It has been five years since the Earth Fleet left the solar system, and it has been traveling at 0.7 times the speed of light for five years, so in fact more than seven years have passed since the outside time, and the Earth Fleet is also 5 light-years away from the Earth at this moment. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Ferro civilization was 4.8 light-years away from the Earth seven years ago, traveling at 0.5 times the speed of light, and is now less than 1.3 light-years away from the Earth, a distance that has touched the edge of the solar system, and is expected to reach the Earth in another two years and five months.

At this time, there was no turning back from the bow, and the huge obstacle in space made Zhou Chen feel helpless to the distant Earth Federation, no matter what happened to them, they could basically only pray to bless them through the difficulties.

"Wait, maybe we have another way to find out what's going on on the Earth Federation." Admiral Rodriguez patted his head and said with a look of surprise.

"What's the solution?" Zhou Chen looked over and asked.

"Decoy spaceship, we can use the decoy spaceship to find out the news of the Earth Federation!"

Liu Qianjiao's brows tightened when he heard this: "But the decoy spacecraft is now far away from the earth, and I am afraid that it will not be able to catch up if I turn back rashly." ”

"No, maybe you can give it a try!" Zhou Chen shook his head and said.

When the decoy spacecraft were first dispatched, a total of 136,000 were dispatched, divided into three directions to sail to the depths of the universe, in order to make these decoy ships play a better role as decoys, and there was still enough energy left in the later stage of the decoy to maneuver and change orbits, the speed of these decoy ships did not reach 0.7 times the speed of light like the Earth fleet.

"When we sent out the decoy spacecraft, there were more than 45,000 ships in each of the three directions, sailing at an inertial speed of 0.1 times the speed of light, 0.2 times the speed of light, and 0.3 times the speed of light, at this time, the farthest echelon from the earth was already 2.1 light years, and the nearest was only 0.7 light years!"

Liu Qianjiao thought for a moment and said: "0.7 light years is also a long distance, assuming that we immediately dispatch some of the spaceships in this echelon to urgently slow down and return along the same path, can we ensure that we reach the location of the Earth Federation before the arrival of the Ferro civilization?" ”

"It will take two years and five months for the Ferro civilization to reach Earth, and if we let one of the decoy ships brake urgently and return at 0.4 times the speed of light, we should be able to arrive before the Feiro civilization arrives!"

Admiral Rodriguez calculated, frowned, and said: "However, the decoy fleet is only used as a decoy after all, and when they were originally designed, the maximum sailing speed that the internal energy source could support was only 0.3 times the speed of light, and now it seems that it may be a little troublesome." ”

Yes, Zhou Chen's brows furrowed slightly when he heard this.

In fact, these decoy spacecraft are just one-time use of war-damaged materials, since they are used as one-time combat readiness attrition, they naturally did not spend too much effort to design at that time, and it is unlikely that they will be equipped with too sufficient materials.

"Captain, General Liu, General Rodriguez, I think we should confirm whether there is a need to send a decoy ship back before discussing this issue."

At this time, a member of the Military Forces Committee stood up and said.

The Russian general's name is Borshak, and he is a member of the committee in charge of the statistical allocation of logistics materials.

He asked a poignant question, do we need to send the decoy ship back, and what if we do? The Ferro civilization is about to arrive, even if you know the state of the Earth Federation, isn't there still nothing you can do?

In that case, why bother with this question?

Zhou Chen understood what he meant, his face froze, and said: "It is definitely necessary to let the decoy spacecraft return, we can re-establish contact with the Earth Federation through the communication equipment on the decoy spaceship, and more importantly, whether it is the Earth Fleet or the Earth Federation, they are both branches of the Earth Humans, no matter which side has an accident, the other party should not be indifferent!" ”

"We can't help them with anything, but at least we should know each other's situation!"

After listening to this, Balshak nodded and stopped talking.

Although tactically he felt that it was not necessary to return, strategically, he agreed with Zhou Chen's statement.

Zhou Chen thought for a moment and said, "The only feasible way now is to let the bait spacecraft play a relay game!" Do you have any other comments? ”

Seeing that everyone nodded in agreement, Zhou Chen bowed slightly, and quickly let Xiya calculate.

The total amount of energy carried by each decoy ship allows the ship to reach 0.3 times the speed of light, so each ship in an echelon sailing at 0.1 times the speed of light has a margin of 0.2 times the speed of light.

In other words, if you take nine ships as a unit, first transfer all the energy of three of them to the other six, and then form a combination of these six ships, and use the energy of two of them to brake, and finally let them all brake.

This process can keep four power-filled ships! The first three spacecraft to transfer energy continued to travel at 0.1 times the speed of light by inertia, while the two that served as "brakes" became stationary garbage in space because they used up all energy.

In addition, the ship returning to Earth will eventually need to accelerate to 0.4 times the speed of light, and the operation here is as follows: 12 stationary ships are taken to form a combination, four of which are used for acceleration, and when the acceleration reaches 0.1 times the speed of light, four are discarded (these four are exhausted of energy), and three of the remaining eight energy-filled ships are used for acceleration.

At 0.2 times the speed of light, three more ships are discarded (with a small amount of energy left in the ship), and two more are used for acceleration in the remaining five ships.

At 0.3 times the speed of light, two more are discarded (with a small amount of energy left in the ship), and the remaining three ships, one for acceleration until the speed reaches 0.4 times the speed of light, and the last one is discarded.

In this way, two more spacecraft will eventually fly to Earth at 0.4 times the speed of light.

In other words, counting the previous braking process, a total of 27 decoy spacecraft are required to participate in the energy relay process, of which 18 officially withdraw from the decoy formation, so as to ensure that the final two spacecraft can accelerate to 0.4 times the speed of light and fly to Earth in the shortest possible time.

Of course, for the number of more than 10,000 decoy ships in one echelon, a dozen less does not affect the overall situation. And just to be on the safe side, Zhou Chen let the bait formations in three directions carry out this mission, so that there are three small formations, a total of six spacecraft to return to Earth.

"Commander, the retreat group has been completed, is it executed?"

The girl Xiya appeared in front of Zhou Chen and said.

Zhou Chen nodded: "Execute it immediately!" ”

"Yes!"

As the girl's voice fell, in the void, 0.7 light-years away from the earth, twenty-seven of the bait spacecraft formations that stretched into a long line suddenly changed.

They gathered together, sticking out of each other, and then nine of them transferred their energy substances to the other eighteen, and then released, and the nine ships broke free from the group. Then, six of the remaining eighteen decoy ships suddenly spewed flames, and the speed of the combination dropped rapidly.

"The directive has been issued, the process is progressing well, and the expected deceleration period is five Earth days, and the subsequent acceleration period is twenty Earth days. It will take one year and nine months for the spacecraft to reach the Earth station! ”

"Well, one year and nine months, counting the month of the U-turn, will arrive more than half a year earlier than the Ferro civilization."

This point in time is still acceptable, Zhou Chen nodded, secretly relieved in his heart.

"By the way, the decoy ship's signal source is almost ready to start, right?" Zhou Chen looked at Admiral Rodriguez and asked.

Admiral Rodriguez replied: "Yes, now the Ferro civilization is only 1.3 light-years away from the earth, and our decoy fleet has been scattered between 0.7 and 2.1 light-years......

The scale of the universe is so huge that 1.3 light-years is actually a very close distance.

"In that case, let's officially activate the signal emission source!"

"Okay captain, this time let's give the Ferro civilization a big gift, a 'large interstellar formation' of 130,000 ships, I believe that the Ferro civilization will not sit idly by."

Admiral Rodriguez smiled, a treacherous smile on his face. (To be continued.) )