Deceleration

The staff members kept their eyes glued to the light of the tail flame and watched the constantly changing time on the screen. However, the pace of space was not as fast as they had imagined, so after watching for an hour, they returned to their work one by one.

The reason is simple: the deceleration process is not completed all at once.

Human-made Mountain-Class Warship can reach a maximum acceleration of 150G, and it would take them eight hours to decelerate from 15% of the speed of light.

Human-made unmanned probes also take about the same amount of time.

Clearly, the detector was also unable to decelerate within a few minutes.

In fact, most actions in space are like this. Situations like "lightning speed" or "instant arrival" do exist, but they won't happen to Aerospace Civilization.

It's easy to imagine that the universe is so vast that even the shortest distance would take light several years to travel, let alone Aerospace Civilization that hasn't even reached the speed of light.

Therefore, it's quite common for detections to take several hours or even more than ten hours to produce results. Fortunately, this time isn't too long, and AI is monitoring the situation in real time, so humans don't need to worry too much.

"Commander Yue, of the three probes, one has already completed its deceleration. Judging from the optical effects, it is Attitude Adjustment. The next step should be to explore the Aldebaran Star System."

"Continue observation, focusing on the enemy's main fleet." Yue Yuan immediately issued a new instruction. "Notify the Mount Wudang-Class Warship and Mount Emei-Class Warship formations to prepare."

If we can see the probe Attitude Adjustment from our location, it means that the probe has already completed its Attitude Adjustment and is heading in a certain direction. We don't know whether it will go to Aldebaran B, which is closer, or go directly to Aldebaran A.

Humans can determine the location of these three detectors by observing the position of the light source.

Judging from the current situation, these three probes started accelerating as soon as they entered the overall range of Aldebaran, while Yue Yuan started decelerating at such a distance, which means it is heading towards the Red Dwarf Star Aldebaran B.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the personnel in charge of observation reported that the three probes that had completed their deceleration were heading in the same direction as Aldebaran B.

Aldebaran B has a semi-axis length of 559.6 Astronomical Unit. It is the Red Dwarf Star that orbits the Void center of mass along with the Orange Giant Star Aldebaran A.

This distance is much greater than the distance from Pluto to the farthest reaches of the Earth, more than ten times greater.

A simple calculation shows that at this distance, there is a 77.5-hour time difference between what humans see and the actual state of the other probe.

Therefore, the focus of human attention is not on these three probes, but on the probes that came with Aldebaran A.

Of course, from the deceleration time of these three probes, humanity obtained the data it had been longing for for more than four years: the acceleration value of the opposing spacecraft.

125 GB.

This is data obtained by humans from these three probes.

It is very high, but not as high as human warships. Moreover, as a probe, it is most likely an unmanned probe. Therefore, this data can only be used as a reference for the performance of the other civilization's spaceships, and cannot be used to judge the acceleration value of their warships.

Of course, this is related to the overall mass of the probe and the thrust of the engine, but we can make a rough judgment based on the overall picture.

Once the first batch of detectors appears, a second batch will follow.

Humanity did not have to wait long before it saw signs of another batch of probes from the Unknown Civilization slowing down.

This time it's much closer, having completely crossed Aldebaran B's orbit and now belonging to the inner circle of the Aldebaran Binary Star System.

This batch of probes consists of eight in total, and the time it took to decelerate was also 125 Gs. Just like their initial location, these eight probes, after completing their deceleration, headed straight for the Giant Gas Planet where humanity resides.

Presumably, by this time, that Unknown Civilization had already discovered that there were no planets on the side of the Red Dwarf Star.

Seeing this, the humans who had been observing with camouflaged telescopes did not move, but patiently waited for the fleet to slow down.

Humanity's biggest concern now is that the unknown fleet hasn't started to slow down, and those eight probes will rush into the Asteroid Belt and discover the human fleet.

However, it is enough to see the unknown fleet begin to decelerate. People do not need to wait for the fleet to finish decelerating. After all, it has already begun to decelerate, and it is impossible to waste energy to turn around and accelerate again. In addition, there is an information time difference due to distance.

The eight probes that have now completed their acceleration have slowed down, while the fleet continues to advance towards Aldebaran B at 14% of the speed of light. Humanity believes that they will still be able to see the unknown fleet decelerate before the probes enter the Asteroid Belt.

If they couldn't wait, Yue Yuan wouldn't be foolish enough to let those eight probes enter the Asteroid Belt. Instead, he would directly order the Mount Wudang-Class Warship and Mount Emei-Class Warship to rush out and intercept them.

Under no circumstances should the unknown fleet be allowed to discover humanity's plans.

In the images transmitted back from the telescopes, the crew of every Mountain-Class Warship watched nervously as the eight probes drew ever closer.

As can be seen, these eight probes did not fly towards the Asteroid Belt from a single point, but were spread out, which is very consistent with the general situation of probe exploration.

Logically, humans should remain in radio silence during such situations, but thanks to Neutrino Communication, they maintain internal communication and do not need to build relay base stations.

Neutrino Communication can communicate point-to-point regardless of obstacles.

Under normal circumstances, Tier 1 Civilization would not be able to master this kind of communication technology; this is humanity's communication advantage.

Furthermore, since humans are all within the Hill Sphere of Giant Gas Planet and are relatively close to each other, communication delays are not that extreme, with a maximum delay of only 1 minute.

"Slowed down!"

Within a minute, the information that the unknown fleet had begun to slow down was synchronized to the bridges of the ten Mountain-Class Warships.

Yue Yuan's spirits lifted, and he looked at the image that was now displayed on the big screen.

His first observation was of the positions of the eight probes, the closest of which was less than 0.1 Astronomical Unit from the outermost edge of the Asteroid Belt.

The unknown fleet is currently unknown, and it is still 30 Astronomical Unit away from the Giant Gas Planet. This unknown is equivalent to the position of Neptune relative to the Sun in the Solar System.

There is approximately a 4.1-hour time lag between the actual movements and the footage observed by humans.

"It only started to slow down at such a close distance, so it seems that this civilized creature can withstand a pretty high Gravitational Acceleration," Yue Yuan thought to himself as he looked at the parameters displayed on the screen.

He then glanced at the eight probes that were spewing Fusion Thruster toward the Asteroid Belt, turned on his communicator, and immediately gave orders to the Mount Wudang-Class Warship and Mount Emei-Class Warship formations to go out and intercept them.