Chapter 259: Bombing Ruins Star
On the desolate Ruins Star, Dark Sun chose a relatively well-preserved ruined skyscraper and renovated its upper floors to serve as its headquarters.
Mr. Sang’s office was located on the 260th floor, over 1,300 meters above the planet’s surface. Looking out from the office, numerous half-collapsed building remnants stood tall, their spires piercing through the clouds below.
“Mr. Sang!”
A pirate captain, half of whose body had been replaced with prosthetics, entered the office.
“Our Space Station 19 has been destroyed! According to the last report, radar detected a large number of incoming high-velocity kinetic projectiles!”
“Clearly, ‘they’ have arrived.”
Mr. Sang’s face was expressionless as he rose and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
He had an ordinary appearance, was just over 160 cm tall, had very short hair, and was slightly hunched. He looked harmless, even somewhat benevolent.
Unless one knew him beforehand, if one were to encounter him by chance in the bustling city of New Hope, no one would ever believe that this was the man who controlled the most successful emerging enterprise of the past 30 years.
“We just received news four hours ago that the wormhole was invaded by an unknown armed force. Judging by the time interval,” Mr. Sang blinked rapidly a few times, “Cang Yuan must have scouted us in advance, and very thoroughly at that, to the point of understanding our defensive layout.
They went straight for Space Station 19.”
“Perhaps… it was just a coincidence!”
The pirate captain instinctively refused to accept the bad news. “No.”
Mr. Sang glanced at him, his tone unhurried.
“Everyone who has underestimated the Executive Officer before has not ended well. I suggest you not follow in their footsteps.”
“Yes.” As expected.
Half an hour later, the pirate captain brought more bad news to his boss.
“Space Stations 9 and 12 have been destroyed! Judging by the time interval caused by signal delay, they were attacked simultaneously with Space Station 19!”
“Hmm… so it seems the rumors are true. Every warship, and even every fighter jet, of Cang Yuan is equipped with superluminal communication devices, allowing for instant communication and coordination.”
“So their technology is far superior to ours!”
“No. Even now, I still don’t think so,” Mr. Sang said.
“My judgment is that Cang Yuan’s technology tree is in a very strange state.
On the one hand, they have indeed inherited the peak technology of the golden age; but on the other hand, in many basic fields, they have had to start from scratch.
This includes warships, the most crucial heavy weapon. Their current state is not even as good as a fraction of Cang Yuan’s golden age. Hmph—”
The pirate captain said nothing.
With his intelligence, he couldn’t deduce how Mr. Sang had reached his conclusion.
He only knew that this man had started from nothing and, by himself, founded Apollo and Dark Sun. He was a force to be reckoned with!
“Furthermore, their Executive Officer has a major personality flaw. Do you know what it is?”
“Hmm, he holds grudges?”
Mr. Sang smiled somewhat bitterly.
“Holding grudges is not a flaw. The Cang Yuan Executive Officer’s real problem is that his ambition is too vast, and he has an obsession!
He believes he is destined for greatness and can lead his employees to defy the times—”
At this point, a hint of fear appeared in the eyes of this successful man who controlled two large interstellar organizations.
“He has never witnessed the truly terrifying power that created the era! When people become arrogant to a certain extent, they develop the illusion that they can achieve anything through sheer willpower, but we live in a material universe after all. Unless Cang Yuan possesses supernatural power, they will ultimately just become a joke.”
Mr. Sang looked at his subordinate, who had a somewhat dull expression and clearly hadn’t understood what he had just said.
“Do you think Cang Yuan has such power?”
“Shouldn’t… shouldn’t they?”
“Hmm…”
Deep down, Mr. Sang actually had doubts about this.
But he didn't want to admit it; instead, he hoped to get a negative confirmation from others.
He knew better than anyone his exceptional talent, and how much effort he had put in, based on that talent, to gradually expand Apollo and Dark Sun over the past 30 years and achieve their current success.
However, Cang Yuan’s return, in just half a year, had swelled from near-primitive tribal scale to its current size, pushing him into a desperate situation where he had no choice but to fight with his back against the wall.
Did they really not have divine assistance?
If they did, the most appropriate course of action would be to immediately kneel and beg for mercy.
Don’t do anything useless—
Mr. Sang shook his head with an imperceptible movement, dispelling the unease in his heart.
“So let them come. No matter how cunning the Executive Officer’s tactics are in the early stages of the battle, he will eventually come to this planet. We don’t need to waste energy guessing their attack path; just focus our attention here.”
