Age of Cosmic Exploration
chapter-241

Chapter 241: The Choice

When Yao Yuan led the Black Star Troopers to launch the comeback, Ying’s group, which was in the space merchants’ mother ship, found themselves in huge trouble…

They were lost.

It was uncanny, but they were certainly lost.

One of the biggest reasons was the enormous size of the spaceship.

Other than that, Ying’s group wasn’t equipped with cartographical tools like a compass. Then again, even if they did, it would be completely useless since they were in space. For civilizations with 4th revolution technology, they relied on coordination to pinpoint the direction and distance of far-away locations like destination planets, suns, or other celestial bodies.

For a close destination, one could rely on connection to the Hope’s central mainframe, the Prototype 003 Space Combat Jets, or the computer program inside the space armors to calibrate the direction and distance of the location.

Naturally, Ying’s space armor had this installed function, but for some reason, it was completely nullified while they were inside the space merchants’ mother ship. To borrow an analogy, it was like how a compass started flitting all over the place when it was within a mountain range with its own magnetic field. The computer calibration was in complete chaos.

Thankfully, the other functions of the space armor were perfectly functional. Therefore, Ying’s group was practically unstoppable. After they dealt with the military unit, Ying’s group started cutting down the alien civilians that came across. Eventually, their path was as empty as a ghost town, and the space merchants moved out of their way, allowing them to roam the spaceship freely.

Before long, Ying’s group felt that something had gone terribly wrong.

First was the problem of navigation. The space armors had the ability to record the path that they had taken before, but gradually, the computers inside the space armors seemed to slowly malfunction. The directions stopped making sense and certain legends and parts of the map couldn’t be showed. Not only that, the communication function of the space armors had gone offline as well. It was obvious that the space merchants had employed some sort of high-tech technology to undermine the information transmission and recording of the space armors.

The second sign was from Zhang Heng [1]. He felt a sense of danger coming from all around the space merchants’ ship pressing down on him. Probably the space merchants had realized the true threat of the Black Star Troopers, so they stopped dispatching light infantry and were preparing their siege engines. This was something that greatly worried Ying’s group. The troopers had a distinct upper hand when facing off with light-armored units, but how about siege machines that had technological advantages?

Due to that reason alone, even though the group was completely lost, Ying decided to get the group to continue moving. Navigation fell squarely on Zhang Heng’s shoulders. When they came to any forks in the road, they took the one where Zhang Heng felt least threatened. Of course, certain paths were blocked off on the spaceship, so after a discussion between Ying and Zhang Heng, they decided to ascend from the lower levels to the upper levels.

However, they needed to come up with another plan soon. A human being’s physical capacity was limited, and the troopers weren’t superheroes that could just blast their way out of their enemy’s spaceship. As long as they remained trapped here, eventually they would fall into the space merchants’ hands.

Furthermore, the battery storage of the space armors wouldn’t allow them to continue this charade for more than several days. After the space armors died, mankind would be like a mouse trapped inside a maze. Capture was inevitable!

Therefore, during their escape, Ying kept turning to Ren Tao and Xiao Niao to ask for a solution.

Both tried their best to come up with a solution, but Ren Tao was definitely not in his best condition. He suggested they go back to the interrogation hall and from there cut their way through to the hangar. This ridiculous idea was immediately vetoed by Ying.

The security for the hall was probably sky-high, making it a place that was impossible breach with only about 10 combatants. Even if they could, it was highly doubtful that the space merchants would just let them waltz onto the Observer and return to the Hope. The plan was crazy to say the least!

Ren Tao was too flustered by his worry for his sister, Chou Yue, who was on the Hope, to come up with a sound plan. The space merchants were ready to double-cross humanity from the very beginning, so they were most likely wreaking havoc on the Hope while they were scurrying through the space merchant’s mother ship like rats.

Isolated from the rest, Ying’s group started to envision the worst possible outcome… the Hope had fallen and the few of them were the last remaining members of the human race!

