Chapter 271

"It's here."

Chen Guang's voice sounded in the Longyin Control Center.

I saw on the big screen, the irregular polyhedron hovering quietly beside the huge gas giant.

The storm vortex on Jupiter's surface slowly rotated behind it, like a magnificent cosmic scroll.

Feng Yan stared at the screen for three seconds, then pressed the communication button: "Penglai, depart early. Leave now."

On the bridge, Li Yang was already sitting in the pilot seat, the seat belt automatically buckled:

"Attention all, emergency departure procedure initiated. Engine preheating, all non-essential systems powered off, transfer all energy to the thrusters."

"Captain Li, Zhao Gong said the gravity generator core will take another four hours to—" pilot Xiao Liu's voice came.

"Too late." Li Yang interrupted, "Depart naked. Assemble remotely when the armor plates arrive."

At the tail of the Penglai aerospace carrier, twelve Xuanming-fusion engines ignited simultaneously, and the blue plasma tail flame drew a long light track in lunar orbit.

The hull vibrated slightly, and then began to accelerate.

Wang Hao bit an energy bar in front of the weapon console: "Old Li, are we... running naked to see the aliens?"

"Pretty much." Li Yang stared at the navigation chart, "But it's better than letting it stare at Earth for seven days. Chen Guang, what is the probe doing?"

"Static state, surface energy readings stable." Chen Guang pulled up real-time data.

"But it is scanning the ice thickness, deuterium-tritium content, and ocean depth of Europa. Typical resource assessment mode."

"So it really wants to 'refuel'?"

"High probability. But..." Chen Guang paused.

"Torch Dragon-3 monitored that the purple patterns on its surface are still slowly charging. The jump cooling period might be shorter than expected, if we let it fill up with energy and jump again, it's hard to say where it will appear next."

Feng Yan's voice joined the channel: "Li Yang, how fast can you reach Jupiter's orbit?"

"Full speed navigation, four and a half days." Li Yang calculated quickly, "But the engine will burn out if it runs at full power continuously, actually it needs five days."

"How long does it take for the probe to replenish energy?"

Keyboard tapping sounds came from Chen Guang's side: "Calculated based on Europa's ice layer deuterium-tritium concentration and its energy absorption efficiency... three days. If it adopts violent extraction mode, it might be shortened to two days."

Time difference: two days.

The probe will be fully charged two days earlier than Penglai.

"We can't let it stay in Jupiter's orbit for three days." Feng Yan made up his mind, "Wang Hao, is your missile range enough to hit from halfway?"

"Enough, but hitting a moving target from 600 million kilometers away?" Wang Hao smiled bitterly.

"Brother Feng, this difficulty is equivalent to standing in Kyoto and hitting a mosquito in Sakura Province, and it has to be a mosquito that is flying."

"Then get closer and hit." Li Yang said, "Penglai full speed, mechs detach in advance. Jingshi-3S has independent thrusters, can reach the combat zone ten hours earlier than the mothership."

"You leading the team yourself?"

"Yeah." Li Yang checked the mech parameters, "Twelve mechs, all remotely controlled. People stay on Penglai, mechs go up to fight. Even if they are all destroyed, it won't hurt the pilots."

This plan made the channel quiet for a few seconds.

Remote control of mechs in deep space combat has a signal delay of 0.8 seconds. For a battlefield that changes rapidly, 0.8 seconds is enough to die several times.

"Too risky." Chen Guang said.

"But worth it." Li Yang pulled up the mech's self-destruct program interface.

"If the situation is not right, I can let the mechs self-destruct near the probe. The Lunar Soil-7 armor plates are doped with antimatter catalysts, and it will be enough to give it a hard time if they explode."

Wang Hao whistled: "Old Li, when did you become so ruthless?"

"Learned from you." Li Yang rarely made a joke, "Die happily, right?"

Penglai maintained a cruise speed of 0.1 times the speed of light, which is already the limit speed of human creations. The hull was slightly red due to continuous high-speed navigation, and the cooling system was running at full power.

Li Yang stared at the increasingly large Jupiter ahead, the huge gas giant had turned from a small yellow dot in the starry sky into a behemoth occupying half of the porthole.

The red spot storm on Jupiter's surface was clearly visible, like an eye that was always open.

"Distance to Jupiter's orbit is 200,000 kilometers." The navigator reported, "Probe position locked, still static above Europa."

On the big screen, the probe was like a metal beetle lying on the ice, with more than a dozen thin tentacles extending deep into Europa's ice shell.

The tentacles emitted a faint blue light, the ice layer melted and vaporized at a speed visible to the naked eye, and then was sucked into the probe.

"It's extracting deuterium-tritium." Chen Guang's voice came.

"The efficiency is amazing, it can process the annual energy consumption equivalent to a small city every hour. At this speed... it will be full in twenty-two hours."

"What about us?" Feng Yan asks.

"The mech team can enter the attack range in four hours." Li Yang was already sitting in the remote control cockpit, wearing a neural link helmet, "Penglai maintains distance, providing signal relay 300,000 kilometers away."

"How is the pilot's status?"

"All twelve are in position, adrenaline injection completed, mental excitement index normal." Li Yang paused.

"It's just that the smiley face drawn by Chief Engineer Wang Hao is a bit blurry on the monitoring screen, he is complaining."

Wang Hao's protest came from the channel: "That's art! Art requires high-definition transmission!"

"Alright, prepare to launch." Feng Yan gave final instructions, "Li Yang, remember the mission objective: destruction first, capture second. But if the cost is too high..."

"I understand."

The cockpit door closed slowly.

The panoramic screen in front of Li Yang lit up, showing the external view of the twelve Jingshi-3S mechs.

They were fixed on the launch rack of Penglai, the hand-painted smiley faces on their chests looking particularly eerie under Jupiter's reflected light.

"Countdown ten minutes." The system prompted.

Li Yang took a deep breath and connected to the neural interface.

Instantly, he felt himself "become" the mech.

The fifteen-meter-high steel body, the vibration of the vector thrusters on the back, the energy flow of the arm laser cannon, all sensory data poured directly into his brain.

This feeling was wonderful, like the feeling of wearing the Iron Wolf exoskeleton for the first time three years ago, but magnified a hundred times.

"Neural synchronization rate: 97%, excellent." The system prompted.

The synchronization rates of other pilots were also reported one after another, with the lowest being 92%.

This team was selected from the global Dragon Cavalry Guards, and everyone had at least five hundred hours of mech combat experience.

Although this combat was in deep space 600 million kilometers away.

"Countdown thirty seconds."

Li Yang moved the mechanical fingers of the mech, and the joints made a slight hydraulic sound.

Jupiter was ahead, huge enough to be suffocating.

The probe was above Europa, like a black beetle lying on the ice.

"Ten seconds."

"Five."

"Three, two, one—"

"Launch!"