Super Mothership
In the endless void, twenty Sea Clan warships formed a wedge formation, slowly advancing toward Kara Star.
At the center of the fleet, Gustav’s flagship was closely guarded in a triangular formation by three small escort ships, with a small combat carrier trailing behind. The outer perimeter consisted of larger, heavily armored warships.
This fleet was the force Gustav had dispatched to reinforce the blockade around Kara Star. Combined with the seven existing orbital suppression ships, the total number of warships enforcing the blockade reached twenty-seven—nearly the size of an entire squadron. Deploying such a force to blockade a planet with little space power was undoubtedly overkill.
However, according to the tactical plans of the Gemini Commanders, this fleet was meant to fortify the outer perimeter of Kara Star, primarily to prevent foreign vessels from approaching the planet.
Just then, the small combat carrier behind the flagship suddenly emitted two violent bursts of exhaust—"Boom! Boom!"—and abruptly accelerated.
Originally, all ships had been maintaining the same cruising speed, but this sudden change immediately disrupted the fleet’s formation.
"Alert! Designation H786, Hive, your ship's speed is abnormal. Adjust immediately to maintain cruising formation! I repeat, adjust your speed at once and maintain formation!" The fleet’s AI quickly detected the anomaly and issued a warning to the Hive’s onboard AI.
In the age of interstellar travel, warships were naturally equipped with autopilot systems. In cruising mode, fleet formation was maintained through orders issued from the flagship’s AI to subordinate ship AIs, which then controlled their respective vessels’ movements.
However, at this moment, the Hive’s communication module had clearly malfunctioned, preventing it from receiving orders.
Ignoring the flagship’s warning, the combat carrier suddenly surged forward like a weasel caught stealing chickens. Its engines flared even brighter as it accelerated at full speed!
Aboard the Hive, even without receiving the flagship’s warning, the ship’s captain immediately realized something was wrong. A deafening alarm had already filled the entire bridge...
"Alert! Alert! Incoming external data attack… zzzt zzzt… Some modules are unresponsive. Firewall mode activated. Requesting electronic countermeasure support from the flagship… zzzt zzzt… Communications disrupted…"
Cold sweat broke out on the Hive's captain’s face. The powerful data attack was concerning, but what was even more terrifying was the flagship's engine exhaust rapidly approaching outside the porthole.
Although the Hive and the Sea Clan flagship were traveling in a cruising formation, they were still nearly 20 kilometers apart. That might seem like a considerable distance, but at high speeds in the vastness of space, it could be closed in the blink of an eye…
"Cut off all external data channels immediately! Block the enemy’s electronic attack!" He forced himself to stay calm and quickly issued the order.
On the battlefield, electronic warfare typically relied on wireless signals to disrupt enemy communications and command networks. However, completely taking over a warship this way was nearly impossible because the targeted vessel could always sever its data connection—commonly known as "going offline."
This was why, despite Nie Yun's top-tier hacking skills, he still had to send two operatives aboard a Neon warship to find the "legendary USB cable" when attempting to take control of it.
Now, history was repeating itself—this time orchestrated by Codename.
"The data channels have been severed, but… but the data attack is still ongoing! The attack is coming from inside!" a technician exclaimed in panic.
"What?!" The captain was dumbfounded.
At that moment, in an inconspicuous corner of the warship, a silver USB-like device was plugged into a signal input port, its indicator light flashing wildly.
In reality, while Nie Yun had been leveraging his authority to investigate the spy case, he had already completed his infiltration of the Hive.
Though the few mechanical bugs he deployed weren’t enough to disrupt the entire warship, they had no trouble installing a signal receiver. Codename was now using this very port to launch a cyberattack on the ship’s AI.
"Helmsman, switch to manual navigation mode! Reduce speed immediately!" The captain, drenched in sweat, issued his second command as the flagship’s hull loomed larger and larger in his viewport.
"Aye, Captain!"
The order to switch to manual control was successfully received by the ship's AI, which immediately responded. The control panel’s mode changed to "Manual Mode."
Under normal circumstances, human intervention always took precedence over machine control. This was an ingrained principle among all mechanical civilizations. The fear of AI uprisings was a recurring theme in literature across Gemini, an ever-popular classic subject. The Gemini United Council had even classified it as a "civilization-ending risk" that required constant vigilance.
Seeing the mode switch successfully, the captain let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, despite the AI struggling to fend off the external data attack, its core functions were still operational. For now, the enemy hadn’t managed to breach the AI’s firewall.
However, just as the helmsman was about to reduce speed, all the screens on the bridge suddenly went dark. A moment later, when they lit up again, a strange and eerie image had taken over every display.
A silver vortex swirled on the screen. The next instant, a skeletal hand reached out from the vortex, tossing an old-fashioned black powder bomb. The fuse on the bomb was still burning, hissing as it slowly burned down.
This type of black powder bomb had once existed in Gemini civilization’s history—everyone recognized it immediately.
"It’s a virus! Our terminals have been infected!" a technician shouted in panic.
Before the increasingly uneasy captain could react, the bombs on all the screens exploded simultaneously. The next second, every display went completely dark.
The virus developed by Codename wasn’t just highly stealthy and adaptive—it had one core function: when triggered by a specific code, it acted like a data bomb, wiping sections of stored data on infected terminals and rendering them temporarily useless.
These "bombs" were essentially clusters of data that concealed themselves by wrapping in surrounding legitimate data, making them extremely difficult to detect.
Once detonated, the virus instantly unleashed chaotic, unstructured data, disrupting the targeted storage units and causing temporary data corruption in that region.
In reality, this virus was simple and crude. It wasn’t powerful enough to seriously threaten the AI’s firewall. Given time, the AI could restore data to the affected terminals.
The more powerful a virus was, the closer it had to get to the AI’s core security zone—making it easier to detect. But the simpler the virus, the more effectively it could remain hidden.
It wasn’t an especially strong virus, but it was enough to temporarily disable the bridge’s control panels—the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
As the captain of the Hive watched the flagship’s massive engines looming just outside the porthole, his only thought was…
Why don’t spaceships have a handbrake…?
Automation… was really the worst…
"BOOM!"
TL Note- Space Autopilot...
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