This was a super fleet, and there was more to come. Construction had not stopped. The Deep Blue was so enormous that the number of Hunter-Killers assigned to escort it seemed somewhat insufficient. Hu Yu planned to suspend construction of the Deep Blue and add another 200,000 Hunter-Killers. After that, it might be time to consider setting off.
Today was the day of the warp engine test. Academician Zeng Zhaoyuan had led a team to crack the technology decades ago, but the fleet had remained at Tau Ceti. At Academician Zeng's request, the warships had only been built with space reserved for warp engines; none had been installed. Academician Zeng had continued working to improve their efficiency.
Only now had Academician Zeng declared that their efficiency had reached the limit of current technology. Without a major technological breakthrough, even another ten thousand years of improvements would produce no significant results. Only then had the final test aboard actual ships begun. If it succeeded, large-scale mass production would begin immediately.
Sixteen enormous warp engines, each a hundred meters long, were towed slowly toward a Deep Blue outside the formation. Armor split open at several points on the ship, revealing enormous dark openings a hundred meters deep. The warp engines approached the openings and, with the help of mechanical arms, slid into them with a perfect fit.
Everyone waited anxiously for the test to begin, but Academician Zeng Zhaoyuan remained calm. As the project's chief director, he was completely confident in the warp engines' performance.
Academician Zeng gave the order, and the warp engines began operating silently. As their power increased, the Deep Blue began to appear unstable. It distorted as though viewed through flames, then began to stretch and grow longer. Everyone's hearts tightened. Had they not been far enough from the Deep Blue, they might have felt that they, too, would be stretched into thin strips.
Academician Zeng reassured everyone that there was nothing to fear. This was all normal, and they were a safe distance from the Deep Blue. The warp engines would not hurt anyone here, though getting too close to them would be dangerous. The deformation of space would not affect people, but the engines' immense gravitational pull might. That was why both the Deep Blue and the Hunter-Killers incorporated numerous design measures to counter the engines' gravity, allowing the people inside to survive safely.
The Deep Blue grew longer and longer. Its bow in particular had nearly become a needle-tipped cone. The warp engines reached full power, and in a flash, the elongated Deep Blue vanished at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
An object traveling under warp could not be observed by conventional means, because space was constantly changing and highly chaotic. Information about the Deep Blue could only be obtained through conventional communications.
"Communications normal."
"Attitude normal."
"Hull structure normal."
"Internal instruments operating normally."
The monitoring staff kept reporting on the Deep Blue's status. Normal, normal, everything was normal. Those simple words had been earned through more than a century of hard work by countless scientists. They embodied the scientists' countless hours of effort and sweat, as well as innumerable setbacks and the helplessness of finding no answers despite agonizing thought.
Sixty-three minutes later, an enormous spaceship appeared out of thin air in the designated orbit around Planet Three. The Deep Blue had reached its destination after 63 minutes and 17.39 seconds. The distance was measured, yielding a speed of 0.81 times the speed of light.
Next came the Hunter-Killer test. One hundred Hunter-Killers took part at once. After their warp engines activated simultaneously, the Hunter-Killers were not only stretched into thin strips but also began to extend outward under the influence of the surrounding warp engines. According to Academician Zeng, the warships were not actually deforming. It was an optical illusion caused by the curvature of space. Anyone aboard the ships would feel nothing of the sort.
Each warship was surrounded by multiple warp engines, creating a relatively stable balance of forces. Otherwise, the warship itself would be the first thing damaged when the engines started. That was why the Deep Blue had sixteen warp engines, while the smaller Hunter-Killer needed only four smaller ones.
The test results came back quickly. After 8 minutes and 45.23 seconds, the Hunter-Killers appeared in the designated orbit around Planet Three, traveling at nearly six times the speed of light. Humanity had surpassed the speed of light for the first time.
"We did it!"
"Academician, we did it!"
"Academician, we succeeded!"
The scientists erupted in cheers, and countless people began to cry. Anyone who had not been through such an experience could not understand how they felt. An ordinary person might feel a sense of accomplishment after spending a few days completing something, but this group had spent nearly a century and suffered countless setbacks before achieving this feat. How could they not be moved to tears?
"Academician, thank you for your hard work. Comrades, thank you all for your hard work. Congratulations to you, and congratulations to our Chinese Nation. Today is an epoch-making day for us. From today onward, we have entered a new era. The vast universe will be ours to roam, and the sun, moon, and stars will be ours to seize. But we must keep working hard until the day we stand above this universe," Hu Yu said loudly.
"General, we'll keep working hard," the scientists replied.
The entire fleet began to celebrate. Everyone had waited too long for this day. The scientists became everyone's idols, and many people decided to resume their studies, determined to become scientists themselves. Children admired the scientists even more. With the fleet's publicity, the enthusiasm for learning was bound to rise to new heights.
