Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!

Chapter 477 06.0476: ‘First in the Middle’

“Praise His exquisiteness, sing His erudition, praise His creation, in the holy name of Ohm Messiah.”

The upper half of the tech-priest’s face, which was completely covered by the dark red artificial eye, reflected the faint green light of the CRT screen, and the flat electronic sound was accurately played according to the preset programming.

“Red Flame Hymn, Section 12, Paragraph 12…

111001111000001010111001 1110…

(First step, light the candle, burn the incense; silently recite for 12 seconds, praise 12 times, push the valve, and cut off the engine plasma supply).”

When the incense smoke with a strange metallic smell filled the operating room, the tech-priest pulled down the gate.

The buzzing sound of plasma charging joined the chorus.

"Pray 12 times, silently recite the holy name of Ohm Messiah, and open the slide cover of the torpedo well."

The tedious operation was quickly completed, and the probability of successful launch calculated and simulated by the Thinker was displayed on the CRT screen as 100%.

Horatio's E96 was located at the rear of the merchant fleet, in the southwest corner of the relative position of the merchant fleet.

The Epic had just performed a flexible turning maneuver, turning from following and then turning forward, and aimed at the side of the armed merchant ship at the rear of the fleet at a nearly vertical angle.

"Fire!"

Swoosh!

The surging tail energy turned into dazzling light and fire, and the tail turbulence was very conspicuous in this dark universe far away from the stars.

Almost at the same time, the attack ships at the four corners launched an attack on the merchant-class armed merchant ship carrying two destroyers in the "parasite" mode.

This is because the battle information Horatio brought to the Fury Interceptor also contained a short text instruction-'Launch an attack immediately after seeing the red mark. '

Some attack ships fired two torpedoes at once, and some even fired all their missiles at once, just to increase the success rate of destroying armed merchant ships.

In an instant, multiple hostile warning signals were detected on the radar display of the Tau merchant ship.

The ion close-in defense guns controlled by artificial intelligence on the side immediately took heart, stood at attention, and pointed their muzzles at the torpedoes flying at full speed.

The ion close-in defense guns in the ship's gravity field roared, and a steady stream of ions were transmitted from the engine along the insulator-wrapped waveguide tube, converted by focused energy, and fired at a rate of 1,200 rounds per second.

The ion missiles of the close-in defense gun formed a dark blue curtain around the warship.

"Nuclear detonation torpedo No. 2, wire-guided launch!"

After grasping the right time and controlling the appropriate time interval, Horatio immediately asked the Operations Department to issue a new attack order.

With the launch of the second torpedo.

Gugugugu——

Soon after the engine was activated, the thermonuclear fuse was activated by injecting energy into the internal duct and preheating reaction.

In front, the short-burning torpedo was still speeding at a very high speed, and behind, the nuclear explosion torpedo followed closely.

The armed cargo ship targeted by the Epic was like a fire hedgehog. Her long, clumsy, and slow-moving hull tried her best to avoid the short-burning torpedo fired from a distance of less than 400 kilometers.

The dark attacker accurately threw this extremely fast "harpoon" at her amidships at a close distance under the concept of the void.

She had only ten seconds to react.

The close-in defense guns on it almost pulled the firing range to track the torpedo fired at the hull.

But in fact, it was not only the E-96 Epic that launched the attack.

E-99 was just in front of E-96, not far away in the direction of 283, and she also threw a round of sharp "harpoons".

The plasma ball hit the closest short-burning torpedo, and the plasma ball burned the metal shell.

However, the Helios torpedo and its derivatives commonly used by the Imperial Navy have thicker defensive shells.

Moreover, the interior of the torpedo is not complicated. It has been considered from the beginning of the design that even if the pipeline is burned through, it will not affect its normal detonation.

This means that these five major and three steel columns need to be concentrated for a while, or the warheads will be destroyed by accidental detonation.

The two close-in defense guns on the left side continued to fire at the middle and front warheads of the short-burning torpedo for six or seven seconds.

Bang!

With a dazzling flash, the torpedo exploded, and the remaining plasma ball swept around the Epic ship 400 kilometers away. Thanks to the extremely small frontal projection of the ship, it was not hit by the drifting shrapnel.

"Torpedo No. 1 was intercepted! It failed to hit."

As the lookout officer finished speaking, brilliant flames burst out from the side of the Merchant-class.

That was the result of the attack ship E-99. Captain Otto Kretschmer scored the first hit in this battle.

Under the threat of the first torpedo launched by E-96, these artificial intelligences would only prioritize the closest and most threatening torpedo, and had to let go of other torpedoes.

It is precisely because of this idea that saturation salvos will be the most effective anti-interception strategy against the Tau Empire's ion close-in defense guns.

Of course, the first hit does not mean the end of the battle.

Armed merchant ships were born for escort and can be regarded as warships in the trade fleet.

There are a large number of professional damage control troops and repair drones on board.

For this 4.5-kilometer-long light cruiser, a short-burning torpedo is enough to severely damage it, but it is not fatal.

The first result was confirmed, and the nuclear flame destroyed one of the enemy ship's ion close-in defense guns and a twin-mounted railgun on the side.

Just as the ship was immediately under damage control and tried to release the two destroyers that had been prepared on the gravity hook, a more violent explosion that shook the entire ship again interrupted the decision of Captain Qi.

The superb computing circuit logic of Lati's mind even exceeded the reaction of artificial intelligence. The nuclear detonation torpedo in the wire-guided mode seemed to have life under her operation. It was extremely maneuverable and successfully turned out the "fish dance", deceiving the advance computing logic of artificial intelligence, and hit a beautiful uppercut directly into the belly of the ship.

The gravity hook on one side instantly tore the hull structure near the fin, the nuclear trigger was activated, and high-energy thermonuclear fusion bloomed in the ship.

The glare was so dazzling that even the observation officer could not look directly at it for a while. After a moment, Louise saw the situation clearly through the periscope with the fusion filter turned on.

"The result of the battle is confirmed! The enemy ship's midship is broken! The whole ship is split into two and loses its combat capability!"

Horatio nodded gently, tapping his index finger on the armrest of the command throne made of pure gold.

He understood the battle situation earlier than Louise, and saw the damage of the enemy ship in the void sand table in advance.

That's right, who stipulated that the destruction of the enemy ship in the void war must be completely exploded to count.

Blow it up and split it into two, even if the front and rear sections of the hull are still relatively intact, there are still a large number of people alive inside, and it can even continue to fire, it is no different from a waste ship.

At this time, E-96 and E-99 should have completed their mission and successfully destroyed the armed merchant ship before it released the destroyer.

But when Horatio looked at the overall situation of hunting again, he found that things were not as smooth as he imagined.