His mind was full of thoughts about what was in the galaxy where Ruimu was located, attracting the attention of the military, Yuhui and even the Sinda Company.

But Chen Ming immediately realized that he didn't seem to need to think about it himself.

"Gamma, what exactly is your mission plan this time? Why do you want to attack the pirate space station first and then jump to another place? What is in that RM-2 system?"

Gamma AI answered immediately as before; "I don't know, because all tasks are notified in stages."

"The first phase of the mission was to attack the pirate space station. I did not miss it."

"The second phase of the mission, this time, is to launch another attack on the pirate space station."

"The third phase of the mission will be notified after the second phase of the attack is completed and the war is launched to the RM-2 star system."

"So far, I have no idea what the next phase of the mission will require me to do."

"And I was just completing the mission, and I had no idea what the mission was for."

“So I can’t answer your question definitively.”

Chen Ming shook his head with some regret.

If even the Gamma AI, the afterglow individual, cannot give an answer, then he can only wait for the jump to begin.

Chen Ming placed all the images captured by the high-precision diopter camera in front of his eyes.

Soon, the environment around the diopter level began to change.

Although the ship did not move, the starry sky that Chen Ming could see was suddenly stretched, and it kept flying towards the rear of the refractive class like a stream of light.

This strange scene lasted for about ten seconds.

The starry sky returned to its original state.

The jump is over.

The Afterglow Fleet arrived at a position some distance away from the RM-2 star system and did not directly jump into the galaxy.

Chen Ming could take this opportunity to carefully observe the galaxy where Ramu is located.

In this galaxy, in addition to Ramu, there are a total of three planets orbiting the star.

The four planets from the inside to the outside of the galaxy are: a hot rocky planet, Ramu, and an ordinary barren planet.

And a gas giant planet with rings like Ramius.

If Chen Ming's Iron Ore and the refractive-level sensors were not faulty, then a large number of ships were currently engaged in combat near the orbit of the gas giant planet around the star.

One of the parties in the battle is definitely Yuhui.

On the other hand, Chen Ming probably knew who it was.

A few seconds after the jump ended.

The order from the cruiser Afterglow was suddenly sent to the Refraction-class.

Instead of joining the battle directly, all the Afterglow ships that had just retreated from the battlefield with the pirate space station were given an hour of rest.

The repair ships responsible for logistics maintenance began to work.

Immediately afterwards, the second message was sent.

It is the requirements for the tasks to be performed after the rest, as well as some explanations related to the tasks.

The task requirement was very simple. It was not what Chen Ming wanted, which was to join the battle and assist Yu Hui in attacking the other side.

Instead, they took advantage of their fighting time to directly raid a small human military outpost located in the orbit of the gas giant.

“There’s an outpost here?”

Chen Ming is now very confused. He doesn’t understand why the military clearly has a small outpost in the galaxy, but has not discovered him before?

It was normal that the Iron Ore's sensors could not detect the small military outpost, but it was definitely abnormal that the military's sensors did not detect the Iron Ore.

Even if there is a planet in the orbit, and even if there is a difference in the orbital periods, the outpost may be farther away from Ramux.

But Chen Ming had been flying his spaceship back and forth between Ramu and the mining space station so many times in broad daylight, and it was too outrageous that he had not been discovered.

Unless someone in that small outpost was slacking off and not taking scanning and detection tasks seriously.

But this can only barely explain the situation Chen Ming encountered. If things are not as he thought, then the problem may be serious.

Following this line of thought, Chen Ming actually hoped that Yu Hui's action this time would be successful.

As long as the outpost is destroyed, the possibility of his existence being discovered by the military will definitely be further reduced, which will do him absolutely no harm.

While all kinds of thoughts were constantly popping up in Chen Ming's mind.

Gamma AI suddenly answered the question that Chen Ming had just asked subconsciously: "Yes."

It obviously finished reading the somewhat long mission information sent by the cruiser AI faster than Chen Ming, and began to explain to Chen Ming: "This outpost is a small outpost of the human military used to detect the collection of sky steel."

Chen Ming was slightly stunned when he heard what Gamma AI said, and asked, "You mean there is a sky steel vein in the orbit of that gas giant planet?"

"No, there are no mines of Skysteel."

Chen Ming was stunned again. Although he had often used sky steel as material, he was not very clear about the formation of sky steel ore.

He only knew that Sky Steel was indeed smelted from ore, and that he had done it himself, that was all.

Gamma Core could tell that Chen Ming didn't know about this, so he continued to explain to him, "Sky Steel Ore comes from a space creature called the Alturan Sky Eel."

