Stone thrower

The situation was developing delicately.

In a battle that lasted less than ten minutes, Hawke, who had been exposed, re-hid, while the alien civilization, which had been in the shadows, was found by Hawke.

But at the moment, Hawke did not seem to have the advantage. Because the other side was a planet, this meant that the other side had a near-infinite ability to replenish energy, whereas here in Hawke, it was a case of using a little and getting a little less. Besides, it was easier to destroy a fleet than to destroy a planet.

After concealing himself and gaining temporary safety, Hawke began to think rapidly about his next course of action.

So far, apart from shooting missiles at each other, Hawke had not had any communication with this alien civilization. Without communication, Hawke had no way to determine the enemy's social structure, moral system, etc. In other words, Hawke had lost the possibility of exploiting the enemy's internal conflicts and opening a gap from within the enemy. The only two viable options were either to defeat the enemy or, at the risk of total annihilation, to escape.

Hawke began to rethink the question he had started with, which was, why would this civilisation take the initiative to attack itself?

Hawke was convinced that his theory was correct, and since this civilisation had taken the initiative to attack itself, it could be confirmed that the other side thought that by attacking, it would gain a greater benefit than by living in peace with itself. This benefit was big enough to risk losing both sides with themselves and attacking them.

So ... what was this great benefit?

Hawke began to think carefully about all the messages he had exposed. First of all, Hawke could be sure that with the other party's level of technology, they definitely discovered themselves while they were maneuvering their ship to capture the other party's satellite. Immediately after discovering him, they had set up a hydrogen bomb trap to try to destroy him in one fell swoop.

So, what huge possible benefit did the other side find from themselves in the action of capturing their satellite?

Hawke built up a huge data model, put himself in the other side's position and began to make projections as to under what circumstances he would first attack the other fleet.

Half an hour later, Hawke came to a conclusion. The conclusion indicated that there were roughly three possibilities that would lead to one initiating an attack.

One, the other side might consider their own capture of the other satellite as a sign of initiating an attack. In order to protect themselves, they would have pre-empted the trap, hoping to eliminate Hawke.

Two, based on the other side's abandonment of that satellite, the other side was in a serious energy crisis, or some other crisis, and even if there was no crisis, the other side must have been restricted in some way, so the other side wanted to rob themselves in order to obtain a replenishment in terms of supplies.

Thirdly, it was possible that the very act of wiping out civilisations was, in the other side's view, the most profitable. Hawke wasn't sure why the act of wiping out civilisations would be of interest, but if neither of the first two possibilities were valid, the third would be the most likely. Perhaps the other side was a perverted civilisation that would gain great spiritual satisfaction from annihilating the rest.

Hawke thought that the second was the most likely, the first the second and the third the least likely.

"Well, let's rely on the second possibility for the time being for the next step of the battle plan." Hawke thought for a moment and once again began to make data projections.

Through these ten minutes of battle, Hawke had become familiar with a little bit of the opponent's battle pattern, and among them, there was one point that caught Hawke's attention.

That was, the other side did not send battleships to fight against themselves, but only through bases arranged above the planet's synchronous orbit, satellites and other devices, firing missiles or lasers to fight against themselves. This is a very difficult point to understand. Generally speaking, no one wants the battlefield to be in their own nest, at least, if China is in conflict with another country while on Earth, it is common sense to want the battlefield to be outside their own territory to avoid their own country being affected by the war.

So why didn't ... the other side send a fleet to fight with itself, instead of just using the planet as a base to fight with itself?

The other side does not have the ability to create a starfighter fleet? There was no such possibility, and Hawke dismissed it first. After all, the missiles launched by the other side all reached a terrifying speed of three thousand kilometres per second, faster than Hawke's missiles, and no one would believe it if they said that such a civilization did not have the ability to build a star fleet.

So ... the other side had the ability to build a Starfleet, but wouldn't send it out due to some sort of limitation, like lack of fuel, material limitations or something like that?

Hawke extrapolated and combined this with his own second deduction from earlier and affirmed it.

Having established the other side's star fighting ability and its limitations, Hawke perked up and a plan slowly took shape in Hawke's mind.

