Baron was part of the Second’s fleet, as such, he was one of the commanding officers in control of the air force. Through Jaxon, Baron still had quite a lot of aerial warfare related blueprints that he allowed the Forever pirates to borrow from him so that they would be able to mass-produce it. Baron’s equals in this regard took this chance to make as many as they could given that they would likely never be able to get another chance to try out such advanced blueprints. However, Baron knew that what he had given his temp allies was just considered mid-class blueprints at best.
Now that the battle was on, he would show the Vesper faction no mercy. Especially now that he was given the information that one of his adversaries in the upcoming fight was going to be Wu San Gui. A fellow that tortured himself, Guan Yu, and Yue Fei in the naval part of the Sun Alliance tournament all those years ago. If he was able to kill Wu San Gui, then he would have avenged himself and his allies all in one fell swoop. There was absolutely no messing this up.
The Vesper faction had gathered up a relatively large fleet to combat the fleet that Baron was coming in on. In preparation for this event, they had made multiple smokescreens in very strategic places that they knew the Forever Pirates had to go through. It was a dangerous gamble, but the Second husband of Madam Zheng charged through one after taking a few days to map out all of the smokescreens.
Just a few minutes after they entered with the bulk of their forces, they encountered the enemy. Many ships from Vesper swarmed them from head-on and the two sides began shooting at each other with everything that they had. Now, it was time for Baron to shine. With 4 other personally trained pilots on Baron’s side, they all shot up into the sky in F-35’s. This was among the most advanced aircraft developed by the United States in the first half of the twenty-first century. Their advantage lay in not being better fighters, but being able to have a detection range of 300 kilometers and not being able to be detected by other planes or ships. Truly, a behemoth presence in this battle.
The reason that Baron did not deploy this special force was to shield their presence in the fog so that the enemy would be left guessing as to how he had gotten such accuracy. Another part of this plan would rely on the previous generation of Lockheed Martin aircraft, the F-16. Together, these two would form a formidable foe to whoever their enemies were.
With Baron’s excellent recon skills, he was able to determine that there were many more fleets, presumably from the other areas with fog. So, he informed Second about this new development. His response to such a simple ensnaring technique was to pan out his forces so as to engage with everyone at once.
There were quite a few other aerial squads fighting with the comparatively larger army in front of them so Baron decided it best to engage with the incoming enemies from the side. This way, their foes would meet Baron’s squad first, get beat up a bit, then proceed to be wiped out by Second’s fleet. As Baron only had about 5 F-35’s and 100 F-16’s he had to split them up into equal parts so as to cover more ground.
However, Baron took it upon himself to show the best way, in his experience, to hit and run using aircraft against fleets. After showing them on a few smaller enemy groups, he allowed them to had out on their own to deal as much damage to Vesper as they could. With their far superior detection system, not to mention the fog that messed Vesper up more, Baron and his team was able to keep going for hours with very little casualties. Sometimes even hitting the same group 3 or 4 times.
By the time that they returned back to refuel, their comrades had heard of how successful they were. No specifics were given out about how Baron managed to do this so as to contain information from potential and would be spies. Though the purpose of the return trip was to refuel and restock on ammunition, there was no need to continue on with their plan since all of their enemies decided to have a tactical retreat.
A small celebration was held that night in honor of Baron and his team of amazing aces. This would serve as a way for the Second to raise the morale of the troops. However, they were still in enemy territory so that needed to be kept at a minimum while they sailed to the next point of interest. They needed to claim land in Vesper’s territory so as to cement their presence and actually have something to show for their efforts. The waters weren’t really considered anything worth nearly as much as land.
Their next target was just that. A relatively medium-sized chunk of land that was almost definitely heavily-armed by Vesper. If intuition was correct, nearly every elder present in the Second’s fleet knew that the next fight would really push them hard. Taking land was loads more difficult to accomplish than two sides fighting in the water. For one, they had the home advantage and had ample time to set up a godly amount of defenses to fight off anyone.
Second, this was one of 4 islands within Vesper’s territory. You best bet that they will have a few heavy-hitters defending such an important asset to the Vesper faction. Third, once they went within 40 kilometers of the island, they would be cut off from any communication from their allies. This was because that was the limit of their communications. Any further and they would be in radio silence. Not to mention, they would lose contact with the First’s fleets as well. There was no room for error. If they failed, they would have to wait at least a few more months to build up their strength again, and that was if their enemies would sit idly by while they did so.