## Chapter 237
Lynn didn't open a portal when he left; he went directly from the helipad to his small shuttle. Tony stood by the helipad watching the ship take off, then turned and went back to the equipment lab. Banner was hunched over the main control panel, the screen running compatibility tests for twenty Vanguard Group armors. It had run three times, and each time the main control panel was running at full capacity, its temperature soaring close to the overheat threshold.
"Add another set of heat pipes." Tony walked behind him and glanced at the data. "Split it off from the rear heat sink, so it doesn't take up space in the weapons bay."
"It's already being added." Banner pointed to a new heat conduction path on the screen, running from the back to the side waist. " Phastos drew it."
Phastos rolled his eyes. "I've calculated the data usage; it's enough."
"You calculated it twice." Banner didn't even look up. "You substituted the wrong heat capacity parameter the first time, but it was correct the second time."
The first draft is the original draft.
Ivan poked half his head in through the door, carrying a box. "The second batch of quantum modules has arrived. Twenty-five sets. The scrap rate has decreased; there are five more sets than the first batch."
"Prepare," Tony said, leaning against the edge of the table. " The Vanguard Group has expanded to forty-five sets."
"The third batch won't arrive until next week." Ivan put the box on the ground and dusted off his hands. "We're running low on materials; logistics says we have to wait for the supplier to deliver. I've already followed up, and they said even expedited delivery would take five days."
Five days is too long.
"Then you go tell them. My word doesn't count." Ivan squatted down and opened the box. "Or use alternative materials. The performance will drop, the sampling rate will decrease from 10,000 to 8,000. That'll be enough to deal with Reed, but it's hard to say about dealing with Kang."
"Use the alternative first. Lynn is keeping an eye on things with Kang. If it's really not enough, then we'll upgrade to a higher-grade one."
Ivan nodded and took the modules out one by one.
On the afternoon of the third day, Lynn sent a message. It was just one line: Kang is setting things up outside the border. I've sent you the location.
Tony pulled up the coordinates and glanced at them. It was about two astronomical units outside the edge of the universe, not far from the weak point Reed had penetrated last time. He forwarded the coordinates to Banner. Banner adjusted the scanning angle, shifting the monitoring network's direction outward a bit. After about half an hour, a very faint fluctuation appeared on the screen, bouncing around the threshold.
"Look at this." Banner zoomed in on the waveform. "It's different from Kang's previous pulses. Lower frequency, longer intervals. Like he's setting something up."
What should we arrange?
"I don't know. But it's ongoing. He's laying it out, very patiently."
Tony stared at the waveform for a few seconds, then texted Lynn: "I saw it. What is he setting up?"
Lynn replied a little slowly, "It's like laying down a net. It's on an energy level, very large, and with a very low density. From my current position, I can only perceive the edges; I'll have to get closer to see exactly what it is."
Tony: How far?
Lynn: One more astronomical unit away. The signal is even weaker there; we'd have to get closer to confirm.
Tony: Be careful. After Reed runs away, Conn might not wait any longer.
Lynn: I know. Give me one more day.
Tony put down his phone and relayed the message to Banner and Phastos: " Lynn is still watching. Kang is laying things out outside, a huge amount. Expand the monitoring network outwards, scan as much as you can. I need to know if there are any boundaries to what Kang is laying out."
Phastos made two changes to the spatial model on the whiteboard, stopped halfway through, and tilted his head to look at his drawing for a while. "If he's really laying out a net, this is different from Reed's spatial rewriting. Reed is contracting inwards, Kahn is spreading outwards. The larger the spread, the more stuff you can pile up behind it."
What is that?
"How would I know? But it's definitely not an invitation for tea."
By evening of the fourth day, all the new equipment was installed. Forty-five sets of Vanguard Group armor were lined up in three rows in the training hall. Several new modular panels had been added to the outer shell, a quantum random source was embedded in the chest armor interlayer, a multi-frequency interference array surrounded the outer edge of the chest armor, and a parameter injection pulse device was hung on the side waist.
Tony stood on the observation platform, Ivan on the left, Banner and Phastos on the right, and Harley and Peter at the very front.
"The simulation test is complete." Banner projected the data onto the screen. "Fifty rounds, the average time to clear the creation swarm has been reduced from eight minutes to three and a half minutes. The quantum random source makes the attack pattern completely unpredictable; the simulation model for Reed didn't get a single prediction right in a single round."
Tony glanced at the data. "That's enough."
Lynn returned that evening. He was in alright when he landed, uninjured, but his expression wasn't good. He tossed his canvas bag onto Tony's table, pulled out a recorder, connected it to the screen, and played a data visualization.
