Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Xia Fei’s wanted order was spread all across the star region. In mere seconds, all the ships traveling in space would have caught wind of this.
The wording of the notice was very peculiar. It never specified which laws Xia Fei had broken, only mentioning that he was to report to the nearest military outpost for investigation, and anyone who encountered him would need to notify the military immediately.
The world was just that interesting sometimes. Xia Fei and Chen Dong’s twenty-one day battle during their crisis grade assessment was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and just a few months later, a young man who had been admired by the whole star region became a fugitive with no offenses.
Xia Fei turned off the screen, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. Chasing after someone was incredibly tiring, so Xia Fei took advantage of the time going through the wormhole to take a small breather while he thought of how he could stop the insectoid ship.
About ten minutes later, Xia Fei exited the wormhole to a light-blue sky. This was twenty thousand lightyears away from the border of the Alliance-occupied area, and it was Xia Fei’s last chance to stop the ship within his side’s territory, or else he would have to risk the barren buffer zone.
The tracking system showed that the insectoid ship was heading straight toward the border. Its warp engine would have enough energy for another warp in forty minutes.
Luckily, Lunar Eclipse was equipped with a Black Mamba 130 engine, which was much faster than what the insectoid ship had. It should only take him eighteen minutes to catch up with the enemies.
Based on that, Xia Fei had twenty-two minutes to stop the ship within the Alliance-occupied area.
Lunar Eclipse traveled toward the insectoid ship at max speed as Xia Fei stood at the control panel, looking out with stern eyes.
“Prepare the overclock system,” commanded Xia Fei in a deep voice.
As he finished, the overclocking chip, which was installed, analyzed the various parts and components of the ship, searching for the stress limit of the systems.
Lunar Eclipse had already taken some damage from the impact of the shock bomb; therefore, initiating the overclock system was not the best idea as it would stress the already damaged components even more.
As they neared the insectoid ship, rays of white light came from the barrels of the four main cannons of the Lunar Eclipse as they started firing.
Xia Fei pushed the energy shield to its maximum, nimbly dodging left and right to avoid the barrage of enemy fire.
*Boom!*
The entire ship shook when a gauss shell struck the energy shield of Lunar Eclipse. The energy shield dropped by seven percent in an instant, prompting the shield chargers to start the recovery of the energy shield.
“Move around their ship while maintaining a fifty-kilometer distance. Prepare the traction control system,” commanded Xia Fei.
Fifty kilometers was an incredibly close distance for combat. Enemy hits would deal even more damage compared to being farther away, but Xia Fei did not care, for he wanted to get as close as possible to hit the enemy ship more accurately.
“Activate the traction control; slow down their ship’s speed!”
*Whoosh!*
A yellow ray of light was fired from the side of the Lunar Eclipse, encompassing the insectoid ship, reducing its speed by 90% ten or so seconds later.
It was much easier to hit a slow-moving target than a fast-moving target, so Xia Fei wanted to slow them down before giving them a good hit.
“Firing systems online. Release a disruptor bomb.”
*Whoosh!*
An oval-shaped bomb was shot. This was Xia Fei’s last disruptor bomb. It would disable enemy cannons for a minute, but afterward, he would have to endure all the enemies had to throw at him.
“Engage a weapons system. Target its warp engine. Activate the overclocking chip and achieve maximum overclocking,” commanded Xia Fei.
Tongues of flames came out of the neutron cannon as anti-matter shells bombarded the enemy ship’s energy shield. Because of the overclocking, the firepower of its cannons and missile launchers increased by over twenty percent.
Ripples appeared on the enemy ship’s energy shield. The detection system showed that its defenses were dropping rapidly, and just a minute later, the energy shield capacity dropped by thirty percent.
With this minute passed, the disruptor bomb’s effect had expired, and retaliation started coming from the four main cannons of the insectoid ship.
*Boom boom!*
Two consecutive shots landed on Lunar Eclipse’s shield, taking mass damage.
In theory, when the enemy had greater firepower, he could be far away and fire back while utilizing the frigate’s agile dodging mechanism, but Xia Fei did not do that.
There was not much time left, and Xia Fei did not want the enemies to escape into the military buffer zone, so he went for a fight to the death, instead.
An extremely tragic scene ensued in this part of the space.
A small frigate was exchanging fire with a destroyer over five times its size.
An eye for an eye.
Colorful rays of light continuously appeared on the ships, illuminating the dark space as the rumble of gunfire shook the universe.
