Chapter 992: Crossroads of Fate

Chapter 992: The Crossroads of Fate

Near the power room on the lower deck.

Orange-yellow holographic isolation barriers floated in the corridor, cordoning off a large quarantined area.

This was the site of the collision.

A lifeboat-class civilian vessel had smashed through the hull of the Orion-class cruiser, with half its fuselage lodged directly into the cruiser’s side.

Even in the relatively short history of human spaceflight, this was an absolutely explosive incident.

What was especially baffling was how that small craft had managed to penetrate the defense of the deflector shields and breach the nearly impenetrable hull.

Fortunately, the damage was confined to the gymnasium in the living quarters of the lower deck, and since the ship was about to enter a hyperspace lane, such recreational facilities were locked down, so no one was injured.

That was also why many people later came to gawk.

The ship’s safety and maintenance department immediately shut down the air exchange system in the damaged area and isolated the zone according to the safety manual’s contingency plan.

Although only a single, not-too-large compartment was actually damaged, the safety officer, based on the assessment report from the Fourth Division’s engineers, locked down the entire connected area.

At that moment, engineers in exoskeleton suits stood around the isolation barrier, operating tablets in their hands.

Seeing Luo Yi approach, one of the engineers stepped forward and said.

“Hey, this is a restricted area. You need to put on a spacesuit to come in.”

Luo Yi hung his respirator around his neck and showed his Third Division credentials.

“My modified cybernetics have low-pressure resistance. Any risk of a secondary explosion?”

The engineer exchanged glances with a colleague standing by the barrier, then turned back to him.

“No, we’ve already shut down the reactor and chemical batteries of the offending ship.”

“Good, I’m just looking around outside to get a sense of the situation.” Luo Yi patted him on the shoulder, crossed the barrier, and walked to the door marked [Under Repair].

The alloy door was tightly sealed, reinforced with folded titanium alloy plates on both sides.

A staff member standing nearby handed him a tablet, its screen connected to the camera of a repair robot.

Through the tablet’s display, Luo Yi saw the room’s interior: the gym equipment had been smashed into a corner by the immense impact, and the ship’s hull was dented inward, forming a breach about one to two meters in radius.

The scene could only be described as gruesome.

Luo Yi frowned.

Honestly, this didn’t look like damage a lifeboat-class civilian vessel could cause.

“It’s almost like an explosion, isn’t it?” The engineer shrugged at him, grinning. “But actually, no. We didn’t find any armor-piercing warheads on the ship. It really is a civilian vessel for scientific research, and there are clear signs of oxidation on its surface… From that, we infer this ship normally operated within an atmosphere.”

A staff member chimed in.

“Anyway, we rescued the person immediately. Other damage can’t be fixed with the ship’s repair tools; it’ll have to wait for the starport’s construction crew.”

Luo Yi nodded, recorded the information on a storage chip, and then continued.

“The child you rescued said there was another person on this… research ship, a little girl. Did you find anything?”

The staff members at the door exchanged bewildered glances, then looked at him with odd expressions.

“How is that possible?”

“The rescue team from the Eighth Division charged straight in. There was only one hibernation pod on the whole ship.”

“Maybe he hit his head too hard.”

Luo Yi said nothing. He tapped his finger twice on the screen, maneuvering the repair robot a few steps forward, and aimed the camera at the cockpit, which had been crushed out of shape.

There was nothing there.

As he pondered, the engineer beside him suddenly spoke.

“Speaking of which, something strange happened.”

Luo Yi looked at him.

“What strange thing?”

The engineer continued.

“Some people heard the explosion; some didn’t.”

Luo Yi was taken aback.

He remembered hearing it himself, so he had rushed to the scene immediately.

But it was true that some hadn’t heard it—like his comrade Xiao Yong, who only came after the alarm sounded.

That was odd too. Normally, the alarm should have gone off the moment the explosion occurred, but it failed. Instead, after the relevant units on the lower deck reported the damage to the First Division, the alarm was manually triggered by them.

