Chapter 76 Target

Chen Ming first installed the Gamma B removed from the Glimmer Class on the Gladiator Class.

Then he sent it a Gladiator Class spacecraft operation manual.

Chen Ming had already found a copy of the operation manuals of all the spacecrafts except the Afterglow Ship he had on the Internet some time ago.

It was even easier to find a spacecraft like the Gladiator Class, which was an older model.

However, Chen Ming only found the operation manual of the ordinary Gladiator Class, and did not find the operation manual of the Gladiator Class, which had been extensively modified by the Tachyon Technology Company.

There must be some differences in the operation of the two spacecrafts, and Chen Ming had no good way to solve it.

He could only let Gamma B study it himself. As long as he was given some time to learn and then actually operate it, it should be about the same.

He believed in the learning ability of the Afterglow AI.

After the core was installed, Chen Ming gave Gamma B the right to move freely and let it familiarize itself with the spacecraft.

Then, Chen Ming began to make moves on the Refraction Class.

He ran outside the spaceship with the tools, and seeing that only he could see the three-dimensional image of the spaceship, he kept gesturing at the refraction with the cutting tools.

Gamma A, who didn't understand what Chen Ming was doing, asked: "What are you doing?"

"Try the effect of my ability."

Although Chen Ming didn't know what his panel was like.

However, he had told Gamma A before that his ability to control spaceships and them was psychic.

So Gamma A naturally understood that Chen Ming wanted to test the effect of his psychic.

Gamma A obviously didn't know anything about psychic. When Chen Ming took out the spirit stone before, it didn't say anything. Instead, Gamma B, who had been silent, helped Chen Ming solve some confusion.

So Gamma A didn't express any opinions after hearing Chen Ming's answer, but just observed silently.

Gamma B, who had already flown out for a distance, also flew back and became a member of the group observing Chen Ming's operation.

With the experience of dismantling half of the Afterglow destroyer last time, Chen Ming quickly dismantled the outer armor of the Refraction class.

And cut open the hull of the Refraction in a way that would only cause minimal damage.

A passage leading to the installation location of Gamma A was removed.

After removing Gamma A, Chen Ming took a look at the panel.

[Controlled AI individual: Afterglow Gamma-class AI core (Gamma A)]

Gamma A, like Gamma B, was under Chen Ming's control.

So Chen Ming inserted the core back.

After Gamma A regained control of the hull, Chen Ming casually transferred the control of the Refractor to another ship, and then glanced at the panel again.

[AI-assisted connection ship: Gladiator-class (Tachon Kai Gladiator-class frigate), Refractor-class (Refractor-class unmanned destroyer) (incomplete connection)]

As expected, the Refractor-class appeared in the column of [AI-assisted connection ship], but unlike the Gladiator-class controlled by Gamma B, the Refractor-class had an "incomplete connection" after it.

In order to figure out what this incomplete connection meant.

Chen Ming directly tried to control the Refractor-class to start the engine.

After a very short delay that had never happened since Chen Ming was able to control the spacecraft, the engine was started.

After the engine was started, Gamma A suddenly asked Chen Ming: "Did you just give me an order through psychic power?"

Chen Ming was obviously stunned, as if he understood something, and answered Gamma A absent-mindedly: "Well... you can understand it this way."

Chen Ming did not continue to talk to Gamma A, but was thinking.

Because just when he heard Gamma A's question, he immediately understood the meaning of this incomplete connection.

If it is a complete connection, such as Gamma B controlling the frigate-level fighter class, then everything is the same as Chen Ming actively controlling the spacecraft.

He can control the fighter being controlled by Gamma B in any situation without any restrictions.

The incomplete connection is because the AI ​​core of the Gamma class is not adaptable enough to the destroyer, and it is impossible to transmit Chen Ming's orders in real time on the controlled spacecraft.

So after receiving Chen Ming's order, the situation that should have not reacted at all and directly executed the order instinctively has changed.

Gamma A needed reaction time to receive and execute commands, which caused a short delay in Chen Ming's command.

In fact, this situation is equivalent to Chen Ming completely handing over all control of the spacecraft to Gamma A.

He himself gave up or was restricted and could only control and issue commands to Gamma A.

The problem caused by this is obvious. Chen Ming's efficiency in controlling the spacecraft is reduced, and he cannot operate accurately and without delay.

But there are also benefits.

It allows Chen Ming to indirectly control the refractive level with an additional spacecraft control position.

This means that he can use one more spacecraft at the same time.

