...This is the Gemini. We have received orders from the command headquarters and will assist you in executing the final battle plan. Please open the deflector shield, guide our landing ship to land, and handover work with our personnel."
"This is the Orion... We have received your request and are confirming it with the command..." "... The Gemini has received... (noise)... Please reply as soon as possible..."
"The Orion has received... We are unable to confirm the legality of the order, and the application is submitted to the military commission for arbitration..."
"...The request is rejected. This is a time of war. Our enemies are slaughtering our people. We do not have time to wait for the committee's arbitration. Please execute the order immediately!"
".......(noise)."
"...Call Orion, what are you doing? Our ship has detected unstable gravitational field fluctuations. Please turn off the warp engine and deflector shield immediately! Repeat, turn off the warp engine and deflector shield immediately. Accept
examine!"
"...(noise)..." "...Good night."
Zhao Tianhe didn't have many choices.
He was almost certain that from the moment he disobeyed the order, the neutron torpedoes on the Gemini had been aimed at him and his men, and would definitely take action before he entered the hyperspace channel.
If he chooses to resign himself to his fate, it will be equivalent to committing suicide with the entire crew of the Orion, and handing over the tens of thousands of neutron torpedoes on the ship to that group of murderous lunatics.
For the sake of the Constitution he was loyal to and the survivors on the surface, he had no choice but to fire the neutron torpedo on the launcher at friendly forces while starting the warp engine.
This was his decision alone.
However, it did get the tacit approval of all the officers and soldiers of the unit.
They are the same type of people as Zhao Tianhe. They are both traditional soldiers who are not so conservative among conservatives. They would rather point their guns at themselves than at their unarmed compatriots. Under the cover of gravitational field disturbances
, that torpedo successfully hit the Gemini.
The continuously accelerating torpedo can resist the rejection of the deflector shield and release a high-energy neutron beam after the warhead penetrates the hull armor.
The crew of Three Thousand will die in an instant, without even realizing they are dying, and the process will be painless.
At the same time, the Orion cruiser also jumped into the hyperspace channel at the same time.
Everything happened in the blink of an eye, so except for a few crew members who participated in the "rebellion", the vast majority of the crew on the ship had almost no knowledge.
This is actually for their own good.
After all, no matter what the reason was, it is a fact that the Orion sank a friendly force. It also cost 3,000 lives, and it cannot be easily dismissed with extenuating circumstances.
Those who issue orders and those who execute them will eventually be judged by the law, and Zhao Tianhe has never thought of excusing his crimes.
He just hopes to put as much responsibility on himself as possible and let his subordinates bear as little as possible, so as to reduce or avoid punishment.
As for now, what he has to do is to bring the truth back to the solar system as soon as possible and stop the so-called "End War" conspiracy of the top brass of the Aerospace Forces. That is not a war for the future of civilization at all, it is simply a replica of the "Torch Project" !This is what happened to the Orion cruiser before it entered the hyperspace channel.
What happened after that was a strange situation witnessed by all the crew members on the ship. They were stuck in the hyperspace channel...
Zhao Tianhe frankly told Luo Yi and Wu Xinghuan the whole incident. Regardless of whether they could accept it emotionally, they had no other choice now.
"...I don't expect my confession to be forgiven or understood by you. My faults will naturally be judged by the law, and I have no intention of escaping. But now is not the time to do this. We must unite to get through it." Difficulties ahead."
"One of you is a known survivor, and the other is the most knowledgeable scholar on the ship. You are the most promising people to break the situation." When he said this, Zhao Tianhe looked at Dr. Wu and said seriously.
"Especially you, I want to hear your advice...whether the method I mentioned is feasible."
"Deceiving the observer who opened the box... There is no precedent for this kind of thing, and there is no 'successful example' left."
Wu Xinghuan touched his nose and felt the tip of his index finger trembling. This would be a big gamble.
But it seems to be the only chance of winning.