"The body length ranges from about 20 to 80 meters, and it survives by absorbing the gas from the surface of gas giant planets."

"They will eat various asteroids containing metal minerals. After a special reaction with the substances in their bodies, they produce sky steel ore containing many impurities."

Chen Ming immediately recalled the piece of sky steel ore he had found in the ring of Ramu star.

Although he did have a little disgust towards Sky Steel Ore in his heart at this moment, it was actually nothing.

At least Skysteel ore doesn't look like any feces, and the price of over a thousand dollars per gram of smelted Skysteel is enough to make people ignore any of its other shortcomings.

Anyway, Chen Ming had seen similar things in his previous life. Bird's nest was just the saliva of swallows, and cat poop coffee was even more outrageous.

Therefore, Chen Ming was not too opposed to something like Sky Steel that had to be smelted before it could be used.

He quickly accepted the fact that Skysteel was the feces of Alturan's Sky Eel.

Gamma AI had no idea what Chen Ming was thinking. It continued to concentrate on explaining the mission to Chen Ming: "The purpose of the raid is to raid the warehouse of the outpost, where there is a batch of sky steel ingots that the human army has been storing."

"After that, we can decide whether to try to capture the Alturan sky eels living in the rings of the gas giant planet, depending on the situation on the battlefield."

"My mission from now on is the same as before."

"Still wandering around the edge of the battlefield, looking for opportunities to capture valuable ships of the army."

Chen Ming silently digested the summary that Gamma AI had given him, calmed down a little, and said, "I understand. Just like before, make sure my safety is the highest priority, and you can handle the rest yourself."

"receive."

"Once your current raid is complete, you should have time to move around on your own, right?"

Gamma AI replied: "Yes, under normal circumstances we will first reach our distribution point through the resonance of the jump engine, far away from the human empire, and then we will have free time."

"So you need repairs now?"

"No, the diopter is in good condition, and only a small amount of fuel is needed."

"OK."

Chen Ming let out a breath and calmed down.

But his mind was not idle.

It's just right that now is the time to rest and there is nothing to do.

Chen Ming planned to briefly study the functions of this refractive class ship and think about how to use it in the future.

Chen Ming listed several equipment and systems on the Refraction-class ships that were worth studying.

They are the electromagnetic capture cabin, high-energy focusing system module, full-angle shield module, high-frequency electromagnetic pulse generator and electromagnetic pulse amplifier, as well as the long-range scanning detection system module.

These are all equipment that Chen Ming can research and develop.

Among them, he felt that the electromagnetic capture cabin had the greatest development potential.

Chen Ming now confirmed with his own eyes that three escort ships could be parked inside the refractive-class electromagnetic capture cabin.

And the various types of equipment used to investigate captured craft only need minor modifications to be used for other purposes.

For example, modifying and repairing spacecraft.

If you think about it this way, the diopter can completely serve as a small dock.

Moreover, the Refraction-class ship itself is not a dedicated combat ship, and those electromagnetic pulse devices are clearly for auxiliary purposes.

Therefore, it can also cooperate with other ships to adapt to different situations.

If mining is needed, Chen Ming can directly control the Iron Ore to go out. If fighting is needed, Chen Ming can prepare a special combat ship. In other situations, he can also prepare ships with different functions.

Anyway, Chen Ming can change the spacecraft he controls at any time, so transforming the cabin is definitely the most valuable option.

That is, Chen Ming must be prepared for the possible rebellion of Gamma AI after it breaks away from his forced control.

But the way to deal with it is actually very simple.

That is to completely eliminate all the aggressive means of Gamma AI in the cabin, so that Chen Ming can safely switch back the control authority of the spacecraft at any time.

It just so happens that if he wanted to transform the refractive-class electromagnetic capture cabin into a cabin for parking spacecraft, then the attack on the interior would be completely unnecessary.

Chen Ming was thinking about the modification plan, and half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

He originally wanted to continue thinking about more complicated transformation methods, but at this moment, the Refractive-class ship suddenly shook slightly.

Gamma AI immediately informed Chen Ming of the specific situation: "It is the maintenance ship that is refueling the refractive class."

"OK."

Chen Ming replied casually and glanced at the situation outside the diopter level.

After making sure that nothing was wrong, he didn't care too much about his thoughts being interrupted.

Anyway, he has almost planned the idea of ​​the transformation just now, and he only needs to fill in more detailed steps to completely complete the transformation plan.

Chen Ming stood up from his chair and stretched his stiff body a little. His hand unconsciously touched the control panel of the Iron Ore.

Just like when he encountered the spaceship that had not yet connected, a prompt suddenly appeared in Chen Ming's mind.

