Chapter 50 Crisis Date

The end of the universe.

In this area, the scope that humans can currently explore is at least dozens of times larger than the current human central galaxy, but the area that humans can access is less than one-tenth of it.

The observable matter here is so scarce that it is difficult for even life-bearing galaxies below Class D to form. Since the Zerg were driven in and isolated here by humans, the possibility of life-bearing galaxies above Class D to be born in the dead zone of the universe has become even lower.

The "insects" in this interstellar universe are not organisms of the order C in the sense of carbon-based biology, but a kind of existence whose energy demand is extremely unreasonable with its own mass and size. They have a strict social hierarchy, and they carry out division of labor and cooperation through the brain interconnection of mental waves.

Therefore, for the Zerg, there are only the interests and will of the group, and there is no "individual will" like in human society.

A race ruled by the Queen of the Zerg has a natural need for huge energy in order to continue its population, and it is also the most sensitive to various changes in cosmic energy and the evolution of its adaptability.

This is why Sir Clott used the prediction of the evolutionary map of the Zerg as one of the important reference indicators of his cosmic collapse model.

The determined release point A is a desolate meteorite belt.

In the meteorite belt, there was an inconspicuous long rope-shaped meteorite iron. In the extremely slight spatial fluctuation, a disguised container appeared hidden. This was one of the Zerg monitoring drop points set by humans.

This place is three thousand light years away from the Zerg Nest. If human mechas want to sneak silently in this star field, they need at least three short jumps to avoid the monitoring of the Zerg information soldiers as much as possible.

A wave of space distortion spread silently. A blinding white light flashed.

The dark and cold body of the mecha Anyan flashed with dark flames, and it suddenly appeared in this dim star field.

It stayed there for less than three milliseconds. The humanoid mecha obtained the surveillance equipment for replacement in the container on the Meteorite through quantum transmission.

Another flash of white light.

The mecha Anyan disappeared on the spot.

The radiation aftermath left by the antimatter energy engine slowly dissipates.

However, in this originally extremely hidden area, a bug soldier with four wings, eight tiny legs and brown and black patterns on its back appeared.

If compared with the genetic map of the evolution of the Zerg deduced by Korot, the size and appearance of this Zerg are exactly the same as those of the Zerg Scout, but its hideous carapace pattern and overly thin legs are obviously very inconsistent with ordinary Zerg soldiers.

If we must make an analogy, it is more similar in appearance to the King General-level Leaping Bug that devoured Inner Munda.

It was seen flying around the place where An Yan disappeared, circling a few times, and its tentacles briefly waved twice in the air as if searching.

The hidden surveillance camera on the meteorite recorded this scene in the black box.

Then, the monitor, along with the disguised long strip of meteorite, was sprayed with a mist of digestive solution by this strange insect soldier, and then sucked into the mouthparts in one gulp. Before it could even tumble twice in the long mouthparts, it was completely digested and swallowed.

The final scene in the black box is a mouth passage filled with tiny teeth and hairs.

After doing all this, this strange insect soldier, pursuing the aftermath of the Dark Flame Engine, kicked its tail and disappeared into thin air.

*

One thousand two hundred light years away from the Hive, the Mecha Dark Flame made its first jump and landed on the eighth planet in the orbit of a dying red dwarf star.

By using the outer shell material ejected by this dying red dwarf star, the artificial energy fluctuations in the interstellar jump were annihilated, thus completely concealing the whereabouts of humans and isolating them from the detection of the Zerg, who are most sensitive to space energy fluctuations.

The Dark Flame mecha shut down its engines and entered the planet's autorotational orbit, where it quietly rotated and drifted, waiting for the rotational force to "unexpectedly encounter" the surveillance satellite that was once buried and disguised here by humans.

While waiting.

Fitzgerald reviewed the first text message sent after landing, the few interstellar universal words that had been sent.

"Are you okay? Reply with the coordinates."

No reply.