Since Chen Ming was not particularly good at operating the spacecraft, the advantages obviously outweighed the disadvantages.

So Chen Ming did not continue the test and directly repaired all the damage on the Refraction Class caused by disassembly.

At the same time, he recalled the Gamma B that had run away again at some point and asked them to continue to stand by here.

The things to do outside have been done, so it is almost time to go back.

Chen Ming thought about it for a while and decided to take the Centurion Class back to the space station.

If there is a combat ship belonging to him staying in the dock, he can feel more at ease at ordinary times.

As for why the Gladiator Class was not brought, it was because the Gladiator Class modified by Tachyon Technology was a bit too ostentatious.

The Gladiator Class is also a kind of iconic ship of the military. It can be seen at a glance that this Gladiator has undergone a lot of modifications, which may cause some unnecessary trouble.

So the Gladiator Class can only be placed here for the time being.

After spending a short period of time as short as when he came, Chen Ming stood on the floor of the space station again.

The first thing Chen Ming did after returning was to walk around the repair shop and found Old Wu squatting in the corner smoking.

Tian Jiwen was also following Old Wu at this time. When he saw Chen Ming, he showed a complicated expression on his face. He turned around and left without saying hello.

Only Old Wu, who was caught slacking off, was left. However, he did not feel embarrassed at all, and even reached into his pocket to give Chen Ming a cigarette.

But Chen Ming refused directly: "No, I don't smoke."

Old Wu shrugged, threw the cigarette butt in his mouth, lit a new one for himself, and asked Chen Ming after taking a puff: "What do you want to see me for?"

"Well, I want to buy something special. You have a lot of connections, so I came to ask you. The agency fee will not be reduced for you."

Old Wu suddenly showed a profiteer-like smile on his face, and put his hand on Chen Ming's shoulder and said: "Hey, we are so familiar with each other, why are you still so distant."

"How much?"

Chen Ming stretched out five fingers and said: "This amount."

Old Wu's face was full of smiles. The smile became even bigger: "No problem, what do you want to buy? I have a way to introduce you."

"Intelligence."

Old Wu's expression became a little more serious and asked: "What intelligence?"

"Intelligence on pirates with wanted bounties. I need their bounty amount, their recent whereabouts and the general composition of their fleet."

"What do you want to do?"

"Find a target that can be used to test the performance of my modified spacecraft."

Old Wu narrowed his eyes, stared at Chen Ming for a few times and said: "Okay, follow me."

Old Wu took Chen Ming into the city of the space station and came to the bar where he and Chen Ming had been last time.

He greeted the bartender in a very familiar way and took Chen Ming directly to the back of the bar.

After passing through two rooms in a row, Chen Ming and Old Wu stood in a small closed room.

There was a computer on the desk here, and an additional touch screen was connected to the opposite position of the computer.

And behind the desk, there was a person who was doing nothing.

The man was dressed elegantly and wore a pair of glasses, looking like an ordinary clerk.

After noticing that Old Wu came in, he raised his eyebrows and asked, "Old Wu, you don't drink, but you come to chat with me?"

Old Wu smiled and said, "Hey, we are not here to drink today."

"Oh, then he is here to buy things, is this the one who wants to buy?"

Glasses looked at Chen Ming who was standing next to Old Wu.

Before Chen Ming spoke, Old Wu said directly, "Yes, he said he wanted to test the performance of the modified spacecraft and wanted to pick out some pirates with bounties."

Old Wu came forward and said in a voice that Chen Ming couldn't hear, "Try to get some easier targets, this guy can't be left out casually."

Glasses didn't say anything, but the word "reassured" flashed in his eyes.

He asked Chen Ming to sit on the chair opposite him, where he could just touch the display screen.

"I have listed the intelligence that is available for you. Basically, there is a general introduction. You can pick and choose. You need to pay to see more detailed intelligence."

Chen Ming nodded, slid his hand on the screen, and selected the appropriate target.

His purpose of causing trouble for the pirates is to obtain the armed ship license that may be obtained in the future.

So when selecting targets, those pirates who only operate in a single star region are not very good for him.

There must be pirates with signs of activity in the entire star region. Only after they are dealt with can they leave an impression on the government.

However, after Chen Ming looked at the brief information of the pirates on the display screen, he found that the ones on the list were all small fish and shrimps.

The highest bounty was only a little over two million, with a fleet of four frigates, and the military subsystems might not be fully equipped, so there was no point in killing them.

