Chapter 1216 - 1080: Encounter

Chapter 1216: Chapter 1080: Encounter

Nutrient Injection wasn’t exactly an expert on spatial theory either, but he still gave a range—fifty million kilometers.

Paranoid wasn’t very familiar with spatial theory either, but for some reason, he really liked arguing with Nutrient Injection.

"Then why can other people pinpoint spatial fluctuations so accurately?"

Nutrient Injection answered casually, "As the spatial fluctuation intensifies, the position becomes more and more locked. You don’t get that?"

Paranoid retorted, unconvinced, "And where exactly did you get that theory from?"

Nutrient Injection shook his head helplessly. "One look and I can tell—you’ve never gone through anything like this, and you’ve got no inherited experience."

"You—" Paranoid was so mad he almost spat blood. In Qu Jianlei’s team, he was the number two.

Before, this guy hadn’t made his Advancement so whatever; but now he’d just broken into Supreme and he actually dared look down on me?

Mu Yu spoke up to stop him. "Alright, let the boss focus on the search. It’s not that big a deal."

So Qu Jianlei expanded the search radius and once again threw himself into a full-power scan.

With that, Energy Block consumption shot up—it was really burning through Energy.

Another five days passed with still no gains. By this point they were already eighty million kilometers from Qingyuan Star.

Next, they had no choice but to change course and swing around to the other side of Qingyuan Star.

This adjustment was also based on gravitational wave principles, assuming this particular spatial fluctuation was being affected by Qingyuan Star.

That assumption might not be correct, but they had no other choice.

Otherwise, space is so vast they simply didn’t have enough time to explore it all.

After they changed direction, the result was immediate—three days later, the probe sounded an alarm.

At a point nearly over forty million kilometers from Qingyuan Star, a spatial fluctuation appeared!

The amplitude wasn’t very large, and the location kept drifting, but it already made things pretty clear.

Mu Yu, however, was a bit unsure. "Boss, can we be certain this is what interfered with the near-planet jump?"

Only the heavens knew that. Qu Jianlei spread his hands and gave a wry smile. "But we can’t find any other plausible cause."

"It should be!" Nutrient Injection backed him without hesitation. "Your near-planet jump tech should be relatively mature by now."

"You can execute precision jumps from high-speed starships—how could there be an error this massive?"

He had to admit, affirmation from others is always easier to accept.

About ten million kilometers away from that spatial fluctuation point, there was a meteorite with a diameter of more than fifty kilometers.

Qu Jianlei discussed with everyone whether they should rest a bit on the meteorite and do some close-range observation.

Everyone agreed with his suggestion. After drifting in space for almost twenty days, all of them were mentally and physically exhausted.

The key issue was that recently warships kept randomly showing up, wandering around in space without any clear purpose.

Their five starships—one large, four small—still had to dodge warships, which was really wearing on them.

But now that they’d found the spatial fluctuation point, there was no need to keep flaunting this five-starship formation.

Qu Jianlei stowed the Business Starship in the cargo bay, then removed five probes to keep locking onto the spatial fluctuation.

That way, even if a warship spotted them, one large and three small starships—four in total—could still coordinate in combat.

The key thing was, without the Business Starship, even if a conflict broke out, others might not be able to guess who they really were.

Next, the four starships went as quiet as possible, gliding toward the meteorite in complete silence.

However, when they were still more than a million kilometers from the meteorite, the alarms erupted.

"Alert! Abnormal Energy Fluctuation in the direction of the meteorite, preliminarily judged as a starship propulsion system."

The very next moment, the center of the meteorite actually split open, and four starships flew out.

Three were company-level warships, and one was battalion-level!

Seeing this, Nutrient Injection’s face changed slightly. "Damn it, how is that a mimetic shipyard!"

Qu Jianlei didn’t have time to complain and issued the order directly. "Immediate withdrawal!"

It wasn’t that he was addicted to running, nor that he was sure they’d lose. The key was... they were too close to Qingyuan Star!

Although the straight-line distance was nearly forty million kilometers, this was wide-open, unobstructed deep space.

If there were any large star bodies or phenomena nearby that could block Qingyuan Star’s line of sight, then they could afford a fight.

But unfortunately, there was literally nothing—just empty void.

So once a fierce battle broke out, Qingyuan would definitely detect it and could dispatch reinforcements quickly.

Qu Jianlei also wasn’t sure what these four warships were. Their starships didn’t carry standard Military Department paint.

But you could vaguely see traces of Military Department styling in the paint, just modified a bit.

Either way, the hostility of these four starships was obvious, and Qu Jianlei felt there was no need to get entangled with them.

And that meteorite you could see clearly with the naked eye actually had a mimetic shipyard built into it—these people were clearly up to something big.

The four starships shot away like lightning. Nutrient Injection lifted his brows, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end stayed silent.

The very next moment, however, the public channel was forcibly cut into by a transmission.

