Chapter 57: Ion Propulsion
This Detector incorporated Li Qingsong’s most advanced stealth technology. Not only was it as small as possible, but it was also painted black and coated with a layer of stealth material to minimize its chances of being detected by radar.
At the same time, the trajectory Li Qingsong set for it didn’t go near Enemy God Star. Instead, it was programmed to perform a high-speed flyby at a distance of about one million kilometers.
Thus, after a combat ship accelerated to the required speed and entered the correct orbit, it "tossed" the Detector out.
From then on, it would continue flying along its current trajectory.
During this process, it would remain in constant contact with the Deep Space communications network built by Li Qingsong, perpetually receiving relative position data to perform course corrections and orbital maneuvers.
Its speed had already reached approximately 12 kilometers per second.
It would follow a wide parabolic trajectory, taking about 40 days to travel approximately 42 million kilometers, ultimately reaching its closest point to Enemy God Star and observing it throughout the journey.
This wasn’t the only Detector Li Qingsong had launched.
Over a hundred more Detectors were launched successively after it. If needed, Li Qingsong could launch even more at any time.
While waiting for the Detectors to reach their destination, Li Qingsong didn’t remain idle. He continued his war preparations at full capacity, stockpiling resources, producing Clones, and manufacturing spaceships.
Time passed quietly.
As the distance closed, the Detector gradually gained a clearer field of view than any space telescope.
The faint point of light gradually resolved into a disc-like shape, revealing the vague outlines of undulating ravines and a dark-red surface.
It was a planetoid roughly similar to Ceres, with a comparable formation time and elemental composition. It had also been "flung out" around the same period—about 4.5 billion years ago—by the gravitational wars of the large planets in the early Inner Solar System, settling into an orbit so far from the Sun.
But this was no time for scientific research.
Li Qingsong simply recorded the data for now, dedicating no energy to analyzing it.
His focus remained entirely on searching for traces of intelligent life on Enemy God Star.
When the distance had closed to about 10 million kilometers, with 10 days of flight remaining, Li Qingsong finally made his first discovery.
In the vicinity of Enemy God Star, the Detector observed a bright spot.
The bright spot was roughly oblong and was orbiting Enemy God Star.
It appeared to be a spaceship.
After a quick calculation based on its scale, Li Qingsong arrived at an astonishing figure.
The spaceship was at least five kilometers long!
A five-kilometer-long spaceship!
Forget a five-kilometer ship—even his space laboratory, which he’d poured all his effort into, was only just over 1,000 meters long.
’What level of advanced technology must a civilization possess to build a five-kilometer-long spaceship?’
That far surpassed even Human Civilization at its peak!
Li Qingsong’s heart began to sink.
’An enemy like this... is definitely not something I can fight.’
’But... why did they just lead those strange birds to me back then instead of acting themselves?’
’After all this time, why haven’t they attacked me directly?’
’There has to be a reason!’
Li Qingsong didn’t despair. Instead, he continued to carefully pilot the Detector, slowly moving it closer.
When the distance closed to about 5 million kilometers, Li Qingsong could roughly make out the spaceship’s appearance.
Its shape was similar to his own space laboratory: a central axis with several rings.
However, it was far larger than his laboratory. It also clearly had its own propulsion, with several massive structures that were obviously Thrust Devices—unlike the laboratory, which couldn’t move on its own at all.
’But... does it look damaged? It seems to be missing some sections in the middle. As if it went through an explosion?’
The distance was too great for Li Qingsong to see clearly.
However, he did see something else.
A complex of artificial structures was clearly visible on the surface of Enemy God Star. The massive buildings had smooth, bright exteriors interspersed with lights, making them glitter like jewels.
Li Qingsong estimated its total area to be around 20 square kilometers.
’The base isn’t that large...’
The Detector continued its approach, closing to a distance of just 2 million kilometers.
At this point, Li Qingsong could confirm that the spaceship was indeed damaged and that the base belonging to these unknown intelligent beings on Enemy God Star was, in fact, only about 20 square kilometers.
In addition, Li Qingsong also spotted some smaller points of light around the massive spaceship.
During his observation, these points of light would sometimes swarm around the large ship, sometimes move away from it, and sometimes descend to the surface. They seemed to be smaller ships carrying out missions.
There weren’t many of the smaller ships—only about 40 in total.
But...
At this moment, they seemed to be performing some kind of special maneuver.
Li Qingsong watched as they all lifted off from the surface and gathered around the enormous mothership.
After a period of stillness, about 30 of the ships began a coordinated maneuver, flying away from Enemy God Star.
Bright, but not dense, plumes appeared from their tails, completely different from the gaseous exhaust plumes produced by his own ships burning methane and oxygen.
Propelled by these plumes, the ships rapidly accelerated.
And there was something familiar to Li Qingsong about the shape and color of those plumes.
After half a second of thought, Li Qingsong suddenly recalled something: the exhaust plumes of the Deep Space Spaceship, which used high-pressure gas jet technology for propulsion, were 70% to 80% similar in shape to these!
The Deep Space Spaceship’s propulsion system worked by burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to generate high-temperature gas. An onboard fission reactor then superheated this high-pressure gas to tens of thousands of degrees Celsius. The resulting pressure spike expelled the gas at speeds far beyond normal combustion. This method provided greater thrust while conserving reaction mass, making the interstellar voyage to Ceres possible.
But it was obvious that the propulsion technology used by these ships was even more advanced than that of the Deep Space Spaceship!
’Could this technology be... the high-thrust ion propulsion that humanity had always dreamed of but never achieved?!’
Li Qingsong was shocked.
But what shocked Li Qingsong even more was what happened next.
He saw that the ships were accelerating in the direction of Ceres—his location!
They were coming for him!
The next moment, the Detector’s connection to Li Qingsong was severed—whether from some kind of attack or electromagnetic interference, he couldn’t know.