Two space battleships docked at their respective berths. When the Silver Dragon entered the Space Port, viewers on the internet and in the virtual world erupted in celebration.
"Congratulations to the Black Dragon and Silver Dragon for arriving at port!"
"Our space battleships have started their service!"
"The Space Military Science Academy sends greetings!"
"The Insect Race Gene Research Institute sends greetings!"
"The Mecha Enthusiast Club sends greetings. We plan to establish a Space Battleship Enthusiast Club, and warmly invite members to join!"
After undergoing maintenance, both the Black Dragon and Silver Dragon were found to have no abnormalities and began executing their missions.
The Black Dragon re-covered its hull with light-absorbing nanometer particle coating, transforming the entire battleship into a dark shadow, flying towards Mars.
The Silver Dragon orbited near Blue Star and Moon’s orbit to prevent any Zerg ambushes like before.
"Our next mission is to expand the fleet!" He Xingzhou said to He Hongwei, "Within three years, the number of space reconnaissance ships and escort ships must be increased to at least fifty."
Space battleships are harder to build than Space Air Mother Ships; the special materials alone require considerable effort.
He Xingzhou also continued to invest time in designing the space destroyer.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t improve the power much due to limitations in materials and manufacturing capabilities. He could only expand the hull on the basis of the escort ship and increase the number and power of the weapons to reach destroyer level.
In the past few years, the main engineering projects for Blue Star Civilization were building the Space Elevator and Moon Base, while the next step is to create a space fleet!
At this time, Blue Star was not the farthest distance from Mars but at a central position. After reconnaissance near Blue Star, the Black Dragon began heading towards Mars, reaching Mars orbit in less than five hours.
Light traveling from Blue Star to Mars takes a few minutes, resulting in communication taking over ten minutes in total.
For modern people, this is undoubtedly an intolerable delay.
If it were a Level 1 civilization, there would be no way to solve this problem.
Blue Star can receive stable signals because He Xingzhou previously exchanged for a Star System Space Communication Station and launched space communication satellites with the Order Alliance; otherwise, signals from Mars to Blue Star would easily fluctuate and be lost.
"Report to command, we have arrived at Mars orbit. We are conducting reconnaissance near Mars!" Captain Ji Xingguo reported.
The commanders did not speak, as the sounds they heard and images they saw were from eight minutes prior.
In the footage, the Black Dragon approached Mars’ outer space, beginning reconnaissance around Mars’ outer space.
Previously, human-launched Mars orbit satellites were all destroyed by the Zerg.
So this time, while the Black Dragon conducts reconnaissance, it releases small communication satellites it brought to enhance the Mars reconnaissance system.
"No Zerg detected yet." Mars’ outer space showed no signs of Zerg activity.
"Could it be that the two Zerg that ambushed us didn’t originate from Mars?" Song Jinhong said in surprise.
"That’s even scarier!" Cui Weimin said, "If other planets farther away can send Zerg to ambush us, their strength is stronger than we anticipated!"
He Xingzhou instructed: "Black Dragon, go to Phobos and Deimos to conduct reconnaissance. With so many Planet Dominators on Mars, there must be Zerg going to these two satellites to build a Space Insect Nest!"
About ten minutes later, the message accepting the "command" from Black Dragon finally returned.
Mars has two natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos.
Phobos is 9,370 kilometers from Mars’ center, with an orbital period of 7 hours and 59 minutes, faster than Mars’ rotation. Its size is 13.5 kilometers x 10.8 kilometers x 9.4 kilometers, with an estimated mass of 1.38 x 10^14 kilograms.
Deimos is sized at 15 kilometers x 12.2 kilometers x 11 kilometers, with a mass of 1.8e15 kilograms.
Both satellites have much smaller mass than the Moon, with Deimos being the smallest satellite in the Solar System.
Due to their small mass, both satellites are irregular bodies, not spherical.
Black Dragon first found Deimos, which is farther away from Mars. Its flight path was gradually moving away from Mars, so the Black Dragon deployed Space Drones to approach Deimos.
This giant rock is barren, its surface pockmarked with meteor impact craters, made primarily of carbon-rich rock and some ice.
"Report to command, we have checked Deimos, no Space Insect Nest found!" Two hours later, Ji Xingguo sent the information.
Then they headed to Phobos.
Phobos has more mass and volume than Deimos and is very close to Mars, only 6,000 kilometers from Mars’ surface!
According to its orbital plan, if there are no external interferences, this satellite might crash into Mars fifty million years later, causing a large-scale disaster of satellite impact!
The Black Dragon approached Phobos, releasing Space Mechas and Space Drones to conduct reconnaissance.
The whole view now shifted to Phobos, this small satellite.
Its constitution is similar to that of Deimos, also composed of carbon-rich rock mixed with large ice deposits.
The surface is cratered and also features an eight-kilometer diameter crater and a chain of craters.
During surface sampling, neither the Space Mechas nor space drones detected anything unusual.
It seemed like just an ordinary satellite.
However, when the probe machines reached Phobos’ crater, an anomaly was detected!
High-energy reactions were detected within the crater.