"Kid, you've watched too many sci-fi movies from the last century, haven't you? There's no such outlandish stuff. Keep a close watch and stop thinking about that nonsense. If anything goes wrong, I'll hold you responsible," Wen Zhonghua replied.
"No, Staff Officer Zhu was right to ask. Anything can happen in this universe. Just because we can't do something doesn't mean others can't. Add that possibility to the contingency plan. And if any of you have ideas, tell me, even if you think they're unreliable yourselves," Hu Yu said to the gathered staff officers.
"Yes, General."
"Get back to work."
"Old Hu, now that curvature engines have started being fitted on the Hunter-Killer warships, should we send a small squad up to give them a hit? Find out what they're capable of."
"Not yet. The civilians are still boarding, and the supplies and equipment haven't all been transferred. We can't take that risk for now, and for the civilians' sake, we can't give up hope for peace. But some Hunter-Killers have been fitted with curvature engines, so we have a certain amount of combat capability and can begin deploying our forces. Zhonghua, what are your thoughts?"
"Academician Zeng and his team are working around the clock. In two weeks at most, all our Hunter-Killer warships will be capable of curvature flight. Their weapons have long been fully loaded, but we need to choose between AI autonomy and AI assistance. That's for you to decide."
Though the Hunter-Killer warships had simple structures, their systems were complex. High-energy particle beam weapons, gravity bombs, fusion bombs, high-energy lasers, conventional missiles, control systems, navigation systems, targeting systems, tracking systems, launch systems, life-support systems, and so on required a series of complex operations that human labor alone could not handle. A warship had to be ready for war at any time, and assigning multiple skilled technicians to each one was inadvisable: if a warship was attacked and destroyed, the losses would be severe. So every warship was equipped with advanced artificial intelligence to take over most of the operations previously handled by humans.
This not only reduced personnel losses when a warship was destroyed; AI was also more efficient than humans. AI made virtually no mistakes in simple, mechanical tasks, while humans could make operational errors under the influence of various environmental factors. When a warship maneuvered at high speed in particular, personnel had to operate equipment while coping with the physical discomfort caused by changes in acceleration, greatly increasing the chance of mistakes. Computers were different. Whatever the environment or how the warship maneuvered and accelerated, as long as the computer remained undamaged, it would never make a mistake.
Advanced AI could not only execute a series of commands quickly and accurately but also fight entirely on its own. A computer was still a computer, however. Even though scientists and military strategists had written tens of billions of instructions, simulated as many battlefield situations as possible, and allowed the AI to learn independently, AI still could not make the most appropriate battlefield judgments compared with humans. In simulated battles, human-controlled warships won nearly one hundred percent of the time, because humans could devise all sorts of unorthodox tactics based on battlefield conditions. AI was still somewhat lacking in that respect, though that did not diminish its important role in combat.
War was not merely a contest of technology; it was more like a gamble. Any minor factor could change the course of an entire battle, and soldiers continually risked their lives and created opportunities, accumulating victories bit by bit through various means to ultimately change the outcome of a war. Computer technology was already highly advanced, but AI was still not as smart as the human brain. Ask a person to recite one hundred thousand digits of pi, and they would surely ask if you were an idiot, perhaps even offer you a few choice words. AI, on the other hand, would carry out the command without question, because to AI, it was a perfectly normal instruction. That was the difference between the human brain and a computer.
A warship was therefore at its strongest when AI provided assistance and a human was in command. In this arrangement, humans only needed to control the warship's attacks under certain specific conditions to carry out particular combat deployments. For example, a warship might have to hold off an enemy vessel to create an opening for other warships to attack or buy them time to retreat, even though the ship holding the enemy off would very likely be destroyed. AI would not independently carry out such an order, but a human could. A spirit of sacrifice was difficult to simulate in AI. The drawback was that if a warship was destroyed in battle, the pilot's life could not be guaranteed. Although ample consideration had been given to this in the warship's design, everyone knew how terrifying interstellar war was, and everyone understood how slim the chances of survival were.
