Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 595 06.0594: "The Moment of Life and Death"

"It went in this direction."

Horatio pursed his lips, tapped his knuckles impatiently on the armrests of the adamantine throne, and spoke as he looked at the dense debris floating outside the porthole.

"Could it have been destroyed?" Louise's lips moved slightly, paying close attention to every move outside the porthole.

He sighed. "I should hope so. Did any of you see the second torpedo hit feedback just now?" Horatio asked the entire bridge crew.

Everyone shook their heads. At such a critical moment, everyone was focusing on the crisis at hand and had no extra energy to pay attention to unimportant information.

"Turn on active detection." Horatio rarely gave the order to turn on the ship's omnidirectional radar.

"Ah, Commander, please allow me to introduce to you the AN/SPY-1D LPI waveform auscultator carried by the Epic..." A familiar female voice sounded from beside Horatio.

"Laddy? When did you get up here? You always appear somewhere on the battleship without anyone noticing."

"Hmm, hmm, hmm~ That's not important. What's important is that this auspex comes from Voss's new STC template. Although you seldom activate it actively, you still need to know that it is specialized for detection operations in gas cloud environments." Letty lifted the hem of her holy vestment and saluted Horatio like a lady, just like she did when she first met him.

"You know, Father, I never have much time to listen to theories. You can be brief and tell me what is worthy of my special attention." Horatio tilted his head slightly and raised his eyebrows.

"You are still as anxious as ever, Fufufu~"

Lati stroked his lips and smiled, "The detection range of the AN/SPY-1D LPI waveform auspicious instrument is 1250 kilometers. You can choose to enable a high-frequency search mode of up to 10 minutes. In this mode, it can filter and scan the gas cloud layer within 1000 kilometers.

Even if the opponent hides deep in the gas cloud, his whereabouts will be exposed during this period of time."

"Thanks for the reminder, I'll put it to good use."

Horatio returned the gift to Lettie. He was very respectful to her. Although this woman behaved mysteriously and strangely, he would never be rude to her.

“All ships, adopt relative positions.

"Captain of the Avionics, turn on the high-frequency search mode of the Avionics radar! Keep it on for five minutes, then off for ten minutes, repeating this cycle until the injured manta ray is found!"

"As you command, Captain."

Beep! Beep!
As the long, sharp buzzing sound echoed in the command bridge, the search array located on top of the Romanesque spire at the highest point of the command bridge began to rotate at a high frequency.

Since he boarded the Epic, he has never activated the Epic's built-in active detection radar once.

The bird astronaut was wearing a pair of audio headphones and staring intently at the glass hemispherical radar station.

When the radar rotated a circle, suspicious targets in the surrounding area were preliminarily marked out.

After the radar rotated five times and went through five rounds of screening, only a small flashing dot was left on the glass hemisphere.

"New radar contact! A suspicious target was detected at 72 degrees to the starboard side of our ship's relative position! Relative distance 600 kilometers, phase ZL!"

"Captain, the four torpedoes have been loaded. Should we fire them all or test-fire them first?"

"Launch in two waves. The first wave will launch torpedoes 1 and 2 to test the waters. Then decide whether to launch torpedoes 3 and 4."

"Understood." Louise returned to the combat situation platform of the CIC Operations Department in her combat boots and gave orders to the operators sitting at the operating table, "Launch torpedo No. 1 and No. 2 in the first wave."

"Torpedo locked." Operators wearing surround sound array headphones quickly tapped the keys on the display console. As transferred warrant officers, they had made some physical modifications to better perform their duties during their long service careers - these devices would be passed on to their successors after their death, which was usually their next generation of descendants.

"Torpedo launch!"

Gu——! Chi——! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Torpedo No. 1 was fired first, followed closely by Torpedo No. 2, with the two torpedoes maintaining a distance of less than 2 kilometers between them.

The projectile rotated at high speed and headed straight for the designated target.

"Captain! The target has moved!" The sound array connected to the captain's throat became louder.