This was the conclusion drawn by Ren Tao after his analysis. It drew a heavy silence over the group; even Xiao Niao, who had been arguing with him, was in solemn silence.

Of course, they didn’t want this to happen, but it had the highest possibility of happening. After all, the space merchants were using 4th revolution weapons. The fact that their technology level was higher than mankind’s was undeniable. Lastly, the double-cross came as a surprise. The complete capture of the Hope was entirely possible.

A worse outcome was the space merchants had no need for human beings other than the ones trapped on their mother ship. Then, they could have used some kind of super weapon to evaporate the Hope… This was not that hard to imagine.

If that was the case, what was going to happen to the few of them?

No place to call home in this vast cosmos, no families and friends, no bond to a race, no future, no anything…

What was the point of living then?

"Let’s just murder our way back!" Xiao Niao suddenly yelled.

Ying, who was running at the front of the team, shut him down immediately with an angry roar. "Have you gone crazy as well? Ren Tao is unable to think straight because of his woman. What about you? Your two gay friends?"

Xiao Niao fired back at him, "I’ve lost it for the sake of humanity, is that so wrong? Furthermore, I didn’t say we’re going back to surrender. Hear me out, it is certain that the computer systems in our space armors are being manipulated in some way, right?"

Ying calmed himself and replied, "That’s probably right, but what about it?"

Xiao Niao responded, "This means that the space merchants don’t want us to see the map of their mother ship. If I’m not mistaken, according to everything we’ve observed so far, this spaceship should still be relying on polymerized reactors as its fuel source, wouldn’t you agree?"

Ying’s interest was piqued. "Go on."

Xiao Niao continued, "We will launch an attack on the nearest carrier point to take control of it. Of course, this requires a little planning because a good strategy will be needed. This is your field of expertise, so I’ll leave it to you. After we take down the point, we’ll get into their siege machines to pull up the map of this ship. Our systems might be affected, but they wouldn’t target their own computer system, right?"

Before Ying could reply, Liu Bai beside him retorted, "This plan is no good. We don’t know how to read their language or, for that matter, operate their computers."

Ren Tao immediately responded with eyes red with anxiety, "No, it’s possible! Not sure whether you guys have noticed this or not, but after I woke up from the ambush, I realized that the space merchants didn’t put up a united front, or rather, of their different races, only the four-armed gorillas are battle hungry. The rest of them, especially the big-headed aliens, were definitely not fond of battle. There were signs of deserters. It’s just that we killed them all, so they weren’t given a chance to surrender."

This observation did surprise Ying, Liu Bai, and Ebon. Ebon immediately confirmed, "You’re right. I’ve noticed that other than the more advanced weaponry and the alien gorilla’s natural physical prowess, the space merchants’ army is suspiciously weak. There was no strategy or discipline to their movement. I thought I was imagining it… Do you think it’s because their main army was dispatched to take the Hope so the ones left behind were the back-up units or local police force?"

Ying said coldly, "What’s the point in dwelling on the dead… Xiao Niao and Ren Tao, stop circling around and lay your plan in the open. We have no time for word games."

Ren Tao answered, with an eagerness that was very uncharacteristic of him, "It’s simple! Like Xiao Niao said, we take control of a small siege unit and then set up a contained trap. After we wait for the enemy to fall into our trap, we aim for the deserters and wait for them to surrender. We’ll make them pull up the spaceship map and force them to translate for us. Of course, we need to inquire about the Hope’s latest situation. That is the question that we’re most interested in after all. After that…

"If the Hope is still intact, we will proceed to this ship’s heart, maybe it’s central mainframe or engine room, some place of import, and use it as a leverage to force the merchants to stop their attack on humanity…

"If the Hope is gone, then there is not much else we can do, other than…"

Ren Tao’s eyes flashed with malice as he forced his sentence out through gritted teeth.

"Blow this ship up and make sure these cretins die alongside mankind!"