radicalducati Chapter 48: Since things have come to this, let's take off first.
Chapter 48: Since things have come to this, let's take off first.
In the cratered bridge of the Tyrant, where the battle scars had not yet been repaired, Sun Qian sat on the command throne, watching the hurried crew members, with alarms from various systems ringing in his ears.
Sun Qian knew very well that it was impossible to send the Tyrant back into space.
From the very beginning of its design, the Glory Queen-class battleship was destined to be a cosmic fortress that would forever sail in the void. Just as no one could have predicted that she would make an emergency landing instead of crashing, no one could have imagined that such a behemoth could return to space from the surface of a planet by its own power.
Even Sun Qian himself, when seizing control of the spaceship and landing on the Istvan III, had the most optimistic, idealistic, and unrealistic dream that the Eisenstein could return to Terra smoothly, and that the loyalists could rely on the warship as a fortress to hold out for as long as possible until Rogdorn's reinforcements arrived.
As a spacecraft, the Tyrant did not have—and could not have had—an anti-gravity device that would allow its gigaton-sized body to resist the gravity of planets.
When it landed a few days ago, the ground was almost melted into magma and then cooled down again. It was now welded to the bottom of the Tyrant. If the Tyrant wanted to start its engines and move, the heat from friction and the stress and deformation of the hull structure alone would be enough to tear the ship apart by its own power.
Just like this planet.
Sun Qian still remembers how shocked he was when he saw the bipolar cyclone torpedo launched. The meteor was like a sharp blade tearing the sky apart. As this sword of divine punishment pierced the ground, the planet began to experience its most severe and last earthquake in history.
The tectonic plates shattered like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the surface of the land, stretching for thousands of miles around the point of impact, began to undulate like waves.
Unlike ordinary extermination weapons such as viral bombs and atmospheric incineration torpedoes, this is an attack that is absolutely impossible to evade.
Sun Qian was well aware that surviving on this planet was impossible.
However, when two impossible things overlap, Sun Qian saw a sliver of extremely low possibility—
But no matter how low it is.
At least there is some hope, not zero.
"I know you're in pain, and I know you don't like me taking you away from you."
Sun Qian placed his hand on the armrest of the command throne, as if he were muttering to himself.
"But I know even more that you don't want to become a casualty of this planet with me. Please, hold on a little longer."
Perhaps the soul of the Tyrant could really hear Sun Qian's words, because the alarm actually went silent for a few seconds.
"The main propulsion engines are fully operational, and the nozzles in all directions are ignited, but the damage to the hull armor is..."
The success of the first step is not something to be joyful about, because it is also a countdown to death.
"Notify the naval gunnery department to open fire immediately according to the original plan!"
Sun Qian decisively issued the order, but when he did not hear a response after a few seconds, he immediately sensed that something was wrong.
"The naval gunnery department says... they haven't received the data from the calculation room yet, so they can't fire!"
"Immediately ask the calculation room what's going on!"
"They say the Thinker Array malfunctioned due to magnetic interference from the Earth's collapsing core, making it unable to perform calculations based on the latest crustal data obtained by the Oracion!"
Sun Qian's heart tightened; plans really can't keep up with changes.
Was I really too naive? All those so-called miracles relied on the system's abilities, and now I was actually fantasizing about taking the entire ship on an adventure...
"The Astartes officer in the gun corps wants to fire, but the mortal technical sergeant and the mechanical priest are desperately trying to stop him, believing that once fired, there will be no time to reload... Captain, please give instructions!"
If only Loken and the others were here.
For a moment, Sun Qian had this thought, but he immediately abandoned this weak idea. Now that things had come to this, he had to fulfill his duties as captain.
For the entire crew of the Great Tyrant today, command ability itself is secondary; what matters is having someone who can convince them that what they are doing is not suicide, and who will steadfastly and unconditionally carry out any unreasonable orders.
Only in their eyes is Sun Qian already an embodiment of "miracle".
But how should one choose? Hesitation only leads to destruction, but the opportunity comes only once.
"Report, the mechano-priest in the hangar... has illegally forcibly connected data cables to the Judgment Day, claiming it was an order from an Emperor-class Titan!"
Sun Qian's pupils suddenly contracted, and he immediately issued an order.
"Don't stop him! And have the tech-priest in the data room shut down the ship's firewall—"
Although this might lead to the ship's internal systems being compromised by obsolete code or malicious programs, Sun Qian's words clearly carried great weight at this moment, and the data room executed the command without any delay.
