One year later, on the Starship.
Ou Zhanpeng stared intently at the holographic screen before him, his brow furrowed into a knot.
On the screen, the energy curve of the spacetime bubble was steadily dropping to its nadir, hovering at a low point for half a month.
The cabin door opened, and Ling Xiao hurried in. "Just received news from Earth. The fleet is ready, and the populace has been evacuated. How are things on your end?"
Ou Zhanpeng pointed to the screen. "It could collapse at any moment. We don't have much time left... What's the situation outside?"
"There have been significant changes," Ling Xiao said, transmitting several photos. The explosions had ended, the wormhole was fully open, and the dark ships were about to enter.
Ou Zhanpeng clearly remembered seeing the lingering afterglow of the explosions just a few days prior.
"Are we still waiting?" Ling Xiao asked.
"With such obvious changes, there's no need," Ou Zhanpeng said, taking a deep breath and looking up abruptly. "Bridge, are we ready?"
"Ready!" Zeng Qiao replied.
A sharp, cold glint shot from Ou Zhanpeng's eyes. "All hands, to your stations! Combat alert!"
Piercing sirens erupted simultaneously in the Starship and the Yunhe, making eardrums ache and hearts tremble.
On the Yunhe, Xu Qing gave a low command, "Launch missiles, full speed!"
One tactical missile was loaded, the railgun fired at full power, followed by the second, then the third, expending all twenty-odd tactical missiles in one go. Xu Qing immediately sent a confirmation signal to Ou Zhanpeng.
"Ten-second countdown!" Ou Zhanpeng's voice echoed through the bridge. "Nine, eight, seven... three, two, one!"
As the last word left his lips, his finger had already moved, actively shutting down the precarious spacetime bubble. The boundary membrane that had protected Earth for countless years lost its support, flickered, and vanished.
Rather than wait for the spacetime bubble to disappear naturally, he chose to close it himself, taking control of the situation!
The static battlefield immediately came alive. The dark ship that had opened the wormhole plunged into it, its forward half disappearing into the vortex.
In the Yunhe, Xu Qing's gaze was as sharp as a blade. She suddenly let out a fierce roar, "Fire!"
The progress bar instantly cleared. The particle disintegration cannon, having been charged for a long time, unleashed a silent roar. The dark ship, on the verge of entering the wormhole, quietly disintegrated.
Xu Qing had no time to observe the effect of the shot. She turned and rushed towards the bridge. "All hands, abandon ship!"
Everyone followed Xu Qing, evacuating the Yunhe in the shortest possible time. Several inconspicuous shuttlecraft quickly moved away.
At the same time, in Earth's outer space.
The United Fleet stood in formation, everyone's expressions tense, every wide-eyed gaze fixed on the starry sky.
Suddenly, a wormhole opened.
The wormhole was the command. At this moment, the commanders of every fleet roared, issuing a series of orders. Over a hundred human warships drew their swords and nocked their arrows, waiting for the enemy ships to appear.
The next second, the black bow of a ship emerged from the wormhole. All eyes focused here, everyone's heart in their throats.
More of the hull passed through the wormhole. The command to fire was already on the tip of their tongues, and battle was imminent.
But in the next second, everyone suddenly realized the dark ship was broken. Only half its hull had passed through the wormhole. The rear half had vanished without a trace, and only the front half tumbled in the air.
"Do not fire!"
"Capture them alive!"
"Move closer!"
Various orders echoed through different channels. Only Dan Qiuyu revealed a cold smile. "Fire, destroy the target!"
Instantly, ten thousand cannons fired. The allied warships couldn't get close, only watching as the Xia Kingdom's fleet destroyed the dark ship with concentrated firepower.
Without shield protection, even a dark ship couldn't withstand the human fleet's barrage.
Many ants could bite an elephant to death; this principle also applied on the battlefield at this moment.
The commanders of the other allied fleets were indignant but dared not accuse Dan Qiuyu of his orders.
Dan Qiuyu was unapologetic. He directly retorted on the public channel, "The great war is about to begin. Instead of thinking about how to destroy enemy ships and achieve victory, you're all preoccupied with capturing alien warships. I warn you, put away those petty calculations, or don't blame me for turning ruthless!"
The commanders of the other fleets cursed him inwardly, greeting his female relatives with a highly primitive animalistic behavior. However, from beginning to end, there was only silence on the radio.
The edge of the solar system, the battlefield.
