Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 237: One Step Back is Hell!

The Defense Unit’s progress wasn’t going smoothly. When they were dismantling and transferring (the space armors were too heavy to carry in one piece, so they had to be dismantled first), they unfortunately ran into the invading space merchants.

Instead of using Gaussian weaponry, the space merchants were equipped with unique-looking electronic pulse rifles. They appeared to be more high-tech than Gaussian weapons but still not yet in the stage of actual plasma weaponry.

Instead of bullets, the weapons shot out electronic currents, and there were basically no misses. The most important feature of this weapon was that it wasn’t affected by electromagnetic shields. However, the damage of the currents was significantly weaker than Gaussian weapons. For example, a Defense Unit soldier in space armor required at least 7 shots before the gun would take effect, and even then, the damage was only strong enough to paralyze someone.

The space merchants’ aim wasn’t to kill but to capture. They intended to capture all the human beings alive. Of course, their main targets were the Homo Evolutis.

The Defense Unit soldiers hadn’t faced a weapon like this before, so almost 300 soldiers were incapacitated when the infiltration started. The element of surprise could play a huge role in deciding the sway of the battle. While the rest tried to put up a fight, they were slowly retreating, pushed back by the space merchants. The biggest frustration was their low power Gaussian rifles; their power was equivalent to normal firearms. Could such a weapon pierce through the space merchants’ electromagnetic shield? Impossible!

It was a one-sided combat situation favoring the space merchants. Even though it was hard to tell whether there was any death on the humans’ side, it was certain that the space merchants had suffered zero deaths. Furthermore, the space merchants were reinforced by the four-armed space gorillas. The soldiers’ bullets basically bounced off their armors without even creating a dent.

When the Defense Unit retreated to the central mainframe area, more than 500 soldiers were lost and they only had 30 to 40 space armors with them. Of course, one of them was the red space armor tailored for Yao Yuan.

The other unit led by Guang Zhen had a better experience. He went to the basement levels to round up the patrolling soldiers and Homo Evolutis that were at their residences. The damage suffered wasn’t so heavy because the basement levels were further away from the hangars. However, about 200 soldiers fell in the mission to protect important personnel like Bo Li. Then Guang Zhen led everyone back to the central mainframe, and in the end, there were only about one thousand soldiers left when they gathered at the central mainframe!

The central mainframe covered only a small area. It was a highly defensible location because it had only one entrance, creating a bottleneck situation. However, it still didn’t bode well for humanity because the difference in quality of weaponry was too big. One party had something akin to plastic guns, while the other had something that was indefensible. The paralysis incurred by the electric pulse guns was so strong that once hit, it would take at least a day for its victim to regain consciousness.

On paper, it might need several shots to fully incapacitate a person, but considering the speed of electrical currents, the few shots only took 2 seconds in total.

On the other hand, it required the focus fire of about 10 soldiers on the same target to create a ripple on the space merchant’s electromagnetic shield to temporarily force them back. The bottleneck situation limited not only the space merchants’ military but also the Defense Unit’s. They could set up a half circle perimeter inside the room instead of the corridor. The formation would be more suitable for a more focused line of fire, but they couldn’t do so because behind them was the central mainframe!

The moment the central mainframe was damaged, be it only a single dent, it would create irreparable damage to such a delicate piece of machinery. The central mainframe was the heart of the ship; even a tiny bit of damage to it could spell doom to the entirety of human civilization!

One step back was hell!

Therefore, everyone knew that they couldn’t retreat even another step. A heavy silence permeated the barricade. It was not fear but resoluteness. The moment the soldiers at the front fell, the ones behind quickly stepped forth to take their places. They took up their weapons and fought alongside their comrades until it was their turn to fall. This was repeated continuously.

There were no orders from their superiors, but everyone knew what they were supposed to do. The soldiers kept stepping forward to block the entrance to the central mainframe. There was no exception.

To quote what had been said before…

One step back was hell!

Behind them, a few groups of ladies were weeping silently, but most of them silently watched this situation unfold. It was not a stunned silence but a weighty silence. At the last moment, after the soldiers had fallen, the Homo Evolutis and space troopers who were out of their armors stepped up to the plate.

