novelnext Chapter 192: Battle of Pluto’s Orbit
Chapter 192: Battle of Pluto’s Orbit
Chapter 192: Battle of Pluto’s Orbit
Pluto’s orbit in the solar system.
This place, where two dwarf planets once existed, was filled with a giant structure-like nest, a plague legion surrounding it, and red clouds in the background.
The nest had grown bigger and more vicious thanks to eroding Pluto and Charon, and the number of plague legion had increased.
But it was not enough to satisfy the plague queen.
―We need more minerals. We have to move our base.
There was no shortage of asteroid belts nearby, but they were far from enough to feed the legion.
There was a need to move to the outer solar system to properly grow the legion.
The plague queen decided to prepare for moving the nest, but soon stopped.
She felt something from far away in space.
―Interesting. They can hide their appearance from our sight.
They must have prepared a lot by defying time.
Even their visible power surpassed ours.
But don’t they know that’s not all?
―We are not one. We are connected.
The small humans who resisted until the end defied time and quickly prepared for resistance, but that was not enough.
Because the plague queen was not a single entity.
―You may win the small battle right now, but you will lose the final battle.
Even if they were lucky enough to go to the prophet’s land, it was uncertain whether they would survive.all new stories at
It was impossible to fight against their kin scattered everywhere with human’s short lifespan for decades.
A triumphant smile appeared on the plague queen’s lips.
―Come. You who call yourselves the prophet’s children.
As if they were waiting for her words, the legion strike fleet that had sailed 5.5 billion kilometers entered Pluto’s orbit.
“Gravity brake, maximum deceleration.”
As they slowed down quickly, a huge shock hit the entire fleet.
Most of the shock was attenuated by the ether reverse field, but it was impossible to completely eliminate it.
Fortunately, all of the fleet’s forces were prepared for the shock, so the damage was not severe.
A few mechanics who were repairing assault armors until the last minute fell out and fainted. That was all of the damage.
The screens of each battleship’s main bridge showed the red cloud and the nest.
“Wow...”
“They completely destroyed Pluto and Charon.”
“Thanks to that, the size of the plague legion has doubled.”
The operators immediately began to assess the battlefield.
“There are about 6,520 plagues around the nest. Leviathan-class 32, Behemoth-class 150...”
“The location of the queen is not confirmed, but she is expected to be in the deepest part of the nest.”
Countless light spots appeared on the gravity radar.
The distance was too far to start an attack.
The nest was fixed at the gravity balance point of Pluto and Charon, so we had to move.
The artificial intelligence moved the entire fleet forward.
“Fleet advance at half speed. First-class combat stance.”
Usually, the battle between the human alliance fleet and the plague legion starts with a long-range bombardment.
But both sides knew that there was no meaning other than energy consumption.
It was too easy to repair with black metal.
They quickly recovered from damage, so minor hits were meaningless and eventually delivering reaction bombs through assault armors became decisive blows.
When a reaction bomb exceeding 1 gigaton explodes, even a Leviathan-class would be shattered in one hit, making recovery meaningless.
Their main tactic was to cause chain explosions and destroy the entire fleet.
The plague was not stupid either, so they did their best to prevent that by using methods that made it difficult for assault armors to maneuver.
Just like now.
“Ether reverse field detected, fifth-class transform phenomenon occurs.”
Following the report of artificial intelligence, operators screamed as if they were torn apart.
“Multiple Leviathan-class in front are forming large-caliber railgun turrets! There are more than 500 turrets!”
“If we get hit, not only plasma shields but also hulls are in danger!”
Indeed, as they were pioneers of black metal technology, they pushed with fiery quantity.
The human alliance fleet had defensive measures against energy weapons, but there was a limit line for physical impact.
If they fired large-caliber railguns at us, there was no way other than avoiding them.
Artificial intelligence suggested a solution.
“Disperse fleet, form defense wall.”
The formation of the fleet widened and each ship formed a defense wall.
Their shapes changed and quickly made shields.
Soon after, the plague fleet began firing at once and bullets covered space.
“Ether reverse field maximum, gravity crane operation.”
The bullets were too fast to completely block them with gravity cranes.
They just did their best to reduce damage.
“Impact in 10, 9. 8... Brace for impact.”
Countless bullets hit the fleet.
The fleet that pierced through space like a sea was swept away by a sudden wave.
The black metal defense wall that was raised as a shield was quickly shattered and all kinds of means such as ether reverse field and plasma shield were mobilized, but they could not stop all attacks.
In an instant, several battleships were hit and quickly repaired.
“Baikal, Chungju, Victoria hit. Seal hit areas, start damage control.”
“Send combat officers to area 3A-5! Block the outer wall with black metal for now!”
The plague fleet fired several times while the fleet advanced further.
At this time, the distance between the two sides was about 150,000 kilometers, enough to operate assault armors.
Artificial intelligence gave orders.
“Prepare to launch assault armors. Pilots, board immediately.”
Yujin boarded the assault armor with his squad.
When the synchronization was over, the number 99.99 was displayed on the console.
It was a little delayed compared to the heyday, but it was not a big problem.
“Alpha Four, ready to launch.”
As he reported, the main bridge of Los Angeles shook.
“Synchronization rate is 99.99%? Is that a possible number?”
“Even the president in his prime wasn’t that much.”
“That must feel like the assault armor is almost his own body.”
“We have no choice but to hope that he will open a breakthrough. Launch as soon as ready. Each ship, cover the assault armors.”
The mission of the assault armor squad was to penetrate quickly and deliver reaction bombs while the fleet was distracting and blocking the enemy.
