Chapter 313: A Fatal Choice
The interstellar merchant Carter’s ship, not being a warship, did not need to prioritize protection, so it adopted an external navigation bridge.
Its cockpit was suspended high outside the hull, offering excellent visibility. Through the floor-to-ceiling transparent aluminum alloy portholes, one could directly see the scenery outside.
After 17 days of travel, the Paradise Island squad finally reached their destination.
At this moment, everyone gathered on the bridge, taking photos with the hollowed-out zero element asteroid behind them as a backdrop.
Star Alliance landmark, check-in successful!
“I didn’t expect Paradise Island to be so close to the stellar wormhole!” Ye Xing said to Ma Lou, “Look at the dense electromagnetic cannon rails on the asteroid; you can already see them from here.”
“Hmm…” Ma Lou nodded, “It’s said that this asteroid was forcibly dragged in front of the wormhole during the golden age to reduce transportation costs.”
“In short, the defenses here are too tight! Did you watch the expedition team’s live broadcast just now? I estimate that even Reid’s fleet would have a tough time here.”
“Indeed. But this also created a stereotype. Paradise Island thought that by stacking a large amount of firepower on the front of the Jump Point, they could rest easy. But in the future, if a fleet could warp in and launch an attack from an unexpected angle, hmph hmph…”
“Hmph hmph hmph!”
Ye Xing and Ma Lou exchanged a smile.
“Uncle Carter,” Dan Ta, accompanied by Guo Li Cheng, found the captain, “we’d like to ask you a question.”
“Of course, Miss Dan and Miss Cheng!”
Carter bowed, hand on his chest.
“If we want to connect with the most mysterious middlemen in the city, how should we do it?”
“Mysterious—”
Carter stroked his chin.
“You mean the kind of middlemen who never reveal information about themselves or their clients? They are usually the top-tier, most professional ones. If they intentionally hide themselves, it would be very difficult to find them in a city like Paradise Island, which has at least 15 million permanent residents.”
“They only proactively contact powerful forces or individuals, building bridges and cooperative relationships. For example, Mr. Sang, whom you defeated earlier, took several years to establish his reputation on Paradise Island.”
“Several years is too long,” Guo Li Cheng shook her head gently, “is there a faster way?”
“There is!” Carter replied.
“It’s the gladiatorial business that you are so passionate about! Paradise Island is a complete jungle society; everyone respects the strong! As long as you can maintain a winning streak in gladiatorial events or leave a deep impression on the audience, you will quickly be noticed by top middlemen. This is a capability Mr. Sang did not possess.”
“Understood.”
Guo Li Cheng clenched her fists, making cracking sounds.
This was a win-win outcome!
Soon, the merchant ship passed the immigration inspection without difficulty and entered the hollowed-out core of the asteroid along a spectacular tunnel, finally docking at a zero-gravity pier.
“Captain, are there houses for rent on Paradise Island?” Ye Xing asked Carter.
“Of course. The best locations are in the bustling commercial district around the Tower of Original Sin, but the prices for commercial buildings there are very high, three to four tenths higher than New Hope.”
“The Deep Pit District and the Blade District, which is adjacent to the bustling area, are cheap enough, but I don’t recommend establishing a base there.”
“Why?”
“The Deep Pit District has a harsh environment, polluted air, rampant plagues, and it’s said there are terrifying genetically modified monsters.”
“As for the Blade District—the public order there has completely collapsed, after all, it’s where the subordinates of the seven crime oligarchs live.”
Oh!?
Ye Xing’s eyes lit up.
“Excellent, then it’s the Blade District!”
After the merchant ship docked, 50 players collectively began unloading 3D printers, stasis pods, agricultural production units, and other supplies.
They deliberately did not wear power armor and deliberately did not display superhuman physical abilities.
Afterward, once Ye Xing and Ma Lou completed the rental procedures, they could lease barges from the dock to transport all this equipment to their new corporate branch.
Not far away, a group of gang members either squatted against the wall or leaned against the warehouse exterior, quietly observing while inhaling hallucinogenic drugs.
“Ha! A big fish has arrived!”
What exactly did these people bring?
“Who cares! Look, that one container is over 40 meters long. You can tell it’s something rare just by thinking about it! We’re going to get rich this time!”
“Hmph hmph—every once in a while, some idiots think their business is doing well enough to try their luck on Paradise Island, a bunch of arrogant fools.”
The small leader among these people said with a sinister tone.
“Track them first! Even if we can’t take them down, selling the intel will still make us a fortune!”
“Hehe! Just watch!”
All of this had long been observed by Ye Xing, the level 31 Investigator.
He even heard their conversation clearly.
Come on.
I’m only afraid you won’t come.
300 light-years away, the meritorious kids were crammed into ill-fitting spacesuits and urgently evacuated to the space station. The First Air Squadron and five warships urgently launched.
This was a battle that would determine the success or failure of the mission. All 1000 drones were released, simulating 50 false targets in the surrounding area.
The First Air Squadron went to scout.
“This is Dòng me.”
Chang Kong shouted to his teammates.