That was also the main reason people had gathered. Based on past experience, if the alarm didn’t sound, it meant nothing serious, so it was natural to want to check it out.

What was unnatural was that some heard the explosion while others didn’t.

Luo Yi recalled the scene carefully. There hadn’t been many people in the room—only a few dozen.

Compared to the thousand-plus on the lower deck, that number was indeed too small.

“Is there any pattern to it?”

“I can’t tell,” the engineer shook his head. “I was hoping you might have some insight.”

A staff member nearby joked.

“Well, this should be the Fifth Division’s job, right? The war’s over; that department ought to earn its keep.”

“That guy said it—time traveler.”

“Haha, if that’s the case, we’d better buy ourselves some personal accident insurance right now.”

“Personal accident insurance, huh? Get the ‘Alliance’ to pay out?”

“Haha.”

Clearly, no one believed the child came from the future—after all, they were all still alive, an undeniable fact.

Just then, the engineer seemed to remember something and spoke again.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

Luo Yi, lost in thought, looked up.

“Can you say it all at once?”

“I just recalled it…” The engineer glanced at the adjacent rooms and pointed to the one at the far end of the corridor. “That’s the cafeteria in the living quarters. There were a few people inside at the time, but they said they didn’t hear anything. They only realized something was wrong when our people came in.”

Luo Yi was stunned again.

His duty room was quite far from here, yet he had heard the loud explosion clearly. But those near the epicenter heard nothing?

“Strange, isn’t it? The soundproofing there isn’t actually that good—people have complained more than once that the diners are too noisy,” the engineer shrugged, speaking in a joking tone. “Maybe we should find a real priest.”

“Makes sense.”

Luo Yi nodded, handed the tablet back to the staff member, and then looked seriously at the engineer.

"This information is crucial... I want to mark out those on the lower decks who heard the explosion and those who didn't, and also tag what they were doing and where they were at the time of the blast. That might help us resolve the predicament we're facing now."

"Good idea," the engineer snapped his fingers. "Go discuss it with the people from Section Eight—it's their job."

Section Eight was the ship's safety and maintenance department, equivalent to the security management division of the entire starship, including the safety director, security officers, and emergency rescue teams.

Although Section Four (Engineering and Maintenance) also had "maintenance" in its name, its primary responsibilities were equipment upkeep and technical tasks like extravehicular operations.

A starship with three thousand people was like a small town sailing through space, with almost everyone assigned a specific duty.

But sometimes Luo Yi couldn't help but complain—there were too many departments. Even they themselves had to think for a moment about which task specifically belonged to whom.

Fortunately, everyone was responsible; at worst, there wasn't enough work to go around, but no one passed the buck.

Luo Yi noted the gathered intelligence and nodded crisply.

"I'll go."

...

As the weapons and defense department of Section Three, it was the quasi-combat division of the Orion-class missile cruiser, as well as the emergency response department.

Although routine security incidents were handled by Section Eight, for major accidents severe enough to damage the hull, threaten the lives of all crew members, or where suspicion of terrorist attack couldn't be ruled out, Section Three typically got involved.

As a professional soldier, Luo Yi acted swiftly. After inspecting the accident site and the torpedo bay, he immediately went to Section Eight to exchange information and retrieved the access logs for all functional facilities.

This method made it simple to determine everyone's location at the time.

Section Eight took the intelligence provided by Section Three quite seriously, dispatching nearly all security personnel to conduct interviews and investigations among all 1,600 crew members on the lower decks.

The results surprised everyone: only a little over two hundred people had heard the explosion, but since the alarm hadn't sounded, most didn't think much of it.

In Section Eight's conference room, a three-dimensional holographic image of the Orion cruiser's lower decks floated above the table.

Following the combat personnel of Section Three, they marked the areas where those who heard the explosion were located in red, while the areas of those who didn't hear it were marked in yellow.

