Unbreakable

Energy cannonballs are currently known to be ineffective against them. At least, the energy cannons of the county ships are ineffective.

Hawk's ship is equipped with the following types of weapons: high velocity machine guns, interstellar missiles, laser cannons, energy cannons, and some other high energy particle beam weapons as a secondary weapon.

The killing mechanism of high-energy particle beam weapons is similar to that of laser cannons, and since laser cannons are ineffective, one would think that high-energy particle beam weapons would not be useful either.

"Then let's try the ... star missile!"

Hawk gave the order and the lower part of the prefectural ship, the Pingxiang, immediately poked out its missile launcher, and an interstellar missile carrying a high yield hydrogen bomb roared ahead at a speed of several thousand kilometres per second.

It took just over a second for the missile to reach the water droplet and hit the odd probe precisely. Then, under Hawke's control, the large-yielding hydrogen bomb exploded violently!

A blinding white light erupted, and instantly, hundreds of millions of degrees of heat completely enveloped the water droplet.

However, after the light cleared, Hawke saw an amazing sight.

The water droplet, still intact, was still there, still without any dust, without any trace of staining on it.

In this moment, Hawke had the urge to fall limp to the ground. This was a phenomenon beyond Hawke's awareness, several hundred million degrees of heat! What kind of material was this, that it could not even be harmed by hundreds of millions of degrees of heat?

If, if it had relied on its energy shield to withstand a hydrogen bomb blast, it would have been okay, because, at least, the energy shield was something within Hawke's theoretical system. But this thing has no energy shield around it, it has withstood a hydrogen blast by its own material!

This can only be described as incredible, only miraculous.

It had completely surpassed Hawke's perception, which meant an insurmountable technological gap.

"So, can one really resist its attack?" Hawk thought with sadness.

But suddenly, Hawke sensed something a little unusual. Hawke's sophisticated instruments observed that after the explosion of the hydrogen bomb, the speed of the droplet, appeared to decrease a little, from one hundred kilometres per second, to ninety-nine kilometres per second. Although it regained its speed instantly, it was still keenly detected by Hawke.

Hawke immediately launched an analysis.

"It seems ... that although its shell is incredibly tough, it doesn't have much kinetic energy! At least the impact of a single interstellar missile would slow it down!"

"It's entirely possible that, perhaps, they've bypassed the limits of relativity by some ingenious means and thus gained the ability to travel at superluminal speeds, but their ability to navigate conventionally is not necessarily powerful."

Immediately, Hawke manipulated the huge computing power to launch a war projection. Gradually, Hawke found a way that might have a glimmer of possibility of winning.

That was, by ramming it with an unlimited amount of kinetic weapons, draining its energy until it ran out. And without energy, how else could it kill Hawke?

The other side, after all, was just a probe.

"It's worth a try!" Hawke made up his mind. Immediately, a thousand ships of all kinds in the orbit of Epsilon Eri C, with all their high-velocity machine guns firing at full power, sent hundreds and tens of millions of bullets whizzing towards the droplet, interspersed with some interstellar missiles, and slammed into it.

But the result was disappointing for Hawke.

Apart from the initial deluge of bullets that shook its form a little, the rest of the bullets seemed to have no effect at all. Right in the middle of the gunfire, this beautiful, craft-like drop of water maintained its trajectory and speed with grace and dignity, slowly approaching towards Hawke.

Hawke sensed a kind of cat playing with mouse.

"I just can't believe it!" Hawke roared, giving a new command.

"ε Eri c Star Fortress! Maximum power energy cannon, ten guns in a row! Target, water drops!"

The ε Eri c had been transformed by Hawke into a war fortress, a star fortress. The energy cannons equipped here were more powerful, than the City ship's energy cannons. How high would its power be with ten cannons firing in unison?

Hawk didn't know, but he estimated that with ten cannons, it would not be a problem to completely vaporise a 50km diameter asteroid.

As soon as the order was given, a total of ten energy cannons placed on ε Eri C 3, 6 and 13 satellites were aimed at the water droplet. In the next instant, the muzzles of the ten cannons flashed, and the ten energy cannonballs whistled towards the water droplet at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

Zero point six seconds later, the two collided with each other!

An infinite amount of light and heat was emitted, as if another star had suddenly appeared there. The light illuminated a space of at least several hundred thousand kilometres in circumference.

