Entering the Supergravity Zone
The communication between the Death Trio Star Region and the Alliance was not stable, and the interplanetary internet would often go down due to various circumstances. Evidently, Qin Mangs wanted to talk to Xia Fei about something when the interplanetary internet went down.
Xia Fei pursed his lips. I wonder why the old man is looking for me?
Phantom said, "What a coincidence. Early or late, it just had to be at this time that the interplanetary internet connection was interrupted."
Forget it. Lets talk about it after we get out of the supergravity zone.
The Tomahawk slowly opened a temporary wormhole. This was the last jump before entering the supergravity zone. Once they passed through the wormhole, they would be in the vast No Man's Land. Even if the interplanetary internet signal was fine, it would still be difficult to connect. After all, the interference from the supergravity was too severe.
Several minutes later, the Tomahawk emerged from the wormhole. The powerful gravity caused the ship to creak as every part of it was under immense pressure. Xia Fei felt his body sink as if a boulder weighing thousands of kilograms was pressing down on him.
The gravitational control system immediately began operating, and after three minutes, the pressure in the ship gradually returned to normal.
Xia Fei let out a sigh of relief and ordered the AI computer, Head for the first target. The main warp drive will handle fifty percent of the load. Auxiliary warp drives 2 and 3 will handle twenty-five percent each.
The main warp drive was the warp engine that originally came with the Tomahawk. Since it was working well, Xia Fei handed more of the load to the first unit. The second and third units were already very old, so Xia Fei only let them handle twenty-five percent of the load for safety reasons.
Three light blue flames shot out from the back of the Tomahawk, passing through the supergravity dust that could not be seen with the naked eye as it approached a yellow planet in the distance at a speed of nearly three thousand meters per second.
Activate the radar system at one hundred percent and search for any signs of life in the area, Xia Fei ordered.
The optical radar, graviton radar, and full-frequency multispectral radar systems were all activated at the same time. The indicator lights kept flashing as they repeatedly searched for weak signals in the area.
The supergravity zone would distort any electronic signal. The radar system could detect many messy signals, but it was impossible to decipher what they meant.
Activate the high-power communication system and search for high-frequency signals. Also, try to connect to the interplanetary internet, Xia Fei ordered again as he stood in front of the command deck.
Phantom suddenly felt that Xia Fei had the aura of a commander, giving out orders in an orderly manner. Despite being in such an extremely dangerous area, he did not have the slightest bit of hesitation.
"Unable to find any analyzable high-frequency signal. Attempt to connect to the interplanetary internet has failed," the cold female voice of the AI computer said.
Xia Fei furrowed his eyebrows. Even the high-power radar system could not be operated, which meant that the Tomahawk had become deaf, unable to predict when an enemy suddenly appeared next to it.
Activate the visual simulation system. Aim at the first target and magnify it a hundred times. Xia Fei gritted his teeth and ordered.
Since the radar system was not working properly, he could only rely on the warship's image capture system to analyze whether or not Old Porters ship was in the target area. The difficulty of the search was much more difficult than Xia Fei had imagined.
Soon, a blurry image appeared on the screen. The supergravity dust had also interfered with the Tomahawk's video system, and the image was distorted and chaotic.
"Sixteen-degree scanning, increase the magnification to 500!"
The smart computer immediately analyzed the captured signal and tried to restore the distorted image. At the same time, the video capture multiplier was magnified again.
After the supercomputer's processing, the image was slightly better than before, but it was still so blurry that it was unrecognizable.
Xia Fei cursed. The supergravity zone truly lived up to its name. It was one thing for the radar system to fail, but even the video system could not be operated. This meant that the Tomahawk had essentially lost both its eyes and ears, becoming deaf and mute.
"Get close to the target area and fly in a spiral pattern at an altitude of twenty-five thousand meters. Video system scan thirty-six degrees."
Xia Fei had no choice but to resort to his last resort, which was to observe at a low altitude. He kept circling at an altitude of twenty-five thousand meters until he had searched the entire planet.
Though he could clearly see the objects on the planet by doing this, it was a huge waste of time. Searching a planet would take around half a day, and Xia Fei's star map still had plenty of areas to search.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and Xia Fei's eyes were bloodshot. Because the video surveillance system was still blurry, he had to use his eyes to observe everything.
Lighting a cigarette, Xia Fei returned to the captain's chair on the command deck, propping up his chin with one hand. "We can't go on like this. At this rate, it'll probably take us decades to search the entire supergravity zone." Xia Fei nodded. "That's right.
Phantom had a helpless look on his face. "Exactly. The supergravity zone is much more complicated than we thought. Radar and video surveillance are all useless. What's the difference between us being blind?"
