Age of Cosmic Exploration

"We’re 11 hours, 42 minutes, and 31 seconds away from reaching our destination coordinates..."

Yao Yuan sat in the captain’s room with his bloodshot eyes looking at the electronic clock. He had been up for two days and two nights already. It was not that he didn’t want to sleep; in fact, he was already very tired, but the extreme nervousness made it impossible for him to even close his eyes for a second.

"Chancellor, you have to sleep now!"

Barbie stood behind Yao Yuan with tears in her eyes and a blush on her face like she had been crying, but she still carried herself professionally and seriously.

When Yao Yuan laughed bitterly and wanted to retort, Barbie continued, "You’ll be joining the Black Star troopers in the war 11 hours and 42 minutes from now. To sleep or not is your personal freedom, and other people have no say to decide that for you, but please think about the soldiers who will place their lives and trust in you. As the main force of this ambush mission, if your condition is not at its top form, it might cost them their lives, so..."

Yao Yuan was silent before nodding. "Then I’ll go lie down for a short 10 hours. Please wake me up in 10 hours... and if there’s any emergency above C-grade, you have to wake me up as well. Good night."

Barbie didn’t say anything but stood there quietly. Yao Yuan walked past her to head towards his own resting room. He was a qualified soldier and the best type of soldier. Resting during war was common practice, so no matter how anxious he was internally, he merely took 10 seconds after lying down to sleep.

Yao Yuan in his sleeping state suddenly jumped up in alarm and saw Barbie and two other military officers walk into his room. The clock on the wall showed that he had been asleep only for two hours.

"What happened?!"

Yao Yuan slapped himself on his face and demanded forcefully. One of the officers saluted and answered, "Five minutes and 40 seconds ago, the enemy fleet was slowly catching up to the vanguard unit and they entered the prepared creator’s particle layer thunder void zone as planned. The damage the thunder void zone caused the enemy fleet was more than 5,000 spaceships, which was 80 percent less than expected... However, the enemy fleet stopped moving and stayed inside the void zone. This was observable from the explosive sparks of the thunder zone and the range of the enemy’s creator’s particle coverage."

Yao Yuan thought about it and asked, "It has been five minutes and 40 seconds since then? The enemy still hasn’t made any move? They didn’t chase after the vanguard unit?"

The military officer nodded wordlessly.

Yao Yuan paced in his room anxiously. After 10 seconds he said, "Come, let’s go to central command. This issue is crucial, we have to get to the bottom of this."

The core of the ambush tactic was the fact that the enemy would continue giving chase after they had locked onto a target. Before this target was taken down, they would not care about the others. Under these circumstances, it was practically impossible for the people from the second defense line to reach the City of Light Moon, because the travelling speed between the two space civilizations was too different. The enemy fleet would definitely catch up to the group of guardian spaceships...

However, it was also because of this that the ambush strategy was so important. If the plan failed, around 200,000 civilians and Defense Unit soldiers would be dead. They were using the enemy’s relentless pursuit to lure them into this zone of ambush. At this location, the 16 complete Black Star units and the remaining forces from the New Solar System first fleet would make a last stand against this unknown fleet...

The ambush was set up using humanity’s final measure, the gravity cannon fleet...

There were around 140 specially designed gravity spaceships. They were smaller than guardian spaceships and didn’t have any fighting equipment. All of their internal space had been switched out for energy systems, energy shield systems, and gravity cannon systems. In fact, these gravity spaceships were as slow as a normal spaceships the size of the Hope. They didn’t showcase the agility of small-sized spaceships. Their main purpose was as the name suggests, gravity cannon focus fire.

In central command, a group of strategists were arguing. When Yao Yuan entered, they stopped arguing to salute the Chancellor.

Yao Yuan saluted them in return and immediately asked, "Brief me on the different possibilities. The possibility of why they stopped, where they’re moving next, their possible destination, tell me everything."

Ren Tao and Xiao Niao stood among the group of strategists, but the duo didn’t say a word, they merely had their brows furrowed looking at the 3D image in the room. One of the strategists began, "Chancellor, from our analysis, the biggest possibility is... that the AI fleet has reached the critical loss point of its mission.

"As we have predicted earlier, the fleet is in search of something, and before they find it, they will continue this strategy. They will not care about losses and will use the smallest attacks to preserve any buildings or fleets and will ignore all the other targets. However, that is until the fleet reaches its critical loss limit. In other words, when the AI feels threatened and believes their civilization might be destroyed, then the programming will change to self-preservation. The loss of these last few thousand spaceships might have caused the critical loss limit for this AI."

Yao Yuan entered deep thought after listening to this analysis. In fact, this was the main conclusion the strategy group agreed upon, and he agreed with it. After all, a 1,800,000 spaceship fleet only had 1,000,000 spaceships left. The Energy Storm cannon at the second defense base was too powerful; it was practically a weapon from a peak level 3 space civilization. It caused the destruction of around 600,000 spaceships in one shot.

For any fighting force, the loss of half would be a limit point because this meant that the possibility of being wiped out had become higher...

Another strategist added, "There could be a different possibility, and that is because the fleet has reached critical tolerance. They decided to adopt a more conservative tactic when they discovered the zone of dark thunder. They might be waiting for the creator’s particle zone to disperse before continuing to chase after the vanguard unit. After all, their technological level is so much more advanced than ours, and they are at least four times faster than us, so they’ll definitely be able to catch up. Of course, there is also the possibility of a change of combat tactics..."

Yao Yuan nodded before turning to Xiao Niao and Ren Tao. "What do you two think?"

The two looked at each other and shook their heads. Xiao Niao furrowed his brow and said, "Currently, nothing yet. The two possibilities mentioned are quite plausible, but... it’s curious, the leisurely manner of this fleet... In fact, from the simulation, they should have caught up to the vanguard around 40 minutes ago, so how do we explain this 40 minutes difference? Even though we do not understand why, there has to be something else that we do not know..."

Yao Yuan asked, "Is it possible that they’ve become cautious since they’re reaching their critical point?"

Ren Tao laughed. "Do you think we’re dealing with lifeforms? No, these are AI, such thoughts are impossible. There is no such thing as a critical point. Even if there is, they will process it according to their program, but this situation... is weirdly anxiety-inducing."

Yao Yuan knew there would be no clearer answer even if he pressed. He could only suppress his consternation and say, "Continue the observation. The main fleet... stay dormant. I’ll continue to rest, and for now, everything moves according to plan."

Just like that, Yao Yuan lied down for another four hours. When he was woken up next, everyone’s faces were like they had seen a ghost. He knew instantly something had gone terribly wrong... could it be that the vanguard unit had been caught?

"No, the AI unit hasn’t caught up to the vanguard unit. In fact, the AI fleet has resumed heading towards the City of Light Moon, or in other words, heading towards the ambush line..." the report said.

Yao Yuan noted some of the curious information and asked, "The AI fleet is heading our way... what about the vanguard unit? What happened to them?"

In central command, as Yao Yuan asked that question, a 3D image appeared in the room, showing the location of the vanguard unit. There was a series of explosions on screen, displaying the fights that were happening there.

"Three minutes ago, the vanguard unit ran into an AI fleet around the size of 100,000 to 120,000 spaceships. They belong to the AI side unit. In other words, they were ambushed by the AI fleet...

"At the same time, the main AI fleet has circled around the vanguard unit to head towards the City of Light Moon. According to the data analysis, they will reach the ambush circle in 1 hour and 17 minutes..."

Yao Yuan, who understood everything at that moment, had his eyes turn red instantly...