Close quarters fighting

The two sides were currently 30,000 kilometres apart. Hawke manoeuvred the fleet and began to slow down, readying himself for close quarters combat.

At such a distance, the laser beams emitted by the laser cannons had very little energy to lose before reaching their targets. These laser cannons, would be another nightmare for them.

Hawke had already delivered three strikes against them before the two sides actually made contact. The first, a giant flashbang, scattered their light-hating formation a little.

The second strike, an endless torrent of bullets and thousands of miniature missiles, was an attack that completely disrupted the opponent's attack formation and basically their plan of attack.

At this distance, it was the best distance for the high-powered laser cannon to strike. If they were too far away, the energy loss would be too great, and if they were too close, the laser cannons might cause accidental damage to their own ships after they entered into close combat, so they could not be used if they were too close.

The distance between them was less than 30,000 kilometres, the most appropriate time to use the laser cannons, and yet the other side did not use them to attack Hawk, which basically proved that Hawk's attack had already done so much damage to the other side that it had left them scrambling.

The third strike after the torrent of bullets and mini missiles was hundreds of high-energy laser beams. These are the laser beams that will do fundamental damage to them. These beams could penetrate their ships, disabling their internal life support systems, and Hawke observed a large amount of gas escaping from the breach in their ships.

The effect of the torrent of bullets and mini missiles had Hawke's heart pounding. Hawke even wondered if he should turn around and retreat, not to fight the other side in close quarters, but to rely only on the bullets and mini missiles to destroy them. But after a moment's reflection, Hawke gave up on that plan.

It was too close now, and it was too late to turn around and leave.

Ahead, countless sparks still burst forth, blooming in the silent universe illuminated by the giant flashbulbs.

From time to time, ships disintegrated, and Hawke knew that it was because the bullets had struck the engines of the other ship. The disintegrating ship exploded in a huge explosion of fire, like a beautiful flower blooming in the universe.

This spectacular scene was like a silent mime. If there was a medium in the universe that could transmit sound, with such sound and light effects, the magnificence of the scene in front of them would surely exceed that of countless movies that claim to be big star wars.

The opponent's fleet, with a total of over 500 ships, had lost at least 50 ships before the battle had really begun, and nearly 100 more had suffered varying degrees of damage, reducing the attacking power of the entire fleet.

It was true that the opponent's ships were more advanced and had more firepower than Hawke's ships, but in the tentative attacks before contact, the battle damage rate of their ships was much higher than that of Hawke's side. There was no way around it, the Hawke, with both human intelligence and computer computing power, was too far ahead of them in terms of soft power.

Hawke's firing continued, and in fact, the two sides never stopped shooting at each other. There were countless bullets weaving to and fro, but seventy percent of those that attacked Hawke were intercepted by Hawke, and only a limited fraction of those that attacked the alien fleet could be intercepted.

Hawke saw that after the initial panic, the formation of the opposing fleet had slowly stabilised, the bullet interception rate had increased and high energy laser beams were beginning to be sent out to wreak havoc on Hawke's fleet.

The distance between the two sides, meanwhile, had been reduced to less than three thousand kilometres, and the head-to-head battlefield of close combat was soon to come.

"Come on, come on, who's afraid?" Hawke shouted excitedly, rushing forward without fear.

The gruesome fight began in short order. Immediately, the fleet formations of both sides were disrupted, and each side had ships rushing inside the other's fleet, hundreds and thousands of ships chasing each other in a vast area of up to tens of thousands of kilometres, killing each other miserably.

At this point, the thousands of microsatellites that had been launched in advance came in handy. These tiny, simple satellites were hidden quietly in space, collecting data from the battlefield by the bright light of the giant flashbulbs and transmitting it to Hawk, providing him with data for his entire fleet.

In the midst of the battlefield, bullets were flying, missiles were being fired, ships were scurrying, laser beams were sweeping around, and it was chaos. In such a battle, any ship that was not paying attention would be hit from all sides and explode instantly.

It was a war scene beyond human imagination. Any words that attempted to describe this war became pale in comparison. There were countless bullets fired from thousands of ships bouncing in all directions, and Hawke saw one enemy ship chasing one of his own, constantly firing huge amounts of bullets, majestic and unstoppable, but the next moment it was hit by laser beams from several ships next to it, as well as huge amounts of bullets, and exploded with a bang.

