"Academician, does that mean we should still have an advantage in speed?" Wen Zhonghua continued.
"All I can say is that it's possible, but we shouldn't get our hopes up. Their warships are larger than ours and don't have chong element to improve their warp performance. If we're both at the stellar-level civilization stage, we might have a speed advantage. But no matter how slow their warships are, they'll certainly be faster than the Deep Blue. I believe it won't be long before their civilian ships stop moving and their warships break the speed of light and advance on us."
"We've already considered that. The fleet is now on emergency alert, and all preparations will begin immediately for the coming war. If they're as fast as our Hunter-Killers, they'll reach Tau Ceti in about four months. But we need at least two months to finish installing our warp engines. That won't leave the soldiers much time to get used to their warships. If the enemy warships are any faster, we'll have even less time," Wen Zhonghua said anxiously.
"Yes, the situation really is urgent. For now, follow General Hu's arrangements. Tell the people to move quickly, but stay calm. The warp engines are our highest priority, but I'm certain nothing will go wrong. I'll personally oversee the work and ensure production and installation are completed within two months," Academician Zeng said.
"One more thing, Academician Zeng. The Deep Blue will be the first to receive its warp engines. Installation on the Deep Blue will take only a week. Personnel not involved in the other work should board as soon as they've finished their own tasks. We'll also move as much of our equipment and belongings onto the Deep Blue as possible. They're the fruits of decades of effort, and we can't abandon them lightly. Once the personnel and equipment are aboard, the Deep Blue will leave Tau Ceti immediately at 0.4 times the speed of light," Hu Yu said.
"Why only 0.4 times the speed of light?" Wen Zhonghua asked.
"To conserve our strength. We shouldn't show our hand right at the start. If we go at full speed from the beginning, they might immediately leave their civilian ships behind and send their warships to intercept us," Hu Yu explained.
"Yes, we need to appear as weak as possible without compromising our safety. Once they let their guard down, we'll deal them a fatal blow," Academician Xiao agreed.
"This war was unavoidable from the very beginning," Hu Yu said heavily.
"Yes, General. We can't do much to help you with the war. It's all up to you, but we believe you'll do well," Academician Xiao said.
"I'll do my best."
"Mm, all right. Let's stay in contact."
With that, Academician Zeng and Academician Xiao left the command room. They had more important things to do. The Academy of Sciences had to be moved intact to the science ship in the air. It was their guarantee for the future, and nothing could be left behind.
Hu Yu sat in the command room, silently smoking and struggling to suppress his nerves. This battle might already be unavoidable. It would be his first real battle against an alien civilization, and Hu Yu had few plans in mind. Yet they could only win this battle, not lose it. This was a war between two civilizations, and the losing side would undoubtedly meet a tragic end. Hu Yu would not allow that to happen to his civilization.
Earth had already lost one war against an alien civilization. As a result, its entire population had been forced to leave their home and become a miserable wandering civilization. After reaching Tau Ceti, they had thought they could develop in peace for a while, but to their surprise, a new challenge had arrived just as they finished their initial construction.
Fortunately, the fleet had completed its initial construction. If the alien fleet had arrived twenty years earlier, it would have been unable to fight back and could only have waited to be slaughtered. Even now, however, its strength seemed woefully inadequate. The enemy fleet numbered in the millions, and its warships were several times larger than the Hunter-Killers. Bigger warships were not necessarily more powerful, but in one respect, at least, their technology had to be more advanced. Just as it had been centuries ago, from large aircraft and ships to all kinds of heavy machinery, size was a reflection of technological strength. That rule still held true today. The Polaris, for example, was only five kilometers long, while the Deep Blue was a full twenty kilometers long. All of this reflected technological progress.
Apart from 500,000 Hunter-Killers, no other defenses had been deployed at Tau Ceti. Against interstellar warships capable of long-range attacks and faster-than-light travel, any ground-based or space-based weapons were mere decorations, unless they were enormous, with a diameter of more than several dozen kilometers, for instance. Given the fleet's situation, however, it was not practical to spend vast amounts of manpower and resources building a ground-based or space-based defensive weapon that looked impressive but served little purpose.
