Chapter 187
Translator: uly
Chapter: 187
Chapter Title: Space Crawler Pursuit
“……Hmm, even if it’s possible, isn’t it too soon right now?”
“Really?”
“You just came out of the rift. I remember that we were able to take it down before because it needed a rest period after moving once before it could move again.”
Tana said this, but her voice trembled with uncertainty.
Why do bad feelings always turn out to be right?
And as if to refute her words, Jim shouted out.
“A rift is opening in front of the Space Crawler! The Space Crawler is opening a rift!”
“……Oh no! We have to stop it!”
Tana cried out urgently.
I immediately ordered Frederick to do everything possible to block the Space Crawler.
But it was already too late.
Even though we’d prepared the main guns, the Space Crawler brushed off all attacks like they were nothing and vanished beyond the rift.
“Aaah…… How am I supposed to face Mr. Darmosa? How can it move again right away?”
“……Maybe it hitched a ride on the air raid? It offloaded the burden onto the Hive Nest, so it conserved its strength.”
“Yeah, that’s right…….”
Trying to block something that could withstand a full main gun barrage was a tall order to begin with, but a failure was still a failure.
Everyone squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for the disaster about to unfold at the rear.
But this wasn’t the time to despair.
I looked at the Space Crawlers behaving just like the previous one.
“There are still two more left.”
“R-Right! We have to block those at least!”
Tana jumped to her feet from her seat, urging us on.
Fortunately, our assessment had already reached Major General Ribel.
Taking the situation seriously, he aimed the main guns that were already prepped at the Space Crawlers.
“We’re firing too. Target the one on the left!”
“Main guns, fire!”
The two Space Crawlers struck by the main guns writhed in pain.
But it still wasn’t enough to divert their attention—they kept moving in their original direction.
Realizing this wouldn’t cut it, Major General Ribel changed the fleet’s top priority target to the Space Crawlers.
“Dump every missile we’ve got in reserve!”
“We have to divert the Space Crawlers’ attention!”
The entire fleet unleashed their firepower in a frenzy.
Secondary guns blazed, missiles streaked through space.
But most of the strikes hit random aliens midway along their paths and fizzled out.
Only a few actually reached the targets.
Still, it wasn’t completely ineffective.
Missiles powerful enough to melt a battleship’s outer armor in one hit slammed into the Space Crawlers’ barriers, detonating spectacularly.
“One of them is turning its head!”
It must have hurt bad—one of the two turned its head in agony, only to take a main gun shot to the head from Major General Ribel’s flagship, the Orlando.
“Nice!”
.
Even a Space Crawler couldn’t ignore that.
The Orlando was the largest Drunak-class battleship around.
Its main gun output was eight times that of my Murdoch-class ship.
Guoooooooh!!
A sound that shouldn’t have been audible reached us.
To be precise, it wasn’t a sound.
The shockwave of its agonized scream rippled faintly through the barrier.
But the rage contained within it came through loud and clear.
With a reaction like that, we didn’t have to worry about it ignoring us and leaving.
“One got…… away after all?”
The problem was the other one.
The one that got distracted had turned, blocking shots at the other.
And with the rift already open……
In the end, we could only watch helplessly as the second Space Crawler disappeared through the rift.
“……Nothing we can do about it. We have to deal with this one first.”
Now all the small rifts had closed.
Only one massive rift remained, shrunken to the size of a normal one.
And from it emerged a Hive Nest, trailed by its Whale Ship legion.
“Why does that one look like that?”
“……Yeah, it’s like it got gnawed on by rats.”
The Hive Nest’s condition was off too.
It looked like it had already been through a fight—flames and smoke rose from spots all over, and its shape was far from intact.
Incomplete, maybe.
“That’s good for us, right?”
“Yeah. Let’s ignore the Hive Nest for now and focus on that thing.”
I pointed at the Space Crawler.
The Hive Nest could wait.
It wasn’t in any shape to cause trouble right now.
As we exchanged opinions, the Space Crawler closed in without hesitation.
Its target appeared to be Major General Ribel’s flagship.
‘A Grade 8 specimen, if it’s a Space Crawler.’
I’d faced plenty of Grade 8s already.
But this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill mid-to-small specimen.
Space Crawlers were colossal.
It didn’t have any particularly special abilities, but its sheer size alone was an overwhelming pressure.
“It’s just charging straight at us!”
“Our attacks aren’t getting through!”
Ribel’s fleet sensed the danger and focused fire, but the Space Crawler only slowed slightly, stubbornly pressing forward.
The surrounding aliens ended up like shrimp caught in a whale fight, getting crushed in the crossfire.
“……Damn it, we poured too much into sealing those rifts. We don’t have the firepower left to stop it!”
“Retreat order issued! Don’t worry about formation—put distance between us!”
“We’re following suit! If that thing catches us, we’re done for.”
The Space Crawler bellowed again.
Its barrier shook, sending eerie resonant tones echoing through the ship.
Almost like it was taunting us not to run away like cowards.
But we couldn’t wrestle a 10-km monstrosity.
Frustrated at the closing distance, the Space Crawler began long-range attacks.
Panels on its shoulders and back shell lifted, unleashing a barrage.
Upon closer inspection, it was aliens hidden inside it firing on its behalf.
Caught off-guard while scattering, several support ships strayed from battleship protection and took heavy damage, sinking.
