117: Chapter 117 Developing a Fighter Jet Within Ten Hours! The First Feather at Nantianmen!

Bunker No. 3, 7:03 PM.

The walkie-talkie lay on the edge of the console, the last sentence still echoing between the concrete walls of the bunker.

"The first feather of the luan bird must grow."

Su Che stood in front of the hovering engine, tilting his head.

The heart was alive.

But could it take to the skies with just a heart?

The complete luan bird was a 100,000-ton space-based mothership, requiring a core load-bearing truss, an Anti-gravity load-bearing system, an integrated command and control system, a directed energy weapon cluster, and a carrier-based aircraft formation.

That wasn't something that could be solved in ten hours; ten years would be a stretch.

But Number One said "the first feather."

Not the whole bird.

Su Che turned and sat back at the console, opening the Southern Gate master database.

The design drawings for the "White Emperor" space fighter were too complex; skip.

The blueprints for the "Xuan Nu" unmanned fighter were still complex, but...

He magnified the airframe structure of the "Xuan Nu" and placed it side-by-side on the screen with the skeletal parameters of the all-terrain transforming mecha he had built in Su Family Village.

The two things—one flew in the sky, one ran on the ground.

The skeleton used the same logic of mechanics.

Bionic hydraulic deformation drive technology.

The mecha's eight limbs could switch between different configurations; changing the configuration parameters from "multi-legged walking" to "spread-wing flight," the underlying mathematical model was compatible.

Su Che sprang from the chair and grabbed a piece of white paper.

Engine—Check.

Anti-gravity lift module—Check, Academician Wu Mengda's hovering chair used the same principle.

Stealth shell—Check, the "Shield-Casting" parameters were all in the supercomputer.

Airframe skeleton—Check, just modify the parameters of the mecha's bionic hydraulic skeleton.

Directed energy weapon—Check, the pod just hung on the engine.

Flight control brain—Check, the quantum chip running the branching algorithm of the prediction kernel.

Six things, all of which had been built before.

No need for the system to issue new tasks, no need to exchange for new technology.

Use old parts to assemble a new machine.

He sketched for five minutes, tore it up, and sketched for another three minutes.

The object in the sketch looked like a flat manta ray.

An eight-meter wingspan, a flat and long fuselage, no cockpit, a purely unmanned configuration.

The engine was embedded in the back, the Anti-gravity module in the belly, the inner sides of the two wings were scaled-down versions of the bionic hydraulic deformation area, and the weapon pod was hung under the right wing.

The shell was molded as one piece using "Shield-Casting."

Su Che wrote three words at the bottom of the sketch.

[Feather-01]

He picked up the encrypted phone.

"General."

"Speak." Lieutenant General Peng's voice was a bit hoarse, with the sound of people walking in the background.

"The engine is done, the heart is no problem. Now, I'm going to build its body."

"...What do you mean?"

"Before the Golden Dome activates, I'm going to assemble the Dragon Country's first space unmanned fighter prototype."

The person on the other end of the phone swallowed.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Before, when I said I was going to build an engine, you had the same reaction."

Lieutenant General Peng didn't respond to that.

"The materials are enough; there's still a pile of carbon fiber and silicon carbide left, and there's a surplus of niobium-tungsten alloy. The Candle Dragon doesn't need to be moved; it can be remotely controlled."

Su Che paused.

"There is one thing that needs to be adjusted. The backup data for the bionic hydraulic drive module of the transforming mecha from Su Family Village is in the Military Science Commission's 'Pangu Quantum Computer' server. I need download permissions."

"You want to use mecha technology to build an airplane?"

"The mecha can run on eight legs in a blizzard; change the parameters, and it can fly with two wings in the stratosphere. It's the same underlying mechanics, just changing the shell."

He took a photo of the sketch and sent it to Lieutenant General Peng's encrypted terminal.

Ten seconds later.

"Data permissions are open now. Anything else?"

"Air-drop the backup Anti-gravity module used in Academician Wu Mengda's hovering chair to me. There should be three sets left in the Military Science Commission warehouse."

"Okay."

He hung up the phone.

7:20 PM.

The Pangu Quantum Computer server mecha data download was complete.

Su Che imported the 3D model into the Candle Dragon terminal and arranged the sequence.

Fuselage main skeleton, two hours.

Bionic hydraulic deformation drive, one and a half hours.

Anti-gravity module installation, one hour.

Stealth shell molding, one hour.

Engine embedding, weapon mounting, flight control injection, and full-machine adjustment, two hours.

Seven and a half hours.

Golden Dome countdown, eight and a half hours.

He inserted the first carbon fiber silicon carbide preform into the force field work area.

"Hum—"

The quantum force field expanded.

The first section of the fuselage keel began to grow in the blue light.

...

Across the ocean, in the Western Pacific, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Reagan.

