Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 344 Orbital Drop
The Baidi fighter jet, like a silver sword, continuously pierced the sky amidst the attention of the masses.

The audience members, oblivious to the soreness in their necks, craned their necks so that they almost bent their necks at a right angle, their eyes fixed on the ever-shrinking silver dot of light.

Everyone craned their necks as if watching a rocket launch, until the tiny silver-gray dot was completely out of sight.

Since no aerial performance was scheduled, a giant LED screen quickly lit up and began transmitting live footage from the fighter jets' onboard cameras.

This arrangement brought a huge sigh of relief to photographers who had already pushed their lenses to their limits and could no longer continue tracking.

They immediately turned their cameras and lenses on the big screen.

For a moment, the sound of camera shutters clicking incessantly filled the exhibition area.

On the big screen, the image initially showed only ordinary blue sky and white clouds, but as the fighter jets accelerated, an eerie red light began to appear at the edges of the image.

This red light, like ink dripped into clear water, quickly spread across the image.

Soon, the entire screen was filled with a fiery orange-red, as if the fighter jet was flying through a burning ocean.

This phenomenon, usually only seen when watching a launch vehicle, is a hallmark of the plasma effect generated by the intense friction between a spacecraft and the air as it breaks through the atmosphere at extremely high speeds.

"A fighter jet can actually fly like this?!" A foreign reporter stared at the screen in disbelief, forgetting to pick up the recorder that had fallen to the ground.

His colleague beside him was already incoherent, stammering as he gave a live report to headquarters in his native language.

The atmosphere at the scene was instantly ignited, with cheers rising in waves.

Some young people jumped up excitedly, spilling their drinks all over the audience in front of them without even realizing it; several elderly aviation workers with white hair were moved to tears and had to help each other to stand; even the security personnel maintaining order forgot their duties and stared at the big screen with their mouths agape.

Chen Xi noticed that several Western military observers in suits not far away had ashen faces, and one of them was frantically tapping on his phone, clearly reporting this shocking scene back home as soon as possible.

Behind them, several Russian experts had already taken out their own bottles of strong liquor and raised their glasses in a toast to the big screen.

The appearance of this fighter jet completely rewrote the rules of modern air combat.

As the fighter jet flew higher and faster, the footage it captured gradually dimmed and soon turned completely black.

The White Emperor fighter jets have broken through the atmosphere and entered space.

As the White Emperor fighter jet continued to accelerate and climb, the image on the large screen was gradually swallowed by the deep darkness.

The moment the flight altitude broke through the Kármán line, the entire exhibition area fell into a brief silence—the first space fighter in human history had broken through the constraints of the atmosphere and officially entered the space domain right before their eyes.

"Flight speed Mach 15! Altitude 120km!" The trembling voice of the on-site commentator came through the broadcast system, instantly igniting the passion of the entire audience.

A deafening roar of cheers erupted from the stands; some people excitedly threw their hats into the air, while others embraced and wept.

An elderly aerospace expert with white hair leaned on the railing, his fingers trembling, and murmured to himself, "I never thought I would actually live to see this day!"

Although some people still didn't believe that spaceplanes had actually appeared, especially those capable of taking off directly from the ground, the footage displayed on the big screen was undeniable. Suddenly, the screen spun, revealing a breathtaking scene—a blue arc of Earth occupying half the frame, radiating a soft glow against the dark backdrop of space.

It turns out that the pilot received instructions to specifically rotate the fighter jet 180 degrees so that the camera was pointed towards the Earth.

What happened next left everyone speechless.

As the fighter jets began their round-the-world flight, the Earth's surface on the large screen moved backward at an astonishing speed.

First, the outline of the Japanese archipelago flashed by, then the vast Pacific Ocean appeared, followed by the west coast of North America...

The appearance of each landmark geographical feature elicited gasps of surprise from the audience.

On the reviewing stand, the faces of the military observers from various countries were increasingly grim.

Members of the U.S. delegation kept wiping cold sweat from their foreheads; officials from the U.S. Ministry of Defense looked ashen-faced; several NATO officers exchanged glances, each seeing deep worry in the other's eyes.

When the silver-white fighter jet reappeared in the airshow sky more than two hours later and gracefully landed on the runway, the crowd erupted in the loudest applause and cheers of the day.

Meanwhile, the foreign military observers on the reviewing stand stood frozen in place like statues.

They know that what they are witnessing today is not just an air show, but the dawn of a new era.

The aerospace dominance that once only existed in science fiction has suddenly become a reality.

However, it seemed as if the University of Tokyo was going to reveal all its secrets today, or that they intended to completely crush foreign military hegemony today, the broadcast on the big screen did not go out when the White Emperor fighter jet landed.

The broadcast switched to the cabin of a large transport plane, where a group of paratroopers wearing power armor were sitting.

Perhaps because this scene wasn't as breathtaking as the round-the-world flight of the space fighters, the reaction at the scene was somewhat unremarkable, as if seeing the J-20's falling leaves made the J-16's performance seem insignificant.

After all, it's common knowledge that military enthusiasts are all fickle and easily bored.

But today seemed a little different, because the cabin lights quickly turned red, and the paratroopers stood up from their seats, seemingly preparing to begin their descent.

Then the cabin door opened, and the camera panned to reveal the horizon that the audience and the paratroopers preparing to land had just seen.

"You son of a bitch, are you going to parachute onto the railway tracks?" someone cursed in a very vulgar Sichuan-accented curse, but then immediately pointed the camera in his hand at the big screen. Judging from his excited appearance, it seemed as if he wished he could take the place of the person in question.

The camera then switched to the perspective of a paratrooper. With a jolt, the paratrooper jumped out of the plane and, along with the others, plunged headfirst to the ground.

As the outline of the ground gradually became clearer, everyone could see that their target was a coastal city in China, because the coastline of the motherland is still easy to identify.

At this point, someone couldn't help but mutter, "If this landed on that island across the water, would we be liberated today?"

(End of this chapter)