"Beep~beep~beep~"
Jon awoke and saw the red light that filled his eyes he immediately climbed out of the hibernation bin.
"Ella, what's going on?"
Ella's voice that hadn't changed in centuries rang out.
"Jon, we are under attack by an alien civilization."
"The other side's weapon systems are too strong, our alloy shells are melting quickly in front of the other side's laser weapons."
Jon looked at the time in the lower right corner of the screen next to him, 2806 AD.
It was amazing that he had been asleep for so long.
He quickly walked to the cockpit and saw that Ella, the white-haired one, was actually standing on the bridge and piloting the spacecraft with style.
It seemed to be a ... holographic projection.
His eyes were quickly drawn to what was on the screen.
It was a fleet of seven ships.
The main ship was oval shaped, like a giant rugby ball suspended in the starry sky, it had magnificent rosy red lines flowing on it, and like a creature many white roots hung down from the ship.
Each of those roots are up to 10,000 meters long, if you look carefully, those roots are made of crystals, like a strip of optical fiber.
A blue laser shot towards them from the roots.
Another laser hit the Hope, and the entire ship shook.
"Able to fight back?"
He stepped up, and just as quickly as he asked that question, the point quickly occurred to him that his original plan had not designed weapons on the Hope.
That meant they could only be passive.
He just wondered if Ella had developed weapons in all that time ...
The answer was no.
Ella craned her head to look at Jon, small and delicate but with an expression much like a commander, or a shipgirl.
"Jon, we have a lack of weapons and are not on the same level as the enemy civilization."
"The enemy is 0.7 astronomical units away from us, and the enemy's main ship is coming towards us at 625km/s."
"I need your orders."
The enemy was very proactive, supposedly due to the fact that they hadn't found any attack weapons on the surface of their spacecraft.
Just as they were talking, another laser struck the hull of the ship.
The entire Hope shook violently and there was an explosion somewhere in the hull.
"Then turn around Ella and use full speed to get rid of the enemy ship."
Jon had no time to hesitate and quickly made a decision.
The opponent's speed was a fraction of theirs.
As long as the enemy's full speed was only 625km/s, then they could escape.
The Hope changed course.
The spacecraft at the back really couldn't pick up speed again and were left behind by the Hope.
However, they were still in hot pursuit, and countless laser weapons were shot from behind them, just like a rainstorm.
Those lasers carried extremely high heat, hitting the ship's body and easily melting the Hope's shell.
The hull had already been hit dozens of times, the surface was pitted with holes.
"Jon, the hull is pierced."
The Ella character's face paled.
"Damn it, quickly will close the cockpit, don't let the air flow outside. "
There was nothing they could do now but be passive.
Jon looked with a tense face at the position of the rear battleship shown by the signaling radar on the screen.
The good thing was that with the distance, those lasers were more easily dodged.
After 21 days of this kind of chase.
The distance between the two had widened by 350 million kilometers, and the enemy spacecraft had now stopped chasing except for continuing to harass with their weapons.
"I can finally get rid of it!"
Jon also finally breathed a sigh of relief, he hadn't slept well for 21 days.
The Hope was shattered beyond repair, a fifth of the entire ship was gone, miserable.
"The weaponry aspect was indeed something that wasn't thought of at first, after all, the stars are so big, I didn't expect to really meet an alien civilization."
He was also a little more wary now, planning to arrange some main guns on the Hope afterward before he could do so.
It should at least have some ability to fight back.
"Judging from the way the attack was carried out, this civilization is a civilization that is good at laser weapons."
"Right ..."
Jon suddenly remembered a long, long time ago, when the Earth had just been destroyed, he was hit by a laser beam when he went to the asteroid belt and almost died outright.
Perhaps that laser came from this very civilization.
It was in the path of Earth and Proxima, could it be the fabled Tritons?
"Analyze the probability that this alien civilization came from Proxima."
This question was important.
However Ella shook her head and gave an answer that was diametrically opposite to his guess.
"2.38%, the enemy's spacecraft is not fast, the means of attack is mainly lasers, and we are able to analyze the enemy's civilization level as an incipient level 1 civilization, less than 1.2."
"Such a civilization does not have the ability to navigate long distances in light year units, there is no need for them to come here if they are from the planet Bibi, even if they come here, they are definitely an elite fleet."
"After another comparison with the laser bearings from 769 years ago, it was determined that they overlapped with the direction the enemy ships left."
"Analysis of the results is complete, the civilization's home planet probably exists in this starry space, and this civilization's development speed is extremely slow, the civilization level has only risen by about 0.1 level during 769 years."
Jon looked at the space outside through the screen.
They were in a vacuum between stars and stars, could a civilization really be born in such a place?
The previous discovery in Io had confirmed that life was widespread in the universe.
If there was a level 1 civilization in such a place, then what was the number of civilizations in the universe?
Still, he trusted Ella's analysis.
"Beep~beep~beep~"
The alarm sounded again at this moment.
"Jon, an enemy fleet has been spotted on the right front ..."
Jon looked, and sure enough, it was a fleet with ships that had a similar form to the spacecraft encountered earlier, numbering more than ten.
Just as he saw the other side, the other side's lasers had already arrived first.
Hundreds of lasers poured in, blinding the entire screen on the spacecraft into white light.
"There's no way the other party is ahead of us, the only possibility is that the other party was already developing this zone and we're still in the middle of their star field."
"Keep fleeing."
It seemed that this alien civilization didn't want to let them go.
"Ella, what is our current civilization level?"
Jon already had other thoughts in his mind.
This civilization was extremely unfriendly and carried a strong aggression.
After discovering them, it launched an attack, and if the laser had been stronger, he was afraid that he would be in hibernation and never wake up again.
Since the other party was not polite, he would not be polite either.
"During the 664 years of your slumber Jon, I haven't stopped developing our civilization for a moment, and now our civilization level is 1.3."
"It's just that as a wandering civilization at this time, we don't have a perfect and huge civilization system, so even against civilizations that are lower ranked than us, we won't have an advantage."
"It is recommended to develop a fleet before completing plundering, colonizing, and destroying other low-level civilizations."
Ella seemed to have seen Jon's thoughts as well, and the avatars all donned a suit of armor.
They entered the level 1 civilization sequence when controlled nuclear fusion was mastered many years ago, and now after several hundred years of development only to level 1.3 or because it was too limited, there were no huge resources to be utilized to form a qualitative change with quantitative change.
And this 1.3 should still be in the theoretical stage.
Since their civilization level was now higher than the other side, Jon had already made a decision.
"Ella, produce probes to first explore the civilization's domain range, civilization type and life forms."
"Make sure to know the enemy."
Ella began producing the unmanned scout ship soon after receiving the order.
This scout ship was named by Jon - Falcon!
Half a month later, after once again shaking off the alien civilization's ships.
The Falcon was produced, with an overall length of 10 meters, if the shape of a shuttle, covered in black with a light-absorbing layer, and carrying 12 cameras in its head.
Its main ability was cloaking.
This invisibility was not optical technology, but signal shielding, so that the other party's electronic equipment could not capture any signals.
Watching the Falcon unmanned scout ship fly deep into the starry sky, Jon couldn't help but look heavy.
This would be the first interstellar war he had ever waged, a civilization war.
He had to do it, any civilization might have a merciful side, but that mercy would only be unleashed on creatures that were completely subservient to their civilization.
The strange civilization had already discovered him, and would likely continue to pursue him afterward, and now there was only death for him and death for him.