Scan Results from the Badass Gravity Detector Radar That Devoured 155,500 Minerals
With that, I could roughly calculate the force composition of the invading clan.
"Let's see. So the only ones with clearly identified user markers are the capital ships?"
"Yes. The rest are difficult to identify even with the Gravity Detector Radar."
"Hmmmm… so they've got exactly three people on battlecruisers, and one separate user managing all the light carriers."
"And of those three battlecruiser users, two of them each brought three ships, while the other only has one."
The enemy fleet's structure boiled down to something like this.
The ones who'd brought three battlecruisers apiece had wallpapered their fleets with nothing but battlecruisers and heavy cruisers. Three ships came to about ninety points total, so they'd filled the remaining three hundred-odd points with heavy cruisers and nothing else?
Meanwhile, the user with only a single battlecruiser was covering the leftover heavy cruisers the other two hadn't filled out, plus assorted small ships and five resource mining vessels — which doubled as repair ships.
The remaining user had likewise brought three light carriers, then spent their leftover points on a carrier escort fleet and repair ships. Which meant, naturally, that the last user had wallpapered their entire fleet with nothing but "small ships" — light cruisers, destroyers, and the like.
"So that means at least half the destroyers and the entire escort force in that fleet… are all handled by a single person."
"They're planning to fight with a thoroughly specialized division of labor, then?"
And that was exactly where I'd spotted the gap.
I roughly sketched out a plan in my head for how to wreck them, then said:
"Jessica, round up all the other supers. Now."
"Yes, Commander."
I decided to summon my beloved supers and begin preparations in earnest to thoroughly screw these people over.
The next morning.
The commanders of Clan Unity were inspecting their fleet's anti-air formation and checking their advance status.
"Damn, this is painfully slow."
"What choice do we have? It's a formation built to counter strike craft raids. Of course the mobility got traded in for garbage."
But unlike their flashy opening — where they'd sunk most of the enemy's reconnaissance and patrol forces right from the start — their advance was now slow, leisurely, and thoroughly unhurried.
Had the Humanity Clan handler been watching this situation, they might well have blown a gasket and gone berserk… but even if they had, Clan Unity had more than enough excuses ready.
Recalling the posts about Icarus's Kraken-class from the forums, their wariness spiked hard. Rather than charge in recklessly, they figured it wouldn't be too late to assess the situation once that vicious third-ranked player actually showed himself. Determined to preserve their precious capital ships, they locked into a thorough anti-air formation.
For a force that was supposedly invading, they weren't even stripping the surrounding resource zones. For a full day, they just sat there staring at the situation — generously buying Icarus all the time he needed to sharpen his knives and prepare.
Of course, that was all in the past now. Present-day Clan Unity was advancing carefully, maintaining a fortress-like anti-air formation of warships under an extremely cautious defensive posture.
But as they'd mentioned themselves, the specialty anti-air formation they'd built out of excessive fear of strike craft didn't give the fleet any mobility buffs — it slapped a massive mobility debuff on their base speed instead. They were crawling forward at a pace that could only be described as slug-like.
Still, no matter how slow they were, they'd reach Icarus's base in a day or two at most. Unlimited mercenary hiring — Icarus's biggest threat factor — was impossible for at least another week, and it had been confirmed that the Pirate Empress and her fleet weren't here either. So, as noted above, they advanced with the rock-solid conviction that time was on their side, in a thoroughly leisurely manner.
But for Clan Unity — advancing under what they called a thorough defensive posture — there was a critical problem they themselves hadn't noticed.
They called themselves a clan, but in reality they were a temporary outfit: five users with decent-looking forces, randomly pulled from the players who'd peeled off through Humanity Clan's secretly orchestrated "factional splintering." Organic cooperation between them was the furthest thing from anyone's mind.
Granted, they were rankers in the top 500 and top 1,000 respectively, so they had individual skill to spare. But "basic" cooperation was all they could manage. They hadn't spent long coordinating with each other, and their hands and feet kept failing to sync up in awkward places. Contrary to outward appearances, the defensive power that should have been organically integrated across each user's formation was in truly shabby condition.
