Chapter 1517 Silence

In the boundless deep sky, jet-black starships are heading towards the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars along nearly straight trajectories.

The destination of the voyage is Ceres.

The target is the pirate space base about 0.03 astronomical units away from Ceres!

Speaking of the sky pirates active in the asteroid belt, they have a long history.

As early as the 1950s after the first attack on the Starlight cargo ship, the term air pirates entered people's field of vision through the news media.

With the continuous expansion of the aerospace industry, asteroid belt mining has gradually become a low-cost and huge-profit industry, resulting in a large number of spacecraft moving from the Earth-Moon system to the asteroid belt.

Everyone expects to get rich overnight, unearth a large lump of gold or a precious metal more expensive than gold from half a million asteroids and hundreds of millions of meteorite fragments, and driven by this extreme desire for wealth Under such circumstances, a group of lawbreakers who are eager to get something for nothing and at the same time are not hesitating to take risks have naturally been born.

Relying on the legal gaps in the asteroid belt and the limited binding power of various countries on this area, they have modified the purchased or leased spacecraft to attack other civilian mining ships or mining stations, becoming the government and the region. The existence of a headache for the alliance.

The complex meteorite environment makes it difficult for large starships to stay in this area for a long time, and if it is only a small ship or a space base, it is difficult to guarantee the scale advantage of the regular army on the battlefield.

If they are deployed in a dispersed manner, those military facilities will easily become the targets of those air pirates. And if it is deployed in a centralized manner, although the combat effectiveness is guaranteed, it is basically a display in the face of a battlefield width of tens of billions of kilometers and limited visibility.

After all, you can't expect those sky pirates to always bang their heads on the steel plate and get into the cage by themselves.

In contrast, those pirates who roamed between the asteroid belt and Mars were able to thrive by relying on small ships and smuggled arms.

On the one hand, this is because the complex social environment of Mars provides the soil for the sky pirates active in the asteroid belt to multiply, and on the other hand, it is because of the connivance of some regimes or regional alliances.

After all, the goods snatched from competitors are always cheaper than the goods that flow into the market through normal channels, not to mention that they can limit the development of competitors, and by the way, they can also digest the excess ammunition in their own homes.

Although every once in a while, the Pan-Asian Cooperation will send a fleet to carry out a centralized cleanup of the asteroid belt in a certain area, but the results achieved are not very great.

On the one hand, there are always news leaks ahead of time, and on the other hand, the cost of sending the fleet to the asteroid belt to perform missions is too expensive.

Take this operation as an example, as the command ship, Huashan is the lightest aircraft carrier in the Pan-Asian Space Force, and the two cruisers and five destroyers it escorted are also of the lighter tonnage of the same type.

However, even so, as long as it enters the activity range of the asteroid belt. The cost of this war is destined to be an expensive figure...

"Send carrier-based aircraft to investigate the nearby airspace, guard the periphery of the destroyer, open the magazine of the cruiser, use EMP bombs, and find that the abnormal target is close to the direct attack."

"yes!"

The edge of the asteroid belt is getting closer.

on the bridge.

Following the commander's order, twelve carrier-based drones ejected and took off from the Huashan aircraft carrier, like silver bullets, piercing into the interior of the asteroid belt.

Although the armed forces of the air pirates are mostly backward, it is difficult to pose a substantial threat to the regular army of any regional alliance on the frontal battlefield, but they usually use the terrain advantage to deal with the regular army very cleverly.

For example, install nuclear warheads inside some asteroids with relatively stable orbits and small size, and detonate the nuclear bombs after the warships of the regular army approach, and damage the hull of the ship through the high-temperature meteorites.

For another example, some cruise missiles hidden behind meteorites, drones carrying explosives or anti-armor weapons, or even small attack boats with a bunch of bulk weapons hanging on them.

While threatening the mining stations in the vicinity, these air pirates can always cause trouble for the ships of the regular army in unexpected places.

And the job of these carrier-based aircraft is to check the surrounding battlefield environment, clear out the traps left by those air pirates, and at the same time lock those potential threats...

Inside the bridge.

Staring intently at the holographic three-dimensional star map floating on the command table, the commander behind his hands could not help but slightly frowned.

Almost half an hour has passed since the dispatch of the carrier-based aircraft, but there are still no traces of booby traps or automatic weapons in this area.

Years of experience fighting against sky pirates told him that this group of sky pirates might be a little unusual.

"Report, news from the forward scout ship that an unknown space station was found near Ceres at 0.03 AU."

Hearing the report from his subordinates, the commander immediately ordered.

"Modeling against scan data."

"yes!"

A light blue image appeared on the command table, and a space station constructed of a three-dimensional holographic grid soon appeared in front of everyone.

Like most civilian mining stations, this space station is inlaid on a small asteroid, and occupies a quarter of the asteroid's volume.

Due to the high content of metal deposits in the vicinity, a natural "electromagnetic wave black hole" has been formed. If you don't get close and look carefully, you can't find the existence of this space station at all.

Staring at the space station, the military advisor standing by the command table frowned and said.

"Too strange."

Normally, when their carrier-based aircraft approached this position, not to mention that the two sides had already started a fierce exchange of fire, at least it was impossible for the air pirates hiding in the space station to remain unresponsive.

However, the current situation is that the entire space station and the nearby airspace are quiet, and there is only one base standing there alone.

"It's quite strange," the commander nodded, with a serious expression in his eyes, and said to himself, "We dispatched such a large-scale fleet, they can't respond at all. Even if the radar is broken If it’s gone, you won’t be completely unaware just by visual observation.”

"Could it be that they just went hunting?"

"It doesn't look like it. My intuition tells me that the things hidden here may not be simple."

After saying these words, the commander pondered for a while, and then gave an order.

"Ready to send ground troops."

"No matter what's inside, just go in and take a look."

Land Warfare Advisor: "Are you going to launch an infrasonic missile?"

"No, no weapons have been observed on the surface of the space station, and the armed forces inside should not be very strong. This operation is different from the past, we need a few prisoners," the commander calmed down looking at the holographic image on the command table, and used In a serious tone, "The Third Orbital Airborne Brigade is ready! Send three groups of commandos, ready to attack!"

The moment the order was issued, six long shuttle-shaped landing craft were launched from the air carrier, forming two parallel triangle formations, one in front and one in the back, and headed straight for the space station along a straight trajectory.

Although it is a strong attack, it does not mean filling it with flesh and blood.

The first three landing craft hit the shell of the space station first. Following a series of bursting sparks, the jet of metal from the front end poured into the space station, unleashing a round of suppressive firepower on the internal facilities and personnel.

Dozens of pneumatic drones were released from the three landing craft, broke into the interior along the gap in the outer layer of the space station, quickly occupied the favorable terrain in the space station, and fed back the situation on the battlefield to the three landing craft behind. Commandos and the AI ​​battlefield analysis system on the aircraft carrier.

Then there was another round of steel collision.

The last three landing craft crashed directly into the space station from three different angles, like three nails. As the hatch blasted open, three groups of commandos entered the space station from three directions, and coordinated with the drones released earlier, they launched an offensive towards the space station.

However……

Something unexpected happened.

Facing the empty space station, the team leader who broke into the core area of ​​the space station with a rifle in his hand looked around vigilantly, finally lowered the muzzle of the gun in his hand, and complained angrily.

"What the hell is the command doing..."

The control room was completely quiet, except for the electrical sound of the chassis running, no unnecessary noise could be heard. Judging from the ventilation system at work, this space station should have been inhabited by people, and judging from the balance of living supplies, those people should have lived here for a long time.

However, let alone a sky pirate.

Not even a living person can be seen here...