Chapter 148: Planetary Spaceship

To be precise, what Jason had observed in the deep dark of the Oort Cloud was a massive gravitational dot, roughly the size of Earth’s Moon!

​Surrounding this colossal mass were over a dozen smaller dots. According to the Gravitational Wave Telescope’s telemetry, the diameter of each of these smaller dots was approximately 150 to 200 kilometers!

​”Are there really natural celestial bodies grouped like this?” Jason was deeply puzzled. He subconsciously rubbed his tired eyes, staring at the screen.

​A distance of 0.6 light-years was an unimaginably vast gulf for humanity, it was practically unreachable. Voyager 1, launched way back in 1977, was the farthest human-made object from Earth, currently sitting at roughly 17 billion kilometers from the Sun…

​One single light-year is approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers.

​Based on that math, the absolute furthest humanity had ever physically reached was a pitiful 0.002 light-years. The sheer scale of a full light-year was staggering, making the universe feel suffocatingly vast.

​The coordinates 0.6 light-years away placed the anomaly deep within the Oort Cloud, a primordial shell of icy bodies that humanity had never explored. Therefore, the presence of a moon-sized dwarf planet in that region shouldn’t have been totally surprising. Perhaps it was just a rogue planetoid that Earth’s old optical telescopes had never managed to spot?

​But Jason’s strategic instincts screamed that something was wrong. Were those dozen smaller dots really just trapped asteroids? And… why were they lined up in such a perfect, regular formation? It was too neat. Too artificial.

​Frowning, Jason ran a quick calculation on the anomaly’s current velocity. When the result flashed on the screen, his head spun. He stared at the numbers in sheer disbelief, completely stunned.

​His hands trembled slightly as he recalibrated the parameters and ran the calculation a second time. The result was exactly the same!

​”What the hell is this?!” he shouted. He couldn’t possibly have miscalculated basic telemetry; there was definitely something terrifying about these dots!

​Hearing Jason’s sudden exclamation, the group of physicists, who had been deep in thought regarding the stellar fragment theory bolted up and rushed over to the console.

​When they saw Jason’s velocity calculations on the screen, they all froze in horror, as if witnessing a ghost.

​Sub-light speed!

​A cluster of massive spheres was traveling at near-light speed, burning a direct path into the Solar System!

​These were absolutely not natural celestial bodies. They were… ships. Impossibly massive spaceships! It was an overwhelmingly powerful armada. Even the smallest escort vessels in the formation were 150 kilometers long, roughly the size of the Viridian spaceship!

​”What is that?!”

​”What is going on?!”

​Panic erupted among the scientists. Some gasped in shock, others shouted, but there was only one logical explanation. No natural asteroid or rogue moon could spontaneously accelerate to sub-light speeds!

​Although his heart was beating very fast, Jason immediately hit the general alarm, issuing an order for an emergency high-command meeting. Simultaneously, he ordered Professor Thomson and the astronomy team to drop everything and attempt to visually locate the super-fleet using conventional optical and radio sensors.

​”Gentlemen, the situation is critical, and we only discovered it by pure luck. This unknown armada is currently traveling at approximately 0.6 times the speed of light. Although the Gravitational Wave Telescope detected them at a distance of 0.6 light-years… gravitational waves only travel at the speed of light. That means the data is delayed. What we are looking at is an image of where the fleet was roughly 0.6 years ago!”

​Jason’s face was deathly pale as he projected the gravitational telemetry onto the main screen of the secure briefing room. “The central flagship… is the size of the Moon. It has a diameter of roughly 3,000 kilometers!”

​”It is escorted by 12 smaller spaceships, each with a diameter of 150 to 200 kilometers!”

​The sheer anxiety finally boiled over, and Jason slammed his fist heavily onto the briefing table.

​”That makes a total of… 13 ships!”

​A super-spaceship the size of a moon! This was the kind of apocalyptic terror that only existed in cheap sci-fi novels, but now it was burning a path straight toward them. It was unbelievably shocking… How much time, resources, and industrial capacity would it take to hollow out and weaponize an entire planet?

