Chapter Summaries

Han Yang received Malendin’s Medal of Outstanding Figure for his contributions to the Pluto Development Strategy, gaining protection from political opponents. In a private meeting with Malendin, Han Yang asked him to show leniency toward his comrade Wang Qing, offering to give up all his rewards and honors.

• Malendin announced that the first phase of the Pluto Development Strategy had been completed and that future development could proceed more slowly.
• Han Yang joined the crowd in celebrating Malendin, who recognized him and praised his work.
• Malendin presented Han Yang with the Medal of Outstanding Figure in the Pluto Development Strategy.
• After the ceremony, Han Yang met Malendin privately and asked him to show leniency toward Wang Qing, offering to surrender every reward and honor he had received.

Han Yang pleaded with Governor Malendin to show leniency toward Wang Qing, and Wang Qing was released from prison a month later. As the Light Society welcomed him back, Han Yang urged him to take a post in the Asteroid Belt, where he could contribute to human revival.

• Han Yang used his private audience with Governor Malendin to ask for leniency for Wang Qing, and Malendin agreed to recommend reconsideration to the investigative team.
• Han Yang told the Light Society about his appeal, and members shared their admiration while arranging further efforts to help Wang Qing.
• One month later, Han Yang, Wei Liang, He Jinrong, and other Light Society members welcomed Wang Qing as he left Capital City First Prison.
• Wang Qing thanked Han Yang, and Han Yang reminded him that they were comrades.
• Han Yang suggested Wang Qing become director of the Asteroid Belt Guard Hall, and Wang Qing agreed to submit a report to Captain Wolf.

Han Yang planned to expand the Resistance Army into space by placing Wang Qing in the Asteroid Belt, while his research team achieved practical nuclear fusion and used it to upgrade the Newborn Ship. The ship escaped Makemake’s gravity and headed into space with greatly improved acceleration and endurance.

• Han Yang expected Captain Wolf to approve Wang Qing’s request to serve in the Asteroid Belt, where Han Yang intended to use him as cover while developing Interstellar Pirate forces.
• Han Yang oversaw the 103,382nd nuclear fusion ignition test at Jade God Star Base, and the reactor achieved a Q value of 16 with tritium self-sufficiency.
• Han Yang declared that the fusion device had become practical after his industrial system produced it without imported components.
• Han Yang replaced the Newborn Ship’s natural gas power system with fusion power and improved its Ion Thruster.
• The Newborn Ship accelerated from orbit to escape velocity in one day, broke free of Makemake’s gravity, and headed into space.

Han Yang completed a massive electromagnetic accelerator on Makemake and tested its ability to launch a steel projectile at high speed. Meanwhile, Wang Qing departed for the Asteroid Belt, and Chu Feng received a long new message from the Survival Society’s mysterious supporter.

• Han Yang oversaw construction of a fusion power station and a 700-meter electromagnetic accelerator at the Jade God Star Base.
• Han Yang fired a one-kilogram steel ball at roughly ten kilometers per second, blasting a crater into a cliff, and identified miniaturization and improved efficiency as his next goals.
• Han Yang and Wei Liang saw Wang Qing off as he left Earth for his post in the Asteroid Belt.
• A soldier told Chu Feng that Old A had sent new information along with another batch of aid, and Chu Feng rose to read the message.

After receiving one billion from Old A and instructions to acquire civilian spacecraft, Chu Feng concluded that Old A wanted the Survival Society to expand into space. He persuaded the organization's skeptical senior leaders that the current political and economic shift offered a rare chance to establish a hidden base and develop space forces.

• Chu Feng read Old A's message and learned that he was to covertly buy small civilian spacecraft and train personnel to maintain and modify them.
• Chu Feng inferred that Old A wanted the Survival Society to expand beyond the planet and called an urgent meeting of its senior leaders.
• The senior leaders objected that worsening Guard Team crackdowns and declining popular support made expansion into space too risky.
• Chu Feng explained that the Ita's temporary concessions and economic recovery would increase civilian spacecraft traffic, giving the Survival Society cover to enter space.
• Chu Feng argued that the Society had to establish a concealed base and develop its own space forces before the Ita tightened its policies again.

Chu Feng urged the Survival Society’s leaders to seize their strategic opportunity by reconnecting with the people and preparing to move from land into space. The meeting ended with concrete plans to win public and elite support, study spacecraft, and strengthen concealment as Wang Qing prepared to take office.