The evidence was the communication interface of the command throne, which emitted a cold, mechanical sound even before Sun Qian operated it.
"Hey, you ant, does this count as one of my kills?"
Sun Qian narrowed his eyes, speaking in a relaxed tone as if to an old friend.
"Of course, the head is counted as the last one to cause damage; this is a rule that has been passed down since ancient Terra."
He then stood up and issued new orders in a confident tone.
"Notify the naval gunnery department to make the final angle adjustments to all the laser lance systems myself. They only need to fire in 10 seconds!"
Those ten seconds felt incredibly long.
Sun Qian even complained a little about Astartes' nanosecond-level neural speed, which made him endure a longer ordeal under such highly concentrated conditions.
This is really troublesome. I guess I still can't be as fearless as those heroes in the face of danger.
So hurry up and let me leave here, then hand over the important task to other important figures.
"fire!!"
The light spear arrays on both sides of the Tyrant emitted extremely bright light capable of blinding mortals. These plasma beams, originally intended for orbital attacks, were now being fired at the already shattered ground around them.
Rumbling--
Sun Qian could hear a muffled thud approaching, but he couldn't be sure if it was the mournful cry of the Great Tyrant's hull reaching its limit under its own thrust, or...
"Notify everyone! Immediately grab onto anything around you to cushion the impact!!"
Crack—Boom!
The next second, Sun Qian felt himself being forcibly pressed onto the command throne. This process lasted for about ten seconds, after which he suddenly felt his body become so light...
Bang!
Sun Qian, who had fallen back onto the command throne, looked at the crew members who were swaying around him, cleared his throat, and spoke in a calm tone.
"Uninjured crew members, return to your posts immediately and assess the situation!"
"The current altitude of the Great Tyrant is... approximately 1000 meters from the original altitude reference. The thrust system is now in equilibrium with gravity!"
It worked!
Sun Qian had to do everything he could to hide the trembling in his hands and feet from his excitement; he needed to maintain a composed image in front of the crew.
He pretended that it was all a miracle he had planned all along.
Simply put, it's impossible to make the Tyrant take off from the ground, but if we think about it differently—
What if we send it from the ground into the sky, and then let the ground disappear on its own?
In other words, let the earth become the catapult of the Glory Queen-class battleship!
Due to the impact of the bipolar torpedo, the core of Istvan III had already gone out of control and caused damage. At this time, the planet's crustal plates were in a state of fragmentation, and magma and various plasmas also erupted outward when the planet's core collapsed.
If the weak points of the surrounding crust can be accurately calculated at this time, and then combined with the light spear weapon array of the Tyrant, an independent piece of crust can be created, which will send the spaceship into the sky under the impact of underground magma and the energy of the core eruption.
Since the planet's interior is already unstable, the gravity will be greatly reduced, which is the only chance for the Tyrant to take off!
Of course, this sounds difficult, and it's an impossible task in practice.
Leaving aside the final adjustments that almost failed, the initial steps required a large amount of precise data calculation, which was barely sufficient even with the Thinker Array on the Tyrant overloaded.
Moreover, the most crucial parameter is actually the launch position and timing of the bipolar cyclone torpedo.
This is data that only an enemy could possibly obtain.
Sun Qian looked up at the sky, but he did not look at the Minos, which was launching the bipolar cyclone torpedo.
He knew that what truly gave them a glimmer of hope were the seemingly silent End and Andronius.
The flagship of Taifeng and Aidolong.
But it wasn't just the two of them, but two other people who were now on their ship.
Of course, this is not an unconditional gift.
"Activate the Void Shield Array and concentrate the energy below. We can ignore the defenses above for now—the rest is up to you all. From now on, proceed according to the original plan. Any problems will be decided by Qi Le in the strategic command room."
Sun Qian stood up from the command throne. Ironically, once the ship actually set sail, the things he could do as "captain" actually stopped there.
It would be better to leave the various issues of the voyage to a more professional crew.
"Notify Loken's squad to wait for me on deck."
Sun Qian has an even more important task ahead of him.
Leaving the ground of István III is only the first step—perhaps even the simplest one.
There was an entire fleet waiting for him in the universe above, and once the energy was allocated to the engines, the Great Tyrant's void shield would not be unbreakable under the fleet's bombardment.
However, the solution to this predicament has already been readily available.
It was even handed over to him by the enemy.
"Prepare for the retrieval operation of Angron and Liu Bei!"