Chapter 680: Stealth Plan

This was the first time Luo had directly faced the flash of the Border Point Idea King's thinking—though of course, saying 'first time' wasn't really accurate, it's just that last time she was the victim of his ideas, and the perspective was completely different.

But she could see that the others in the hotel were clearly very familiar with the sudden ideas Yüsheng came up with—they were even delighted.

Erin had already started planning what to do after this star gate was taken over—her initial idea was to haul it back and hang it over Boundary City to show off to Steel Face, but that plan was instantly shot down. After that, she thought of hanging it over the valley, higher up, to serve as her Erin Legion's sky city. But that fanciful idea was also rejected on the grounds that the valley's sky didn't have enough height, and leaving a megastructure of this scale for those half-meter-tall mass-produced dolls would be an even greater waste than giving it to heretics...

Clearly, Erin had no concept of the true scale and function of this star gate. She might not have even understood a single word of the stuff Luo had just introduced—not a single word.

Her understanding of the whole matter probably stopped at the level of 'the family is about to get a new appliance'...

Fortunately, there were always some people on-site with working brains who were still thinking seriously. Huli's ears twitched and soon raised a practical question: 'Something this huge... it won't be a matter of moments for benefactor to 'convert' it. And once the star gate loses control, there will inevitably be a major disturbance—at the very least, the garrison in that 'star fortress' over there will notice immediately, right?'

Yüsheng chuckled and rubbed the fox's head: 'Who said I'm going to completely convert it all at once?'

Huli blinked: '?'

'Completely taking it over is something that happens after we wipe out the garrison,' Yüsheng said casually. 'Right now, I'm just going over there to open a door. When you go to the mall, do you have to buy the entire mall to push the door open and walk in?'

Huli's ears fluttered a few times: 'Well... no, not really...'

'I'm just going to change the door's access path—the 'star gate' will still be theirs, but the 'door' will be mine,' Yüsheng said, his expression turning serious as he thought it over. 'Based on my previous experience 'contacting' various spaceships, space stations, and space fortresses, 'occupying' a facility from its complete physical structure is a very slow process, and it's easy to get caught as soon as the conversion begins. But if I just want to call upon part of its functions, it doesn't need to be that troublesome—especially for something like a 'door'...'

He stopped there, his gaze passing through the distant, enormous observation window at the majestic building glowing red in space.

This time, he wasn't looking through a holographic projection but directly at the 'star gate' with his own eyes.

Yüsheng was a person who was good at thinking, but that didn't mean his ideas relied solely on sudden flashes of 'thought'—he had his own reasons and 'intuitions,' though many things were difficult to explain to others.

He really did see a door, a ready-made... passage. The door stood shining in space, its blank panels issuing a wordless invitation. It seemed that with just a gentle push, the door would open like any ordinary door in the world, leading somewhere else.

This was the first time in his life he had seen a star gate—from the very first moment, he had realized that his view through the bridge's holographic projection was different from what he saw directly through the observation window. It was from that moment that this bold idea had popped into his head.

'How do you plan to get there?' Luo's voice sounded from the side, snapping Yüsheng out of his thoughts. 'The Exotic Hotel can't get any closer. Small shuttles can't evade the star gate's own safety scans either—anything with engine power will trigger the defense system. To control that gate... you at least need to make contact with it.'

As a scientist, Luo couldn't understand Yüsheng's ideas at all, since this kind of thing was completely inexplicable from a theoretical standpoint. But as a victim of Yüsheng taking her space station over, she had always maintained an attitude of not understanding but respecting her boss's thoughts.

In fact, she had even recently started trying to interpret Yüsheng's various abilities using theory—but she hadn't found a clue yet.

Yüsheng pinched his chin and started thinking.

'Are any flying vehicles acceptable? Even the smallest kind?'

Luo spread her hands: 'Intercepting unauthorized aircraft is a basic safety function of a star gate. And how small could it be? First, you have to cross the long distance from the Exotic Hotel to the star gate—some small unmanned vehicles might not even make it that far.'

Yüsheng clicked his tongue: 'Tsk, I was thinking of using a boarding torpedo—I haven't experienced that in a long time.'

Luo looked puzzled: 'What's a boarding torpedo?'

'It's a torpedo,' Erin immediately stood on the armrest of a chair and explained enthusiastically. 'Hollow it out, stuff Yüsheng inside, so it's called a boarding torpedo—it'll take over whatever it hits. That's how we did it when we fought the final form of the Derivative Star...'

