Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 552

Chapter 550, Life and Death Chase

Chapter 550:

The three Grails, maneuvering at full speed in a life-or-death pursuit, found a direction to retreat.

Their retreat, frankly, was

rather disastrous. The enemy firepower was overwhelming.

Even before they could escape the enemy’s attack, the combined firepower of the Retribution and the two battle barges was approximately two and a half times that of the three Grails. One Grail, caught in the concentrated fire, suffered an overloaded void shield and shattered. The hull was also hit by two rounds of the Loyalty’s Wrath macrocannon.

Fortunately, the Grail-class was only fragile compared to battleships. Compared to a typical Moon-class cruiser, its armor was significantly thicker, making it unlikely to be shattered by just two Loyalty’s Wrath rounds.

While the hull sustained damage, it was not life-threatening, at least the powertrain was spared.

This was crucial.

They were clearly outmatched, and their only hope for survival and ship preservation lay in the powertrain.

The fleeing Alliance fleet also resorted to dispersing its forces. Several Moon-class warships, accompanied by other smaller vessels, chose various directions.

However, the Fury Fleet paid no heed to these distractions. Despite their sheer numerical superiority, they showed no interest in splitting up and hunting, their eyes fixed squarely on the Alliance’s three battlecruisers. With

the biggest fish already caught, no one cared about the smaller fish.

Bai Qifan could only grimly believe that with a dozen or so ships escaping separately, they would surely be safe.

As for the three battlecruisers under his direct command, they chose not to split up.

If they had fled in three completely separate directions, with the battlecruisers’ speed, one or two might have escaped. However, just as he hadn’t chosen to immediately activate the jump engines and sacrifice one or two ships to reach the other side, Bai Qifan’s goal until now had been to preserve all three warships.

If they fled separately, without mutual cover, they would still likely suffer losses,

a prospect Bai Qifan hadn’t wanted to see.

He didn’t deny that he took responsibility for stepping into a trap; but precisely because of this, he had to personally lead his troops out.

The three battlecruisers gradually gained speed, alternating between shielding their allies. At the cost of one of their shields being shattered, they managed to escape the range of the Retribution-class battleship, the enemy’s most powerful firepower.

Once the Chalice-class gained speed, the Retribution-class would undoubtedly be outmatched.

However, the Battle Barges, flagships of the two Space Marine Chapters, the Fury and the New World Torch, were no slow-moving beasts.

Battle Barges are a rare type of vessel in the Imperium of Man, used only by Space Marines and serving as flagships for most Chapters. They lack a standardized design; they are custom-built to the needs of each Chapter, sourced from familiar and well-connected Forge Worlds.

Some Battle Barges prioritize speed and agility, similar to battlecruisers; others, focused on sturdiness and powerful guns, resemble normal battleships; and some, more like aircraft carriers.

However, due to their custom construction, many of their performance characteristics vary. Some powerful Battle Barges, willing to spend the extra money and disregarding cost-effectiveness, can even combine the projection power of an aircraft carrier with the firepower of a battleship, all while maintaining impressive speed.

Of course, achieving this requires a custom-built Forge World with exceptional technical capabilities. Furthermore, stacking such performance on a single vessel is undoubtedly less cost-effective than building two or even three ships of the same caliber with the same investment and resources.

Furthermore, Battle Barges, and other Space Marine-specific warships like Strike Cruisers, all feature a unique feature: dedicated Space Marine crew positions. From firepower to ship management to communications and command, these positions allow Space Marines to directly control the ship, much like a genetic neural cord connected to the Black Carapace.

This significantly improves the ship’s performance compared to its stock hardware.

However, the manual control skills of mortal crew members are undoubtedly inferior to those of Space Marines with direct neural connections.

The Battle Barges of the Fury and the New World Torch, on the other hand, are less extreme.

After a brief observation, Bai Qifan roughly determined that the performance of the two battle barges was somewhere between that of a battlecruiser and a battleship. Their firepower was slightly inferior to that of the Retribution class, but they also possessed two X-class cannons. Their speed was slightly slower than that of the battlecruiser, but not by much, and at least they could keep up.

This led to a long, drawn-out chase through space.

Through this chase, Bai Qifan successfully led the three battlecruisers to another jump point, performing a jump to the southern part of the star map.

Just before they entered jump mode, the two battle barges, accompanied by a group of destroyers, arrived at the jump point.

They were out of reach.