They must take the initiative to give up all the things they are destined to give up, which may not only be life, but also other things including glory and faith...
And the only result is to let "the part that can survive" survive. In other words, it is the part that has not been observed, or the part whose life or death is uncertain.
After serving on this starship for so long, this was the first time he felt such heavy pressure. Facing the pairs of eyes, he took a deep breath and continued calmly.
"First we have to change the layout of the ship, including the coating and markings on the outside of the ship...and send away the people who open the boxes before leaving the hyperspace channel."
"But these are actually trivial matters. We and the Gemini are sister ships. It's not difficult to disguise ourselves as each other...the real difficulty is the other two things."
Looking at the three people who were listening carefully, Wu Xinghuan raised two fingers and continued calmly.
"First of all, we must understand the heavenly beings. At present, we only know from the words of the 'box opener' that they are a collection of digital beings, and they have no good intentions towards the survivors on earth."
Zhao Tianhe frowned. "Isn't this enough?" Wu Xinghuan shook his head.
"Of course it's not enough. First of all, the 'box opener' is just one of the observers. The information he learns is neither the same as the information learned by all observers, nor the absolutely accurate information."
"If you want the two pieces to be spliced together perfectly, every edge and corner must match...otherwise we will encounter trouble at the causal level."
Wu Mengke asked thoughtfully. "What is the trouble at the causal level?"
"This is unknown. Anything is possible. After all, the people we meet cannot tell us," Wu Xinghuan shrugged and continued, "Maybe we fell into a black hole or were hit by a meteorite... Of course, these are too
I'm just kidding. I'm more inclined to think that we will be locked in a hyperspace channel and completely lost in the gap of time, or we will become ghosts in the quantum state. Some people can see us and some people can't." The three of them looked at each other in disbelief.
.
This kind of thing is so weird that they really can't imagine what kind of state it is. In fact, let alone them, Wu Xinghuan himself can't imagine it either.
Everything he said was theoretical speculation, and what he described theoretically happened to be invisible in theory. Zhao Tianhe was silent for a while and continued.
"We can simulate a digital life and hide behind it. This is actually not difficult... and then what?" Wu Xinghuan nodded and continued.
"Then the key is, we have to send the observer away, and send him away as soon as possible... Only by letting him return to his own timeline as soon as possible, and reducing his observations of us, can we have enough preparation time to deceive the observations.
Or, changing our future in the box while barely changing the observer’s future.”
"In this process, the more he knows about us, the less room we have to operate. Of course... In turn, we must use him. The more we know through him, the higher our winning rate will be."
Wu Mengke asked seriously.
"Then the question is, how can we send him away safely?" Wu Xinghuan said in an uncertain tone.
"If our conjecture is correct, as long as we let him return to the research ship and lie back in the sleep cabin... then we close the door and leave the area, it should be fine. The next time he wakes up, he should be fine
Back to my own timeline."
After a pause, he looked at Captain Zhao.
"The point of disagreement is right here. What we brought into the hyperspace channel should be something else, such as the landing craft sent by the Gemini? Didn't you say that they sent a landing craft to take over our starship? That landing craft
He should have set off."
Zhao Tianhe nodded thoughtfully.
"I see... close the overturned box and reopen it, and we will return to each other's timeline." Wu Xinghuan snapped his fingers.
"That's right."
After hearing what he said, Zhao Tianhe and Wu Mengke's expressions softened a bit, as if they were relieved, and their moods were not as heavy as before.
Especially the latter.
She pressed her index finger between her eyebrows and said with a wry smile.
"Although it is a little difficult to understand, the situation does not seem to be as pessimistic as we imagined." Zhao Tianhe also nodded.
"Instead, we got revelations about the future from future observers..." But at this moment, Luo Yi, who had been silent, raised his hand.
Seeing three pairs of eyes looking at him, he hesitated for a while and then slowly spoke.
"I actually don't quite understand...but I probably understand a little bit. In other words, if we want to survive, we must become the heavenly beings that the child said?"
