121: Chapter 121 One thousand one hundred missiles! It can count them itself!
Bunker No. 3, 5:25 AM.
On the terminal screen, red markers turned red in large swaths, as if someone had splashed a basin of blood across the map.
The Sky-Breaking Bow quantum state scanning network was flooding data back like crazy.
Thirty-six provincial nodes simultaneously captured dense high-temperature signals—the characteristic spectrum of solid rocket engine ignitions—surging up from the West Pacific, East China Sea, and South China Sea almost at the same second.
The bridging program automatically began to work.
The precise coordinates of every ignition signal, with latitude and longitude accurate to three decimal places, were fed in real-time into the fire control network of the Dragon Kingdom's conventional anti-missile system.
Su Che was not piloting Feather-01.
He stared at the data stream of the bridging program.
On the tactical tablet, the missile count counter was jumping.
287.
514.
819.
1097.
It paused for two seconds.
1134.
The total number locked in.
It was over forty missiles fewer than the upper limit estimated by the inference core; probably a few launch platforms had misfired.
1,134 sea-based medium-range ballistic missiles were flying toward the southeastern coast of the Dragon Kingdom from three directions simultaneously.
Flight time: twelve to eighteen minutes.
Su Che pulled over the intercom.
"General, the total is 1,134. All coordinates have been fed into fire control."
The background noise on Lieutenant General Peng's end was very chaotic, as if the entire Joint Command was roaring.
"Received! The anti-missile system has taken full control! The first interception echelon—HQ-19—will enter the interception window in five minutes!"
Su Che put down the intercom and switched to the flight control terminal of Feather-01.
On the screen, the inference core's status bar refreshed.
[Threat Update: 1,134 incoming targets; all ballistic trajectories calibrated.]
[Estimated conventional anti-missile interception count: 907 (79.9%).]
[Estimated leakage: 227.]
[Interception plan updated, 23 maneuver routes preset, covering all leaked trajectories.]
[Awaiting execution.]
227 missiles.
One drone, one laser cannon.
The interval from a single laser firing to recharging is 0.8 seconds.
227 multiplied by 0.8 equals 181.6 seconds.
Three minutes and 1.6 seconds.
That is, assuming every shot hits.
With the laser's effective range, the beam's attenuation under different atmospheric densities, and the missile's terminal maneuvering and course changes—when these variables are added together, a human brain cannot calculate them.
But the inference core is not a human brain.
Su Che did not add any instructions.
He took his hands off the control console.
For the first time.
Since Feather-01 took off, this was the first time he had voluntarily let go.
It was not giving up.
It was trust.
...
5:31 AM.
High altitude.
On the skyline in the southeast of the Dragon Kingdom, 47 HQ-19 anti-missile missiles were the first to launch, dragging white trails into the grey sky before dawn.
Their targets came from a data source never used before.
It was not the early warning radar.
The early warning radar had been suppressed by Golden Dome into scrap metal that could only hear white noise.
It was the precise coordinates transmitted in real-time by the 36 quantum nodes.
Inside the onboard computer of every HQ-19 ran the bridging program written by Su Che.
The coordinate data refreshed every 0.1 seconds.
The position, speed, and heading of the incoming missiles 100 kilometers away were all marked in real-time.
The fire control calculation time was compressed from the conventional 4.2 seconds to 0.9 seconds.
5:33 AM, the first echelon of interception began.
A series of white flashes exploded in the sky.
5:35 AM, the second echelon, HQ-26 mid-course interception missiles launched.
5:37 AM, the third echelon, HHQ-9B terminal interception.
Three interception nets, from high to low, from far to near, like three sieves.
Su Che stared at the numbers on the tactical tablet.
Interception successful: 211.
412.
687.
893.
The numbers jumped at a speed of dozens per second.
Under the support of the Sky-Breaking Bow, the interception efficiency of the conventional anti-missile system far exceeded expectations.
5:39 AM.
The interception count stopped at 917.
The remaining 217 had broken through the three interception nets.
It was ten fewer than the inference core had estimated.
But 217 was enough.
Enough to plow through the six southeastern coastal provinces.
Su Che did not touch the control console.
On the terminal screen, the inference core of Feather-01 automatically switched from standby to execution status.
No prompt sound, no animation.
Just the color of the status bar changing from blue to red.
Then on the flight path map, the trajectory of Feather-01 unfolded directly.
It was not one line.
