From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 668: The Victory of Entropy Increase

When Major Jason Cole's retinal projection blasted away twelve scarlet triangles, the Hound IV reconnaissance ship was dancing the death tango at the edge of the Stonehenge defense zone.

He smelled the familiar smell of metallic ionization - every time an unknown electronic warship from Atlas appeared on the opposite side, the air inside the ship would carry this smell mixed with ozone and blood.

He swore that the enemy's electronic warfare ships were at least at the level of cruisers, and for common small reconnaissance ships, electronic warfare cruisers were obviously completely unable to contend with, not to mention that there were 12 of them.
"What kind of world is this? The rebels' technology and weapons are actually ahead of ours!"

Major Jason Cole pounded his thigh hard. Once upon a time, when he was on a mission, facing those rebels with shabby equipment, he dared to send the small reconnaissance ship "Hound No. 4" to tease the enemy at close range. If the opportunity was right, he would also be very happy to release a small number of ship-borne HCPs to completely annihilate the enemy.

But now, this situation only exists in the memory of the past.

"Fuck, the enemy's electronic attack is coming so fast!" The communications officer on the other side of the bridge suddenly exclaimed. On small reconnaissance ships with limited seats and tight manpower, communications officers often also serve as electronic warfare officers.

Hearing this, Major Jason Cole frowned even deeper.

It is obvious that the enemy's electronic warfare level, or personnel training level and proficiency in equipment are rapidly increasing with the confrontations in recent days.

When the joint fleets of Atlas and the Renaissance Alliance first began to besiege the "Stonehenge" defense zone, the reconnaissance fleets, electronic warfare teams and other small-scale fleets sent by both sides were able to fight back and forth, and in many cases even the units of the Federal Navy were able to gain the upper hand.

But as time went on, the intensity of the battle quickly increased, and gradually Jason Cole and his colleagues found that they could no longer gain the upper hand in this small-scale battle. At the same time, due to some minor mistakes or carelessness, underestimation of the enemy, they would fall into a passive situation.

This is why the reconnaissance team that Hound No. 4 was in was the only one that showed up during this peripheral reconnaissance mission. The other friendly forces in the team had been sunk in previous battles or had lost the ability to be deployed again in a short period of time.
"Captain, should we retreat first?"

Adjutant Adrian's voice rang in Jason Cole's ears, and the latter nodded without hesitation.

"Of course we have to retreat, otherwise why are we staying here and waiting to die?! Pass my order, release the MK-32 smart chaff! The electronic warfare unit will execute full-band jamming at maximum power!"

As Cole spoke, he gave instructions to the helmsman to perform an emergency evasive maneuver.

At the same time, outside the narrow porthole of the reconnaissance ship, three hundred pods exploded at the same time, and a cloud of silver nano-intelligent foil condensed into a thorny maze in the vacuum. The helmsman of "Hound No. 4" also planned to take advantage of this fleeting opportunity to control the ship to do a "kites flip" and then run away immediately.

However, both he and Captain Cole underestimated the reaction speed of the Atlas electronic warfare cruiser.

Several sets of complex 'antennas' suddenly extended from the front of two of the warships, and a hexagonal lattice lit up. The high-frequency microwave beams split the fog like an invisible sword, and the dense foil network melted in an instant like a spider web caught in fire.

"Damn it, it's getting faster and faster. Helmsman! Speed ​​up, the chaff cloud cover will soon disappear!"

"Warning! The quantum encryption channel has been breached!"

Good fortune never comes alone, and misfortune never comes alone. The shipboard control personality also issued a warning at this time, and her virtual image turned dark red, which meant that a large amount of her computing power was being used to fight against the attack of the electronic warfare virus.

"I'm here to help, prepare for the electronic brain access!"

Adjutant Adrian Crow said loudly, pulling out a cable from behind the seat and plugging it into the back of his head. His pupils were also dilated in the flood of data. "Access completed, starting to assist the shipboard control personality, bad, the navigation system is degrading!"

On the other side, Major Cole suddenly felt a tingling pain in the neural interface at the back of his neck, and a glaring warning popped up on the helmet in the cabin suit: [Topological quantum virus invasion detected].

The holographic star map on the bridge began to distort. Atlas' attack code eroded the system like black mist sprayed by a cuttlefish. These electronic demons, optimized with the Forerunner algorithm with the assistance of Saleh, were gnawing at the central processor of Hound 7 along the optical fiber.