The air in front of the bar became quiet.
Faced with this problem, the three of them fell silent and became heavenly beings...
In other words, we are going to destroy the world 200 years from now.
But not long ago, they sank the Gemini in order to prevent the destruction of the world. If they were going to do the same thing as the Gemini, then why bother to sink the latter and wait 200 years to do it again?
this matter?
Zhao Tianhe could not answer this question, so he could only put it aside for the time being, and spoke after a moment of silence.
"Things two hundred years from now are too far away. I still prefer to think that we are in different parallel worlds from them, and our destinies may not be completely connected."
After a pause, he made a decision.
"First verify Dr. Wu's conclusion and ask about the situation of the Celestial Being Organization." "Then, send the child home."
I don't know if it's because people in the Prosperous Era live in a pampered environment, but Ye Shi always feels that these guys are a little too crazy.
A guy who drove a "civilian spaceship" into a military base and almost injured an active soldier while wearing a combat prosthetic body didn't have to squat in a dark room. He could still swagger around on the spaceship.
Actually, it's not right to say he was running around. There were places he couldn't go, such as other decks and the scene of the collision.
In contrast, except for these places where he was not allowed to go, he could walk around at will in various areas of the lower deck with almost no one following him.
In addition to the protection of personal freedom, his other basic rights are also protected to the maximum extent, almost the same as the crew members living on this starship.
Before finding out his details and background, they first recognized his identity as a human being and treated him as one.
The management department on this starship also took into account the uniqueness of his situation and arranged a separate one-room dormitory for him, and even gave him a bill-based meal card.
In the case of the person who issued him the meal card, if he really came back from the future, this debt would probably be eaten up by inflation in the distant future, which means he would not have to pay it back.
If he didn't come from the future, they would give him a bill after getting off the ship, and he could pay it back slowly after finding a job after returning to Earth.
Although academic qualifications are an issue, many research institutes should be interested in him.
Every time I think of that staff member who always thinks about himself, Ye Shi, who holds the meal card, can't help but sigh. How can this be called a conservative?
It’s simply better than Ideal City!
He even couldn't help but wonder how radical the rebels in the colony had to be in order to turn these good old people in his eyes into conservatives.
On the other hand, the attitude of the crew on this ship towards him was also quite interesting.
Some people thought he was talking nonsense, and some people believed what he said, but whether they believed it or not, they all showed great enthusiasm for him and wished he could say more about the future.
Bar on the lower deck.
There was a circle of people around Ye Shi who was sitting in front of the bar. Both the number of people and the noisy environment here were incomparable to the elegant bar on the middle deck.
Listening to the time traveler who claimed to be from the future talking about what will happen in the future, the crew members surrounding him all opened their eyes wide, with disbelief written all over their faces.
"Yunjian Province has become the most prosperous area?! Just that old industrial area?! This... is unbelievable!" Ye Shi said casually while drinking the wine invited by others. "After all, the Zhiyuan landed in
There, they cheated on me from the beginning, so I can do it too." A woman with big breasts crossed her arms and shook her head.
"The Weiland people... It seems that the War and Construction Committee is not a good thing. They even moved out slavery." Ye Shi replied.
"You have to look at the problem in the context of the times...Forget it, I don't know them, and I'm too lazy to clean up the floor for them." Another young man was stunned for a long time, and then shouted as if he suddenly came to his senses.
"Wait, I wanted to ask just now... You mean Borneo Province is inhabited by people again?! Then where did the animals go?" Ye Shi shrugged.
"Who knows, people can't live anymore and still care about them. But thanks to your colleague, a guy named Rowell, he is a real environmental protector. Thanks to him, it is still a zoo, which is no different from before.
"
"Very good."
The young man was obviously relieved, but Ye Shi couldn't help but rolled his eyes. What the hell is so good about this!
In a sense, he has become a celebrity in this "town of three thousand people".
