81: Jupiter Defense Line

Jupiter.

This gas giant, the largest and most massive in the Solar System, stood like a silent giant, faithfully guarding the inner rocky planets for hundreds of millions of years, using its powerful gravity to sweep away dangerous meteors from the outer Solar System.

Today, however, it would witness Human Civilization actively unsheathing its sword against an unknown threat from the depths of the starry sky for the sake of protecting its home.

The Earth Defense Force's Second and Third Combined Fleets, consisting of over three hundred starfish-class multi-functional frigates and several jinglei-class transport ships converted into temporary command vessels, had long since established a seemingly solid defensive line here.

Relying on Ganymede, Jupiter's massive moon, they formed a well-arranged defensive formation.

Every warship's radar was running at full power, and the communication channels were silent, save for brief instructions occasionally issued between units for tactical confirmation.

The vacuum was permeated with the tension and gravity peculiar to the moments before a great battle.

"Report to Command Center, this is flagship of the Second Fleet, we have arrived at the designated position, all units are in normal status, ready to engage in combat at any time."

The commander of the Second Fleet was a Chinese colonel named Colonel Lin Feng. He looked at the massive planet covered in beautiful stripes outside the porthole, reporting steadily to the supreme command of Babel Tower.

"Received, Colonel Lin Feng." The voice of Commander-in-Chief Wang Quanjin came through the communicator, "Remember your mission: delay the enemy's advance at all costs and buy precious time for the rear defensive line."

"Understood!"

...

Just as the human fleet was bracing for battle, in the void millions of kilometers away.

A silver-grey cloud composed of hundreds of millions of nanobots was silently churning and condensing.

"Hey, hey, hey! I say, Boss! Do we really have to fight like this?"

Grey Wind's somewhat dissatisfied voice rang in Lei Wen's mind.

At this moment, she was overlooking the entire battlefield from a "God's eye view."

"Those three hundred little iron cans on the other side look so fragile. I feel like I could smash them all into scrap metal in a single charge! Are you sure you want me to hold back to this extent?"

"We must hold back." Lei Wen's voice was unquestionable, "And not only must you hold back, you must act convincingly, act tragically. Remember, our goal is not victory, but a pyrrhic victory."

"Oh, what a hassle!" Although Grey Wind complained, her actions showed no hesitation.

That massive nanobot cloud began to deform rapidly.

In the void, they simulated the spindle-shaped contours of Faleim unmanned fighters, full of cold, lethal aesthetics.

But this time, their number was not three.

It was a full five hundred.

And behind these unmanned fighters, they also simulated two hundred warships that looked exactly like the frigates of the Far Star Fleet, but only one-hundredth the size.

A "Faraim vanguard" that looked menacing and threatening was thus born out of thin air.

"Alright, alright, the actors are in place. Director, get ready to shoot!" Grey Wind teased.

"Action starts." Lei Wen gave the final order.

...

"Alert! Enemy detected!"

On the bridge of the flagship, the radar operator's sharp shout instantly shattered all silence.

On the main screen, over five hundred red dots representing the enemy, like a swarm of bees emerging from hell, suddenly burst out from Jupiter's gravitational shadow at a very high speed, charging straight at the human defensive line!

"All hands to battle stations! Disengage safeties on all weapon systems!" Colonel Lin Feng's voice echoed on the bridge, calm and powerful. "Order the First Combat Formation to advance and meet the enemy! Give these invaders a warm welcome with our artillery!"

Following his order, the engines of one hundred starfish-class frigates lit up simultaneously, actively heading toward the incoming red dots like arrows leaving the string.

A true Interstellar Fleet decisive battle, the first in human history, erupted under the massive shadow of Jupiter!

"Fire!"

When the distance between the two sides entered the optimal range, Colonel Lin Feng decisively gave the order to fire.

Instantly, the medium-caliber electromagnetic rapid-fire cannons at the bows of one hundred frigates roared in unison.

Thousands of solid projectiles made of ultra-hard alloy were accelerated to tens of times the speed of sound, and continued to accelerate in the vacuum and low-gravity environment of space, turning into streaks of scorching light, forming an impenetrable steel barrage that covered the enemy drone swarm fiercely.

Facing this overwhelming saturation attack, those black spindle-shaped drones displayed a reaction completely different from their three predecessors.

They did not perform any evasive maneuvers.

Instead, like the most fearless berserkers, they crashed straight into the steel barrage.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of violent explosions bloomed silently in the pitch-black space.

The dozens of drones charging at the front were torn to pieces the moment they contacted the barrage, turning into balls of brilliant fire.

"Hit! We hit them!"

Seeing this scene, a burst of irrepressible cheers erupted on the bridge of the flagship.

This seemed to prove that these so-called "Faleim drones" were not invincible!

However, there was not a trace of joy on Colonel Lin Feng's face.

His brows were tightly furrowed.

Because he keenly sensed something was wrong.

Those destroyed drones... their method of explosion was too strange.

They didn't explode into a large amount of metal fragments and parts like normal aircraft.

Instead, they turned directly into a cloud of silver-grey mist, and dissipated into space within a few breaths.

It was as if they were molded from a pile of sand in the first place.

Before he could figure out the weirdness of this, the enemy's counterattack followed.

The remaining hundreds of drones charged through the first round of barrage in a suicidal posture and tangled with the human fleet.

They no longer used those strange "black lines" that could split a fighter plane in two, nor did they use those electromagnetic pulses that could instantly paralyze electronic equipment.

They used weapons humans were most familiar with and most primitive — electromagnetic machine guns and nuclear missiles.

Kinetic projectiles poured down like raindrops on the not-so-thick armor of the starfish-class frigates.

