Chapter 191 190: A Thousand Years
While Li Qingsong watched in secret, the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet swiftly completed its resource gathering mission.
At the same time, Li Qingsong saw them dispatch a large number of vessels that appeared to be Scientific Research Vessels. These ships followed the exact routes his own six fleets had taken when leaving the Solar System, conducting extensive scientific investigations along the way.
'This seems to be...'
Li Qingsong pondered for a moment before a realization dawned on him.
'Just as I thought. They don't just rely on observing engine trails to confirm a fleet's trajectory.'
'Engine trails are bright, but they're also highly directional, projecting in a single line. If you're not in that line, you won't see it from any significant distance.'
'Up close, you can directly track a fleet by its engine trail. But from farther away, they must be using other methods.'
'I haven't mastered this kind of technology myself. But my guess is... they're confirming the heading by examining the interaction between the plasma from the engine trail and the interstellar gas, observing the specific traces left behind? Yes, that must be it.'
The numerous fleets of Scientific Research Vessels moved throughout the Solar System, quickly splitting into six groups. Their paths perfectly matched the trajectories of his own six fleets that had departed the system.
Li Qingsong knew then that they had confirmed the trajectories of all six fleets.
Only twenty years had passed. Now that they had confirmed the trajectories of the six fleets, Li Qingsong watched as the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet began to reassemble, preparing to travel to the next star system and continue their search for him.
A knot of tension formed in Li Qingsong's chest.
They had confirmed the trajectories of all six fleets. This meant, quite obviously, that the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet's next destination would be one of those six star systems.
The probability for each star system was about 16.7%.
If their destination was the Oriental Star System...
Accounting for the time lag of my observations and their travel speed, they would arrive at the Oriental Star System in ten years at most.
His own fleet wasn't even complete yet. Ten years was nowhere near enough time.
If that happened, he would have no choice but to activate his contingency plan, abandon everything he had built, and flee to a different star system to start over.
His original plan to develop technology while on the run would be completely scrapped.
After a while, the colossal Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet slowly got underway, heading out of the Solar System.
After calculating their trajectory, Li Qingsong breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Their target was Wangliang Three—a binary system approximately 19.5 light-years from the Solar System. It consisted of a yellow dwarf similar to the Sun and an orange dwarf, and it was the destination of one of Li Qingsong's decoy fleets.
Considering the relative positions of the six star systems his fleets had been sent to, Li Qingsong immediately understood their plan.
The Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet intended to follow the principle of proximity, taking the shortest possible route to search all six star systems.
Based on that search path, his own Oriental Star would be the fifth on their list.
At their fleet's current speed, factoring in time to resupply along the way, it was estimated that the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet would reach the Oriental Star System in about 300 years.
Three hundred years. That was a much shorter time than it took them to chase him from the Blutuk Star System to the Solar System. This meant their search radius was shrinking, and the noose that had once been around the Blutuk Civilization's neck—now cinched around his own—was growing tighter.
But... for him, 300 years was an acceptable timeframe.
Ordinarily, 300 years would be barely enough time to complete an interstellar migration.
After all, Li Qingsong's fleet could only reach a top speed of a few percent of the speed of light.
But for this migration, Li Qingsong had already decided: he would not be stopping at any star systems for the time being.
'I will fly through interstellar space for a thousand years!'
That's right—a full thousand years of Interstellar Travel, without stopping in a single star system!
The Cosmos is vast, and star systems occupy only a tiny fraction of its space.
As long as he avoided star systems and remained hidden in the depths of interstellar space, it would be virtually impossible for the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity to find any trace of him.
Even if they tracked his main fleet's departure trajectory, they wouldn't find him, because his fleet would be constantly making micro-adjustments to its course along the way.
Even if the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet had mastered the technology to determine a trajectory by analyzing the interaction between drive plasma and interstellar gas, the thrusters used for micro-adjustments had extremely low power output, meaning their interaction with interstellar gas would be negligible.
It was highly unlikely they could use that to confirm his heading.
They would still be forced to search star system by star system to determine his final location.
And in space travel, a tiny deviation in the initial trajectory results in an enormous difference in the final destination.
Not even Li Qingsong himself knew where they would end up or which star system they would eventually stop at.
Li Qingsong was confident this plan would be extremely effective at throwing off his pursuers. For an ordinary civilization, however, such a plan would be completely unfeasible.
Take the Blutuk Civilization, for example. Had they attempted such a plan, the only outcome would have been running out of resources and dying in the empty void of space.
Their industrial strength was limited, their fleet size was limited, and the amount of supplies they could carry was limited; they simply couldn't have sustained such a long journey.
But Li Qingsong was different!
The original fleet that had escaped the Solar System was already massive, but the fleet Li Qingsong was now building was twenty times its size.
Only such a colossal fleet, capable of carrying an astonishing amount of supplies, could support a voyage lasting a thousand years.
Right now, the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet was already underway, headed for the Wangliang Three-Star System.
In the Oriental Star System, Li Qingsong's own massive construction project was entering its final phase.
There were still six fleets: five decoys, and one true main fleet.
All six fleets shared the same tonnage and specifications. This meant their engine trail signatures would be identical.
The fleet construction was complete, and so was the resource gathering.
Countless supply pods, numerous Space-Air Carriers, and heavy transport ships were already fully loaded.
Now, only one last task remained.
Relocating the more than 1,500 large-scale scientific installations he had built into the fleet.
Given the unique operating principles and environmental requirements of each installation, this was an extremely troublesome and difficult task. There was no one-size-fits-all solution; a custom relocation plan had to be designed for every single one.
"Custom plans it is, then! It just means we'll have to build more ships!"