"You're in the light, I'm in the dark, see if I don't kill you! If I can't kill you, I'll cripple you too!" Hawk thought viciously as he manipulated the robot and quickly built a simple interplanetary missile launcher inside the Sun.

This interstellar missile launcher, instead of using any high-tech launch equipment, used a technology that primitive humans had already mastered, that is, ... ejection device. A device similar to the stone throwers of the Cold War era.

Hawke commanded the droids, set the ejection direction of the ejector, brought in an interplanetary missile, installed it on top of the ejector, then, inside the cabin, charged the ejector, looked at the high elasticity spring under the missile, Hawke gave the order to launch.

The spring bounced up and with a tremendous bounce, bounced the orb towards the ceiling of the cabin, and the moment before the missile impacted with the ceiling, the ceiling opened up of its own accord, letting the missile fly out, and then immediately closed, before the ship's shell opened up and placed the missile into interstellar space.

Hawk was a million kilometres away from the sphere, and the missile was travelling at a speed of three kilometres per second. In other words, the missile would reach the outer planet in three days and then, bang! s, it explodes.

A speed of three kilometres per second is a snail's pace compared to the thousands of kilometres per second of an interstellar missile. But this has one advantage: it's stealthy.

It is a purely physical launcher, so no heat is generated during the launch as well as any radiation. So it would be impossible for an alien civilisation to discover that Hawke had quietly thrown a missile out from within the ship, or to locate Hawke's fleet by projecting the ballistic trajectory of the hydrogen bomb.

In doing so, it concealed the interstellar missile, ensuring that it would not be discovered and destroyed by the other side, and also ensured that the location of its own fleet would not be projected by the other side.

The missile had been pre-programmed by Hawke. This program would control the high yield hydrogen bomb, which would explode upon approaching an alien planet.

This was the first interplanetary missile, and after that, there would be a second and a third. Hawk manoeuvred more than eight hundred ships and ejected more than a hundred high yield hydrogen bombs before he stopped this uncivilised act of throwing objects from high altitudes, and then, with some vague anticipation, waited for the moment when the hydrogen bombs would explode.

There was no doubt about the stealthiness of these interstellar missiles. This is a vast expanse of space, and the nearest star is five light years away, so the visible light here is extremely faint, and with the small size of these missiles, it is basically certain that these missiles will not be detected by reflecting visible light. Furthermore, these interstellar missiles do not emit any detectable radiation during their orbit, so it is basically assured that the other side does not have the ability to detect these big killers.

The best chance is that by the time they get close enough to that planet, these hydrogen bombs will be detected by the other side's radar detection equipment. But if we get to that distance, it doesn't matter if the hydrogen bombs are detected. Because, at that point, the distance was close enough.

Hawke has already set up a damage detonation device on these missiles, both, as soon as they are attacked, these hydrogen bombs will immediately explode.

Then ... these hydrogen bombs will destroy the atmosphere of the other planet and will emit a lot of harmful radiation that will pollute the ecological environment of the other planet.

If there is rainfall on the other planet, the radioactive waste will also spread throughout the other planet with the atmospheric circulation system, contaminating water and food, etc., eventually leading to the entire surface of the planet, without a clean place.

In Hawke's projection, if the Earth were detonated by a hundred hydrogen bombs of this magnitude at a short distance outside the atmosphere, the cancer rate on the planet would increase to a terrifying 37% within three years, which means that for every hundred Earthlings, there would be 37 cancer patients. And that's not even counting the other secondary disasters.

In short, this move would cause enormous damage to these abominable aliens.

"It's wonderful." Hawk envisioned these wonderful images, his eyes almost popping out little stars.

"I had good intentions and originally wanted to live in peace with you, but you attacked first, humph, since that's the case, don't blame me for being unkind." Hawk thought darkly.

Time passed slowly. Within this time, everything was calm as usual. But Hawk could be sure that the other party must be searching for themselves with all their might. However, they did not yet know that they had been discovered by Hawke, so in order to avoid possible exposure, they must have been careful in their search and did not dare to make a big show of it.

In the midst of this eerie silence, time, two days had passed, and there was still one day to go before the hydrogen bomb detonated.