An anomaly appeared in a gateway world.
It instantly jolted the Earth Caste researchers aboard the space station awake.
They could not help rising from the floor, staring in horror at the terrifying ray transmitted from deep space.
"That is..."
"That's a lance strike!"
"Or a concentrated plasma beam strike!!!"
"But how could it reach that far?"
These Earth Caste researchers refused to believe that what they were seeing was an enemy weapon.
Even a lance strike could not possibly have a range exceeding the radius of a star system. Most lance strikes were set at a maximum distance of three planetary orbits, while naval engagements usually took place within one or two planetary orbits.
Taking Terra—or T'au—as a reference point.
With Neptune's orbit as the boundary, the Solar System had a diameter of sixty astronomical units, or nine billion kilometers—roughly one light-year. Even with the Oort Cloud, the cometary orbit, as the boundary, a hundred thousand astronomical units from the sun, its diameter was only two light-years.
As for the Tyranids' breadth, it might extend to ten million light-years. That was a figure beyond all estimation.
But even so.
A strike from such a distance was enough to leave the Tau Empire's engineers utterly stunned.
"Have you found the source?"
"No."
"But by rough estimate, the strike range has already exceeded twenty light-years."
"Twenty light-years?" An Earth Caste researcher's eyes widened. "How can you be sure?"
"..."
"Because a planetary world ahead of us saw the same beam."
A strike range of twenty light-years was not the real issue.
The problem was that it could still hit a target in a precise straight line from twenty light-years away.
Who knew whether the enemy might use electromagnetic rails, or some other gravitational trajectory with acceleration capabilities, to accelerate a neutron?