"This is where the patrol ship gave its last signal. With the intelligence officer's voice, the large screen inside the starship's bridge switched out of an area and zoomed in.

It's just that the screen is shaky, distorted and blurry from time to time, and sometimes even disappears temporarily.

The captain stared at the screen, but saw nothing but a tumbling storm cloud. In fact, at this distance, it is impossible to find the target by sight, not to mention a patrol ship, even the largest war mothership cannot be seen at all.

"What the hell is this place!" the captain cursed. Under the influence of storm clouds, most of the conventional scanning methods on the starship are unusable.

At this time, a somewhat stiff synthesized voice sounded in the bridge: "Go out to reconnoiter and expand the search area." ”

The captain frowned, and said to himself, "Are you already going to use optical communication? He raised his voice and gave the order, and the starship began to move forward at an accelerated pace, gradually lowering its orbit closer to the planet's surface.

After a search, although the officers in charge of intelligence were almost blinded, they found nothing.

The captain turned on the fleet communication and said: "The search for the designated airspace has been completed and nothing has been found. In view of the current harsh environment, it is recommended to occupy outer space first and carry out planetary landing and replenishment. ”

The communication channel replied: "Agreed." ”

The warships in the mixed fleet spread out in all directions, taking up the alert position, and then the landing ships and several transports in the fleet began to descend, one by one into the storm clouds.

The captain of the Scout Starship saw this scene in the porthole, shook his head, and said, "Poor fellows. ”

The intelligence officer next to him said with some rejoicing: "Fortunately, we are battleships and do not need to land." Otherwise, he might be sent to this planet. ”

"The battleship is not necessarily safe, haven't you seen the fate of the herring? ”

The intelligence officer groaned, then asked, "Could it be a defection?"

"Where can they flee?" disagreed, "there is a possibility that they will be ambushed." ”

The captain and the intelligence officer chatted without saying a word, all the while watching the last transport disappear into the storm clouds. No one noticed that in orbit close to the storm clouds, a small unmanned spacecraft was quietly moving. Under the cover of storm clouds, it managed to evade detection and flew to the other side of the planet.

At this moment, a transport ship shaped like a silkworm chrysalis flew out of the storm clouds. The unmanned aerial vehicle approached and was recovered by the transport ship.

Inside the transport ship, Li Ruobai routinely put the unmanned spacecraft on the engineering table, and while recovering the data, he opened its shell and replaced it with a new battery.

"Is it time to gather information by such primitive means?"

Chu Jungui's voice sounded in his headphones: "Isn't it very good? ”

"Living in such a closed environment is like going back to a primitive society, with no entertainment and no idea what's going on outside. Let's hope the Ninth Fleet has heard from us...... Oops!"

"What's wrong?"

"The Federation's fleet is here! right now on the other side of the planet, where we ambushed the patrol ship. ”

"What about the composition of the fleet?"

"Two destroyers, four frigates, two high-speed reconnaissance ships. In addition to this, there is a landing ship and four transport ships. Landing ship?"

Chu Jungui flew over from the front cabin and watched the image brought back by the unmanned reconnaissance spacecraft with Li Ruobai. It was one of three unmanned detection ships they had released, and they were fully passive in their observations, flying almost close to storm clouds, each orbiting past the site where the patrol ship was last destroyed.

Li Ruobai judged that the Federation fleet would inevitably come to investigate the whereabouts of the patrol ship, and the first step to search was the location where the patrol ship finally disappeared.

The footage was recorded until the landing ship began to land on the planet's surface. Chu Jungui made a silent calculation, then reported a coordinate and said, "Their landing point is in this location, maybe another base is also here." ”

"It's really on the other side of the planet, what should we do, are we going around and beat them up? On the ground, the Federation is no match for us. ”

Chu Jungui shook his head and said, "Transform the battleship first." ”

Li Ruobai felt that something was wrong, "You don't want to fight with the entire fleet, do you?"

"Of course not. It's work!" Chu Jungui patted Li Ruobai, flew into the rear cargo hold, opened the outer hatch, and dragged a box of armor plates to the half-modified starship.

Li Ruobai shook his head and said in the communication channel: "Come out to work." "I dragged a box of armor plates and flew towards the starship.

The hatch at the back of the transport ship opened, and dozens of people, in groups of ten, were dragged out of the transport compartment one by one power furnaces and began to be installed according to the blueprint.

Dozens of people worked together, and the construction progress was greatly accelerated. At this time, a point of light flashed in the depths of space in the distance, and Chu Jungui glanced there, and saw a Federation reconnaissance ship flying quickly. He bowed his head and continued to work, unmoved. At this distance, it is difficult to spot the starship under construction unless the area is repeatedly scanned with a high-powered optical detector. In the eyes of the Federation reconnaissance ship, Chu Jungui's starship was just a pixel on a cluttered background.

The reconnaissance ship was fast and disappeared into the depths of space after a few moments.

Chu Jungui inserted the armor plate in his hand into the designated position, and then fixed and sealed it. Then take a new armor plate and continue to place, fix, and seal. The whole process is meticulously done. In his consciousness, the progress of the entire starship modification is slowly and smoothly advancing, 35%, 36%...... Until the armor plates and 4 power furnaces on the entire transport ship were installed, the progress of the modification has reached 52%.

In the distance, there was another flash of light, and a small high-speed starship flew close to the storm clouds, pointing directly at the site of the starship's transformation.

"It's the Ninth Fleet!" Li Ruobai recognized the directional laser from the other party.

A moment later, the starship sent by the Ninth Fleet stopped, the hatch opened, and Li Ruobai and Chu Jungui flew into the starship, entered the artificial gravity range, and landed on the ground.

The captain had already greeted him and said with a smile: "We received the news that the Celestial Fleet was transferred before retreating, so we made a special trip here. According to the needs conveyed by the Tianyu Fleet, we specially brought 100 tons of high-performance alloy materials. ”

"What does the Ninth Fleet need now?"

"Metallic hydrogen, or other high-energy materials, would be better if they could be made into semi-finished explosives, or warheads. In addition to this, we also need a lot of planetary surface defense weapons. Or materials from which weapons can be made. The captain said in one breath a long list of needed items.

Li Ruobai looked at the detailed list of alloy materials they sent, and handed it to Chu Jungui and winked.

Chu Jungui took a look and knew that most of the materials sent by the remaining troops of the Ninth Fleet were materials for construction or equipment, and all they needed were ammunition and weapons.