Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2072: Planetary Defense

On the fourth morning, the transport craft carried the cadets away from the station and toward the far side of Jalun, where the planet’s surface rose into a broad, jagged range of dark mountains.

The planetary defense outpost was built into the side of the tallest of them.

From the air, it looked less like a station than part of the mountain itself. Its structures were sunk deep into the rock, with only their upper levels and a scattering of antenna arrays visible above the surface.

Along the ridges on either side, Ning could see the long, dark barrels of gun batteries pointing toward the sky, and further down the slope, a row of hangar doors had been cut directly into the stone.

"Jalun is the outermost planet in this system," the guide explained as they came in to land. "That makes it the first line of defense for everything behind it. This outpost watches the edge of the system around the clock for anything coming in from outside, and if something hostile arrives, this is where the first response comes from."

She gestured toward the gun batteries along the ridge.

"Those batteries can engage targets at extreme range. The hangars below hold interceptors that can launch within minutes, and the outpost is in constant contact with the military command on Truimal. If anything ever gets past this place, it will be because this place has already failed."

The craft landed inside one of the hangars, and the cadets were met by a pair of soldiers who led them deeper into the mountain.

The corridors here were narrower and more heavily reinforced than anywhere else on Jalun, with thick blast doors set at regular intervals along their length and armed guards posted at every junction.

Unlike the station, where the cadets had been allowed to wander freely, here they were kept together in a tight group and escorted at every step.

Eventually, they reached the command center.

It was a large, circular room carved out of the mountain’s interior, with tiered rows of workstations arranged around a massive central display.

Dozens of officers sat at those workstations, each of them monitoring a different section of space or a different system within the outpost, and the central display showed a vast, slowly rotating map of the solar system, with Truimal and its moon near the center and Jalun at the outer edge.

Hundreds of tiny markers moved across the map, each of them representing a ship, a satellite, or some other object the outpost was tracking.

The room was operating normally, and the cadets were given a rare opportunity to see it as it truly was.

The commander of the outpost, a tall, lean woman with close-cropped hair and the calm, steady manner of someone who had spent a long time in this room, introduced herself as Commander Ostrava. She walked them through the room section by section, explaining what each group of officers was responsible for.

Some of them tracked traffic coming through the teleportation matrices at the system’s hubs, verifying every ship that arrived against its registered identity.

Others monitored the outer edge of the system, watching for anything traveling through open space. A further group handled communications with Truimal, while another controlled the gun batteries and interceptors and could bring them to readiness at a moment’s notice.

"Nearly everything that enters this system comes through the matrices now," Commander Ostrava said, gesturing toward the markers clustered around the hubs on the map. "It’s faster, it’s safer, and it means every ship arrives at a known point where we can verify it immediately. Anything traveling the long way, through open space, is rare enough that we notice it at once."

The cadets listened closely. Even Liam, standing near the back of the group, seemed more interested than usual.

Ning glanced at Jason and saw that he was staring at the workstations with obvious fascination, his eyes moving from one display to the next as though trying to memorize every detail.

They were partway through the tour, standing near the section responsible for the gun batteries, when an alarm sounded.

It was a sharp, piercing tone that cut through the low hum of the room. A red warning light began pulsing along the edge of the central display.

For a moment, several of the cadets simply looked at one another. A few even smiled slightly, as though they assumed it had been arranged for their benefit.

"Is this a drill?" someone whispered.

"They probably do this for every group," another replied.

But it quickly became clear to everyone in the room that this was not a drill.

The officers at their workstations had gone very still, and then all at once, they were moving. Hands flew across controls, voices rose in quick, clipped exchanges, and several officers stood from their seats to lean closer to their displays.

Commander Ostrava had already turned away from the cadets and was striding toward the center of the room, her expression gone hard.

"Report."

"Unidentified object approaching from outside the system, Commander," one of the officers said. "Bearing from the outer edge, past Jalun’s orbit. It’s on a direct course for the planet."

A new marker appeared on the central display, far beyond the outermost edge of the map, blinking red.

"It isn’t coming through the matrices," another officer added. "It’s traveling through open space."

The commander’s eyes narrowed. "How far out?"

"Close, Commander. Closer than it should be."

"Why didn’t we see it earlier?"

The officer hesitated, working quickly at his controls. "There’s interference, Commander. Some kind of signal running alongside it, scrambling our tracking. It’s been masking the object on our sensors until now. We’ve only just managed to lock onto it."

The commander’s jaw tightened, and Ning watched the faces of the officers around her change as they understood what that meant. Something had been approaching their system unseen, hidden behind a signal that disrupted their tracking, and it was only now close enough for them to see it at all.

"Is it transmitting?" the commander asked.

"Yes, Commander. It’s broadcasting something."

"Identify it."