The Siege of Avalon (5)
And at this point, I figured the newbies were probably wondering where the hell all those interceptors that had been swarming in like a cloud of hornets had gone off to.
Of course, I'd already run the endgame set myself about three years ago—no, closer to five by now—so I knew perfectly well what those maniacally charging interceptor jockeys were up to without even needing to look.
"Jessica, the interceptors still haven't made it to the battlefield, have they?"
"Nope."
"They must've scrambled them in a panic the second they realized sitting still meant getting their hangars pounded into scrap. Stupid move."
I said it from the command seat, watching the massive screen as I slowly shook my head at the interceptors still crawling in from the far distance.
"Tiamat."
"Yes, Commander?"
"Your turn. Launch the strike craft from every carrier."
"Understood! Launching immediately!"
And cutting back to the gallery's point of view—
The newbies were finally starting to grasp why the veterans had always told them not to use carriers in the early game.
[Icarus battle footage, interceptors still flying in.jpg]
Looking at last event and Icarus's previous battle videos, the strike craft never seemed this slow?
Are the city interceptors just that fucking slow? What's going on?
[Image of a toad slowly shaking its head]
1. During the Ancient Empire event, the battlefield itself was tiny, but it was packed with indestructible obstacles—so you never really felt how slow the strike craft were.
Engagement ranges were so close that the time it took strike craft to reach an enemy fleet was about the same as the time it took fleets to ram into each other.
Unlike capital ships that had to take massive detours around obstacle zones, strike craft just flew straight through them—so they felt faster.
2. People keep citing Icarus's battle footage as an example.
Even there, it takes forever for the strike craft to launch and actually make contact with the enemy fleet.
But here's how it actually plays out in-game:
[Interceptors still crawling toward Icarus's fleet.gif]
Like this.
Battleship main guns shredding your fleet and carriers is faster than strike craft launching, crossing the battlefield, and reaching the enemy.
Don't even start with the accuracy this, accuracy that talk.
Even with accuracy issues, battleship fire is still way faster and lands way more effective hits than strike craft toddling their way across the map.
…Of course, whether they actually understood any of it would probably remain one of life's great mysteries.
Anyway—while the newbies over in the gallery were having their little epiphany…
I, blissfully unaware any of that was happening, finished giving Tiamat the launch order and immediately had Hresvelgr and the rest of the fleet dump a massive volley of intercept missiles.
And as roughly five hundred thousand intercept missiles slammed into hundreds of thousands of enemy interceptors in a spectacular fireworks display—
"All strike craft, launch! Launch!"
"Ohh, is it finally our time?!"
—a massive swarm of strike craft lifted off from the Kraken, our carriers, and the mercenary corps' carriers under Tiamat's command.
I sent ninety percent of them to engage the enemy interceptors and then hit the fortress, while gathering the remaining ten percent in front of the fleet. Then, using the Kraken's teleportation drive, I ordered that ten percent to strike the fortress directly—hitting it while it was still complacent, well outside the range where anyone would expect an attack.
Of course, our total carrier force was only about twenty fleet carriers and ten-odd light carriers, which meant roughly a hundred and twenty thousand strike craft. And of those, ten percent—no, closer to eight or nine percent once teleportation limits kicked in—came out to maybe ten thousand craft. Hardly enough to deal meaningful damage to a massive Level 5 fortress stronghold.
"Commander, even if we teleport the strike craft in for an attack…"
"Hm?"
"…I don't think they'll be able to deal any real damage to the fortress, will they?"
Jessica, standing right beside me, raised the obvious point. I nodded—yeah, it definitely looked that way.
But only for a moment. I told her I had my reasons, idly kneading one of her rabbit ears as I continued issuing orders.
"Intercept success rate for Hresvelgr and the other ships?"
"Around fifty-six percent. The rest either missed or got spent shooting down the interceptors' own missiles."
"Leave the rest to the strike craft already pushing forward. Tell everyone to concentrate all firepower on the fortress."
"Got it. I'll pass the order right away."
The small-craft dogfight was too close-quarters for the mercenary corps' capital ships to dump fire into safely, so I pushed those idle heavy hitters forward and had them pour everything they had into the fortress.
And as one might expect—while the fortress command watched their security fleet turn into a former security fleet, and their interceptors get thoroughly inter/cept/ed—the full-scale airstrike from the teleported strike craft started hammering the fortress itself…
BEE-BEE-BEEP! BEE-BEE-BEEP!
"Commander! The fortress spaceport gates are opening!"
"Oppa, looks like the fortress is trying to sortie its main combat fleets."
"Oh. Finally."
The tightly sealed spaceport gates of Avalon Fortress swung open—and at last, they were about to deploy main force units packing more than ten battleships per fleet.
But the exact moment they opened those gates to sortie the main force was precisely the moment I'd been waiting for.
"Jessica—did I mention earlier that Neranzara was the key to this whole operation?"
"Ah, yes, you did say that."
"Have her hit every fortress spaceport gate that's opening right now with everything she's got. Not just the space torpedoes—throw everything."
"Ahh. Yes, Commander!"
Neranzara had slipped into subspace right after the battle started, toddled her way up to the fortress gates, and sat waiting there for hours. Now her indiscriminate torpedoes and missiles came pouring out—
and the fortress intercept systems, already overloaded dealing with the teleported strike craft running wild, failed to detect Neranzara's attack in time.
The result:
KRAAAANG! BOOM!
Rrrrrrrumble… THOOM! BOOOOM!
The gates the main fleets were supposed to crawl out of took critical damage—hatches locked half-open, frozen in place.
"Wait, those bastards just blocked the path with a battleship?!"
"Whoa, that's commitment."
"…That's not what this is, you absolute idiots."
In some places, a battleship mid-exit got slammed by the blast shockwave into the gate corridor—bow and stern folding into a V-shape jammed across the entrance, plugging the exit with its own hull. In others, a departing battleship cooked off in a chain detonation, taking the gate and several ships trying to leave with it.
Total, absolute chaos.
Of course, no matter how perfectly Neranzara timed dumping her entire arsenal, the fortress was enormous—and the strike craft providing supporting fire were already plenty busy. A few gates took only light damage and held, which meant the rest of the main fleets might still pour out through those remaining routes…
But that was exactly why I'd already ordered Hresvelgr and the other ships to concentrate fire on the fortress.
Hundreds of thousands of missiles, beams, and shells arrived at the most exquisite possible moment—and in the blink of an eye, every remaining intact fortress gate was refined into pure scrap metal with outstanding efficiency.
And while the main fleets were all stuck enjoying the classic "gates you can't leave without XX" experience—
the security fleet buddies who'd foolishly crawled out first put on a masterclass in what it looked like to form a defensive line and try, with every ounce of desperate effort, to hold the fortress.
But no matter how hard each ship fought, they were outnumbered from the start—and outclassed in raw performance on top of it. They were ground down, and ground down again. Even the battleships they'd been counting on all went up in the overwhelming firepower disparity.
And before long…