"Damn it! What happened?!"
The cargo ship's contact man came out of a room with a satellite phone in hand. Looking at the lackeys rolling across the deck and wailing in agony, he roared in disbelief.
Yet no matter how loudly he shouted, the people around him seemed unable to hear him.
Shielded by the room's walls, the close-range sonic boom had only left his ears ringing and had not caused him any substantial harm.
But those out on the deck, who had taken the sonic boom's shockwave head-on at close range, were not so lucky.
Either their eardrums had ruptured, leaving them in agonizing pain and temporarily deafened, or they had been unable to withstand the blast and had passed out on the spot.
"Second Brother, the cops are on their way. Run now. If they catch you, you know what'll happen."
At that moment, a cold voice came from the satellite phone in the contact man's hand.
"Big Brother, who was it?"
Second Brother, the man handling the contact, shouted with a face full of fury and unwillingness. "Who sold us out?!"
"An uploader."
"An uploader?"
The contact man froze.
What kind of uploader was so damn capable that he had known enough to ruin their plan?
"Forget that. Launch the motorboat and leave. If you don't go now, you won't get another chance."
Big Brother apparently did not want to say more, merely urging the contact man to leave quickly.
After all, this was too humiliating.
Who could have expected their perfectly good plan to be stumbled upon by some uploader flying a plane around in the middle of the night?
And that uploader had been in Penghai City, at least several hundred kilometers away from their landfall point, yet had taken out all of them using nothing but an unarmed drone.
Rumble!
The moment Big Brother finished speaking, two meteor-like trails of exhaust flashed past nearby, and a violent gale suddenly erupted.
Second Brother, standing on the deck, was hit as though a tornado had struck him head-on. His clothes were torn to shreds, and blood sprayed from his ears as he collapsed to the ground.
"Fuck your grandma!"
The intense pain in his ears made Second Brother howl uncontrollably.
But what truly drove him to despair was that the drone had deliberately swept its wing across the cargo ship's mooring lines, cutting the cable securing the motorboat to the ship.
"It still hasn't stopped."
Back in Penghai, Chen Yi had no idea that he had cut off Second Brother's last hope of escape.
Seeing that the cargo ship was still moving on-screen, clearly still under someone's control, Chen Yi gave it some thought, located the bridge, and began climbing the drone.
The drone traced a huge arc through the night sky, rolled inverted and turned its nose around, then broke the sound barrier and flew straight toward the bridge windows at over Mach 5.
The sound barrier shattered.
Layer upon layer of air compressed before the drone's nose, forming curved shockwaves.
Chen Yi tapped a few keys, activated the radar ranging function, then started the preset maneuver control program.
Rumble!
When the drone came within fifty meters of the cargo ship's bridge, it suddenly pitched upward and climbed.
Cobra Maneuver!
At that moment, Chen Yi's drone was like the raised head of a cobra, lunging at the oncoming cargo ship.
Just as the drone was about to collide with the ship, the engine exploded with maximum thrust.
Launching skyward from flat ground.
Brute force solved everything.
Chen Yi's drone shot straight up alongside the cargo ship, less than three meters separating them.
And the air shockwaves that had accumulated during its earlier Mach 5 level flight after breaking the sound barrier—
They were like tangible wind blades, effortlessly ripping open the bridge windows.
"No!"
The captain, who had been controlling the cargo ship at full speed in an attempt to flee, cried out in terror. He hurriedly shut off the power and crouched down.
But before he could fully dodge, the glass exploded into fragments. The sound of the sonic boom flooded in and knocked him unconscious on the spot.
After dealing with one cargo ship's captain, Chen Yi used the same method to take care of the other one.
With no one controlling their power systems, the cargo ships gradually came to a stop.
On the distant horizon, speedboats and maritime patrol vessels with flashing police lights formed a semicircle as they closed in.
"Done."
Watching the armed police board the cargo ships and bring all the drug traffickers under control,
Chen Yi ended the livestream, activated Radar Infrared Detection, and circled the surrounding waters several times to make sure none of the drug traffickers had jumped overboard and escaped.
Only then did he send the drone climbing upward. Under the watchful eyes of the armed police, it flew westward, heading back to Penghai.
Less than ten minutes later,
A streak of light crossed the coastline of Penghai City.
Chen Yi's drone was back.
He guided it in two circles over the park.
Chen Yi lowered the hydraulic landing gear, found a suitable angle, aimed at a straight park road, and began landing.
Screech!
The drone touched down with an ear-piercing scraping sound.
It skidded for more than a hundred meters before coming to a stop.
"Without engine reverse thrust, landing really is a bit of a hassle."
Engine reverse thrust was a braking technique used by Civil Aviation passenger aircraft during landing.
After an airliner landed, the thrust produced by its engines changed from pushing it forward to pushing it backward.
Engine reverse thrust, combined with the wing spoilers, provided most of an airliner's braking force during landing.
As for the frictional resistance of the tires, that only accounted for a small portion.
"Tonight's flight covered nearly 1,500 kilometers, and the fuselage lost around fifty kilograms. Converted to kerosene, that's sixty liters. It's even more fuel-efficient than a BYD 998."
Using a small foldable pallet jack, Chen Yi loaded the drone into the trunk. After driving home and weighing it, he calculated the drone's fuel consumption for the day.
Of course, the reason its fuel consumption was so low
was mainly because the drone was too small, weighing less than one-sixth of a BYD 998.
And Chen Yi had not violently climbed or sprinted into space today, so its fuel consumption had been a little more modest.
"Today's test was a complete success. Other than watching out for retaliation from the drug traffickers, the gains were plentiful."
"As for retaliation, they can worry about escaping tonight's crackdown first. When I have time, I'll build a robot bodyguard and eliminate every future threat."
After putting the drone back in the first-floor storage room, Chen Yi went upstairs to his bedroom on the third floor. He was just about to shower and rest
when a call from a number marked as police came in.
"Hello, are you Mr. Chen, the person who reported tonight's drug deal?"
"That's me. The arrests went smoothly, right?" Chen Yi answered politely and casually asked about the operation.
"Thank you for your assistance tonight, Mr. Chen. The arrests went very smoothly. Not a single person escaped, and the suspects are currently being urgently interrogated."
"That's good."
Chen Yi nodded. "Is there anything else you need my help with?"
"If you are free tomorrow, Mr. Chen, we will ask you for the drone footage and photographs from the tracking operation. Your reporting reward and certificate of honor will also be delivered to you tomorrow."
"How much is the reward?" Chen Yi asked curiously.
"It will definitely be a surprise."
The staff member on the other end of the line spoke in a very friendly, gentle manner.
After all, tonight's maritime operation was enough to complete their entire annual quota, with plenty to spare.
As for various commendations, collective merit, and the like, those had all been secured in one go tonight as well.
Under such circumstances, it was difficult for them to feel anything but goodwill toward Chen Yi, their lucky star.
As for Chen Yi's report that his drone could go supersonic?
Come on, his drone could already fly into space. What did supersonic speed even count for?
Someone else would handle that matter. It was not their responsibility.
"A surprise?"
"It can't be more than a million, can it?"
After chatting for a few more moments, Chen Yi shook his head and hung up.
If not for the consciousness waves, he could have simply made an anonymous report and offered a little covert assistance.
As for the reward for reporting it, he truly had not taken it to heart.
Before you continue