And so, having thoroughly discarded anything resembling "teamwork," they were pushing steadily forward — when Goliath, who held only a single battlecruiser and served as a kind of waist for the overall fleet, saw countless blips light up on his fleet radar and let out something close to a scream.
"Shit, strike craft inbound!"
"Where?!"
"Where?!"
"They're coming this way!"
Naturally, at Goliath's transmission, the Clan Unity members recalled the Kraken's overwhelming stompfest from the forums and frantically started hounding RamuRamu — the small-ship user — to send anti-air destroyers, scrambling around in a panic.
But only for a moment.
Brrrrrt-brrt-BOOM! KRAKOOM! Bang!
"Huh? Yo, those strike craft are just melting?"
"…Eh?"
"What?"
Before RamuRamu's anti-air ships could even get there, Icarus's strike craft were being shredded to pieces by Goliath's fleet anti-air net. The Clan Unity users briefly short-circuited at a sight they had not anticipated in the slightest.
At the same time, inside the command center of Icarus's Astral Base—
"Aww, those poor strike craft…"
"It can't be helped."
Jessica looked genuinely pained watching the Level 1 strike craft from the light carrier I was sortieing and controlling melt away like butter. I soothed her with the assurance that everything was going according to plan, then quickly issued a retreat order to the remaining craft.
Of course, if I just mindlessly ordered a full retreat, the Level 1 strike craft's pathetic evasion stats would get every last one of them shredded. So I personally took control of a portion of them, drawing aggro by loosely scattering the rockets I'd loaded in place of torpedoes and missiles — buying time for the others to withdraw.
But no matter how hard a user microed, when the underlying performance was that garbage, you couldn't hold out for long. By the time the other strike craft had all retreated — absorbing losses as they went — the squadron I'd been piloting was completely annihilated.
Still, even with a user personally controlling them, hundreds of strike craft had been ground down without dealing any real damage. And then the enemy fleet — which had been crawling forward like a slug in its thorough anti-air formation — shifted. It split into a force led by the three light carriers and a force containing seven battlecruisers, and began properly picking up speed, unlike moments before.
I realized they'd taken the bait exactly as planned, and immediately moved on to the next phase.
And at the very moment Icarus was watching Clan Unity's movements and cooking up his wicked little scheme…
…or rather, a few minutes earlier.
In Clan Unity, the shock of watching Icarus's strike craft get shredded far worse than expected lasted only a moment. Then they proceeded to make a choice they absolutely never should have made — had they only been able to see their own horrific future.
There's a Lot to Consider for Vic☆tory. (3)
"I'm telling you, the strike craft are melting way easier than expected."
"This anti-air formation is incredibleeee!"
"No, even accounting for that, they're melting too hard. Wasn't that forum post just bullshit?"
"Tsk."
Forgetting the age-old maxim that complacency is fatal in war and combat, they mistook the light carrier strike craft Icarus had sent out for the Kraken's strike craft mentioned on the forums.
"Wouldn't it be better if just one of us peels off and goes beat the hell out of their carriers?"
"Hmm."
Led by Goliath, who'd just repelled the strike craft raid, the opinion began creeping out that Icarus and the Kraken's threat level as described on the forums had clearly been overhyped — so they might as well just go snatch the carriers outright.
The rest of Clan Unity all reacted like that sounded about right… but—
"Still, the guy's ranked third. He wouldn't have gotten there by gambling, right?"
"Honestly, I think it's dangerous. I don't think we should move carelessly."
RamuRamu and one other, who'd been cautious from the start, looked distinctly uneasy at Goliath and the remaining users' reactions.
"Why are we even sitting around here? It's all because of those fancy strike craft — that's why we've been crawling along this ridiculously slow the whole time, saying it's too dangerous."
"Well… that is part of it, yeah."