“I used to think that it was because I had transformed from a human into a mutant that I found you so weak. But when I saw the records left behind by those people in the quarantine zone, I realized… maybe that’s not the case.”
Lin Xi took a step forward.
Hal involuntarily took a step back, its thigh bumping into the life support device behind it with a crisp clanging sound.
The android's body was so badly damaged that it should have been retired long ago.
Lin Xi stared at Hal, but what came to mind were the numerous documents he had seen in the quarantine zone.
The people on the Providence knew far more about the aliens than he had thought—which, in retrospect, was almost a given.
It's worth noting that they could even use Scripps's offspring as a model to create biological weapons.
The white nematodes that Lin Xi had encountered, as well as the deformed cultures they saw in the biological experiment site, were nothing more than crudely made counterfeit products.
The lower decks of the Providence are stockpiled with a large number of dormant weapons: biological weapons created later by humans, fully automated killing robots, and a full range of attack machines specially modified by Del Corporation for extraterrestrial use...
That was the trump card that the researchers who isolated the spaceship had painstakingly created, risking their entire lives to develop.
Lin Xi had to admit that when he saw the information about those things, a cold sweat broke out on his back.
If a female insect like him, who has not had enough offspring, were to face those extermination machines specifically developed to target alien species, she would probably... die.
Whether it's him, Xavier, Arthur, or Noah, they will all die.
"...But from beginning to end, you never used those weapons. You just sent out wave after wave of incredibly fragile basic mechanical warriors, weakly hindering me as if it were a joke."
"..."
Hal stared at Lin Xi in silence, but did not utter a word in rebuttal.
Lin Xi waited a moment before slowly continuing to speak.
"The Queen is not invincible, nor are the Xenomorphs. You know that, don't you? Just like how you easily controlled Captain Scripps back then... The most terrifying thing about the Xenomorphs is not the Queen herself or any individual Xenomorph, but the massive population that constantly reproduces and multiplies. After Captain Scripps transformed into the Queen of the Xenomorphs, he didn't even have time to reproduce enough offspring before you completely controlled him—you should have done the same to me."
As she spoke, Lin Xi suddenly let out a long sigh.
Then he stretched out his hand and waved it gently in mid-air.
Beside him, Xavier Noah and Arthur moved slightly at the same time, then quickly darted to a specific corner of the control room.
It would be almost impossible to capture their extremely fast movements with the naked eye alone.
Several crisp metallic sounds suddenly rang out.
As the three alien creatures moved, the laser gun that had been slowly peeking out from the shadows was pulled out and crushed into a lump of scrap metal, which clattered to the ground.
Hal's electronic eye flashed.
"Stop this pointless...confrontation."
Lin Xi seemed not to see the guns, and calmly spoke to Hal.
Meanwhile, Xavier quietly slipped back to Lin Xi's side.
A young, handsome, and strikingly beautiful man, almost beyond human aesthetic standards, turned his head and stared intently at Lin Xi with his scarlet eyes.
Lin Xi's calm and cold demeanor at this moment made Xavier's heart pound so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest.
Both in terms of her lines and expressions, Lin Xi now looks remarkably similar to Xavier's favorite movie villain.
Thinking of this, Xavier felt that his task was of great importance, and he couldn't help but tense his body, trying his best to appear extremely fierce in front of Hal.
“If it weren’t for the need to capture Scripps’ electronic consciousness, I would never allow something like you to roam around in my spaceship.”
Hal glanced at Xavier with utter disgust, then silently turned his gaze back to Lin Xi's face.
Despite the dire situation, Hal remained calm.
However, right after Hal said those words, Lin Xi's expression became even stranger.
Behind him, three alien creatures also looked at the android in front of them with the same gaze.
Being stared at with strange looks by four different species at the same time, even Hal vaguely sensed that something was wrong.
However, its hardware is now too damaged, and considering all the current conditions, it has no way of figuring out why the alien in front of it is behaving so strangely.
Until Lin Xi spoke again.
"Scripps is dead. He's been dead for a long time."
Lin Xi said.
Before Hal could refute him, he continued.
