On April 18, 2918, Major von Jiang Ziyue, a major of the New Roman Imperial Army, officially received an order from the consul Wang Zeren to lead a task force composed of cruisers and scientific research ships to the outer part of the Perseus spiral arm about 1,500 light-years away to carry out the so-called "Cleopatra" operation to investigate an interstellar planet "Yi" attracted by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way. (Full text reading, all in ωωω.1(6)κxS.Сom(1(6).文.学网)

This armed expedition was announced by the new Roman consul Wang Zeren as the exploration of the legendary "Antnest", so it attracted great attention from the Perseus Federation. The Bundeswehr sent a tracking fleet under the command of Brigadier General Nicholas Wolfensohn and Lieutenant Colonel Gunther Oswald as Chief of Staff to track down and intercept the Imperial Task Force Task Force 9 under the command of Jiang Ziyue.

As a result, the new Roman Imperial Army and the Immortal Interstellar Bundeswehr had the largest fleet clash in the "Yi" star field since the "Machu Picchu" star field battle at the end of 2890.

When the Imperial Task Force arrives at the interstellar planet "Yi", it is surprisingly surrounded by the Federation tracking fleet, which has an absolute superiority in forces. At the critical juncture when the whole army was facing annihilation, Jiang Ziyue was not afraid of danger, and geniusly used the Akuberi engine to 'excite' dense faster-than-light space 'waves', causing a space storm, blowing away the tight formation of the federal army, and successfully breaking away from the opponent's encirclement without a single shot.

In the series of battles that followed in May. Under the command of Jiang Ziyue, the Ninth Task Force of the Imperial Army successfully launched the second space storm, resorting to the strategy of diverting the tiger from the mountain, and successfully destroyed part of the combat ships and logistics supply ships of the Federation tracking fleet. Subsequently, Jiang Ziyue took advantage of the weakness of the other party's loss of supply ships, and used the comprehensive supply ship "Mount Olympus" to deceive the other party, and once again destroyed nearly half of the remaining ships of the Federation tracking fleet.

In the end, after being repeatedly inflicted and humiliated by opponents who were absolutely inferior in terms of troops, Brigadier General Wolfensohn and Lieutenant Colonel Oswald reluctantly chose to retreat and returned in defeat.

The Ninth Task Force of the New Roman Army's Frontier Fleet, commanded by Jiang Ziyue, won several times as many battles as its own, and was unanimously called the "Yi" Star Field Conflict by both sides.

As a result of the conflict, Jiang Ziyue became famous, and he was once again awarded the Order of the Golden Caesar, the highest honor of the New Roman Empire, and was given greater command. Jiang Ziyue has taken another solid step on the road to glory. With the arrival of the reinforcement fleet sent to the "Yi" star field by the border fleet according to the instructions of Archon Wang Zeren, the total number of cruisers under Jiang Ziyue's command reached two hundred and twenty-one. The phenomenon of a single major commanding more than 200 cruisers is rare in both the New Roman Empire and the Perseus Federation.

The "Yi" star field conflict undoubtedly became a new opportunity for New Rome to start an all-out war with the Perseus Commonwealth.

Both the ruling circles of New Rome and the political 'elite' Britain of the Commonwealth of Immortals are trying to use this conflict as a reason to expand the war and take the opportunity to pursue their own greater interests.

After the nine elders at the peak of the power pyramid of the New Roman Empire made the decision to increase the number of troops in the "Yi" star field, the Commonwealth Defense Force, under the instruction of President Richard Milhouse, and the main fleet of the Wehrmacht under the personal command of the five-star Admiral Eric von Bloomberg, the Minister of Defense, set sail in batches to the outside of the "Yi" star field, preparing to fight for control of the "Yi" star field.

The interstellar planets were deliberately rendered by the New Roman Empire and were associated with the legendary "Antnest". However, after the defeat of the Federation tracking fleet, scientists in New Rome landed on the planet Yi to conduct field exploration, only to discover that this interstellar planet of unknown origin has a strange structure and may even have life.

