“Orbital sniper lock detected from beyond the Sector 6 border!”
Up on the bridge of the [Gu Family Flying Courtyard], thirteen-year-old Ye Xiao’s spectacles flashed red as his long-range astronomical radar tracked the crimson targeting beam shooting out of Long Aotian’s shattered sunglasses!
“Papa!” Ye Xiao called out sharply, projecting the deep-space trajectory onto the main sky-screen. “Fifty thousand miles outside World #10’s orbit, right on the edge of the Sector 6 border fog.
A vanguard stealth scout-ship belonging to Admiral Black-Skull’s Pirate Armada was waiting for Long Aotian’s system death-signal! They just fired a [Half-Step Rank 8 Star-Piercing Orbital Rail-Slug] straight down the targeting beam at Mach 50, aimed directly at General Su Dingfang and the center of the Three-River Dam!”
SCREEEEEEEEEEE—BOOM!
High above World #10, the night sky split open in a blinding streak of blood-red plasma fire!
Fired from the main spinal railgun of a Half-Step Rank 8 pirate dreadnought lurking at the Sector 6 border. A thirty-foot-long, hundred-ton projectile of compressed Depleted Star-Core Tungsten plummeted out of orbit toward the dam parapet in less than two seconds. Wreathed in ten-thousand-degree atmospheric friction fire, the rail-slug carried enough kinetic energy to punch clean through a continental shelf and vaporize the entire Three-River Basin!
