The robot in the lead met this blackness.
To Hawke's surprise, as the distance closed to a minute, the black unknown suddenly increased its speed, and in almost a split second, it crossed the one-minute distance and touched the dull silver shell of the robot.
As if the robot was meat and potatoes, waves of black came in a flurry, and as Hawke watched, it only took thirty seconds for this blackness to cover the robot's entire body. At that moment, Hawke's mind suddenly lost the robot's information.
The lights on the robot were still flashing, proving that the robot's instruments were still functioning. But the signal was blocked.
Deprived of Hawke's command, the robot immediately stood frozen and incapacitated.
Hawke finally knew how the first robot had disappeared. There was no doubt that these strange black creatures possessed an extremely powerful ability to block signals.
It was also at this point that Hawk finally saw clearly what these black waves were.
They were countless worms! Worms the size of ants on Earth, endless worms!
These worms had flat bodies, less than a tenth of a millimetre thick, yet three millimetres long and a millimetre wide. They have no legs and move only by the wriggling of their abdomens.
But there is no doubt about one thing: they are creatures.
Creatures above Titan! Creatures that could survive at over a hundred and sixty degrees below zero.
Hawke's head spun rapidly as a million guesses ran through Hawke's head.
The robot remained frozen in place for a full five minutes before the indicator light went out.
"The bug ... has invaded its body and destroyed its wiring." Hawke understood what had happened.
"No, we can't let them near base three! Base Three is home to a vital rare earth vein, and this place must not be abandoned!" Hawk instantly made up his mind, then, powerful computing power began to calculate, there were countless countermeasures flashed through Hawk's mind, but they were rejected one by one.
"No way, too little information, don't know their weaknesses, don't know the direction of their evolution, don't know what they rely on to survive ..." Hawke sighed and commanded the Wind God One helicopter to slowly land until it was only five meters away from the ground, before it landed from A mechanical arm landed below, grabbed the robot that had lost contact, and flew towards the main base. The remaining four robots immediately returned to base three.
Based on the distance travelled, and the advance speed of these unknown creatures at five metres per minute, it was estimated that it would be about three days before these unknown creatures would be close to Base Three. In other words, Hawke had enough time to prepare.
Of course, all this was subject to the premise that Hawke could figure out everything about these creatures and find out how to deal with them within these three days.
It took only fifteen minutes for the Wind God One helicopter to return to the main base, where it was greeted by a huge, fully sealed, transparent glass case, into which the robot was placed and sealed, and then a robot carried this case into the laboratory.
Hawke immediately allocated zero point one percent of his computing power and began to analyse these unknown creatures.
It was important to know that Hawke's current computing power was more than a thousand times that of the central computer on top of the old ship, and zero point one percent of computing power was almost one tenth of the computing power of that central computer.
Hawke manipulated a precision robot and made some slices of these unknown creatures and put them under the microscope.
"With a basic cellular structure ... en? The cytosol actually contains no water? It's actually all made up of liquid methane?"
This discovery shook Hawke to his core.
Among the deep-rooted human concepts, it was always believed that water was closely linked to life, and without water, there would be no life.
But who would have thought that in an environment like Titan, creatures that had replaced water with liquid methane could have evolved?
These creatures, which truly overturned Hawke's perception, once again made Hawke feel the saying that the universe is so big that nothing is strange.
Hawke made a vague speculation, and then the Wind God One helicopter took off again and went to the second lake next to the third base, took a sample of about two litres of liquid methane, and returned to the main base.
The liquid methane was put into the laboratory and Hawke immediately began to do an analysis.
The results of the analysis, once again, confirmed Hawke's suspicions.
In the liquid methane, Hawke found small planktonic organisms. These plankton were similar to the bacteria found on Earth, both feeding on organic matter. The difference was that while the bacteria above the Earth, had water as their main structure, these plankton, had liquid methane as their main structure.
"These plankton, breathing nitrogen, feed on organic matter ... These weird black bugs, on the other hand, feed on these plankton ..."
With liquid methane as the basis, on Titan, a very different ecosystem has evolved than on Earth.
