Chapter 994: Deviation

Chapter 994: Deviation

On every deck of the Orion-class missile cruiser, the broadcast from the ship's command echoed through the corridors, the mess hall, the bar, the restrooms, and above the heads of every crew member.

"...Good evening, crew of the Orion-class missile cruiser. I am Zhao Tianhe, your captain."

"I apologize for disturbing your rest at this hour, but I ask you to give me ten minutes to patiently listen to this broadcast."

"I believe you have all noticed that our ship encountered an unprecedented situation upon entering the hyperspace lane, and for unknown reasons, we have come to a halt in a rift in spacetime..."

"To escape our current predicament and for the future of human civilization..."

"We must unite!"

...

In the broadcast, Zhao Tianhe, captain of the Orion-class missile cruiser, confessed the entire situation to the crew aboard the ship and outlined the battle plan jointly devised by the First, Third, and Fifth Divisions.

The operation was codenamed "Dawn."

They would disguise themselves as the corpses of their allies, maintaining silence in the abyss-like outer space to deceive observers, and endure a two-century-long historical blackout beyond everyone's sight, until their timeline converged with that of the child from the Wasteland Era, year 215.

This broadcast, personally delivered by Zhao Tianhe, stirred considerable commotion aboard the cruiser.

Not only because the identity of the young man named Ye Shi as a "time traveler" had received "official" acknowledgment, but also because they learned of the fate of the Gemini from the broadcast.

Unbeknownst to them, they had become the executioners who killed their allies...

In the mess hall on the lower deck, a group of red-faced, thick-necked crew members were arguing loudly.

A man with a bushy beard slammed his fist heavily onto the table, roaring with undisguised fury.

"This is absurd... Just because of suspicion, we fired neutron torpedoes at them?!"

Sitting across from him, Xiao Yong, arms crossed, remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

"I believe our captain made no mistake. We couldn't have carried out that plan called 'Final War.' Conflict was inevitable. It might even be that the moment we refused to execute the order, the Gemini's torpedoes were already aimed at us."

The bearded man glared at him with angry eyes.

"Evidence? Just because you say so?"

"There's no such thing," Xiao Yong shook his head, meeting the man's gaze without flinching. "This is space, the outer void. The dead have no say. I'm not afraid; I'd rather it were me on that ship. But what I stand on cannot be handed over to them. My family is on Earth... So they had to die."

"You bastard..."

The two were about to come to blows, but their colleagues pulled them apart.

Watching the crew argue endlessly over the Gemini incident, Lin Youyou, sitting in a corner of the mess hall, couldn't help but wear a worried expression.

She couldn't agree with what Xiao Yong said, nor could she agree with the decisions made by the captain and the colleagues from the First Division, even if they might have been right.

Those were comrades who had fought side by side with them, the few survivors of that war.

If everyone expressed their demands in such a drastic manner, even if they managed to survive this temporary crisis, they would surely lose everything in the next gamble someday in the future.

Perhaps being trapped in the hyperspace channel now was fate's punishment for them...

She turned to Ye Shi, who was silently eating, and couldn't help asking.

"Do you think we did the right thing?"

She wanted to know history's judgment of them.

Ye Shi paused his chopsticks, thought for a moment, and replied.

"I don't know. In the history I know... it was you who bombed us. But who knows? There's a long stretch of things we don't know yet—the Orbital Drop Division, the formation of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, and so on... For us, the collapse of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee was already distant enough, and you existed before it was even born."

Seeing that "old-before-his-time" look, Lin Youyou felt a pang of sympathy and wanted to reach out and pat the boy's head, but then remembered he didn't like being treated like a child, so she withdrew her hand.

"You're talking about your judgment. What I really want to know is yours."

"Me?" Ye Shi was taken aback, then thought seriously for a moment. "I might lean toward agreeing with what you did."

"Why?" Lin Youyou couldn't help asking. "But I killed over three thousand people... our own comrades."

"Maybe because I live in an era where 'if you don't kill one, you have to kill ten thousand'?" Ye Shi shrugged. "Look at it from another angle—you just saved a planet full of people."

That was just a comforting remark. He himself wasn't sure how to judge the matter.

From the perspective of a Vault dweller, the dead seemed to be only those who hadn't made it into the shelters; the Vault residents were hardly affected.

