Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 583

Chapter 581, After the War

The Alliance’s remaining main force after the war, to be frank, consisted solely of the two Dragon Snake-class battlecruisers, the Ronglin and Yunluo.

Of the Alliance’s six battlecruisers, the Flying Wing was under repair, and the Steel Wing and Koroja were lost in the Battle of Bowang. The only fast vessels currently available were these two Dragon Snakes, plus the already deployed Raging Owl, a mere three.

With this level of combat power alone, it was simply not enough to confront the enemy fleet head-on,

even with Gu Hang.

A single Emperor with three Dragon Snakes could easily destroy three battlecruisers without shields.

Only with the addition of Blood Shark’s Ghost Shark could the Alliance fleet’s head-on combat capability be considered a legitimate challenge.

Furthermore, this battle had its key points.

First, the Alliance fleet, charging with all its might, would not engage the enemy fleet in close combat.

Engaging at a considerable distance allowed them to maximize their ships’ agility and flexibility, relying on their maneuverability to avoid damage.

Of course, while this made it harder to hit, it also made it harder to hit the enemy.

But that didn’t matter.

The fleet’s firepower wasn’t the key to the Alliance’s victory.

During the battle, two enemy warships suddenly went silent.

One was the Emperor-class battleship; the other was a Serpent.

Almost simultaneously, both were subjected to a fierce boarding attack.

Or, more accurately, the Serpent was the primary target of the boarding attack. The Blood Sharks and a number of Phoenixes, using psychic teleportation to break through the enemy’s teleportation interference, unleashed a brutal slaughter.

Three hundred Blood Sharks and two hundred Phoenixes were deployed.

Capturing the entire warship with only five hundred soldiers was a challenge.

However, it was enough to cause chaos within a Serpent-class battleship.

That was how the silence occurred.

Meanwhile, on the Emperor-class battleship, Gu Hang nominally ordered four hundred Phoenixes, led by Martins, to conduct a boarding operation.

But in reality, they didn’t immediately board the ship.

It was the Heroic Spirits who had caused such a mess on the Emperor-class battleship.

The reason for this cover-up was that, if Heroic Spirits were displayed to the public, it would be unacceptable, as they would look too alien and heretical.

In fact, to date, the only members of the Alliance who had truly fought alongside these Heroic Spirits were the Phoenixes.

Showing the Heroic Spirits before them presented a more manageable risk. After all, the Phoenixes and Gu Hang shared a common destiny, and every member had undergone “Political Commissar” training, making their loyalty and will trustworthy.

Gu Hang would certainly not let the Blood Sharks see the Heroic Spirits in person.

As for the Blood Sharks’ disbelief at learning that only four hundred Phoenixes could assault an Emperor-class battleship, much larger than a battlecruiser, and silence its interior, they might find it incredible… but that was their own opinion.

When the enemy’s two main warships, particularly the Emperor-class, were silenced, Gu Hang commanded the three battlecruisers and Blood Shark’s battle barge to charge at full speed.

The rapidly closing distance made the firepower of both sides even more threatening.

While Alfonzo’s fleet was firing heavily, they had been patrolling the periphery, engaging in guerrilla warfare. Now, with the two main battleships silenced, the Alliance fleet began to attack fiercely. Alfonzo’s remaining two battlecruisers were not only temporarily without nearby support, but one of their void shields was ripped apart and vanished in a flash. Naturally, they were the Alliance fleet’s primary target.

Under the combined fire of the three battlecruisers and the Ghost Shark, the Serpent-class battlecruiser was struggling at near-full strength. It maximized its maneuverability and firepower, hoping to survive.

However, all these efforts only slightly prolonged its survival and proved ineffective. Ultimately, it was completely destroyed by the fierce concentrated fire.

Next, the lone remaining battlecruiser followed suit shortly after.

The Alliance fleet then began clearing out the other small and medium-sized vessels.

A random cruiser or large destroyer would be fortunately targeted, its void shields failing. Immediately thereafter, at least two or three X-class heavy artillery shells would be aimed at them, pounding them fiercely. A miss or two wouldn’t be a problem; a hit on just one would, without the protection of a void shield, shatter them mid-air.