The global artificial surface earthquake that struck the surface of the planet Yi in mid-June surprised all the scientists and military personnel involved in the expedition. After analyzing the data of artificial earthquakes by the DNA computer "Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang" on the large-scale comprehensive scientific research ship "Ruler No. 9", people have further understood the strange and "mysterious" internal structure of the "Yi" planet, and this interstellar planet actually has a layer of "armor"!

With the exception of the two polar crests with a radius of 4,000 kilometers centered on both poles of the planet's axis of rotation, all parts of the planet have a layer of unknown material 50,000 meters thick at a distance of 100 meters below the average elevation of the planet. This substance can not only absorb the energy of 'excited' light, sound 'waves', etc., but also has an unimaginable hardness, which can be said to be "impenetrable" and "impenetrable" armor. Ulf Bernstein, a member of the New Roman Imperial Academy of Sciences and the leader of the expedition, called it a 'strange substance'.

Since there is no such "strange matter" under the surface of the polar crown of the poles, the energy of the artificial earthquake smoothly penetrates deep into the interior of the planet beneath the "strange matter" through the polar crowns. This allows scientists to see the inner workings of the interstellar planet.

Ignoring that "exotic matter", the "easy" planet can be seen as a doubling magnification of the Earth, with an iron core, interface, and mantle that are almost identical to the Earth's but on a larger scale...... It's just that the rock plates above the mantle only exist in the polar crown of the poles, and the rest of the rock plates above the mantle are the mysterious layer of extremely evenly distributed "exotic matter".

The plates in both polar caps are very fragmented and extremely active, with strong earthquakes and massive volcanic eruptions almost every second. It looks like a spherical firework with two fire-breathing ends.

Although remote sensing in space shows that the planet's surface outside the polar crown region is also very rugged, with mountains, towering volcanoes, and ravines, the analysis of synthetic images of artificial seismic 'waves' shows that these mountains, volcanoes, canyons, and deep gullies are not directly connected to the planet's interior. None of the terrain outside the polar crown region of the poles is caused by geological movements inside the planet, and the volcanoes are all extinct volcanoes, or "pseudovolcanoes" to be exact, with no channels connected to the mantle.

The complex planetary surface is like an artificial accumulation, and the mountains and valleys are not like the result of geological movements, but more like the handiwork of the sand table. Therefore, with the exception of the two polar crest regions, the surface of the "easy" planet can be seen as a sand table piled up on top of that layer of "strange matter"!

Another amazing phenomenon is that the poles of the planet's magnetic field overlap the poles of the axis of rotation very accurately!

Bernstein believes that the "exotic matter" beneath the surface limits the release of energy from the planet's interior to the polar regions, resulting in such a special structure for the entire planet.

But scientists don't know anything about the composition and structure of that "strange substance". None of the available human tools can take a sample from it, nor can it be determined which elements it is made of by spectroscopic analysis, because all the radiation 'emitting' in the 'wave' range is completely absorbed by it. Scientists found that the mass of an "easy" planet, calculated from a series of astronomical features such as the planet's gravity, orbit and velocity, was only nine-tenths of the mass of the planet when it was analyzed from the analysis of all known material detected by artificial earthquakes. In other words, the mass of the unknown "exotic matter" accounts for one-tenth of the total mass of the "easy" planet.

"Obviously, this 'strange substance' is still a thick layer of armor." After presenting the results of the analysis, Professor Ulf Bernstein made a playful summary.

"Professor, do you think this is natural?" Jiang Ziyue asked.

"I can't know for sure right now. According to the analysis of the data of artificial earthquakes, its shape is quite perfect. The openings of this 'strange substance' in the two polar crown regions are very simple, and the circle formed is also very perfect, as if it was artificially 'fine' cut. Bernstein's tone was full of surprise, "Until we can confirm that it is a man-made object, we can only marvel at the wonders of nature." ”

"But then again, even if it's artificial, who can have the ability to build such a big thing?" Jiang Ziyue shook his head and said.

