Chapter 722, Black Skin?
However, Jason Morgan was unable to meet Wang Jiarong as he had hoped.
If things go smoothly, Wang Jiarong would certainly not rule out having a brief chat with Jason Morgan.
This air route in the Fox Moon Starfield is quite important in the future plans of the Alliance's Department of Commerce, and there is a lot of room for cooperation between the two sides.
That was her original plan.
The unexpected event disrupted her plans.
Their fleet is tasked with transferring industries across multiple star systems and regions along the way, conducting inter-stellar trade, and ultimately engaging in a large-scale transaction with a caravan from an infinite number of star systems. The number of ships in the entire fleet will certainly be quite large.
Whether large, massive merchant ships or small and medium-sized merchant ships, there were many of them.
Such a massive transport fleet was laden with considerable wealth; the ships themselves were also a considerable fortune.
Naturally, a lot of investment will be needed in security.
Accompanying the caravan were a large number of armed merchant ships.
Armed merchant ships are essentially ordinary transport ships with some naval cannons installed, and if conditions permit, they can even be equipped with additional armor and have their energy shields strengthened.
All of these factors enable merchant ships to possess a certain level of combat capability.
Of course, they are not comparable to proper warships. From the initial design stage, many details of civilian ships, which determine their combat effectiveness, have different technical approaches than warships.
A massive, armed merchant ship that appears to be as large as a battleship, or even larger, could very well be defeated if it were to encounter a frigate hunting it down.
They couldn't even run away.
The giant belly moves very slowly.
Of course, this is also because the 'Giant Belly' is one of the ship types least suitable for armed conversion. It was originally designed as a dedicated vessel for cheap, fuel-efficient transport and large-scale transport. It excels at transport. However, converting it into a warship presents significant challenges: its extremely poor speed, very low maneuverability, power output limited from the outset to save costs, its large size making it vulnerable to attack, and the lack of suitable mounting locations for weaponry…
Some ships are relatively better. For example, the small Flying Dolphin, when converted into a 'Wild Boar' type armed merchant ship, is passable.
The most suitable option is the 'Orca' type, which is a redesigned ship based on the Whale-class transport ship. However, unlike ordinary modifications, the Orca cannot be modified from the Whale-class; it must be built from the very beginning.
The Orca costs around 200 million tax dollars, which is more expensive than the Whale-class but cheaper than the Silver Sword-class and Silver Shield-class frigates.
However, it can carry cargo like a merchant ship, with a carrying capacity only slightly less than the Orca-class. Crucially, in terms of combat power, two Orca-class corvettes are equivalent to one Silver Shield-class frigate.
This is pretty good value for money.
During wartime, the military rarely uses orcas; they're not even needed for logistics. If the military needs logistical support, they simply requisition large merchant ships and then dispatch warships to escort them.
For ordinary caravans, orcas are a more ideal choice.
Without the need for warships, the orca can be used as a regular whale under normal circumstances, except that it costs 25% more and has 10% less carrying capacity.
But once it encounters danger, it immediately becomes very capable of fighting, equivalent to half a frigate.
The fleet led by Wang Jiarong relies on hundreds of orcas for armed protection.
At the same time, due to the large size of the fleet, resupply along the way will be somewhat difficult, especially since many places along the route are underdeveloped.
Furthermore, the mission objectives of their merchant ships are scattered across various parts of the star system. It would be too time-consuming to visit every single location.
For two reasons, it was impossible for the entire caravan to stay together all the time. Instead, many branch caravans had to be set up to travel to other trading destinations.
As long as the merchant ships in the entire caravan generally maintain a consistent direction of movement and periodically converge at the main pier, that will suffice.
From a security perspective, it's hard to say whether coordinated operations are safer or separate operations are safer. While coordinated operations certainly provide much stronger protection, if something goes wrong, the entire force could be wiped out.
Separating them avoids being wiped out in one fell swoop, but the escort strength of each squadron is inevitably diluted.
However, generally speaking, caravans sailing in the Spiderweb Space should not have too much to worry about regarding safety.
The entire Spiderweb Space Region has just finished its battle, and the two major enemies, the Ironclads and the Zerg Swarm, should no longer pose any threat in the space domain.
However, under these circumstances, one of the squadrons lost contact.
And no information was released.
Wang Jiarong immediately became alert.
She didn't take it lightly; this signal struck her as very unusual.
The main reason is that among the missing squadrons, there were at least six armed merchant ships, four of which were Orcas.
This power is already considerable, at least compared to the threat of ordinary pirates.
Don't think that space pirates are some high-class or sophisticated force.
To rob and plunder in the Star Sea, you need a ship.
A starship capable of going into space is so expensive! A bunch of pirates, if they're really like trees without roots, where would they get a ship?
Isn't someone else taking care of them?
Such pirate groups that operate on a roving basis are actually very few in number.
But here's the problem: there used to be some pirates here, but they were probably wiped out in the previous battle.
Neither the Zerg swarm nor the human navy can keep them alive.
Even if there were still some pirates left, and even if they were pirates capable of consuming the combat power of six armed merchant ships, Wang Jiarong accepted it.
But what she couldn't accept was, what kind of pirates were they? So powerful that after wiping out an entire branch fleet, they were still able to prevent them from sending out a single message?
She took this matter very seriously.
They don't even intend to solve it on their own.
Although she had hundreds of armed merchant ships, her situation was still precarious. She had already lost 13 fully loaded merchant ships, and the losses were not only due to the ships themselves, but also to the cargo inside.
Wang Jiarong was unwilling to bear the loss of even one more merchant ship.
She immediately called for support from the Allied Navy.
The Allied Navy responded quickly to her request for assistance and arrived at the scene together.
While it's described as a 'location,' it can only be confirmed that it's a star system called 'Yangyu' within the Fox Moon Starfield.
The fleet completed a trade here and then left, but lost contact before even leaving the star system.
The exploration of the Yangyu Galaxy unexpectedly yielded results very quickly.
On the surface, Menek Martini of the Shining Tribunal, along with several judges from the Inquisition of the Outer Worlds, concluded that it was highly likely the work of the Dark Eldar.
Furthermore, they have already obtained some clues.
With the cooperation of ground troops, they actually captured several black people disguised in human society on Yangyu Star.