Chapter 63: If You Don’t Come, I Will Go There
The armor of these combat spacecraft seemed to be made of some extremely high-tech material, making them very sturdy.
Despite facing three full days of projectile bombardment, although they were hit multiple times, not a single one was destroyed; at most, their outer layers became pitted, and some equipment on their exteriors was damaged.
The most severely damaged combat spacecraft seemed to have its thruster destroyed, losing its maneuverability.
Although the battle results were not extensive, they were still enough to satisfy Tom.
After all, Tom never expected to threaten the spacecraft with a barrage of bullets; being able to severely damage one, with the rest all having some degree of damage, was a pleasant surprise.
What was used to deal with these battleships were other things.
At this moment, the three-day bombardment had concluded. The entire surface of God-Enemy Star had been almost completely plowed over, and no artificial structures could be seen on the ground.
Just then, the true Mercury-class Battleships were also ready.
Previously, they dared not deploy for fear of being discovered by the opponent. But now that the cards were on the table, there were no more qualms.
Thus, these 500 Mercury-class Battleships, along with 50 of the largest cargo ships, simultaneously engaged their highest power acceleration.
methane and oxygen burned fiercely in the combustion chambers, continuously generating high-temperature, high-pressure gas.
These gases were strictly confined within the combustion chambers, unable to spread outwards, and thus could only be squeezed out, like an explosion, from the engine nozzles, thereby providing powerful thrust for the entire spacecraft, propelling it to accelerate rapidly.
In a short period, these spacecraft accelerated from their original 1 kilometer per second to 11 kilometers per second at this moment!
After this, the spacecraft engines shut down, entering an inertial flight state.
During the subsequent flight, the spacecraft would at most only make minor course adjustments.
It wasn’t that Tom didn’t want to accelerate to a higher speed, but that he couldn’t.
After all, he didn’t have High-Speed Ion Propulsion Technology, nor secondary pressurized propulsion technology, and could only rely on chemical propellants for propulsion.
And the consumption of chemical propellants was very high. If they accelerated further, even with cargo ships accompanying them, their fuel would run out.
But it didn’t matter. Even if they only advanced at the current speed, it would only take about a little over a month to cross the vast distance of more than 40 million kilometers and reach the battlefield.
This time, Tom still chose not to have his main body reach the battlefield.
This meant that when he controlled these battleships, there would still be a delay of about 4 minutes. This would inevitably cause the performance of these 500 battleships to be poor, and their combat power to sharply decrease.
But it didn’t matter, Tom had his own plans.
And, these first 500 battleships that set sail were not the entirety of this war.
Tom, remaining at the Main Base, still controlled a total of about 900,000 Clones with almost no communication delay, and they were once again put into another task.
To fully commit to manufacturing more Mercury-class Battleships, and to fully commit to producing more machine gun bullets, autocannon shells, fuel, consumables, and interstellar missiles!
Almost on the first day that the 500 Mercury-class Battleships set sail, the first batch of subsequent supplies had already been produced.
That included ten million machine gun bullets, ten thousand autocannon shells, and large quantities of methane, pure oxygen, interstellar missiles, and so on.
They were packed into containers, filling ten boxes in total, and then cargo ships carried them to accelerate, accelerating to a suitable speed and giving them a suitable orbit, after which they were directly thrown into space, allowing them to autonomously fly towards God-Enemy Star.
Afterwards, the cargo ships returned, picked up the second batch of supplies, and threw them into space again, repeating this process.
After three days of continuous expedited work, the first batch of Mercury-class Battleships was completed.
There were five of them, and after completing their resupply at the space base, they also embarked on the journey to God-Enemy Star.
Thus, whether it was bullets or battleships, shells or fuel, various supplies continuously departed from Loshen Star, flying towards God-Enemy Star.
At this moment, there was still about a little over a month before the first 500 Mercury-class Battleships would reach the battlefield.
The surviving enemy mothership and battleships once again found themselves in a dilemma.
At this point, their own base was destroyed, and they had almost lost all logistical supply capabilities. Meanwhile, the enemy’s battleships, though technologically inferior, were continuously arriving.
So, what should they do?
Should they rush to repair the base, restoring supplies as much as possible, or... directly abandon supplies and head to the opponent’s planet, destroying their base first?
The more rational choice was undoubtedly to destroy the opponent’s base as well.
But... the previous bullet barrage, since it could be used to destroy their own base, seemed capable of performing defensive tasks as well.
Imagine those overwhelming bullets continuously firing from the planet; how could their battleships withstand them?
Then it seemed there was only one option left.
Rely on the superior performance of their own spacecraft to block the opponent’s continuous attacks, race against time to repair the base, and restore supplies!
This time, they must remember to build the base underground!
Once supplies were restored, no matter how many battleships the opponent sent, it would be futile!
And looking at the technological gap between the enemy and themselves, this was something that was highly likely to be achieved.
So these dozens of battleships remained at God-Enemy Star, frequently taking off and landing between the surface of God-Enemy Star and the mothership under the watchful eyes of Tom’s spy satellites, seemingly fully committed to emergency repair operations.
The battlefield fell silent for a time.
Then, the first 500 Mercury-class Battleships arrived.
Half of the dozens of enemy battleships swiftly charged towards the Mercury-class Battleship fleet.
But this time, Tom did not directly control these Mercury-class Battleships to engage them head-on.
Even though the opponent’s battleships were severely lacking in logistical supplies and most were damaged at this moment.
Tom simply executed an extremely simple tactical maneuver.
Full-strength retreat! Flee! At the same time, machine guns, autocannons, and missiles were all fired in a frenzy, attacking with all their might!
Because the tactic was simple, it could be executed even with a four-minute communication delay.
Specks of fire flickered in the vast, deep space.
As expected, most of his attacks were intercepted, failing to destroy even a single enemy battleship. Instead, more than a dozen of his own battleships were directly destroyed by the opponent because they couldn’t escape in time.
Fortunately, the main fleet finally managed to escape.
Seeing his side flee, those enemy battleships returned to their mothership, intending to continue their repair mission.
"Not pursuing? How can that be? If you don’t come, I’ll go over there."
Tom sneered, directly controlling the fleet to approach again.
Machine guns, autocannons, and interstellar missiles once again began a fierce bombardment.