But this time the prompt is a little different from the previous one.

[Currently connected ships: 1/2]

[Connectable ships: Iron Ore (small civilian mining cargo ship), Sentinel (Sentinel-class civilian armed frigate)]

In an instant, several more questions popped up in Chen Ming's mind.

The number of connectable spacecraft has increased? When? Just now? What does the following connectable spacecraft mean? After controlling the refractive level, Chen Ming waited for the Iron Ore to be repaired and then used his consciousness to open the hatch and walked in.

His hands had never touched the hull of the Iron Ore, so he had not noticed this situation.

Moreover, after controlling the refractive level, Chen Ming did not think about switching back to the Iron Ore in a short period of time.

After all, Gamma AI is still in the Afterglow Fleet, and he cannot guarantee that Gamma AI will continue to obey his orders after the forced control of the panel is gone.

So Chen Ming never took the initiative to touch the iron ore.

But now, since he has the control number of two spaceships, it seems that he does not need to release the control of the refractive level to control a new spaceship.

And if Chen Ming did not misunderstand the meaning of the third line, it seemed that he could directly connect to the spaceship he had once controlled.

Otherwise, there would be no reason for the Sentinel-class ship to appear on it.

As for the earlier pirate Sentinel-class ship, it was probably dismantled in the last afterglow raid, so it is not shown above.

Try it?

This idea flashed through Chen Ming's mind, and he wanted to connect to the Iron Ore and see from close range whether it was really possible to connect remotely.

But he suddenly remembered that there was no such prompt when he had no free space in the control of the spacecraft before.

Is it possible that the remote connection function is only available when there is an empty spaceship control position?

So Chen Ming slowed down his movements a little and chose to first connect to the Sentinel-class pirate space station half a light year away.

After consuming some mental energy, Chen Ming clearly felt that the Sentinel-level was under his control.

He then turned on the Sentinel-level camera and observed the surrounding environment.

At this time, Space Arm No. 30 where the Sentinel-class was located was still half missing like before.

The remaining half was filled with high temperature and heat, and molten iron was everywhere.

Because of Chen Ming's previous plan, the Sentinel-class was parked in the maintenance shop.

Therefore, when the dock was attacked by the Tachyon Spear, the repair shop was not affected and the Sentinel-class was safely preserved.

Chen Ming was not in a hurry to control the Sentinel. Instead, he moved the real-time images transmitted back by the Sentinel aside and put his hand on the Iron Ore.

The prompt appears again.

[New spaceship signal detected, whether to change the brain control signal connection]

[Current number of remaining spacecraft connections: 2/2]

[Replaceable connected spaceship: Iron Ore (small civilian mining cargo ship)]

The content of this prompt made Chen Ming feel that he should be able to switch control of the spacecraft at will.

He tried it directly, canceling the control of the Sentinel and switching it to the Iron Ore.

After some consumption of mental strength, Chen Ming could clearly feel that he was gradually losing control of the Sentinel, and the Iron Ore was soon under his control.

After getting a satisfactory result, Chen Ming continued to switch the control back to the Sentinel level.

Then he started using the communication equipment on the Sentinel to contact Lao Wu.

Although the Sentinel-class was under Chen Ming's control, it was still impossible to obtain Chen Ming's voice across half a light year.

So Chen Ming could only communicate with Lao Wu using the spacecraft's built-in voice system, just like the refractive level.

When the call was connected, Chen Ming directly recounted how he and Lao Wu met, and specifically mentioned the terminal and the boss.

Old Wu was silent for a while, probably considering whether the words in this unfamiliar communication code were worth believing.

The content that Chen Ming specifically emphasized played a role.

Old Wu did not doubt Chen Ming's identity too much. Instead, he said with some nostalgia or reluctance: "Xiao Mu, I have been looking for you. If you are still alive, can you come back? After this battle, we have a lot more tasks to do. There is really no way to finish them."

After hearing what Old Wu said, Chen Ming breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I'm outside the space station now and can't come back for the time being."

Old Wu seemed to have realized something and asked, "Are you going to do the same thing as before with your captain?"

Chen Ming looked at the Afterglow Fleet outside through the refractive camera, then looked at Xiao Shi lying in his helmet and said, "It's about the same. There is a Afterglow ship that looks pretty good. It will probably take us a day or two to come back."

"Are you sure you can come back?"

Chen Ming said very affirmatively: "Sure."

"That's good."

There was a brief silence in the communication channel.

Chen Ming suddenly asked, "By the way, do you know what I did at the dock before?"

"What happened? Oh, you blew up the dock and ran away, right? We already know about it, but Lao Lu deleted the surveillance for you, so no one knows except us. We can understand in an emergency, so it won't be a problem."

