Chapter 550, Life and Death Chase

The three Holy Grails, maneuvering at full speed, found a direction to evacuate.

To be honest, they looked very embarrassed when they evacuated.

The enemy's firepower was a bit too strong.

Before they were out of the enemy's firepower attack, the firepower of the Retribution and the two battle barges was about 2.5 times that of the three Holy Grails. After being hit hard, the void shield of one Holy Grail that was hit by concentrated fire was directly overloaded and shattered. The hull was also hit by two rounds of the Wrath of the Loyal Heir macro cannon.

Fortunately, the Holy Grail class is fragile only compared to battleships. Compared with ordinary moon-class cruisers, its armor thickness is still better, and it will not be blown up by two rounds of the Wrath of the Loyal Heir.

The hull was damaged, but it was not life-threatening, at least the power system was not damaged.

This is very critical.

It is definitely impossible to win the fight. Now if you want to survive and save the ship, the most reliable thing is the power system.

The fleeing Alliance fleet also made the decision to disperse its forces. Several moon-class ships took some other small boats and chose many different directions to run.

However, the Fury Fleet didn't care about these interference items at all. They were completely in an advantageous position in terms of the number of ships, but they didn't even have the interest to split up and hunt, and their eyes were fixed on the three battlecruisers of the alliance.

The biggest fish had been caught, so of course no one wanted to look at the small fish and shrimp.

Bai Qifan could only think that at least there were more than a dozen ships running in different directions, and they would definitely be able to save their lives.

As for the three battlecruisers under his direct command, they did not choose to disperse.

If they completely separated into three directions to escape, then with the speed of the battlecruisers, it was really possible that one or two of them could escape. However, just as he did not choose to start the jump engine immediately and sacrifice one or two of them to run to the other side, Bai Qifan's pursuit so far was to save all three warships.

If they fled separately, there would still be losses due to the lack of mutual cover.

This was something Bai Qifan didn't want to see.

He did not deny that he had stepped into the trap and was responsible for it; but because of this, he had to lead the troops out of the pit by himself.

The three battlecruisers gradually increased their speed, covering their teammates alternately, and at the cost of a broken shield, they ran out of the attack range of the enemy's most powerful Retribution-class battleship.

When the Holy Grail class pulled up the speed, the Retribution class would definitely not catch up.

However, the two flagships from the two Space Marine chapters, Fury and New World Torch, the battle barges, were not slow goods.

Battle barges are rare ships in the human empire, which are only used by Space Marines. They are the flagships of ordinary chapters. They do not have a unified standard design. They are completely customized according to the needs of each chapter from some familiar and well-connected forge worlds.

Some battle barges pursue speed and flexibility, which is similar to the level of battlecruisers in this respect; some pursue strong ships and powerful guns, which are similar to normal battleships; some tend to be designed as aircraft carriers.

But because it is custom-built, many of the performance conditions of its ships are different. Some powerful battle barges that are willing to spend more money and don't care about the cost-effectiveness can even have both the projection capability of an aircraft carrier and the firepower of a battleship, while the speed is not slow.

Of course, to achieve this, first of all, you have to accept the customized forging world, and the technical capabilities must be excellent enough; on the other hand, the performance of such stacking on a ship is definitely not as cost-effective as using the same money and resources to build two or even three ships of the same level.

In addition, battle barges, or Space Marine-exclusive warships including strike cruisers, have a feature: special Space Marine crew positions are set up. From firepower, to ship management, to communication command, there are special positions that allow Space Marines to connect to the black carapace like genetic nerve cords for direct control.

In this way, the performance of the ship can be improved on the basis of the original hardware.

In any case, the level of manual operation of mortal crews is definitely not as good as the direct neural connection of Space Marines.

The two battle barges of Fury and New World Torch are not too extreme.

After a brief observation, Bai Qifan roughly judged that the performance of these two battle barges was between that of battlecruisers and battleships. The firepower was slightly inferior to that of the Retribution class, but it also had two X-class cannons; the speed was slightly inferior to that of the battlecruisers, but not much, at least it could keep up.

In space, this formed a long, see-saw chase.

After running and chasing, Bai Qifan successfully brought three battlecruisers to another jump point and made a jump to the south of the star map.

Just before they entered the jump state, the two battle barges arrived at the jump point with a group of destroyers.

Can't catch up.

