Chapter 57: Ion Propulsion
This probe adopted Tom’s most advanced stealth technology: it was not only made as small as possible but also painted black, and its surface was coated with a layer of stealth material to avoid being scanned by radar waves as much as possible.
At the same time, the orbit Tom preset for it did not approach God-Enemy Star; instead, it would pass at high speed about 1 million kilometers away from it.
Thus, once a combat spaceship accelerated to a certain speed and its orbit was suitable, it "threw" the probe out.
Thereafter, it would continue to fly along its current orbit.
During this process, it would constantly maintain contact with the Deep Space communication network built by Tom, continually acquire its relative position information, correct its orbit, and perform orbital changes.
At this moment, its speed had reached approximately 12 kilometers per second.
It would follow a parabolic orbit with a slight arc, taking about 40 days to travel approximately 42 million kilometers, finally reaching its closest point to God-Enemy Star, and observing God-Enemy Star during this process.
This was not the only probe Tom launched.
Behind it, over a hundred more probes were launched one after another. If needed, Tom could launch even more.
While waiting for the probes to reach their destination, Tom did not remain idle; instead, he continued to work tirelessly on war preparations, fully dedicating himself to stockpiling supplies, producing Clones, and manufacturing spaceships.
Time passed quietly.
As the distance closed, this probe gradually gained a clearer observation view than a space telescope.
Thus, this faint point of light gradually revealed a disk-shaped structure, with vague outlines of undulating ravines and a dark red surface.
This was roughly a planet similar to Loshen Star, with a similar formation time and elemental structure, and it was also approximately at the same time—about 4.5 billion years ago—"thrown" out by the gravitational battles of the early Inner Solar System’s large planets, acquiring such a distant orbit from the Sun.
But now was not the time for scientific research.
Tom merely temporarily recorded these data, not expending any effort on analysis.
He was constantly trying to find traces of intelligent life on God-Enemy Star.
When the distance closed to about 10 million kilometers, with 10 days of travel remaining, Tom finally made his first discovery.
Around God-Enemy Star, the probe observed a bright spot.
That bright spot was roughly elongated and was orbiting God-Enemy Star.
It seemed to be a spaceship.
After a simple proportional calculation, Tom obtained an astonishing piece of data.
The length of this spaceship reached at least five kilometers!
A five-kilometer-long spaceship!
Let alone a five-kilometer spaceship, even for his space laboratory, he had only managed to build one over 1,000 meters long with all his effort.
How advanced must the technological capabilities of a civilization capable of building a five-kilometer-long spaceship be?
This even far exceeded Human Civilization at its peak!
Tom’s heart began to sink slowly.
Such an enemy was definitely not something he could contend with.
It was just... Why did they only lead the Monster Birds to him back then, instead of taking action themselves?
After such a long time, why hadn’t they directly attacked?
There must be a reason for this!
Tom did not despair; instead, he continued to carefully control the probe, slowly approaching it.
When the distance narrowed to about 5 million kilometers, Tom roughly made out the appearance of that spaceship.
Its external shape was similar to his space laboratory, both having a main axis with some rings.
However, it was much larger than his space laboratory, and it clearly had its own propulsion, with several massive structures that were obviously thrusters, unlike his space laboratory, which he couldn’t move at all.
It’s just... it seemed somewhat damaged? Was there some missing structure in the middle? Like it had experienced an explosion?
The distance was too great for Tom to see clearly.
However, he did see some other things.
An artificial building complex had clearly appeared on the surface of God-Enemy Star. Those massive buildings had smooth, bright exteriors, interspersed with some lighting, looking as brilliant as jewels.
According to Tom’s estimation, its overall scale was approximately 20 square kilometers.
"The base isn’t that big, though..."
The probe continued to approach, reaching a point only 2 million kilometers away from it.
At this point, Tom could confirm that the spaceship was indeed damaged, and the base of these unknown intelligent life forms on God-Enemy Star was indeed only about 20 square kilometers.
In addition, Tom also saw some smaller bright spots around that enormous spaceship.
During Tom’s observation, these bright spots sometimes orbited the large spaceship, sometimes moved away, and sometimes even landed on the surface, appearing to be smaller spaceships performing missions.
The number of small spaceships was not large, only about 40.
But...
At this moment, they seemed to be performing some special maneuvers.
Tom saw them all take off from the surface and converge around that incredibly massive large spaceship.
After a period of silence, about 30 of these spaceships began a coordinated movement, flying away from God-Enemy Star.
Bright but not dense exhaust plumes appeared at their tails, distinctly different from the methane-oxygen gas plumes ejected by his own spaceship.
Propelled by these exhaust plumes, the speed of these spaceships rapidly increased.
And Tom felt that the shape and color of these exhaust plumes were somewhat familiar.
After half a second of recollection, Tom suddenly remembered that the exhaust plume of the Deep Space Spaceship, which used high-pressure jet technology as its propulsion source, was seven or eight tenths similar in shape to this exhaust plume!
The propulsion principle of the Deep Space Spaceship was that while liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen combustion generated high-temperature gas, the onboard fission reactor would perform a second heating of these high-temperature, high-pressure gases, raising their temperature to tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, causing the pressure to also rise sharply, allowing these gases to be ejected at a speed far exceeding normal combustion, gaining greater thrust while also saving propellant, thus enabling the interstellar voyage to Loshen Star.
But very clearly, the propulsion technology used by these spaceships at this moment was more advanced than that of the Deep Space Spaceship!
This technology seemed to have always existed in human dreams but had never been realized... high-power ion propulsion technology?!
Tom was shocked.
But what shocked Tom even more was the next moment.
He saw that the acceleration direction of those spaceships was precisely Loshen Star, where he was located!
They were coming for him!
The next moment, whether due to some kind of attack or electromagnetic interference, this probe instantly lost contact with Tom.