I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

On Saturday afternoon, the official sealing of the envelope was completed and verified by the security office.

Comrade Song then took it to Research Room 502 and personally handed it to Jiang Ming.

Jiang Ming and Fang Xudong were organizing this week's experimental records at their worktables. Occasionally, the sound of pages turning could be heard from the next office, where Wu Hanzhang was reviewing the funding application for the first phase of the 24 GHz pre-research project.

Old Sun just finished maintenance on the propulsion mechanism of the single crystal furnace. The worm gear was re-oiled, and the axial movement and limit seals were also checked.

When the toolbox lid was closed, the latch made a crisp sound against the stove rack.

Jiang Ming checked the envelope number and the military transfer stamp, comparing them item by item with the notice he received the day before using a paper cutter to open the seal.

Lu Qinghe's familiar handwriting then appeared on the letter.

The first part of the letter described the current status of the No. 3 direction finding station: the antenna turning mechanism has been replaced, the duty team has been re-established according to the new shift schedule, the equipment self-inspection and azimuth calibration results are all within the allowable range, and the direction finding station has resumed operation.

In the final paragraph, the content shifts to a set of recent direction finding records.

Lu Qinghe discovered that weak pulses occasionally appeared in the 22 to 24 gigahertz frequency band, with their direction continuously pointing to the northwest and outside the country. Each pulse lasted for less than two seconds, and the intervals between them lacked a fixed pattern.

She attached the shift date, receiver status, and antenna orientation to the back page, and asked at the end: Is this signal related to the K-band pre-research? Does the No. 3 station need to be separately documented and tracked?

Jiang Ming pulled the back page under the work light, his finger hovering over the 22-24 GHz band markings. He then took out the Aksai K-band fragment summary and placed the 24 GHz band circled in red next to Lu Qinghe's record.

The fragmented documents point to an enemy 24 gigahertz magnetron prototype, and the test plan in the intercepted drawings mentioned network verification, with the estimated time falling around the current month.

If the signals captured by Station No. 3 are indeed from the same equipment, the enemy's work has moved from paper prototypes to field radiation tests. The irregular intervals and short-duration transmissions are also consistent with the practice of controlling exposure during the early equipment calibration.

The receiver currently only records single-station azimuth and weak pulses. Propagation conditions, equipment stray signals, and other radiation sources from abroad still need to be ruled out one by one. Therefore, Jiang Ming limited his judgment to the scope to be tracked and first took out the military reply paper to fill in the handling requirements.

"Separate records are created and tracked, recording the time of occurrence, duration, azimuth angle, and signal characteristics each time. Emphasis is placed on preserving pulse width, repetition frequency, and changes in received signal strength. Passive reception is maintained throughout the process, without any active radiation response."

He added that the equipment self-test requirements should be checked with an internal calibration source after each signal appears, and the weather, antenna turning status and other frequency band background records for the same period should be saved together.

After writing the reply, Jiang Ming copied another briefing, entered the receiving channel into the confidential system under Director Wang's jurisdiction, and only retained the information on the discovery, frequency band, location, occurrence pattern, and passive tracking arrangements of Station No. 3, in order to avoid the spread of unverified judgments to more units.

When Wu Hanzhang came out of the next office, he had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He saw the military-style letter paper on the table, stood next to Jiang Ming, and read the last paragraph.

His gaze shifted from the 22-24 gigahertz range to the preliminary research plan. The cover of the plan already bore the factory's seal of approval for the project, but the timeline on the first page was still scheduled for several months later according to the device development schedule.

Jiang Ming looked up and met his gaze. Neither of them spoke immediately. The K-band fragment summary, Lu Qinghe's letter, and the zero-generation sample tube test table on the table had already linked the same frequency band together.

Wu Hanzhang took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped the cover of the funding application with his fingertip.

"In the first phase of equipment procurement, let's not follow the usual pre-research queue anymore. I'll go to Director Zhang and put waveguide components, detector test benches, and high-frequency signal sources on the priority production schedule."

"The device manufacturing process will continue to proceed according to the existing matrix. Even if we are rushing to meet the deadline, we must keep the records of each set of parameters. If the data of the zero-generation prototype is messed up, we will have to redo it later."

"I'll urge for supplies, you stay and oversee the production process."

Wu Hanzhang returned to his office with the funding application. As soon as the door closed, the sound of the secure telephone dial turning could be heard from inside.

Fang Xudong finished binding the last stack of experimental records for the week. When he went to the window to check the page numbers, he flipped the notebook from the middle to the last page.

That page contained his words left on the front lines. He was the era itself. The pencil writing had been worn down from being carried all the way, but it was still clearly legible.

After returning to Beijing, Jiang Ming spent most of his time tending to the furnace temperature paper tape, device test charts, and guidance whiteboard. The gunshots in the Gobi mines had faded into the distance, but the technological competition had returned to his desk along the 24 gigahertz signal.

Fang Xudong closed the notebook, turned around and copied the antenna azimuth data from the next page of Lu Qinghe's book into the K-band dedicated folder. He also marked the cover with "passive reception record" and waited for the subsequent signals to form a comparable sequence.

At 6 p.m., the lights in Lab 502 came on one by one. The factory buildings outside the window had already fallen into twilight. The single crystal furnace control console and the simple mixing test bench remained in a power-off and sealed state.

Jiang Ming sat at his workbench, with the vacuum rotary sealing scheme to be sent to Wang Shouwu's laboratory tomorrow on his left. The drawings indicated multi-stage pole shoes, magnetic circuit closure, and temperature-resistant isolation.

On the right is the first draft of the horizontal stability revision required for the third demonstration meeting of the Fifth Academy. The first round of writing on the segmented PID parameter switching, integral state maintenance and the cross-interval of bandwidth above 40 kilometers has just been completed.

Lu Qinghe's military correspondence was spread out in front of him, while the records of 22 to 24 gigahertz and the summary of the Aksai fragments were pressed in the same folder. The replies and copy reports were waiting for Comrade Song to take them away.

The three directions occupy three positions on this worktable. The collaboration of the dual crucible equipment is related to a more uniform germanium single crystal. Lateral stability correction will enter the next round of guidance demonstration. The weak pulse from abroad has put real time pressure on the 24 GHz pre-research.

As the factory's public address system played the end-of-get off work music, Comrade Song poked his head in from outside the door, already holding a military document bag in his hand.

"Jiang, the cafeteria is about to close. I'll send the reply to you now."

General Jiang Ming sealed the reply letter and the copy of the briefing separately, instructing that the two channels should not be mixed. He then put away the sealed drawings and the first draft of the horizontal stabilization, and put Lu Qinghe's original letter into a personal document bag.

He turned off the workbench light, and Fang Xudong locked the experimental record cabinet. Old Sun carried his toolbox and went to the workshop entrance to wait for them, while Wu Hanzhang was still next door coordinating with the factory to prioritize production.

The setting sun shone through the western factory building at the end of the corridor, casting long strips of light on the concrete floor. Jiang Ming, carrying a canvas bag, walked through, the three documents inside clinking together softly with each step.

The lab door was locked behind me, but the 24 gigahertz pre-research schedule on the blackboard remained where it had been before the lights went out.

The twelve sets of electrical pulse tests, originally scheduled to be carried out in batches, have been pushed into the first three days of next week.