The Deep Space Blockade Line

Under the coordination of a multinational joint government agency, humanity established a global deep-space defense network. As Asia's primary defense control module, the Desert Tracking and Control Base relied on the Wangkong Deep-Space Telescope Array to guard Earth's near-space. For a long time, order held steady. The meteor interception mission codenamed Star Defense-073 shattered the peace. The Skyshield interceptor missile had passed every inspection, but at an altitude of 290 kilometers, it suddenly malfunctioned. Its internal chip burned out in an instant, its signal vanished completely, and the missile fell. The meteor struck Earth safely, and the mission was declared a failure. The joint defense team found no answers in its review and hastily filed the incident as a random anomaly in the airspace. But tracking and control analyst Chen Xiaotao uncovered the truth in the electromagnetic wave patterns: an invisible barrier had appeared above Earth. The disaster originated with deep-space beacons placed by alien forces from beyond the Earth's domain. Once the barrier activated, 290 kilometers became a red line humanity could not cross. Satellites around the world were destroyed en masse, all aerospace equipment was paralyzed, and Earth became a sealed prison in space. Trapped inside the barrier, Earth was powerless. But four astronauts on the Moon and one aboard the space station, five people in all, had been lucky enough to remain outside the blockade. They became humanity's last hope. Cut off and unable to receive support from the ground, they bore the hopes of billions as they embarked on a perilous mission to investigate the alien beacons, break through the deep-space blockade, and save Earth.