Chapter 527: The Enemy's Lair_1

The closer Yue Tong approached the giant planet, the more he felt its immensity.

According to radar detection, this planet was as large as Saturn, yet it was a rocky planet—an unprecedentedly large terrestrial planet.

Moreover, it was surrounded by many celestial bodies the size of dwarf planets and asteroids.

These celestial bodies, like stars surrounding the moon, followed the giant star system as it charged forward.

An enemy's large size did not necessarily mean strength, but the imposing presence of a large foe could be intimidating.

Now Yue Tong felt just that. As he neared the massive body, he felt a certain reverence for it, despite it being the enemy.

The distant battle raged on. With the lessons learned from the lost warships, the Charge Fleet's vessels kept the giant body's fragments at bay.

The fragments, differing in size, clearly aimed for the warships. The battle became extremely intense, the likes of which hadn't been seen even in their previous engagements with the Trisolarans.

Yue Tong's warship drew ever closer to the giant planet. He no longer had time to pay attention to the distant battlefield.

While dodging the small celestial bodies around the giant planet, they commanded the main and secondary guns of the warship to fire at the giant planet.

Before crashing, they planned to launch all the dark matter they had.

Q-355 began its descent into the atmosphere. Intense friction caused explosions at the damaged sections of the spaceship, which Galaxy III cordoned off sequentially with air-tight doors.

The remaining power of the spaceship allowed them to land, though not as smoothly as usual, but without the need for a forced landing.

The surface of the giant planet was rugged with strange rocks. Q-355 was like an icebreaker, "plowing through rocks" on its way.

In the violent shaking, Q-355 finally stopped its forward momentum. The outer hull of the entire spaceship was now a sorry sight. The Solar System State's most advanced warship resembled a pile of scrap metal.

Yue Tong was shaken up badly. He wiped his face and said, "Detonate the remaining dark matter, immediately, immediately attempt to evacuate in the escape pods!"

This was the enemy's lair, and a single fragment could take Q-355 out of their control. They had to run as soon as possible.

But the escape pods were essentially designed for survival in space, and though equipped with propulsion engines, the thrust was simply inadequate to escape the giant planet's gravity; otherwise, Yue Tong and his companions would have fled long ago.

After setting up the detonation system, Yue Tong and the others boarded three escape pods and left the warship.

However, the enemy's response was much slower than Yue Tong had expected. As they abandoned ship, Galaxy III was still intact, suffering no invasion.

It wasn't until they had traveled a distance that Yue Tong noticed and said, "We didn't come here for a day trip to the enemy's lair, why are we flying so low?"

According to the altitude provided by Galaxy III, they were only about one hundred meters above ground.

Galaxy III replied, "The gravity of this planet is about 120 times that of Earth. This is the maximum thrust we have."

Yue Tong and the others looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

Fortunately, humanity's gravity field devices and anti-gravity devices were unrivaled and highly developed. Within human ships, one could only feel 1G of gravity.

Otherwise, everyone would now be experiencing a weight of 120 kilograms. Those not in excellent physical condition would not even be able to stand.

In such a place, one could not last long before suffering internal bleeding or dying from heart and lung failure, as both muscles and internal organs struggled under the weight of a 240-pound anvil, forcefully pulling downward.

The real issue was the heart; it would struggle to pump blood to the head, while the blood that reached the lower limbs found it hard to flow back.

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In the escape pod, after a brief silence, Yue Tong finally said, "After we're far enough away, we'll immediately detonate the antimatter on the spaceship."

They were destined not to return, but no one was too disheartened. From the moment they enlisted, they had been psychologically prepared.

"Let's not just wait around!" Yue Tong said again. "Galaxy III, open the external cameras and use the existing conditions to detect the outside environment."

When abandoning the ship, Yue Tong had ordered several robots to bring the portable real-time communication system to the escape pod.

Although it was called "portable," it was over one meter tall, over half a meter wide, and weighed more than three hundred kilograms.

With this behemoth in tow, the already cramped escape pod became even more constricted.

Therefore, Yue Tong's escape pod only had him, three staff officers, and two weapon system operators. The other escape pods had more than a dozen people in them.

With this device, Yue Tong could stay in touch with the commanders of the countercharge mission and report back the intelligence from the giant planet.

The external cameras of the escape pod started to work. The lighting outside was better than expected; they could even make out the outlines of nearby mountain peaks.

As they moved forward, the lighting improved even further. Soon they realized that the light on this planet came from ubiquitous lava flows.

This lava was different from any Yue Tong had seen before; it was whitish in color and emitted an exceptionally bright light.

Yet, this world was filled with the desolate scenes universally found in the universe, with bizarrely shaped rocks as far as the eye could see.

Half a minute later, Galaxy III projected the data it had measured onto the display screen.

Yue Tong glanced at it and asked with some surprise, "The surface temperature of this planet is actually 12 degrees Celsius?"

On Earth, which is also in outer space, the surface temperature is generally above minus one hundred degrees.

In such frigid conditions, 12 degrees Celsius would be considered a greenhouse.

Looking at the data of the gases, Yue Tong stroked his chin in silence for a long time because the air on this planet contained nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases. With such warmth, there was a strong possibility of life.

Was this a first-season lifeform, or an Orphan Planet?

While Yue Tong was lost in thought, he caught something moving on a distant mountain peak from the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it was a mistake, but upon looking closely, it was indeed moving!

"Enemy sighted!" Yue Tong shouted. "Evade immediately!"

The escape pod only had a small-caliber laser cannon, which probably wouldn't be enough even to tickle the enemy.

Yet, the enemy's reaction speed once again astonished Yue Tong. If an enemy had landed on Earth, and Earth still had the capacity to resist, they would have charged at them long before.

As the three escape pods began to turn to avoid the enemy, Galaxy III reported, "The ship has received an intelligent electronic signal."

This once again exceeded Yue Tong's expectations. "What does that mean? We're at their doorstep, and they still want to debate with us?"

The communications officer speculated, "Could it be that the enemy wants to have a dialogue with us?"

After all, it was the Trisolarans who had instigated this battle. If they could have a talk with them, it wouldn't be out of the question.

Yue Tong realized this was not something he could solve by himself. "Report to the commander quickly!"

Thus, half a minute later, Jiang Yu, who was far away on the Blue Maiden Star, made direct contact with Yue Tong.

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