90: rescue ship

Elon spent a whole year on Mars.

During this year, he witnessed the first human footprints left by the voyager on that red planet.

He even had the audacity to follow the scientific expedition team to explore several ancient riverbed ruins, calling it "personally participating in the greatest archaeological discovery of humanity."

Of course, the full video of his embarrassing "Mars car crash" incident had long spread across the internet to the highest levels of the Earth Defense Force and the dome project, becoming an unspoken joke for everyone during their tense work breaks.

When he stepped back onto Earth's soil, he found that the world had become both familiar and strange.

What was familiar was that he was still the nominal president of the American Union, still that tech icon with hundreds of millions of followers on social media.

But what was strange was that he felt he couldn't keep up with the country's breathtaking pace of development.

During the year he "skipped work," the knowledge manager had completely reshaped the entire American society with its absolute, rational iron fist.

The economic structure was thoroughly optimized, the social welfare system was rebuilt, and even city traffic lights rarely caused congestion due to the AI's unified scheduling.

Elon found that he, as president, had completely become an expendable rubber stamp. With the new American monarchical system effectively ended, the work he needed to do every day was simply to sign his name on a pile of documents for which the knowledge manager had already reviewed and drafted optimal decisions.

Then, periodically standing in front of the camera, reading off the teleprompter those passionate and infectious speeches written for him by the knowledge manager.

He became the most competent and yet most idle "mascot" in the country.

But Elon didn't care at all; he was even enjoying it.

As a natural tech fanatic and business tycoon, he had never been interested in those tedious political struggles and administrative affairs.

The existence of the knowledge manager perfectly liberated him from the work he hated most, allowing him to devote all his energy to the things he truly loved—making money and research and development.

During the year he was away, his Nikola Group, under the macroeconomic policy support of the knowledge manager and the unreserved technical support of Paradox Technology, had snowballed into a giant tech trust covering all future fields such as new energy, artificial intelligence, commercial aerospace, and biotechnology.

Elon himself, besides spending half an hour every day "stamping" at The White House, devoted all his time to a brand-new research project at the Nikola Group.

The inspiration for this project came from a small-scale space skirmish he witnessed on his return trip.

He saw that after a starfish-class frigate was destroyed, although the astronauts on board successfully escaped via ejection devices, in that cold and vast vacuum of space, they were like a group of helpless babies, forced to watch their oxygen slowly run out, waiting for death to arrive.

That feeling of watching his compatriots perish within arm's reach while being powerless to stop it deeply stung Elon.

Therefore, after returning to Earth, he immediately led a research team himself to begin designing a special type of ship specifically for large-scale personnel rescue on the space battlefield.

It only took a few months, with the technical support provided by Paradox Technology and the computing power of the "Apocalypse" optical quantum supercomputer.

The first space rescue ship, named the "Virgin" class, successfully rolled off the line in the Nikola Group's secret shipyard in Nevada.

This type of rescue ship did not have very strong combat capability itself, but it possessed powerful engines and super-thick composite armor that far exceeded frigates of the same tonnage, giving it strong survivability to shuttle at high speeds across battlefields filled with gunfire.

Its most core technology was an electromagnetic adsorption rescue system used in conjunction with the "active propulsion" exoskeleton armor newly developed by the China North Industries Group.

When a soldier wearing this exoskeleton armor encountered danger in space, he only needed to activate a beacon on the armor.

The nearest "Virgin" class rescue ship would immediately receive the signal and rush over.

After entering the target area, the rescue ship would instantly unfold a layer of soft cushioning made of memory alloy on the outer layer of its massive hull.

Then it would use internal superconducting coils to generate a powerful directional magnetic field.

This magnetic field would exert a powerful suction force on the soldiers equipped with exoskeleton armor, "sticking" them safely onto the cushioning pads on the outside of the ship like iron nails attracted by a magnet.

One "Virgin" class rescue ship could "stick" hundreds of soldiers at once, and then take them away from the dangerous battlefield at the fastest speed.