The situation was not so bad, but there were many pilots who were new to combat and they didn’t know what variables would occur near the nest.
They were all first-timers to encounter Leviathan-class, let alone plague queen.
They had received plenty of training, but it was uncertain whether it would be connected to real combat.
“Still, we have no one to trust but the delivery guys. Launch when ready. Protect the assault armors.”
‘What qualifications do you need? If we didn’t have them, the prophet wouldn’t have sent us a gift.’
―Huh... You really don’t know anything.
‘Yeah. I don’t know anything. And you’re in a position where you’ll be shattered by a primitive race.’
―I assure you that won’t be the end.
‘You seem to have some faith. I’ll finish you off, including that.’
―You have admirable courage. I admit it. You are the most outstanding warrior among the races we have met.
‘Among the races?’
Did that mean she had fought with other races besides humans?
Yujin closed his eyes and saw the deepest part of the nest as if it were drawn in his head.
The gravity data and ether told him the situation inside the nest.
And she was there.
The plague queen’s guard plagues that were lying around her rushed in.
‘Maximum output of the fusion reactor.’
‘Maximum output of the fusion reactor. Be careful, master.’
Along with Lucia’s concern, an enormous amount of ether that he had never felt before rushed into Yujin through the receiver.
He tried to send out an ether laser in pain that felt like his body was burning.
But what came out of the assault armor was not a laser, but a huge sword.
‘What is this?’
‘Oh, oh, it’s going to hit!’
As Lieutenant Rogers panicked, the sword vaporized all kinds of debris floating around and smashed the guard plagues that were rushing toward them.
Several krakens with heavy armor were exposed to ether and died without a trace.
And the sword didn’t stop there. It compressed space and reached out to the queen.
For a moment, her thoughts were transmitted to Yujin.
―Could you be...?
But the sword didn’t give her a chance.
The giant golden sword mercilessly sliced the plague queen.
Her body made of black metal scattered into pieces in ether.
Alpha squad didn’t miss the gap and detached the reaction bombs and left as they were.
A huge explosion occurred in the deepest part of the nest shortly after.
***
The battle between humans and plagues was not only fought on Pluto.
Near Earth, an ether storm blew in and hundreds of plague Goliaths appeared in no time.
They seemed to have a special order and changed their shape to conical and approached Earth.
There was an Earth orbital mobile fleet nearby, but it was too late to respond.
‘Warning, plagues are trying to enter the atmosphere.’
“It’s too late to send out assault armors! Fire reaction bombs!”
At the commander’s order, about ten reaction bombs were fired from each battleship.
But the movement of the reaction bombs controlled by artificial intelligence was too slow and straightforward to intercept the plagues.
Dozens of Goliaths blocked their backs and made a huge shield to induce detonation of the reaction bombs.
They were swept away by the explosion and died, but most of the Goliaths survived.
Rather, the explosion of the reaction bombs made their entry into the atmosphere easier.
The shock wave pushed them away.
‘349 plague Goliaths have entered the atmosphere.’
Their target was Pacific, a mega city located in the North Pacific Ocean.
The defense system was activated immediately, but the current mega city was quite unstable.
There was a problem with artificial intelligence or power supply was not working properly, and sometimes the entrance opened on its own.
As citizens were anxious, Goliaths who broke through the defense system began to attack structures.
Bang, bang!
The upper structure couldn’t withstand the tremendous kinetic energy and turned into a horrible mess.
It was automatically restored, but Goliaths falling faster than that pierced through the upper structure and succeeded in entering inside.
Their speed decreased considerably, but their unique destructive power remained intact and completely turned Pacific’s central area into ruins.
“There they come again!”
“Fuck, run!”
As citizens screamed and ran away, some parts of mega city were blocked off as if they were hit by something.
Unidentified transport squadrons flew in from above.
They were Crusaders who had been waiting for trouble to happen nearby.
Armed with personal weapons and grenades, they jumped out of transporters and entered inside.
Many citizens witnessed them.
“What are they? What are they doing?”
“Are they trying to attack us?”
As citizens tried to run away, Crusaders who landed shouted.
“We are liberators! We don’t attack citizens!”
“Look at this horrible sight! Where is the mega city that the president boasted so much?”
“The president is clearly neglecting his duties! The attack will get worse, and we won’t be able to stop it!”
“So we have to capture the president and negotiate with plague queen! Citizens, help us! Help us find freedom!”
If it had been a normal time, there wouldn’t have been many citizens who agreed with them.
But as the president lost trust and mega city was shattered, citizens’ resentment gathered at once.
If this was the result of delegating all management, how could they not be disappointed?
Citizens ignored Crusaders or even helped them.
They guided them to shortcuts leading to central area and urged them to capture president.
Drones and androids that should have stopped them had errors and were nowhere to be seen.
Crusaders quickly entered central area and ran to their destination.
Meanwhile, Arma and Congressman Bae Sung-min were looking down at them from the Golden Palace.
“It’s annoying that we have to give them some power for a while.”
“We can’t help it. We have to erase master’s shadow completely.”
“What about plague queen?”
“She’s dead.”
At the simple answer, Congressman Bae was flustered.
“Is, is she really dead?”
“Her body and the entire nest were destroyed. There was some damage to our fleet, but it was a victory in the end.”
But not all plagues were annihilated.
Despite the queen’s death, the surviving plague legion headed straight for Nox.
Yujin was currently pretending to be missing and chasing them with Settler.
Bae didn’t know that much, but he knew that something was happening somewhere tens of billions of kilometers away.
Arma bowed her head to him.
“Then, congressman, I leave humanity to you.”
He bowed his head in confusion.