On the tactical screen of the combat command center, the countdown was ticking.

Captain Howard chewed gum, standing in front of a device that took up half the cabin.

The "Ame-no-Murakumo" directed energy beam device.

The three-meter-long superconducting cavity shell was wrapped in cooling pipes, and a group of Sakura Country technicians in white coats surrounded the control console at the tail.

The head of the remaining Ida Heavy Industries team pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, turned around, and reported in broken English.

"Your Excellency Captain, Ame-no-Murakumo is calibrated and ready to launch at any time. After the Golden Dome array suppresses the Dragon Country's conventional satellite communications, Ame-no-Murakumo will physically destroy their six Quantum Communication satellites in orbit one by one."

"Six, how long will it take?"

"Twenty minutes."

Howard spat out the gum and stepped on it.

"Didn't your Ida stuff get wrecked by some kid who handles scrap metal in the Dragon Country last time?"

The short man's neck shrank.

"That was cyber warfare; Ame-no-Murakumo is physical hardware."

"Fine." Howard turned and walked out. "If it explodes, you'll be the first one tossed into the sea."

The short man stared at his back, his fingernails digging into his palms.

...

Bunker No. 3, 10:45 PM.

Three sections of the keel and twelve ribs were spliced in the force field.

The skeleton hovered in the center of the bunker like a skinned fish spine.

Su Che took a gulp of cold ginger soup and pulled up the drive module data of the mecha.

The parameter table for the eight limbs was changed to two folding wings.

The hydraulic cylinder stroke was reduced from 300 mm to 180 mm.

The geometric relationship of the transmission linkage was recalculated.

He had done this kind of work when rushing in the blizzard; it was very smooth.

The force field hum changed pitch, and the micro-hydraulic cylinders began to "grow" one by one.

The blast door rang.

Zhou Qihang handed in a note.

Su Che took it with one hand without stopping the operation.

[Southern Gate first phase, nineteen-hour countdown. I am waiting for your delivery at the Southern Theater Joint Command. — Commander-in-Chief Wang Xueshan]

Su Che flipped the note over and wrote two words.

[Received.]

He handed it back to Zhou Qihang.

Nineteen hours, enough.

...

12:10 AM.

The bionic hydraulic deformation drive system was installed.

Two folding wings hung on both sides of the skeleton, with hydraulic cylinders and transmission linkages intertwined into a precise spider web.

Su Che entered the test command.

Both wing surfaces popped open simultaneously, from folded to fully extended in 0.2 seconds.

Retracted, 0.2 seconds.

Extended again, simultaneously tilting down by thirty degrees to simulate a dive posture.

It was as stable as when the mecha switched gaits in the blizzard.

He turned off the test and began to install the Anti-gravity module.

The backup module for Academician Wu Mengda's hovering chair had been air-dropped to the base gate two hours ago by a Y-20.

Four disc-shaped Anti-gravity generators were embedded into the four stress nodes on the front, back, left, and right of the fuselage, and the data cables were connected to the control bus of the quantum chip.

Test.

The skeleton, along with all parts, lifted steadily from the assembly bracket, hovering fifty centimeters off the ground.

No sound. No airflow.

Su Che crawled underneath to look; the Anti-gravity module on the belly emitted a very faint blue light.

"Okay."

1:20 AM, time to dress it.

The Candle Dragon switched procedures, directly "growing" the "Shield-Casting" stealth shell on the outer surface of the skeleton.

The black metamaterial spread from the nose to the tail like ink, molded as one piece, with no seams.

2:30 AM.

What was hovering in the center of the bunker was no longer a bare skeleton.

A flat aircraft, pitch black all over, with an eight-meter wingspan.

The surface did not reflect light under the lamps, as if it were swallowing light.

Su Che took two steps back.

He had seen this outline before, on the last page of Grandpa's notebook, that pencil-drawn conceptual diagram of the "Xuan Nu."

It was not the same, but it was similar.

The final step.

The engine was sent into the back embedding area by the force field, the interfaces were aligned, the pipelines were sealed, and the bus was connected.

The weapon pod was hung under the right wing.

The flight control program background compilation progress had just finished. Injection.

Countdown.

Golden Dome activation, one and a half hours remaining.

Su Che's thumb hovered over the Enter key.

The walkie-talkie blasted.

Qin Lan's voice was urgent.

"Su Che, the USS Reagan carrier strike group suddenly changed course an hour ago and is approaching the Dragon Country!"

"At the carrier's current position, the range of Ame-no-Murakumo can just cover the orbit of our six Quantum Communication satellites!"

Su Che's thumb pressed down.

[Flight control program injection: Start.]

"Director Qin, tell Lieutenant General Peng."

He stared at the progress bar climbing at a constant speed on the screen.

"Feather-01, in another hour, it will be able to fly."

"The first target—the USS Reagan."