Chapter 52: Warship
But that wasn’t all that shocked Li Qingsong.
Further analysis revealed that the primary components of these gases were, surprisingly, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, hydrogen sulfide, and chlorofluorocarbons.
These gases all had one thing in common: they were all closely related to industrial activity!
Li Qingsong knew that Ceres had also developed an extremely thin atmosphere. This was due to his own long-term, large-scale industrial activities and the massive amounts of industrial exhaust he had been releasing into the environment.
The main components of Ceres’s atmosphere were these same gases!
He was the one who had emitted these gases on Ceres. So, who had emitted the gases on that dwarf planet?
A very reasonable guess surfaced in Li Qingsong’s mind.
On that dwarf planet, a mere forty million-plus kilometers away, there also existed some form of intelligent life—he couldn’t yet determine if they were human or another species—and they were also engaged in large-scale industrial activities!
He actually had a neighbor!
Since a neighbor existed, then who was it that had detonated the infrared bomb near Ceres, luring the flock of strange birds over and causing him such immense trouble?
It could only be them!
So, why would they do that? Were they... connected to the mysterious disappearance of Human Civilization?
A strong sense of crisis rose in Li Qingsong’s heart.
In any case, their act of launching an infrared bomb—a clear attempt to use a third party to eliminate him—proved they were foes, not friends.
’I have to launch a Detector over there to figure out their situation.’
Li Qingsong’s thoughts raced. ’But while forty million kilometers isn’t that far, accurately launching a Detector there is still a bit beyond my current capabilities.’
The radius of that dwarf planet was about 800 kilometers.
Launching a Detector across forty million kilometers would require a level of precision comparable to hitting a mosquito from over ten kilometers away.
’Even if my Detector could carry more fuel and constantly adjust its course in space, I’d still need adequate remote sensing, spatial positioning, and long-range communication technologies to support it.’
’At the moment, I’m basically at square one with all those technologies.’
’Next, I have to go all-in on developing these technologies. Besides that, there’s something even more important: building Warships!
Whether they’re outdated or not, I must first go all out to build the most advanced Warships I can at this stage—the more, the better! No matter what, I need at least some ability to protect myself!
Fortunately, the previous Kaitian-1 model spacecraft has already allowed me to accumulate a great deal of spacecraft manufacturing technology, and the space laboratory is constantly churning out new tech. Building Warships at this stage is completely feasible for me.
My only hope now is that this neighbor of mine gives me some time and doesn’t come looking for trouble right away...’
Li Qingsong thought to himself and decisively made a decision.
This wasn’t the right time to go all out developing technology. Scientific research was too resource- and manpower-intensive; he couldn’t afford it at this stage.
Therefore, after mobilizing the brainpower of tens of thousands of Clones to complete the design of his first-generation Warship in a short time, Li Qingsong kept just over thirty thousand Clones to continue tackling key scientific research projects, such as remote sensing, Deep Space communications, and Deep Space positioning technologies.
All the remaining research Clones were reassigned, thrown headfirst into production.
He had to produce a large number of Warships in a short amount of time!
Numerous factories and bases immediately plunged into a state of frenzied activity.
The design of this first-generation Warship was based on the Kaitian-1 model spacecraft, but with extensive technical innovations and many new modules added.
The most important of these, obviously, was the weapons system.
What’s a Warship without weapons?
In addition, the Radar System was also crucial. After all, in space, the radar is a Warship’s eyes.
Beyond that, the attitude control system, power system, communications system, and so on were also of vital importance.
Inside a massive factory building, countless robotic arms, controlled by chips, moved with nimble precision, installing a vast number of components from other factories one by one into the Warship’s empty hull.
For the construction of the very first Warship of this first generation, Li Qingsong specifically assigned 1,000 Clones to do nothing but think.
Blueprints and actual manufacturing are two different things. During the real manufacturing process, numerous previously undiscovered problems would come to light.
So whenever a new problem arose, these 1,000 Clones would inspect it on-site, brainstorm a solution, and immediately modify the blueprints and adjust the architecture.
The revised plans would be instantly synchronized with the thousand-plus factories involved in the Warship’s supply chain. Consequently, nearly every single component would be modified before being sent to the final assembly workshop to once again face the test of real-world manufacturing.
Problems were found and corrected, the modified parts were shipped back, and the cycle repeated.
After about half a month of hectic work, full of trial and error and at least several hundred modifications—including more than a dozen major overhauls to the entire structure—the first vessel of this first-generation Warship was finally built.
Only someone like Li Qingsong could achieve such high efficiency, completing so many processes in just half a month.
For a normal intelligent civilization, completing all this would have been impossible in less than ten or twenty years.
Now, propelled by the violent combustion of methane and oxygen, this Warship shot into space at a speed far exceeding that of a cargo vessel.
Its shape was still hemispherical, but unlike the cargo ships, it was covered with many additional facilities.
First were two freely pivoting machine guns.
They were driven by chemical propellant and had a maximum rate of fire of about 2,000 rounds per minute, with a muzzle velocity of one kilometer per second.
This already exceeded the first cosmic velocity of Ceres. This meant that even if fired from the surface, the bullets could enter orbit around Ceres and would never fall back down.
In the ammunition bay, Li Qingsong had equipped it with a staggering 400,000 rounds. At 10 grams per bullet, the bullets alone weighed 4 metric tons.
It was also equipped with two autocannons that could fire shells with their own internal propellant.
Each shell weighed about 15 kilograms. It carried 200 of them, for a total of 3 metric tons.
Besides the machine guns and autocannons, it also had eight Missile launch racks on its underside, capable of carrying eight of Li Qingsong’s self-designed, first-generation guided Missiles. Each Missile weighed 600 kilograms, adding up to 4.8 metric tons.
Excluding everything else, the weapons payload of this Warship alone reached 11.8 metric tons!
If its "fuel tank" was full, it could hold a total of 50 metric tons of liquid oxygen and methane. At that point, its total mass would reach 120 metric tons.
And now, such a behemoth had arrived in space.