Ultra Nebula.

After a long voyage of ten hours, the fleet led by Robin himself finally reached the periphery of the nebula.

Led by the TR-735 piloted by Cecilia, three huge spaceships slowly descended into the misty forest of the universe surrounded by twenty 'J-9' space shuttles.

In the boundless universe, the Ultra Nebula, with a radius of one light year, is extremely large in the eyes of humans, but in fact, it can only be regarded as a small nebula in terms of the group of nebulae. Compared to the Andromeda Nebula, which is larger than the entire Milky Way outside the Milky Way, the Ultra Nebula is as small as a small grain of sand in a sandstorm.

However, unlike its small size, its mass is surprisingly huge. This means that the density of objects in the Ultra Nebula is unimaginably high, and the cosmic dust that fills the entire field like a mist is far thicker than any nebula. After entering it, the detection depth of the space radar was less than a fraction of a light, and the view in the ship's window was completely obscured by a white silver dust, and the visibility was almost zero.

When Robin formulated the 'Operation Plan for the City of Chaos', he thought that he had done a detailed investigation of the Ultra Nebula, and in addition to assigning one or several free folk guides who had been in and out of the Ultra Nebula many times on each ship, he even used the connections of Governor Brandon to copy all the documents related to the Ultra Nebula from the police files for the captains of each ship to refer to. In addition, in terms of the division of functions of the ships in the fleet, Robin also formulated the safe entry into the Ultra Nebula as the primary goal.

This can be seen in Robin's listing of Cecilia's TR-735 as the flagship.

After all, in conventional mode, the 100,000-ton U-2 landing ship is far more deterrent than the 42,000-ton TR-735. Moreover, Lieutenant Colonel Lei Zhe, who was the captain of the main battleship, has combat experience that is far from being comparable to Cecilia, so it is more common sense to have the 100,000-ton U-2 landing ship as the flagship.

However, Robin's decision was not made by cronyism in the eyes of others, but by careful consideration of the characteristics of Cecilia and Captain Reezhel.

In his eyes, Cecilia, with her delicate piloting skills and experience in circumnavigating Kuiper, was better equipped to overcome complex routes, while Lieutenant Commander Richer and his U-2 landing ship were better suited to frontal combat. As a result, Cecilia and her TR-735 are more suitable as flagships for most of the voyage, and when the fleet arrives at the target battlefield, the two positions will be reversed, at which point Lieutenant Commander Reich, who has a strong offensive force, will replace Cecilia as the main attack arrow of the fleet.

No matter where you look at it, Robin's tactics are cautious enough, but he still underestimates the danger of the Ultra Nebula. Compared with the current extremely harsh navigation environment, the Kuiper Ring used to be as smooth as a high-speed kilometer, and the difficulty of navigation between the two is not at all an order of magnitude.

In this regard, Cecilia, who was driving the TR-735 ship and driving at the front of the fleet, felt it very strongly.

As the lead ship and flagship of the entire fleet, Cecilia has a lot of pressure on her shoulders. She knew very well that if she was negligent, the entire fleet would be buried here, and the battle plan that would affect the life and death of tens of thousands of compatriots would be shattered. She didn't want to live up to Robin's trust, and she didn't want to be the sinner of the fleet. So, throughout the voyage, she kept her nerves on her nerves and focused her attention to tackle the toughest sailing challenge ever.

As an ace navigator, Borg is also not easy, he is like the eyes and brain of the ship, and must use the fastest speed to plan a safe course for the ship. However, the detection range of the ship's radar was undoubtedly further difficult for him, and due to the lack of a clear star navigation map and a large range of radar scanning, Borg could only draw up a route under the guidance of the guide's limited information and rely on his own personal judgment, which was by no means more difficult than others could imagine.

At this moment, in the bridge of the TR-735, the atmosphere is already unprecedentedly tense. All the crew members were fully engaged in their work, and it was only half an hour of sailing, and everyone's faces were covered with dense beads of sweat.

"I was negligent, I really didn't expect that this is the outer periphery of the Ultra Nebula, and the navigation environment is already so difficult."

Robin clenched his fists nervously stood by the bridge gate, his eyes full of worry as he looked at Cecilia's back. In such a tense atmosphere, he clearly felt the energy consumption of many crew members, if they did not develop a strong enough brain domain ability, such a mental energy consumption rate would definitely not last long, Robin could almost foresee the crew members falling down one after another due to collapse.