"So, what exactly attracted them to start attacking towards base three?" Hawke began to probe another question.
Hawke already had a vague suspicion in his mind. So, Hawke stuck a glass rod, which was about one hundred and eighty degrees below zero, into the glass case.
And inside the glass case, the temperature was a hundred and sixty-two degrees below zero.
Hawke watched them closely for a reaction.
The black insects turned away from the glass rod as if it carried a murderous poison.
With a thought in his mind, Hawke pulled the glass rod out, heated it to minus one hundred and forty degrees and then re-entered the glass case.
Immediately, the black insects began to stir in their movements. They approached the glass rod in droves, and in just a few dozen seconds, they covered it completely. Even when the temperature of minus one hundred and forty degrees heated the methane in their bodies to a boiling state, causing them to be directly scalded to death, they refused to let go of the glass rod.
"Avoiding cold and tending to heat?" Hawke came to a conclusion.
"Seems like there's no way to violate the law of conservation of energy, no matter where the creature is." Hawke sighed.
The answer was simple. As long as creatures that can move and have a physical body, they all need energy. Because they can't just move around without energy. And in most cases, heat represents energy.
On top of Titan, the average temperature is a hundred and sixty degrees below zero, and the average temperature of these black bugs, a hundred and fifty degrees below zero.
To sustain life, they have to maintain their body temperature. So the mad quest for heat constitutes their whole life.
That is why Base Three, which produces enormous heat all the time, is their ideal heavenly home.
Everything has been explained. What remains to be solved is how to destroy these insects.
The rare earth veins in Base Three were too important for Hawke to give up. Since these bugs posed a threat to Hawke, the only way to destroy them was to destroy them.
Hawke quickly came up with a solution, and it was a simple one, burn them to death.
The air pressure on Titan was greater than on Earth, so the boiling point of liquid methane was a little higher than on Earth, probably around minus one hundred and fifty-two degrees. The way to kill them, then, is simple: just heat up the temperature to the boiling point of liquid methane, and the methane in their bodies will boil and they will be burnt to death.
It would be like putting a human into a hot container and heating the water inside the human directly to boiling.
Hawke removed the bodies of all the dead bugs and prepared to examine their bodies with x-rays.
But once again, the results were beyond Hawke's expectation.
The x-rays actually couldn't penetrate their bodies!
Intrigued, Hawke immediately began the rest of the series of examinations. The results of the examination made Hawke sigh once again.
"It really is a mixture of danger and opportunity, who would have known that the carcasses of these bugs would actually have such strong radiation protection?"
The result of the examination was that the radiation protection of these worms was more than ten times stronger than the best radiation protection material on the planet!
Hawk laughed, "Since you dare to invade my Base Three, don't blame me for using your corpses as construction materials!"
Hawke quickly made an assessment of his own forces at Base Three.
Currently, there were fifteen fire-breathing gun robots and twenty laser gun robots at Base Three. Originally, these robots were used for mining, but now they were temporarily pulled close to the army by Hawke.
"That's not enough defence force." Hawke pondered, "But since creatures have been found on Titan, the defence here at the main base can't be relaxed, and God knows if there are these bugs in Lake Weiran. Tell you what, there are still plenty of fire-breathing guns left, and they're simple to manufacture, so take a day to modify three hundred fire-breathing robots and set off towards base three."
A contingency plan was urgently drawn up, and a day later, three hundred fire-breathing robots, carrying enough fuel, set off towards Base Three.
After another forty-five hours, the Spitfires arrived at their destination and were ready to go. Construction had stopped at Base Three, all non-attack forces were concentrated in a few large plants, and the machinery that could not be moved had been shut down. Without the heat output they must not have attracted the attention of the black bugs.
Two hundred and ninety robots formed the first line of defence, and then the remaining forty-five robots formed a second line of defence around the large plants.
The Wind God One helicopter took on the role of inspector, it constantly hovered low over Base Three, sending battle reports to Hawke at all times for him to make his next judgement.
With all preparations made, Hawke began to quietly wait for the war to come.