“We cannot confirm whether the Empire has warp technology that can break through gravity wells. If not, they are most likely to drop out of warp on the stellar ecliptic plane 480,000 kilometers from the brown dwarf, bearing 125.”
“We will proceed there as planned for an interception operation. All aircraft form a formation and scan with L-band, which should maximize the distance at which we detect the enemy.”
“Understood!”
Half an hour later, flickering “noise” simultaneously appeared on everyone’s radar screens.
“Enemy aircraft detected! Enemy aircraft have launched missiles! Quantity: greater than 150!”
“Dòng me received! Decoy team, follow me!”
Chang Kong led the 10 most skilled fighter jets to accelerate forward, engines at full throttle, performing ultra-high overload maneuvers far beyond human endurance, facing nearly 300 high-performance missiles, while simultaneously launching a large number of small smart missiles as decoys.
These smart missiles had previously received code upgrades from the Emerald Star’s swarm drones and could now better disperse aluminum foil to interfere with radar seekers.
For the owl, which possessed infrared stealth capabilities, this was also the only threatening missile lock mode.
Of course, if the flight envelope allowed, smart missiles could also directly intercept incoming missiles.
If this defensive line was breached, the First Air Squadron had a second safeguard.
The remaining 23 fighter jets were not there to be cheerleaders either.
They followed closely behind the 10 decoy fighter jets, forming an interleaved dynamic scissor formation, constantly using high-precision blue lasers to shoot down Empire missiles pursuing the decoys.
For a time, the small nuclear warheads detonated by lasers exploded like a string of giant firecrackers in the dark red cosmic dust.
“All enemy missile targets disappeared!”
Chang Kong: “Excellent! Report losses, has anyone been shot down?”
“Of course not, just a bit of paint scraped off by radiation.”
Loulan: “That’s good, everyone stay sharp! The real dogfight hasn’t even started yet; getting shot down now would be too much of a loss!”
The First Air Squadron was in high spirits, while the Empire’s aircraft formation had completely unexpected this scene.
“Captain, the enemy is not as vulnerable as the Major General said. Their fighter numbers haven’t decreased at all; they evaded all our long-range air-to-air missiles. Currently, our ammunition remaining is only 45%.”
Damn it, how did they do that?!
The Empire Aviation Team leader couldn’t understand.
However, he maintained the composure of the superior side in the communication.
“It doesn’t matter, ignore them. Our target is the Cangyuan Fleet. If there’s a chance, we’ll blow up the space station there too! Full speed ahead!”
In a flash, 50 Empire fighter jets, taking advantage of the First Air Squadron losing some speed during evasive maneuvers, swept past at high speed, with a relative velocity of 75 kilometers per second.
This was also the maximum conventional aerospace speed allowed under the current interstellar dust density.
“You want to race us, huh? Quite the pipe dream!”
Loulan pulled the control stick.
“Brothers! Attack!”
The pilots on the outer perimeter of the Empire formation immediately panicked.
“The enemy is catching up! Their acceleration is a full 35G! Our current speed increment is not superior; we will be caught in 10 minutes!”
“What? 35G?!”
The Empire pilots found it hard to believe.
To pilot fighter jets and earn high salaries in the Empire Navy, they had all taken out loans for pilot prosthetic modifications, and most still had over ten years of repayment left.
But even so, they could only withstand 25G acceleration for extended periods.
35G... Are they crazy?
Are they drones? But unless they were all equipped with top-tier dangerous A1s from before the catastrophe, they shouldn’t have such combat power. “Son of a bitch.”
Seeing that they couldn’t shake them off, the captain had to change tactics.
“Alright! We’ll turn back, decelerate, and engage them in a dogfight! Deal with this wave of enemies before proceeding with the mission! Don’t worry, our fighter jets are much more advanced than theirs! That should be correct.”
Oh!
They want to fight!
Seeing the enemy decelerate, the First Air Squadron also “telepathically” understood their intention and began to prepare.
“The show is finally about to begin!”
Having only been on reconnaissance patrol before, they had been eagerly anticipating this moment.
Pilots could be said to be the most capable of delayed gratification among all players; long periods of patience were for those few minutes, or sometimes more than ten minutes, of exhilaration.
The thrill of aerial combat was far beyond what daily monster grinding and leveling could offer!
On the battlefield, the Empire fighter jets’ reactor energy was indeed much higher than that of the owl.
But high energy output was one thing; hitting the target was another.
As the two formations met, the Empire pilots’ surprise completely turned into terror.
They discovered that the Cangyuan fighter jets, thanks to their pilots’ ultra-high overload resistance, could push their performance to the limit. In dogfights, they zipped up and down, sometimes rolling, sometimes performing extremely exaggerated high-angle inversions.
In contrast, on their side, although their fighter jets theoretically supported 35G maneuver overload, no pilot could control such performance unless they wanted to fall into unconsciousness shortly after performing the maneuver.
This meant that once an Empire fighter jet was locked onto by a Cangyuan one, it was very difficult to shake off and could only rely on teammates to come to its rescue.
