the porthole at the transport fleet that was safe and sound, seemingly motionless, and murmured in disbelief.

"Send a signal to the Imperial Navy's Epic to thank them for their hard work in escorting us. At this rate, we will be able to reach the war zone planet in three days at most."

A high-power signal light was turned on, and the flickering light illuminated a corner in the dark void, appearing extremely bright.

"Captain, the Shield of Ultramar sent out a message, 'Thanks to the escort of the Imperial Navy, we were able to reach our target location safely and smoothly.'"

"Damn it! I told you to use holographic flags for external communications! They violated the blackout!" Seeing the million-watt bridge searchlight flashing lights regularly under the operation of the operator, Horatio was shocked and cold sweat broke out on his back.

"Immediately increase surveillance of the surrounding area!"

"Captain! We have detected a 3 micron frequency signal!"

Harvey held onto the headset and looked at Horatio solemnly: "After identification, this is the shortwave communication signal of the Tau Empire!"

Horatio stared out the window into the darkness.

"Entire fleet! Immediately implement level 2 combat alert!"

As the flag signaling the second-level combat alert was sounded, all ships hurriedly began to enter combat readiness.

"Reduce speed and open the shadow field."

The six attack ships changed from their original high-speed sailing to 2/3 speed to ensure that the shadow field could operate normally.

"The shadow field is activated."

With a strange humming sound, the entire battleship entered a stealth state of spectral refraction.

From the outside, it seems as if nothing exists here, as if it is indeed an empty universe.

But in fact, this is the perspective effect created by the shadow field simulating the surrounding scenery, so that the observer can only see a "transparent" illusion. Magical Eldar technology.

As the radiation was monitored, the imperial warships gradually successfully located the source of the micron signal waves.

Then, the signal source on the screen split into two other signal sources.

This doesn't look like the release of carrier-based aircraft. The extra signal source is a single wave frequency, not a messy squadron wave frequency.

Horatio looked at the signal source location on the spectrometer, thoughtfully.

His pupils shrank suddenly.

[Tau Empire Mothership!]
Horatio remembered that some of the Tau ships could use gravity grappling hooks and adopt the 'mistletoe' method to carry multiple small ships while sailing.

After encountering the enemy, the mother ship will drop the daughter ship to fight together.

His mind was thinking rapidly.

First of all, the opponent is unlikely to be the Merchant-class. The Merchant-class has weak firepower and slow speed. It will not be so fast, and will not take the initiative to cause trouble for the Imperial Fleet.

But it shouldn't be a Tau Empire battleship either.

The Protector Fleet's large warships are already scarce in number, and with the fighting at the front in full swing, how could they possibly spare a single ship to penetrate behind enemy lines?
All possibilities were ruled out one by one, and finally only one possibility remained - the opponent was an "Emissary" class light cruiser.

As the name implies, the Envoy class was created to satisfy the Tau Empire's 'gunboat diplomacy' and is the first capital ship of these aliens.

It has a large output and can carry two small warships. It is the vanguard of the expansion of the Tau clan and is usually used as an 'armed diplomatic ship' to escort the Water Clan ambassadors to their destination safely for bribery transactions or military intimidation.

Because of its suitability for single-ship cruising and its ability to carry two small attack ships, the Envoy-class light cruisers also constitute the main force of the Tau Empire's raiding fleet.

[No doubt about it, it is most likely her.]
"Turn left, let's see who's coming. Be careful, our opponent is much bigger than us, everyone, be on high alert!"

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(End of this chapter)