After failing to find a suitable target, Chen Ming raised his head again, looked at Glasses and asked, "Are there any more powerful pirates?"

Glasses obviously remembered Lao Wu's request and said, "Those people will be more dangerous. If you just want to test the performance of the spacecraft, these should be enough, right?"

Chen Ming frowned slightly and said, "Not enough."

Before Glasses could reply, Chen Ming suddenly heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Business is about accepting everyone who comes. Why not sell things that can be sold?"

Chen Ming turned his head and saw that Lao Wu, the owner of the hardware store, had appeared here at some point.

And Glasses suddenly stood up and respectfully called Lao Wu, "Boss."

While Lao Wu glared at Lao Wu, he waved to Glasses and said, "List all the information that can be sold."

"Yes."

Lao Wu, who was standing next to him, could only stand aside helplessly after being glared at for a few times. After all, he was not the one who made the decision in this bar.

Anyway, he had done what the factory manager had told him to do, and whether people were safe or not was not his problem.

How could he stop Chen Ming, a living person, from doing anything he really wanted to do?

Moreover, he had been optimistic about Chen Ming from the beginning because of Lao Wu's vision. If Lao Wu thought that Chen Ming could kill more powerful pirates, then he might as well think so.

As Glasses released more information about the pirates, Chen Ming's target was quickly determined.

The target he chose was the protagonist of an attack he happened to see in today's news bulletin.

This group of pirates attacked a caravan that was about to deliver supplies to a small colony, and after a fierce conflict with the local patrol team, they successfully entered the hyperspace channel and got rid of the patrol team's pursuit.

Although the news only had a few pictures, relying on these pictures and simple logical thinking, Chen Ming could be sure that the degree of damage to their ships was definitely not low.

And the goods they had just robbed must also need to be sold.

Then their whereabouts afterwards were actually very easy to determine.

Unless they would rather risk the disintegration of their spacecraft to go to a farther place for repair and sale of stolen goods, their next destination must be the nearest pirate space station.

So in order to save trouble, Chen Ming chose this group of pirates who were about to come here.

The bounty on their leader was 22 million.

There were also several people under his command who were also bountied, ranging from tens to millions, which should be considered a bit heavy.

After seeing Chen Ming's choice, the boss said with some surprise: "Are you sure you want to choose this?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, but I just happened to have a video of the patrol team over there exchanging fire with them. If you choose this, I can give you more information."

The boss raised his head and said to Glasses: "Just release the specific information, and I will give him the rest in person later."

Glasses silently operated on the computer and displayed more detailed information about this group of pirates on the screen.

This group of pirates has a total of three destroyers and eight frigates.

Their destroyers were converted from a type of merchant ship called Mule-class.

Most of the frigates were of unknown brands, and were also modified by patchwork.

The intelligence described their spacecraft in great detail.

It also specifically noted that the militarized subsystem of the Mule class was removed from a military frigate and forcibly installed.

As for why the intelligence was so clear, Chen Ming thought he should ask Old Wu who worked in the repair shop.

Although they seemed to be not very strong and could not beat the patrol team, it should not be a problem for them to attack some scattered caravans.

It also matched what Chen Ming had seen in the news before.

Old Wu suddenly came to Chen Ming's side, looked at Chen Ming's target and said as if he remembered something: "I remember that this group of pirates seemed to have some relationship with Lud."

Lud?

Chen Ming felt that he seemed to have heard of this name somewhere, but he couldn't remember it.

The boss seemed to know a lot about Lourdes. He frowned slightly and asked, "Lourdes has developed here, from Zuojing?"

"It should be."

The two people's riddle-like conversation made Chen Ming completely unable to understand, so he simply asked directly, "What is Lourdes? What is Zuojing?"

The boss looked at him and turned his gaze back to Chen Ming and said, "You don't know? Then this is a bit complicated."

"You just know that Lourdes is the name of a church, and Zuojing is a group of crazy people who believe in this religion. They can do anything."

"If you check it yourself, you should only find the Lourdes Church. It is highly likely that you will not find any information about Zuojing."

"If you are interested, you can come to my place later and I can talk to you in detail."

"Okay."

Chen Ming nodded to the boss with some gratitude: "But I still don't quite understand."

The boss thought for a moment, pointed to the detailed information of the pirates on the screen and said: "Look at these two ships, do you know what they are?"

Looking at the two ships in the pirate fleet that the boss pointed to that were obviously highly modified, Chen Ming said: "Drum class, fuel transport ship."

