The Arrowfish only had four missiles, and firing them all at once meant disarming the ship. Ouzhanpeng was instantly reduced to a toothless tiger. Unless the aliens had been kicked in the head by a donkey and decided to abandon all their advantages to fight him one-on-one, the Arrowfish could only be beaten.
With its own propulsion alone, the Arrowfish had no chance of escaping the alien pursuit. The ship's situation was extremely perilous.
Ouzhanpeng knew this very well and had prepared for any changes. Yet, a day passed with no movement; two days passed with no action; three days passed with still no abnormalities!
This was becoming rather strange. Ouzhanpeng couldn't quite figure it out. Could the aliens be so magnanimous that they had no intention of retaliating?
That was simply impossible, wasn't it?
But Ouzhanpeng quickly realized the true reason: it wasn't that the aliens didn't want to retaliate, but rather that they were concerned for the Arrowfish's safety and deliberately maintained their flight altitude, keeping a distance of over a million kilometers from Callisto, the highest moon.
The ice-based alien fighter seemed to be an emergency creation. Its speed was very limited, and it would take at least five to seven days to even get close to the Arrowfish's tail.
There was ample time for the Arrowfish to fly to a higher orbit; a few tens of thousands of kilometers would suffice.
Just imagine: the aliens, after all their hardship in reaching this place, could only look up at the high-flying Arrowfish. No matter how much they gnashed their teeth in anger, they couldn't even harm a single strand of the ship's cold hair.
Undoubtedly, the aliens were currently at their most critical juncture. Every bit of resource had to be used effectively, and there were no surplus resources to build armaments.
Ouzhanpeng suddenly felt that if he were to attack their base fully armed, he might be able to flatten the alien base single-handedly!
However, it was merely a thought. The Arrowfish was carrying life-saving supplies intended for the Number One Ship. The lives of dozens of people rested on this one vessel. No matter how unreliable Ouzhanpeng was, he had to prioritize the ship's safety rather than taking reckless risks based on mere speculation.
Ouzhanpeng knew what was more important.
He suddenly realized that the current situation was truly delicate. Both sides desperately wanted to destroy the other, but both were unable to act due to various objective reasons.
Furthermore, both sides desperately, desperately, desperately needed time.
The aliens needed to develop from scratch, and Ouzhanpeng needed to await support from the Number One and Number Two Ships.
Thinking about it this way, they actually had quite a few things in common.
And so, Ouzhanpeng and the aliens occupying the moons entered a stalemate, cautiously maintaining a fragile balance.
From this point on, Ouzhanpeng's most important task each day was to observe the aliens' movements.
It had to be said that the brains of these "brain fish" were indeed quite capable. They didn't just randomly deploy modules; instead, they concentrated several modules on the front center of the moons. According to human convention, the side facing the planet was usually considered the front, and the side facing away from the planet was naturally the back.
As a result, most of the time, Ouzhanpeng's view was blocked by the moons. Only when the Arrowfish happened to fly to the side of a moon could he get a brief observation opportunity.
This was just a minor inconvenience. What was more frustrating was the immense distance. The ship lacked suitable observation equipment. Every time a viewing window opened, he had to maintain his observational posture motionlessly, trying his best to activate his super vision.
To be honest, the efficiency of doing this was terrifyingly low. If he succeeded once out of ten times, Ouzhanpeng would be happy for days.
However, although this ability was closely related to the aliens, it wasn't as exaggerated as one might imagine. At distances of hundreds of millions of kilometers, even when his eyesight was magnified to its limit, he could only vaguely make out where the modules were.
It was just a tiny dot, difficult to discern. To see clearly? A pipe dream!
Fortunately, although the Arrowfish lacked high-magnification optical observation equipment, it did possess standard-magnification equipment.
Generally, optical observation equipment is used in conjunction with electronic equipment. Optics handle the observation, while electronics process the images.
But processed images were just pixels on a screen, offering no help to his super vision.
Helplessly, Ouzhanpeng had to detach the telescope from the observation equipment and attach it to his eyes, observing the target through the face shield.
Now he could finally see the outlines of the modules clearly. He discovered that the terrain of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto was relatively simple, posing little interference to observation. However, the modules on Io were actually blocked by several hills. He could only get a brief observation window when the moon just emerged from behind Jupiter.
But under these circumstances, the straight-line distance between the ship and Io was a full two and a half million kilometers. The optical equipment in Ouzhanpeng's hands once again became useless.
Useless or not, Ouzhanpeng didn't care. Based on the data in his memory and repeated on-site observations, he meticulously calculated the timing of each observation window, not missing any opportunity. Every successful observation was meticulously recorded.
However, the observation conditions were too rudimentary. No matter how hard Ouzhanpeng tried, he couldn't discover anything.
He always felt that the aliens' purpose was far from simple, but he couldn't find any evidence.
Days turned into weeks, and in the blink of an eye, it had been over a month. Changes finally appeared near the modules on the three moons, with some alien structures of unknown purpose gradually taking shape.
They were very blurry, only vaguely discernible.
Only Io remained motionless, or rather, it was unobservable.
During observation breaks, Ouzhanpeng racked his brain, repeatedly pondering how to neutralize the alien base at the minimal cost. However, whether it was long-range bombardment or close-quarters assault, something felt lacking.
In the blink of an eye, it had been over two months. In early January 2067, the dust-covered Expedition One finally arrived at Jupiter.
Upon arrival, Expedition One's vertical altitude exceeded 28 million kilometers, with an altitude difference of 25 million kilometers from the Arrowfish. The communication delay was nearly a minute and a half.
There was no help for it; Jupiter was too massive, and its attached celestial bodies were too numerous. In the entire solar system, only here would such extreme phenomena occur. In the Earth-Moon system, it would only take a little over a second.
However, the communication delay couldn't dampen the enthusiasm of their reunion. After exchanging greetings from a distance, Ouzhanpeng immediately informed the Number One Ship about the situation with the aliens.
Expedition One possessed advanced observation equipment and had maintained continuous observation during its voyage. It was already aware that the aliens had established a foothold on the moons, but in terms of details, it was ultimately not as thorough as Ouzhanpeng's understanding.
The Number One Ship not only obtained firsthand data but also received the meticulously prepared combat plan from Ouzhanpeng.
Luo Tu treated it like a treasure and immediately convened a strategy meeting. First, he briefed them on the alien situation, then presented the combat plan for discussion, emphasizing that the plan originated from Ouzhanpeng.
He did this for two reasons: first, to clearly state the plan's origin, demonstrating his stance of not infringing or occupying, and second, to facilitate shifting responsibility should the plan change.