Chapter 647: Surrender, Capture

Firefights of varying scales were taking place in all the key corridors of the asteroid fortress. Explosions shook this 'stone bastion' floating in space, and waves of heat swept through the labyrinthine passages and hallways. More and more clone soldiers were being rushed in from garrison facilities near the base, constantly thrown into the fortress to desperately contest the already battered airlocks and halls with the 'invaders' who had taken over the core area.

What should have been a 'take back home' operation had instead turned into an exceptionally difficult away-team assault. Old Joe was momentarily dazed, even feeling that the fortress had sided with the invaders against him, and that he and the clone troops he led were the real 'invaders' here.

In that brief moment of distraction, another steel shell lost contact with the main consciousness. A clone squad was wiped out in the passage leading to the reactor core. They had encountered a huge silver-white nine-tailed fox demon—the terrifying creature had directly smashed through who knew how many layers of heavy partitions, charging all the way from the upper connecting hall headfirst into the passage to the reactor core compartment. The light firepower the soldiers carried couldn't penetrate her 'protective force field,' and then they were annihilated in the blazing sea of fire that swept through the passage.

In the images sent back by the battlefield situation analysis system, the red patches representing occupied areas had already covered almost two-thirds of the area, and were still expanding.

After another squad was wiped out, some clone soldiers and squad commanders suddenly realized that the fortress itself seemed to have truly become their 'enemy.'

"Sentry guns are firing at us! Repeat, we are under attack from the base's defensive fire!"

"The blast doors are locked—we're trapped on the second connecting bridge! The access control system is auto-resetting... the floor is sinking! The metal is melting!"

"B12 life support system offline, gas leak, gas leak! Toxic gas is flooding into the ventilation ducts, we can't get out—"

Several squads led by clone officers deep inside the base sent back unsettling calls. The few remaining sensors in the base continuously transmitted bizarre fault signals through the fragmented communication links. The 'blackout' area on surveillance had spread to the outer layers of the fortress. Although the clone soldiers were fearless, even they began to realize that the whole situation had completely spiraled out of control.

Those 'invaders' who had occupied the core area were just buying time. The truly frightening thing was the change occurring in the fortress itself—this huge space facility was gradually turning into some kind of living thing, and that living thing... was clearly an enemy, not a friend.

A Black Dot tactical squad was trapped on the first connecting bridge inside some airlock. The flashes from particle rifle fire lit up the passage, and the shockwaves from plasma grenade explosions sent up waves of heat. But their enemy was the walls, floor, and ceiling around them.

Two soldiers had their feet swallowed by the suddenly softened ground, their bodies sinking halfway into the floor in the blink of an eye. The walls around them also seemed to turn into 'living metal,' beginning to reshape and deform as they flowed downward. Nearby clone warriors fired futilely at the walls and ceiling, but their weak firepower only made tiny ripples on the walls—the 'mutation' of the passage itself was still advancing outward with unstoppable momentum.

The squad commander retreated near the airlock. Through the protective visor of his powered armor, he stared intently at everything happening before him.

He seemed to see that advancing 'line'—the boundary was on the corridor a dozen meters away. On the other side of the line was that 'living thing,' growing inside the base, inch by inch converting the cold metal out there into its warm and eerie flesh-and-blood shell. In less than two minutes, that line would advance to his feet, then pass the blast door behind him, devouring the last layer of protection outside the base.

The squad commander opened his communication device: 'Sir, the airlock is about to fall, we've lost almost everyone, requesting retreat. Repeat, airlock lost, requesting retreat.'

The activated area advanced to within a few meters. The last clone soldiers retreated to both sides of the blast door. They raised their muzzles but didn't know where to shoot. Above them, the sentry cannons on both sides of the airlock slowly lowered their barrels from the ceiling. Their bases trembled as if in spasms, then slowly rotated and aimed.

'Sir! Sir, did you receive? Requesting retreat!'

Only a burst of crackling noise came from the communicator. No one responded to the squad commander's call.

But suddenly, the communicator's signal light came on again. The encryption was crudely cracked, and a female voice entered the commander's helmet—

'This is Luo, Senior Project Manager of the Corporation, identification code S-P-O-1055. The former special commissioner Joe is suspected of gross negligence, espionage, and responsibility for enormous losses, and has automatically lost jurisdiction over this facility. A notice to remaining soldiers in the fortress: immediately lay down your weapons and raise your hands to the nearest surveillance device to surrender. Timely surrender will be considered as loyalty to the Corporation. Repeat, surrender immediately to prove your loyalty!'