In fact, most of the people they saved ended up dying anyway, and in prolonged torment, passing their suffering to the next generation.

Then those who survived became the first Wastelanders.

From that angle, the plan called "Final War" might not have been an unkind choice.

Without the Wastelanders, the Enlightenment Society probably wouldn't have appeared, nor the Torch Church or the Celestials...

But on the flip side, the Post-War Reconstruction Committee would likely vanish too, along with places like Boulder City and Singularity City, seeds sown by the former on the wasteland.

That would be a future composed entirely of Vault dwellers.

They would probably rebuild a new Human Federation on the wasteland, exactly according to the standards planned long ago, as the "Ark Project" originally envisioned.

It's hard to compare which future is better.

But if he had to choose...

"I think you did well... Don't blame yourself too much."

Watching Ye Shi resume eating, Lin Youyou was startled, then teased him.

"Look at you, comforting me now."

Chewing his food, Ye Shi said slowly.

"The first part counts, but the second part is sincere."

"Didn't know you had it in you to care about people."

Looking at this interesting young man, Lin Youyou rested her chin on her hand and suddenly smiled slyly, catching him off guard.

"By the way, is that girl named Jiang Xuezhou your girlfriend?"

Ye Shi nearly choked on his rice, coughed, and blushed as he said.

"What weird things are you saying? How could I be with an N... Anyway, we're not that kind of relationship. We're teammates."

Seeing the flustered young man, Lin Youyou couldn't help but laugh, patting his back.

"Haha, don't be nervous. In our era, it's not strange to take a relationship with a teammate further. Is it taboo where you're from? If so, I didn't mean to offend. I'm just curious how people two hundred years from now get along... I mean, emotionally."

She was quite frank about her nosiness.

"I don't know. Ask Fang Chang, he knows a lot." Ye Shi brushed it off and ate faster.

"Really? But I'm more curious about that girl Jiang Xuezhou," Lin Youyou chuckled, teasing. "If I live to see two hundred years from now, can you introduce me?"

"Sure..." Ye Shi mumbled vaguely.

If he really met her two hundred years later, he wouldn't need her to ask—he'd drag them around to show off, bragging about his legendary experiences.

Lin Youyou didn't know what he was thinking, but she remembered his words and smiled.

"It's a deal then."

Although the tragic fate of the Gemini shook the three thousand crew members aboard the ship, fortunately the turmoil did not last long; the vast majority adjusted within a day or even half a day.

This was not because they were cold-blooded.

Rather, it was because the crew knew well that their captain had spoken a truth.

That truth was that, at least for now, they must unite.

Not only to save themselves, but also to save the people of the future, and the child who had accidentally stumbled into their timeline and become trapped here with them.

Even if only to bring the captain who ordered the destruction of an allied ship to justice sooner, they had to unite to overcome the present crisis.

With the same conviction, both those who supported Zhao Tianhe and those who opposed him set aside their disputes.

And the plan codenamed “Dawn” moved from initial mobilization into the implementation phase.

The engineers of the Fourth Division deployed repair robots to carry out a series of improvements on the ship’s exterior, including its coating.

They would first disguise themselves as the Gemini, becoming the side that survived, and after leaving the hyperspace lane, they would communicate with Lagrange Station as the Orion, leaving a record.

Then came the development of the intelligent life form called “Celestial.”

Even if it were a fake intelligent life form, it did not matter—

They needed the “observers” from the future to witness the birth of the “Celestial” with their own eyes!

Though honestly, Ye Shi harbored little hope for this fanciful plan deep down, he was truly moved by these people’s determination and spirit of self-sacrifice.

By normal logic, as someone who had inexplicably appeared on this ship, and with the ship stuck in the hyperspace lane, he would not have been surprised if someone suggested killing him.

Yet no one did.

On the contrary, instead of hostility or rejection, they showed concern for his injuries and showered him with care.

Whether or not the crew believed his words, they treated him as a living human being.

Ye Shi asked himself honestly; he was not so noble.

Keeping calm in the face of despair and not unleashing the evil in human nature was already his best performance.

It was precisely because they had done what he could not that his heart was so deeply stirred.

He was a person who treated others as they treated him.

