Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 551

Chapter 549, Hunting Time

While Gu Hang’s main Alliance fleet pierced the enemy’s heart like a sharp sword, the Fury Fleet led by Adler Paulitus and Wang Mengsong were not idle.

They abandoned strategic positions one after another, quietly launching a counterattack within Alliance-controlled territory.

They evaded Alliance detection, moving through the endless darkness like ghosts, entering Alliance-controlled territory.

Their target was the three battlecruisers left behind by the Alliance.

They truly had no way of withstanding the main Alliance force and were unwilling to engage in a strategic decisive battle. However, with the Alliance’s main force gone, they had two battle barges and a Retribution-class battleship, fully capable of stealing a blow. The

extra battle barge was the New World Torch’s flagship, the Torchlight.

It had been under repair and had only recently returned to action.

In terms of direct combat capability, these three main battleships significantly surpassed the three remaining Alliance battlecruisers.

In a head-on line engagement, a single Retribution-class vessel could easily take out three battlecruisers, not to mention two battle barges.

However, the battlecruisers’ mobility advantage remained. How foolish would the Alliance Navy be to choose to confront the Fury Fleet head-on?

Relying on their maneuverability, three battlecruisers wouldn’t be easily captured.

Paulitus knew that successfully luring and encircling the three Alliance battlecruisers would be no easy task.

But it was worth trying, and if successful, the rewards would be enormous.

A squadron of smaller vessels targeted an Alliance transport fleet, harassing it.

This was a common occurrence; the two sides had engaged in numerous such attacks and counterattacks over the past few months.

But this time, the Fury Fleet upped the ante.

The attacking squadron included two Lunar-class cruisers, appearing to acknowledge the Alliance’s increased escort capacity and reinforce their manpower accordingly.

Under cover of the escort, the attacked Alliance transport fleet retreated to the orbit of a heavily fortified planet on its route and held its ground.

Normally, at this point, the Fury Fleet would have retreated.

The Alliance escort fleet wasn’t very strong, the combat effectiveness of some of the armed merchant ships was also shabby, and the planetary orbital defense system, constructed over a few months, was quite incomplete…

but it was a comprehensive defensive system after all. Relying solely on two Lunar-class ships as the main force wouldn’t be enough to defeat them in a short period of time.

With time, there might be a chance, but before that happened, the Alliance’s remaining battlecruisers would arrive. If

they were slow to move, the Lunar-class wasn’t a high-speed or light cruiser, and being caught by the battlecruisers would be difficult.

However, this time, the Fury Fleet’s raiding fleet showed a bit of impatience, relentlessly attacking the Alliance transport fleet. It wasn’t

until they detected the battlecruisers warping through the astral tunnel to this system that they finally woke up, unwilling to give up, and turned and fled.

But before they could reach the warp point, three Alliance battlecruisers arrived and aggressively pursued them.

The victory of two Moon-class cruisers was a significant attraction for the remaining ships, the Furious Owl, the Wing, and the Koroga.

This presented a rare opportunity to eliminate a portion of the Raging Flame Fleet’s forces and weaken its overall strength. Moon-class cruisers were also valuable vessels. Destroying two would significantly damage the fleet’s strength.

However, this was only the first step in the Raging Flame Fleet’s plan.

The two panicked Moon-class cruisers, along with their accompanying squadrons, hurried to their destination, but only managed to reach the warp point and initiate warp just as they were within range of the three Grail-class cruisers.

During this process, several warships were destroyed by explosions.

The captains of the three Holy Grail ships that arrived at the jump point then consulted with one another. Ultimately, Rear Admiral Bai Qifan, the fleet commander, made the decision:

pursue!

They considered traps, but quickly ruled them out.

The enemy’s panicked flight didn’t seem fake.

If they were truly luring the enemy deeper, they would have to have set traps.

However, the other side of this jump point was also Alliance-controlled territory. They had received no reports of enemy fleet activity. They had established astropathic communication with the space station at the jump point, but had received no reports of enemy activity.

In this situation, the risk of pursuit was low.

So, the three battlecruisers, along with their comrades, also began their jump.

After three Terran days, they had nearly completed the astral tunnel and were about to exit, returning to the real universe.

However, at this moment, the psykers serving as navigators on the ships suddenly issued a barrage of warnings: they had detected the presence of enemy vessels at the jump point, three massive warships!

Now, the three Grail-class captains were in a panic.

Had they fallen into a trap?

But by this point, there was no turning back.

If they had known this information a few hours earlier, or even ten hours earlier, they might have been able to abort the warp and evacuate.

But now, it was too late.

There was no time to question why the system’s observatory hadn’t detected the arrival of the enemy’s main fleet; nor could they ask why the warhead station at the warp point hadn’t transmitted any information.

These questions, important beforehand, were now irrelevant.

Their only concern was how to escape the trap alive. Their

only real reason was that the Fury Fleet, acting as ambushers, hadn’t set up an ambush, not wanting to alarm the Alliance ships. Only when the Alliance ships had reached a point where they couldn’t turn back did they break their silence, suddenly appear, and race towards the warp point.

In this case, the three Holy Grail-class ships of the Alliance would not be faced with heavy fire the moment they arrived in the real universe, just after completing the jump, before switching the jump engine to the conventional engine, and before opening the void shield at their most vulnerable stage.

However, the situation was still very urgent.

When the Alliance ships had just finished launching their shields and starting their engines, the enemy ships had already arrived.

Should they start the jump immediately and then run away?

They quickly rejected this decision.

When they restarted the jump, facing the firepower of three giant ships, with the fragile body of the Holy Grail-class, at least two of them would die in the process of starting the jump.

This is unacceptable. If

two battlecruisers were blown up, whether Fleet Commander Bai Qifan died here or not, he would definitely be brought to a military court afterwards.

Other small ships could be sacrificed, but the big ships must be saved!

The three Holy Grails began to maneuver at full speed!

(End of this chapter)