Countermeasures against Countermeasures

The Red Flag pirate base in the Shinoskia system has been completely

wiped out, and this time around, we were gonna depart for the next

target system the following day. We managed to clean up the Shinoskia

system faster than expected so we got about half a day of rest, but if

that wasn't the case, then we would have departed for the next system –

the Shore system – without any breather in between.

"They sure are in a rush."

[Lt. Col. Serena doesn't want to give the pirates that much time. The

longer we take, the more trouble we'd face.]

"That's a convincing reason."

Mimi, who was checking the sensor systems, nodded in agreement. A

few hours ago, a holo-video recording of the battle with the pirates in

the Shinoskia system was sent over to us. The content of the recording

was the battle of the marines against the half-humanoid mutant

creatures that have already lost all reason. It showed the marines

peppering them full of holes as the mutants rushed at them in a frenzy.

I told her that she didn't have to force herself to watch it, but Mimi

ended up sticking with it until the end of the video. Well, I didn't insist

that strongly anyway. After all, if you experience something like this

even via holo-video, you might be able to react more calmly if you end

up getting involved in something similar. In the end, she said something

like 'Space pirates really are hopeless fellows, aren't they?' and sighed.

Her sense of pity for space pirates might have gotten worn down a bit

as a result. Usually, even if you show mercy to space pirates, chances

are they won't appreciate it and even snap at you, so this might have

been a good thing.

"What's our estimated arrival time at the Shore system?"

[We are going to warp out approximately 15 minutes from now,

Master.]

"Roger that. We better prepare so we can launch right away then. You

can go ahead and take this chance to go to the toilet, guys."

"I'm good here."

"Me too."

"Okay then. Let's take a quick break first before warp out."

I'm not inclined to do my business inside the toilet right now either.

By the way, after a full day's rest, the mechanic sisters have already

managed to revive completely. Well, they would have recovered in one

shot if they went inside the med-pod for treatment though. They didn't

feel like it was necessary, so they didn't undergo treatment in the end.

Come to think of it, Mimi and Elma were also the same. Maybe it was a

tacit understanding or some sort of common sense unique to this

dimension that I wasn't familiar with.

Was it Elma who said that pirates weren't all stupid? I was also of the

same opinion, and likewise, the imperial military soldiers weren't

stupid either. Or rather, soldiers and the officers who command them

can be considered as elites among the people.

Of course, most of them were smart. There are some disappointments

occasionally, but at the very least, Lt. Col. Serena was a very competent

officer and commander.

"And this is the result."

The pirate base assault fleet didn't directly rush to attack the pirate

base in the Shore system the moment we came out of FTL navigation.

"Well, of course, this was gonna be the result."

"They sure are going at it."

The large-class ships such as battleships and heavy cruisers mercilessly

wiped out large swathes of mines with laser cannons set to rapid-fire

mode. Their guns had much longer ranges compared to those sported

by small and medium-class ships, so they can effectively clear

minefields using rapid-fire barrages from a great distance.

In other words, the pirates scattered tons of mines in advance at the

warp-out point, but Lt. Col. Serena predicted that, maneuvered the fleet

to a different spot, and was now splendidly destroying the trap.

Of course, doing things this flashily practically announced our presence

to the enemy pirates. But their escape routes have already been

blockaded by the second fleet, so it wasn't that much of a problem.

"In the end, hastily deployed mines can only amount to this much. I'm

not sure if they only have normal charges or reaction charges, but this

move simply sweeps all of them away with absolute force."

"It kind of feels like this is something only the imperial military can

afford to employ effectively."

"Won't they end up missing some though?"

"Even if they do, the ones going up first would be the battleships and

heavy cruisers. I don't think those mines have energy shield

neutralizers like reactive torpedoes, so even if they end up triggering

some, they probably won't suffer much damage. After all, even

Krishna's shield can barely block an anti-ship reactive torpedo

explosion once."

The shield capacity of battleships and heavy cruisers was much higher

than Krishna's. In fact, their total output can be more than three times

that of Krishna's, and even Black Lotus, which can be treated as a nearly

large-class ship. Furthermore, military battleships and heavy cruisers

were equipped with energy shields sporting even more output than

standard ones. It was very difficult to deal damage to them unless you

used weapons that are capable of directly disabling or piercing their

shields like anti-ship reactive torpedoes or the shot cannons Krishna

sported.

"Does this mean we won't have anything to do again?"

"I wonder."

After all, large-class ships like battleships and heavy cruisers are

absurdly powerful when conducting a group attack. They weren't

suitable to use in dense asteroid fields since they were ponderously

slow and couldn't turn fast for the life of them, but apart from that, they

were pretty much unrivaled. That's especially true when assaulting a

fixed target like a base. Their overall range and firepower are simply

leagues beyond small and medium-class ships.

In the first place, they'll be facing off with ships capable of firing

difficult to avoid large-caliber laser cannons from extremely long range.

Most enemies would get destroyed on the spot. That's what these ships

were designed to do after all. Eh? What they're doing was basically

similar to seafaring warships unloading their ammo on the sea? Yeah,

that's basically it, I guess. In the end, all that matters is how capable

they were to accurately destroy their enemies from long range.

Missiles weren't widely used during space combat because of three

critical weaknesses: slow projectile speed, short range, and extreme

susceptibility to laser interception fire due to not having any shielding.

Missile-type armaments were no match for laser cannons in terms of

range, projectile speed, and accuracy against moving targets. But since

they were still fairly destructive and had the ability to lock an

opponent's movements by firing swarms of them, they were still

popular to use in battles between small-class ships or chaotic outer

space melees. But in long-distance bombardments like this, they

weren't all that useful.

There were also special missile types equipped with miniature FTL

drives in SOL, but those were treated as tactical weapons exclusively

used by NPCs. I wonder if they were also available in this dimension?

Since they had stuff like suppression ships and reactive torpedoes,

maybe they had those too.

"If the pirates can launch a destructive saturation attack against Lt. Col.

Serena's large-class ship formation, maybe there's a chance they can

still turn things around, but..."

While saying so, I kept a watchful eye on the asteroid field toward the

port side. There's a possibility of an ambush coming from there. Maybe

we'll get to play a part in this battle after all.

"Huh? The vanguard's secondary guns are all turning toward the port

side."

"Whoah, are they really gonna come from there?"

"They might have deactivated their generators and hid inside there. At

this distance, we can expect some to come barrelling in and launching

torpedoes at the fleet."

Although Krishna's sensors haven't detected any enemies yet, judging

from the movements taken by the battleships and heavy cruisers

serving as the vanguard, they might have caught on to something.

"This is shaping up to be a defensive battle. Let's be careful and avoid

getting caught up in friendly fire."

"Yes!"

"Aye, aye, sir."

After Mimi and Elma's spirited replies, the vanguard finally reported

the presence of enemies to the entire fleet, and an interception order

was given out.

I wasn't that used to defensive battles, but I guess I'll just have to do my

best