​The oppressive reality of the situation crushed them. It represented a technological pinnacle that humanity couldn’t even begin to fathom!

​Insignificant! Humanity was so incredibly, tragically insignificant…

​Jason had absolutely no idea who this fleet belonged to or what their intentions were. But an armada of that scale aggressively entering the Solar System… it was definitely not coming in peace.

​First, the battered Viridian fleet arrived begging for sanctuary, and now this apocalyptic armada follows right behind them? Was this a coincidence? What the hell was happening?

​Seated around the briefing room were the Federation’s top brass: factory directors, lead scientists, and senior parliamentary members. An immense, suffocating pressure weighed on everyone, making it hard to breathe.

​Faces were ashen; eyes were wide with terror.

​But thankfully… no one broke.

​This was what Jason was most proud of. Over the last two years, the surviving remnants of humanity had been forged in the fires of constant, existential crises. Their collective resilience had hardened like steel. Whether they were politicians or scientists, they all sat in grim silence, processing the data and thinking of solutions, rather than breaking down into desperate, useless wailing.

​This was a massive improvement from two years ago, back when they were trapped on the Lunar Base and the Precursor Ark hadn’t been secured. Back then, when the team had learned that the Moon was going to be destroyed, they had completely collapsed into mass panic. It had taken Jason screaming and roaring at them just to bring them back to their senses.

​Jason would never forget that horrific day; it felt like the sky was physically falling, and everyone was drowning in despair.

​Now, that same apocalyptic dread had returned, but humanity’s reaction was entirely different. This was true progress! As long as they could think through the panic, whether fueled by anxiety or anger, it was infinitely more useful than despair.

​”Let’s not kid ourselves. A single one of their escort ships could likely vaporize us…” As the leader of the Federation, Jason felt a deep wave of bitterness and a burning indignation, as he spoke the words.

​”But we spotted them early. We have advanced warning, and we must formulate a survival strategy immediately!”

​The council members frowned deeply. Faced with an empire capable of building a moon-sized warship, humanity truly felt powerless.

​The dark forest of the universe was teeming with unimaginable horrors; a single misstep could lead to the instant extinction of the human race!

​Technology, technology! We need more advanced technology, at any cost! Jason thought desperately.

​He cleared his throat, his tone deadly serious. “Factoring in the light-speed delay and their current velocity, that fleet is roughly 0.24 light-years away from Pluto’s orbit… which means they will cross the outer edge of the Solar System in approximately five months!”

​”We have five months to figure this out.”

​Having delivered the timeline, Jason sat down and rubbed his temples, thinking furiously.

​The timeline was incredibly suspicious. It was one thing for the crippled Viridian fleet to stumble into the system seeking refuge, but for a massive armada to appear on their exact trajectory? Was this armada hunting the Viridians? Or was there a completely different reason? Should humanity… maintain the grand bluff?

​If the battered Viridians could be intimidated by humanity’s hollow threats… an armada led by a planetary dreadnought definitely would not be. If the Federation tried to bluff a moon-sized ship, they would be swatted like flies.

​What do we do? What do we do?!

​At that exact moment, Professor Thomson’s voice crackled over the secure comms line, delivering even worse news: “Director, we’ve tried everything. We can’t get a visual on them. They are operating in absolute radio silence… and they are emitting zero reflected light or heat radiation. Our optical and radio telescopes are completely blind!”

​”No, wait, we just tried linking the Noah’s radio arrays into an interferometer… still nothing. They are practically invisible to conventional sensors! Only the Gravitational Wave Telescope can track them!”

​Listening to the report, Jason felt a sickening mix of frustration and profound relief. Thank God humanity had secured the Gravitational Wave Telescope, a piece of technology clearly several tiers above conventional sensors; otherwise… they wouldn’t have known this apocalyptic fleet existed until it was in orbit around Mars. And by then, it would have been far too late.

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