Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 518 06.0517: "The Chasing Hound"

Horatio did not stay too long in the modified operating room that was echoing with howls. He soon returned to the bridge to continue his duties.

The overall speed of the fleet was slowed down by the pilgrimage ship. This extremely huge void giant had a speed of barely 8 void knots.

Even the Imperial Bell-class merchant ship is much faster than it - it can reach 12 void knots in afterburner.

"Captain, unknown subspace fluctuations have been detected, the nature is... jump!"

Whoosh!Whoosh!Whoosh!
Several Tau warships appeared at Mandeville Point, 16,000 kilometers behind the Epic.

As officers of the Imperial Navy, they were not unfamiliar with the Tau warships' method of navigating the warp.

Essentially, it also uses the Warp route, but unlike the Imperial warships, the Tau, as a race without psychics, explored the mysterious Warp and ultimately came up with a method of transforming the Warp jump from going deep into the 'Ocean of the Highest Sky' to 'floating on water'.

Their warships were like a stone floating across the surface of the Warp at high speed, whizzing forward and passing lightly, without really going deep into the undercurrents and dangerous waves of the Warp.

But this is not without cost - they travel slower than the Empire because they need to fluctuate back and forth between the real universe and the subspace, and are restricted by the basic time laws of the real universe.

When Horatio sank the merchant fleet, rescued the pilgrim ship, captured the spy ship, and was about to run back to the Imperial Navy's control area, these blue alien ships finally arrived.

"Commander, how should we deal with them?"

"We will not abandon the pilgrim ship unless we are destroyed."

"Our ship has no torpedoes left in reserve. We will continue to accompany the escort and summon other attack ships to delay them."

"Archie, how long will it take to reach the Imperial Navy controlled area?"

"At least 12 hours, but it is reported that Vice Admiral Samuel Hood's fleet has already set out into the warp, and the arrival time is unknown."

"God Emperor bless us. The attacking battle group will disperse immediately and adopt blocking tactics. Fire all the torpedoes."

After the order was given, the wolves immediately scattered and implemented blocking tactics.

Captain Kretschmer of the E-99 attack ship boldly turned around and headed towards the enemy fleet.

Seeing that the E-99 was so radical, another captain, Prien, who was also known for his radicalism, also went there.

E-46、E-47、E-103则打算依靠星云，进行较为保险的‘打带跑’战术，顺便接应E-47和E-99号攻击舰的撤离。

Among them, the locations headed by the E-47 and E-99 attack ships exceeded the maximum command distance of Horatio's void sandbox.

This was the first time that the other attack ships launched a group battle on their own without the squadron leader leading the ship to join the battle.

This is a 'final exam' where your life is tested.

"Captain, the enemy fleet has come into sight and has been identified. There are three cruisers, four light cruisers, and eight destroyers or frigates surrounding the fleet. They have just finished jumping and are forming a formation." The officer on E-99 reported.

"Got it." Captain Kretschmer straightened his wrinkled white-topped captain's wide-brimmed hat and replied.

"After following Major Cochrane for so long, show us what you have learned and impress our colleagues on other attack ships!

All torpedoes in the bow torpedo silo are preheated. Torpedoes No. 1 and No. 2 use FAT guidance heads, and torpedoes No. 3 and No. 4 use thermal energy tracking guidance heads. "After a brief and simple pep talk, Captain Krezimer stood in front of the binoculars on the observation platform again, observing the target and giving orders.

"Torpedoes preheated, Captain."

"Open the slide cover and prepare to launch torpedo number one and two. After 15 seconds, launch torpedo number three and four.

The launch plan was sent out in the form of flag signals to the E-47 attack ship for reference. Soon, the E-47 attack ship also responded with the same attack strategy using flag signals.

The two ships then agreed on a launch time.

Captain Kretschmer and Captain Prien looked at their pocket watches and watched the hands on them spin. Everyone was silent and extremely nervous.

"emission!"

Whoosh!Whoosh!
First, four torpedoes were fired from the bows of two ships in different directions, flying towards the Tau fleet that was forming a formation.

The other party also reacted quickly and immediately started the plasma engine to disperse freely.

Soon, two torpedoes equipped with thermal seekers were fired at the same time as the enemy's engines were maximized to avoid the torpedoes.

This was Kretschmer's tactical plan - first use two FAT seeker torpedoes to force the enemy to maneuver, and then use two heat source seekers to chase the enemy ship's engines.

Regardless of whether it is destroyed or not, as long as the enemy ship's power can be paralyzed and it cannot catch up with the pilgrim ship, it can also be regarded as achieving the tactical goal.

When four FAT torpedoes approached the fleet, the surging close-in firepower immediately retaliated. The destroyers and frigates took the initiative to rush towards the torpedoes, intending to use ion cannons to destroy the torpedoes that threatened the fleet.

It has to be admitted that once the Tau ships reached a certain scale, the close-in firepower network they formed was indeed tight - after all, both the Imperial Navy and the Space Marines of the Human Empire liked to use torpedoes, and they would rely on their sturdy adamantine bow shields to charge straight in and fire at close range.

After paying a heavy price repeatedly, the Tau also made targeted adjustments to their warship development ideas - even if they reduced their anti-ship heavy naval guns, they had to ensure that they had dense ion close-in defense guns that could fire in all directions to deal with the Imperial Army's torpedoes and ordnance.

Under such circumstances, torpedoes fired at close range can be intercepted to the greatest extent, not to mention the torpedoes fired by the E-47 and E-99 attack ships at a distance of 1500 kilometers. This long distance leaves enough time for the Tau warships to react.

The first batch of torpedoes were completely destroyed by the fierce strafing of the warships. The huge shock wave of the nuclear explosion hit the dark void. The destructive power made all the Titanium officers and soldiers stunned and frightened.

If such a torpedo hits one's own warship, the consequences will be disastrous.

The radiation aftermath of the nuclear torpedo explosion briefly paralyzed the detection array on the warship, and the small ship was also affected by the huge shock wave and swayed.

"Kan#bong! The enemy's second batch of torpedoes!"

It was a nuclear detonation torpedo equipped with a thermal seeker, launched after a 15-second delay.

This news made all the Tau crew members, who had breathed a sigh of relief, breathe a sigh of relief again.

They immediately made an emergency turn, which caused the stern flame to leak out and became more obvious to the psychic in the guidance head.

As the psyker rushed toward the light of death, the Tau warships unleashed decoy bombs.

Sparkling foil strips, dazzling heat sources, and piercing high-frequency noise generators all spewed out from the nozzles on the surrounding areas.

The psychic in the guiding head was dazzled by the chaotic light in front of him, and lost sight of the original target.

Then he was tortured by the piercing noise and screamed miserably.

After losing the correct position of the maneuvering target due to the decoy bomb, they used neural plugs to control the torpedo rudder to turn.

In order to survive, the Tau warships spared no effort in spraying decoy bomb groups, even if this would affect subsequent battles - because the decoy bomb groups can be consumed.

Upon seeing this, Captain Kretschmer contacted Captain Prien, and together they fired four more bow torpedoes - this was all they had, but as long as they could achieve a result, they would have done their best.

(End of this chapter)