While these peripheral threats were being quickly dealt with by the fleet’s artillery fire, landing craft from three battlecruisers and several Lunar-class cruisers departed the starships and headed towards the Mechanicus battlecruiser, which was being attacked by the Blood Sharks and Phoenixes.

This was a crude and ruthless method of boarding, a pure brute force.

The starships launching the landing craft were at a considerable distance from their targets, meaning they would be exposed to space for a significant period before reaching their destination.

Under normal circumstances, such an operation would be tantamount to murder. The landing craft would be constantly intercepted during their flight. If one were destroyed, not only would the landing craft be lost, but the thousands of soldiers and war equipment aboard would also become victims.

However, the Alliance’s decision was quite helpless.

If the Hippogriff were here, with the Zhuge-class aircraft carrier’s capabilities, its ample internal cargo space would eliminate the need to disperse the landing forces across so many different starships. Furthermore, its catapult technology could safely and quickly deliver these landing craft to the enemy’s face, significantly reducing the time the troop-laden landing craft were exposed to space.

Unfortunately, the Hippogriff was too slow to catch up to the battle.

This crude method was the only option.

However, the actual situation wasn’t that dangerous. This

was primarily because the enemy’s ships had already been invaded by Space Marines, and their interception systems were not functioning optimally. The cruisers, destroyers, and frigates that were supposed to provide cover in times of trouble had also been largely destroyed.

The Alliance’s landing force encountered very little artillery fire during its lengthy flight.

Although approximately 10% of the Alliance ships were intercepted mid-flight, resulting in the loss of over 5,000 elite warriors, the losses were generally acceptable.

The remaining 50,000 elite Alliance troops landed aboard the Serpent-class battlecruiser.

The Blood Sharks and Phoenixes had already established a landing zone. The Skitarii aboard the ship struggled for hours, but were unable to recapture these areas.

Now, landing craft arrived one after another, crashing into the breach, dropping off their troops, and then quickly withdrawing, making way for the next ship to release them.

With a substantial reinforcement of conventional forces, the Space Marines no longer needed to confront the Skitarii aboard the ships with their small, inferior numbers. After the two Chapters suffered a combined casualty of approximately seventy men, their first phase of the mission was complete.

The second phase was much easier: accompanying the Alliance’s conventional forces, they would launch a full-scale assault on the entire Serpent-class battlecruiser and prevent the enemy from destroying it.

The capture of the entire ship would be carried out by the Alliance forces, which gradually grew to over a hundred thousand men.

By the time the Serpent-class battlecruiser fell under the Alliance’s control, only one Alfonzo ship remained adrift in space:

the half-crippled Emperor-class.

The remaining warships had been destroyed,

and the Emperor-class had been badly damaged by the Heroic Spirits.

Only then did Martins, led by four hundred Phoenixes, board the ship.

Acting on clues gathered by the Heroic Spirits during the previous battle, the Phoenixes’ Chapter Master personally led a surprise attack on the Sage of the Main Work.

Martins personally slew him.

Then, landing craft from the Alliance Army and Marines began their journey towards the Emperor-class.

In reality, the primary task of seizing the ship had already been completed by the Heroic Spirits and Phoenixes. The Army’s arrival was merely a final act of occupation.

Before the Army and Marines could board, the Heroic Spirits had withdrawn.

Gu Hang hadn’t even allowed the Blood Sharks to board the Emperor-class.

Although Chapter Master Ewing offered to take the initiative, Gu Hang declined.

His joking words to Ewing were actually the truth:

“If I give you the job of capturing this Emperor-class battleship, I’ll have a hard time paying you later.”

Ewing smirked.

…

With this, the Battle of Bowen finally came to an end.

The Alliance lost over two hundred small and medium-sized vessels in this battle. In addition to the loss of two battlecruisers, all other ships of all classes suffered varying degrees of damage. The ‘Fire Nova’, the mainstay of the battle formation, despite its various reinforcements, suffered significant damage and had to be sent to the shipyard for repairs.

The Phoenix Regiment, with a full strength of a thousand men, made remarkable contributions in the naval battle through ship capture, boarding, and teleportation. However, they also suffered significant casualties.

