Chapter 248 The Destroyed Ideal City
"Slow down and be as careful as possible when approaching the planet."
Lu Yuan reminded the two ace pilots.
Since the mission was complete, the next step was to ensure they didn't expose themselves.
This would allow for a surprise attack later.
"Understood!"
The two didn't immediately slow down. Instead, they changed course and orbited Ruins Star along a high orbit with a 70,000-kilometer radius, planning to gradually adjust their orbital altitude based on the situation.
If they had slowed down directly, the main engine's forward thrust would have created a very noticeable plume, making them easy to detect.
Some time later, Lu Yuan's caution proved not to be excessive.
"Executive Officer, we've received a high-power millimeter-wave radar sweep from the planet's surface."
"How powerful is it?"
"Immense! Much larger than the radar on our warship. If we continue to lower our orbit, we're very likely to be detected."
"It might be a large ground radar station," Prairie offered his judgment.
"No, from their description, I don't think it's Apollo's own technology." Lu Yuan pondered for a moment, "Can we use passive observation methods to see the radar facilities on the ground?"
"No!"
Ten seconds later, Chang Kong replied.
"We can only confirm the radar beam is coming from the urban ruin area, but the buildings there are too complex. The optical telescope can't see anything."
The owl was not a professional scientific research vessel, and its optical lens aperture was limited.
Prairie: "What about the infrared band?"
Chang Kong: "No obvious hot spots were found. The surface temperature in the ruin area is around 30 degrees, and the air temperature is 26 degrees, which is quite livable."
Prairie and the Executive Officer exchanged glances, understanding each other implicitly.
Something was indeed wrong!
Super-high-power radar, as the name suggests, consumes and emits energy at an incredibly fast rate, inevitably generating a large amount of waste heat during operation.
Even with water cooling, the temperature of the antenna array would still be significantly higher than the surrounding environment.
However, the current state was exactly like using an Entropy Zero Element Furnace for thermal camouflage, where the equipment perfectly blended with the surrounding background, making it difficult to detect.
"So, Apollo has Entropy Zero Element technology?" Ye Xing frowned, "Then why don't they use it on their own warships?"
"Their technology isn't good enough, they only know how to pick up ready-made things to use, not to imitate them."
Male God hit the nail on the head.
"It's also possible that an ally is secretly assisting them but is unwilling to share the technology—" Lu Yuan whispered.
"Chang Kong, conduct a simple planetary scientific survey, then return. Don't take risks."
"Understood! That—Executive Officer, we actually want to explore more in the surrounding star systems. On the way here, we found many fighter jets patrolling back and forth. There should be hangars in the nearby space."
"Alright, then be careful."
Know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated.
Since they had already decided to attack, intelligence work still needed to be done. They needed to clarify Dark Sun's military deployment as much as possible.
Soon after, the preliminary planetary scan results were sent over. Ruins Star has a radius of 5,950 kilometers, slightly smaller than Earth. It orbits the G-type star at the center of its star system every 313 days, and its surface gravity is 0.9 G.
Aside from the rugged mountains and canyons, two-thirds of the planet's surface was covered with dense buildings.
No bare ground could be seen in the city. Some main streets were clearly identifiable from space, extending for thousands of kilometers.
Ruins Star's atmosphere has nitrogen and oxygen content very suitable for human breathing, and the average surface temperature is 21 degrees. Aside from the overly desolate landscape, which doesn't give a refreshing feeling, it is actually more livable than Li Star and Emerald Star.
"There's something special about this planet!"
After learning about these latest discoveries, Jubian, who was far away on Li Star, couldn't help but post in the player community.
【Old Man Emitting Black Smoke】: "That's definitely not ordinary! This must have been a city planet before the apocalypse, right? Like Coruscant in Star Wars, or Trantor in the Galactic Empire!"
Online players also eagerly commented.
"Isn't this just a relic world from Stellaris? It gives research bonuses in the early to mid-game, and in the late game, it can be rebuilt into an ideal city! That's awesome! This is an SSR-grade planet!"
"Maybe it can even trigger research events, archaeological sites, and so on."
"Don't argue yet, Jubian must have discovered something."
