Evolution - Chapter 135
Chapter 135
Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi exchanged a subtle glance.
They didn’t know why Nankong had suddenly mentioned needing a contact, but both of them, without prior discussion, chose to conceal the fact that they were members of Star Hidden and could contact the unit internally.
Problems that couldn’t be solved immediately were set aside for the time being. Everyone would think them over individually later. For now, they focused on the issues that were both urgent and solvable.
After agonizing over the eight possible routes for a while, they finally settled on the one to the Yan Hang Starfield, even though the question of whether they would have a contact upon arriving in the Alliance—and what they would do if they didn’t—remained unanswered.
According to He Qingzhi’s calculations, two transport ships departed for the Yan Hang Starfield at a time. Logically, the next departure was in four days, but the only uncertainty was whether the crew would get a few extra days off for a major holiday like the New Year.
The aircraft was fast, and they reached the vicinity of the transport hub before sunset. About one hundred and fifty kilometers out, they chose a spot and landed stealthily.
The five of them had a proper dinner, rested briefly, and then set out on foot. Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi were quite familiar with this stretch of the journey. To be cautious, they positioned themselves at the front and back, with the other three in the middle.
They matched their pace to Saiweiyala, who had the lowest physical fitness level, and He Qingzhi, who hadn’t fully recovered. They even stopped once along the way to rest and have a late-night snack. As they drew closer, they had to be increasingly careful to hide their tracks and avoid patrols. A journey that would have taken Ji Changqing and He Qingzhi less than three hours at full speed ended up taking them over four.
They felt their way to the spot they had carefully selected for surveillance, lifted a camouflaged patch of turf, and revealed an entrance large enough for a person to pass through. Although the night-vision goggles acted like a built-in beauty filter, everyone couldn’t help but grimace in disgust at the sight inside. The dugout, excavated to hide and accommodate two people for observation, had been unused and uncleaned for so long that it was in a wretched state.
Nankong and He Qingzhi, as individuals still battling through their heat, and Saiweiyala, as a minor, were granted the right to rest first.
Saiweiyala handed each of them an upgraded personal stealth device. The three found a place to hunker down and were perfectly concealed.
As an Alpha who was theoretically supposed to be strong and robust, Ji Changqing rolled up her sleeves, dragged the actually strong and robust Jixin into the dugout, and got to work.
First, they cleaned out the filth and overhauled the crude drainage and ventilation systems. Then, starting from about a meter up the original wall, they dug downwards at an angle. Without damaging the existing systems, they transformed the originally flat-floored dugout into the shape of a beaker—narrow at the top and wide at the bottom.
With the aid of tools, this simple work of digging, reinforcing, compacting, and drying progressed very quickly, finishing in less than an hour and a half.
The five of them took turns washing up and changing into clean clothes. By the time they pulled out their sleeping bags and lay down huddled together, it was nearly three in the morning.
Nankong yawned and forced himself to sit up. “You all sleep. I’ll take watch. I’ll also look into how to sneak onto a transport ship.”
No one objected. He Qingzhi and Ji Changqing looked like they wanted to say something but held back. In the end, they just told him there was a device near the dugout’s entrance, similar to a telescope, that could be used to observe the outside.
Saiweiyala transferred the data they had previously collected and analyzed to him, then wrapped herself in her sleeping bag and fell into a deep sleep.
Nankong looked at the four sleeping bags arranged in pairs, while he alone kept a lonely vigil at the entrance, gazing up at the starry sky.
Oh, wait. There was no starry sky, only the camouflaged turf.
He fiddled with the observation device and understood why He Qingzhi and Ji Changqing had looked the way they did earlier.
The screen showed the deep night, with only a few scattered lights. Even at maximum zoom, it was just a blurry mess of light and shadow. He was watching a whole lot of nothing.
No wonder they had to dig a hole here to hide. He figured that during their previous stakeouts, they had probably just recorded the arrivals and departures of the transport ships. The real key must have been using some black-box tech to copy the flight paths of every ship that stopped here.
So, these guys who all looked so incredibly capable were really just basking in the glow of technology.
He suddenly felt a wave of disdain.
Just as he was about to give up on observing the night-shrouded transport hub, lights on the screen began to switch on one by one, piercing the thick darkness and illuminating the open field. Aided by the lights, he could finally make out the hub’s outline.
A transport ship was arriving.
The entire transport hub seemed to spring to life.
Under the bright lights, he could see patrolling soldiers, loading and unloading crews, ground staff, and four transport ships parked quietly in the distance.
He watched as the new transport ship gradually descended. First, the cargo bay opened, and a specialized crew, already in position, began to haul containers off one by one.
Then the cockpit opened, and ten people disembarked in succession. They handed things over to the transport hub staff. The hub staff sent two people aboard for a quick look; they reappeared at the cockpit door less than ten minutes later. After that, both parties signed the paper documents for the handover.