Entering the astral tunnel, Bai Qifan finally felt a little relieved, feeling the anxiety he had been carrying for days.

Should we be safe?

But soon, the navigator brought back news.

The enemy had not given up their pursuit.

They followed closely behind, also activating their jump engines and entering the same astral tunnel.

In the Astral Tunnel, the two sides wouldn’t necessarily come to blows. There’s no concept of space within the Astral Tunnel; even if two ships were said to be in the same tunnel, they wouldn’t actually be able to touch.

However, this raises a new problem: the time it takes to complete a Astral Tunnel jump isn’t determined by the ship’s normal speed or agility, but solely by the specifications and performance of the jump drive.

The three Grail-class ships built by the Alliance all had excellent jump drives. However, due to the limitations of the battlecruiser’s inherent power module, which isn’t as large as a battleship’s, trade-offs had to be made between conventional engines, firepower output, jump drives, and energy shields.

In this situation, the jump drive’s materials were superior, but its specifications were somewhat limited.

Generally speaking, jump drives are important, but not paramount. When trade-offs are made, single-purpose jump drives often have their specifications downgraded, sacrificing some performance to free up energy for other systems.

This was also addressed during the design of the Grail-class.

The question then becomes: have the two opposing battle barges, as well as the Retribution-class ship lagging behind but expected to reach the jump point in half a day at most, been deactivated in their jump engines?

Don’t let it happen that, despite having initiated the astral jump first, you arrive later than them.

If that happens, you’re doomed.

By then, with void shields activated and firepower ready, they’ll immediately begin searching, locking onto, and opening fire as soon as you appear in the real universe. Your fragile battlecruiser, before it even has time to deploy its shields, will face the most severe blow.

Searching and exploring within the astral tunnel is no easy task. However, no matter how challenging the conditions, under Bai Qifan’s strict orders, the navigational psykers and astropathic psykers aboard the three ships worked tirelessly to search and ascertain the enemy’s situation.

During the roughly two days of astral jump, Bai Qinian’s mood fluctuated dramatically,

primarily due to the vastly different reports.

One moment, they said the enemy’s warp was failing, and they were expected to arrive at their target a day behind them. But before Bai Qifan could even get a moment of joy, the next message was a revised update from the latest reconnaissance, revealing that the enemy was outpacing them, which made him nervous again.

Sometimes, the astropaths and navigators even gave conflicting reports. It wasn’t

until the warp was almost complete that the consensus finally settled: both sides should arrive at their target at roughly the same time.

Bai Qifan wasn’t entirely satisfied with this answer.

What did “roughly” mean?

How much difference was there?

The time after a warp was a precious golden window. A difference of five or ten minutes might not even be enough for a warship to turn around, but in that golden window, it could mean the difference between life and death. If

they arrived ten minutes ahead of you, you’d be facing a swarm of enemy ships with their shields activated.

If you arrived ten minutes earlier, not only would your shields be activated, but you’d also have ten more minutes to gain speed after switching to conventional engines, preventing the enemy from catching up.

However, the psykers simply couldn’t come up with a specific time.

Bai Qifan couldn’t press them any further.

What was the point of forcing them?

Holding a knife to someone’s neck and forcing them to give a time would only lead to nonsense. Making judgments based on inaccurate information would only lead to greater problems.

He could only prepare for the worst-case scenario.

And the moment the warp was complete and the ship arrived in the real universe, that worst-case scenario actually happened.

The enemy ships were right in front of him.

The two battle barges of the Fury Fleet, along with the fleet they led, had arrived first!

Seeing the silhouettes of those two massive ships suddenly appear on the giant observation screen in the bridge command center, Bai Qifan nearly had a heart attack.

But then, he realized a glimmer of hope.

The enemy ships’ shields weren’t activating!

Only a few patrol vessels were!

This meant the enemy had likely arrived just a short while before them!

There was still a chance!

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

He said nothing, and didn’t take this opportunity to issue any orders.

Because there was no need. All the relevant contingency plans had been put in place over the past few days. The moment they arrived in the real universe, the shield and engine systems were already fully activated. Everyone on the ship knew what they had to do, and they all knew that this was a life-or-death situation. If

the ship exploded, no one would survive.

At the critical moment, the enemy’s shields hadn’t even lit up yet, but their artillery fire had already begun, bombarding the Alliance ships!

The enemy chose to concentrate their efforts first and open up their firepower systems!

(End of this chapter)