Star Ship Girl Era: My Shipgirls Are Too Overpowered-Chapter 92: Annihilating The Kharov Synod
By the time Aurelian returned to Black Crown with Caelan beside him, Solenne’s reconnaissance had already finished its first sweep, and the bridge displays were filled with new data, lines of movement, and signatures settling into place.
The Kharov fleet around Larkspur Haven looked dangerous at first glance because there were simply so many ships, but once Astra and Solenne finished sorting the signatures properly, the real picture was much less impressive, clearer once the noise was stripped away.
They had numbers.
But not quality.
Most of the hostile fleet was made up of smaller Tier III ships and a much larger number of Tier II hulls, the kind of force that could bully a small civilization world but would struggle badly against a real shipgirl fleet.
There were no battleships in sight, and the flagship looked to be a heavy cruiser rather than anything truly threatening, more for coordination than raw power.
It was a proper invasion force for Larkspur Haven.
It was not a proper invasion force for him.
Aurelian read through the reports once, then once more, mostly to confirm that nothing hidden sat behind the visible formation, nothing waiting to change the outcome.
When he was satisfied, he looked up and gave the order in the same calm tone as always.
"Elowen and Neris stay back and hold position and wait for all of this to end. The rest of us will carry out total annihilation."
Caelan, who had been standing a step away from the command platform, turned toward him at once.
"Annihilation?" he repeated, clearly thinking he had misheard. "With this fleet?"
Aurelian glanced at him.
"Yes."
Caelan looked toward the tactical display again, and the disbelief on his face was hard to miss, his eyes moving over the numbers again as if they might change.
He had just come from a world where six hundred of the most advanced mechs they had and had died trying to hold back one attack, and now he was standing on the bridge of a stranger who was preparing to hit an orbital occupation fleet with only a handful of ships and the calm attitude of someone discussing the weather.
Aurelian gave him a light pat on the shoulder, not mocking, just steady, enough to ground him.
"Relax," he said. "They’re not on our level."
He did not explain further, because he did not need to. The explanation would come in a few minutes anyway, and it would be clearer than words.
At the same time, Solenne, who was in her ship, smiled faintly and stepped forward as her hangar systems came fully online, the transition smooth.
The next second, the view outside the ship changed.
Her carrier decks opened, and a large number of fighters, bombers, recon craft, and combat drones poured out into space in dense formation, rushing away from the fleet in a wave so wide and fast that even Caelan forgot to breathe for a second, the scale hitting all at once.
It was not a squadron.
It was not even several squadrons.
It was a moving wall of aircraft, layered and controlled, filling the space between ships.
Caelan stared at it through the bridge display, his eyes widening in real shock this time, the disbelief shifting into something else.
Aurelian did not look at him. He was already watching the enemy fleet, tracking their response.
The Kharov ships still had not realized what was coming.
That was the best part.
They were still focused on the planet below, on their occupation lines, on whatever they were doing in orbit, and when Solenne’s strike group crossed into effective range, the enemy did not immediately deploy a proper intercept net or raise full fleet defense.
They saw the incoming aircraft and hesitated, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
That hesitation was enough to kill them.
One of the enemy officers must have realized something was wrong at the last second, because hostile shield signatures began rising across the fleet, uneven and rushed, but by then Solenne’s aircraft had already entered the attack window.
"Release," she said softly.
The first wave hit all at once.
Heavy bombers targeted the key ships first, especially the larger Tier III hulls and the flagship. Recon craft marked weak points.
Fighters and drones applied pressure across the formation, preventing anything from stabilizing properly.
Missiles, bombs, and guided strike packages crossed the dark in tight lines, and then the Kharov fleet began to come apart, the pattern breaking.
The flagship went first.
Its shields came up too late, and Solenne’s bombers tore through them with brutal efficiency.
A second later, internal detonations rolled through the whole cruiser, and the ship burst apart in a chain of flashes that also dragged a few nearby ships into the blast with it, breaking their formation further.
Caelan actually flinched.
The rest of the fleet fared no better.
Without a clean command line, without a proper response pattern, and without the quality to survive that kind of opening strike, the Kharov formation started collapsing almost immediately. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Some ships tried to spread out. Some turned to flee. Some simply drifted in confusion after losing their guidance signals and were unable to coordinate.
Aurelian watched the battlefield and could not help but show a small smile, the outcome settling quickly.
This was easier than he expected.
Beside him, Astra remained calm as ever, her attention steady.
"Their shipbuilding quality is poor," she said. "They rely too much on shields and not enough on the hulls beneath them. Once the first defensive layer breaks, they fall apart too quickly."
Aurelian nodded. That matched what he was seeing; nothing contradicted it.
The Kharov ships looked dangerous when intact, but once pierced, they exploded far too easily, almost as if the whole fleet had been built with shortcuts in all the wrong places, focused on the wrong priorities.
Solenne’s strike group passed through the formation again, and every second another hostile ship was disabled, broken, or burning, the numbers dropping without pause.