Nankong guessed they had just done a cursory walkthrough to confirm everything was in order before coming back down.
The ship’s crew and the ground staff left one after another, leaving only the loading crew and patrolling soldiers in his field of view. Nankong focused on the patrol teams, mentally calculating their numbers, routes, and the timing of their intersections, constantly planning how to infiltrate successfully and what to watch out for.
In less than an hour, the loading crew also departed. The lights went out, and the world plunged back into darkness.
Nankong now had a rough plan. He looked down and began to go through the data Saiweiyala had given him.
Ore transport ships were generally set to fly directly from their origin to their destination without any stops. This was to save costs. In interstellar travel, ensuring human survival was the most expensive part.
Consequently, the fewer people on board, the lower the cost. That’s why these transport ships were almost fully automated. All that was needed was for someone to take turns monitoring the flight path, dodging the occasional meteor, and manually adjusting parameters when encountering unusual magnetic fields. As such, only a small section needed to be set aside to support the few crew members.
Typically, an ore transport ship would have no more than ten crew members. However, to ensure safety and prevent psychological issues during long voyages, the ship’s design guaranteed living and recreational areas and facilities for at least twenty-five people.
The data even included the models of transport ships that had previously appeared at the hub, along with the characteristics of each model, their structural diagrams, and their factory default settings.
His gaze fell on the structural diagram of a transport ship marked for the Yan Hang Starfield route. He zoomed in on the area connecting the cockpit and the cargo bay.
That was where the escape pods were located.
Escape pods were designed to be launched from the inside. This meant that if an accident occurred in space, as long as the control system opened the access to the pod bay, you could dive in first. Even with an enemy right behind you, they couldn’t stop you from launching and making a narrow escape.
Under normal circumstances, unless there was a sudden emergency, no one would open up an escape pod to check it. To hitch a ride, could there be a better hiding place than inside an escape pod?
And if there was an emergency—say, they were unlucky enough to have someone actually inspect the pods—there was no need to panic. They could just hit a button and be gone!
What was even better was that the pods could be activated and used without being ejected. The minimum standard for an escape pod was to have enough power and supplies to sustain one person in space for thirty days. Their one-way trip to the Yan Hang Starfield would take seventeen days at most.
The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed, and his spirits lifted.
When Ji Changqing and the others woke up, they saw him looking utterly exhausted yet with eyes shining brightly, buzzing with excitement. “We can’t follow the transport ship all the way to its ore delivery point. We need to find a way to hide in the escape pods. Once we enter the Yan Hang Starfield, we’ll pick a spot and get off.”
The four of them, still drowsy, snapped their heads toward him in unison.
Now that was a topic that could wake them up!
“Here in the Empire, with military support, security is tight on the outside but lax on the inside. Plus, with our prior groundwork and thorough preparation, sneaking in was feasible. But in the Alliance, they’ll be extremely cautious about this kind of delivery, with strict security. On top of that, they won’t stay long, so it would be very difficult for us to slip away unnoticed.”
Nankong glanced discreetly at Saiweiyala. Besides, they had a non-combatant with them.
Saiweiyala: …
She felt offended!
I’m very useful!
“We’ve prepared communicators that work in the Alliance. As soon as we enter Alliance space, we can try to make contact,” she said earnestly. “I can…”
Before she could finish, Ji Changqing reached out and ruffled her hair, cutting her off. She frankly admitted their earlier oversight, “We were being too idealistic. If you hadn’t mentioned it yesterday, we wouldn’t have realized how hard it would be to make contact secretly.”
Saiweiyala caught on quickly. After being cut off by Ji Changqing, she sighed sorrowfully. “So we can’t try to hack the system to make contact?”
A flicker of understanding crossed Nankong’s eyes. He paused. “Of course we can. No matter what, we should try every method that any of us feels confident about.”
He was certain that Ji Changqing, He Qingzhi, and Saiweiyala were all hiding something. That was normal. He was too, and Jixin went without saying.
Jixin, having operated in gray and black markets for years, hesitantly raised a new issue. “Since we took the data, the Klopp and He families will probably do everything they can to cover this up, right? If they can hold out long enough… I have two clean identities we could use.”
“Klopp might not tell the people in the Empire, but he’ll definitely find a way to send a message back to the Alliance,” Nankong said flatly. “It might not have happened yet, but by the time we reach the Alliance, it will have.”
Besides, the Klopp Family Head was using this evidence to blackmail the Alliance while currying favor with the Empire. He would feign cooperation with the Empire, but he would certainly find a way to notify his co-conspirators who were still in the Alliance.
As long as they could eliminate us and destroy the evidence before it was handed over, they still had a chance to salvage the situation.
Otherwise, Klopp and everyone in the same boat as him would be finished.