"Zhonghua, have all the orders been issued?"
"They have. Apart from the factories involved with the warp engines, the others have already begun gathering personnel to prepare for relocation. Many civilians have volunteered to help. When there isn't enough transport equipment, people carry things on their shoulders and in their hands. As they put it, every extra bit they can move counts. Every bit of material holds everyone's hard work, and every bit is the fleet's future, so none of it can be wasted."
"Let them do it. But after one month, or if the enemy fleet shows signs of accelerating, they must be made to board."
"Old Hu, don't be too nervous. It'll be all right."
"Zhonghua, you don't understand. This won't be an easy battle. We know nothing about them: what formations they'll use, what weapons they have, whether they mean to drive us away or plunder us, and so on. We don't know any of it. And what are we going to do if we lose?"
"Let's wait a little longer. Once all our fleet's ships are equipped with warp engines, we'll try to contact them and see just what they're about. Even if it's a lion, I'll pull a few hairs out of it."
"Mm. Please take care of the people."
"Don't worry. After all these years, when have I ever given you cause to worry? You focus on studying the enemy and devising a strategy with the academicians. Leave Tau Ceti to me."
At that moment, aboard a massive warship fifty kilometers long, a creature with an enormous python-like head moved on two powerful leg-like limbs. Judging by its position and its ornate outer armor, the creature was probably the leader. Its eyes were fixed on the screen before it, which displayed an image of Tau Ceti.
"Leader, when do we attack?" a slightly shorter creature beside it asked in a strange language.
"There's no hurry. It wasn't easy finding a star system with a planet in the habitable zone, and I didn't expect another civilization to have occupied it. But it works out perfectly. After several hundred years of travel, our Sand Python Civilization's food stores are severely depleted. We'll use this civilization to replenish them."
"Leader, this civilization placed its monitors more than two light-years away. It might not be as easy to deal with as the previous two civilizations. You'd better be careful." A space engine was a warp engine.
"Aguduo, you've gone too far. Our great civilization has devoured three civilizations over the past thousand years and more. Not one was a match for us, and this one is nothing but our food as well," the leader said, displeased.
"Yes, yes, yes. Your rebuke is justified, Leader. I spoke out of turn. Please punish me." The alien creature called Aguduo hurriedly bowed and admitted his mistake.
"I'll let it go this once. If there's a next time, go to the food storage room yourself. Hmph."
"Yes, yes, Leader. There absolutely won't be a next time." Aguduo was so frightened that he hurriedly agreed.
The leader held supreme, absolute power over life and death in the Sand Python Civilization. As its name suggested, the Sand Python Civilization had been born on a planet resembling a desert world. Its home star system had only two planets, and the Sand Python Civilization had arisen on one of them. More than eighty percent of that planet's surface was covered in sand. Sand Pythons had originally been its apex predators, and over hundreds of millions of years of evolution, they had gradually developed intelligence and civilization.
The desert planet was extremely poor in resources, and the evolution of civilization had been painfully slow. It had taken another fifty million years of development for it to evolve into a technological civilization and explore the other planet in its star system. To their disappointment, that planet was just as poor in resources.
The scarcity of resources severely restricted the civilization's development. As the Sand Python Civilization grew, other species were eaten into extinction one after another. The harsh environment gave the Sand Pythons the good habit of not being picky eaters. They ate everything edible on the planet, including the old, weak, sick, and disabled of their own kind.
Even so, the Sand Python Civilization remained unsatisfied, and its population had even begun to decline for a time. Eventually, a somewhat wiser leader emerged. He believed that if the Sand Python Civilization wanted to survive, it could only venture into deep space and travel to other planets, where there would be more resources.
On that leader's orders, the Sand Python Civilization refined nearly every usable material on both planets and built 50,000 small spaceships. He led all his people away from the resource-starved star system and set out into the vast universe on a journey of exploration and plunder.