The pale blue holographic image was almost entirely filled with red and yellow. The winding red stretched like a long dragon along the inner side of the hull, but unfortunately, there was no obvious pattern.

Interestingly, within the same area, there was no case where some heard the explosion and others didn't.

In other words, there was no third possibility between red and yellow.

"It seems the problem lies in space," Luo Yi said thoughtfully, staring at the marked map. "I think we should conduct a focused inspection of these rooms marked in red."

The security director of Section Eight stood nearby, his stubbly face etched with a subtle expression.

He seemed to have thought of something but found it too far-fetched. Still, he finally cleared his throat and said,

"Do you know what I'm thinking?"

A pair of eyes around the conference table turned to him. Luo Yi voiced the question for everyone present.

"What?"

The security director immediately replied,

"Schrödinger's cat."

Murmurs spread around the table; some agreed with this notion.

Looking at the silent Luo Yi, the security director continued in an uncertain tone,

"Now we're stuck in the hyperspace lane, aren't we? And this strange thing happens... Could it be that we're trapped in something like a quantum space?"

Disliking such vague statements, Luo Yi asked seriously,

"What is quantum space? What's the specific definition?"

The security director was momentarily at a loss, rubbing his fingers over his stubble and smiling wryly.

"I'm actually just guessing. I'm not a physicist... I studied logistics management."

A security officer standing nearby whistled and teased,

"Looks like no one on this ship is actually qualified for their job."

"Isn't the guy from Section Five qualified?"

"Qualified, but useless."

Luo Yi made a helpless expression, not expecting even here someone would be mocking Dr. Wu.

"I plan to go ask for his opinion later... about the quantum space you mentioned."

The security director coughed awkwardly.

"That was a name I just made up... but it's something like that. Go ahead and ask."

Jokes aside.

That guy was still a top student after all.

He actually had faith in Dr. Wu's expertise and credentials.

After the meeting ended,

Luo Yi hurried to Section Five, only to find Dr. Wu wasn't there—just an intern he was mentoring. After some inquiry, he learned that the guy had gone drinking again.

The Research and Technology Department had too little work; it was a completely useless fringe department, and most people working there were lazy and undisciplined.

Helpless, Luo Yi had to contact a friend in Section Eight and eventually found the drunken man in a bar tucked away in a corner of the middle decks.

Looking at Dr. Wu slumped over the bar, Luo Yi sighed, sat down beside him, and then turned to the bionic robot bartender.

"Two glasses of lemon water."

"Iced or room temperature?"

"One iced, one room temperature."

"Very well, sir."

The bionic robot replied in a gentle voice, and soon two glasses of water with lemon slices appeared on the table.

Pushing the warm glass toward Dr. Wu, Luo Yi took a sip from his own glass with ice.

From 8 a.m. standard time until now, after work, he had been busy for ten straight hours without a bite to eat.

But that wasn't entirely due to being busy—partly, he just had no appetite.

Watching Wu Xinghuan reach for the glass, he said in a conversational tone,

"Is it appropriate to drink during work hours?"

"It doesn't matter..."

Wu Xinghuan grabbed the glass and took a sip, found no alcohol, and it was warm, then frowned.

Seeing this guy's laid-back attitude, Luo Yi raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, 'doesn't matter'? Didn't you discover new physics? And you said we'd miss you... the you who never let go of the bottle?"

Hearing this, Wu Xinghuan let out a self-deprecating chuckle, swirled the lemon water in his hand, and cast a dazed gaze at the liquor cabinet before him.

"It doesn't matter anymore... No one will remember us. I didn't discover new physics. The old edifice didn't collapse—it's even more solid. We're still in our cage, just a hamster that happened to stop on the wheel."

The guy was clearly drunk. Luo Yi couldn't understand a word he said, only that he seemed to deny his earlier conclusions.

"So... now you think that guy isn't a time traveler anymore?"

"Is it really that important?" Wu Xinghuan shook his head, picked up his cup, and took a sip.