"Let the pilots go. Our soldiers need to be tempered by blood and fire. It's cruel, but it's also our mission. From the day we joined the military, we were prepared to lose our lives at any time," Hu Yu said.
"I agree. We may have two million frontline combat personnel now, but only a few tens of thousands are veterans who fought the Insect Race back in the Earth era. The rest are recruits trained on Tau Ceti with no combat experience. This battle will be the benchmark for testing the results of their training," Wen Zhonghua said in agreement.
"The coming war will help our soldiers adapt to the environment faster. As we wander through space, war will probably be the norm. Zhonghua, do you have a plan for deploying our forces in this battle?"
"I have a few preliminary plans, but since we don't know the enemy's exact circumstances, there are many details we can't work out."
"Let's hear them."
"Based on our observations and analysis over the past two months, we've found that the other side doesn't have much combat experience. On their way here, apart from sending a large number of warships to escort the flagship, their fleet hasn't used any other combat formations. They haven't even sent out scouts. From that, either they're arrogant to the extreme, or they don't have much combat experience. I'm more inclined to believe the latter."
"What if they think it's not time to attack yet, and that's why they haven't formed combat formations?"
"Old Hu, we came from Earth. Although we didn't use large numbers of J-90s as escorts along the way because of energy concerns, every time anything unusual happened, we sent out every fighter. If I were in their position, I'd have to spread the warships out at a time like this, whatever the circumstances, to avoid having them all wiped out at once. I'd also send appropriately sized formations in several directions to guard against surprise attacks, and launch plenty of probes or send scouts directly to reconnoiter. No matter how strong you are, you can't be too careful when facing an unfamiliar civilization. After all, civilizations differ so greatly that no one can be sure what weapons or methods the other side might have to counter them," Wen Zhonghua explained.
"That's possible. I agree with your conjecture. Another possibility is that their early-warning capabilities are powerful enough to ensure there are no threats in a large area of space around them. If that's the case, they'd have enough time to react, so there'd be no need to send out detachments for early warning."
"Perhaps. Based on their direction and speed, Planet Five will bear the brunt when contact occurs. Planets Four and Three will be on either side of Tau Ceti, with the three planets forming a huge triangle. I plan to center our deployment on Planet Five," Wen Zhonghua explained, pointing at the star chart. "Two hundred thousand Hunter-Killers will hide on the far side of Planet Five, fifty thousand on Planet Three, and fifty thousand on Planet Four. Another hundred thousand will hide in the intense light and radiation at 0.1 astronomical units from Tau Ceti. We've also rushed to make a batch of land-based fusion-bomb launchers and land-based laser cannons and deployed them on Planet Five to draw the enemy warships in."
"Go on."
"Of the two hundred thousand Hunter-Killers on Planet Five, thirty thousand need to be AI-controlled, set to level-four risk mode. In that mode, they'll attack the enemy at any cost and make them angry. The other hundred and seventy thousand can use conservative attacks and harassment attacks to preserve as much strength as possible. We'll use these tactics to draw most of their warships here, then our warships will fight as they retreat, leading the enemy toward Tau Ceti. Once they reach this point, the warships in the other three positions will all move out and surround the enemy," Wen Zhonghua said, pointing to the center point between Planet Five, Planet Three, and Tau Ceti.
"What about the other hundred thousand Hunter-Killers?" Hu Yu asked.
"The remaining hundred thousand will be split into two parts. One part, forty thousand ships divided into two groups, will set out today and quietly leave using conventional flight. They'll only switch to curvature mode at the last moment, to avoid detection if the other side has equipment for detecting spatial fluctuations and to stay hidden longer. They'll take a wide route around from these two directions and slip in behind them. I estimate that during the battle, they'll send out most of their warships while their flagship and civilian ships stay farther back. When the time comes, those forty thousand ships will be their nightmare. The deployment at Tau Ceti is mainly to wear down and tie up the enemy's main fleet; those forty thousand ships launching the sneak attack are the key. The other sixty thousand will depart with the Deep Blue to protect it and serve as reserves."