"Warning, this is the Imperial Army Department’s directly subordinate Confidential Operations Unit, this is the Imperial Army Department’s directly subordinate Confidential Operations Unit!"

"You are ordered to have your fleet stop immediately for inspection, stop immediately for inspection!"

"Otherwise all consequences will be borne by your fleet, all consequences will be borne by your fleet!"

"Get lost!" Qu Jianlei let out a cold snort, then issued the order, "Cut the comms!"

He had to admit, the other side’s strength was definitely not ordinary, they could actually force their way directly into the public channel.

But that was all. Little Lake hadn’t blocked their access simply because it didn’t think this was a serious problem.

—mainly because it had never encountered this kind of access method before.

The forced communication sounded aggressive, making them seem highly authorized, but in truth there wasn’t much technical content to it.

Now that the line was cut, the four starships bolted ahead like their lives depended on it.

The four starships that had stuck their heads out were enraged at the sight. "Full firepower, don’t care about survivors!"

The next instant, the four warships went to full firepower, a sky-filling barrage of artillery roaring out.

The firepower on these four starships far outmatched that of ordinary warships—fierce, powerful, with much longer range.

Especially that Company Level warship, its dense firepower wove a gigantic net, cast toward the four little fish in space.

Qu Jianlei and the others were a bit dumbfounded by the sight. "You still call that a warship? It’s a flying firepower platform, pure and simple."

Don’t be fooled by the distance of over a million kilometers—the firepower from the starships still carried over with barely diminished force.

The Paranoid had dealt with the Military more than most; his brows furrowed slightly. "Fire Support Ship... they’re really going to start a war?"

Most of the Imperial forces usually spent their time on security and policing.

But the ferocity of this firepower right now was flat-out at war-level; even against a Star Thief, this would be about it.

And yet, under this kind of bombardment, the four fleeing starships kept dodging up, down, left, and right, as nimble as fish in Water.

More than once, the shells came within a hair of hitting the starships, only to be narrowly, dangerously evaded.

The four starships behind, chasing and firing at the same time, quickly realized something was off up ahead.

"Who the hell trained this kind of maneuvering? Which faction?"

"So what if they’re nimble? This kind of evasion can’t last... no one can stay this lucky forever."

They’d originally planned to cripple the ships and then capture them alive, but since the other side was fleeing without regard for anything, it really had become kill-or-capture, no distinction.

However, someone still caught the key detail. "They’ve got a firepower evasion system... and a damn strong one!"

Ordinary people had no access to artificial intelligence, but for real big shots, this wasn’t any kind of secret.

In fact, there wasn’t a clear line between artificial intelligence and a control system with massive computational power.

To be strict, if it hasn’t developed enough independent personality and self-awareness, it doesn’t count as artificial intelligence.

And the Imperial ban on AI research was because many factions had poor control; they could easily trigger disasters that couldn’t be contained.

Those factions that truly could keep a grip on things, doing some limited research was no big deal.

At the very least, on these four starships, someone had recognized that the fugitives were using ultra-strong algorithms and computing power.

So right after that, seven or eight small Attack Ships popped out. "Engage and attack! Life or death, doesn’t matter!"

Originally in this chase, the speed gap between the two sides hadn’t been that big.

The pursuers’ starships had better equipment, a bit faster speed, but nothing overwhelming.

But once the small Attack Ships showed up, things changed; the fleeing starships couldn’t avoid a head-on engagement anymore.

"They really don’t know when to quit." Qu Jianlei grit his teeth and quietly told Little Lake, "Let them close to five hundred thousand kilometers, then return fire!"

Their maximum attack range was one million kilometers, effective range eight hundred thousand, but at five hundred thousand the effect was optimal.

The small ships chasing them were fast, and their attacks were brutally intense, even stronger than a typical Attack Ship’s firepower.

Their attacks were tightly coordinated, timing perfectly handled—this was a true full-coverage, no-blind-spot offensive.

Qu Jianlei’s four starships had no choice but to toss out Decoy Shells from time to time, barely blocking the enemy’s repeated barrages.

Even Flower Scorpion couldn’t help commenting, "The coordination in this fleet is the slickest I’ve ever seen!"

The Paranoid nodded at that. "This attack capability really is too strong."

Mu Yu turned to Qu Jianlei. "We can’t just keep tanking it like this, right? If we only take hits, we won’t last long!"

Even she, not good at space combat, could tell that if they only kept dodging, something would go wrong sooner or later.

"Hold a bit longer," Qu Jianlei answered in a low voice. "We’re still a bit too close to Qingyuan Star."

Granny Jia frowned. "How come I feel... the coordination among these Attack Ships is a little too perfect?"

"Don’t tell me they’re unmanned too?"

Just then, Big Head Butterfly spun up. "Boss, their offense-defense model is built way too standard."

"Want me to check whether they’re unmanned?"

(Third Chapter of the day. It’s double-vote period—asking for your monthly ticket support.)