Luo Yi furrowed his brow, staring intently into his eyes.

"Listen, you're the only one on this ship who might help us understand our situation. We need to know what's happening to us. I don't know what problems you've encountered in your research, but I hope at least for now, you can pull yourself together!"

Those words seemed to have some effect. Wu Xinghuan looked up at him, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Let's make a hypothesis."

Luo Yi watched him, urging him to continue with his gaze.

Wu Xinghuan set his cup on the table, picked two seeds from a lemon slice, and dropped them in.

Watching the lemon seeds sink, he spoke slowly.

"There's a video game with a lot of people... let's say ten billion for the sake of argument."

Luo Yi frowned.

"And then?"

Wu Xinghuan continued.

"Our eyes have limits, and so do cameras. Now suppose this camera can only see a hundred million people, and our console supports a hundred million on screen at once."

Without waiting for Luo Yi to ask, he pressed on.

"So here's the question: where are the other nine point nine billion people outside the camera's view? Where do they go?"

Thrown off by the question, Luo Yi paused for a moment, then replied with a strange expression.

"Of course, they're outside the camera's view."

"Smart!" Wu Xinghuan gave a thumbs-up and grinned. "Too bad you only see the surface... The truth is, they all exist in a quantum state."

"You know they exist, the console assumes they exist, and even their names are recorded, but they aren't actually generated in our program, are they? Or rather, they're saved in the cache, only generated in real time when we move the camera over them, and then we see them."

"People in the old era used this method to make games cheaply. By limiting the perspective to a certain range and cleverly using loading screens, they could build a planet with just a few textures."

"I think I get what you're saying," Luo Yi said, frowning. "But what does this have to do with our current situation?"

Wu Xinghuan didn't answer directly. Instead, he knocked over the cup on the bar.

Looking at the stunned expression on Luo Yi's face, he said slowly, "Now an explosion happens outside the camera's view, and it really does happen. You even see the death toll, the aftermath, the ripple effects... But did the explosion actually happen?"

"Is that even a question?" Luo Yi looked at him, puzzled. "You said it yourself—it really did happen."

"I'm the console. I'm the narrator. The explosion is something I told you about." Wu Xinghuan stared into his eyes, smiling. "But you should understand that before you moved the camera over there, the explosion's effects, the screams, what someone saw and did just before dying—none of it was actually generated in my program, was it?"

"Maybe when the explosion happened, some guy was flipping you off from outside the game. I bet if you saw it, you'd be shocked—an NPC not only gained self-awareness but broke the fourth wall... But you'll never get to see it, because by the time you move the camera over, you might not even find his corpse."

Luo Yi stared at him blankly, a vague understanding dawning.

"The horizon," Wu Xinghuan slowly uttered the word, then continued. "We call the space-time boundary where an event can just be observed the 'horizon.' In this exaggerated example, the edge of your camera is exactly that horizon."

"And for us sitting here, we're right outside that horizon, in hyperspace. That includes that misguided kid too. We're all sealed in a black box that the outside can't penetrate. Our ending is a fixed fact for him, and his ending is irrelevant to us, because no matter what he tells us or what happens in the future, we're already dead in his timeline."

Saying this, Wu Xinghuan let out a self-deprecating laugh.

"The universe is crueler than we imagine, isn't it? According to this theory, anything we do right now is meaningless. Even if we carve words all over the walls, writing down our legendary experiences, what's meant to be erased will still be erased."

"Maybe we've encountered time travelers countless times in history... but never once has it been an exception. They're like that NPC flipping off the player from outside the camera—no one knows he broke the fourth wall. By the time the god looking down on us comes to his senses, he's already been completely erased. And the reason is exactly the result we see... because we've never heard of that time traveler."

Luo Yi couldn't help but hold his breath. After a long pause, he said slowly, "But... how did we get in?"

Was it just because of hyperspace travel?

