The core intelligence was malfunctioning. It had issued orders forbidding anyone from going to the surface of the homeworld to investigate the "visitor from beyond the heavens," but its orders never said what to do if that theoretically crashed "visitor" suddenly took flight again—or even flew right into the face of Zenith Seat.
Since the core intelligence had no instructions for that, the autonomous response programs aboard Zenith Seat kicked in. When Nolan brazenly accelerated toward the giant Space Station in the distance, the countless antenna-like attachments on its surface immediately reacted. They rotated to aim at the intruder rapidly approaching the Space Station, while shrill alarms echoed throughout Zenith Seat. One fighter launch port after another opened, and aircraft resembling twin-hulled long shuttles slid out of Zenith Seat's silver-white walls in succession. Their plasma engines ignited, and they pounced ferociously on the enemy in space.
As the interception force entered the fray, the defense turrets floating in the space around Zenith Seat also unfolded their transformation mechanisms. The parallel electromagnetic accelerator rails rapidly locked onto the Giant Turtle Rock Platform under the control of high-precision fire-control computers. The charging capacitor banks beneath the rails glowed dark red one cell at a time, heralding the violent barrage about to erupt from those enormous cannons.
"Hostile targets detected. Quantity: seventy-five. Increasing... 102 craft, still increasing... Small warships entering the field..." Nolan stood beside the holographic projector in the center of the bridge, streams of data forming a meteor-shower-like curtain of light in her eyes. "Tsk, looks like we're getting quite a lot of 'special treatment.'"
Hao Ren smiled faintly. "After opposing the Firstborn for several thousand years, even a rabbit would have grown fangs and claws."
N-4 and N-6 watched the terrifying scene in space with tense expressions. They saw countless