Ye Shi quite enjoyed their following, and he knew all their problems. He chatted from the east to the west of the Central Continent, and even talked about Antarctica, the North Pole, and the New World, which he had never been to.
Other players have been there, but they didn't cause any big waves.
Those experiences have been written into travel notes and updated on the official forum. If he successfully survives this crisis, he will probably also write down his experiences on the forum.
He once sat in the bar of the Starship in the United Nations era 200 years ago, chatting with a group of ancient people. But how to put it?
His mentality was probably like chatting with a dead person to relieve his boredom. He gave some advice and gathered some information at the same time. Other than that, there was nothing else, and he didn't pay much attention to the situation of these people.
After all, from his point of view, aren’t these people who lived more than 200 years ago just dead people? Even if they didn’t encounter an accident, they would have died of old age!
"The so-called alliance... is an alliance where survivors unite. In fact, there is nothing mysterious about it at first. We are not as great as you think. We are not doing anything with the idea of saving the world, we just don't want to be eaten by predators.
"
The girl with big breasts blinked curiously.
"Eat it?"
The young man with an abnormal mind also said in an uncertain tone.
"Is it the kind of eating that I understand? Or... annexation of territory in a broad sense?" Ye Shi chuckled.
"Annexed? Do you mean swallowed into the stomach?"
After hearing his words, there was a sound of exclamation all around, and many people had surprised expressions on their faces.
Some guys with poor mental endurance even turned pale, making people wonder how such cowards got into the army.
"The predators also eat people..."
"These guys...haven't they ever thought that they are human beings?" Ye Shi replied casually after hearing the idiot's question.
"If you expect the predators to understand this, you might as well expect the slime mold to treat you as a human... Well, but then again, we really encountered that kind of slime mold. In the end, the mimicry has completely changed into our shape, even more than a human.
Like humans." The surrounding crew members looked at each other, and a burly man shook his head and said. "I still can't believe that our children... people in the future will be so barbaric."
Ye Shi took a sip of the cocktail and sighed leisurely.
"People... this concept is too broad. People are different from each other, and the definition of people also changes with the times. So I say that the alliance is actually not great, it is just relatively normal. You may be more suitable for Ideal City
Life in Ideal City, but there are also many people from Ideal City who joined us because they couldn’t stand Ideal City.”
The big-breasted sister whistled and joked, "So you win."
Ye Shi shook his head.
"I don't dare take it seriously, but we did survive the current crisis. It can be regarded as the result of the compromise between several forces." Humanity and Gaia can no longer fight.
The same goes for Survivors and Valeantians. So does the interior of Survivors.
These three contradictions exist in a progressive order and together form the main line of the Wasteland Era. When they are resolved, the Wasteland Era will naturally end.
Ye Shi always has a feeling that he is actually redundant. The history he has personally promoted may be far less than that of Elder Brother Fang, and the combined role they play is actually more similar to a catalyst than the fuel itself.
But after thinking about it, this is actually normal.
Everyone plays a different role in the tide of the times. Some people will always bear a little more responsibility, and some people will bear a little less, but there is no way to say that someone is dispensable.
Even Fang Chang alone could not sing this scene, including the manager who was regarded as a god by countless wastelanders. Together with the survivors in the wasteland, they completed this epic that can be sung by future generations.
Honor belongs to every survivor.
Just when everyone wanted to ask something, Luo Yi walked through the crowd and walked in. "Sorry everyone, I have to borrow your star for a while."
A burly man looked at him and whistled. "Haven't you fought enough?"
Luo Yi shrugged and said.
"Our misunderstanding has been resolved a long time ago, but there are some things that we need to talk to him about, which are very important to him." The man put his hand on Ye Shi's shoulder, patted it, and said with a grin.
"If this guy is in trouble, just tell me."
Ye Shi didn't know the name of this "fan", but he still said "thank you" to him, then jumped off the bar stool, followed Luo Yi out of the crowd, and went to the room at the other end of the corridor.
.