• Chu Feng told the Survival Society’s leaders that they had to overcome their difficulties and seize the opportunity created by Old A.
• Chu Feng said the Resistance Army could regain the people’s support by exposing the Ita’s intentions and explaining that their concessions would not last.
• The leaders acknowledged that they had lost sight of the Resistance Army’s popular foundation and agreed to follow Chu Feng’s direction.
• Chu Feng told procurement staff to avoid Revival Mall when possible because Han Yang had accepted a medal from Malentin, though large purchases there could not be avoided.
• Chu Feng and the leaders formed outreach teams for the slums, sought support from sympathetic engineers, scientists, and officials, and assigned members to study spacecraft.
• The leaders organized tasks for self-protection and concealment ahead of Wang Qing’s appointment, then dispersed to carry them out.

After Wang Qing’s purges, Chu Feng rebuilt the Survival Society, developed its own sources of funding, and bought three small spacecraft. He chose a hidden asteroid for a secret base, which he named Planet A Base, as the organization prepared to become an interstellar force.

• Wang Qing launched sweeping purges across the Asteroid Belt, arresting tens of thousands of Resistance Army members and inflicting heavy losses on the Survival Society, which survived by going underground.
• After the purges temporarily subsided, Chu Feng expanded the Survival Society, trained recruits, developed covert commercial interests, and acquired a spacecraft repair yard.
• Chu Feng spent 1.2 billion to buy three used private spacecraft and showed them to the organization’s senior members, declaring that the Survival Society would become Interstellar Pirates before eventually building an Interstellar Fleet.
• Chu Feng led the three spacecraft on a search for a hidden base and selected an unregistered asteroid with a deep canyon suitable for concealing a spacecraft modification yard.
• Chu Feng named the asteroid Planet A and its base Planet A Base, anticipating that Old A’s coming aid would let the Survival Society arm and modify its spacecraft.

Han Yang rapidly iterated electromagnetic cannon technology at Jade God Star Base, replacing equipment whenever he developed an improved design. After two years, he tested ten new cannons that fired projectiles at extraordinary speed, and their assault on an icy hill continued.

• Han Yang dismantled the first electromagnetic accelerator and other outdated facilities as he applied each technological breakthrough across the base.
• Han Yang built successive generations of electromagnetic accelerators, prioritizing electromagnetic cannon research and supplying it with robots and computing power.
• Han Yang spent two years developing a new electromagnetic cannon that was only five meters long and forty centimeters in diameter.
• Han Yang brought ten new cannons to the firing range and ordered them to fire 1.2-gram projectiles at two hundred kilometers per second.
• The ten cannons battered an icy hill with a storm of projectiles, sending shattered rock, ice, dust, and vapor into the air as the firing continued.

Han Yang tested a powerful Electromagnetic Cannon, then developed Interstellar Missiles and several other weapons to make up for their limited power and performance. By the time the Hope No. 2 Spaceship returned to Makemake, his factories had produced tens of thousands of tons of weapons.

• Han Yang used more than seven thousand Electromagnetic Cannon rounds to level a small hill, but judged his weapon primitive compared with the Ita Fleet's cannons.
• Han Yang began mass-producing Electromagnetic Cannons and developed an Electromagnetic Cannon designed to launch Interstellar Missiles.
• Han Yang tested an Interstellar Missile against a fast, evasive target, and it tracked and destroyed the target after about ten minutes.
• Han Yang developed Electromagnetic Bombs, Interstellar Mines, graphite bombs, and other weapons, then started full-scale production.
• By the time the Hope No. 2 Spaceship reached Makemake again, Han Yang had manufactured tens of thousands of tons of weapons.

Chu Feng received a shipment of weapons from Old A, converted two spacecraft into warships, and trained the Survival Society’s first space force. He launched its first ambush against an unarmed Nether Development Department cargo vessel in the Asteroid Belt.

• Chu Feng and his crew recovered fifteen crates of weapons and equipment sent by Old A and brought them to Planet A Base.
• The Survival Society converted two private spacecraft into warships and trained its space force for six months.
• Chu Feng used intelligence on Earth Government spacecraft routes to plan an ambush of a Nether Development Department cargo vessel.
• Chu Feng ordered his warships to fire an Electromagnetic Cannon round at the cargo vessel’s main control room.

Chu Feng’s forces attacked an Earth Government cargo ship, killed the captain, and boarded it before the Guard Hall could arrive. After forcing the survivors to open the cargo hold, Chu Feng’s soldiers found stacks of containers and demanded the cargo manifest.