【Shenceng Jubian】: "Hmm, I think the planet's temperature is too low! Logically, a planet like this, without oceans, with two-thirds of its surface covered by urban ruins and hardened silicate material, should easily break a hundred degrees at noon and drop to tens of degrees below zero at night, with huge day-night temperature differences."
"So the current state indicates—"
【Shenceng Jubian】: "There's a high probability that there's a device on the planet that controls the global climate, perhaps deep underground, and it's still operating automatically."
"Huh, but shouldn't such a device be very massive? Apollo hasn't discovered it all this time?"
"What if they did discover it? These guys aren't interested in anything but plunder and exploitation."
"So, after taking this planet, we can also get artificial climate technology, which means we can consider restoring Li Star to a truly habitable planet like Earth?"
"Hmm! According to Star Alliance standards, planets like Earth are called garden planets, and there are none left now."
"However, even with the technology and corresponding devices, you'd need enough water before the transformation, right? It's estimated that it would at least need to rain continuously for a month in the Desert."
【Shenceng Jubian】: "No big deal. There are icy asteroids in the asteroid belt. Just drag them back to Li Star. If that doesn't work, we can extract hydrogen from gas giants and burn it directly in Li Star's atmosphere. The product is pure water."
【Mystic Mage】: "I'm more interested in future archaeology on this planet. As you can see, for some reason, the bombing here was far less intense than on Li Star. The lower floors of most skyscrapers haven't collapsed, and the underground parts are probably even more intact, which means there are likely a large number of storage points."
Hmm...
Lu Yuan also felt this was a promising endeavor.
If Li Star could truly be restored to a garden planet, even if only the Desert part, it would definitely be big news in the Star Alliance.
This would make more people long for this planet, essentially part of cultural output.
No—if it reached the level of restoring a garden planet, it could already be considered "cultural invasion." At that time, not only would laborers be willing to come, but I believe industrialists would also come to invest and immigrate.
Very good, another reason to take down Ruins Star.
Lu Yuan pondered for a while, then, in his capacity as Executive Officer, officially issued an internal corporate announcement, declaring a change in the company's strategic focus, raising the priority of conquering Ruins Star and eliminating Apollo, and tilting various mission rewards towards this goal.
Victory in war is inseparable from logistical support.
Calculating from now, although Cangyuan has fallen into a "quagmire of war," there are still about 25 days of relatively peaceful development.
Thus, the pressure was once again on Li Star.
Early morning, Red Iron Town.
"Grandpa, I'm leaving!"
Shen Quan left home, jumped into his all-terrain vehicle, and drove towards Devil Mountain.
On the way, he looked to the side.
Three nuclear-powered rockets soared from the new launchpad far behind the industrial ship, sending the last batch of construction materials for the space dock to synchronous orbit.
The brightness of the three nuclear flames overshadowed the rising sun.
The all-terrain vehicle sped along, soon reaching Devil Mountain, 200 kilometers away.
Currently, it was already a brand new city.
Chief planners Coffee Cat and Hammer Girl were indeed professionals. They made a very wise and farsighted decision: not to make Devil Mountain Camp the city center, but to use it only as a city history museum and shopping and entertainment venue, establishing a new city core two kilometers away.
This greatly reduced the potential for traffic congestion.
Now, the height of the high-rise buildings in the core area, as well as the base area, were no less than the natural mountain of Devil Mountain, looking very spectacular from afar.
Moreover, it was said that this was not even the future true city center in the plan, but merely a secondary core.
In the true CBD five kilometers away, Engineer players planned to build a large number of skyscrapers over 800 meters tall, even aiming for landmark buildings of one or two kilometers in height, often muttering things like "crushing Manhattan," "surpassing Night City," and "replicating Arasaka Tower," which were baffling to others.
A 2000-meter-tall building, goodness gracious—
Shen Quan couldn't imagine what that would be like.
As one of Cangyuan's earliest interns and now an excellent full-time employee, Shen Quan had saved enough money to buy a high-rise apartment in this new city, temporarily named "Administrative Center," and planned to move in permanently soon.
However, he wasn't here today to buy furniture or decorate his new home. Instead, as one of the first indigenous miners, he was entering space again, operating a mining ship recently imported from New Hope, returning to the place that haunted his dreams!