After entering the star tunnel, Bai Qifan's heart, which had been hanging for these days, was finally relieved a little.

Should it be safe?

But soon, the navigator sent a message.

The enemy did not give up the pursuit.

They followed closely behind, also started the jump engine, and entered the same star tunnel.

In the star tunnel, the two sides did not fight. There is no concept of space in the Star Realm Tunnel. Even though the two ships are said to be in the same tunnel, they cannot actually touch each other.

However, this raises another question: the time to complete the Star Realm Tunnel jump does not depend on the normal speed and flexibility of the ship, but only on the specifications and performance of the jump engine.

The three Holy Grail-class ships built by the Alliance all use good jump engines. However, due to the limitation of the battlecruiser's own ship power supply module, which is not as large as that of a battleship, some trade-offs need to be made in terms of conventional engines, firepower output, jump engines, energy shields, etc.

In this case, the materials used for the jump engine are good, but the specifications are somewhat limited.

Generally speaking, the jump engine is important, but not the most important. When there are trade-offs, jump engines with a single purpose are often cut down on specifications and some performance to save more energy supply for other systems.

This was also done when designing the Holy Grail class.

So the question is, are the two battle barges on the opposite side, and the Retribution-class ship that is lagging behind but can reach the jump point in half a day at most, castrated on the jump engine?

Don't wait until the time comes. He obviously started the astral jump first, but ended up arriving at the other side later than the other side.

If this is the case, it's all over.

At that time, they would activate the void shield and have their firepower ready. As soon as they appeared in the real universe, they would immediately start to search for the enemy, lock on, and fire. Our own crispy battle patrol is about to receive the harshest blow before it has time to open its shield.

It is not easy to retrieve and explore information in the astral tunnel. However, no matter how difficult the objective conditions were, under Bai Qifan's strict orders, the navigation psykers and astrology psykers on the three ships tried their best to search and detect the enemy's situation.

During the two-day or so interstellar transition, Bai Qinian's mood changed drastically.

The main reason is the reported situation, which is very different.

Let’s just say that the enemy’s transition is not in good condition, and it is estimated that he will arrive at the target location one day behind our own. But before Bai Qifan could be happy for a while, the next news was the correction of the latest exploration situation. The enemy was faster than his own, which made him worried again.

Even sometimes, astropaths and navigators often give different situation reports.

It wasn't until the entire jump journey was almost over that the information gradually became unified: both parties should arrive at the target location at about the same time.

Bai Qifan was not very satisfied with this answer.

What do you mean by almost?

How much is the difference?

The time after completing the transition is a very precious golden moment. A difference of five or ten minutes may not be enough to turn the battleship around in normal times, but at this golden moment, it is the difference between life and death.

If someone arrives ten minutes before you, when you come out, you will face a group of enemy ships with their shields open.

If he had arrived ten minutes earlier, not only would the shields have been activated, but after switching to the conventional engine, he would have had ten more minutes to increase his speed so that the enemy ship could not catch up.

However, the psykers really couldn't come up with an exact time.

Bai Qifan couldn't continue to force them.

What is the use of persecution?

Putting a knife on your neck and forcing people to tell you for a certain period of time is nothing but nonsense. Making judgments based on incorrect information will lead to bigger problems.

He could only prepare for the worst-case scenario.

And when the transition was completed and the ship arrived in the real universe, this worst-case scenario really happened.

The enemy ship is right in front of you.

The two battle barges of the Raging Flame Fleet, as well as the fleet group they led, arrived first!

When he saw the figures of the two giant ships appearing on the giant observation screen in the bridge command center, Bai Qifan almost suffered a cardiac arrest.

However, the next moment, he realized life again.

The enemy ship's shields are off!

Only a few patrol ships were lit up!

This also means that the enemy may arrive a little before them!

still have a chance!

He stood in the center of the bridge, his hands clenched tightly.

He said nothing and did not take advantage of this moment to issue any orders.

Because there is no need for that. As early as the past few days, all relevant plans have been arranged. The moment he arrived in the real universe, the shield system and engine system were already fully activated. Everyone on the ship knows what they should do, and they all know that this is a matter of life and death.

If the ship explodes, no one will survive.

At the critical moment, the opponent's shield hadn't lit up yet, but the artillery fire was one step ahead, blasting at the Alliance ships!

The opponent chose to concentrate their efforts first and fire the power system!