Xia Fei gritted his teeth and strode to the command deck, ordering, "Skip all the red unknown zones and enter purple zone 1."
Old Porters star map had a total of three purple zones, and Xia Fei had named them one, two, and three. The first and second zones were close to the core of the supergravity zone and had an unimaginable gravitational influence. Meanwhile, the third zone was already in an unknown zone, and no one could predict what would happen.
Phantom knitted his eyebrows. He wanted to dissuade Xia Fei, but he knew that it would not have any effect. Xia Fei was such a person as long as he decided on something.
"Warning: the gravity in the target zone is close to the warship's limit. Please confirm your command," the AI computer said in a cold female voice.
The AI system of a warship would automatically confirm with the commander whenever it received an order that was too dangerous, so as to prevent any losses from the commander's slip of the tongue. It was the same for all spaceships, be it big or small.
"Confirm," Xia Fei said in a deep voice.
"Preheat the overclocking system and get ready to go. Immediately begin fifty percent overclocking once we enter the next zone."
Xia Fei had been carrying the overclocking chip that Old Porters had given him all this time. It was very easy to install, and he only needed to connect it to the main control computer, which could be disassembled at any time. After getting his hands on the Tomahawk, Xia Fei had removed the chip from Vampire and installed it on the Tomahawk.
After warping, the warship would immediately enter a space with stronger gravity. The gravity system would need to immediately adjust the internal gravity of the warship, and if he were to activate the overclocking system, it would greatly reduce the time needed for the gravity system to adjust, preventing any physical damage.
"Harris, we're about to enter the extreme gravity space. Get ready."
Xia Fei used the ship's broadcast system to inform Harris before sitting in his chair and secretly activating his Breath Control. Although Breath Control could not eliminate the pressure on his body from the extreme gravity, it allowed Xia Fei to become calmer, preventing his blood pressure and heartbeat from speeding up due to the sudden change in gravity.
Even Xia Fei felt like he could not breathe when the sudden change in gravity hit him. Fortunately, the overclocking system immediately activated, and it took less than two minutes to complete the gravity adjustment.
Getting up, Xia Fei quickly made his way to Harriss's room, only to find the latter lying on the bed, his two hands clutching his head in pain.
"Are you alright?" Xia Fei asked as he helped him up.
Harriss shook his head vigorously. "The sudden increase in pressure just now made my head feel like it was about to explode, but I'm fine now."
Xia Fei smiled. "Just hang in there. I was worried that you wouldn't be able to handle such a strong pressure."
"I'm fine. Luckily, this warship is equipped with a high-power gravity adjustment system, or else it would've been hard to say," Harriss said with lingering fear.
Phantom stood to the side and looked into the distance, muttering in disbelief, "Xia Fei, come take a look."
Xia Fei got up and went to the porthole, following Phantom's gaze.
All he saw was a crimson planet in the dark of space, and the planet was densely packed with black shadows. Xia Fei could not help but be shocked when he took a closer look.
These black shadows were arranged in order and had a regular shape, as if they were man-made.
"Could they be man-made?" Xia Fei wondered.
Striding back to the command deck, Xia Fei gave an order to the mainframe. "Approach the first destination and circle it at an altitude of ten thousand meters."
* Whoosh! *
The Tomahawk swooped down and began circling around the planet. At an altitude of ten thousand meters, he could see everything clearly with the naked eye. Xia Fei stood in front of the command deck's huge porthole and carefully looked down.
His guess was right; these were indeed man-made structures.
The huge square buildings were connected to each other, with distinct edges and corners. The walls were several meters thick, and they were completely made of reinforced concrete, making them extremely sturdy.
"Activate the life detector," Xia Fei ordered in a deep voice. "Maximum detection intensity."
"Yes, activate the life detector."
"Experiencing severe interference. The detector is unable to operate normally."
Xia Fei furrowed his eyebrows. "Descend to five thousand meters. Activate the life detector again."
The Tomahawk gradually approached the planet, flying close to the ground at five thousand meters. Only then did the red scanning beam barely pass through the gravitational pull and scan the planet for signs of life.
Xia Fei observed the surface of the planet through the porthole as he anxiously waited for the readings of the life detector to change. If Old Porters was truly on this planet and was still alive, he should be able to find some clues.
The seconds ticked by, but the life detector did not show anything.
"What could these buildings be?" Phantom asked. "Could they have been built by humans?"
Xia Fei shook his head. "Hard to say. Look at these buildings; they're all cubes and have no elegance to speak of. Humans are a naturally romantic race, so why would they design their buildings to be so ugly? Besides, this is a supergravity zone. Who could possibly live here?"
Phantom thought for a moment. "Perhaps this place didn't have supergravity dust a long time ago and only became like this later on?"
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