But since this war began, they'd undergone countless hyperspace journeys and never heard of any starship encountering something like this...

Wait.

Maybe it wasn't that they hadn't encountered it.

A bead of cold sweat slowly trickled down Luo Yi's forehead, dripping onto the bar.

Maybe someone had encountered it, but no one knew.

Just like no one knows what happens after death—whether it's reincarnation or going to a place called heaven.

The only message they leave to the outside—or rather, to those 'within the horizon'—is one thing.

Unquestionable death.

"How did we get in? Hah, only heaven knows how we got in."

Wu Xinghuan laughed out loud, looking at Luo Yi as if he'd finally caught on, and said lazily, "That kind of thing doesn't matter at all. Maybe a huge explosion killed us all in an instant, and we just don't know it..."

He hiccupped, drunk, and stared into Luo Yi's eyes, speaking slowly and deliberately.

"So why do I say you're doing something meaningless? Because that guy was telling the truth! We might already be... no, not might—we definitely are!"

"We're already dead!"

"And you and me sitting here... we're just ghosts."

Silence fell by the bar.

Only the sound of the bionic robot wiping glasses, making a squeaking noise.

Luo Yi stared blankly at Wu Xinghuan, studying his face for a long time, then finally turned to the robot bartender.

"...Two glasses of 'Fountain of Life.'"

The bionic bartender said in a gentle voice, "I wouldn't recommend drinking during your shift, especially strong cocktails."

"But you gave him one." Luo Yi pointed at Wu Xinghuan sitting beside him.

A troubled expression flickered across the bionic bartender's face.

"But this gentleman said he's from Division Five, and you all say Division Five doesn't have to work..."

Luo Yi's brow twitched, but he remained expressionless. "I ordered it for him."

This explanation seemed to satisfy the bionic bartender. Two glasses of clear, strong liquor soon appeared on the bar.

Luo Yi pushed one glass in front of Dr. Wu, then sprinkled a few grains of salt into his own.

"Everything you've said is just your hypothesis. I could also hypothesize that we're on different timelines... like that parallel universe theory."

Wu Xinghuan shrugged.

"You don't really understand what parallel universe theory is. If you did, you'd know it's no different from what I'm saying. The fate of this part of space-time is fixed—almost fixed—"

"I think there is a difference. And the difference is that I'm still breathing, my heart is still beating. At least for now, I'm alive." Luo Yi stared into his eyes without blinking, speaking slowly and deliberately. "The living should do the living's work. As for what happens after death, leave that to other living people to think about."

"But I have to apologize for my earlier prejudice. You haven't done nothing—in fact, you've done more than any of us."

Before the astonished Dr. Wu, Luo Yi downed the liquor in one gulp, stood up with both hands on the table.

"There are still things I can do. Even if they seem meaningless to you, I don't want to give up just like that."

Just as he was about to leave, a monotonous clapping suddenly came from the entrance of the bar.

Including the android standing behind the counter, the three of them turned their gazes toward the door, only to see their captain standing there.

"Good evening, Captain," the android behind the counter greeted with a smile.

As for Wu Xinghuan, he awkwardly hid his glass behind him and then slid off the barstool.

Because standing right behind the captain was his cousin, Wu Mengke.

He could already feel her sharp gaze fixed on him, drunk and unsteady.

"Well said."

Zhao Tianhe lowered his applauding hands, nodded to the android bartender, and then looked at the two standing before the counter with a smile.

"This is the attitude a Human Union soldier should have—never giving up until the last moment."

"You flatter me..." Luo Yi, who had saluted, said stiffly.

Zhao Tianhe returned the salute briefly, then turned his gaze to a certain someone who couldn't stand straight from drunkenness, continuing with a smile.

"Dr. Wu, I noticed earlier that when you mentioned 'our fate is predetermined,' you used the word 'almost.'"

"That's right..." Avoiding Wu Mengke's piercing stare, Wu Xinghuan rubbed his nose awkwardly.