"Mm, we also have eighty thousand J-90s. They won't be useful on our future voyage, so let them make one last contribution in this war with their dignity as fighters intact. That won't disgrace their dignity as fighters. Their combat power is limited, but they can certainly harass and distract the enemy. Their onboard AI can carry out the mission; there's no need to expend our soldiers," Hu Yu added.
"All right, we'll add them to Planet Five. Old Hu, any other thoughts?"
"Deploy the forces that way as soon as possible. At the same time, make sure the soldiers are mentally prepared. Replace anyone who isn't up to it immediately. We can't afford to be careless now; the slightest mistake could cause us huge losses. Also, our quantum communications can't be used in curvature flight, so we can only rely on conventional electromagnetic communications. The distances are too great for me to command in real time, so we need to send capable junior officers. And the Destroyers and the Patrols were both able to enter our systems without obstruction and decrypt all our information before. So from now on, I require that no operational intentions be stored on the network, and information must be encoded multiple times before transmission. The encoding methods must also be changed frequently. That way, even if the other side intercepts our information, they absolutely won't know what we're saying, unless they can read minds," Hu Yu added.
"Right. We'd better also detect, monitor, and decrypt their communications. It might work," Wen Zhonghua said.
"Start preparing. The Deep Blue fleet can set out in a week. By then, the whole of Tau Ceti will be a battlefield. This is our first interstellar war in the true sense, and we can't let the Leader and the people down. In other words, we can only win; we can't lose. Everyone knows what losing would mean."
"Old Hu, like I said before, don't worry. Unless they're vastly stronger than us, they're definitely in for a nasty surprise. When it comes to fighting wars, we've never had a moment's peace from ancient times to the present. What kind of situation haven't we seen?"
"Zhonghua, how can I put my mind at ease? Hundreds of millions of civilian lives are in our hands. The enemy has more than twice as many warships as we do, and theirs may be more advanced. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how good our chances of winning this war really are."
"Worrying blindly won't help now. We'll find a way when we get there. We've suffered enough being driven from our home; heaven can't keep going out of its way to make things hard for our civilization alone. Surely it has to leave us a way to survive. If we really can't hold them off, then we'll use the final plan and take them down with us. In any case, I absolutely won't become a prisoner."
Tau Ceti, a star that had rested quietly in the Milky Way for billions of years, now faced the imminent arrival of a superstorm as two civilizations collided. The storm would sweep across the entire Tau Ceti System.
The Deep Blue fleet had already departed. Three hundred Deep Blue ships, each twenty kilometers long, were fully loaded, interspersed with more than a hundred support ships of various shapes and sizes. Sixty thousand deep-black Hunter-Killers escorted them on the perimeter. The formation had left Tau Ceti at 0.4 times the speed of light and was now 0.3 light-years from Hu Yu. More than a third of the quantum communication devices they carried had also been damaged in curvature flight. Fortunately, the fleet had known this would happen when it set out and had brought a large number of quantum communication devices.
Across Tau Ceti, apart from some hastily produced land-based launchers hidden underground, all that remained were Hunter-Killer warships. The pilots had long since boarded, and groups of Hunter-Killers flew in formation to their assigned locations, where they concealed themselves and waited.
Even if the chance was only one in a hundred thousand, avoiding war was always preferable, especially given the fleet's present circumstances. Once everything was ready, Hu Yu sent out two unmanned transport ships that looked least capable of fighting, after removing all their weapons, to meet the enemy along their approach. At the front of the transports, scientists had installed an enormous display screen to show text in one of Earth's languages.
At the same time, the transports continuously sent electromagnetic transmissions to the other side, demanding that they identify themselves and state their intentions, and that they slow down and change course, as this was the territory of the Chinese Nation. Sent along with these messages was an interstellar dictionary written in a lesser-used language. The scientist who compiled it had named it the interstellar dictionary, and it contained a sufficient number of words and sentences and so on. Linguistic information, or communication, was essentially a database; given enough samples for comparison, it could be mastered.