Chapter 339: Meteor Mayhem

Everything here was filmed by the Wyvern Fighter and transmitted to the flagship of the support fleet and the Heaven Realm command center.

On duty at the command center was General Longtar, the Deputy Minister of the Defense Department. A German by ethnicity, he was 58 years old.

He had retired from the German military at age 50 due to illness, holding the rank of Air Force Major General.

He joined Dream Technology because his friend Mr. Brühler connected him with them—Dream Technology’s medical team had cured his heart disease.

After regaining his health, Longtar joined Dream Technology’s Defense Department and quickly advanced to Deputy Minister after a series of evaluations.

In fact, his role was more like that of a Chief of Staff for the Defense Department.

At that moment, Longtar was fixated on the large screen, where the third net had already enveloped the meteor, drastically slowing its speed.

When the final net settled over the meteor, it finally came to a stop.

As the meteor froze on screen, applause erupted throughout the hall.

The cheers were twofold: celebrating the successful capture by the Wyvern Fighter and confirming that this was a real meteor—not a craft controlled by an alien civilization.

Longtar exhaled in relief. He had once written to Du Qiu, advising that space warships be built quickly and that the defense perimeter extend beyond the Solar System.

Longtar firmly believed in the existence of aliens and was convinced that any alien civilization found near the Solar System would naturally be more powerful than Earth’s—after all, they had journeyed across the cosmos.

Meanwhile, a temporary support fleet consisting of eight Transport Ships, carrying enough crew for ten shifts, had been sailing for 18 days and was now well away from the ecliptic.

There were still 12 days of travel to the interception point; after all, the Megalith Transport Ship was slower than the Wyvern Fighter and had set off two days later.

Aboard flagship Transport Ship No. 001, within its retrofitted command room, Song Yuanting also heaved a sigh of relief—if the meteor wasn’t alien in origin, there’d be enough time to train a space fleet.

His company would also have sufficient time to build a space fleet.

But just as Longtar and Song Yuanting began to relax, the screen suddenly changed.

The cigar-shaped meteor, encased in a five-layer net, suddenly burst forth with dazzling light, like a jewel igniting in brilliance.

Both Song Yuanting and Longtar were stunned, and they immediately sent a war alert to Ning Shuangshuang, the Security Department Minister acting for Du Qiu.

This was exactly as Du Qiu had instructed: if the cigar-shaped meteor was confirmed to be of alien origin, a war alert was to be sent to Ning Shuangshuang and all forces put on high alert.

Song Yuanting stared intently at the screen as the brilliant light completely masked the nets, leaving the meteor’s condition unknown.

While this persisted, the ten surrounding Wyvern Fighters sprang into action.

Their first wave of attacks pounded the entire luminous sphere!

Yet nothing happened—as if the twenty particle beams had struck empty space, producing no effect.

Just as the second wave of the Wyvern Fighters was about to fire, the luminous glow abruptly retracted, revealing not the cigar-shaped meteor but a small warship about a hundred meters in length!

The five massive nets that once encased it had vanished, and eight large cannon-like emplacements on the warship were now turning toward the Wyvern Fighters!

And the warship began to accelerate!

At that moment, the Wyvern Fighters fired their second wave, but due to the warship’s rapid movement, only five particle beams managed to hit it.

Song Yuanting knew that the AI brains controlling these Wyvern Fighters were at a high level of artificial intelligence, requiring no human pilot yet boasting formidable combat capability.

This had been proven time and again in training battles against human-piloted fighters.

In most cases, human pilots rarely managed to defeat a Wyvern Fighter—only under special conditions or in unforeseen circumstances could they hope to prevail.

Song Yuanting had worried that the Wyvern Fighters might not react quickly enough to the meteor’s sudden change, but it now appeared their response was impressively fast.

Thus, he could only hope that the alien technology wasn’t overwhelmingly superior, so the Wyvern Fighters would be capable of matching the small warship.

It was important to note that the Wyvern Fighter was roughly one-third the size of the small warship, yet its weaponry was formidable. In such close-range combat, failure to damage the enemy would suggest far more advanced technology on the opposing side.

Song Yuanting watched without blinking as the five particle beams struck the warship, instantly punching five large holes; his heart leaped with joy.

The warship had been injured—its technology wasn’t invincible.

Back at the Heaven Realm command center, Longtar clenched his fists and exclaimed, “Excellent! They’re not invincible after all.”

Although the meteor warship had suffered severe damage, it did not self-destruct. Instead, a bright flash erupted from its rear, and the cannon-like structures on its surface fired eight beams of light.

In a split second, these flashes caused the two Wyvern Fighters directly ahead to explode.

Meanwhile, the warship rapidly sped away!

Though the entire sequence seemed prolonged, it had all happened within just about ten seconds.

From the Wyvern Fighters’ initial strike on the glowing meteor, to the disappearance of the light, followed by the warship’s acceleration and subsequent impact by the second wave…

Then the warship concentrated its fire to obliterate the two Wyvern Fighters ahead, and the flash from its rear propelled it forward at an astonishing speed.

In just over ten seconds, the meteor warship had dashed tens of thousands of kilometers away!

It was speeding fast, and the Wyvern Fighters weren’t far behind—they launched a third wave of attacks before initiating a fourth wave!

Due to the high speed, the third wave missed its mark.

However, the ensuing fourth wave finally struck the fleeing meteor warship.

This time, the particle cannons hit the rear, with some beams even targeting the exhaust nozzle.

A brilliant burst of fireworks suddenly exploded in the void, as the meteor warship was utterly shattered and destroyed!

“Excellent!” Song Yuanting shouted.

At the Heaven Realm command center, Longtar frowned deeply as he watched the scene, then said into the communication channel, “Staff Officer Feng, alert the Astronomy Institute immediately—monitor the white blotch three light-years away for any changes!”

With the meteor warship destroyed by the Wyvern Fighters, Longtar was instead worried that its last transmission might have signaled their situation to the hidden fleet near the white blotch.

Deep down, he was convinced that a fleet must be stationed there.

“Yes, I’ll contact them immediately!”

Meanwhile, Song Yuanting ordered the Wyvern Fighters ahead, “Collect every piece of debris—leave nothing behind!”

He had just calculated from the transmitted footage that the meteor warship’s final escape velocity was an astonishing 4,000 kilometers per second!

This speed far exceeded the maximum performance of Dream Technology’s current Wyvern Fighters—if they had hesitated even a moment longer, the meteor warship would have slipped away.

This indicated that the alien civilization’s technology might be slightly superior, though not overwhelmingly so.

If useful data could be extracted from the debris, Song Yuanting believed Dream Technology could ultimately prevail.

Beyond the Solar System’s ecliptic, eight Wyvern Fighters began collecting the various remnants scattered by the exploding meteor warship.

Fortunately, the self-destruction of the meteor warship wasn’t completely devastating; numerous debris pieces, some over ten meters long, remained for analysis by the scientists.

Once the Wyvern Fighters had finished gathering the pieces, they continued to patrol the area as electromagnetic interference persisted.

This was because Song Yuanting had issued a new order: the eight Wyvern Fighters were to hold their positions and wait for his transport fleet to arrive.

Because Song Yuanting had issued another order, the eight Wyvern Fighters held position, awaiting the arrival of his transport fleet.