Unlike humanity's Polaris back then, those ships were not fully equipped with everything they needed. In fact, they were little more than crude shells. But the Sand Python People had possessed the ability to withstand harsh conditions since ancient times, and their bodies were far tougher than those of humans. As long as they had food, they could survive even in a harsh environment.
The 50,000 battered ships traveled slowly through the stars. After 150 years, the fleet's food reserves ran out, but it still had not found another planet. The Sand Python People began eating their own kind. To them, however, there was no moral or ethical problem with it, nor was there any psychological barrier. Cannibalism was perfectly normal. To preserve the population, some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled, or those past their prime reproductive years, were even willing to become food of their own accord. Fifty years later, the barely surviving Sand Python fleet finally reached a star system with a planet. By then, two-thirds of the Sand Python population had been lost, leaving just over 500 million.
The star had one planet, and a civilization had evolved on it. Unfortunately, that civilization was still in its infancy. The Sand Python Civilization landed directly on the planet. To the Sand Pythons, who had wandered for centuries, the scene before them was like paradise, with such an abundance of food. After landing, what the Sand Python Civilization wanted most was to let all its people eat their fill. How could a civilization at the agricultural stage be a match for this pack of early stellar-level beasts? Even without technology, the Sand Pythons' physical constitutions were formidable. Amid wave after wave of screams, countless natives were reduced to flesh and blood and consumed by the Sand Pythons. Sure enough, intelligent beings tasted better than beasts.
From then on, the Sand Python People settled on the planet. To ensure their long-term development, they periodically made the natives hand over a portion of their population for food. When it came to taste, the Sand Python People preferred intelligent beings. They had no concept of cooking; they simply tore into everything with mouths full of fangs. To them, gnawing on intelligent beings while listening to their wails was an exciting and wonderful experience.
The Sand Python Civilization stayed on the planet for a hundred years. Not only did its population recover, but its technology also advanced. They used the planet's resources to build 400,000 spaceships. Before leaving, the Sand Python People herded all the remaining natives aboard the ships and froze them as a supplementary food supply for the fleet's journey. Most of the planet's other life forms were taken as food as well.
After the Sand Python Civilization's savage plundering, it would take the planet at least several hundred years to restore its original ecosystem. The large species the Sand Pythons had eaten into extinction were beyond counting. Perhaps, after hundreds of millions of years, intelligent life would evolve on the planet again, or perhaps there was no hope of that ever happening.
Over the next several hundred years, the Sand Python Civilization encountered two more early stellar-level civilizations during its travels. Relying on brutal tactics and slightly superior technology, the Sand Python People defeated them both. As the losers, those civilizations had to surrender not only their technology, but also the intelligent beings of their civilizations.
Although both were early stellar-level civilizations, each had followed a different path of development, and the Sand Python People learned a great deal of different technology from them.
The Sand Python People forcibly crammed the technology they had plundered into their own fleet. They were not a particularly intelligent civilization, and their course of development had determined the speed of their thinking. It had taken them nearly 200 million years to reach the stellar-level civilization stage, partly because of their resources, but also because of the Sand Python People themselves. Even so, they had still developed into a massive force with 1.2 million warships.
In the hands of the Sand Python People, that force could draw on their ferocity and cold-bloodedness to unleash 120 percent of its combat strength. Coupled with their crushing victories in two previous battles against other civilizations, this meant that when the Sand Python fleet first encountered the monitoring satellites Hu Yu had deployed two months earlier, they had not taken humanity seriously. Still, although the Sand Python People were not very intelligent, they were not stupid either. They captured several satellites to analyze their technology.
The results made them even happier. Satellites this crude could never have come from a star system-level civilization, much less a small star sector civilization. They could only be the products of a stellar-level civilization, and the Sand Python Civilization did not take stellar-level civilizations seriously.
In the leader's eyes, another new flavor of food would soon be his, but it was not yet time to attack. The fleet's communications were not sufficient to command a battle from more than a light-year away, so the leader's massive flagship had to approach Tau Ceti slowly under the protection of its warships.
"Chief of staff, do you think these aliens' warships might have shields?" a staff officer asked.