"Wait, what is that..." Louise used the telescope with the highest magnification to look at the detection position of the divination radar. She vaguely saw large crisscross holes like honeycomb briquettes, emerging from under the opened sliding cover.

"Warning! Enemy ship is preparing to launch missiles!"

After Louise observed the target with her naked eyes, Horatio also saw this "dying" opponent on the void sand table. Both wingspans of her ship were severely damaged, and the fire on the ship was at least level three according to the Imperial Navy standards. It floated helplessly in the void.

A second salvo of missiles dealt her severe damage, disabling most of her engines and rendering her completely silent.

Without the towing of other warships, this cruiser carrier would have no chance of survival and would never be able to return to its home port on its own.

"Now! Second wave of torpedoes launched!"

"Vampire inbound!! (Anti-ship missile approaching!)"

The two ships threw their final chips of fate almost at the same time. The Epic fired four torpedoes, while the dying enemy cruiser fired five missiles. It was her last desperate struggle.

It's like two soldiers who are caught off guard and collide with each other in a street fight. It's either you die or I die.

"Full right rudder! Full right rudder! All ships in 'Ready to Attack' posture!"

The Epic made an emergency right turn and aimed the nine twin-mounted close-in defense guns on one side at the incoming missiles.

The distance between the two sides was too close. The missiles and torpedoes were captured by the close-in defense systems of both sides the moment they were fired. Dense spots of light shot towards the opponent's missiles, and countless deflected ion beams and lasers hit their respective ships' hulls, burning out black spots.

Poof——!
The close-in weapon system concentrated its fire at the five scattered missiles at the highest firing rate.

Horatio had seen the tricks of the Tau missiles, and he had already ordered two fire control radars to lock onto a missile for a cross intercept.

There are nine twin-mounted close-in defense guns on one side of the Epic.

[Maybe in time.]
Horatio wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Destroy one anti-ship missile! Sir! The remaining four are 300 kilometers away from our ship!"

"Release all loaded decoy bombs and deploy the nano-chemical smoke at maximum power!" He stood up from the command throne anxiously and waved his arms to give the order.

As soon as he finished speaking, two huge explosions of fire were heard in front of him.

Boom!

The first two torpedoes fired by the Epic actually hit the enemy's missiles directly, ending their mission with an unexpected outcome.

It is similar to the use of air-to-air interceptor missiles in the missile age to intercept and destroy enemy missiles.

[Come on, epic number!]
Horatio sensed the Machine Soul through the neural plug, and he could feel that the Epic's Machine Soul was doing its best to strafe and counterattack the incoming missiles.

boom!
Another heavy Seeker missile was intercepted by the close-in defense gun 220 kilometers away from the ship, exploding into golden fireworks in the gas cloud. The last two remaining missiles passed through the explosion cloud and continued to fly towards the target.

The second batch of torpedoes fired by the Epic also rushed towards the enemy in the same way.

The speed of the missiles from both sides is almost the same, and there is a high probability that they will hit their respective targets at the same time.

At the critical moment, Horatio opened his eyes and yelled, "Full speed ahead!"

The Epic suddenly accelerated, and at the moment the missile's end locked onto it, it rushed forward at top acceleration.

This round of unexpected charge almost instantly filled the engine to its maximum load. Countless bright red waste codes floated disturbingly in front of the engine priest. He stated stiffly: "Danger! The ion reactor has reached its maximum load!"

Horatio closed his eyes again, went to the Machine Soul World, held the girl's hand and ran forward.

"Epic, you can do it!" He gritted his teeth, and his mental perception was further artificially enhanced.

The electric current in the neural plug behind him surged and sizzled, and a burnt smell of denatured protein slowly drifted out from behind him.

The running electricity flashed across his body, between his head and the iron hand. A large part of it was absorbed by the iron hand and converted into energy to protect the host's safety.

Horatio felt the pain from the electric current and heat, and he bit his lower lip to endure it, biting it so hard that blood came out.

(End of this chapter)