This simple, crude, yet extremely practical rescue method greatly improved the efficiency and success rate of space rescues.

In the later stages of the war, dozens of "Virgin" class rescue ships were urgently deployed to the front lines.

In just half a year, they snatched back the lives of tens of thousands of Earth Defense Force soldiers from the hands of death who would have otherwise died in despair in the cold space.

Elon, in his own way, contributed his own unique strength to this war.

...

Time returns to the present.

Babel Space Station, Earth Defense Force Supreme Command.

"Report, Commander-in-Chief! Tachyon Radar has detected that the enemy's main fleet has fully assembled! They are approaching our defensive line at high speed in combat formation! It is estimated that they will make contact with our First Fleet's vanguard in three hours!"

"Their numbers exceed two thousand ships!"

When this number appeared on the main Star Map, the air in the entire command center froze.

Everyone knew that the final decisive battle had finally arrived.

In the past three years, although both sides had engaged in countless skirmishes in this space, this was the first time for an ALL-IN total offensive where all forces were placed on the table like this.

The two sides combined had nearly five thousand space warships of various sizes, like two steel torrents about to collide, densely gathered in this vast space around the moon.

Making this area, which usually seemed incomparably empty, look somewhat crowded.

"Has it finally come..."

General Wang Quanjin looked at the tide of enemy ship light points covering the sky, and suddenly had a transcendent feeling of welcoming destiny.

He knew very well that this battle would determine the fate of Human Civilization for the next several years.

Win, and the sky is the limit.

Lose, and it is total destruction.

"General, do we have a chance of winning?" A young staff officer beside him was a bit nervous, and he couldn't help but ask in a trembling voice.

Wang Quanjin did not answer immediately.

He cast his gaze toward the blue light points on the Star Map representing their own fleet.

More than a year ago, one Faleim warship could easily face the siege of three to five human frigates with ease.

But now the situation was completely different.

After experiencing countless baptisms of blood and fire, today's human fleet was no longer what it used to be in terms of single-ship combat capability.

The latest model of the starfish-III frigate not only replaced with more powerful ion thrusters and particle accelerator cannons, but thanks to advances in material technology, the strength of its hull armor had also been greatly improved.

In previous small-scale skirmishes, a starfish-III frigate already had the full capability to fight back and forth against a "rebel warship" that had lost its warp capability on the front battlefield, and even achieve destruction under proper tactical conditions.

"The key to victory," Wang Quanjin's gaze finally fell on the light points in the center of the enemy fleet formation that were significantly larger than the other warships, "does not lie in whether we can wipe out those cannon fodder."

"But in whether we can withstand their first wave of saturated attacks from space weapons at the beginning of the battle."

The rebel fleet's most terrifying weapon was still that eerie "black line" that could cut through space.

As long as the human fleet could successfully withstand this first, most lethal strike after paying a certain price, and drag the battle into a conventional war of attrition that tested fleet scale, firepower, and tactical execution capability.

Then the human fleet, which occupied an absolute advantage in numbers and had no obvious disadvantage in single-ship quality, would definitely achieve victory in the end!

As for those super capital ships in the rebel fleet that were as massive as moving fortresses...

Wang Quanjin glanced at those huge silver-white warships from the "allies" that were quietly floating beside the voyager flagship in the Star Map, but did not exist on the radar screen.

A confident sneer curled up at the corner of his mouth.

Those big guys would naturally be dealt with by even bigger guys.

"Pass on my order!"

He stood up straight and said to everyone in the command room with a full, resonant voice.

"The First Fleet will form a cone assault formation with the voyager as the spearhead! Engage the enemy head-on!"

"The Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Fleets will deploy from the left and right flanks to perform a pincer movement on the enemy!"

"Babel Tower and all orbital defense space stations, aim all your cannons here!"

"Today," his gaze pierced through the screen, as if seeing the starry sky about to be lit up by the flames of war, "right here, right at our doorstep!"

"We must make those invaders understand one truth—"

"Humanity has never lacked courage and backbone!"