• Chu Feng’s ships fired repeated rounds at the cargo ship, eventually striking its control room and killing the captain and many crew members.
• The surviving crew sent a distress signal, and Earth’s authorities confirmed that no Guard Hall warships were nearby; Wang Qing dispatched the nearest warship, which would take about a day to arrive.
• Chu Feng ordered his slow-moving ships to catch the cargo vessel before the Guard Team could reach it.
• Chu Feng’s soldiers boarded the damaged cargo ship and blasted open a hidden compartment containing the surviving crew.
• Chu Feng forced the first officer to open the cargo hold and provide the cargo manifest.

Chu Feng’s forces seized valuable cargo from an Earth Government freighter, sabotaged its engines, and left its crew stranded in spacesuits. As Chu Feng celebrated the losses inflicted on the Ita, Wang Qing rushed to investigate and questioned how an interstellar pirate fleet could exist under Ita control.

• Chu Feng selected machinery and rare ingredients totaling sixteen containers and about 1,200 tons, then ordered the controlled freighter crew to reset the ship’s course toward an asteroid collision.
• Chu Feng and his soldiers returned to their combat ships and destroyed every main and auxiliary thruster on the freighter.
• Chu Feng’s ships took the cargo and left the surviving crew in spacesuits, telling them the Guard Team would rescue them.
• Chu Feng celebrated the raid’s haul and the billions in losses it would cause the Earth Government.
• Wang Qing rushed toward the scene, angry and skeptical that interstellar pirates could acquire weapons and build a base in the Ita-controlled Solar System.

Wang Qing watched helplessly as a hijacked cargo ship, disabled by Interstellar Pirates, crashed into an asteroid and destroyed most of its valuable cargo. The incident confirmed that the mysterious arms dealer was supplying the Rebels with interstellar weapons and drew Governor Malendin’s attention, leaving the Ita leadership to confront the growing threat.

• Wang Qing learned that Interstellar Pirates had hijacked a cargo ship and disabled its Ion Thrusters, leaving it on course to collide with an asteroid.
• Wang Qing arrived too late to save the ship; his Guard Team salvaged only a dozen or so containers before the cargo ship smashed into the asteroid and was destroyed.
• Wang Qing’s crew found survivors whom Chu Feng had thrown into space, and their confessions confirmed that Interstellar Pirates had carried out the attack.
• Wang Qing resolved to make the Asteroid Belt a battlefield as the conflict with the Rebels loomed.
• Governor Malendin convened a secret meeting with trusted officials and identified the still-uncaptured mysterious arms dealer as the source of the Rebels’ growing military strength.

Malentin and his subordinates investigated how the arms dealer had built a large operation without the Ita noticing and concluded that a high-ranking traitor might be protecting him. They came to suspect Commander Witt, whose alleged support for the Rebels could also serve the homeworld military’s opposition to resisting the electrical disaster by force.

• Wolf argued that the arms dealer’s base was probably inside the Solar System or beyond the Kuiper Belt, and that moving the necessary personnel and supplies unnoticed would be unlikely.
• Fan Litten proposed that the arms dealer was either using an unknown method to establish a distant base or had protection from a high-ranking Ita traitor.
• Malentin and Fan Litten identified Commander Witt as the leading suspect, citing his rise to command after Rotterit’s assassination and the unresolved leak of Rotterit’s itinerary.
• Fan Litten explained that the homeworld military might oppose the Pluto Development Strategy to avoid the losses of resisting the electrical disaster by force.
• The group concluded that Witt could be supporting the Rebels while keeping them dependent on him, obstructing the strategy and advancing his own career.

Malentin ordered a secret search of the Outer Solar System while the Guard Team prepared to strike the Rebels, but Witt became convinced that Malentin was framing the Ita Fleet. Five days later, a captured serviceman’s confession strengthened Witt’s suspicions, and he ordered his forces to gather evidence and attack the Rebels.

• Malentin ordered Wolf to search every large asteroid and Dwarf Planet within 500 billion kilometers of the Sun, keep the investigation from Witt, and strike the Rebels.
• Witt and his officers suspected Malentin of using the mysterious arms dealer to frame the Ita Fleet, and they ordered an investigation into him and the arms dealer’s base.
• Five days later, military intelligence arrested an Ita serviceman, who confessed that the Guard Team had told him to collect the fleet’s supply and expenditure data.
• Witt concluded that Malentin was preparing to frame the Ita Fleet and ordered his officers to gather evidence and attack the Rebels to demonstrate their innocence.

Witt’s attempt to involve the Ita Fleet in suppressing the Rebels was rejected, while Chu Feng’s forces raided another cargo ship for medical supplies and escaped before the Guard Ships arrived. Chu Feng then traveled to Vesta to sell or trade the goods and found its black market booming as smugglers flocked to the Asteroid Belt.