Right then, Xi Kong, who was in the crowd, wiped away her tears and started singing. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it cut through the commotion created by the bullets and electrical pulses, the silence that pervaded the air into everyone’s hearts and souls. The civilians who were avoiding capture by the space merchants, the soldiers that were fighting, and those that had been captured by the space merchants all heard her voice.

The Defense Unit soldiers that were captured was the first group to respond to Xi Kong’s singing. They stopped caring about their personal safety. The song they heard spoke of the biggest crisis that had faced humanity yet, the type that one step back would spell extinction for humanity. They heard the final struggle for humanity, the hail-mary effort that was willing to put oneself on the line for the sake of humanity; all these thoughts rang in their heads. Even though their weapons were confiscated, they bounced back up to tackle the space merchants that guarded over them…

Next were the civilians. They stopped pushing and crashing into each other like headless chickens. They continued their effort to escape capture, but there was no longer that sense of being lost. Some of the elderly stopped moving completely. They fixed their clothes and waited for the electric pulse to knock them out…

Control of mankind’s three other spaceships, the Defender and the Observers, were lost as well because they were within the the Hope’s control range and not out of its creator’s particle field, so all of the functions on the three ships had gone offline too.

The space merchants infiltrated these three ships as well. Of course, their main effort was to capture live humans. Even though the attack force wasn’t as vehement as the one on the Hope, they too were losing against the space merchants.

When they heard Xi Kong’s song, the people that remained on the three ships had a sudden thought that crossed their minds. They retreated to the emergency control center, and all of them did the same thing…

When mankind created the three spaceships, to prevent the possibility of losing control of these three ships during space war, a unique change in the design was introduced. There was no way for humanity to tell what kind of alien they would eventually come up against, and if it was the mother nest alien again, instead of being infected, death would seem to be the better choice.

Therefore, self-destruct devices were installed into the three ships. There were two ways to initiate them. One was through electrical signals, and another was through manual operation. The two methods were not limited by each other…

The workers on the three ships came to a unanimous decision without consulting with each other. Basking in the sound of Xi Kong’s song, they pulled the self-destruct lever with grim yet determined expressions…

At that moment, three giant, bright, and circular halos burst out in space, consuming tens of alien spacecrafts and more than 300 alien battle jets that were close to the three ships. In the end, there was nothing but space dust…

Back on the Hope, when the three ships exploded, Yao Yuan raised his head suddenly. He hadn’t actually witnessed anything, but there was a heavy feeling that pressed down on him, just like… in that very moment, more than a thousand human beings had left him with their conviction, the conviction that spoke of love and protection towards the human race!

Yao Yuan turned to ask Bo Li and Zhang Heng with a voice that had coarsened, "Still can’t locate the reason why the central mainframe was taken control of?"

Zhang Heng wiped the sweat that was pouring down his forehead. "It’s a type of code, a code that identifies and attacks human digital fingerprints, but something else within it is changed. F*ck, what is up with this quantum lock!?"

Yao Yuan sighed before turning to Bo Li. "Bo Li, how come your robot prototype isn’t being controlled?"

Bo Li was slightly taken aback before answering, "Because it was not created using human technology; it doesn’t belong to the human digital system but the junkyard aliens’… Actually, there might be another way out of this."

Yao Yuan asked hurriedly, "What?"

"Destroy the central mainframe itself…"

Bo Li continued, in a serious tone, "Destroying the central mainframe means that we will lose all the life support and anti-gravity system, but it is the only way we can stop this virus thing. After that, we only need to…"

"Need to kill all these infiltrators before our lives run out and escape the creator’s particle zone for the remaining members of the Workshop to repair the central mainframe. Is that right?"

Yao Yuan raised his head to look at the defense barricade. The rotation was still going on. but the numbers… was slowly decreasing.

"Black Star Troopers, equip your space armors! The rest that don’t have space armors, follow behind us as we rush to the space combat jet hangars!

"Destroy the central mainframe! Since the space merchants have us cornered, we shall fight back with the full force of our lives…

"And claim all of theirs!"