The black and white factions were locked in fierce combat. Every warship fired with all its might, beams crisscrossing towards enemy vessels. Flashing shields and flying beams filled everyone's vision. Every flash of energy collision illuminated the dark void.
The Yunhe's shields were fully activated, but any firepower, from either side, that hit it even slightly would result in destruction, and a graze meant death.
The missiles launched earlier had disappeared without a ripple, vanishing silently.
Fortunately, they had escaped danger. Neither the black nor the white factions had the time to pay attention to this sudden, small shrimp, and Xu Qing and the others successfully retreated to the Starship.
The base also had its shields fully activated. Ou Zhanpeng monitored the battlefield while keeping an eye on the base's situation.
Before closing the spacetime bubble, almost all energy had been used to maintain it. Now, without the burden of the spacetime bubble, the Starship's reserve energy surged. The shields, which had been very weak moments ago, strengthened visibly. Systems that were previously unusable were also restored with sufficient energy supply.
Ou Zhanpeng's fingers flew across the console, rapidly activating the weapon systems.
He had initially thought these systems were non-operational due to aging equipment over a long period. It was only now that he realized that wasn't the case at all.
On the battlefield, a white ship exploded violently. Simultaneously, a black ship was heavily damaged, both sides suffering losses.
However, neither side showed any sign of retreating, and the battle intensified.
At this moment, the Starship was fully capable of intervening in the battle, but Ou Zhanpeng did not act rashly, choosing instead to remain hidden and observe the conflict.
He had initially thought the white ships belonged to the Starship, but he had recently learned that wasn't the case at all. Space pirates were not good people, and the white ships might not be either.
A holographic projection suddenly lit up, followed by a string of unintelligible sounds from an unknown source.
It was a language Ou Zhanpeng had never heard before. He could sense the urgency in the speaker's tone but couldn't understand what they were saying.
The translation software on the terminal self-activated, analyzed for a long time, and then displayed a line of text: Unknown Language!
"Is that about enough?" Ling Xiao said. "If we delay any longer, it will be too obvious."
Ou Zhanpeng nodded and made a slight gesture. The Starship showed no change, but a dark ship on the battlefield suddenly exploded, debris scattering everywhere.
The white ships had already held the advantage, and the arrival of fresh troops immediately gave the white side an overwhelming lead. The remaining white ships advanced with full force, engaging the black ships in close-quarters combat.
Several warships clashed, their beams almost obscuring each other, the flashes of light blinding.
The black ships' shields glowed brighter and brighter. The moment the shields shattered, countless cannons hit the black ships, blowing up the remaining ones one by one.
The white ships moved too quickly. Before Ou Zhanpeng could find an opportunity to fire a second shot, the battle was over.
If possible, he would have preferred to see both sides, black and white, mutually destroy each other, but that was impossible. Between two evils, he could only choose the lesser.
Xu Qing and the others rushed to the main control room. Upon seeing the situation on the battlefield, they were stunned. "It's over already?"
"It's over," Ou Zhanpeng said.
There were still four white ships. Three of them opened wormholes and left after the battle ended, leaving only one to approach the Starship.
The center of the cabin, which had originally shown the vicinity of the Starship, now displayed images of the white ship gradually approaching and stopping at a certain distance.
The Starship never lowered its shields, a clear sign of defense and distrust. The holographic projection, representing communication, lit up again, emitting a series of strange sounds.
However, in the next second, the Starship suddenly vanished, replaced by a projection of Earth's outer space.
Three wormholes opened simultaneously, and three white ships emerged from them.
Ou Zhanpeng's pupils contracted violently. He waved his hand to enlarge the image. Facing the unfamiliar warships, the United Fleet maintained restraint with great fortitude, the two sides confronting each other from a distance without contact.
But the tense atmosphere was incredibly clear, even from 50 astronomical units away.
"What do they want?" Ling Xiao's expression turned extremely sour.
He knew the white ships were not allied with the space pirates, but their eagerness to appear above Earth immediately after the battle was perplexing.
Ou Zhanpeng remained silent, but his furrowed brow revealed his emotions.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Xu Qing said.
"There's no need for premonition," Ou Zhanpeng decided. A cannon port suddenly opened on the surface of the Starship, and a beam of high-energy particles swept across the front of the white ship, a clear warning.
The white ship, wisely, retreated and vanished through a wormhole.
Ling Xiao's expression became even more grim, as that white ship also reappeared outside Earth.
