98: Chapter 98 Craig's Vicious Plot: The Orbital Jamming Plan
The magnificent scene of the completion of the "Guanghan Palace" base's main structure was broadcast globally through Dragon Country's official media, like a sharp slap across the face of Craig and the forces he represented. Looking at that silver city standing tall on the far side of the moon on the screen, and seeing the confidence and pride overflowing from all of Dragon Country, Craig locked himself in that dark CIA safe house, his chest filled with jealousy, anger, and a near-desperate sense of helplessness.
The "Ghost Protocol" cyberattack he meticulously planned was easily neutralized and countered twofold; the "Medusa" AI plan backfired even more, plunging Pretty Country into a brief period of chaos. The continuous failures not only ruined his personal future but also dealt a heavy blow to the interests of the military-industrial complex and political bigwigs behind him. He had no way back.
"It can't end like this... absolutely not!" Craig's eyes were bloodshot, staring fixedly at the image of the lunar base, his nails almost digging into his palms. "They want to sleep soundly on the moon? In their dreams! I will never let things go so smoothly for them!"
A sinister and vicious thought gradually took shape in his frenzied mind—since he couldn't defeat them in the network and digital world, he would cause trouble from the most basic physical level! The target was aimed directly at Dragon Country's busy and critical Earth-Moon transport lines and various spacecraft in lunar orbit!
He immediately summoned the few remaining, absolutely loyal technical experts and operations directors to launch a top-secret sabotage plan he named "Stardust."
The core of the "Stardust" plan was to use the Pretty Country's decades of accumulation in the space field and its unexposed trump cards to conduct covert and hard-to-trace interference and sabotage against Dragon Country's space activities.
Its methods were extremely despicable:
"Accidental" debris clouds: Activate several old satellites that had long been decommissioned but were still controlled by specific agencies. Before their fuel was exhausted, they would choose critical areas near Dragon Country's Earth-Moon transport routes or lunar orbiters to perform "unplanned" orbital maneuvers and self-destruct, creating a dense cloud of high-speed metal fragments. These fragments would pose a serious threat to Dragon Country's passing spacecraft, and Pretty Country could entirely deflect blame as a "technical failure of an out-of-control old satellite."
"Lost" probes: Deploy one or two small satellites disguised as commercial or scientific research tools with short-range maneuverability. They would wait for an opportunity to approach Dragon Country's important observation or relay satellites in lunar orbit, performing non-cooperative close-range formation flying, or even attempting to release weak but continuous directional electromagnetic interference to affect their normal operation, creating the illusion of a "technical failure."
"Coincidental" orbital intersections: Use powerful space situational awareness and complex orbital calculations to carefully select timings, allowing spacecraft belonging to allies or third parties—but actually influenced by Pretty Country—to form "dangerous approaches" with Dragon Country's critical launch windows or orbital paths. This would force Dragon Country's ships to perform emergency evasions, disrupting their scheduled plans and consuming their precious fuel and energy.
"I want to make them fearful during every launch, to make their Moon Base feel the threat from orbit at all times!" Craig roared at his subordinates, the twisted smile on his face appearing exceptionally hideous. "No need for direct conflict; just constant, 'accidental' troubles will be enough to slow their pace, consume their resources, and strike at their morale! Space has never been a pure land!"
Orders were rapidly transmitted through top-secret channels. The internal command receivers of several satellites that had been "dormant" for years in Low Earth Orbit and higher orbits were quietly activated. A space control center located in a deep mountain base in Colorado began conducting complex orbital simulations and attack timing calculations according to the "Stardust" plan.
An invisible, malicious web woven from "accidents" and "coincidences" began to quietly spread toward the route from Dragon Country to the Moon.
Craig didn't know, or rather, he deliberately ignored—Dragon Country was no longer the latecomer in the space field that needed to cautiously avoid others' orbits. With "Quantum Navigation," "Fuxi" computing power, and the prototype of the "network" covering Earth and the Moon, Dragon Country's perception and control over its surrounding space far exceeded his imagination.
His sinister plot might cause some initial trouble, but it was destined to hit an even more solid barrier that he could not understand once again.
Inside the "Candle Dragon" safe house, Lin Mo had just finished watching the celebration of the completion of "Guanghan Palace," when a yellow warning sign representing a "potential space threat" suddenly flashed on the system interface. A preliminary analysis report from "Fuxi" had already marked the abnormal orbital maneuver data of several monitored satellites as "requiring high attention."
Lin Mo's gaze turned cold.
"It seems some people... never learn."