“Maintain distance to avoid attacks!”
The attack types were varied.
Explosive spit, corrosive spore blobs, mysterious globs spewing thick smoke.
All sorts pelted our barriers.
But the real danger came next.
“Captain!”
At Frederick’s report, I snapped my head up to see its maw gaping wide.
Immense energy condensed inside, starting to glow.
Surplus energy rippled out into space like waves.
‘Dangerous.’
I instinctively knew the Space Crawler’s charging shot was no joke.
“Barriers to maximum! Push the engines harder!”
“They’re already at max!!”
With so many ships around, it was unclear who it was targeting, but if it turned our way, we’d be vaporized instantly.
“No way it’s aiming…… Hmph!”
Tana started to say the word but clamped her mouth shut.
But maybe it was too late.
The Space Crawler was already turning its head toward its target.
“Captain! The Space Crawler’s looking our way!”
I gritted my teeth and shouted.
“Attempt to counter it and brace for impact!”
The next instant, the Space Crawler’s mouth yawned wide, and a shock slammed into the hull.
My vision went white for several seconds.
The bridge shook like a magnitude 9 earthquake, rattling the crew senseless.
“……Kyaaah!!”
“Hold on!!”
Something crashed and shattered, ringing in our ears.
When I came to, the ship had stabilized.
The barrier was a faint flicker from burnout, and we’d been shoved back into a collision with support ships hiding behind us, coming to a halt.
“Everyone okay?! Status report!”
“Barrier at 80% loss! Critical destruction at direct impact site!”
“Start repairs immediately!”
The status panels blared with yellow and red lights.
And that was with the barrier.
For a small Murdoch-class ship to block a Space Crawler’s blast unscathed was damn near impossible.
“Anomalies in thrusters 3 and 9!”
“Three secondary guns offline!”
“Casualties? Engine status?”
“Casualties being tallied, engines nominal!!”
“Captain!”
The danger hadn’t passed.
Unsated by its blast, the Space Crawler closed in on the flagship.
Our barely regenerating barrier shattered and reformed under repeated strikes.
“Keep backing up at full reverse while firing!”
“……Full reverse!”
Frederick staggered under the ship’s shaking but echoed the order.
“It’s targeting us on purpose, right?”
“Probably. Smart bastard.”
The Golden Fleet’s battleships numbered only two, and the Insignia was always off on dispatch, never with the flagship.
Unlike fleets maintaining formation in groups of three or more, we had just the one battleship.
Easy pickings for the Space Crawler.
“We’ll get caught at this rate!”
“Authority transfer. To Vice Captain Frederick.”
-Authority transfer complete.
“Captain?”
“Hold the fort for a bit.”
Since he was registered as vice captain, the handover was simple.
I left Frederick—who saluted—and rose from the captain’s chair, heading off the bridge.
Tana followed, asking me.
“What’s the plan?”
“We stop it.”
I’d already summoned all the superhumans aboard.
By the time we reached the escape pod bay, they were geared up and waiting.
“You’re all assembled already?”
“With all that racket, who could sleep?”
“Huh? Isn’t that Lady Tana?”
“Greetings later. No time to dilly-dally.”
Up on the dorsal deck, the Space Crawler loomed dangerously close.
“Whoa, it’s huge.”
“Think it’d swallow us whole without even chewing? Our ship looks bite-sized.”
I wanted to joke along, but no time.
I immediately fully released the seal on my left arm and began charging the crimson cannon.
“I’ll fire first! Everyone else, follow Merdi’s orders.”
The massive power flowed from my horn into my left arm.
The energy shifted properties, amplified with R3D3’s help, and fired off.
The Space Crawler—nearly on our tail—recoiled hard from the crimson cannon’s impact.
“Now!”
That wasn’t the end.
A barrage of superhuman abilities from the others hammered it almost simultaneously.
Finally, Merdi’s lightning spear struck the same spot, causing localized destruction—the Space Crawler shuddered violently.
“Again!”
I fired another crimson cannon without pause.
A firing rate I couldn’t have dreamed of before.
Sure, without venting heat, it’d damage my body badly, but my training paid off—no fatal injuries.
“Great!”
I confirmed the hit and forced my staggering body steady.
The barrier regenerated quickly, so no direct damage, but it flinched enough to halt the pursuit.
But my judgment was a bit premature—in a good way.
Just then, three main gun shots from the defense fleet hit home, causing more localized destruction.
And as if she’d timed it perfectly, Merdi slammed another lightning spear in.
Guoooooooh!!
The spear pierced the barrier, striking the Space Crawler directly.
Properly hit, it bellowed and flipped its body wildly.
The violent thrashing flung countless aliens living inside it out into space.
“Don’t let those attach. The barrier’s almost done for.”
“On it!”
“Guard the ship!!”
As the martial superhumans stepped up with desperate resolve, the Space Crawler plummeted toward the planet.
Too frantic to counter gravity, apparently.
But its trajectory was a little off.
“……Uh, that!”
“It’s gonna land on us?!”
Whether on purpose or coincidence, it was dropping right over Defense Point 12.
Crushed under the Space Crawler’s bulk, the point’s barrier sparked briefly before shattering pathetically.
Naturally, the base beneath was obliterated.
Despite its size, the base vanished completely under the monster’s body.