A dazzling spot of light flashed outside the porthole, and the red-haired alpha's deep-lined face moved slightly.

Beep, beep, beep—the warning sound rang out. We were less than a thousand meters away from the surveillance satellite.

Fitzgerald stood up from the aircraft compartment and entered the core docking compartment.

Against the dark background of deep space, rare supernovas flash from time to time in the distance. This extinct red dwarf star constantly throws bright red outer shell material into the almost vacuum of the universe, forming a material escape phenomenon that is more spectacular than the solar magnetic storm.

This humanoid mechanical creature with graceful and cool lines has a small round operating cabin ejected from its abdomen.

That is the maintenance cabin mode of the Mecha Dark Flame.

Fitzgerald fine-tuned the force and angle of the energy jet to perfectly meet the surveillance satellite, and while wearing only a thin protective suit and in spacewalk mode, he quickly updated the parts requested by Colot and manually adjusted the newly added programs.

However, when it was about to be completed, a barely detectable energy fluctuation was heard.

Fitzgerald raised his eyebrows slightly, and in front of his sight, he saw an extremely beautiful and delicate foot, a female foot so white that it seemed to be translucent, and the almost transparent nails glowed with a faint powdery light.

He raised his eyes slightly and saw an extremely beautiful omega looking down at him and smiling. His long brown hair was slightly fluttering and the slightly wet ends of his hair wet a small area on his chest.

She was wearing a thin white robe that she only wore in the repair cabin, and she was sitting on the maintenance panel of the monitoring satellite. Her bare feet were hanging in the air on the outer edge of the monitoring panel, swaying back and forth in a very nonchalant manner.

Right before his eyes, the graceful and radiant calves were only a palm's distance away.

Tempting him to touch and caress, even to destroy and imprison.

Fitzgerald's face grew colder, his eyes darkened, and he slowly stretched out his hand.

*

In the curved wormhole created by the folding of space, the first official voyage of the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle was extremely smooth and stable.

During the entire shuttle process, the entire process of the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle's real-time crossing can be seen from the curved simulator in the operating cabin.

The shiny silver-plated teardrop-shaped appearance is sometimes stretched into extremely thin silver wires, and sometimes compressed into an extremely thin plane.

But inside the shuttle, among the fifteen alpha mission teams, two distinct situations emerged.

The seven people on the left side of the wall were still in a protected sleep after the injection of the transition drug. However, the other eight secret agents on the right side, including Chris and Mary, did not take the injection of drugs to fall into a protected sleep as usual when they were on similar missions.

After only a slight dizziness, the eight special agents on the right side of the wall unbuckled their seat belts and moved freely.

The awake alphas discussed a little about the riding experience.

"Boss!" The first person to exclaim was the most honest and simple-looking old Modi. He took off his seat belt and said, "This feels great!"

"I agree! If I feel the same way when I'm on a long-distance interstellar jump in a mech in the future, I will definitely apply for it every time!" This is the most carefree Rambo, and it is obvious that the angle of his sigh is as unreliable as ever. "I hate injecting N-type jump agents the most. Every time I complete a related mission, I will be depressed for two days!"

"It affects my relationship with my little O!"

"The most annoying thing is that even though it's like that, it still lingers on me... Alas!"

This is just a hypocritical and daily show-off operation, but it is obvious that his colleagues see through him——

"whispering sound--"

"screw you!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!"

There were boos everywhere, and someone even tried to dismantle the system. Mary turned around from the console and sneered, "Rambo, as a double S scum, once your mental power breaks through to the 3S level, you won't need to inject the N-type drug at all."

Ignoring Rambo's angry expression, Mary shrugged and made another move: "There's nothing I can do. The strong are free like this!"

"Hahaha!"

Rambo touched his nose and said helplessly, "There's really nothing we can do. After all, not every double S can be as strong as the boss Chris! He always beats the 3S so hard that they can't even fight back!"

