Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 104: Ambush The Kharov Archaeological Fleet

After introducing Lysara to the others over the fleet channel and making sure she had properly linked into the formation, Aurelian returned to Solenne’s ship by shuttle, because the strike carrier was still the center of this operation and the one best suited to coordinate what came next.

Solenne was already waiting for him in the hangar when he stepped out, her expression bright but focused, as if she had enjoyed the appearance of a new sister but had already put that aside for the sake of the ambush ahead.

"How is she?" Solenne asked as she fell into step beside him.

Aurelian understood what she meant at once. Shipgirls could sense broad things about one another, but they could not directly read each other’s full details, so asking him was still the fastest way to form a real picture.

"Good," he said. "Very good, actually. But her weapon profile is a bit too specialized."

That caught Solenne’s interest immediately.

By the time they reached the command area, Aurelian had already brought up Lysara’s information in his own network again and gave Solenne the important parts out loud while he looked through it one more time himself.

[Warship Name: Lysara]

[Warship Status: Shield 100%, Armor 100%, No Structural or Core Damage]

[Warship Prototype: T3 Halcyon Ward-class Heavy Cruiser]

[Warship Length: 2520 meters]

[Warship Rank: Tier III Cruiser (Level Cap: Lv60)]

[Level: Lv41]

[Ship Components: Halcyon Ward Hull (Blue) Lv41, Halcyon Ward Armor (Blue) Lv41, Halcyon Ward Engine (Blue) Lv41, Halcyon Ward Shield (Blue) Lv41, Halcyon Ward Radar (Blue) Lv41]

[Ship Armament: Six twin-mounted 1100mm long-focus laser batteries (Blue) Lv41, twenty-four twin-mounted 400mm pulse laser emplacements (Blue) Lv41, sixty twin-mounted 120mm close-in suppression arrays (Blue) Lv41]

[Ship Attachment: Directorate Tactical Command Frame (Blue) Lv41]

[Weapon Slots Remaining: 20]

[Accessory Slots Remaining: 50]

Solenne listened without interrupting, then gave a slow nod. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"All-laser pressure," she said. "That actually works very well for this fight."

Aurelian glanced at her.

She tapped one finger against the tactical screen and expanded the projected route of the incoming Kharov archaeological fleet.

"They’re coming out of warp into a kill zone," she said. "The moment they are pulled down, most of their larger ships won’t have their shields fully established yet. At that stage, Lysara’s lasers are exactly the kind of thing that hurts the most."

That matched his thoughts.

"That was my conclusion too," Aurelian said. "She’ll focus on the larger ships. Once the initial exchange ends, she can pull back to recharge and let the rest of us keep pressure on them."

Solenne smiled faintly. "Good. Then she arrived at the right time."

The ambush plan was refined after that, not because it needed to be complicated, but because a good trap was usually simple and clean when properly built.

Solenne remained the center of the attack pattern.

Her strike craft had the range, the speed, and the flexibility to turn a fleet into a target gallery before most of its captains understood what was happening.

Rhoswen would take the role she liked best, fast aggression against surviving large hulls and anything foolish enough to try to regroup under pressure.

Lysara would open with concentrated laser fire against the archaeological fleet’s larger ships while they were still vulnerable, then shift to match the battlefield’s shape.

Aurelian would stay aboard Solenne and coordinate the three of them directly, which was the best use of him right now.

The Kharov archaeological fleet, of course, knew none of this.

They had followed this route before, more than once, according to the captured clues and records, and that routine had made them careless.

They were used to dead systems.

Used to old ruins.

Used to return journeys being quieter than excavation sites.

Most people feared what they dug up.

Very few feared the road home.

That mistake was going to kill many of them.

The fleet waited in silence at the edge of the dead world’s system, far enough away to avoid early discovery, close enough that once the intercept pattern triggered, they could move without delay.

Solenne’s aircraft was prepared in advance.

Warp interceptors had already been deployed on the exact path the clues had indicated.

Lysara held slightly to the rear, her laser batteries fully charged and aligned, her posture on the tactical feed so steady that it almost looked serene.

Rhoswen, by contrast, felt like a blade being held back by a hand, eager but controlled, waiting for the moment the hand opened.

They did not have to wait long.

The Kharov archaeological fleet entered the intercept line exactly where expected.

The trap triggered.

Warp collapsed around them.

Alarm signatures burst across Solenne’s command display as one hostile ship after another was forced out of transit into open space before the fleet had time to settle itself into proper combat posture.

That was the moment Lysara opened fire.

Her first attack was not a scattered barrage.

It was sharp and deliberate, every major beam assigned to a different large target.

The dark of space lit up with clean, concentrated lances of light, and because the enemy had only just been dragged out of warp, those beams met armor before they met mature shield cover.

The result was brutal.

One large command ship was sliced almost completely through, the beam tearing across its frame with such force that the forward half and rear half separated before internal explosions even had time to begin.

The same attack continued through into another ship behind it, weakened but still deadly enough to leave a massive glowing breach in the second hull.

Across the formation, other Kharov capital ships suffered the same fate.

Some were cut open.

Some were left with deep molten wounds across their sides.

Some lost major external structures before their crews even fully woke to the fact that they were under attack.

On Solenne’s bridge, the tactical projection shifted from an ordered hostile formation to wounded confusion in less than 10 seconds.

Lysara let out a slow breath over the line, and her voice carried a satisfaction that was quiet rather than boastful.

"I had forgotten how good this feels."

Aurelian watched the first exchange and gave a short nod.

"Well done. Begin recharge cycle and hold for the next opening."

"Understood."

The next part belonged to Solenne.

The moment Lysara’s laser strike ended, Solenne’s decks opened, and an immense wave of strike craft poured out, so dense that for a second it looked like a cloud of metal had been released into space all at once.

Bombers, attack craft, and support drones surged forward in layers.

They had been waiting for exactly this moment, for a fleet dragged from warp, mauled before proper shield rise, and too disoriented to set up clean interception patterns fast enough.

The first Kharov response was poor.

Their commanders had expected danger from ruins, perhaps, or from environmental hazards, or from rival scavengers with small ships.

They had not expected a coordinated attack of this scale.

More importantly, they had not expected warp interception at all.

By the time they began organizing anti-air screens and defensive clusters, Solenne’s first wave had already entered effective range.

The strike craft hit hard.

Heavy ordnance went straight into already-damaged capital ships.

Smaller attack wings shredded support destroyers and escorts.

Drone swarms forced point-defense fire in too many directions at once, and when several Kharov captains finally understood that the larger ships were the primary targets, it was already too late for many of them.

Several escort ships tried to move in and cover their larger companions with raised shields.

That was the right instinct.

It simply came too late.

Those escorts were hammered apart immediately; the surviving bombers then continued into the larger ships behind them, opening them further and leaving them even weaker than before.

This archaeological fleet was stronger than the one that had attacked Larkspur Haven, just as the earlier information had suggested.

There were virtually no Tier II ships here.

Most were Tier III hulls, and many of them were not small.

There were more than four hundred ships in total, and about a quarter of them could be called serious capital platforms by local standards.

If this had been a direct, clean engagement against an unprepared opponent, it would have been a dangerous force.