Hu Yu held a grand celebration for the scientists. At the banquet, they finally laid down their heavy burdens and began drinking, singing, and talking loudly. Seeing this, Hu Yu felt a pang of sorrow. For the sake of the warp engines, he had put a great deal of pressure on these scientists. Only now did he realize that scientists were ordinary people too, who needed to let loose and indulge themselves. Hu Yu moved through the banquet, repeatedly raising his glass to drink with the scientists and offer his thanks.
The scientists exchanged drinks amid clinking cups, cheerful songs, and laughter. When the banquet finally ended, Academician Zeng quietly pulled Hu Yu into his office.
"Academician Zeng, what's so secretive?"
"What do you think of today's test?"
"What do I think? It was a great success. Both the small Hunter-Killer warships and the enormous Deep Blue habitat ship successfully traveled under warp. Although the Deep Blue's speed was only 0.8 times the speed of light, I believe that before long, you and your team will make another breakthrough, and our fleet's traveling speed will increase substantially. But you've all worked hard over the years. On behalf of the fleet, thank you."
"General, as far as the warp engines are concerned, we did succeed. But a new problem has appeared as well."
"What problem?"
"It's our communications. Almost all the quantum communication links between the hundred Hunter-Killers and the ground were damaged, and most of the particles lost their entangled states. Nearly a fifth of the Deep Blue's quantum communication equipment also stopped working."
"Why didn't anyone say anything during the test?"
"I gave the order beforehand. As long as the warp engines didn't malfunction, no one was to mention any other problems on the scene. Our people needed a complete victory. But I anticipated this result a long time ago. I didn't expect it to actually happen."
"Academician, you did the right thing. But what exactly caused the quantum particles to lose their entangled states? Without quantum communications, we'll have a major problem when we travel."
"It's not clear yet, but I have a theory. I suspect that what we call a pair of entangled particles is actually a single particle. We just need more data to verify it," Academician Zeng said, pacing around the office.
"How could a pair of particles be one particle? They're clearly placed in two separate instruments. Ah...! Academician, you mean..." Hu Yu cried out.
"That's right. Otherwise, there's no way to explain the present situation. The instruments aboard the warships were all intact, and no high-energy particles or cosmic rays entered the ships. Apart from that possibility, I really can't think of any other cause."
"Academician, I can hardly believe it. We've been studying that possibility all along, but I never expected it might be right before our eyes. If we'd thought of it sooner, perhaps our situation wouldn't be so bad now."
"General, don't be discouraged. We were bound to enter the universe sooner or later; we've merely done so a few hundred years early. For us, perhaps this isn't a bad thing. The main thing now is to find a way to obtain more data and reach that level as soon as possible. Once we do, we'll have a place in this universe too."
"Academician, sorry to put you and your team to the trouble. I'll find a way to meet any request from the Academy of Sciences, and I hope you can make a breakthrough as soon as possible. In that case, we'll stay at Tau Ceti for another hundred years. Our fleet isn't very well supplied as it is, and a hundred years will give us enough time to expand it substantially. If there's still no progress after a hundred years, we'll continue onward in search of a habitable planet. Our people can't spend their entire lives at the base."
"All right. I'll organize the relevant personnel to study this phenomenon. But even if we discover something, we won't master the technology anytime soon. Our use of energy is still at a very rudimentary stage. Without a high enough energy level, there's no way to apply this sort of thing," Academician Zeng said.
"I understand. Confirming our theory will be a success in itself. Also, Academician, what do we do about communications now? Without quantum communications, surely we can't resort to electromagnetic communications. Our fleet is growing larger and larger. In a hundred years, it will have at least tripled in size, and the distance from one end to the other may exceed several astronomical units, or even hundreds. Electromagnetic communications can't meet the fleet's needs."
"General, we're researching a new method of communication. Quantum communications were bound to be abandoned anyway. It's just happening a little sooner than expected."
"What do you mean, Academician?"
"Think about it. Quantum communications are one-to-one. Although our fleet currently has only a little over 500,000 warships, we've extracted tens of billions of entangled particles and built over ten million quantum communicators. Even so, we can't meet the communication needs between any two ships. If every ship needed a quantum link to every other ship, we'd need trillions of quantum communicators. As the fleet expanded, that number would grow exponentially. The warships might have no room for anything but quantum communicators."
"That's true. Even I can't command every warship individually unless there are 500,000 quantum communicators in the operations command room. So we still have to use a primitive pyramid-shaped command structure. That has always troubled me. If every pair of warships could establish communications, our combat power would increase by at least fifty percent."
"That's why I say quantum communications are one of the communication methods that must be abandoned. In some respects, they really aren't as good as ordinary electromagnetic communications."
"Then what kind of communication method should we use? No other method can currently achieve faster-than-light communication."
"Well, that's a secret. You'll know when the time comes. But the project has only just begun, and we still need time to make a breakthrough."