• Malentin rejected Witt’s application to deploy the Ita Fleet against the Rebels, and Witt resolved not to become a weapon in others’ schemes.
• Chu Feng’s Survival One and Survival Two ambushed a cargo ship in the Asteroid Belt and seized its medical supplies.
• Chu Feng’s crew forced the freighter off course toward an asteroid, escaped with the medicine, and left the arriving Guard Ships unable to prevent the collision.
• Wang Qing raged over the raid and began considering a change in tactics against the elusive Rebels.
• Chu Feng and his group traveled to Vesta and learned that repeated cargo-ship robberies had drawn smugglers from across the Solar System to its thriving black market.

Chu Feng sold the medicine his group had seized for 1.8 billion Human Currency and tried to expand the Survival Society’s transport capacity by buying spacecraft. He learned that a rival force had moved a huge cargo haul under the Survival Society’s name, leaving him to suspect that someone had staged a robbery to make money.

• Chu Feng met his contact in Zao Shen City and sold the seized medicine for 1.8 billion Human Currency.
• Chu Feng asked Lao Wang about buying used spacecraft and learned that demand had driven prices up as Rebels, gangs, wealthy magnates, and officials sought ships to modify into warships.
• Lao Wang told Chu Feng that a seller had recently dumped nearly a hundred thousand tons of goods, and claimed the Survival Society was responsible.
• Chu Feng concealed his surprise and ordered Lao Wang to find him more spacecraft.
• After they reached safety, Chu Feng concluded that another force had likely robbed its own cargo and framed the Survival Society, and he complained that they were more ruthless about making money.

Chu Feng’s expanding Survival Society joined forces with the Fierce Tiger Society and other resistance fleets to seize cargo ships across the Asteroid Belt, while Wang Qing struggled to contain the growing piracy. With unofficial warships now rivaling the Guard Hall’s fleet and attacks disrupting Pluto-bound shipments, Wang Qing faced the crisis without outside military support.

• Chu Feng led six refitted warships against an armed cargo ship, using evasive tactics to withstand its accurate fire.
• Three ships from the Fierce Tiger Society joined the attack, and the two fleets disabled the cargo ship and agreed to cooperate.
• Chu Feng and the Fierce Tiger Society divided the cargo and exchanged contact information before returning to their bases.
• Chu Feng expanded his fleet to twenty warships and contacted more than a dozen friendly fleets, whose combined strength reached 133 ships.
• Pirate attacks on cargo ships exceeded 150, increasing pressure on Wang Qing as the Ita Fleet rejected his request for assistance.

Wang Qing discussed the worsening Rebel threat in the Asteroid Belt with the Luminary Society, while Han Yang considered exploiting the suspicion between Malendin and Witt. Malendin authorized Wolf to support Wang Qing, leaving Wang Qing ready to act without restraint against the Rebels.

• Wang Qing told Wei Liang and Han Yang that the Rebels were growing stronger and had hijacked more than a dozen cargo ships in the past month.
• Wang Qing said Captain Wolf had refused to send the Ita Fleet, and Han Yang suspected Malendin and Witt mistrusted each other over the mysterious arms dealer.
• Han Yang warned that more than a hundred hijacked ships had caused losses exceeding one trillion Human Currency and threatened the Pluto Development Strategy, but the discussion produced no solution.
• Wolf told Malendin that Rebel fleets had appeared near Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, and blamed Witt for the escalating crisis.
• Malendin ordered Wolf to support Wang Qing and eliminate the Rebels, and Wolf told Wang Qing he could put their plan into action.
• Wang Qing welcomed Malendin and Wolf's backing and prepared to act without reservations.

Wang Qing gained Malendin and Wolf’s backing to restrict the Rebels by controlling spacecraft and high-tech supplies, while Han Yang prepared a concealed industrial base to counter the policy. After Chu Feng sensed danger during a sale on Vesta, he withdrew the Survival Society, and the Guard Team soon made a major move.

• Wang Qing announced that Malendin and Wolf had authorized him to tighten controls on private spacecraft and essential supplies to weaken the Rebels.
• Han Yang and Wei Liang urged Wang Qing to carry out the plan, and Wang Qing began making arrangements after the meeting.
• Han Yang expanded and concealed the Jade God Star Grand Canyon Base, starting construction on power, foundry, and precision manufacturing facilities.
• The Survival Society seized a cargo ship carrying supplies, and Chu Feng prepared to sell the cargo on Vesta.
• Chu Feng noticed suspicious conditions on Vesta, withdrew his forces, and warned his subordinates that the Guard Team might act soon.
• The Survival Society pulled back, and the Guard Team subsequently made a major move.