"There are special facilities inside to suppress the violent reaction of the ship's fuel due to various situations. Generally, only large fleets will bring such ships."

"It seems that these two pirate ships have a lot of modifications on the engine and the hull. The speed should be very fast, and the other things are hard to see."

The boss withdrew his hand from the screen and said: "You know it well, so why do you think this small fleet brought two highly modified fuel transport ships and even took them to attack other fleets?"

Chen Ming realized a possibility almost instantly.

"Self-destruction?"

"Yes, the people in Ludzuojing are all crazy, you should be careful when the time comes."

"I know."

The boss continued to say patiently: "Also, you know the process after it's done, right?"

Although Chen Ming felt a little strange about the boss's attitude, he still replied: "Yes."

"You need to go to the colony where the star domain government is located to hand in the battle video and physical evidence. Generally, you can just tow the abandoned ship over, but it would be best if there is a corpse to verify the DNA."

He did some homework on the way here with Lao Wu.

Although the armed ship license is ultimately approved by the government of the prosperous star domain, the pirate bounty is still the responsibility of the local star domain government.

After the local government confirms the authenticity, it will report the matter to the higher levels for statistics.

The boss seems to be... satisfied with the fact that Chen Ming has prepared before doing anything?

He continued, "Conflicts are prohibited in our galaxy now. You must remember this. Don't give people a chance to escape and run back."

Chen Ming didn't know what to say, so he could only nod and pointed to the screen and said, "The price of this information..."

"That's easy. If you can do one thing for me, it will be free, and I can even give you other benefits."

"What is it?"

The boss's face suddenly darkened: "Bring their captain back alive."

Two days later.

Chen Ming completed today's renovation task early, which took about five minutes.

After lying on the bed for a while to rest and replenish the energy consumed by the repair.

He contacted the factory director and asked him to send someone to receive this special batch of goods.

When everything was done, it was almost noon.

It was also the time Chen Ming had planned before.

What Chen Ming had to do next was to complete the task of hunting bounties.

If possible, complete the additional tasks given by the boss.

The boss who was originally kind two days ago suddenly showed that gloomy expression.

Chen Ming guessed that the colony had something to do with the boss, and then the pirates attacked the caravan that provided supplies to the colony, and the boss got angry.

Therefore, Chen Ming needed to capture the person and borrow him for two more days.

The boss also promised to return the person to Chen Ming.

Then, given the opportunity to obtain intelligence for free and the benefits given by the boss, who was obviously a person of extraordinary status.

Chen Ming was very happy to do this additional task.

However, if a fight really broke out, Chen Ming might not be able to save the spaceship driven by the pirate leader, and it would be even more difficult to save the people.

So Chen Ming did not force it, and everything was up to fate.

After Chen Ming drove the Iron Ore and took the Centurion away from the space station, he first went to the Dark Cemetery and took away all the other ships.

He had almost estimated the location of the pirates' return, and all he had to do next was to intercept them on their way.

For this, Chen Ming also spent some money and prepared a special device.

Blocking pulse generator.

It can use the special environment of the hyperspace channel to cause the surrounding spacecraft to have an effect similar to that of the spacecraft just jumping out of the hyperspace, and the speed is reduced to zero.

However, the maximum speed that a spacecraft can reach in the hyperspace channel is limited.

It is not limited by the performance of the spacecraft itself, but by the fixed limit of the hyperspace channel.

The smaller the ship, the easier it is to reach this upper limit in the hyperspace channel, while the larger the ship, the slower the speed.

The pirates who are Chen Ming's target are all small boats, and they can definitely reach the upper limit of the hyperspace channel speed.

But this upper limit is much slower than the speed of light that can be reached in the normal universe environment.

It is enough for Chen Ming to capture the target's position and use blocking pulses.

Chen Ming sailed his ship quickly in the hyperspace channel and soon arrived at the predetermined location.

After making some special preparations and waiting for nearly two hours.

The Centurion class in the hyperspace channel scanned several ships that were speeding through sensors.

Two destroyers, six frigates, and the three missing ships were destroyed by the pirates in the conflict with the patrol.

Many of the remaining ships also had damage that had only undergone simple maintenance.

In addition, Chen Ming also saw several square cabins mounted outside the hulls of the two Mule-class ships.

They should have dismantled the cargo hold of the spacecraft they robbed.

If Chen Ming could solve this mission perfectly, he would also be able to harvest a batch of additional supplies.