"Switch to full manual."

Adjutant Adrian's roar suddenly stopped. Cole turned his head sharply and saw that the young man's eyes were white and smoke was coming out of his suit. The electronic warfare virus had completely penetrated the firewall and infected the vital signs support system.
Although he was protected by the cabin suit at the moment, Cole still had the illusion that the smell of burnt barbecue mixed with ionized dust was rushing into his nostrils.

Without time to check on his adjutant, he saw an even more desperate scene through the porthole - twelve beams of purple charged particles accurately hit all the key compartments of the 'Hound No. 4'.
-
When Major General Griezmann stepped into the flagship's bridge, alarms rang throughout the bridge, and the busy people were in a state of panic.

"Everyone calm down and follow the preset instructions!"

Griezmann's calm voice sounded, trying to reassure everyone on the bridge, but when he himself saw the information on the holographic projection platform, he was also stunned.

His fingertips slid across a virtual screen that popped up beside him, and the picture on the holographic projection platform changed. Ice crystals with a diameter of eight kilometers dragged emerald trails against the deep space background - that was the color of Cherkassam radiation, which also meant that the speed of these ice crystals had approached sub-light speed.

This scene reminded Griezmann of the light blades wielded by the angels in the Merkaba Sanctuary.

"Thermal radiation pattern is abnormal!"

Chief of Staff Anna Whitlock projected the data stream onto the secondary screen on the bridge:
"The surface of the ice crystals is covered with fractal heat dissipation structures, and frictional heat is introduced into the internal condensation chamber through nano-carbon tubes. They are using our Dyson sphere technology against us!"

The "Dyson Sphere Technology" mentioned by the staff officer is also one of the key research projects of the Federal Academy of Sciences. Some derived technologies were later tried to be used on unmanned fleets, trying to make the unmanned fleets gain stronger combat performance after breaking away from the shackles of humans.

Since it is related to unmanned fleets, Dr. Mephisto obviously has access to these technologies. In fact, this leading figure in the Federation's field of artificial intelligence does not only specialize in artificial intelligence.

After being tricked into coming to Atlas, the doctor eventually brought some related technologies with him, which he called "Lilith's dowry."

Although the term "dowry" was a bit strange, and Amber found it difficult to understand the relationship between him and Lilith in Mephisto's eyes, this did not affect his acceptance of all these technologies.
On the bridge, Griezmann stared at the ticking countdown to the impact, and suddenly noticed the orbital parameters of a certain ice crystal - its angle of incidence was exactly the same as the tactic used by Marshal Trafalgar to annihilate the rebel fleet thirty-five years ago. It was just that the Federation thirty-five years ago did not have the technology to accelerate ice crystals to sub-light speed.
With a chill running down his spine, Griezmann immediately realized that this was no coincidence, but a psychological purgatory carefully designed by his old comrade Guterres.

"Activate all defense chains of 'Stonehenge'!"

Griezmann slammed his fist on the command desk and shouted anxiously and nervously, "Switch all artillery clusters to"

Before he could finish, the ship's control personality suddenly froze in place, and then emitted a dying buzzing sound. Everyone on the bridge immediately realized that they were under electronic warfare attack.

"Allocate computing power to intercept electronic warfare viruses, authorize the shipboard control personality to access the main system of the 'Stonehenge' defense zone to allocate computing power!"

Griezmann reacted quickly and responded immediately, but at this juncture, how much effect can simple response measures have?

No one knows.

The image of the ice crystals attacking at high speed split into countless ghost images on the sensor. The relativistic effect turned the trajectory prediction into a chaotic game. Coupled with the infection of the electronic warfare virus, the defense system of "Stonehenge" was completely unable to capture the exact target.

Griezmann watched the calibration parameters of the artillery cluster jumping wildly, and suddenly realized that the destroyed reconnaissance ships were not only losing eyes, but also gave the enemy the opportunity to implant logic bombs in the tactical network of the fleet and defense zone - after all, no one would have thought that the sunken friendly ships would become the enemy's attack springboard at the last moment.

At this moment, the fire control radar of the defense system is wasting 80% of its computing power on attacking the phantom, just like a medieval knight charging at an illusion in the mirror.

Looking at the core area of ​​the 'Stonehenge' defense zone, where a large number of federal warships and the huge permanent fortress had gathered because of his order to 'contract defense', Griezmann had only one thought in his mind.