When this light dissipated, Hawke found that he had lost track of the drop of water.

"Could ... it have been vaporised?" Hawke speculated somewhat incredulously. But the next moment, Hawke's speculation was ruthlessly shattered.

The droplet appeared in a different direction, still moving slowly towards the inner star system at a speed of a hundred kilometres per second.

It was still polished and clean, without any dust, without any trace of it. The ten cannons fired in unison had not affected it in any way, apart from knocking it a few thousand kilometres out of its original orbit.

At this moment, there was really some despair in Hawke's heart. But the next moment, another thought popped up.

"Its regular cruising speed is, like, only a hundred kilometres per second! If, if I steered the ship in circles within the galaxy, at its current speed, it wouldn't be able to catch up to me!"

"Within the galaxy, it doesn't seem to have the ability to travel at FTL, otherwise, it would have come straight over to finish me off. This solution is worth a try!" Hawk thought.

But the next moment, this thought of Hawk's was mercilessly shattered again.

As if it sensed this thought of Hawke's, the speed of this water drop, violently increased from a hundred kilometres per second to two thousand kilometres per second! The whole process took barely a second.

The construction of the planetary engine integrated all of Hawke's current technology, allowing him to make a leap forward on a technical level, but even so, the fastest speed of Hawke's ship was only fifteen hundred kilometres per second.

Moreover, it would take at least a minute to accelerate from standstill to the highest speed, even for the most manoeuvrable Murakami-class ships, but the other side accelerated to two thousand kilometres per second, almost instantaneously.

This represents incomparably strong manoeuvrability.

After accelerating to two thousand kilometres per second, the droplet rushed in front of the Heigo almost instantly, zipped in through the bow of the Heigo ship and flew out through the stern. In less than a hundredth of a second, the droplet had completely penetrated the Pingxiang, destroying its fusion reactor.

In the next instant, the Pingxiang looked like a boiled prawn as the whole ship turned red and then, exploded with a bang.

It was followed by another prefectural ship, the Julu, then, the Nanhe, the Guangzong and the Qinghe ...

In a second's time, five prefectural airships were destroyed!

A great sense of shock enveloped Hawk, causing Hawk's reaction, to be delayed for two seconds. Two seconds later, as the droplet began to unleash its kill on the village- and township-level ships, Hawke finally reacted.

Hawke quickly manoeuvred the remaining ships to spread out in distance, while all the high velocity machine guns opened full fire, and the land-based, space-based batteries on top of the ε Eri c Star Fortress were, at that moment, fully activated!

The countless shells caused a slight delay in the movement of the droplet. But it was only a slowdown, the droplet, still using its massive kinetic energy and speed as a killing force, was killing Hawk's ship to its heart's content.

In Hawke's estimation, his 4,000 or so ships could last at most half an hour before they were all destroyed.

Hawke remembered a science fiction he had read when he was still on Earth.

Hawke found himself in the same situation as described in that article, amazingly.

They were all facing this kind of water droplet-like enemy that possessed super defense and relied on super kinetic energy to kill their own ships.

In that story, the human fleet was almost completely wiped out by these droplets, with only a few ships escaping with speed and surviving.

But Hawk does not have that ability. Hawke did not have the ability to travel at FTL, and the speed of regular navigation, again, was no match for such droplets.

"Am I going to have my ship completely destroyed by this one water droplet, as described in it?" Hawke thought with sadness.

"No, one must not give up hope. Despair is reserved for the dead, but if I am still alive, there is still hope! These thousands of ships will buy me half an hour, and within that half an hour, I will find ... a way to live!"

Hawke manoeuvred the ship and began to approach the droplet deliberately. Although it would be destroyed the next moment it got close, the observation instruments on top of the ship could always buy even just a millisecond of observation time before it was destroyed. The observations are then transmitted to Hawke for his analysis.

In this tragic way, Hawke gathered information about the droplet little by little.

"Its shell is not part of any known material, could ... really still be a material constructed from strong interactions, as stated in that article? In that case, I would have no chance of winning."

Hawke thought with some despair.

Materials constructed by strong interaction forces have their atoms pinned in one position, so neatly and tightly aligned that their own vibrations largely disappear, and such materials can be described in four words: indestructible.

Hawke could find no possibility of destroying it in his own theoretical system.

And the impossibility of destroying it would mean Hawke's death.

Hawke was deep in thought.