Thus, even though he knew full well that all this was merely the plot of a game, he could no longer regard the people here as mere NPCs.

They were more like his friends.

Or rather, they were his friends.

He wanted to help them escape this maze—

For the reunion two hundred years later!

Ye Shi strained to recall every detail about the Celestial and unreservedly shared it with the staff of the “Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Division.”

As the “Tenth Division” of the starship, though it was the last in the sequence of all departments aboard, it was far more useful than the first five.

All intelligent programs on the ship were maintained by this division.

Occasionally, they even collaborated with other departments to develop AI applications and assisted the Third and First Divisions in dealing with potential electronic warfare intrusions.

The engineers of the Tenth Division were true programming masters. Graduates from top universities of the Human Federation, they might not be as gifted as Xiao Jiang in talent, but their professional skills were in no way inferior to his broad expertise—and each of them was like this.

With Ye Shi’s help, they completed the design of the “Celestial” without much difficulty.

It was an intelligent life form with autonomous evolution capabilities.

And it was designed entirely based on the ultra-conservative faction within the Human Federation Aerospace Force.

Its mission was to purify the wasteland’s ecological environment and restore the prosperous era, willing to sacrifice all survivors of the wasteland for this purpose.

By the standards of the Scientific Ethics Committee, this kind of anti-human artificial intelligence reeked of illegality from head to toe. In peacetime, everyone on the list from developer to sponsor would face lawsuits and prison sentences.

But they could no longer afford to care about that.

After all, according to Ye Shi, even if they did not do this, the ultra-conservative faction at the Lagrange point station would still develop a similar intelligent life form, or even become such an existence themselves.

This was a predetermined fact of the future, one that had already happened and could not be changed.

What they had to do was to usurp it.

Let this artificial intelligence disguised as a demon kill and replace the true demon, then be slain by a “hero” in the distant future.

Thus, the causality spanning time would form a closed loop.

To ensure the demon could be killed, they also left a fatal backdoor—or a key—in the design of this intelligent life form called “Celestial.”

That was a set of keys.

Anyone who entered this set of keys could force the “Celestial” to format itself, burying this heinous demon.

Ye Shi would have gladly taken on the role of “exorcist” himself, but unfortunately, according to Dr. Wu, he possessed observer properties.

If he carried the keys to the future, they would likely become invalid.

In other words, this glorious mission could only be completed by the Orion missile cruiser that created the Celestial.

According to the “Dawn” plan, they would rendezvous two hundred years later near the wreckage of the Gemini missile cruiser in synchronous orbit, meeting Ye Shi, who had returned to his own timeline.

This was an indispensable step…

After nearly 300 hours of effort, all preparations were finally complete.

With the help of the Orion’s crew, Ye Shi lay back into the hibernation pod where he had first awakened.

He would use that unreliable method to re-enter hibernation, and then the Orion’s crew would send him into the nearly wrecked research vessel.

According to Captain Zhao Tianhe, he would not have to wait long inside; they would come to the accident site two hundred years later to rescue him and wake him from the hibernation pod.

Looking at the crowd standing before the hibernation pod, Ye Shi’s face bore a complex expression, and he could not help but complain.

“…If you don’t show up in my timeline, then I’ll have to design the Celestial myself.”

What a wasteland celestial emperor.

How damn frustrating!

“I promise you, we will never abandon you. That place is our home too.”

Luo Yi placed his hand on Ye Shi’s shoulder, making a solemn and earnest vow.

“We will meet again, in the distant future.”

“I hope so… According to you, it’s just a blink of an eye for me. If not, I won’t have to wait too long in anticipation or despair.”

Saying this, Ye Shi took a deep breath and looked at those familiar faces and burning eyes.

“But I believe you, and all of you…”

“Let’s begin!”

“Take care…” Koala patted his shoulder as well, then followed Luo Yi out of the room.

Lin Youyou cast a worried glance at him, but eventually followed them.

Wu Xinghuan was the last to leave.

He was the theoretical architect of the entire plan, and at this moment, the most anxious person as well.

Ye Shi shot him a "don't worry about me" look, then closed his eyes with that cynical demeanor.

At worst, it's just death.

It wasn't the first time he had died.