This is naked mutual harm!

However, in this daily process of hurting and being hurt, a different kind of sigh has been noticed by everyone.

"If I'm not mistaken, this special appearance material is not only forged from the usual shuttle material," a young alpha with glasses and a head full of fluffy curly hair suddenly said excitedly. He also took out his laptop to write and draw, "there must be more special processing!"

"Yes, this must be composed of another type of 'non-typical gravitational field particles' collected from the core of a neutron star. Such a smooth transition of space-time must be due to the extremely delicate arrangement of the particle filling method... Let me think about it... He will definitely be interested in this new formula!"

"Tsk! I'm talking to Ellen," Rambo said sarcastically, "The way you're pursuing Little O is wrong! Showing off your IQ is a trick of Betas!"

"Speaking of omegas, Colonel Chris, what kind of important person is the target of our mission this time?"

At this moment, one or two of the other seven alphas on the left who had been injected with N-type drugs woke up, but they were obviously still dizzy. Some of them cleverly realized that they could not fasten their seat belts, while the other recruited agents opposite them were safe and sound and joking. They knew that something had changed, so they all kept silent and were secretly on guard.

Of course, there were also some who looked very stupid. This one woke up from dizziness but didn't notice anything wrong, thinking it was just the aftereffects of the drug. He tried to unbuckle his seat belt while trembling, and asked unnecessary questions: "Before the call-up, I came here for the high points, but I didn't expect that C4's civil rescue also needed you to take on the mission..."

Looking at this brown-haired alpha with a flat head who had lurked beside her during the last mission at the Arale Outpost, Mary grinned and said to him, "Stop pretending! Coyote, your acting is too poor!"

She walked over and slashed at him with a knife. At the same time when Mary shouted out the truth, the alpha codenamed "Coyote" suddenly jumped up from his seat, and the disguised 3S ability exploded, and the materialized wind blade cut through the seat belt! At the same time, the pheromone that was shrinking also became fierce and sharp, and there was no trace of the stupid and trembling look before!

The other seven alphas on the left side of the wall also cooperated by using their own abilities. The shuttle's interior, which was not too small to begin with, became agitated by the collision of the alphas' pheromones and their mental powers.

It seemed that the two sides were about to engage in an unharmonious fight.

"Troublesome!" Chris frowned, "Leave one question and deal with the rest."

Not long after the words were spoken, the interior of the shuttle fell silent.

On the left side of the wall, except for 'Coyote' and another alpha who had been pretending to be asleep, the other five people suddenly disappeared.

Chris pressed the teleport button, but was forcibly teleported into the antimatter engine of the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle through a high-speed wormhole, which was indeed a very clean way of handling the situation.

"I feel something is wrong that Vulture avoided the call for action in the name of 'special envoy recruitment'," Chris leaned over to look at the completely suppressed 'Coyote', and she increased the intensity of mental interrogation, "Tell me, if it's worth it, I will erase your memory and save your life."

"Ho-ho-ho—" A strange series of sharp howls came out of the coyote's throat, "I, I can't say...speak...can't say..."

Mary looked at the blood oozing from the coyote's mouth and nose with a serious look in her eyes, and said coldly, "His brain exploded."

"It's comparable to the Master's mental control power," the alpha who had been pretending to sleep against the wall on the left side lifted his eyelids weakly, "Don't look at me, I'm very happy to be back in the big family! But I'm very ashamed that as a 3S-level mental instructor, I can't solve the mental slave mark here."

He pointed to his head and added: "Don't ask me again, or I'll explode!"

Rambo glared at him and sarcastically said, "Gary! What did you find out this time when you fought against the undercover agent? You are known as the top spy of the Seventh Army, and it's time for you to give up your position!"

"Rambo!" Chris stopped him and turned to ask Gary, who had been engaged in double-faced spy work, "I believe you have another way of delivery, what is it?"