Thousands of microsatellites were hidden in the darkness of space, providing Hawke with a real time, comprehensive and detailed view of the battlefield. Even if it weren't for the ships and the fire, Hawke would have been able to track every single bullet on the battlefield.

This implies an enormous computing power requirement. The usage rate of the central computer had already reached ninety-five percent. In the Sun's main control room, the tens of thousands of photonic CPUs immersed in the liquid hydrogen cooling pool gave off so much heat that the pool almost began to boil. Fortunately, thanks to Hawk's special cooling system, the heat was suppressed.

Watching this scene, Hawke secretly sighed, "It's fine in normal times, but at a time like war when huge amounts of computing power are needed, my central computer is still a little short on computing power. After we finish this enemy, it's time to put the construction of a new type of computer on the agenda."

The more powerful his computing power was, the more accurate his control of the battlefield would be.

Even with the chaotic situation, Hawke was not able to grasp all the movements of the battlefield, but with the part of the battlefield he had, he was able to do a lot of things that were almost unbelievable.

The bullets released by Hawke's ship were all deliberately calculated, which meant that each bullet would be used to maximum effect by Hawke, and that it was basically impossible for his own bullets to miss. Because, the direction of ejection after each bullet hit the enemy ship was calculated by Hawke.

Hawke's huge calculation power was brought into play to the extreme. While manipulating nearly ten thousand laser guns for defence, Hawke was also manipulating the ships to tangle with the other side, and was also manipulating high velocity machine guns, high power laser guns and other opponents to attack.

The huge fleet of six hundred ships, under Hawke's precise control, had truly become one. Every subtle movement he made would achieve maximum results while consuming the least amount of resources.

In Hawke's mind, the entire battlefield is a three-dimensional animation. In this animation, every ship, every bullet, every laser is a string of data, a string of data that indicates their position, speed, direction, and energy. Hawke will then use the combined calculations of these data to command his ship to make one action after another.

It could be said that every bullet fired, every ship moved, every laser beam was backed by Hawke's grasp of the entire situation.

After the war had lasted for half an hour, Hawke realised that he had, before, been wrong in his estimation.

For Hawke found that his own fleet, was slowly being overpowered by the other side.

"My soft strength, to surpass them by too much, but hard strength, the gap between me and them, is not as small as I had estimated before."

Even though Hawke had such precise control, overall, in a close fight, the battle damage rate of Hawke's ship was actually greater than the other side!

This meant that Hawke's soft power was not enough to make up for the gap in hard power.

The gruesome battle continued. In this battle, there was no one who performed more spectacularly than the opponent's flagship, which was the most massive in size. This ship was the most strongly armoured and had the best defences. Moreover, it had a special attack method on it that Hawke had not yet resolved. It was like a terrifying killer swimming in the ocean of war, and it took less than a minute to devour a small fish.

The opponent's flagship was larger than the Sky Court, and in addition to the flagship, the opponent had two other large ships no less than the Sky Court. So although he had already eliminated a portion of the enemy's ships earlier, and Hawk's control over the fleet was far superior to that of his opponent, the situation on the entire battlefield, under the pressure of these three large ships, was not good for Hawk.

"If I could double my calculation power again, perhaps, relying only on these six hundred ships, I could even out the situation, hehe." Hawke sighed darkly, "So far, the number of ships destroyed on his side, eighty village level ships, fifteen country level ships, and the Sky Court is still capable of attacking with light wounds. Apart from the ships taken out at the beginning, the other side's four hundred ships have been destroyed, sixty in total, but the three most massive ships, all of which still have attacking power as well as mechanic power, have not suffered much damage."

The advantage of the other side's hard power was shown when the battle was fought head on. Their airships, faster than Hawke's, had more firepower than Hawke's, and even their manoeuvrability was superior to Hawke's. If Hawke's control was not really too much higher than his opponent's, Hawke would have been defeated a long time ago.

The fact that they had fought to such a state was proof enough that Hawk was inhumanly strong, and I think that Hawk's fleet had left a nightmarish impression on those aliens.

"Motherfucker, this can't go on, replenish some more power." Hawk cursed, and manoeuvred the Voyager, and the forty reserve ships to join the battle.