If it is inevitable, then whose handiwork is this?

Who is defining time?

Ren Zhong scratched his head painfully.

He helplessly found that whenever he seemed to be one step closer to the truth, he often came up empty-handed, leaving only greater confusion.

After a long time, he collapsed weakly.

Unknowingly, his whole body was soaked in sweat.

He still couldn't figure it out.

...

On the dark side of the second meteorite satellite of C1915, in the command room of the small reconnaissance and communication base, Ding Canghai was equally tense, his face pale and sweating profusely.

He had already ordered the communication base to shut off all the spotlights, then opened the physical camouflage armor on the base surface, fully disguising it as a dull rock shell.

Now, there are still more than 300,000 reconnaissance ships and more than 3 million people left in the entire Third Reconnaissance Army.

The lives of these more than 3 million people are all tied to him alone.

But the rest of the Third Army didn't know that comrades were rapidly disappearing.

According to the management mechanism of the Source Star Fleet, such globally significant information must be distributed through the military command center's transit and authorization.

Therefore, only Ding Canghai and a few people around him, as well as the fleet headquarters command center on the Tracker Spaceship, knew about the comrades vanishing into thin air.

Two choices lay before Ding Canghai—to issue a full alert command externally or simply do nothing.

Emotion told Ding Canghai that as the commander of the Third Army, he should immediately take responsibility and warn everyone. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

But reason whispered that issuing a warning would be useless.

The Reconnaissance Army's task is to trade lives for intelligence; there is no option for retreat or evasion.

Warn about what?

To have subordinates fully power up the scan engines? First-Level alert? Full synchronization of information on the networked communication flow?

No need; all reconnaissance ships have been doing this since leaving the fleet headquarters.

Even if a warning was issued, everyone would continue doing what they were doing.

Everyone would still have to continue working and maintain First-Level alert.

Issuing any order now would not change the situation nor save anyone—instead, it would expose the military command center base and himself.

Lurking on the surface of C1915, Xiao Wang and deep in the earth Xiao Wu would also be exposed.

The reconnaissance task targeting C1915 would fail, and similar missions by other reconnaissance ships would also fail.

Ding Canghai made a decision.

"Completely close external communication flow and switch to passive reception mode. Pre-start the high-power electromagnetic wave transmitter, program it, and prepare to transmit all collected key intelligence in both beam electromagnetic waves and information flow burst modes before everything ends. The enemy's fleet speed is indeed one-fifth the speed of light, our intelligence can reach the headquarters before the enemy's fleet!"

Ding Canghai decided to betray the trust of the entire Third Army, issuing no warning and giving no instructions.

The nearby communicator was astonished, "But everyone..."

Ding Canghai roared, "No buts! Everyone must remain at their posts, continuously providing information; this is our mission! They don't need to change anything; just keep going! Completing the mission is the top priority, above everything! Even if all four hundred thousand of us die, we must deliver the intelligence back! Everyone must fight until the very last second of their lives!"

After he finished, Ding Canghai activated the Army Chief authority and completed the operation himself.

Then, he still stared at the star map, watching closely as the locational lights of the reconnaissance ships extinguished like candles in a storm.

Every extinguishing light represented the loss of ten comrades from the Third Army.

Ding Canghai's eyes were bloodshot, shaking uncontrollably, the veins on the backs of his tightly clenched fists bulging.

Simultaneously, he glanced at the communication ports representing Xiao Wang and Xiao Wu.

In the equipment of those two, there was a contingency plan.

In the event of such a total loss of contact, their work also became simpler: continue their exploration and analysis, then send a one-way signal to the base location 600,000 kilometers away when the analysis work reaches a satisfactory node.

Xiao Wu had just entered the crust of C1915, and the analysis work had just begun.