Bai Zhongqi looked up at the sky, seemingly crossing millions of kilometers of space to see the arrogant reconnaissance ship mocking the Star Alliance's defense system.
Under Maelus's command, the Teizene reconnaissance ship, after dodging direct hits from two laser cannons, performed an action like an insect spreading its wings. A pair of "wings," made up of countless translucent elliptical arrays, seemed to tremble faintly in the sunlight.
Bai Zhongqi recognized it immediately because Iridium Star had also developed the same technology—these were solar sails, used for interstellar travel when speed was not a priority, propelling by means of light pressure. In theory, as long as there was stellar light, this propulsion method could allow a spacecraft to travel indefinitely with little or no energy supply.
However, the speed attained by solar sails was incredibly slow compared to traditional rocket technology. In fact, the people of Iridium Star would not even consider equipping their orbital satellites with solar sails, as it was more practical to simply install a small reactor in those compact orbital structures than to dabble in solar energy.
Yet, this battleship, made by Borke Civilization, was unfolding its solar sails not to adopt a slow, surrendered progression but was swiftly maneuvering and dodging missiles by constantly adjusting the attitude of its solar sails in space.
At this moment, Bai Zhongqi felt an urge to curse. Despite being endowed with the "Golden Finger," the unique Chancellor of the Star Alliance, he faced civilizations of even lower levels possessing some trump cards. It wasn't clear how the Teizene got their hands on a Borke Civilization reconnaissance ship, but evidently, this ship was equipped with several technologies unknown to the people of Iridium Star.
Despite everything, Bai Zhongqi did not erupt in rage.
He lightly tapped on the table with his finger and said to Xu Lanzhou on the screen, "My Commander, it seems we are being underestimated by our adversaries."
Xu Lanzhou slightly bowed his head and said resolutely, "Then they will pay the price."
Bai Zhongqi smiled and said no more.
When Xu Lanzhou, stationed at Changxiu Base, looked up again, his eyes shone with an extremely sharp light.
"Calculate their trajectory and establish a ballistic blockade."
No matter how impressive this Borke vessel was, equipped with technologies not yet possessed by Iridium Star, it ultimately faced the heavily armed Terran defense system, incapable of leaping tens of thousands of kilometers with its swift maneuvers.
At this moment, the two Yufu Class Battlecruisers orbiting, Yufu and the succeeding vessel, as well as the Bojiang battleship, had disconnected from Changxiu Port and directly aligned their bows towards the spacecraft.
During these moments aboard the ship, the Teizene captain, Maelus, finally began to fear. His mission was one of strategic reconnaissance, primarily to verify the authenticity of the intelligence Harass had sent back. When he actually arrived at Earth, he was thrilled on one hand by the immense value of the Danlu Interstellar Cloud, but on the other hand, he cursed Harass for not providing detailed intelligence about Earth's defense system to the Teizene Empire.
The defense system surrounding Earth was truly an iron fortress!
The area around this planet, once cluttered with satellites and space debris from the old era, had been cleared up by Bai Zhongqi a long time ago. Now, it was densely packed with orbital installations, including a large number of orbital factories and other planet utility facilities, and the amount of military installations present was staggering.
On Earth's orbit, Bai Zhongqi had deployed as many as 100,000 various weapons, established a total of 108 hangar defense platforms, and had stationed more than 20,000 unmanned interstellar fighters.
Maelus wasn't initially treated to this "full hospitality" because the overall Earth orbit defense system was still calculating the spaceship's trajectory and combat mode and searching for ways to attack.
Dozens of orbital laser cannons from the Yufu, the Subsequent, and the Bojiang, with six large-caliber lasers firing simultaneously, blocked the spaceship's path perfectly with dozens of beams of light, trapping it within the laser fire.
And just when it was delayed by less than a second, a terrifying barrage from Gauss railguns rained down, accompanied by as many as a hundred tracking interstellar missiles.
Maelus's scales rose from his skin. This situation was a certain death. He had originally thought this would not be a difficult reconnaissance mission, but eventually, even this Borke reconnaissance ship, crucial to the Teizene civilization, couldn't be saved.
This two-stage warp speed reconnaissance ship, although it was a discarded model that had served the Borke for over three hundred years, was still immensely powerful for the Teizene. After acquiring the reconnaissance ship, the Teizene wanted to break through the multiple technologies it contained, but were completely clueless. Naturally, the Teizene's own achievements in the field of science were quite limited, and much of their technology was practically appropriated from other civilizations.
Scientists like Harass were extremely rare among the Teizene.
"At least, I have already reported the situation of Earth's military strength to the home planet. When the main fleet comes, they will certainly avenge me," Maelus thought. His attitude towards death was extremely calm, a common outlook among the death-despising Teizene.
Using the immediacy of quantum communications, this Borke-made Teizene reconnaissance ship had, in just a few minutes, synchronized all the data it could gather to Teizene Star in the Box Star Territory.
Not all the intelligence was transmitted back. After Maelus's warning signal was sent, a barrage of shells and missiles struck the seemingly fragile reconnaissance ship. The ship's feeble energy shield was immediately shattered, and no armor on the ship could withstand such ferocious firepower.
In Bai Zhongqi's eyes, he saw the spaceship, with its wings spread, being hit by countless shells under the blockade of dozens of lasers. The ship's hull was immediately damaged in multiple places.
This ship, riddled with explosions and large holes, was doomed. Most of its equipment was destroyed, there were heavy casualties among the crew, and Maelus himself was not spared, being overturned by the blast wave of a bomb, flames engulfing his body as he let out a terrible scream, but no one would sympathize with them.
Because they were the aggressors.
At this moment, Maelus somewhat regretted not arriving here in a second-stage warp bubble, accompanied by a group of formidable Teizene warships. At least facing such powerful enemies, they would have had a fighting chance.