"I photographed the things in Kampu. They're suspended outside the edge of the universe, scattered across an area of about three astronomical units. The density is very low, but the quantity is vast. Each one is very small, with an individual energy reading of almost zero, but together they cover a very large area."
Banner leaned closer for a look. "If these things were connected into a net, could they cover the entire outer reaches of the Solar System?"
"I've calculated it. Once it's laid out, it will cover the entire outer perimeter of the Solar System."
Tony stared at the screen for a moment. "What's this thing for?"
"I don't know the specific purpose, but I can guess the logic." Lynn leaned against the edge of the table. "Kang is preparing a net that covers the entire outer edge of the Solar System. Once it's laid out, he can use this net to open portals anywhere, without needing to fly in from outside the boundary like last time. He can appear at any point inside the Solar System, from any angle."
"Shall we destroy it now?"
"We can't destroy them. The density is too low, and there are too many of them. They're spread out outside the border, and our weapons can't reach them. Only I can get through, but I can't clear them all by myself. They're spreading faster than I can clear them."
Tony thought for a moment, "Let's start before he finishes laying the net. How long will it take him to lay it?"
"At this rate, it will take about a week."
"A week," Tony said, pulling out the schedule and glancing at it. "That's enough time for us to get a lot done."
He turned to Banner and Phastos: "How many sets of the new equipment can be mass-produced?"
Banner calculated. "With logistics operating at full capacity, we're producing about twenty sets a day, or one hundred and forty sets a week. Adding that to the existing forty-five sets, that's a total of one hundred and eighty-five sets."
"Not enough. Reed brought a cluster of creations last time, and if Kang makes a move this time, the scale won't be smaller than Reed's. One hundred and eighty-five suits of armor aren't enough."
"Then we can't rely solely on the armor." Ivan leaned against the doorway. "There are two more usable turrets over there. The third will be finished next week, and the fourth is still being welded. If all four turrets are brought over, our firepower can hold for a while."
"The fortifications must not be moved. They are Earth's last line of defense. If Kang lures the battlefield to Earth's vicinity, the fortifications must remain in place."
"What should we do then?"
Tony walked around the office and stopped in front of Lynn: "Was the main body nearby when you were on the Kangpu network?"
Lynn thought for a moment, "Most likely. A setup of this scale requires him to maintain it himself; if he's too far away, the network will disintegrate."
"Then attack his main body. Let him lay out his net, we'll attack his people. As long as we force him to stop, his net will never be finished."
Lynn glanced at him. "How do you plan to fight?"
"When he's laying the net, his attention will be focused there, and his awareness of his surroundings will decrease. You open the portal and take the Vanguard Group over there; I'll lead the team to engage from the front. Thor will stand by on the perimeter, and Kang will call in reinforcements. Thor will be responsible for holding them off."
"What if it's a trap?"
"We have to go even if it's a trap. Let him lay it out for another week, and the entire outer reaches of the Solar System will be his teleportation anchor points. Then he can come in from wherever he wants, and we won't even have time to warn him."
Lynn thought for a moment and nodded, "Okay. I'll open the portal. But the Vanguard Group needs to do some acclimatization training first. Kang's time device is different from Reed's space rewriting, so the armors need to adapt to the changes in the flow of time in advance."
"How long?"
"Two days."
"Starting tomorrow."
The next morning, the entire Vanguard Group was brought to the training hall. Lynn set up a time flow deviation field in the simulation field, and forty-five suits of armor ran in the deviation field for a whole morning. Several suits showed obvious response delays - the timing inside the armor was inconsistent with the external time flow, and the synchronization of the thrusters and weapon systems was off.
Banner was adjusting data on the observation platform when he paused, turned around, and called out, " Phastos, come look at this."
Phastos leaned over for a look. "The deviation exceeds the threshold. The armor's clock needs to be synchronized with the external time field in real time, otherwise things will go wrong during combat."
"Install the synchronization module." Tony stepped down from the observation platform. "Add an independent time-sensing unit to each suit of armor to calibrate external flow rates in real time."
"Then we'll need to rearrange the mainframe's computing resources," Banner said while typing. "After adding the module, the Warframe's reaction speed will drop slightly, by about five percent."
"Losing five percent is better than the clocks not syncing during a fight. Show off."
Ivan squatted on the sidelines watching the training for a while, and when Tony came over, he said, "To counter the offense, the Vanguard Group alone isn't enough. He probably has similar creations on his side, and there are probably quite a few of them."