Since the successful colonization of Mars in the solar system in the 22nd century, humans have claimed to have the ability to modify planets on a large scale. But until now, this ability has been limited to modifying the surface environment of a terrestrial planet. This kind of creation of a huge layer of "strange matter" and placing it on the earth's mantle is already far beyond the current level of human technology.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that extraterrestrial intelligent beings whose productivity is far higher than that of human beings. But the question is still that Fermiparadox (Fermiparadox): where are they? At the end of the 25th century, the discovery of native alien creatures on the planet "Andromeda" once made mankind extremely fanatical, and almost everyone at that time believed that extraterrestrial intelligent beings existed. However, in the following centuries, although the Interstellar Development of Perseus Spiral Arm found more extraterrestrial life, including animals similar to Earth primates, none of them could be called "aliens".

Jiang Ziyue's words clearly express his own suspicion of the existence of aliens.

But Bernstein disagreed, saying: "We can't rule out the possibility that this layer of 'strange matter' was done by aliens." Although we have not found the slightest trace of aliens, if there are native apes on the planet 'New Byzantium', why can't there be more advanced species in the universe than us? Therefore, it makes logical sense to speculate that this layer of matter is a product of an extraterrestrial civilization. ”

"Gentlemen, put aside your discussion for a moment." In the communication system, Chen Weiyin 'interjected', "The report has finally come out, and the remains of algae organisms taken from the rocks in the valley near the landing site have been confirmed to be cyanobacteria from the earth. I would now like to give the floor to Mrs. Mia Frobel. ”

"This pure planet from the far reaches of deep space has been polluted by us humans." Bernstein said dejectedly.

Biologist Mia Frobel's stereoscopic image was projected onto the captain's room of the Siegfried, and she said unhurriedly: "Guys, in terms of genes and biological structure, they have mutated. The body size becomes smaller and the density increases. After comparison, we found that their genesis sequences were very different from those native to the Earth. It is now perfectly certain that the remains of these cyanobacteria that we have obtained in the crevices of the rocks have been breeding on this planet for generations. ”

"So they came here many years ago?" Jiang Ziyue asked.

"Yes, but we can't say for sure the exact year." "However, we can deduce from the wreckage when they died about a month ago." ”

Jiang Ziyue immediately understood something from the other party's words and said, "As far as I know, blue-green algae live in places with plenty of water. Mrs. Frobel, you mean to say that they died a month ago because of lack of water. ”

"Yes, Commander. They can survive for a while after the surrounding water dries up. ”

"So, we were right to speculate that there was a lot of water on this planet." Chen Weiyin said, her tone was excited. Because when she led a scientific expedition team to land on the planet "Yi" for the first time on May 18, she discovered many geological features caused by flowing water.

"The remains of these cyanobacteria can corroborate evidence of the existence of water." Mia Frobel sulked and said that the discovery of alien species was indeed caused by human interstellar navigation, and she was not happy.

In fact, after humans entered the Perseus spiral arm interstellar, biological contamination caused by frequent interstellar activities has long been common. Many habitable planets were discovered in the early days of discovery of so-called extraterrestrial "new species", and after research, most of them were confirmed to be creatures accidentally brought by humans during interstellar voyages.

"But suddenly the water was gone." Jiang Ziyue continued Mrs. Frobel's words.

"Personally, I think the disappearance of water has something to do with that strange substance." "Of course, that's just my suspicion. We have found no direct evidence linking the disappearance of the water to the strange substance. ”

"Professor, you told the object before that this layer of matter is related to the strange phenomenon of the 'space storm' observed by Vector 3, and now it is related to the disappearance of water on the planet. Do you also suspect that all of the planet's 'mysteries' are related to what you call 'strange matter'? Jiang Ziyue asked.