"Anyway, you should come back soon. Cleaning up the battlefield is really a hassle."

"I'll do it as soon as possible."

Communication ended.

Old Wu, who was at the space station, looked up at the factory director sitting opposite him and said, "The source of the signal from the repair shop should be the Sentinel."

"Xiao Mu must have modified the Sentinel-class control system, and then used some special method to remotely connect to it and use it to send us a message."

"By the way, is it still uncertain what happened after his ship flew out?"

The director shook his head and said, "The direct hit from the tachyon spear affected many of the station's equipment. The external monitoring is basically broken."

"Xiao Mu deliberately avoided the weapon's range of fire, so the weapon's matching positioning equipment did not capture his ship."

Old Wu shrugged and said helplessly, "There's nothing we can do. We can only wait for people to come back. We should get back to work now. I'll keep an eye on Xiao Mu later."

"Not us, you go to work, I have other things to do."

"What are you going to do?"

"Meeting, and talk to Lao Wu."

"Who are you talking about?"

"You asked who we were going to talk about, so you must know what I want to talk about with Lao Wu."

Old Wu chuckled, took a can of tea from the factory director's desk, stood up from his chair, and left the administration building.

at the same time.

Chen Ming finally waited for the rest time to end.

The Afterglow Fleet, which had been waiting outside the galaxy for a long time, finally began to move and began to accelerate towards the orbit of the gas giant planet.

As the distance shortened, Chen Ming quickly confirmed the situation on the battlefield through sensors.

Yu Hui has a total of four cruisers, all of which have exactly the same appearance, and a fleet of over three hundred destroyers and frigates.

One-fifth of these small ships had been lost in previous engagements.

The military also has four cruisers.

Two of them are of the Ruler class, which possess the strongest frontal firepower and armor of all cruiser models currently known to Chen Ming.

There is also a Defender-class ship designed by Sinda that was selected when the military put it out to bid.

The last cruiser, like the Ruler-class, has extremely thick armor and is an aircraft carrier called the Mora-class.

Although the aircraft carrier itself is not very powerful, it still occupies an important position on the battlefield by relying on fighter jets that are smaller and more flexible than frigates.

The fighter jets carried by aircraft carriers are designed differently from those of ordinary ships, and all are designed only for combat.

Fighter planes have abandoned most of the functions of normal ships, including long-term navigation and entering hyperspace channels. Some of them do not even have life support systems and only rely on the pilot's protective clothing to maintain combat time.

Therefore, the combat capabilities of some aircraft carriers' fighter jets may even be stronger than those of frigates.

Only in large-scale battlefields, due to limitations in ship size and weapon range, may fighter jets become unable to adapt to the combat environment.

Therefore, the existence of fighter jets is still very meaningful, and the aircraft carriers that carry and maintain fighter jets naturally also have a reason to exist.

On a small-scale battlefield, fighter jets often bring greater advantages than the same number of frigates.

Just like now.

Although the number of destroyer and escort-level ships on the space station is much smaller than that of Afterglow, there are even some miscellaneous-looking spaceships on the edge.

Chen Ming guessed that they were probably bounty hunters or mercenaries hired by the military, who were simply there to make up the numbers.

In the face of a shortage of reliable combat power, the military relied on the small fighters of the Mora-class aircraft carrier to be active on the edge of the battlefield, pulling the situation back and even showing a trend of reverse push.

Because the shields of many spaceships are not like those of pirate space stations, which can completely protect themselves in the shields.

Most spaceship shields are full-width shields. Although they can rotate at any angle around the spacecraft, their deployment range is limited and their rotation speed is also limited, so they can only protect certain angles.

Therefore, once the fighter planes are given the opportunity to go around, no matter how powerful the ship is, the only possibility left is that the ship will be destroyed and its engine will stop working.

And Chen Ming also noticed.

Afterglow ships are rare ships that are equipped with a large number of point defense weapons to target small fighters and missiles.

As a result, all ships that are harassed by fighter planes have to allocate part of the firepower of their main weapons to deal with those highly maneuverable fighter planes, and they are not sure they can deal with them even if they are successful.

As a result, Yu Hui's frontal firepower was diluted.

The military relied on fighter planes to continuously exert pressure on Yuhui's front line, especially at the edges of the front line where firepower was relatively weak.

No matter where a battle line begins to collapse, it is possible to be directly flattened by a wave.

The army is now acting with the idea of ​​relying on its own advantages to advance slowly.

The idea is good and there is no problem in execution.

But another fleet of Yuhui has arrived.

(End of this chapter)