Chapter 18 – Round 2
Ahh, so it didn’t work. The last battleship sent out had been destroyed. I had thought that they would hold out for longer, but in reality, they were instantly annihilated huh. Even if they were to outnumber the enemy ten to one, the difference in the quality of the battleships was a hurdle that still couldn’t be overcome. The opponent’s remodelled battleships could easily emerge victorious, even while simultaneously fighting ten of my normal battleships.
So I remodelled them by a fair amount—more armaments were installed and the output power from their engines was increased considerably as well. Even so, the main issue was still with the strategy. The quality and quantity of the ships were both obviously critical bottlenecks, but now I’d mass-produced too many of them. It would be a hassle to directly control every single mass produced unit.
In the end, I decided that it would be fine to leave this aspect to the combat AI that I had just salvaged from the Earthen army. This AI was an artificial intelligence that was specialized towards war. It was capable of handling both the military strategy as well as the logistics and supply management in my stead. It was useful during wartime but, since it was such an old AI, it took some time to dig it back up from the archives and reboot the system.
Along with those preparations, I’d also grasped every fine detail of the enemy battleships during that earlier battle. Most of their functions exceeded the performance parameters of the original battleships. I really wanted to praise them for being able to remodel the battleships that far. The new combat AI sifted through the various pieces of information, exposing the enemy’s capabilities.
One particular piece of data caught my eye from within the display: the ‘amount of ammunition’.
Each of their battleships had enough ammunition for their beam cannons and energy torpedoes to sink around a hundred of the original battleships. Then for the next battle, just to be on the safe side, I decided to send in a thousand times as many of my own battleships as they had.
If we were to send in more battleships than they could possibly sink with their limited ammunition, we shouldn’t have a chance of losing. Although… this may have been a bit overkill considering how the improved battleships already far out-matched the original battleships.
Then again, I was still an amateur when it came to war. This was still better than the worst case scenario of the Earth being destroyed.
Assuming this worst case scenario, I began to consider whether would it be better to further strengthen the already improved models. There was still a chance that even the remodelled battleships might lose this time around. In that case, I felt that it would be best to keep the blueprint’s auto-update system active and running while continuing with the mass production of the battleships.
If the war potential this time still wasn’t enough then… let’s see…
Sending out another batch of further remodelled battleships numbering at one thousand times the current battle force should surely be enough. I felt the need to think of another backup plan if that still didn’t do the trick.
While I was thinking about those things, the fleet of improved battleships finally completed their hurried mass production, and the AI began giving them instructions. Immediately after leaving the hangars, the fleet began heading towards the front-line in waves.
This time, I decided to head to the front-line as well. I’d even prepared a flagship vessel for this, so I figured that I might as well go observe the battle. The technology on this flagship was still fairly outdated, but it didn’t seem so fragile that it would break that easily.
Although… were the shields on these ships really so weak in the past?
…Hmmm… Why not go all out and wear the Earthen army’s military uniform? This is still a battle after all so it would be the bare minimum to show some respect to the opponents…
…Now then… Which one should I wear… The one that seems the easiest to move in… Would the lieutenant’s uniform be fine?
I passed my thin arms through the sleeves of the custom-made pure white uniform created from the salvaged data.
With the uniform on, I felt a lot sharper.
Was this how all military men felt?
Well, that was something I’d only know when I got to the battlefield.
「Well then, ladies and gentlemen from the Planetary Federation. Shall we begin the second round?」
***
「Hm? The hell is this?」
The radar technician on the federation’s battleship was puzzled.
「What’s wrong?」 A comrade sitting beside the radar technician asked.
「No… It’s just that the radar might have broken down.」
「Huh? Breaking down at such a time. Sure is unlucky. What error is it displaying?」
「Well, the display itself is fine but… Take a look at it yourself.」
The technician gave up his seat for his colleague to view the radar display.
On the radar display was a red belt gradually appearing from the top.
「What’s this red belt?」
「No idea. It appeared out of nowhere at the top of the screen, and it’s inching its way down. Even refreshing the screen doesn’t remove it.」
「Ahhhhhh, this is certainly a malfunction. You sometimes see a blue screen but it’s rare to see a red one. Do you want to take a photo to share with the others?」
「Don’t be stupid. Geez, I can’t even work, not with it like this.」
「Hahaha. Since it’s broken, we could just have the other ships relay their output for now.」
「There’s no choice. Ahhh, even though I wanted to be useful, I guess it’s free time until the radar fixes itself.」
「Don’t relax too much. The radar should be fixed by the time we arrive on Earth.」
While laughing cheerfully they explained their situation to the other crew members and asked for extra support.
However, that extra support never came. This phenomenon was occurring on all the other battleships as well after all.
They had misunderstood. What they had assumed to be a red belt on the screen… was actually a vast collection of red dots.
Red dots… That was the icon for enemies. The Earthen army had arrived in such large numbers, that the Federation’s modified radars indicated every fine detail on the screen. Hence, all those red dots had been mashed together into a red belt on the display.
And that very red belt was steadily approaching their fleet.
A few moments later, disaster struck.