This radio wave has clear traces of an intelligent civilisation. Specifically, it had three three-repeating bands and five two-repeating bands, and there seemed to be some kind of logical connection between the repeating bands.
Although there was no way to locate the source of this radio wave, with the current information, Hawke could be sure that it was not far from him.
Hawke's mood tensed up; this could well be the first time that humanity had made contact with an intelligent alien civilisation. And having received radio waves in such a void, that would prove that this alien civilization, at least, had acquired interstellar long-range capabilities.
"It can't be that unlucky, can it?" Hawke chanted silently.
Hawk did not think that the rest of the alien civilizations would be like himself, launching interstellar voyages when their technological level had only reached interplanetary voyaging capability. In other words, this civilization, most likely, was sailing at five percent of the speed of light. This represents an insurmountable technological gap, and Hawke would be a defenceless lamb to the slaughter in front of this technology.
Hawke switched the remaining eight hundred ships to radio silence mode and turned off all visible light emissions, while turning on the various observation devices to maximum power.
In the infinite darkness of the universe, Hawke stalked silently.
Hawke began the intense work of decoding, trying to translate the signals carried in this radio wave into a language he could understand. At the same time, Hawke secretly had all his laser cannons, high velocity machine guns and hydrogen bombs ready to fire, ready for battle.
In such a situation, Hawke could not run away. Because right now, that civilization should not have discovered Hawke yet, and running away would mean activating the fusion engine, and once the fusion engine was activated, it would emit strong radiation, and it was almost certain that he would be discovered by the other side, and then he would become a target.
Hawke could only maintain his current speed, gliding slowly forward under the effect of inertia.
Ten days passed, and within that time everything was quiet as usual, Hawke just waiting in silence, preparing in silence.
Then, Hawke received a second message. This message, again, showed clear logical characteristics. These two message receptions finally allowed Hawke to approximate a location for the source of the message emission.
Presumably ... the source of this information emission, eight hundred thousand kilometres ahead of Hawke, was approaching Hawke at a speed of four kilometres per second.
Hawke is approaching Sky Court IV at a speed of five hundred and fifty kilometres per second, that means, this unknown information emitting source, is also approaching Sky Court IV, but its speed is only five hundred and forty-six kilometres per second. Based on this speed, Hawke would make contact with it in two and a half days.
"Should we escape, or?" Hawke was caught in a conflict.
"Let's parse out the information first." Hawke calculated, "With two messages to compare, it will take about three hours to decipher the meaning. Once we have parsed the message, we will decide whether to escape or not."
Hawke manipulated his massive computing power and did a lot of calculations on the two messages. After three hours, Hawke finally cracked the two messages.
"Roving satellite number seven is about to run out of fuel, speed is 13.5 kilometres per second, detection module has been shut down, requesting next instructions."
"Roving satellite seven successfully deorbited, communication module is about to shut down, please confirm."
Looking at these two messages, Hawke fell into a deep thought.
From the literal analysis, this was a message from a device called "Roving Satellite No. 7", which was communicating with a console somewhere. The original message, of course, did not say "Roving Satellite Seven", but rather, it seemed to mean some kind of orbiting instrument with the number seven. Translated from the Earth script, it was translated by Hawke as "Roving Satellite No. 7".
Between the two messages, there was a gap of ten days. The logic suggests that after the first message was sent, the console was controlled in some way and took ten days to take the satellite out of its original orbit and shut down its communication module.
There was a lot of information in this.
And all Hawke needed to do was to analyse the information he needed from these two brief messages, such as the level of technology of the other side, such as the social model of the other side, and most importantly, to analyse whether the other side was a civilisation of goodwill or malice.
The task was daunting, the amount of information was too small and the things that needed to be analysed were too many. But it couldn't be done, Hawke sighed and began the modelling process.
Model after model of society was assembled, then models that did not fit the known intelligence were overturned and those that did were refined, and finally, Hawke analysed a few things.
Firstly, it was known that the satellite-like apparatus belonged to the one that had been abandoned after the fuel had been consumed. It was then possible to learn that, in the opinion of this civilisation, the cost of recycling this instrument was higher than the instrument itself. This point confused Hawke.