Zhao Tianhe spoke with a smile.

"So there is a way to change it, isn't there?"

Wu Xinghuan was taken aback.

Before he could speak, the captain paused for a moment and continued.

"For instance... keeping the predetermined future unchanged, only altering the unknown part."

Wu Xinghuan smiled bitterly.

"But how is that possible..."

Zhao Tianhe looked at him.

"The Gemini is the Orion's sister ship; we share the same design blueprint."

Wu Xinghuan stared at the captain with a strange expression.

"Your meaning is..."

Zhao Tianhe spoke with clear logic.

"The ship that collided with us lacks interstellar cruise capability. We reasonably suspect the accident occurred near Earth... at least within reach of a reaction engine."

Wu Xinghuan glanced quickly at Luo Yi beside him, and seeing the latter nod, he whispered.

"It seems... that's the case."

Not paying attention to his small gesture, Zhao Tianhe continued.

"And we are in a hyperspace lane. As far as I know, a hyperspace lane has no endpoints or starting points in the classical spatial sense—only endpoints and starting points in the temporal sense... Am I right?"

"Not exactly, but close enough. Our distance relative to two massive celestial bodies is incalculable... Wait, you mean—" Mid-sentence, Wu Xinghuan's eyes widened in shock as he stared at the captain.

Zhao Tianhe fixed his gaze on him and voiced his hypothesis.

"Is it possible that this time traveler who claims to have boarded the Orion actually doesn't know whether he was on the Orion or the Gemini?"

Luo Yi frowned and asked.

"But didn't the Gemini already return—"

Zhao Tianhe raised a hand to cut him off.

"They were sunk, and sunk by us."

The air in the bar fell into an eerie silence.

Luo Yi and Wu Xinghuan stood frozen, then the former instinctively looked at Wu Mengke standing behind Zhao Tianhe—the ship's second-in-command, the Administrator.

Her face was expressionless, showing no surprise at all.

It was clear the captain wasn't bluffing.

Luo Yi's throat bobbed as he stared incredulously at Zhao Tianhe, the superior he had once deeply respected.

"...Why?"

Zhao Tianhe looked at the young soldier, let out a slow sigh, and spoke with a complex tone.

"Because... we had no choice."

"You... killed people..." Wu Xinghuan stared blankly at his cousin, forcing out the last half from trembling lips. "...Three thousand?"

His eyes were fixed on her, but this time it was she who looked away, avoiding her brother's gaze.

Zhao Tianhe cleared his throat softly, breaking the stiffness that hung in the air.

"We had to stop the Aerospace Force from committing a crime. As for the specifics... it's all recorded on the black box. When we return to the Lagrange point station, I will submit to arrest and explain my actions to the military tribunal. Furthermore, this was my decision alone, and has nothing to do with any of you."

"In short, this 'accident' runs deep. I don't want to tarnish my honor, but we had to make a choice. If we hadn't acted, not only would we have died, but many others would have—including countless survivors who barely made it through these three years..."

Luo Yi stared blankly at the captain, unable to accept this hasty explanation in his heart.

The Gemini was the Orion's sister ship; personnel often rotated between them. There were many people he knew on that vessel.

Yet now, his most respected superior was telling him... those people were dead.

And killed by them.

Without the vast majority even knowing...

Wu Xinghuan took a deep breath, struggling to pull himself away from this nightmare.

He had indeed glimpsed a glimmer of hope—

In a voice no one else could hear, he muttered to himself.

"There are two cats in the box... only one is dead; the other's fate is unknown."

"We saw the one who opened the box, but the opener only saw one dead cat... As long as they die, we live."

Luo Yi couldn't make out what he was saying, nor did he have the heart to listen.

Looking at this lost young man, Zhao Tianhe's slightly weathered face showed a weariness he had never revealed before, and he spoke slowly.

"I'll explain the matter of the Gemini and the orders from the Lagrange point station later. For now, let's discuss how to solve the problem at hand."