Nearly three hundred soldiers lost their lives, while another hundred lingered in life support pods, awaiting the arrival of the Dreadnoughts. From now on, they would have to live their entire lives confined to their Dreadnought coffins.

Four hundred casualties dealt a heavy blow to the Phoenix Chapter.

Their glorious victory was achieved at the cost of great sacrifice.

It’s worth emphasizing that these four hundred casualties weren’t just ordinary Space Marines; they were veterans, Master Chiefs, and even Company Champions, trained at great expense by Gu Hang.

Gu Hang remembered the sacrifices and dedication of the Phoenixes.

Had a normal Chapter been attacked, let alone four hundred casualties, even if the entire Chapter had been wiped out, they wouldn’t have been able to match the Phoenixes’ effectiveness.

Ultimately, the disparity in strength between the Alliance Fleet and Alfonzo’s Ark Fleet was too great. Furthermore, the unexpected presence of the Neurozoa within the enemy ranks limited Gu Hang’s psychic abilities at the outset of the engagement.

Closing these gaps would require the sacrifices of the powerful Phoenixes.

Without them, victory would have been far less likely.

From a loss perspective, the Alliance’s victory was achieved only through Gu Hang’s clever tricks and the heavy sacrifice of Phoenix.

It was essentially a pyrrhic victory.

However, from a profit perspective, this victory was immensely valuable.

The Alliance lost two battlecruisers, but recovered two battleships and a battlecruiser!

Putting aside the Dragon Snake-class battlecruiser and the immense value of the Retribution-class battleship, the most crucial vessel was the Emperor-class battleship, now named “Pegasus” by Gu Hang.

With their addition, the Alliance Navy’s frontline combat capability was substantially upgraded.

The Alliance Navy’s main fleet consisted of three battleships, one aircraft carrier, and five battlecruisers. Furthermore

, over time, new batches of vessels would be delivered from the Alliance’s rear base, from the Flying Wing Star-Angry Owl Star Shipbuilding Center and the Jin Di Star Forge World, two major locations capable of manufacturing large ships.

In another year or two, two Grail-class and two Serpent-class ships will join the fleet. If this timeframe is extended even further, the first of the Retribution-class battleships Gu Hang had previously drawn, built using a dockyard-built main structure and then a black box-built core component, could be delivered to the front lines.

With some expedited construction, another Zhuge-class ship could be built.

In the next three years, the Alliance will have six more massive ships!

However, until then, the Alliance is at its weakest.

After the Battle of Bovan, numerous warships, including key battleships, suffered varying degrees of damage and all require repair.

During Alliance military discussions, some suggested pursuing the victory. With the destruction of the Alfonzo Ark Fleet, the enemy’s base camp was empty. A sudden push into the Alfonzo Sector, targeting the headquarters of the Mechanicus, who had been declared a “corrupted sect” by the joint declaration issued by the Imperial Central Command and the Mechanicus’ Martian headquarters, was considered a solution.

However, this proposal was rejected by Gu Hang.

The Alliance fleet’s current state lacked the capability for a proactive offensive.

The rest period will take at least half a year.

If a strong enemy appears again at this time, it may be a big trouble.

How to get through this most dangerous time is something that needs to be carefully considered.

First of all, the problem to be solved is the Fantasy Moon Galaxy.

The two regiments, Fury Flame and New World Torch, are still hiding in Fantasy Moon.

They must have received news about the Battle of Bowen by now, and they also know that the Alfonzo Fleet, which they had hoped to be the biggest savior, has been destroyed. The only surviving battlecruiser in the Alfonzo Fleet also went to Fantasy Moon to reunite with the two regiments.

If they set off to escape, that is what Gu Hang expected.

Although the Alliance Fleet is in poor condition, Fury Flame and the others are in even worse condition. They must be dealt with with the last bit of strength.

At that point, the Proud Claw Star Region will be basically calm, and the Alliance Fleet can really carry out repairs without too much worry.

However, their choice disappointed Gu Hang a little.

They stayed in the Fantasy Moon Galaxy and did not move.

(End of this chapter)