Gary smiled, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead. It was obvious that he had already used up all his strength. He said with difficulty, "I have a painting in my pocket that my son gave me. Take it out and have a look."

Chris reached out and took it out, opened the paper, Rambo raised his eyebrows and took a peek, then he was stunned!

A very abstract colored crayon drawing. Is that a bird laying eggs?

"What the hell is this!" Rambo screamed in surprise.

"I know," Chris's eyes froze. She turned to Mary and said, "Gary should be given an injection. If he, as a 3S spiritual instructor, cannot resist this spiritual slave mark, then he will not be able to participate in the rest of this mission. He is not suitable to listen to the content of the subsequent missions."

Mary nodded, took out the medicine and injected it into Gary. "Go to sleep peacefully. When the mission is over and we return to the First Fortress, I will ask Instructor Holdman to take a look at you."

Gary nodded, closed his eyes and fell asleep with peace of mind.

Then, the remaining seven alphas waited silently for Chris's explanation and decision.

"What this painting means," Chris said solemnly, "is that the Vulture is following us now."

"With the energy of the 'Sun Swallowing Shuttle' to break through the wormhole, even if he doesn't know the coordinates we are about to arrive at, he will be able to accurately sneak to the target point because of the effect of the 'Sun Swallowing Shuttle's directional jump."

"And because we set the data very precisely this time, the error in his landing location will not exceed three kilometers."

Inside the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle, the atmosphere became stagnant.

"What's worse is that," Mary swallowed her saliva and added with difficulty, "No matter what kind of smuggling equipment Vulture used, the mass of his single-person operation must be smaller than the entire Sun-Swallowing Shuttle, so now-"

Because the ratio of mass to speed is inversely proportional.

"In terms of time, he will arrive at the rescue destination before us."

Ellen, the least experienced among the group, asked, "What is the origin of 'Vulture'?"

Old Modi: "A scum of the half-machine race, the chief executive of the sixth group of Yindu Eagle Department, who has been planting a nail in the First Fortress in the name of departmental 'cooperation'."

Rambo, who was the simplest among them, didn't quite understand what was said, but he seemed to have figured out something for sure, which was their second mission objective -

The delicate omega lady who needed their rescue was now? Maybe? Most likely? Being chased by the 'vulture' who arrived at the destination ahead of time?

Anyone who is a little bit well-informed will know that the South District mercenary named "Vulture" Snow always liked to slaughter the weak before he joined the army, and he loved to watch the dying struggle of his prey.

Hiss——! That’s not a good situation!

This second mission is sponsored by a mysterious ID and has extremely high points. He doesn't want to lose it!

Rambo was deeply troubled.

*

Planet BV-32II. 'Life Sphere' wasteland.

In the mushroom-shaped transparent safe house, Su Xi was wrapped in a sleeping bag and sleeping soundly. The pendant on her collarbone was also quietly emitting a very faint light.

Xiguang's daily self-checks and specific upgrades have been completed. In addition to daily monitoring inside and outside the safe house, the host system has also fallen into hibernation.

At this moment, the wasteland seemed like dusk or dawn, and in the sky, which was always so dark and unclear, there suddenly appeared extremely subtle and unusual fluctuations.

At the same exact spot where Su Hee had landed, a tiny gap of space opened up.

A tiny point of light like a meteor, carrying the momentum of dying together, fell directly to the ground from a high altitude!

Bang—a slight tremor.

Unlike Su Xi who landed gently on the ground, a huge deep hole was smashed into the ground.

Beep beep - the daily monitoring alarm woke up Xiguang's host system. The round AI robot moved twice and looked at the sleeping Suxi with embarrassment.

'Sister is too tired.'

"It's been so hard."

"Let's not wake her up yet, let's monitor her remotely first."

Xiguang slowly and with minimal noise replaced the rollers for indoor movement with tracks for outdoor travel, and then quietly rolled out of the safe house.

Su Xi was sleeping soundly, unaware of anything.