Chapter 983 A Ship
Putting on the helmet and carefully checking each seat belt, Liu Qingpeng opened the instrument in the cockpit.
After taking a few deep breaths and trying to make his expression look less stiff, he touched the side of the helmet and a light blue prism spread out in front of his eyes. An unfamiliar but ordinary female face emerged in front of his eyes.
“No. 01 Navigator is at your service… are you
nervous?”
Liu Qingpeng forced a smilem, “What do you think?”
“You’d better control your heart rate which will help avoid accidents. In order to save onboard fuel as much as possible, you will complete the acceleration step on the runway.”
“How much g-force?”
“20.1.”
“…Can you apply for a Guinness World Record for me?” Liu Qingpeng forced a smile, but only bitterness was visible on his face.
The navigator said with no sense of humor. “No, this flight is a top-secret mission. Unless when you return, you’re willing to try again.”
“Tell me this when I do get back.”
The navigator used a tone with certainty. “You will.”
You will?
Liu Qingpeng didn’t believe this at all. No one was more familiar with the machine than himself. The flight distance of 30 million kilometers was more than ten times the normal cruising radius of the Stingray A-1, especially for a dangerous flight outside the Earth-Moon system. Even if there was a quantum computer navigating for him, his probability of survival was only ten percent.
He wasn’t most worried about not catching up to Earth. Instead, he was most worried about being unable to slow down due to the lack of fuel and overshooting to become a ghost in the solar system.
All sacrifices, just for a look.
But he didn’t regret it because he accepted the task.
Finally, taking one last breath of the air in Celestial City, he resolutely pressed the takeoff button next to the control.
The robotic arm that pulled the Stingray A-1 slowly moved, grabbed it from the airport, and “stuffed it in” the dark runway.
The lights on the runway were turned on one by one, but they were still unable to illuminate the runway hundreds of kilometers of long. The blue arc began to swim on the edge of the spacecraft. In order to prevent his retinas from falling off, Liu Qingpeng chose to close his eyes.
Whenever he lay on this runway, he felt like a shell and was stuffed into the electromagnetic pulse cannon.
The navigator’s undulating voice rang in his ears.
“Ejection countdown.”
“5”
“4”
“3”
“2”
“1”
“0”
For a moment, every single cell in his body felt like it was being torn apart. Liu Qingpeng gnached his teeth, then used all his perseverance he had ever in his life to resist the tear of the acceleration while silently counting seconds in his heart.
The torment lasted for a whole minute, and the force squeezing on his shoulders suddenly disappeared. When he opened his eyes again, Celestial City had turned into a ring, and he was in the starry sky.
From a distance, the blue arc of the launching port in the center only flashed for a moment, and a black spot was thrown into the vast universe. Compared to the entire Earth, this Stingray was like a boat sailing into the vast sea, small and fragile.
Earth’s civilization, like a newborn child, reached out to the unknown existence for the first time.
Before he had time to reminisce about the gradually disappearing Earth, the voice of the navigator rang out again.
“Check the weapon system.”
“Roger.”
Liu Qingpeng pressed the red button next to the control and two thick long tubes popped under the Stingray A-1, slowly opening the two wings. At the same time, under the command of the navigator, he released the safety and pressed twice.
The glaring white light flashed, and several laser beams that were as thick as a thigh fired into the distance and disappeared into the darkness.
“The weapon system is functional.” Liu Qingpeng reported and closed the safety.
Although his mission was just to take a look, no one could guarantee if the UFO had friendly intentions. The Stingray A-1 was equipped with the most powerful extraterrestrial attack weapon of Celestial Trade, the A-type attack module designed by the Pan Asia Cooperation of the apocalypse.
If the UFO displayed an aggressive behavior after he approached, Celestial Trade permitted him to use his judgment.
After escaping the gravity of the Earth-Moon system, Liu Qingpeng opened the throttle valve of the engine and accelerated to the marker in the field of view. When the speed stabilized above the second cosmic speed, he immediately turned off the throttle and began a long wait.
It would take nearly 2.6 million seconds to catch up with the UFO. Nearly a month turned into days.
It was naturally impossible for such a small spacecraft to have a complete ecological circulatory function. Freshwater, liquid food, and oxygen stored under sufficient power could only be maintained for about 15 days. However, Celestial Trade had specifically modified the spacecraft with a hibernation chamber. For a long time, he would spend his hours sleeping. When approaching the target, Ground Command Center would wake him up.
Of course, it didn’t rule out another possibility.
It was force majeure, such as the sudden acceleration of the target that changed the position, so he passed by the target. If Ground Command Center judged that his remaining fuel couldn’t allow him to catch up with the target, Ground Command Center would wake him up in advance to return…
The temperature in the cockpit began to decrease, and the life maintenance device injected a special cell stabilizer into Liu Qingpeng.
With his hands off the control, his sight began to blur and he eventually fell into darkness.
In Ground Command Center, Jiang Chen watched Stingray A-1 successfully entering the orbit and his clenched fists gradually loosened.
Although the matter was delegated to Kelvin, he had to come to the command center and watch the hero fly into the night on the day when the volunteer set sail.
“It’s over,” Kelvin whispered as he bumped Jiang Chen with his elbow.
Jiang Chen nodded. He didn’t say anything, then took a final look at the Stingray on the holographic screen before walking out.
Although they had yet to be in contact with the UFO, witnessing this incident had a profound impact on the research direction of Celestial Trade. Based on Jiang Chen’s instructions, Kelvin raised the research budget of the interplanetary engine for the first time, and at the same time, he included the “extraterritorial attack method” for the first time in the scientific research sequence… Jiang Chen originally planned to take it slow since the existing science wasn’t enough to support powerful weapon technology.
It was like black gunpowder on a musket.
Without the formula for the gunpower, no matter how the ancient craftsmen studied the weapons, they could only figure out how to sharpen bows and spears, not create a powerful musket.
Before the breakthrough of the magnetic confinement technology in the apocalypse, laser weapons were generally regarded as the most promising method of extraterrestrial attack. The A-type attack module designed by Pan-Asia Cooperation was designed based on this concept. However, after the breakthrough of magnetic confinement technology, the plasma gun that directly emitted high-temperature plasma became a more promising option.
However, now, sharpening the bow and spear was the more urgent option.
Regardless of whether the UFO was hostile or not, Celestial Trade, the representative of the civilization from Earth, would not show any weakness against the unknown force.