Luo was already shocked halfway through, and by the time she finished listening, she nearly jumped up: 'That's actually possible?!'

Yüsheng: 'Hey, hey, you're an elf—'

'I'm trying to be elegant, boss! But I need some interjections to express my feelings—that plan absolutely won't work!' Luo was a bit beside herself. 'That thing definitely can't evade safety scans—a fortress torpedo! The air defense radar isn't blind. It doesn't care what the thing is stuffed with... uh, no offense meant!'

'I know, I know, so that plan was rejected from the start,' Yüsheng waved his hand, still thinking. 'A small shuttle definitely can't make it, boarding torpedo is no good... the range of a drone isn't enough, and that thing has an engine too—it could also be scanned...'

He muttered and then suddenly stopped, the corner of his eye catching a silvery, furry thing happily sweeping back and forth at his feet.

Yüsheng looked up at the holographic projection on the communication console.

'What about a fox's tail carrying someone through space?'

Huli's ears instantly shot up, and several tails began to wag happily.

'Right, right!' Erin caught on. 'That's an idea!'

Luo: '...?'

Yüsheng pointed at the fox girl beside him: 'Do you think the air defense radar near the star gate can detect her tail? Sure, that tail spits fire too, but it's not a conventional engine—in a sense, it's magic. You know how witches ride broomsticks, right?'

Luo's expression remained confused: '...?'

Then, after another two or three seconds, the blond elf finally jumped up: 'Wait, is this how you guys usually make battle plans?!'

'This is actually pretty restrained today,' Erin said, crossing her arms and nodding seriously. 'If it weren't for the fact that this is a covert infiltration, according to our usual style, Yüsheng would already be loaded into an acceleration track and shot out—maybe even reloaded for a second round.'

'...Holy shit!'

'Just tell me how feasible it is,' Yüsheng looked at Luo's projection. 'If the success rate is over thirty percent, I'll go for it.'

Luo was stunned for a good two or three seconds before reluctantly starting to evaluate the plan based on her understanding of the star gate's structure and its defense technology.

In fact, she already felt a bit guilty calling this thing a 'plan'—back when she was in school, if she had dared to write 'the probability of a fire-spitting fox tail being detected by star gate radar' in her thesis, she would probably have been hung from the Scylantis Tower by her furious advisor.

But now she had to consider the possibility of this ridiculous situation.

'...Theoretically, first of all, the star gate radar won't react to such a small target. And because it's not traveling fast, even if it's picked up, you'll most likely be identified as space debris like a meteorite. Secondly, a facility as large as a star gate has a stunning air defense range. With such a huge amount of radar data, to achieve rapid response, they usually preprocess based on 'feature codes.' A fox, uh, a fox's tail... definitely isn't in the 'feature library.'

'The only risk is that the energy reaction during your flight might attract the attention of that armed star fortress. That space station has a very prominent set of detection antennas—I suspect they're specifically for sensing psychic energy. It's been scanning the entire area, but I don't know the sensitivity of those antennas.

'As for the worst-case scenario, being visually spotted... that probability is the lowest. Given the star gate's scale and the emptiness of this area, it's basically impossible for a tiny flying object to be caught by the naked eye. As long as you fly through empty areas, unless a patrol craft happens to fly right into your face, no one will notice you.'

Yüsheng listened carefully to Luo's analysis.

'Okay, it's doable.'

With that, he stood up from the captain's chair. Next to him, Huli also stood up and raised a hand to pull a tail from behind her.

'Wait, wait—' Luo started to panic when she saw this and couldn't help speaking up. 'Are you really going to do this? What if you're spotted by that armed star fortress? Won't the subsequent operation be exposed?!'

Yüsheng stopped and turned to look at Luo with a half-smile: 'Expose what?'

Luo opened her mouth instinctively: 'Expose the subsequent...'

She trailed off mid-sentence.

'Think about it logically,' Yüsheng said cheerfully, looking at her. 'Suppose you're the commander of that star fortress—now you're watching a person riding a fox's tail, physically crossing space. And you successfully blow that target to pieces in space. Besides thinking this is absolutely bizarre, how many steps of association would it take to link this to 'a main fleet is going to pop right out of the star gate in a couple of days'? Even if you know you need to be on high alert afterward, can you be sure exactly what you need to be 'on the lookout for'?'

Luo stood there, mouth slightly open, dumbfounded.

'I actually have common sense,' Yüsheng said, looking very pleased, reaching up to rub Huli's ears. 'Common sense is a good thing—very useful. Huli, let's go.'