"That's exactly what I thought." Bernstein affirmed, "Of course, it's still speculation, because no direct evidence has been found for any of these connections." ”

Speaking of this, Jiang Ziyue couldn't help but sigh and said: "Interstellar planets, water disappears, low carbon, human pollution, and that layer of invulnerable strange substances...... This is a mysterious planet. ”

"Hehe, Major, that's what interests us in conducting scientific expeditions." Ulf Bernstein, like Chen Weiyin, was not only excited, but also excited.

Exploring the unknown is exactly what scientists do. Originally, they did not expect to encounter so many strange phenomena in the scientific expedition activities of the interstellar planet "Yi", but now, the dark planet presented in front of them is not only full of mysteries, but also full of 'temptation' and 'confusion'.

It was at this moment that a new report reached the cruiser "Siegfried".

The "Cyrus" flotilla, which belonged to the Central Fleet of the New Roman Empire, arrived.

1,000 battleships of various types, 400 cruisers, more than 500 logistics supply ships, and reconnaissance and communications carriers jumped out of the superluminal warp bubble and appeared in the vast space about two astronomical units away from the interstellar planet "Yi". The huge "Cyrus" fleet is spread out in a traditional cubic formation, forming a huge "ship wall" in front of the interstellar planet "Yi".

In the face of that huge group of ships, Jiang Ziyue's task force, which had expanded to more than 200 cruisers, was like a brick on the side of the wall.

Although it belongs to a different fleet system, according to the order, Jiang Ziyue's task force fleet should be under the jurisdiction of the commander of the opposing fleet. Therefore, Jiang Ziyue immediately commanded the "Siegfried" to fly close to the flagship of the "Cyrus" fleet and meet the fleet commander.

The flagship of the "Cyrus" fleet is the "Commander-in-Chief" class star battleship "Cyrus the Great" of the New Roman Empire. The 12-kilometer-long wedge-shaped hull makes it look majestic, and the dark gray 'colored' ceramic alloy armor shell 'shoots' with a cold murderous aura.

The "Commander" class is a new type of battleship launched by the New Roman Imperial Army in order to make up for its inferiority in the number of battleships.

As a result, the "Cyrus the Great" not only had a huge body shape of 12 kilometers long, but also was equipped with a large number of weapons. In addition to the two Akuberi engines in the bow, there are two other amidships for backup and main battle weapons. It has a total of 2,000 cannon "doors" around it, which can be used for 400 sets of large "excited" cannons, 1,000 particle cannons, and 600 sets of electromagnetic cannons, and is also equipped with 40 sets of 192 missile systems.

Not only is the teeth sharp, but the body of the "Cyrus the Great" is covered with two layers of ceramic alloy armor, and the sandwich layer of the two layers of armor is the same as the shell of the battleship, equipped with an electromagnetic shield germination device, so that the huge battleship has two sets of electromagnetic shields inside and outside at the same time. So, theoretically, the Imperial Army's "Commander" class battleships have twice as many protection capabilities as ordinary battleships.

Whether it is tonnage, firepower, or protection, the data of the "Commander" class surpasses the "Famous General" class battleships launched by the Immortal Interstellar Bundeswehr to deal with it.

However, the "Commander" class is expensive, and the cost of materials and the number of man-hours are frighteningly high. So, as of now, less than a thousand of the entire Imperial Central Fleet have entered service, less than half of all battleships. Like the "Cyrus" fleet, there were only eighty-one out of a thousand battleships. The veterans and generals of the new Roman Empire wanted to compete with the tens of thousands of battleships of their opponents with the superior single-ship capabilities of the "Commander" class.

The cruiser "Siegfried," which was more than 300 meters long, flew close to the "Cyrus the Great" like a small shrimp swimming close to a big shark.

Looking at the huge hull that occupied the entire field of vision, the members of the "Siegfried" let out envious admiration.