“Fire back! Fire back! Start overclocking the energy shields recharger. Do the same for the reactor—push it to the limit! Overclock the traction control module as well! Keep reducing its speed!”
Shot after shot landed on the Lunar Eclipse as the whole ship trembled.
Xia Fei had both hands gripping the command console tightly. He was breathing heavily, and his pair of eyes was bloodshot.
If one should explain what Xia Fei had faith in, which made him brave enough to go toe to toe against a destroyer from an entirely different weight class, it would be how well Lunar Eclipse was equipped.
It was a naval-issued frigate, after all.
A frigate equipped with countless top of the range weapons.
Without considering the cost of the fairly expensive Black Mamba 130 engine and the ancient civilization’s overclocking chip, the ship manufacturing cost was already over seven hundred million star coins, way more than what a frigate should cost.
The reason Xia Fei was so liberal with his expenses when building the Lunar Eclipse was so that it could demonstrate that explosive power, which a top of the range frigate should have during crucial moments.
“Divert everything into offense; ignore defense! Concentrate all the energy to the cannons and blow him into smithereens!” the golden Blood Raider commanded.
He had been waiting for a straightforward battle with Xia Fei, but when the latter finally decided to go head to head, he realized that this frigate was just as difficult to deal with as before.
He had way more firepower than Xia Fei, but both of them seemed to sustain the same amount of damage.
The Blood Raider commander was incredibly mad because of that. He refused to believe that a great insectoid destroyer could not beat an average human frigate.
A few minutes later, the energy shields of both parties were zero, and it was now a battle between their armors.
All ships had three different lines of defense. First was the energy shield, second the armor plating once the energy shield was gone, and if the armor plating went, the ship would only have its third and final line of defense—its structure.
The structure of a ship was its last line of defense. Once the structure took damage, the ship was gone for good.
*Boom!*
A bomb landed right on the armor of Lunar Eclipse, tearing a hole in its titanium-alloyed plating.
*Tear!*
A few maintenance drones crawled out of the maintenance warehouse, quickly covering the damaged part of the ship.
A few seconds later, the maintenance drones became liquid metal. Just like gluing a gap, they quickly solidified, repairing the damaged armor.
White smoke spewed out of the insectoid ship’s engine compartment; a spark could even be seen every so often.
This meant that the insectoid ship was having engine problems. If he kept this up, he could surely completely destroy its engine.
The horrible battle continued, and both ships sustained severe damage from this battle. As maintenance drones were limited in supply, all the hits taken were there to stay on the armor, unable to be repaired.
“Warning, warning! The warship has received damage near its structure. Emergency escape pods have been activated. All personnel, please be prepared to evacuate,” said the cold, emotionless female synthetic voice from the AI computer soon after, and the red warning light inside of the Lunar Eclipse blared nonstop.
*Boom!*
Xia Fei slammed his fist on the warning system, silencing the alarm.
“Continue shooting at the enemy ship’s warp engine; destroy it!” Xia Fei commanded loudly.
Xia Fei would never retreat, especially at this stage when the victory was within reach.
All of a sudden, a wormhole opened ahead of the insectoid ship, then it slowly crawled into the wormhole.
“They’ve still got enough energy to warp?” Xia Fei was utterly shocked.
At the same time, fifty or so warp passages opened up nearby. An Alliance ship exited through one of these, probably finding their locartion after their high-tech detection systems detected abnormality in the energy waves nearby.
Xia Fei did not give it much thought and just tried stopping the ship from entering the wormhole no matter what, for its next warp could lead it to the military buffer zone.
“Full speed ahead! Get that ship out of the wormhole!” Xia Fei growled in an almost savage voice.
The insectoid ship was just a tiny bit away from falling apart. If it was bumped out of the wormhole, it would not have enough energy for a second warp, and all it could do was surrender.
Lunar Eclipse accelerated all of a sudden as he charged toward the insectoid ship without any care for his safety.
*Crash!*
The two ships collided. The hull shook violently as countless armor plating flew out.
The insectoid ship, which was now heading slightly off course, graced the edge of the wormhole.
However, the smaller Lunar Eclipse was bumped into the wormhole.
Entering somebody else’s wormhole was incredibly dangerous and was something nobody with a tiny bit of captaining experience would do.
*Slam!*
The wormhole closed shut, and Lunar Eclipse disappeared along with Xia Fei.