Breaking Through the Defense Line

Brown Earth Star was a terrestrial planet with a blackish-brown rocky crust. It was slightly smaller than Moblado's homeworld and lay on the fourth orbit of the local star system, about 1.65 astronomical units from the sun here. In this small star system, it was already part of the cold zone, but thanks to its dense atmosphere, greenhouse gases of unknown origin, and the unceasing magma activity beneath nearly a quarter of its crust, Brown Earth Star had an unexpectedly hot environment. Though such conditions remained habitable for ordinary Carbon-Based Lifeforms in the harshness of space, most Moblado people still preferred to live on their competitively brutal but at least pleasantly temperate homeworld and "New Homeland." Brown Earth Star's permanent population was less than sixty million, a large portion of whom were miners and mine owners. The rest were mostly military personnel, service workers, and ascetics from the Azure Church. These sparse residents were scattered around several major mining belts, where the abundant deposits of metals and rare elements had fostered residential districts that could barely be called cities. From high orbit, the lights of those settlements flickered over Brown Earth Star's dark surface like occasional orange-red sparks within a dying ember.

This was from a Moblado travel journal Milia had dug up. I seriously doubted anyone with a functioning brain would come to this godforsaken place as a tourist. To me, this wretched planet had the same strategic value as the Shanxi Small Coal Mine—though today, the Empire Fleet was going to brave hell and high water for this little coal pit.

Most of what the travel journal said was correct, such as the mining planet's position and temperature. But it got one thing wrong: Brown Earth Star was not dark all year round. In reality, its surface was