Witch Punk 2840

Chapter 303 Encounter
A moment later, Xia Ye also came to the cab.

"There really are jellyfish this big?!" she said in surprise.

"That's what I wanted to say." Yaha turned and looked at Xia Ye: "You may not know this concept yet: in the Ether Sea, big often means powerful."

"why?"

"Because it needs to have a body strong enough to sustain such a large size, and a predation capacity that is sufficient to sustain such a large consumption." Yaha replied, "For example, whales, beluga whales are obviously much stronger than ordinary whales. But even beluga whales are only 300 meters long, about the same as the current Moby Dick. But if this jellyfish is really that big, then it must be stronger than we can imagine... I was actually considering whether to change course immediately and let the fleet stay away from it."

"How big should a normal jellyfish be?" Xia Ye asked.

"Including the tentacles, it's no more than 2 meters long. As for its body, it's generally about this size." Yaha used his hand to measure the size of a pot.

"I suggest that we make a decision after further confirmation." Tang Li suddenly interrupted.

Xia Ye and Yaha looked at her together.

"It's very strange." Tang Li pointed at the jellyfish in the distance with his finger. "If it is really as big as it looks now, I should have seen it long before entering the deep sea. What's even stranger is that since I can see its shape with my naked eyes now, if I use the 'Eye of Truth', I should be able to see more details...

"But I didn't see anything just now. Even if I used the 'Eye of Truth', it would just simply magnify it like a picture. It can't reveal anything bigger."

Xia Ye thought for a few seconds and said, "I'll ask the Strike Witches ahead."

After a moment, a reply came from the front.

Just two days ago, Xia Ye optimized the terms in the "communication debt", and now it can send a one-way voice message of no more than 30 seconds. She used her consciousness to point at the newly appeared reply, and Nana's voice with noisy noise rang out in the cab:
"We also saw the jellyfish. It was indeed as high as the sky. But there is something more important. We found the wake of a whale! It is about 50 nautical miles to our left, heading northwest! Because the distance is too far, we can't see the number clearly, but there should be no less than ten!"

Whale group!

The three of them looked at each other, their eyes full of excitement. Yaha walked quickly to the chart table and began to mark the location of the whale group according to Nana's description.

"Our fleet is now sailing southwest, and Nana's fleet is about 200 nautical miles in front of us..."

As Yaha spoke, he drew a 20-centimeter-long straight line starting from the triangular mark representing the fleet and following the direction pointed by the apex of the triangle.

At the end of the straight line, she drew a small circle and added a pair of cat ears on it.

"This is the location of Nana's formation." Yaha said.

"Pfft~" I didn't expect Yaha's painting to be so vivid that Xia Ye couldn't help but laugh.

"what happened?"

"Nothing, you continue."

Yaha drew another straight line about 5 cm long on the left side of the cat ear mark. This short straight line is exactly at a 90-degree right angle to the long straight line.

At the end of the short straight line, Yaha drew a whale pattern with two simple strokes: "This is the location of the whale group."

"I didn't expect you to be so good at painting." Xia Ye finally couldn't help but say.

"Drawing is a basic skill for every captain," Yaha said, and starting from the whale mark, he added a dotted arrow extending northwest: "This is the current direction of the whale group."

With the picture, the current situation suddenly became clear. Xia Ye only took a glance and immediately found the problem:
"We have to turn immediately, otherwise we will get further and further away from the whale group."

Yaha shook his head: "Even if we turn around now, it's probably too late."

She started writing again, and with the triangular symbol representing the fleet as the starting point, she drew an arc that deviated to the left. This arc represented the optimal route for the fleet to intercept the whale school. It was close to the dotted line representing the direction of the whale school's advance, but ultimately failed to intersect.

"This is just my estimate based on experience, but it shouldn't be too far off." Yaha pointed his finger at the space between the two dotted lines. "The shortest distance between us and the whale group can only be shortened to about 60-80 nautical miles. After we pass this point, the distance will be widened again. At that time, we can only turn again and change from interception to pursuit in the same direction. But the speed of the white whale is likely to be faster than the Moby Dick, and we will only get further and further away."

Xia Ye understood what Yaha meant, but in her opinion, this problem was not difficult to solve: "The Strike Witches are much faster. We can let them hunt whales. At the very least, we can slow down the speed of the whales until the fleet catches up with them."

Yaha looked up at her and said, "Yes, you can. But the question is, are your Strike Witches effective? There are more than a dozen white whales. Last time we went out to sea, there was only one, and it almost destroyed the whole ship."

Xia Ye was unsure. There were no Strike Witches in the past world, and the whales there did not shoot tracking beams like missiles. However -

"We have to try, otherwise we will never know." She said, "Therefore, I suggest the following arrangements:

"The Moby Dick immediately turned and headed for the whale group. Nana's No. 1 formation immediately returned. They had neither the 'Lightning Spear' nor the 'Witch's Flame', and the only contract they had was the 'Pyroblast', which basically made it impossible for them to effectively kill the white whales.

"At the same time, formations 2, 3, and 4 will take off immediately, each carrying two Lightning Guns, to form the first wave of attack. The goal is to severely injure at least one white whale and reduce its speed to a level where it can be intercepted by the fleet.

"Formation No. 5 and the landed Formation No. 1 will form the second attack wave, also carrying lightning spears, responsible for expanding the results of the battle and covering the return of the previous wave. What do you think?"

"I suggest that we let Brunhilde sail at top speed immediately to chase the whale group. That way, when the first batch of Strike Witches launch an attack, it should be able to catch up and respond. Other than that, I have no other opinions." Yaha was still a little worried about the fighting power of the Strike Witches.

"I suggest speeding up the Hyperion and Cronuncris. They will come in handy as long as the distance between the supply ships and us is shortened to within 3000 nautical miles," said Tang Li.

"Okay, let's do this. Yaha will take charge of the fleet, and I'll contact Nana and the other cat witches."

……

A moment later, Nana received Xia Ye's order.

"The Moby Dick orders us to return immediately as quickly as possible!" she shouted to the teammates who had gathered around her.

"Should we fly closer to confirm?" someone asked. This was the plan they discussed before Xia Ye's order came.

Nana looked at the distant ship tracks again. The whales were too far away to see their bodies at all. All they could see were their wakes extending in the sea of ​​clouds.

But according to the experience Captain Yaha passed on to them before they went out to sea, in the Aether Sea, only a white whale swimming at high speed could create such a long wake.

"It's too late!" she explained loudly, "Squadrons 2, 3, and 4 on the Moby Dick are preparing to attack. We must hurry back and form the second attack wave with Squadron 5!"

After saying that, she turned around first, and the team members behind her also made the same maneuver one by one. The Strike Witches no longer tried to catch up with the whales, and turned to fly in the direction of joining the Moby Dick.

(End of this chapter)