“So we’re abandoning those space stations?”
“Abandon them!” Mr. Sang said decisively, “Broadcast at high power and recall all remaining fighter jets!”
He walked to the office window again.
Ruins Star’s rotation speed had been artificially adjusted during the golden age, making a day a standard 24 hours. It was past noon, and the clouds below had dispersed.
Fourteen warships belonging to Apollo and Dark Sun were all parked on the roof of a relatively low, but vast, flat-topped building, poised for action.
The flagship among them was the absolute main force of the Dark Sun pirate group, a 350-meter-long light cruiser.
Further in the distance was a colossal object nearly a kilometer in height, which at first glance resembled a full, strange, pointed-top, wide-bottomed giant building.
However, it was moving!
Seeing this true trump card begin to operate normally, Mr. Sang truly regained his confidence.
“What a pity, Cang Yuan, you seem to have precisely failed to inherit the military might of the golden age, but I am different!”
After successfully destroying the first wave of space stations, Lu Yuan adjusted the formation according to the original plan, no longer allowing each ship to act separately. Instead, he reorganized them into three small fleets: one group consisted of three captured Apollo warships, and the other two groups each had one “Qinling” and one “Wuyi.”
This was because the previous space stations must have sent out distress or warning signals before they were destroyed.
In other words, the space stations to be attacked next would definitely be prepared in advance, releasing all their fighter jets from their hangars.
There was no other way; electromagnetic signals travel at the speed of light, which was still much faster than the warp travel currently mastered by Cang Yuan.
And indeed, things unfolded as he expected.
After three aerial battles, Cang Yuan once again secured three air victories with superior forces.
The only troublesome opponents were those unknown heavy fighter jets, which, combined with the impressive skills of Dark Sun’s elite pilots, could suppress Cang Yuan in terms of single-aircraft combat power.
Fortunately, their numbers were not large, so two to three owls could focus on one, and if that didn't work, the warships would warp-jump to their faces, surround them, and directly overwhelm them with concentrated firepower.
In the end, out of the 7 heavy fighter jets encountered, 4 were shot down, and the remaining 3 escaped by warping.
Lu Yuan did not bother with the deserters and did not order a pursuit.
On Cang Yuan’s side, 5 fighter jets were damaged and immediately entered the hangar of the “Wuyi”-class after the battle ended.
The two hangars of this class of warship were connected through a dedicated repair workshop. The workshop was equipped with two small 3D printers and one large 3D printer, which could produce replacement parts as needed, allowing for rapid repairs with the assistance of the onboard Engineer.
A few hours later, the Cang Yuan fleet carried out a third space station clearing operation.
This time, Lu Yuan found that there were no fighter jets patrolling and defending around the space station, and its own interception procedures felt rather rigid.
He quickly realized that Mr. Sang had abandoned these fixed defensive strongholds, so he decisively ordered a change to the original plan: all ships to gather, carrier-based aircraft to return to hangars to resupply missiles, and head straight for System 7.
Finally, on the third day of the war, the Cang Yuan fleet arrived at the “BOSS” room one day ahead of schedule, beginning to orbit Ruins Star at a radius of 120,000 kilometers.
After a brief rest and a good meal for everyone, the annihilation operation officially began.
“Can we pinpoint the location where Chang Kong and his team detected the radar signals based on the topography of Ruins Star?”
Lu Yuan sat in the center of the bridge, addressing the battlefield situation awareness department.
“Yes, boss!”
Ye Xing’s tone was high-pitched, clearly excited.
“The street patterns of the city on the planet’s surface are very unique, and they’re very clear from the air, no mistaking them!”
“Good. Helmsman, approach that location from a low-horizon angle; other ships, follow Xianyang.”
“Understood!”
The fleet then engaged its engines to decelerate, naturally lowering its orbit under the gravitational pull of Ruins Star.
The reason for not accelerating head-down was that such a posture and orbit would not be conducive to subsequent maneuvers.
At the same time, the two ‘Wuyi’-class ships in the fleet began to rotate their electromagnetic turrets.
“Executive Officer, ‘Xianxia’ and ‘Minjiang’ have targeted the previously detected radar signal area.”
Chang Kong updated the battle situation to the Executive Officer in a timely manner.
“Fire!”
Lu Yuan did not hesitate.
“Yes! Fire!”
“Fire! Orbital bombardment procedure activated!”
As the bombardment began, all the players on the bridge simultaneously revealed expressions that could only be described as sinister and barely contained.