It is 510.2 light-years away from the Kepler-452 star system.
With a violent explosion, the exploration team consisting of three spherical probes disappeared into the vast universe.
The embers of the explosion slowly dissipated, and the originally dense and active particles became sparse as the temperature dropped and time passed, as they cooled down.
All that remained were countless fragments flying in all directions, testifying to the explosion that had just occurred.
...
Earth Command Center.
The atmosphere was heavy.
How much longer until the nearest probe arrives?
Zhao Zijie's question rang out.
"Ten minutes!" a crew member reported loudly.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Zijie turned to look at Lü Yongchang beside him: "Professor, what do you think of the other party..."
"The visitor is not friendly."
Lu Yongchang said in a heavy tone: "These three detectors are relatively old models, almost obsolete products. Their maximum speed is only 30c, and they are not equipped with tachyon radar, so they have no means of detecting warp drives."
"I just reviewed the last images of the probes that showed they were hit, and from them we can basically conclude that they were subjected to a warp drive."
"This means that the other party must be a civilization of level five or above."
"Without saying a word, we immediately took action; the other party is definitely not someone easy to deal with."
Zhao Zijie nodded silently: "That's what I think too."
As he spoke, he turned his head to look at the porthole in the distance.
Outside the porthole, the blue planet continued its quiet rotation as always.
Nearby, numerous warships and drones are slowly departing from giant spaceports.
In the far distance, a giant spherical planet with a diameter of 6,500 kilometers is slowly breaking away from its original orbit.
The powerful spacetime fluctuations formed a huge peak on the highly sensitive tachyon radar.
That is the ultimate weapon of human civilization—the planetary fortress [Chi You]!
With the breakthrough in warp drive technology, starships can now ignore the gravitational field of stars and directly enter a warp state within a star system.
However, due to the abundance of matter within a star system, accidents such as "collisions" are very likely to occur. Therefore, most starships choose to leave the star system before entering warp drive.
At the same time, precise control of curvature allows starships to achieve travel speeds below 1c using warp drives.
The way human civilization's starships navigated also underwent a qualitative change as a result.
The antimatter engine is secondary, while the warp drive is primary; the antimatter engine is used within the star system, while the warp drive is used outside the star system.
Apart from [Chi You].
Unlike ordinary starships, due to its enormous size and mass, the Chi You did not have a conventional antimatter engine.
Its power comes entirely from the warp drive.
By adjusting the size of the spacetime curvature, it can achieve a sailing speed of 0-20c.
Of course, within the star system, due to various factors, its maximum speed is only 0.1c.
Although this speed is incomparable to that of a conventional starship, it is, after all, a planet with a diameter of 6,500 kilometers!
Mars' diameter is only 6,779 km!
It's almost equivalent to a Mars!
"The era of peaceful development... has come to an end."
Zhao Zijie withdrew his gaze and sighed softly.
Lü Yongchang didn't seem too emotional about it: "It was bound to happen sooner or later."
"It's beyond my expectations that human civilization has only encountered a Type V civilization at such a advanced stage."
The moment the words were spoken, a bright light appeared outside the porthole.
It even outshone the light of the main star of Kepler-452!
The strong light was softened by the porthole, but it was still somewhat dazzling.
That was the magnificent sight of the expeditionary fleet's antimatter engines running at full power!
Although it is currently unclear what happened 510.2 light-years away, and what the purpose of the other civilization was...
But for such attacks without warning, human civilization has only one attitude.
We'll see this through to the end!
"command!"
A crew member's urgent voice rang out: "The first batch of interplanetary probes has successfully reached the target area!"
"Thirty in total!"
The holographic projection in front of them changed instantly, and an image from 510.2 light-years away appeared before everyone's eyes with almost no delay.
...
In the vast, cold universe, there is almost no light except for the distant starlight.
The nearest star system is also 5.1 light-years away.
This is a desolate place devoid of any life.
Thirty silver-white spherical detectors were dispersed in formation and probed outwards.
"drop!"
A crisp reminder sounded.
One of the detectors discovered a fragment that was more than a meter long.
Based on the shape and texture of the fragments, it is easy to determine that this is part of a human civilization probe.
The detector easily caught up with the debris and began to examine it closely.
"It's part of the detector's outer shell," Cao Liangcai's voice rang out in the command center.
Looking at the rapidly flashing detection data on the holographic projection, he frowned slightly: "Judging from this data, it can be basically confirmed that the explosion was caused by the annihilation of matter and antimatter."
"This attack method doesn't seem like that of a Level 6 civilization."
Lü Yongchang nodded in agreement: "The detector has not yet detected any unidentified signal sources in the vicinity."
"The enemy that launched the attack should not be in this area."
"Given that they use warp drive weapons, they could be as far as ten light-years away from us."
Upon hearing this, Gao Yang, sitting next to Zhao Zijie, frowned and clicked his tongue softly: "This is troublesome..."
"The density of star systems in this region is very high; there are seven unexplored star systems within just ten light-years."
"Not to mention beyond ten light-years."
"If the other side doesn't attack first, we'll be in a very passive position!"
"However... considering the original direction of the probe's journey, the star system 5.1 light-years away is the most suspicious."
Before the words had even finished, the piercing alarm sounded again throughout the command center.
"Several high-intensity spatiotemporal fluctuations have been detected!"
A sudden burst of electronic synthesized sound rang out, and at the same time, an image of tachyon radar appeared in the holographic image.
Thirty signal sources of similar intensity appeared in three different locations and flew toward the detector at 50 times the speed of light.
Based on the estimated distance, the fastest attack would arrive in about 10 days.
If the relative motion of the two sides is taken into account, this time will be greatly shortened.
"Lock on attack location!"
Zhao Zijie's order had already been given: "All detectors, advance in the direction of attack!"
"Speed forward: 100c!"
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