"One day, all of us will '' this kind of super battleship." Jiang Ziyue stared at the "Cyrus the Great" on the stereoscopic imaging full of ambition, "Then the sea of stars again." ”

"Dear Captain, with your wisdom and skill, I absolutely believe that one day, you will be able to command more than 10,000 'Commander' class super battleships, cross the 135th line, and dominate the human world of the Immortal Spiral Arm Stars. Although you lack wisdom in dealing with 'female' people. Lieutenant Benjamin Alfrec, the navigator, said in a serious tone, but did not forget to tease when he slapped his horse's beard.

"I'm hopeless." Although Tang Xingyun looked excited, his tone was quite disappointed, "There will never be a battleship in the border fleet, let alone a 'commander' class super battleship. ”

According to the rules of organization of the New Roman Imperial Army, the soldiers of the Frontier Fleet and the Central Fleet usually do not have the opportunity to be transferred to each other, even officers, and there are not many opportunities to transfer to the Central Fleet. And the largest warship of the Border Fleet is only up to the cruiser level, and even if the commander of the Border Fleet, Admiral Blake Carrios, comes out, the flagship is only a cruiser of more than 800 meters.

Therefore, in the eyes of the officers and men of the Border Fleet, the Central Fleet is an unattainable and domineering descendant force. In the minds of the officers and men of the Central Fleet, the border fleet is just a posterior, and it can only do some patrol and other public security work on the 135th line, and can only stand aside when fighting a big battle, because they have neither the strength nor the talent. Almost all the famous generals in the history of the New Roman Empire came from the Central Fleet, among them, the two imperial marshals Weikett and Du Yimin are the representatives of the famous "Central Fleet Department".

"Don't be too inferior." Jiang Ziyue reminded his subordinates, "Since the Battle of 'Machu Picchu' in 2890, it is our border fleet that has been 'fighting' with the Bundeswehr, and it is our border fleet that has been winning. ”

"Sir's right." First Mate Captain Joseph Dietrich immediately followed, "We have won the greatest victory in the last battle with absolutely inferior forces, and we have all been credited with great merit!" Look at the 'chest' of our captain, the golden Caesar with oak leaves, even in the Central Fleet, there are not many officers who can have this honor. ”

Dietrich's words 'stirred' the confidence of the non-commissioned officers, making them put away their disappointment and envy for the Central Fleet.

The command of the "Cyrus" fleet was none other than the commander of the detachment under Field Marshal Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergdorff, Admiral Mehmet Ahmaiti. This veteran, who still wears a very Arabic 'color' turban even in space, met Jiang Ziyue at the tactical command center of the flagship "Cyrus the Great".

After listening to Jiang Ziyue's report on the previous battle with the Federation tracking fleet and the "Yi" planetary expedition, Admiral Ahmaiti said: "Before leaving, I received information that the Bundeswehr is also sending a large fleet here. I reckon that they will soon come into contact with us, and a new battle will most likely begin. Major, if the battle breaks out, I ask you to command your fleet of cruisers to protect the expedition with all your might. ”

"Yes, sir." Jiang Ziyue replied respectfully.

He could understand Ahmaiti's off-strings, and when the battle began, your cruisers would put me aside.

"Also, you are also responsible for the security of the logistics ships of my 'Cyrus' fleet." Ahmaiti has his own style, he likes to entrust the logistics to others, and he does his best to deal with the upcoming battles.

"But, sir, there are more than 500 logistics supply ships plus my original logistics supply ships, and the number is more than 600. Although I received reinforcements, the number of cruisers was only 221, and I am afraid that the number of troops to complete the cover of the scientific expedition team and the logistics ship group at the same time is probably not enough. Jiang Ziyue looked a little embarrassed.

"Rest assured, Major, I will not give the enemy any chance to attack our logistical supplies. They don't even have a chance to see us. Ahmaiti is full of confidence that he will win.

In his eyes, as long as he is Ahmaiti, whoever takes care of the logistics ship is the same, and it doesn't have to be you, Jiang Ziyue, who will defeat the strong with the weak and wear a golden Caesar medal with oak leaves on his chest.