"Most of the Free Folk's ships are miniature spaceships that are only slightly larger than space shuttles, and they have an absolute advantage when it comes to contingency. And with the size of our spaceship, if you want to sail in such a complex environment for eight hours, I am afraid that even Cecilia will not be able to hold out to the end. Leaning against the door frame, Angus said with the same concern.

"Damn, if only I could find a clearer star chart!"

"It is estimated that there is no such star chart, and even if there is a little clarity, it can only be in the hands of Bloody Harry." Angus lit a cigarette, took a deep breath, and said, "There are twenty trillion comets, and these comets are all long-period comets, which are amazingly destructive. Considering the density of objects within the Ultra Nebula, events of collisions of celestial bodies due to comet activity should be quite frequent, which causes the entire nebula to be in an extremely unstable state of activity. ”

Speaking of this, Angus shrugged his shoulders with a wry smile: "It is impossible for an active nebula to have a fixed safe course, its internal form is changing every minute and every second, so the so-called absolute safe route cannot exist here at all." ”

"......" Robin was stunned when he heard this, and asked suspiciously: "That bloody Harry's knife frigate has 10 million tons, how can such a large spaceship come and go here freely?" ”

"Don't underestimate the freedmen who have been wandering the universe for generations, they are more familiar with the universe than we are." Angus pointed to the freedfolk guides who were sitting next to Borg: "These freedmen you are all freedmen from the Republic, and they may have had a few experiences in and out of the Ultra Nebula, but in the end, they are still Republicans, and they lack the experience of being a true freeman wandering in a desolate universe all year round. And this gap can only be manifested in a specific environment. ”

“……”

Angus's words were like a slap in the face, and Robin suddenly came to his senses.

That's right, Robin has always had a deep-seated sense of the nation. This notion made him distrust the Federalists, the Freedmen, and it seemed that only the Republican could gain his trust. So when looking for the Free Folk Guide, Robin chose all stowaways from the Republic, unaware that his bias would put the fleet in such a crisis. It was only now that Angus reminded him that he realized the dangers of his own bias.

"Damn, why didn't you remind me earlier!" Robin, who was anxious from self-blame, angrily grabbed Angus by the collar.

"As a leader, there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. After all, our current identity is not visible, and these stowaways from the Republic should be easier to control than those free people we don't know at all. And...... To be honest, I didn't expect the sailing conditions here to be so bad. Angus took a cigarette in his mouth and suddenly smiled wickedly: "However, thanks to this, I have the opportunity to do more meaningful work beyond my functions." ”

"Out of the box?"

"Huh...... Escorting the fleet is too tedious for me. Pushing away Robin, who had a somewhat dull expression, Angus snuffed out his cigarette butt and confidently looked at the misty dust belt outside the ship's window: "Send me a guide, and I will be a guide dog for the fleet." ”

"You're going to ......"

"Yes, I'm going to challenge this nebula. Since the Free Folk have the courage to explore this nebula, then I have no reason to lose to them, I'm the Masked Man! ～”

"Okay, go to the space shuttle launch module and wait, and I'll arrange it for you right away."

Robin gave a military salute to Angus with a serious expression, and strode over to the guides who were surrounding Borg, and behind him, Angus touched the silver mask on the left side of his face meaningfully, and whispered with a burning gaze: "Afra, it's too early for your thorny blood rose to climb on my head." When this battle is over, you'll have to lie down under me! ～”

……

A few minutes later, Angus catapulted from the stern of the TR-735 in his F-6 shuttle, plunging headlong into the white fog like an eagle soaring over the sea.

At the same time as Angus set off, at the rear of the fleet, a space shuttle suddenly broke out from the Blood Rose squadron cruising around the fleet in a fixed formation, and drilled into the space shuttle launch bay that the AT-089 had already opened.

Among the three spaceships involved in this operation, the flagship TR-735 has its own fighter formation, while the capital ship U-2 landing ship does not have the function of carrying carrier-based aircraft, so in the battle plan, Afra's Rose squadron must fly with the fleet for a total of 18 hours before it can officially enter the operation. Considering that the fuel tank of the 'J-9' space shuttle is not enough to maintain long-distance voyages, and the fatigue of pilots after long-distance flights, the AT-089 ship was specially converted into a fuel supply ship, and the large cargo compartment of the AT-089 ship at the stern of the ship was transformed into a space shuttle launch bay for the Rose squadron to take turns to replenish fuel and replace spare pilots.

"What! ~You said Angus's guy went to explore the way? She had barely jumped out of the cabin when Afra the Bloodbriar heard such news.

(To be continued)