Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 29: Brute Force the Way Through
The exploding aliens—it’s too much of a mouthful, so let’s call them Detonids—explode on contact with lasers or any energy-based projectiles. This, of course, includes the ship’s shields or plasma blades.
What I am saying is it was practically impossible to clear them without making them explode with just the armament of all present ships. The only way we knew to hit the enemy without detonating them was through physical attacks—like when Eva slashed that Detonid from before using a ship’s armor plate. The only successful method we have seen up to now.
Which brought me to my current plan.
It was pretty straightforward. We couldn’t harm the Detonids from afar with turrets, or we’d be cooked by their synchronized explosions, so we would just push into their formation—literally.
As a "wave breaker," the biggest ship there was the Super Dreadnaught-class Heracles would lead the fleet to push through and allow the smaller ships to come safely behind it. It was literally a brute-force solution, but we didn’t have a better alternative.
With the Heracles at the point, the three Leviathans formed a triangle behind it, while the rest of the ships crammed themselves into the center in such a way that minimized the number of Detonids that could reach the center. It wasn’t elegant, but it was functional.
As the command tower and most critical ship, the Range Falcon occupied the deepest spot—the very middle of the formation. It was hard to maneuver in here, but with so many ships surrounding us, it was undoubtedly the safest spot. No stray Detonid could reach us without going through layers of meat shield ships first.
"Well, of course, they want to keep Major Terrence safe at all costs," I muttered while scanning the radar.
Approximately 60 ships composed the formation. The four mega-vessels, and all 50+ of the medium-to-large-sized vessels, traveled together in perfect unison, their collective top speed maintained at a casual 10 km/s.
From the initial position, including time for acceleration, it would take us about 130 seconds to reach the Detonid swarm. As the slimy aliens appeared closer, tension in the fleet rose. Communications fell silent, save for status updates from the lead ships.
Time passed quickly, and the distance between us and the swarm narrowed.
{Heracles-000 to Falcon-000: The aliens are now within visible range. We can see them without having to zoom in now.}
As if in tandem, Eva’s voice followed immediately. "Current distance from the swarm: 300 km! 30 seconds until contact!"
"Alright," I said, taking a deep breath before raising a hand to issue the next command.
"Falcon-000 to all ships! Turn down your shields! Power down all weapons! Disable anything that could spark outside the ships—lights, cameras, anything!"
If anybody else had heard that, they’d probably think I was trying to get everyone killed. Charging into a swarm of aliens while disabling all defenses? That’s madness. But this fleet wasn’t any fleet—it was Major Terrence’s fearless fleet.
{Heracles-000, Roger that. Powering down all weapon systems.}
{Nautilus-000, shields entered dormant state. Power feeds cut off.}
{Waiting for further commands, acting captain.}
They obeyed my orders without question, not because of me, but because of their absolute trust in Major Terrence. They knew that he personally entrusted his authority to me, and to them, that was enough of a reason to follow my commands to a T.
A strange sense of responsibility settled on me as I watched the swarm draw closer. Right now, the lives of the entire fleet were weighing down on my shoulders. In this scenario, which wasn’t part of the original plot of the game, I needed to ensure that everyone made it back alive!
"Distance: 100 km! Impact in 10 seconds!" Eva announced, her voice tight with tension.
This was it. I breathed deeply and let out a bellow at the final command of the plan. "Okay! All vessels—shut down all your thrusters and boosters!"
The "flames" of the boosters and thrusters—whether fuel-cell thrusters or ion thrusters—could still act as ignition sources. If we were going to plow through the Detonids’ encirclement, we had to kill off our only method of propulsion, no matter how reckless it seemed.
In a moment, the entire fleet complied. All thrusters went completely silent—even ours. We were now careening through space at 10 km/s, riding on the ship’s momentum alone. Without propulsion, our deceleration would start slowly, making us exposed to an increased risk from the swarm.
{Contact!}
A voice rang out through the radios, sharp and clear. Then, silence.
---
As the group of 60 vessels of various sizes drew nearer to the swarm of Detonids, the other side didn’t sit back idly. The Detonids pushed ahead, covering distances at breakneck speed, with their slinky, green tentacles—covered with numerous grotesque, protruding eyes—shooting out in a lunge to try and "catch" the ships.
But they had a problem. Leading the charge, the Heracles, was a behemoth—a Super Dreadnaught with a cross-section of 15 square kilometers. At a blazing speed of 10 km/s, it carved a path of devastation, smashing through anything in its way.
The Detonids straight ahead of the Heracles had no chance. They turned to nothing more than splattered green blots on the reinforced bow of the ship, obliterated in the blink of an eye. The impact was so swift and overwhelming that the creatures could not even try to resist!