It was twenty-three.
Within 0.04 seconds, the inference core completed the priority sorting, interception sequence, maneuver path planning, and laser power allocation for all 217 targets.
Feather-01 began a flight posture at near-space altitude that Su Che had never seen before.
Not a straight sprint, not an arc-shaped flanking maneuver.
It was a leap.
The three guide vanes of the thrust vector nozzle deflected to the limit angle simultaneously, and the engine switched from ramjet mode to rocket mode and back within 0.07 milliseconds.
At a speed of Mach 16, the airframe made an almost right-angle turn.
A human pilot could not withstand this G-force.
But Feather-01 had no human.
The right-wing weapon pod completed the entire process of charging, locking, and releasing in less than a second.
The first leaked missile was pierced by a beam of light as thick as a needle tip; the warhead separated from the missile body, and the debris burned into meteors at the edge of the atmosphere.
0.8 seconds later, the second one.
0.8 seconds later, the third one.
Su Che sat in front of the console, doing nothing.
He watched that red counter on the terminal screen.
217.
198.
163.
It jumped faster than the second hand.
Every jump meant one missile turning into fragments in the sky.
This machine was flying in a way that humans could not understand; it did not take the shortest path, it took the path of "maximizing laser coverage area."
Sometimes it would deliberately deviate from the target by thirty kilometers, just to let the laser sweep across two missiles nine kilometers apart in the moment of turning.
One turn, take out two.
When Su Che was coding it, he hadn't taught it this trick.
It had calculated it itself.
91.
54.
23.
8.
3.
1.
0.
5:42:07 AM.
[All leaked targets cleared; time elapsed: 186.3 seconds; hit rate: 100%.]
The inference core's status bar switched back from red to blue.
It was quiet.
Su Che stared at that "0" for five seconds.
Then he stood up from the chair, walked to the force field workbench, bent down to dig out a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of the toolbox—it was Zhou Qihang's.
He didn't smoke, and smoking wasn't allowed here.
But he gripped the cigarette pack in his hand for a while, then put it back.
The intercom rang.
Lieutenant General Peng's voice was hoarse enough to fall apart.
"All intercepted, the six southeastern provinces, not a single one missed."
Su Che took the enamel mug, turned it upside down; it was empty.
"General, Feather-01's ammunition was not consumed, the laser cannon has 60% energy remaining; it can fly another trip at any time."
"That... that thing of yours, did it shoot them down by itself?"
"By itself. I didn't touch the control stick the entire time."
There was silence on Lieutenant General Peng's end for a few seconds.
"Su Che, do you know what kind of thing you've built?"
"I know."
Su Che turned the enamel mug right-side up and placed it on the table.
"A soldier that doesn't sleep, doesn't feel fear, and doesn't have shaky hands."
"... Have you named it?"
Su Che was stunned for a moment.
He really hadn't thought about this question.
"Let's call it 'Xuan Nü'."
He said casually.
The other end of the phone was quiet again.
"Do you know what 'Xuan Nü' is in the Nantianmen Project?"
"The code name for the unmanned fighter formation."
"You motherf***er just named it casually, and you got it right."
Su Che didn't respond to this remark; his attention was pulled away by a newly popped-up piece of data on the terminal.
The inference core's self-check report.
[Combat data collection complete; this interception generated 217 sets of valid decision samples.]
[Note: Currently the minimum viable version, possesses only reaction capability, does not possess learning, evolution, or multi-platform coordination capabilities.]
[Suggestion: Import combat data into the full version of the Yi Ren Intelligence General Cognitive Kernel for training; this can significantly improve the system's intelligence level.]
Su Che saved this entry.
The full version hadn't been built yet, but 217 sets of combat data were more valuable than any simulation training set.
He was just about to close the report when the intercom rang again.
It wasn't Lieutenant General Peng.
It was Qin Lan.
"Su Che, a new signal intercepted by the intelligence department."
"Again?"
"It's different."
Qin Lan deliberately slowed her speaking speed, as if confirming what she was seeing.
"This time it's not from the fleet, it's a top-level order sent directly from The Pentagon."
"Sent to whom?"
"Sent to the... quantum warfare experimental units deployed at the three bases in Guam, Okinawa, and Jeju Island."
Su Che switched the intercom to his other hand.
Quantum warfare.
"Content of the order?"
"Two words."
Qin Lan took a breath.
"'Bird Hunting'."