But thinking of Jiang Xuezhou, who was waiting for him to return in some corner of the universe, the one who had been stubborn in his heart just a second ago suddenly felt a pang in his stomach.

Brother Guang!

I'm on my knees for you, Dad!

Let me go back, don't make me start over!

The hatch of the hibernation pod slowly closed, and a piercing chill crawled up his spine to his brow.

The air he exhaled froze on the glass of the hatch, and he felt his clear consciousness begin to waver, as if about to fall back into that pitch-black deep well.

A flicker of fear suddenly surged in his heart.

But now it was too late to retreat; he could only steel himself and charge forward.

Just like always.

Standing outside the cabin, Zhao Tianhe stared intently at the hibernation pod, then looked at the staff member in exoskeleton and spacesuit and nodded.

"Let's begin."

The staff member gave an acknowledging gesture, then lifted the hibernation pod and walked toward the room cordoned off by the isolation tape.

According to the plan, they were to stuff the hibernation pod back into the research vessel, then restore the scene to its original state as much as possible, and remove all observation equipment that might interfere with quantum entanglement.

Then...

Everything would return to the moment it all began.

And the research vessel that had strayed into their spacetime would become the landing craft of the Gemini.

There would probably be some combat personnel on board.

But it didn't matter.

The space combat team of Division Three was already prepared, fully armed and waiting here.

They would subdue the uninvited guests at the first opportunity, disarm them, and then confine them in hibernation pods until the corrected causality formed a closed loop 200 years later.

The lights in the room suddenly began to flicker without warning, as if some anomaly was occurring.

Watching Luo Yi standing nearby in power armor, Wu Xinghuan couldn't help but hold his breath, and sweat began to seep from his palms.

Almost at the same moment that the engineers of Division Four withdrew from the isolation zone with their equipment, the hull seemed to have been struck, trembling slightly.

Everyone present felt that tremor—

As if it were the echo of an explosion.

Everything seemed to return to the origin of the spacetime disorder.

Luo Yi, startled yet overjoyed, instinctively tightened his grip on his assault rifle.

They had succeeded?!

But faintly, he sensed something was off—

Wouldn't there be too many people who heard the explosion?

His mind still lingered on the clues he had learned from Division Four and Division Eight.

Only a little over 200 people heard the explosion; the exact number should be 227.

But now, just at the scene, there were no fewer than 100 people.

But there was no time to think; as expected, the people from the Gemini had already landed on their lower deck.

"Prepare for battle!" Xiao Yong roared, already charging ahead with his men.

The lockdown gate descended, sealing off the area of air leakage.

Fifty combat personnel quickly reached their positions, then advanced in an encirclement toward the incident site.

Arriving at the entrance of the gym, they first tossed a short electromagnetic pulse grenade into the room to suppress any possible drone equipment, then two heavy power armors led the way, charging into the room at the forefront.

A shuttle-class spacecraft was parked there, its two-meter-long and wide metal shell dented and twisted inward from the collision, and its appearance was indeed not the one they had seen before—

The spacecraft had changed!

That is to say...

Succeeded!?

Everyone held their breath nervously, maintaining a suppressing formation as they approached the spacecraft.

Xiao Yong punched a fist toward Luo Yi, who nodded and pressed forward, reaching out to grab the twisted alloy door panel, using the brute force of his power armor to tear it off.

Muzzles aimed into the spacecraft, instantly sealing off all blind spots.

No one...

Luo Yi's heart had already sunk halfway.

And when he saw that familiar hibernation pod, almost everyone's mood plummeted to the bottom in an instant.

Watching the frontline situation through the holographic screen, Wu Xinghuan stood frozen in place outside the isolation zone, his face turning pale in an instant.

"How could this be..."

Zhao Tianhe, with a face as heavy as water, looked at the navigator beside him, who shook his head with a pained expression.

"We're still in the hyperspace channel..."

They had not escaped.

It was as if they had circled around in a forest and ended up back at the starting point where they had first left a mark.

Executive Officer Wu Mengke sighed, raised her index finger, and rubbed her aching brow.

"It can't be said that there was no gain; at least the spacecraft did change... Perhaps something went wrong somewhere."

She glanced at her completely stunned cousin, shook her head, and pressed her index finger on the communicator.

"...Let's get the person out first, then we'll talk."