However, brute force alone wasn’t enough to ensure their escape from the encirclement. Arthur hadn’t created such a meticulous plan for nothing. Detonids that weren’t struck head-on managed to latch onto the Heracles’ sides, their flexible tentacles probing the ship’s surface for weak points or entryways.
"Reporting! Approximately 5,000 Detonids were smashed to oblivion during the charge!"
"Deputy Grimm! Aliens attached themselves to the external hull! They’re trying to break the armor plating!"
"Successfully breached the encirclement. Waiting for further commands!"
In the bridge of Heracles, wild pandemonium erupted as subordinate officers reported to Deputy Grimm. Grimm, calm but in an authoritative tone, processed their array of reports into orders.
"Pay little attention to the aliens! Even if they try their hardest, it’ll take them half a day to peel off the first layer of armor!"
His confidence reassured the crew, though his next order demanded swift action.
"Those trained in close combat, prepare to put on your powered suits and thin their ranks with cold weapons! The rest, get ready to engage the thrusters as soon as the order is given!"
The stages of the plan had been explained in detail beforehand. Once the Heracles and the fleet cleared past the Detonid swarm, they would reactivate their thrusters, gain speed and distance, and then take care of any remaining Detonids clinging to the hull.
This was the reason why only the heavy-armored ships had been sent out for this maneuver—vessels that could withstand even atomic blasts. As long as they kept going in the right direction, there shouldn’t be any serious problems.
Once the swarm was adequately thinned and no Detonids remained on their tails, the ships would activate their Jump Drives in carefully coordinated batches, fleeing this desolate, hostile region of space.
Up to this point, everything had been going just as planned, like a perfected clockwork... but suddenly, the whole Heracles jolted violently, as if it had run into a giant asteroid. The impact was so severe that everyone on the bridge was thrown around, fighting to stay seated as alarms blared and lights flickered.
"W-What happened?!" Through his sharp blue eyes, Grimm scanned the sensor and radar displays for answers amid chaos.
"R-Reporting! It seems we hit something, but... there’s absolutely nothing on the radars!" shouted the radar analyst, his voice tight with incredulity.
"How is that possible?!" Grimm growled.
"Activate the concealed thrusters and turn hard starboard! Be mindful of the Detonids hanging on our hull! Whatever it is that we just hit, evade it first! And you—report this right away to the acting commander!"
"Yes, sir!"
The chaos and confusion lasted only seconds, but the tension was still palpable. Grimm clutched the edge of the command console, his brain trying hard to draw conclusions. Whatever they’d run into was a completely unknown anomaly, and that made it that much more threatening. He checked the view outside the visors for some indication of what had caused the crash.
"... Huh?"
As the Heracles turned to the starboard side, Grimm caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, of something that did not belong to the scenery—a faint shimmer in the emptiness of space, almost unseen. It was as if space itself had flickered, a translucent distortion allowing a glimpse of movement.
For a moment, he was unsure if he was imagining things, but the unease settled deep in his chest. Whatever they had met, it was not natural—and it was far from over.
---
{H-Heracles-000 to Falcon-000: We struck something invisible! Turning hard starboard to avoid it!}
I heard the panicked voice and scowled. The radars were empty—all was clear there, so the Heracles couldn’t have hit anything other than the Detonids. Although we weren’t given time to ponder the mystery.
"Falcon-000 to all ships! Everyone! Hard starboard! Don’t lose sight of the Heracles!"
Thankfully, it wasn’t a direct crash. Had it been the case, the other ships trailing behind the Heracles would likely have smashed head-on into her stern. Since all the ship’s thrusters were powered off, the fleet had no way to swerve and react swiftly enough, presumably inflicting massive damage on the entire fleet.
My attention quickly shifted to the situational and damage reports pouring in from the outermost ships in the formation. Aside from the Heracles and the three Leviathans—including the Del Pravvio—fifteen ships had Detonids clinging to their hulls. It wasn’t a huge percentage, but considering the size of those ships, the number of Detonids was staggering—easily in the thousands.
"’If they detonate in sync...’’ A shiver ran down my spine.
That level of simultaneous detonation, point blank, would pack enough energy to breach even a reinforced hull, like the one on the Heracles. There would surely be no survivors. I cleared my head to give new instructions.
"First of all, we have to—"
But before I could finish, something happened—a flicker at the edge of my vision. Then, in a flash, something streaked directly across the ship’s bow, a burst of movement too fast to make sense of. The space ahead of the Range Falcon became clear as if an invisible force had swept through, leaving a gap, a void, in the fleet of ships.
"... What?"
Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.
The word slipped out of my mouth. My mind lagged, failing to understand what had just transpired.