Conversely, Empire fighter jets found it very difficult to stick to the owl.
Although their laser cannons were incredibly powerful, their efficiency was now reduced by more than two-thirds, often requiring more than 30 seconds to burn through the owl’s anti-laser coating.
In an aerial combat where every second was precious, 30 seconds was enough for other Cangyuan fighter jets coming in as support to kill them a dozen times over.
As time passed, explosion fireballs continuously appeared, and the Empire formation began to struggle.
Their fighter jets were shot down one by one.
And when the number of losses exceeded 15, the quantitative change finally accumulated into a qualitative one. The flanks of the formation no longer had enough wingman cover, and the more advanced, powerful Empire fighter jets, like flies, began to accelerate their losses.
In the space age, due to the rise of zero element physics, the importance of beyond-visual-range aerial combat had decreased significantly compared to the atmospheric era.
This led to aerial dogfighting in all battles relying even more on tactical proficiency and personnel talent than urban combat and boarding actions.
Ace pilots were true elite soldiers, the knight class in modern warfare!
And the quality of equipment, as long as the difference was not too vast, was only a minor determinant of victory or defeat.
“Data link synchronization complete, our fleet is catching up.”
Just as the Empire Aviation Team leader was in a desperate struggle, relying on his flying skills, Chang Kong deliberately broadcast this sentence in Star Alliance language, plunging him into a chilling despair.
Boom!
The GW-class anti-aircraft lasers fired by the warships severely compressed the survival space of the remaining Empire fighter jets.
They couldn’t hide, they couldn’t run, and ultimately, all perished in a sea of fire.
“Well fought!”
Loulan cheered with raised arms.
“50 fighter jets, daring to fly over so brazenly? Keep going! Don’t stop! This is the price you have to pay!”
Two hours later, the carrier’s onboard aircraft commander reported to Major General Reid.
“Our first wave of aircraft encountered an interception, and then all contact was lost.”
“Before they were shot down, I mean, before they went missing, what did they see? This is very important.”
“It was Cangyuan fighter jets and five warships.”
“Nothing else?”
As a senior Empire general, Reid knew that some forces capable of making even the Empire fleet “take notice” were lurking in this star system.
During the apocalypse, humanity had attempted to build some powerful psionic facilities to summon that power, but failed.
This intelligence was originally collected by the UEG and inherited by Empire intelligence agencies after the catastrophe.
And now, the Cangyuan Fleet was still isolated and unsupported, and all previous intelligence showed no signs of them awakening psionics, proving that that power had not been summoned!
Moreover, even if it were summoned, what then?
What did Cangyuan want?
Today’s Super Democratic Empire, if not 100% of humanity’s golden age peak strength, was at least 80%! Nothing to fear!
Reid thought so.
“It’s alright, the operational objectives of these brave warriors have been achieved. They are all excellent Empire soldiers.”
He stood up from the fleet commander’s seat, which was higher than the captain’s.
“The families of all fallen pilots will receive Empire pensions. Furthermore, their families will receive more voting quotas in future elections! Contributing to democracy, these extra votes are something more supreme than life and pensions!”
Reid looked at the captain.
“Come on! Let us also defend democracy, depart!”
“Yes! All ships, heed orders, follow the oka, full speed ahead!”
On the other side, the First Air Squadron immediately returned to their respective warships for emergency repairs and missile rearming.
Miraculously, only two owls were shot down in this battle; the First Air Squadron’s technology had made huge strides since the capture of Ruins Star.
The two players who lost their mounts were mercilessly ridiculed by the other pilots.
However, both of them had at least one Empire fighter jet each to their credit, and they had had their fill of excitement, so it was no loss at all.
They then logged into their characters on Li Star, feeding back the experience and opinions accumulated in actual combat to the Scholars and Engineers there, assisting them in designing the next generation of even more ferocious Cangyuan fighter jets.
On the space station, Lu Yuan was very satisfied after learning the results of the battle.
In his opinion, Reid’s most fatal mistake was not underestimating the enemy, nor was it sending only 50 fighter jets for the first wave of attack.
This was actually a normal battlefield reconnaissance action, beyond reproach.
If battle results were achieved during this, it was a bonus; if not, it was acceptable.
The truly fatal aspect was the limitation imposed by physics.
Empire fighter jets, unlike Cangyuan’s, lacked superluminal communication capabilities, meaning they could only transmit their discoveries back to the fleet at the “slow” speed of light.
And Reid was overly confident, which led to him placing his main fleet too far away.
To await messages from his carrier-based aircraft squadron, he sat in the luxurious bridge, smoking a cigar, waiting for two hours, and thus wasted two hours for nothing!
And in the rapidly changing naval warfare, let alone two hours, even just 5 minutes was enough to completely change the fate of a fleet.
More than 1200 years ago, this had already been verified on the ancient battlefield known as Midway.
“Executive Officer!” The Mage turned and shouted to Lu Yuan, “Xian Yu has entered the consciousness domain of the Gaia Zerg!”
Only time is the most overbearing force in this universe.
It will give birth to infinite possibilities.