Nine Hundred and Sixty-Two Unmoved

After a series of open and covert struggles, Beidu finally backed down under pressure from all sides. In early April 2030, the combined fleet left the port.

The combined fleet has a total of more than 100 warships, of which the Beiyuezhou Fleet dispatched 55 warships.

The more than 50 warships dispatched by China include five large aerospace carriers; 18 destroyers and 32 frigates, a full fleet of main battleships.

Despite this, the outside world is still very dissatisfied with Beidu's decision, because the Beiyuezhou Fleet has 12 aerospace carriers, excluding the four taken away by the assault fleet, there are still eight, but there are only five in the combined fleet, and the other three are always kept in the pocket.

Foreign media believe that the earth is already at a critical moment of life and death, and preserving strength at this time is simply courting death. As the largest space country, Beidu has the strength and responsibility to invest all its armed forces to stop aliens.

Even in China, there are a group of people who think that leaving a few aerospace carriers is useless.

This view is not wrong. If the combined fleet fails, the three aerospace carriers retained by Beidu will not be able to take on the main responsibility at all. It is better to put all of them into the combined fleet.

The combined fleet has a total of more than 100 warships, and there are more than a dozen aerospace carriers alone. It can be said that it is the most powerful fleet in human history. If this fleet is defeated by aliens, a few more aerospace carriers will not be able to turn the tide.

In desperation, Beidu had to announce the truth to the public. These three aerospace carriers are not unwilling to be sent out, but they cannot be sent for various reasons.

There are many specific reasons, and Beidu also gave a detailed explanation:

Only one of the three aerospace carriers is intact, but due to material coordination errors, it has not been equipped with enough carrier-based aircraft so far, and there is a serious shortage of pilots, so it cannot perform missions in a short time.

The other two seem to be complete, but in fact one has just been offline, and the equipment has not been installed in place, and it cannot be separated from the dock at all; the other had a minor accident not long ago, destroying two thrusters, and must be repaired before it can move.

The reason is very strong. The outside world does not know whether it is true or false. In short, it cannot be investigated. No matter what kind of speculation and slander, it cannot shake Beidu's determination.

In fact, Beidu has not three aerospace carriers in its pocket, but six in three major and three. This is because only the Nanzhou is real among the four aerospace carriers in the assault fleet, and the other three are comprehensive supply ships disguised as aerospace carriers!

However, the shortage of carrier-based aircraft and pilots is indeed true, but it is not as serious as publicly publicized.

When the joint fleet set out, the aircraft manufacturing plant in Beiyuezhou was organizing assault production, and pilots were also in intensive training. In order to fill the vacancies in time, the military even lowered the training standards for pilots.

This kind of low-level mistake should not have happened. Originally, there were enough carrier-based aircraft and pilots to fill all aerospace carriers, but Beidu carried out automation modification of all warships some time ago, and aerospace carriers were no exception.

One of the key points of the modification is to replace all carrier-based aircraft with unmanned remote control models. Pilots do not need to sit in the cockpit of carrier-based aircraft, but only need to sit in the remote control cabin of the mothership to operate the corresponding aircraft.

In addition, the military has made corresponding improvements to the carrier-based aircraft, and the aircraft capacity of the aerospace carrier has been greatly increased. As a result, the aircraft that were originally enough for twelve aerospace carriers eventually only filled six warships.

However, the military is filling the gap. It won’t take much time for the continuous supply of carrier-based aircraft on the production line to fill the warships, and the pilots can be in place in time.

Due to the limited training time, the overall quality of this batch of pilots will definitely be weaker.

Not only the aerospace carrier, but also a batch of destroyers and frigates have not been sent out. There are some objective reasons for Beidu to cover these warships. One is the lack of crew. The rookies who have not completed training will not only fail to form combat effectiveness, but may also become a burden; the second is the lack of weapons and equipment. The military has concentrated all nuclear weapons on the warships that have left. Without nuclear weapons, it is difficult to fight against alien warships with conventional weapons alone. It is better to keep them in Beiyuezhou as a backup.

It is said that the moon produces a large amount of helium 3, and the space fleet should not lack nuclear weapons, but helium 3 is not that simple. It is an inert gas that is difficult to liquefy. Its properties are difficult to combine with other substances. The reaction conditions of rare compounds are also very harsh. Helium 3 cannot be turned into a solid substance by chemical reaction.

Moreover, helium 3 fusion requires a lot of energy and produces little energy. It is not a big deal to use it in a fusion reactor, but it is somewhat useless to use it in nuclear weapons.

In addition, the reaction conditions of helium 3 fusion are too harsh. Considering various factors, pure helium 3 nuclear warheads are neither economical nor affordable, and they cannot be made with human current technical capabilities.

Therefore, humans have always been able to only engage in the second-generation fusion of deuterium and helium 3. The number of nuclear warheads has always been limited by the production of deuterium. It is not that with helium 3, nuclear bombs can be exploded unlimitedly.

Another very important factor is that nuclear power engines consume a lot of nuclear raw materials!

In short, the production and consumption of human nuclear raw materials are large, and they are not as abundant as ordinary people imagine.

On May 12, 2030, the interception fleet flew over the orbit of Mars, and the two sides were moving in the same direction, getting closer and closer.

All the people in all countries on Earth put their hearts on the interception fleet, and the most important thing every day was to care about the situation of the interception fleet.

However, the general public did not wait for the news of the interception fleet exchanging fire with the enemy, but instead waited for the news that the assault fleet arrived at Jupiter!

On May 20, 2030, Yaoshan.

The assault fleet arrived near Jupiter, slowed down and cut into the orbit around Jupiter, but did not change its orbit to a low-altitude orbit, and has always maintained a distance of more than 20 million kilometers from Jupiter.

This is the third time Ye Han has approached Jupiter in his military career. Looking at the quietly rotating red giant planet on the screen, his mind can't help but think of the two expeditions to Jupiter.

One failure almost killed him, and the other official propaganda was successful, but in fact, no results were achieved... What was the final result of the third expedition to Jupiter?

"Chief!" Lin Yi interrupted Ye Han's thoughts softly, "There is news from the Nanzhou."

After the fleet recovered, the first thing was to contact the earth and ask about the situation in the past few months.

Ye Han tilted his head slightly, his eyes still staring at the main screen: "What did you say?" The Yushan has been nailed to Jupiter's zero moon. Ye Han thinks this kid is good, and it's a pity to throw him on Jupiter's zero moon, so he specially asked him to come over to serve as the captain of the Yaoshan.

Lin Yi took a deep breath and said, "The flagship reported that the alien fleet has shown no signs of returning, and the interception fleet is about to engage in a firefight with the enemy. It will take a few days at most."