Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 724

Chapter 722, Dark Skin?

However, Jason Morgan didn’t get to meet Wang Jiarong as he had hoped.

Under normal circumstances, Wang Jiarong certainly wouldn’t have shied away from a brief chat with Jason Morgan.

This route through the Fox Moon Star Region holds considerable importance in the Alliance Commerce Department’s future plans, and there’s ample room for cooperation between the two sides. That

was her original plan, but

an unexpected event disrupted it.

Their fleet would have to complete industrial transfers across multiple star regions and sectors along the way, conduct interstellar trade, and ultimately conduct a large-scale trade with a caravan from the Infinite Star Region. The fleet would

undoubtedly require a significant number of ships, from large, powerful merchant vessels to small and medium-sized ones.

Such a massive transport fleet, laden with wealth,

would naturally require significant investment in security.

Accompanying the caravan were numerous armed merchant ships.

An armed merchant ship is essentially an ordinary transport ship with a few guns installed and, if possible, additional armor and enhanced energy shields.

This gives it a certain level of combat capability.

Of course, it’s not comparable to a full-fledged warship. From the outset, many details within civilian vessels, which determine their combat effectiveness, differ from those of warships.

A heavily armored merchant ship, seemingly the size of a battleship or even larger, would likely be defeated by a frigate. It would

n’t even be able to escape. The

heavily armored merchant ship is very slow.

Of course, this also means that the heavily armored merchant ship is one of the most challenging types of ship to weaponize. It was designed to be economical, fuel-efficient, and capable of transporting large quantities of goods. It excels at this task. Converting it into a warship would be a relatively slow and maneuverable affair, with power output limited from the outset for cost reasons. Its pot-bellied shape would make it vulnerable to attack, and it lacked suitable space for mounting firepower…

Some ships, however, would fare better. For example, the small Flying Pig could be converted into a “Wild Boar”-class armed merchant ship,

which would be acceptable. The most suitable would be the “Orca,” a redesigned ship based on the Whale-class transport ship. However, unlike ordinary conversions, the Orca cannot be converted from a Whale-class ship; it must be built from the outset.

The Orca costs around 200 million tax coins, making it more expensive than the Whale-class and slightly cheaper than the Silver Sword and Silver Shield-class frigates.

However, it can function as a merchant ship, with a carrying capacity only slightly less than that of the Whale-class. Crucially, in terms of combat effectiveness, two Orcas could rival a Silver Shield-class frigate.

That’s a good value for money.

In wartime, the military rarely uses Orcas, not even for logistics support. If the military needs logistical support, they can simply requisition high-capacity merchant ships and dispatch warships for escort.

For ordinary merchant caravans, killer whales are ideal.

Without the need for warships, an orca can function like a regular whale under normal circumstances, albeit with a 25% higher cost and 10% lower carrying capacity.

However, in the event of danger, it instantly becomes highly effective, capable of carrying as much as half a frigate.

The fleet led by Wang Jiarong relies on hundreds of killer whales for armed protection.

Furthermore, the fleet’s large size makes resupply along the route somewhat challenging, especially as many areas along the way are underdeveloped.

Furthermore, the merchant ships’ mission targets are scattered across the star system. Traveling to every destination would be a waste of time.

These two factors necessitate that the entire caravan cannot remain together, requiring the formation of numerous branch caravans to pursue different trading targets.

As long as the merchant ships of the entire caravan maintain a roughly consistent direction of movement and periodically rendezvous at the main artery, it’s sufficient.

From a safety perspective, it’s hard to say whether it’s safer to operate together or separately. While a combined escort force is certainly much stronger, if something goes wrong, they’ll all be wiped out.

Separating up prevents a sudden and catastrophic wipeout, but the escort strength of each fleet will inevitably be diluted.

Overall, however, caravans sailing in the Spider Web Universe shouldn’t have to worry too much about safety.

The entire Spider Web Universe had just concluded its war, and the two major enemies, the Ironclad and the Zerg, should have posed no space threat.

However, amidst this situation, a squadron had lost contact,

and no further information had been transmitted.

Wang Jiarong was immediately alert.

She wasn’t complacent; the signal struck her as unusual.

The main reason was that the missing squadron included at least six armed merchant ships, four of which were Orcas.

This force was already significant, at least compared to the average pirate threat.

Don’t mistake interstellar pirates for some prestigious force.

Robbing in the galaxy requires ships.

A space-capable starship is incredibly expensive! How could a group of pirates, truly rootless, acquire ships?

They’re still being supported by others

. A truly roving pirate group would be a minority.

However, there were some pirates here, but they were likely wiped out in the previous war.

Neither the Zerg nor the human navy would likely keep them.

Even if there were still pirates left, pirates capable of wielding the might of six armed merchant ships, Wang Jiarong accepted it.

But what she couldn’t accept was how powerful could pirates be, wiping out an entire branch fleet and still preventing them from even sending a single message?

She took this matter extremely seriously. She

didn’t even intend to resolve it on her own.

Even with hundreds of armed merchant ships at her disposal, she was still unsure. Thirteen fully loaded merchant ships had already been lost, costing not only the ships themselves but also their contents.

Losing even one more was costly.

She immediately called for support from the Alliance Navy,

which swiftly responded to her call for assistance and quickly arrived at the scene.

The “location” was, in fact, a system called Yangyu in the Fox Moon star region.

The squadron had completed a trade mission there and then departed, but contact was lost before they could leave the system.

The exploration of the Yangyu system surprisingly yielded results quickly.

On the surface, Meneke Martini of the Shimmering Tribunal, along with several Inquisitors from the Anti-Xenophobia Tribunal, concluded that this was most likely the work of the Dark Eldar.

Furthermore, they had already obtained some clues.

With the cooperation of ground forces, they actually captured several Darklings from Yangyu Star, disguised as human beings.

————

There’s nothing written about it, why did they release them after several hours?

(End of this chapter)