"It's over, it's all over."
-
The dust cloud inside the Stonehenge defense zone suddenly began to boil, like a whirlpool in the sea of ​​stars stirred by an invisible hand.

Captain Charles Harper of the Federation Navy suddenly raised his head in the engine room of the heavy cruiser "Grizzly". His protective helmet hit the deuterium fuel pipe with a dull echo. He had just repaired the failure of the superconducting battery pack, and his gloves were still stained with light blue powder of coolant crystals.

This heavy cruiser is currently anchored with many warships in the 'Minerva' permanent fortress at the core of the defense zone. The previous order from the fleet's supreme commander allowed them to return to the fortress for maintenance.

The shrill alarm of the gravitational wave radar resounded throughout the cabin. Charles felt that a terrible force was attacking him. He immediately ran to the nearest porthole and looked out. At the same time, the full inspection broadcast also sounded.

"Fifteen unidentified objects broke through the Oort Cloud defense line! Speed ​​0.12c!"

Captain Williams' roar was accompanied by an electric noise.

"The entire ship is shock-resistant."

The next moment, the universe was torn apart before Captain Charles' eyes.

The moment the first sub-light-speed ice crystal brushed past the Minerva Permanent Fortress MK-7 armored platform, a hellish scene was imprinted on Charles' retina:

The tungsten carbide coating on the surface of the nine-kilometer-diameter ice core rubbed against the thin stardust, instantly stimulating a faint blue light arc that spanned tens of thousands of kilometers, like a thunder spear thrown by the gods.

The moment the fortress's honeycomb titanium alloy skeleton was penetrated, the 300,000 tons of composite armor on the impact surface burst like a fragile eggshell, and the flying metal fragments vaporized into silver smoke in the plasma trail.
"Port thruster number three overloaded! Damage control team being dispatched."

The alarm of the ship's control personality also sounded, and Charles was thrown against the bulkhead by centrifugal force. At this moment, he saw through the mask of the cabin suit that he had just fastened that the confinement magnetic field of the fusion reactor was distorting - the ionized cloud produced by the passing ice crystals was now rapidly entangled with all the surrounding warships.

The next moment, the Grizzly rolled like a dead leaf in the wind, and countless warning pop-ups exploded on the helmet panel.

He tightly grasped the handle of the bulkhead, watching the heavy cruiser "Grizzly" perform a dance of death on the helmet display. The twelve-barreled heavy particle cannon still spewed out blue-white beams under such circumstances. The heavy metal particle jets that were enough to melt through the asteroid refracted strangely when they hit the ice crystal coating, turning into a shower of iron that tore the side of the friendly ship "Black Pearl" anchored nearby into burning fragments.
"Gods"

Charles's groan was drowned out by the scraping of the heavy cruiser's outer armor plating. A titanium wreck from the Anvil-7 defense node scraped past the porthole, plowing spiderweb-like cracks in the bulletproof glass.

At this moment, a hatch behind him also rose up, and a figure stumbled in. At the same time, the scream of Adjutant Jackson suddenly sounded in the communication channel: "Captain! The coolant pipe of the No. 3 turret!"

"boom!"

The explosion and pressure relief occurred in an instant.

When Charles turned around, he saw the horrific scene of a human body boiling in a vacuum. Jackson and the four members of the damage control team paid the price for their habit of not sealing the cabin in time.
Their bodily fluids were instantly drained by the broken pipes. Before they could put on their helmets and complete the seal, their protective suits swelled into pale cocoons under the negative pressure. Their blood, which had not yet coagulated, solidified into strings of agate beads in zero gravity.

The only 'good habit' - the tied safety rope dragged them firmly to the gap formed by the explosion, allowing Charles to witness this scene.

The background of all this is the high-energy laser array outside the ship's breach and the large number of anti-aircraft weapons of nearby friendly forces, which are trying in vain to cut the cloud of water molecules formed by the evaporation of ice crystals. Thousands of high-energy light beams are scattered in the ionized dust into phosphorescent fire all over the sky.

Then, the 'star-shattering chain reaction' that everyone feared the most began.

The eight-kilometer-diameter ice core, traveling at 0.12 times the speed of light, had a kinetic energy equivalent to three billion tons of TNT—this cosmic-scale punch not only shredded the target, but also created ripples of death in the rubble belt.

And there are fifteen such "heavy punches".

(End of this chapter)