After thinking it over, Nankong’s escape pod plan was still the best option.
Everyone reached a consensus. The next step was to plan how to successfully infiltrate the transport ship.
He Qingzhi looked at the observation screen and circled two of the ships with his fingertip. “These are the ones going to the Yan Hang Starfield.”
Nankong immediately said, “They were already parked there last night.”
He Qingzhi was instantly on alert. Although their calculations suggested three more days, who knew if the schedule had been adjusted? “Then this afternoon, we need to watch and see if anyone comes to inspect, maintain, or repair them. They usually do maintenance in the afternoon and depart at seven in the morning.”
That afternoon, they did indeed see people performing inspections and maintenance on the two transport ships. There probably wasn’t much to repair, as they finished quickly. If one wasn’t paying close attention, it would have been easy to miss.
“Then we have to move tonight.” Ji Changqing’s expression was serious as she turned to Saiweiyala. “When we go in, can you handle replacing the surveillance feed and opening the ship’s doors? Any problems?”
Saiweiyala was a little nervous. She swallowed hard but still puffed out her chest. “No problem.”
The five of them finally agreed to move at one in the morning. Ji Changqing and Nankong would take Saiweiyala in the first group and head out, while Jixin and He Qingzhi would form the second group, observing the situation from behind and providing timely instructions.
Everyone conserved their energy. At one a.m. sharp, Ji Changqing and Nankong set out with Saiweiyala. Following Jixin and He Qingzhi’s directions, they avoided the patrol teams and entered the monitored area. Saiweiyala took a little effort to hack into their surveillance system and replace all the camera feeds along their route.
Once that was done, the three of them continued to sneak into the transport hub, avoiding lit areas and sticking to blind spots.
Compared to the difficulty of getting to the ship, hacking its system and opening the bay doors was much easier for Saiweiyala. She whispered, “I’ve temporarily restored it to factory settings. All alarms will be disabled once we’re inside.”
Nankong gave her a thumbs-up and climbed in first.
At nearly four in the morning, following Nankong’s instructions, Jixin and He Qingzhi also boarded the ship successfully.
Nankong let out a sigh of relief. “Good thing no other ships arrived tonight.”
If a ship had arrived in the middle of their operation, they would have been in trouble.
Under Nankong’s guidance, Saiweiyala installed three small surveillance devices that could sync audio and video. Once everything was set, the five of them slipped into the escape pods.
Upon discovering there were two-person escape pods, Ji Changqing pulled Saiweiyala over to share one with her.
A non-combatant, a tech specialist, and a minor—she needed to be protected.
After they were settled, Saiweiyala quickly restored the ship’s settings to their previous normal state.
No one dared to sleep. They lay with their eyes open, waiting quietly.
In their comms group chat, Jixin sent a worried message: “With people in the escape pods, will the system show an error when they start up the ship?”
Saiweiyala replied, “I’ve already modified the parameters. The system will show everything as normal.”
At six o’clock, the ship’s cockpit door opened. Someone came aboard, did a sweep of the area, and then left.
Around six-thirty, someone shouted an order. Everyone boarded in succession, the hatch closed, and the ship started up. A series of preparation commands came through their earpieces.
At seven o’clock sharp, the transport ship slowly lifted off.
They couldn’t actually see outside from the escape pods, but Nankong still felt like he was embracing the blue sky.
The sky of freedom!
Their return to the Alliance was much faster than any of them had anticipated. Probably due to military support, the ship made continuous warp jumps within Imperial territory, making rapid progress. In the early morning of the fourth day, through the surveillance devices they had installed, they heard two crew members on duty shout at several others who were playing around, “Quick, go switch to the Alliance signal.”
From inside the escape pods, the five of them began surreptitiously contacting their respective connections. In the end, they all asked Saiweiyala to add multiple layers of encryption before sending their messages.
But even by the eleventh day, nothing had changed, and they hadn’t received any encouraging replies.
Saiweiyala tried her best, but she couldn’t break through the military’s encrypted communications system to contact Major General Xie’er directly.
Late on the night of the twelfth day, an exhausted Yu Zhiyao emerged from the lab. As part of her miserable daily routine, she was helping her mentor process various letters and communication logs when she saw the seventh email from the same sender in her teacher’s inactive inbox, much to her vexation.
She skimmed it and, connecting it with the previous six, determined it was a pre-arranged coded message that only the intended recipient could decipher to get the information.
This was really beyond the scope of her duties. She was an all-purpose student and assistant, not her teacher’s external brain.
After a moment’s thought, she directly called He Yi, who was away on a business trip with their mentor. Her face was expressionless, her tone exceptionally detached. “The First, go dig Professor Sith out of his lab and tell him there are seven encrypted emails from the same person. It’s URGENT! A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH! Tell him to go read his own damn emails!”
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