Ou Zhanpeng was no better off. His heart was filled with anxiety. He waved his hand to display a holographic screen with a slowly crawling progress bar. "Almost there, just a little more!"
In Earth's outer space, the fleet composed of over a hundred Earth warships was confronting the white ships.
Although human warships had also undergone several generations of improvements, and their current numbers and quality had reached their historical peak, the memory of the power of alien warships made everyone extremely uneasy.
Not being afraid to die did not mean not being uneasy or worried!
Dan Qiuyu's expression was chillingly cold. "First the broken ship, then the dark ships, and now the white ships. Earth has become an alien marketplace. Can any alien just come and go as they please?"
Other Blue Star companions might not have had so many thoughts, but the scars left by the dark old society in the hearts of the Chinese people had not healed even to this day. Seeing the rampant alien warships, Dan Qiuyu couldn't help but recall the Western warships that roamed the Yangtze River, an uncontrollable surge of anger filling his chest.
The white ships did not initiate an attack, which was a relief, but no one dared to relax completely. Within moments, the commanders of other fleets called in, inquiring about the appropriate attitude to adopt towards the aliens in the white ships.
Hostility? Indifference? Or welcome?
Dan Qiuyu's answer was simple: "If they don't move, I won't move!"
Thanks to the intelligence from the Starship, he knew where these white ships came from. His intuition told him that the white ships' purpose was different from that of the space pirates, but the aliens on the white ships must also have some demands.
No one knew exactly what the aliens wanted, but everyone was a seasoned veteran. No one believed the aliens had traveled such a long distance to Earth out of pure altruism.
The two sides remained in a stalemate. Suddenly, an external signal was intercepted, and an unfamiliar language echoed among the human warships.
No one understood the language, and the radio was silent.
Perhaps angered by the human silence, a white ship suddenly opened fire. A particle beam grazed the outer edge of the human fleet. The seven human warships in that direction had no chance to retaliate, exploding and sinking simultaneously.
Dan Qiuyu's heart sank abruptly. "Fire!"
The enemy had revealed its fangs. Since that was the case, they had to strike back!
Before the words were even spoken, all the warships belonging to the Xia Kingdom opened fire. Furthermore, a particle beam from the Moon struck the white ship that had just fired, destroying it instantly.
The remaining white ships, enraged by the human counterattack, immediately went on a rampage. Flying beams crisscrossed the void, and in a blink of an eye, a third of the human warships were destroyed.
Before long, the remaining two-thirds would also meet their demise.
Dan Qiuyu almost gnashed his teeth to the point of breaking them. He had long anticipated this outcome, but facing a powerful enemy, what choice did he have? Humble submission and begging?
His knees were stiff, and he couldn't kneel. He would rather die standing than live kneeling.
Just as the white ships were about to commence another round of bombardment, the progress bar before Ou Zhanpeng finally reached its end. He immediately slammed his hand onto the star chart.
In Earth's outer space, another wormhole opened, and a heavy warship with an ancient design emerged, precisely blocking the path between the human fleet and the white ships.
Onboard, Ou Zhanpeng's face was grim.
The white ships immediately retreated, no longer concerned with firing.
All the humans who witnessed this scene shared the same thought: Where did this warship come from?
Ou Zhanpeng received another communication from a white ship. He couldn't understand it, nor did he want to. He simply roared two words from his throat: "Die!"
The heavy warship unleashed its firepower. One white ship exploded on the spot. The remaining two white ships immediately returned fire. The particle beams hit, and the heavy warship's outer shields flashed, easily blocking them.
The heavy warship continued to fire, heavily damaging one white ship. The last one no longer dared to linger, opening a wormhole to escape.
But as soon as the wormhole formed, it was dispersed by a cannon shot from the heavy warship, which also pierced the enemy vessel. With a blinding flash, the last white ship turned into space debris.
Powerful, overbearing, and invincible – this was the first impression this heavy warship left on all of humanity.
Facing the white ships with no ability to resist, the remaining human warships dared not even breathe heavily in the presence of the Starship, for fear of displeasing this powerful vessel – this warship had destroyed the white ships and was clearly an ally, not an enemy!
Ou Zhanpeng had expected a hard battle, but he never imagined that eliminating the white ships would be so easy, feeling almost like a dream.
He activated the communication equipment and switched to the command channel, saying with a smile, "Director Dan, it's me. We're back!"
Dan Qiuyu's mouth gaped open, his eyes bulging, like a toad clutched tightly by a mischievous child. "Ou Zhanpeng?"