Those light bands were faster, denser, and more deadly than ion cannons.
But Xie Zhixing did not decelerate.
He stared at the oncoming light band, his eyes unblinking.
Just as the light band was about to strike the nose of his craft.
His fighter suddenly spun.
It was a perfect spiral maneuver.
The fighter rotated wildly around its own axis as the center.
The coordination between the attitude thrusters and the Vector Engine reached its limit, with each thruster's ignition timing precise to the thousandth of a second.
The light band swept past the outer edge of his rotating hull.
Turret, wings, tail nozzle.
Every component, in that thousandth of a second, narrowly avoided the path of the beams.
Xie Zhixing made it through.
The moment he passed through the light band, his finger was already pressing the firing button.
"Try this."
On both ends of the wings, the Vulcan twin-linked high-speed pulse laser cannons fired simultaneously.
The 1,000-megawatt laser beams left no trace in the vacuum, but their dense firing frequency created a series of blinding flashes the instant they struck their target.
The beams swept across the bottom of the Tiger-class heavy cruiser.
The moment the beams hit the two turrets that were furiously spewing ion clusters, the barrels melted.
Not broke—melted.
The metal softened into liquid under the extreme heat, flowing down from the turrets and solidifying into perfectly round metal beads in the vacuum.
Immediately after, the beams swept across the turret bases, melting through the energy conduits inside.
Sympathetic Detonation.
Two small bursts of flame erupted at the locations of those two turrets, then quickly extinguished.
Those two ion cannons were out of commission.
Xie Zhixing's voice came over the communication channel, carrying that familiar roguish tone.
"Two."
At the same time, Ma Xiaoyuan also pressed the firing button.
His aim was a moment slower than Xie Zhixing's, but equally precise.
The beam swept toward another ion cannon that was turning, piercing through it.
The barrel of that cannon was still trying to rotate, but it stopped halfway.
Because its energy supply had been severed.
Ma Xiaoyuan took a deep breath.
"One."
Xie Zhixing chuckled.
"Good kid."
Xie Zhixing's voice came over the communication channel again.
"Starboard, loop around."
Both fighters pulled back on their sticks simultaneously, sharply ascending from the bottom of the Tiger-class heavy cruiser, climbing upward along the side of the hull.
The hull's armor flashed past the viewports.
Those densely packed weld seams, maintenance hatches, and Sensor Arrays.
At a speed of 180,000 kilometers per second, they all stretched into blurry streaks.
The fighters looped from the lower axis to the starboard side.
Awaiting them was the frenzied counterattack from the broadside rapid-fire pulse interceptor cannons.
Those turrets reacted indeed fast enough.
Almost the instant the two fighters appeared, dense azure beams had already swept over.
But before the Swift fighters at 180,000 kilometers per second, those beams...
Slow.
Too slow.
Ma Xiaoyuan stared at the oncoming beam, a strange thought surfacing in his mind.
It was like watching a recording slowed down multiple times.
The trajectory of the beams was clearly visible, every impact point predictable in advance.
Those beams chased behind him, yet always fell just a little short.
Sometimes it was a hundred meters, sometimes fifty, sometimes as close as a dozen meters, but they just couldn't hit.
It was as if an invisible hand was orchestrating this deadly dance.
Xie Zhixing was ahead of him, moving with even greater ease.
That Stinger seemed to be toying with the laser cannons, darting left and right, up and down.
Each time, the beams would skim past the fuselage, yet never strike home.
Then, those beams chasing them hit something they shouldn't have.
In the airspace on the right flank, four Imperial Destroyers were attempting to regroup amidst the chaos.
Several ships were crowded together, less than fifty thousand kilometers apart.
A beam swept past Xie Zhixing's fighter craft and slammed straight into the broadside of the first Destroyer.
The shield flickered once, then shattered.
The beam pierced the hull unimpeded, melting a charred, corroded hole several meters in diameter into the armor.
A second beam followed closely, striking the stern of the same Destroyer.
The engine room was breached, and out-of-control plasma gushed from the opening, trailing a twisted purple band of light.
A third beam, a fourth beam.
The beams chasing Ma Xiaoyuan also found their marks.
The bridge of the second Destroyer was pierced by a beam, its transparent observation window shattered, with internal lighting and sparks from control consoles spewing out through the breach.
The broadside of the third Destroyer was torn open by a long gash, debris from internal compartments sucked out by the vacuum, forming a drifting ring of junk around the hull.
The fourth Destroyer fared the worst, with two beams simultaneously striking its ammunition depot.
Sympathetic Detonation.
A blinding incandescent fireball erupted where the Destroyer had been, engulfing the entire warship.
The expanding fireball swallowed the nearby debris, the surrounding wreckage, and everyone aboard that ship.
Four Destroyers, at the same moment, transformed into four dazzling balls of flame.
On the Tiger-class Heavy Cruiser, at the starboard rapid-fire pulse cannon emplacement.
The Gunnery Chief stared fixedly at the four fading balls of flame outside the viewport, his expression a sight to behold.
His face flushed red, the veins at his temples throbbing visibly.
Then he spun around abruptly, unleashing a torrent of curses at the gunners behind him.
"What the hell are your eyes for?"
His voice exploded in the cramped emplacement, painfully vibrating eardrums.
"I've never seen you this accurate when shooting at fighters!"
He pointed a trembling finger at the four dissipating balls of flame outside the viewport.
"But when it comes to hitting our own Destroyers, you're spot on every time!"
"Four ships!"
"Four of them!"
He took a deep breath and continued to berate them.
"Did you mix up the friend and foe markers in your targeting scopes?"
The gunners hung their heads, not daring to utter a word.
Two Swift fighters streaked past the broadside of the Tiger-class Heavy Cruiser, circling around to its stern.
Suddenly, the view opened up to reveal four massive fusion engine nozzles, spewing blazing blue plasma exhaust.
That was the heart of this steel giant beast.
And also its most vulnerable spot.
Xie Zhixing's voice came over the communication channel, carrying a hint of relaxed amusement.
"Now."
He pressed the weapon launch key.
Four Viper short-range dogfight missiles mounted under the wings simultaneously detached from their racks, trailing white tail flames as they lunged toward the four engine nozzles.
Ma Xiaoyuan followed closely behind, pressing his launch key as well.
Another four missiles.
Eight Viper missiles streaked through the void, leaving eight straight smoke trails as they raced toward their target.
The distance was too close.
From launch to impact, it would take only seconds.
The missiles were too fast—so fast that the point defense cannons had no time to react.
But more importantly,
no point defense cannon dared to react.
Around that Tiger-class heavy cruiser, there were over a dozen Imperial warships.
They all saw the eight missiles.
And they saw the two fighter craft.
But not a single starship opened fire.
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