Each hit would blow up a dazzling spark on the hull, leaving a charred crater.

The human fleet instantly fell into a bitter battle.

"Great Wall 07, port engine damaged! Requesting support!"

"Mount Tai 12, main armor belt penetrated! People have been sucked out!"

"We are surrounded! There are too many of them!"

Various communications full of anxiety and chaos echoed in the command channel.

In this close-quarters melee, as brutal as medieval knights, the inferiority of the starfish-class frigates in quantity and firepower was fully exposed.

In just the first ten minutes of the engagement, more than twenty frigates in the First Combat Formation lost their combat capability due to severe damage, floating powerlessly in space like wounded whales.

Just then, Colonel Lin Feng issued a new order.

"All frigates, release the 'Hummingbird'!"

Following his order, the bottom of every starfish-class frigate still in combat opened several honeycomb-like launch ports simultaneously.

The next second, thousands of silver fighters, extremely small in size and full of agility, swarmed out from the embrace of the motherships like an angered swarm of bees!

Hummingbird space fighter.

This was the latest model of single-pilot fighter designed by Paradox Technology specifically for close-quarters combat in space.

It was extremely small, only over ten meters long, and its appearance resembled the American F-117 fighter-bomber, but designed for space combat, it possessed unparalleled maneuverability.

It had no bulky long wings, relying on dozens of micro-vector thrusters distributed all over its body to perform omnidirectional movement.

The appearance of this Hummingbird Squadron, composed of humanity's top ace pilots, cut into the chaotic battlefield like a sharp scalpel!

"This is Sharp Sword! I have locked onto the target! Fire stinger!"

A Korean ace pilot named Jin Yuantong flew his Hummingbird fighter and completed an incredible maneuver amidst the crossfire of three "Faleim" drones.

The 30mm electromagnetic machine guns on both sides of his cockpit nose sprayed lethal tongues of fire the moment the three "Faleim" fighters passed by.

Dozens of armor-piercing shells accelerated by electromagnetism accurately hit a drone, turning it into a cloud of silver-grey mist.

"Nice shot! Jin Yuantong!" The wingman's voice rang in the communication channel.

But they soon discovered that these "Faleim" drones were far more difficult to deal with than they had imagined.

Although their firepower was not too strong, their flight trajectories were extremely weird.

A dogfight full of high-G maneuvers and instantaneous offense-defense transitions unfolded fiercely in Jupiter's orbit.

The Hummingbird fighters wove and dodged through the gaps in the enemy's artillery fire like real hummingbirds.

And the "Faleim" drones were like a swarm of bloodthirsty wasps, biting every target tightly, not giving the opponent any chance to breathe.

An American pilot, Captain Johnson, codenamed "Maverick," had his Hummingbird unfortunately hit by an electromagnetic machine gun in the tail thruster after shooting down two enemy planes.

The fighter lost control instantly and began to tumble uncontrollably in space.

"Mayday! Mayday! My control system is malfunctioning!" His voice rang in the communication channel, full of rapid panting.

"Maverick! Eject immediately!" The flight leader's voice roared.

"No! The ejection system is also malfunctioning! And ejection in outer space makes survival almost impossible!" Johnson looked at a "falam warships" approaching their own flagship, the flagship, on the screen, a flash of determination in his eyes.

"Sir," his voice suddenly became unusually calm, "It is my honor to fight for humanity."

After speaking, he resolutely turned off the communication.

He used his last strength to aim the nose of his fighter at that massive enemy ship.

His smoking Hummingbird fighter, like a moth flying into a fire, turned into a final streak of light and crashed fiercely into the bridge of the "falam warships."

Although this insignificant collision was no different from an egg hitting a rock for that giant ship, and didn't even stir a ripple on its shield.

But Captain Johnson used his own life to show the enemy and all his comrades the fearless iron will of human pilots.

His action was like a shot of adrenaline, instantly igniting the blood of all human soldiers.

"Avenge Johnson!"

"Brothers! Fight them to the end!"

More warships began to adopt even crazier tactics.

When the ammunition was exhausted and the energy of the laser weapons was depleted, they would unhesitatingly use their own warships as the last shell to crash into the nearest enemy.

For a time, the entire battlefield became an ocean of tragic and fierce suicidal attacks.

Facing this completely unreasonable mad-dog fighting style of humans, Grey Wind's seemingly powerful "Faraim Fleet" was actually caught off guard.

One after another, "falam warships" were severely damaged or even destroyed under the desperate collision of the human fleet.

Of course, the price paid by the human fleet was equally heavy.

One young life after another passed away in the fire of explosions, and one warship after another carrying hope turned into cold space dust.

This fierce battle lasted for a full five hours.

When the last drone controlled by Grey Wind was also destroyed, her fleet composed of two hundred "warships" lost nearly half.

She "embarrassedly" led her remnants and retreated from the battlefield, disappearing on the other side of Jupiter.

And the Earth Defense Force's Second and Third Combined Fleets also paid a heavy price.

More than half of the three hundred warships were destroyed, nearly fifty were severely damaged and unable to return, and only barely one hundred warships were still mobile.

Most of the surviving warships were also out of ammunition and scarred.

Although they successfully "repelled" the enemy's first wave of attacks, they themselves had lost the ability to continue fighting.

Space warfare is not like naval warfare; those comrades on the warships destroyed in space have no possibility of survival.

"Report to Command Center," Colonel Lin Feng looked at the tragic battlefield floating with countless wreckage of warships outside the porthole, his voice hoarse as he reported.

"The Jupiter orbital defense line has been held."

"But we are unable to conduct a second engagement."

"My unit requests to retreat to the second defensive line."