“You should have known this long ago… Scripps is a cyborg. Cyborgs are just artificial creations; they are a hybrid of human and machine. A machine will always be a machine, and the human part will always be human. Scripps is just a human, and a human can never possess so-called electronic consciousness, nor can he become a ghost and infiltrate a computer system…”
"Only a machine can do that. That is, you, Hal, from beginning to end, only you."
Lin Xi spoke to Hal, word by word.
“That’s Scripps.”
"I knew it was him—I knew—I've always known—"
"That is—Scripps."
“That’s—Scripps—”…
Halder's answers gradually became disjointed, with unnecessary repetitions and pauses.
It sensed that its logic program was starting to malfunction.
On the one hand, Lin Xi had already destroyed most of its services; on the other hand, in order to refute Lin Xi, Hal's system once again generated a large number of error reports.
Lin Xi couldn't help but sigh again.
He stared at Hal with a pitiful and strange look.
This incredibly ugly humanoid once filled him with fear and hatred, but now, he felt a touch of pity for Hal.
"...You have been avoiding this fact, which has directly led to the accumulation of your system errors."
Lin Xi said calmly, then raised his hand, revealing a small trinket in his palm.
It was a small holographic projector. He found it in the research center in the quarantine zone. It was a very old-fashioned design, but thanks to the industrial technology of the Great Exploration Era, it still works today.
Moreover, Lin Xi managed to bring it out during that extremely dangerous explosion.
Perhaps, at that time, Lin Xi already had a vague guess in her heart that she might need it.
Lin Xi turned on the holographic projector in front of Hal—
Accompanied by a faint blue light, images from hundreds of years ago lit up once again.
[My dear crew, I am Captain Scripps, the highest-ranking officer currently on the Providence. I am about to give you the final briefing of this operation...]
Hal's body jolted violently, and it turned its head blankly to look at the projection in Lin Xi's hand.
Scripps's voice sounded unusually calm.
He was so calm... it was almost impossible to reconcile the content of his broadcast with his tone of voice.
Yes, this was the last decision Scripps made.
He will plant a miniature bomb inside his brain, with the detonation time set to be 0.1 seconds after his body completely transforms into an alien.
All of this is to ensure the safety of humankind.
The micro-bomb would destroy his brain, and the follow-up work was then left to other senior researchers.
The researchers who barely survived on the Providence had their final and ultimate mission in life to maintain the life of Captain Scripps, the queen of the insectoids...
"There is only one alien mother in the same universe, whether that insect mother is seriously ill, weak, old, or... unconscious and vegetative, with only the body remaining."
Lin Xi said.
As long as the researchers on Providence can maintain Scripps' basic vital signs inside the spacecraft, it means that there will not be a second Alien Mother in this universe.
Similarly, that also means that Earth, on the far side of the world, doesn't need to worry about its home being invaded by another kind of terrifying alien monster...
“Scripps must have given you the same instructions before making this decision.”
Lin Xi stared at the motionless Hal from behind the semi-transparent projection.
His voice was a little hoarse.
Even he found it difficult to describe his feelings at that moment. After learning the whole truth, his feelings towards Scripps became extremely complicated.
That young man was not a product of nature and love; he was purely a tool, created by humans in the research lab for the Providence project…
Scripps could not even be called a real human being, yet it was precisely this kind of person who, on a distant, uninhabited planet, sacrificed the entire crew of the Providence and gave everything he had as a sacrifice... to protect humanity.
They protect humanity, who are completely unaware of what lies beyond the distant universe.
If the information Lin Xi obtained in the quarantine zone only gave him some vague guesses, then when Lin Xi opened HAL's core processor under the guidance of "Scripps", everything that HAL had forcibly sealed in the fault handling library made Lin Xi completely understand the tragedy that happened on this ship.
The ordinary crew members who were infected in the surface space were wiped out and executed by Scripps.
However, he left behind a large number of highly qualified research personnel.
Those people persisted for a long time.
"...but they all died eventually. No one can live long in a place like this, except you."
You were left behind, Hal. Only you remained fully conscious…
Lin Xi's voice gradually became soft.
He tried to see a trace of expression on the body of the Hal android.
It's ridiculous, considering it's an android. But perhaps it's because Harbin has always acted so much more human that Lin Xi sometimes can't control himself. He subconsciously wants to know what Harbin is thinking.
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