After closing the door, he looked at Ye Shi and said.
"I have good news here. We have found a way to help you get home." I always felt that this copy was not that simple.
However, in order to advance the plot, Ye Shi, who folded his arms and leaned against the table, still followed his words and said, "Let's talk about it."
Luo Yi repeated the method that Dr. Wu came up with, and the young man sitting at the table showed a subtle expression as expected after listening.
Guessing what he was thinking, Luo Yi coughed slightly and said, "I know you want to say this sounds too stupid."
Ye Shi shrugged his shoulders and said.
"You've already said it for me... But I still plan to give it a try with you. Anyway, it won't cost me anything." Unexpectedly, he was so cooperative. Luo Yi glanced at this guy in surprise, paused and continued.
said.
"I'm glad you can cooperate. Besides... we want to cooperate with you." Ye Shi raised his eyebrows.
"What cooperation?"
Luo Yi revealed everything he had previously discussed with the captain and executive officer.
"Scientists from our fifth department believe that there must be a reason why you came to our timeline, and that Celestial Being organization may be an important clue. Therefore, I want you to share all the information you know about the Celestial Being organization.
Maybe tell us."
After a pause, he continued.
"This is very important. Maybe we can help you and face that... heavenly being together."
Ye Shi stared at him suspiciously, always feeling that this guy didn't tell him everything, and there might be secrets he didn't know about behind it.
But that's not important right now.
The important thing is that he doesn't think these people have any way to reverse their destined fate.
"You are already dead, I should make it clear enough, unless you can change what has happened." Luo Yi did not defend himself, but just stared into his eyes and said.
"Have you heard of the Gemini?" Ye Shi frowned. "...What is that?" Luo Yi said patiently.
"That's another cruiser. Its design drawings are the same as ours, and we even completed them on the same production line."
"Wait... I'm a little confused," Ye Shi raised his hand to stop him and looked at him in astonishment, "You mean... there is also an Orion?!"
Luo Yi said seriously.
"To be precise, you thought you were landing on the Orion, but it was actually the Gemini." Ye Shi interrupted him without hesitation.
"This is impossible. I saw with my own eyes the name of the Orion written on the hull of their ship." Luo Yi continued.
"A few lines of paint printed on the hull mean nothing. They can pretend to be us and do the dirty work we don't want to do."
Ye Shi asked with a frown.
"Dirty work that you don't want to do?" Luo Yi said without hiding anything, nodding his head.
"We rejected the Lagrange point's order regarding the final battle, and I think... the heavenly being you are talking about should be related to the 'final battle plan."
Ye Shi looked at him blankly. "What is the final battle..." He had never heard of this word at all.
But it's actually normal. Even if he comes from the future, it's impossible for him to know everything that happened in the past. Looking at Ye Shi, who knew nothing about it, Luo Yi felt relieved.
Maybe that drunkard's plan would actually succeed.
There is room for manipulation of history beyond the "horizon", and the space left for them seems to be quite large.
"The command at Lagrange Point did have plans to conduct a thorough cleansing of the surface. In their view, this would help the shelter to quickly complete post-war reconstruction... But we rejected them and launched the missile to the Gemini.
Neutron torpedo.”
"So others don't believe that you are from the future, but we do believe it... and according to your statement, this war has not ended, and has continued until two hundred years later."
Walking up to the stunned Ye Shi, Luo Yi put his hand on his shoulder and continued in a serious tone.
"This is our war and we will not leave you alone. We will move forward on our timeline and you will return to yours."
"We will meet in 200 years."
"For this I need you to tell me without reservation, everything you know about the gods."
Looking at those firm eyes, Ye Shi finally swallowed the words on his lips and nodded slowly. No matter how whimsical the plan sounded, no matter how slim the possibility was——
Because of their determination, he also planned to take a gamble with them. And what if it succeeded?
Not to mention that Jiang Xuezhou is saved, the alliance will also get an extremely powerful helper! "I promise you."