At the same time that Robin quickly gave the battle order, on the armed landing ship, a large group of mercenaries wearing various types of light infantry armor were squeezing into the assault boats on the armed landing ship, while some mercenary soldiers wearing blood skull insignia were shouting and swearing loudly, pushing the new infantry hard.

At present, the armed landing ship used by this bloody mercenary is a regular light warship, an 80,000-ton U-2 assault landing ship.

In the armament of the Federal Military Department and the Nine-Star Republic, this U-2 assault landing ship can not only cooperate with aircraft carriers and battleships for group operations, but also be used as a patrol ship under normal circumstances.

In addition to being equipped with a large number of short-range missiles, there is also an assault boat launch port, which can launch two 'arrow' assault boats at the same time, and can carry a total of 12 assault boats. In other words, just one U-2 assault landing ship can devote the strength of one reinforced company to carry out a forced landing at a time. In addition, the concave bridge is equipped with long-range missile launches and large-caliber anti-aircraft rapid-fire guns.

However, as a light warship with a single purpose, the U-2 assault landing ship does not have the function of launching a shipborne space shuttle. Therefore, in order to strengthen their comprehensive ability, the bloody mercenaries added two X-shaped suspension brackets that can be fixed to the rear hull of this U-2 assault landing ship and are equipped with rocket thrusters.

The X-shaped suspension bracket is usually improvised for transporting space shuttle prototypes, and each X-shaped adapter can hold four space shuttles. After adding these two suspension brackets, although it will have a certain impact on the assault capability of the U-2 assault landing ship, it can be put into eight space shuttles at a time to cooperate in operations. Therefore, judging from the current military deployment of the Bloody Mercenaries, it is enough to prove that Bloody Harry attaches great importance to this attack.

"Head, the assault boat is in place, and the space shuttle is ready. Isn't it time for us to do it? A mercenary soldier with his hair dyed in colour and two silver skull insignia on his chest asked cautiously.

In front of him, a burly man with an exaggerated black skull tattoo on his bald head stared at the TR-735 on the ship's screen without blinking, revealing a solemn look.

His name was Chad, and in the old days, the name Chad referred to a seasoned warrior. He was the leader of a freedfolk group with a long history. Moreover, at that time, he was even the most feared thug in the northern star field of Proxima Centauri. However, in recent years, he has suddenly disappeared, and only the freedmen who are still active in the Ultra Nebula mine know that this brave man had become a loyal follower of Bloody Harry three years ago.

As Bloody Harry's most reliable assistant, Chad has a wealth of combat experience. Before following Bloody Harry, he had attacked countless Federation merchant ships, and in the chaotic lands of the Ultra Nebula, his bravery could keep even every free team active there awake at night.

This bloody Harry would have Chad personally command the attack, which actually surprised many of the mercenaries. Because in their opinion, attacking a transport ship is simply a piece of cake, and there is no need to dispatch Chad, the number two in the bloody mercenary army, and invest so much military power at one time.

But only a few, including Chad, knew that this battle was far more important than others thought. Now, the Osvid family has begun to cut off the funding supply to the bloody mercenaries, which is facing a serious dilemma. And this deal with Elliott will give the mercenaries a large amount of money that is urgently needed at the moment, so for Bloody Harry, this attack must not fail.

And as the commander of this operation, Chad has already made sufficient pre-war preparations. He obtained Robin's purchase list at the Hermes spaceport from Elliott, and it was clear from this list that the transport ship was not that weak. Therefore, he cautiously hijacked three transport ships on the way to interception, trying to use these three transport ships to disguise his attack intentions and reduce the enemy's defenses.

As it stands, the plan has been a success. But for some reason, Chad had a strange feeling, he felt that the other party seemed to have seen through his tricks, and an inexplicable uneasiness was constantly bothering him.

"Head!" Seeing that Chad didn't respond for a long time, the sergeant couldn't help but raise his voice and shouted: "Those three transport ships have begun to evade as agreed, can we fight or not?" ”

Awakened by the shrill voices of his subordinates, Chad hurriedly turned his gaze in the direction of the three transports. He saw that the three hostage transports had begun to accelerate abruptly and disperse in different directions to escape.

