Preparation

"My head's killing me. I have to design something again..."

Huo Gu grumbled to himself in considerable gloom. Even so, he did not stop designing. He was only doing this to vent the tension in his heart so he could regain his calm.

Huo Gu did not want to be nervous, but he could not help it. In his previous life, he had only been a scholar specializing in archaeological excavations. Forget designing rockets—he had never even touched a real one!

"I regret it so much..."

"Why didn't I memorize the blueprints of the International Space Center back then? They were right there on the table when I was chatting with Old Li..."

Huo Gu looked at the cell cluster placed at the bottom of the water, curled up into a lump of flesh. In his sea of thought, there was only blankness and a dense, overwhelming regret.

One had to know that this cell cluster was an important tool for striking the enemy. It had to be guaranteed foolproof, and it had to succeed in one attempt.

If it failed, the enemy would inevitably raise its guard, and at the same time, it would launch an even more frenzied counterattack.

Huo Gu was not afraid of any counterattack. At worst, he would be beaten back into a microorganism again. In any case, the planet was huge. The enemy could not possibly take a microscope and search for him all over the ocean, could it?

It was just that once he failed, it would be very hard to succeed the next time. The attack relied, to a large extent, on the relationship of the enemy being in the open while he was in the dark, as well as the suddenness of the first strike.

"What a pain. Might as well just fire it out with a cannon..."

"..."

Huo Gu suddenly snapped back to himself. He began to carefully ponder the feasibility of those careless words he had just spoken.

"...fire it out... fire..."

"Right! I really am a genius!"

Compared with a complicated rocket, the structure of a cannon shell could be said to be simple to the extreme. Nor did it need any highly advanced or complex shell structure. As long as the internal charge could be detonated, it could be launched by relying on the explosion.

"Since there's neither a person nor precision instruments inside, why do I need to design it with reference to a rocket's structure? I can completely treat it like a cannon shell and blast it straight into the planet's outer space in the form of an explosion..."

"The launch barrel should preferably be tilted at forty-five degrees. That way, it can enter the planet's low orbit more easily..."

"Mm-hmm, that's it. The cell cluster can be designed entirely in the style of a cannon shell. The shell's hard outer casing can use titanium alloy, and the cannon barrel can be the same..."

"...Then would it be better to add something like rifling?"

Huo Gu worked hard to recall what he knew about barrel rifling...

"Rifling is to let the launched object remain in a rotating state during the launch process. This can stabilize the trajectory... Looking at it that way, this is necessary. Although it will reduce the initial velocity somewhat, in terms of cost-effectiveness, it's still worth it."

The method of launching the cell cluster into outer space was decided, but Huo Gu did not feel relaxed because of it. There were still other problems waiting for him to solve.

"Radiation in space, alpha, beta, gamma rays... I don't know many radiation-proof materials. There's only lead, but in that case, the weight..."

After pondering for a while, Huo Gu, who did not have any particularly good substitute material, could only choose to accept it helplessly.

"...Forget it. I'll use lead. I'll make a sandwich layer between the titanium alloy eggshells and specifically seal the lead inside."

An increase in meaningless weight meant a decrease in meaningful weight. To put it another way, the amount of other materials that could be carried would be reduced.

But there was no helping it. The cells could not adapt to an environment full of radiation everywhere. This was directly related to how little radiation they had received. During the Hadean Eon, the cloud cover was actually thick and dense. Although it could not be said that there was no radiation from the sun, compared with Earth, it was truly pitifully little. Precisely because of this lack of exposure, the cells did not have very good adaptability in this aspect and were extremely prone to lesions.

After solving the radiation-proofing problem, next came the problem of the vacuum environment of space.

Although it could not be said that there was completely no gas, the density of these gases was quite small—so small that it could almost be treated as nonexistent. Roughly every cubic meter would contain only one atom.

The strength of titanium alloy was absolutely sufficient. Although he had not actually tested it in space, Huo Gu had used seafloor water pressure to conduct tests and doubled the strength requirements from the test data. Acting on the principle of caution first, Huo Gu did not use titanium alloy alone. He also added a carbon nanofiber mesh into the sandwich layer to improve the overall deformation capacity.

However, even with this reinforcement, there was still one part of the cell cluster that Huo Gu could not put his mind at ease about no matter what—the eyes.

The exterior of the eyes was covered with thick tempered glass. Inside the glass were several sandwich layers filled with nitric acid solution. The nitrogen dioxide in the nitric acid solution could effectively absorb all ultraviolet rays and part of the visible light, thereby preventing excessive ultraviolet radiation from harming the eyes.

Next was the ability to move in outer space. In a zero-gravity environment, trying to change one's position and reach the position one envisioned was an extremely troublesome matter. As for this, Huo Gu had no good solution either. He could only design six propulsion ports on the cell cluster, each facing a different direction, and leave fine angle adjustments to gas propulsion.

As for propellant, Huo Gu decided to use liquid hydrogen, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Making them was not very difficult. First, he would produce oxygen and hydrogen, then use artificial water pressure to forcibly compress them into liquid, then load them into pre-made gas cylinders constructed from titanium alloy.

There was also the temperature problem. Space was close to absolute zero. That place was extremely cold. Although vacuum could block the medium for heat dissipation, temperature would still continue to be released in the form of thermal radiation.

"In other words, I'll also have to add an insulating layer inside the 'cannon shell'..."

So the problems were over?

No. There was still one crucial problem: weapons that could be used in space.

A pair of fang limbs with titanium alloy as their skeletons was installed by Huo Gu into the cell cluster. The fang limbs were not simple claws, but science-fiction-flavored Monomolecular Blades, constrained by electromagnetic force produced from bioelectric currents.

For Huo Gu, who could operate on the molecular scale, manufacturing this kind of weapon was not difficult. It was the equivalent of an ordinary person building a house out of red bricks.

The advantages of the Monomolecular Blade were obvious, and its drawbacks were also extremely obvious. Namely, it required the consumption of a huge amount of energy.

However, even if all the cell cluster's bioelectric current was exhausted, it could only maintain this Monomolecular Blade state for four seconds. Moreover, it could not be used in an atmospheric environment, because charged particles would adhere to the surface of the Monomolecular Blade due to the magnetism of the electric field, making it gradually become blunt.

If the enemy was a large mechanical body, the fang limbs could break open the opponent's armor and let the cell cluster sneak inside to destroy it.

The other weapon was a live-ammunition weapon, using metallic sodium as the loaded charge. A special sandwich structure ensured that the sodium and water could react fully, and metallic chromium served as the bullet head. That it could easily pierce a ten-centimeter-thick steel plate was the result after testing.

The worst-case scenario was that neither weapon could destroy the opponent. Then this cell cluster that entered outer space would serve as a booster engine and push the satellite in outer space down to the surface. This was Plan B.

Although the cell cluster was a biological tool, throwing it away after using it still did not fit Huo Gu's values. Therefore, Plan B would only be activated when Plan A could not take effect.