"So we need one more thing." Tony pulled up a chair and sat down, flipping through the terminal to Kang's time device parameters. "He expended a lot of energy during his interdimensional travels and can't sustain high-intensity combat for long. If we can stall him until he can't hold on any longer, he'll have to retreat."
How to drag it?
" The Vanguard Group is responsible for holding off his reinforcements. You and I will engage him head-on, while Lynn will cut off his connection to the net. Once the net is broken, he can't bring in reinforcements from the outside."
Ivan thought for a moment, "When should we make our move?"
" Lynn said the best time to act was when Kang's net was halfway laid. He was reluctant to leave before the net was finished, but he couldn't go all out. Three days later."
"Three days is enough for me to finish debugging the third turret."
By the evening of the following day, all forty-five suits of armor had passed the adaptability test. The response delay in the time offset field had been reduced to an acceptable range, and multi-frequency interference and parameter injection could also function normally in the offset field.
Before wrapping up, Ivan patted the chest armor module of one of the suits of armor. "If this thing breaks during the battle, I'm not responsible for fixing it on-site."
"You're in charge of building, not repairing. Repairing is Harley's job," Tony said.
"When did Harley learn to repair armor?"
"No, so don't break it."
Ivan glanced at him. "The way you're talking makes it sound like I'm deliberately going to break it."
Phastos walked by without even looking up. "You connected the cooling pipes backwards when you were welding the turret last time."
That was the first time we debugged it.
"The cooling pipes were connected backwards; they almost burned down the turret."
"I told you it was the first time--"
"Alright," Tony interrupted him, "Call Kang in three days, then you two can argue."
That evening, Harley came to deliver a briefing, and Tony told him about the expansion of the Vanguard Group. After listening, Harley asked, "Does the ground support team need new equipment?"
"Allocate a batch from the fourth batch to the field operations team. You'll find it useful when you encounter time anomalies on the ground."
Harley nodded, put the briefing on the table, and turned to leave, but Tony called him back.
How's things going on your side of the ground?
"Everything is normal. The response network in key cities has been fully deployed. Peter is patrolling the streets, and the density has doubled."
Are you tired?
Harley paused for a moment, probably not expecting Tony to ask that. He thought for a moment and said, "It's alright. Compared to working at the repair shop, it's not too tiring."
Tony chuckled. "Alright. Go ahead."
After Harley left, Tony sat in his office for a while, going over the upcoming schedule again. They were going to fight Connors in three days, and Reed might come back after that. Before Reed returned, all the turrets and Vanguard Group needed to be ready.
He turned off the terminal, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a while.
On the morning of the third day, Lynn came to see him. Holding a cup of coffee, Lynn stood at the door without coming in, first asking, "Did you sleep last night?"
"She's asleep."
"A few hours?"
Four.
"Four of them didn't actually sleep. They just dozed off for a little while."
"When did you start talking like Pepper?"
"I'm just stating the facts." Lynn walked in and placed the coffee on his desk. "Don't stay up too late tonight. We need to be energetic tomorrow."
"Knew."
After Lynn left, Tony finished his coffee and reopened his terminal. The schedule said they would depart tomorrow morning, with the entire Vanguard Group, Lynn opening the portal, and Thor waiting on the perimeter. He looked it over, changed two time points, and then sent a message to everyone. "Meet at the helipad at 9:00 AM tomorrow."
After sending the message, he thought for a moment and added another message: Bring your equipment and don't forget your things.
Ivan was the first to reply: When have I ever forgotten anything?
Banner replied: He was talking about me. I forgot my adapter last time.
Phastos replied: You have indeed forgotten.
Banner: Can you please stop bringing this up every time?
Tony looked at the messages, leaned back in his chair, and chuckled.
At nine o'clock the next morning, forty-five sets of Vanguard Group armor were neatly lined up in three rows on the tarmac. Tony, wearing his standard combat suit, stood at the front, with Ivan beside him, and Banner and Phastos at the observation posts. Harley and Peter stood at the back of the line, Harley clutching his terminal, while Peter whispered beside him, "Are we going this time?" Harley replied, "Ask Mr. Tony."
Tony glanced back and said, "You two guard the surface. After we get out, everything on the surface is your responsibility."
Peter nodded, and Harley put the terminal away. "Understood."
Lynn stood at the edge of the helipad and raised his hand to draw a line in the air. The edge of the portal glowed orange and slowly expanded, revealing an empty star field on the other side, with faint dark green dots of light spreading in the distance.
Tony took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Just before the portal closed, he heard Ivan mutter behind him, "This thing always makes me dizzy."