Since an interstellar voyage was launched, it was inevitable that a large amount of fuel would be stockpiled. And a properly functioning instrument had far too many components on it that could be recycled, like Hawke, who would have expended fuel to capture and dismantle the village-class ship after it was damaged, and recycle the usable parts on it, rather than just discard it.
"It seems that this civilization's fleet, caught in an energy crisis, is the only explanation." Hawke thought silently, his heart heavy.
Since this civilization was in an energy crisis, Hawk was in danger. For this civilization would probably rob Hawke out.
There was another message, "Speed is thirteen and a half kilometres per second," and Hawke was confused.
"Thirteen and a half kilometres per second?" Hawke pondered, "Since the speed is indicated, there is bound to be a reference, so what is this instrument, moving relative to? At the moment, this instrument, could only be moving relative to the console, then there is a point that is difficult to understand, normally, an instrument, with its fuel consumed, would take at least a year, in such a long time, it could have flown a distance of 400 million kilometres, but, judging from the strength of the signal I received, this signal could not have been picked up by the console 400 million kilometres away. "
It was a contradiction. Hawke thought carefully, and an explanation came to his mind.
"The only way to explain this contradiction is to explain it by the fact that this instrument is moving in a circular motion around the console." Hawke manipulated the vast computing power and made many projections in an instant. "But then a new contradiction would come out, under what circumstances would a fleet, under what circumstances, would need a satellite travelling at thirteen point five kilometres, orbiting it at all times?"
Hawke had already measured that only a star with a mass of one point six times that of the Earth would have an orbital speed of thirteen and a half kilometres.
It was a startling conclusion.
"Could it be that the total mass of this fleet reaches one point six times that of the Earth? Is that why a special instrument is needed to monitor the fleet at all times? No, that's impossible. The fleet has its own communication system with each other, so why do we need to make a satellite out of it? Besides, how could such a huge fleet not have the fuel to recover a satellite?"
Hawke was puzzled, unable to reconcile these two conflicting pieces of information.
In these two pieces of information, there was also a key term involved, "detection module".
Obviously, a probe module is only needed when there is an unknown situation, so under what circumstances would a fleet need to use an external instrument to probe the internal structure?
This is another point of contradiction.
"Can't figure it out, let's give up on this side and project their level of civilization first." Hawke mulled it over in his mind.
"First of all, it is certain that they have not mastered hyper-range communication, which means that they are not deeper than me in terms of quantum theory. Then, there's the energy aspect, the first message says the fuel is about to run out, then it runs for another ten days before shutting down the communication module, so I can make some speculations regarding fuel utilization ..."
"Let's assume for the moment that the instrument is in circular motion, relying mainly on inertia to maintain its orbit, and judging from its abandonment, it can't be too massive, otherwise it couldn't have been abandoned so easily, let's assume for the moment that its mass is ten tons, and let's assume that it only has 0.1 percent of fuel left, then, on a comprehensive analysis... ..."
"They're still fusion energy."
Hawke came to this conclusion.
But a new point of contradiction came up. How could a civilization that used nuclear fusion as an energy source build such a huge fleet?
One question after another emerged from Hawke's mind.
"Since this moon has been abandoned, perhaps, I can capture it." In Hawke's mind, a risky idea suddenly arose.
After thinking for a while, Hawke gritted his teeth and made up his mind.
"Do it! What's there to be afraid of! We can't run away now anyway, so we might as well find out as much as we can about their level of civilisation, and even if we die, we'll die with a bang!"
Having made up his mind, Hawke turned on his optical detection equipment to the highest precision, and finally, with the help of a faint reflection of starlight, at a point five hundred kilometres off the estimated location, Hawke found the instrument.
It was an odd instrument of about ten cubic metres, shaped like a starfish.
Looking at the object in front of him, Hawke was excited. This was Hawke's first contact with an alien civilisation!
Hawke manoeuvred a village-class ship and approached the moon with minimum power. At minimum power, the fusion engine of the Murakami ship only emitted extremely weak radiation, so it must not be detected by the presumed alien civilisation. After getting close, Hawke used a mechanical arm and grabbed the satellite into the ship's hold.
It was then transported again inside the largest and best-equipped prefectural ship, and analysis began.