Now that the intent of the attack has been exposed, and the distance between the two sides happens to be within the range of ten light seconds, this makes Chad sweep away the uneasiness in his heart, and roar with a hideous expression: "The engine accelerates!" Sortie! ～”

Suddenly, just as his words fell, the alarm that the ship was locked by missiles sounded suddenly.

"The other side launched five space shuttles."

After a short moment of stunnedness, the ship's radarman in the mercenary suddenly screamed in horror: "They have launched two Trident ship-based missiles and have locked on us!" ～”

"Evade it now! ~ Gunner anti-aircraft interception! ”

In Chad's roar, the mercenaries driving the assault landing ship panicked and ran through the ship to evade. However, due to the suddenness of the incident, the missiles of the landing ship and the various space shuttles had already entered the state of launch, so in this large-scale evasion action, almost all the missiles launched in the first wave were missed, and the eight space shuttles that had just broken away from the mechanical connection were thrown out by the huge habitual surnames before they could be launched, and two of the space shuttles were directly destroyed in the air.

Immediately, the hastily seated mercenary gunners used their aviation cannons to sweep out a barrage in an attempt to intercept the two Trident shipborne missiles that flew in. However, due to insufficient preparation in advance, the aircraft cannon did not simulate the missile trajectory in advance, which made the two meteor-like Trident ship-based missiles pass through the fire interception network temporarily constructed by the mercenaries very smoothly, and quickly disintegrated, separating six warheads.

Rumble! -- Four warheads hit the left front of the landing ship directly, and the force of the impact caused many mercenaries on the bridge to stagger. In the hit area, several assault boats that had already entered the launch orbit were thrown directly off the launch track, and for a while, the communication inside the ship was filled with noisy voices of crying and shouting for help.

"The external armor of the 4th sector is broken and there is a leak. The energy supply in Zone 7 was interrupted, and the air pressure in the area was unbalanced. Armor Damage ...... Sector 11 "The mercenary crew who broke their foreheads didn't have time to wipe the blood on their faces, so they reported the damage to Chad as quickly as possible.

In the panic, Chad pushed away a mercenary who was about to step forward to support him, grabbed the communicator and shouted hoarsely: "Close the gate of the damaged area, the machine gun crew will carry out fire interception, and order the fighter formation to immediately form a formation to launch an air attack!" ”

At this time, two more Trident missiles broke through the air. In addition, the fighter formation on Robin's side has now formed an air attack queue and entered the attack range due to the fact that it was launched first.

In Chad's original plan, this should be a surprise battle with them taking the initiative to attack, and he never expected this to be the way it is. And the others on the ship didn't expect that the prey they saw would show their fangs first, and bite them hard before they could come to their senses.

Chad and his bloody mercenaries always seemed to be invincible, but most of the opponents they had encountered in the past had been scattered groups of free people and merchant ships with weak defensive firepower.

So, Chad and his mercenaries are really only good at raids, not at head-to-head encounters. Their free-spirited fighting style makes them more like a group of interstellar pirates, and their past victories have basically been achieved by relying on numerical superiority to suppress firepower.

Because he has never encountered a strong opponent, and he has never taken on a military mission. The strength of the bloody mercenaries comes more from the fact that they far exceed the huge size of other mercenaries, and in terms of overall military quality and individual soldier quality, the bloody mercenaries who lack actual combat baptism are far from comparable to real professional soldiers.

Therefore, when they faced a stalemate situation with similar forces on both sides, when they could not give full play to their firepower superiority, they were suppressed by the other side. They behaved like a group of guerrillas with powerful armed forces.

At this moment, in front of Robin's real army, their fatal flaws are further magnified. In the face of the continuous offensive of the TR-735 ship, the panicked bloody mercenaries resisted almost indiscriminately, only barely relying on their strong firepower superiority, which temporarily dragged the battle into a stalemate tug-of-war.

At the same time, the six fighters that were thrown out by their usual surnames in the first wave of attacks managed to control their flight balance, and after receiving Chad's order, the six remaining mercenary fighters had no time to form an offensive formation, and after relying only on the cover of aviation cannons, they rushed to the oncoming five space shuttle formations led by Angus in a chaotic manner.

(To be continued)