Chapter 269

Lunar orbit, Heaven's Punishment-01 platform's seventh full-power test enters the final stage.

"Output power is stable at 98.7%, all laser units calibrated." Chen Guang's voice comes through quantum communication.

"Old Li, is your Penglai ready? Don't waste the test window."

Penglai bridge, Li Yang stares at the holographic star map: "Wait a bit, that kid Wang Hao is still painting smiley faces on his mechs, saying he wants to give the aliens some humanistic care."

"Which one is he painting?"

"The twelfth one." Li Yang is helpless, "The chest of every Jingshi-3S has been painted with a grinning expression by him, saying that he wants the enemy to feel the warmth from humanity during battle."

Wang Hao's voice comes from the communication channel: "That's called tactical deterrence! Think about it, the alien probe sees it, wow, human mechs can smile, maybe it will be stunned for three seconds? Those three seconds are enough for me to fire ten missiles!"

Chen Guang calmly refutes: "According to Torch Dragon-3's analysis of deep space signals, the Harvester civilization is likely a pure logical program body with no emotional cognition function. Your smiley face might be judged as a meaningless decorative pattern, and the deterrence effect is zero."

"Guangzi, can't you cooperate with my romance?"

"I am a scientist, I only cooperate with data."

Li Yang listens to the two bickering, his mouth slightly raised.

This kind of daily bickering is actually reassuring before the war, at least it shows that everyone has not been crushed by the pressure.

There are 62 days left until the probe reaches Jupiter's orbit.

There are 5 days left until Penglai departs.

Twelve Jingshi-3S deep space mechs loaded with Lunar Soil-7 test armor are already in position on the deck, the silver-gray armor gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the reflected light of the moon, if you ignore the crooked hand-painted smiley faces on their chests.

"Where is Brother Feng?" Li Yang asks.

"Settling accounts with Zhao Kaiyuan in the cafeteria." Chen Guang pulls up another screen.

"Kaiyuan says the energy consumption of deep space interception is 15% higher than estimated, and is readjusting the Xuanming battery allocation plan."

In the picture, in the corner of the Longyin cafeteria, Feng Yan and Zhao Kaiyuan are facing a pile of holographic data charts, with two bowls of cold fried sauce noodles in the middle.

"If it really doesn't work, we'll temporarily draw 3% from the civilian power grid." Zhao Kaiyuan pushes his glasses, "Just three days, it won't have much impact. When Penglai returns, bring back more Jupiter hydrogen and helium to make up for it."

Feng Yan picks up a chopstick of noodles: "Are you sure Jupiter's atmosphere can be mined? The magnetic field there is strong enough to twist mechs into twists."

"That's why I'm telling you to go fast and come back fast." Zhao Kaiyuan grins, "Don't worry, the Xuanwu-fusion sixth-generation prototype has been loaded on the ship, the endurance is enough for you to roam in Jupiter's orbit for two months."

"What roaming, it's executing a mission." Feng Yan corrects, but there is also a smile in his eyes.

Being able to joke at a time like this is a skill the Longyin team has practiced for three years, in Wang Hao's words, "Even if we die, we have to die happily."

Heaven's Punishment platform control cabin, engineer Xiao Zhang suddenly says "Huh".

"Director Chen, look at this."

Chen Guang switches the screen.

The Heaven's Punishment platform's deep space scanning array transmits a real-time data stream. In the void 125 astronomical units away, the energy readings on the surface of the irregular polyhedron marked as "UNK-001" are abnormally climbing.

"It's accelerating?" Chen Guang frowns.

"No... not accelerating." Xiao Zhang zooms in on the spectrum.

"The energy output mode has changed. It was a uniform cruising state before, now... it seems to have entered some kind of 'active scouting' mode."

"It is actively scanning the inner solar system, and the scanning intensity has increased by 300% compared to yesterday."

On the data chart, the blue lines representing the scanning beam become dense, like a net cast toward the area within Mars orbit.

More importantly, the trajectory prediction of the probe itself began to be revised.

The original estimate of arriving at Jupiter's orbit in 62 days is refreshing rapidly.

"Calculate the new arrival time." Chen Guang's voice is still steady, but the speed of his fingers tapping on the virtual keyboard has increased by 30%.

Torch Dragon-3's computing power is fully open, and three seconds later gives the answer:

【Revised arrival time: 59 days】

Advanced by three days.

"Is it still accelerating?" Li Yang asks on the Penglai bridge.

Chen Guang pulls up the 3D orbital simulation: "It abandoned a detour route around a Kuiper Belt celestial body and switched to a straight-line advance. This will expose it to more observation windows, but it can save time."

Wang Hao interjects: "Does this mean it's in a hurry?"

"Or..." Feng Yan's voice joins the channel, he just rushed back to the control center from the cafeteria, "It received some instruction and must reach Jupiter as soon as possible."

In the control room, everyone is staring at the red dot that is getting brighter on the screen.

300 meters in diameter, irregular polyhedron, surface reflectivity less than 0.01%, speed 0.2c.

Every word of this data screams "not to be trifled with."

"Torch Dragon-3, analyze the priority of its active scanning targets." Feng Yan orders.

The holographic screen unfolds, and the scanning beams are visualized, with darker colors representing higher scanning intensity.

There are three deep red areas: Blue Star, Moon, Mars.

And the Heaven's Punishment platform in lunar orbit is marked as the deepest purple, the probe's scanning intensity on it is five times that of other targets.

"It's eyeing our laser cannons." Wang Hao whistles, "Pretty good taste."

"This is not strange." Chen Guang pushes his glasses.

"The energy fluctuations during the Heaven's Punishment platform test are like lighthouses in the dark night against the deep space background."

"If the Harvesters judge civilization levels based on energy utilization efficiency, then our creation of interstellar laser weapons might have triggered some kind of... early warning mechanism for them."

Li Yang suddenly says: "So it accelerated, maybe not because it's in a hurry to replenish energy, but in a hurry to confirm."

"Confirm how developed the civilization that suddenly appeared in the solar system with high energy characteristics really is."

This inference made the control room quiet for a few seconds.

"Then are we still intercepting?" Wang Hao asks, "What if it's really here to scout, if we make a move, won't we expose our strength?"

"Exposure is a matter of time anyway." Feng Yan walks to the star map and points his finger at Jupiter's orbit.

"And letting it fly in intact and see all our defense layouts is a greater risk. It's better to solve it at a long distance, at least we can keep some secrets of the Heaven's Punishment system."

He turns around and looks at the team members on the screen:

"The plan remains the same. Five days later, Penglai departs. But the mission objective is adjusted, from trying to capture a complete sample to prioritizing destruction."

"If the capture difficulty is too high, just destroy it directly. We cannot risk letting this thing transmit any data back."

Li Yang nods: "Understood. The mech weapon system needs to be redeployed to strengthen instantaneous lethality."

"Wang Hao, how is your missile retrofit progress?"

"Deep space modified Bifang missiles, one hundred have all been in position." Wang Hao says.

"The range in a vacuum environment is reduced by 20%, but it is equipped with the new inertial-quantum dual-mode guidance developed by open-source, and the hit rate is guaranteed to be over 90%. It's just..."

"Just what?"