Inside the core area hall, the blood stored in the diffusion device had been exhausted. Yusheng was now sitting next to the diffusion device. Luna had poked a hole in his arm, and he had connected a tube to himself at one end and to the fill port of the blood tank at the other, sitting there like a human blood bag.

He felt that if he kept drawing blood for a while longer, he would probably die. But if he kept drawing, this space base would also be his for the taking—it was hard to say who would die first right now. Anyway, the general situation was settled, so these minor details didn't matter anymore.

Ai Lin was now standing on the head of 'Old Joe' (this body of his had completely stopped functioning). With her arms crossed, she muttered endlessly: 'This old bastard doesn't follow the rules! Just opens fire like that! That's not how it goes in the TV shows...

'You say a beautiful doll falls down on the corridor with a thud. Wouldn't a normal person walk over curiously, stare at it for ages, then pick it up and stare some more, stand there in surprise and recollection while I hard-CC him for thirty seconds? Who the hell opens fire with a three-barreled hand cannon from over ten meters away?! I was already ambushed in the ventilation duct, waiting for him to walk over and pick up the doll so I could focus fire on his head. But that guy doesn't play by the rules...

'Yusheng, let me tell you, a guy like him couldn't even complete a side quest in a game. All the important clues are just F-ing skipped by him...'

'You're talking as if everything was part of your plan,' Yusheng said, raising his eyelids. 'Didn't you slip and fall while climbing the ventilation duct?'

'...Even if I slipped and fell, afterwards I made the best of it! It was him who didn't play fair...'

Yusheng didn't bother with the chattering little thing. He raised his eyelids and glanced at Luo, who was holding the communicator. 'Is that surrender broadcast you just sent going to be useful?'

'Not sure how much use it'll be,' Luo shook her head, but was open about it. 'Just consider it as doing our part to the utmost. Giving those clone soldiers one last way out at the final moment. If someone really surrenders, that'll be the final blow to Old Joe, and a decent gain for us. If no one surrenders, it doesn't matter. This fortress will fall completely soon anyway, and we won't lose anything.'

'But those are a bunch of clone soldiers, brainwashed since birth,' Yusheng clicked his tongue. 'I doubt they even understand what you're saying.'

'I've dealt with clone soldiers a lot—I've commanded them, trained them, and even mass-"produced" them,' Luo said with her arms crossed, speaking unhurriedly. 'In the process of interacting with them, I discovered one thing.'

Yusheng raised an eyebrow. 'Oh?'

Luo turned her head and said seriously, 'I discovered that they are also human, you know—unless they've directly installed brain-control chips and composite neuro-ablation, they actually have emotions, expressions, and even more facial changes than that steel-faced guy.'

Yusheng: '...'

Luo took Yusheng's momentary speechlessness as doubt towards her, and immediately emphasized urgently, 'I'm telling the truth, boss! Clone soldiers are also human! And most regular models don't have brain-control chips or neuro-ablation. I discovered before that if I arranged vacations and entertainment for the clone soldiers under me, they would be very happy...'

Seeing Luo's anxious and earnest reaction, Yusheng didn't say anything for a moment. But after a few seconds of silence, he suddenly spoke: 'Two Black Dot units near the upper airlock and cargo passage have surrendered.'

Luo blinked.

Yusheng then frowned. 'Wait, there's a heat source suddenly appearing in an area at the edge of the fortress... A shuttle is trying to break out!'

Luo immediately reacted, her expression changing. 'Stop it!'

...

'None of them are reliable, all of them are traitors... I knew it all along, all traitors...'

An angry, hoarse voice came from the sound synthesizer. The cockpit rang with the sounds of various systems coming online. The shuttle's engines were preheating. The launch tube's blast door slowly opened. At the end of the tube, the vast, boundless dark space and distant twinkling stars gradually appeared.

'AI will betray, clones will betray, trade "partners" will betray, even steel and stone will betray... I was right from the start, they are all potential traitors... all of them!'

He pushed the control stick forward. The antigravity engine hummed. The shuttle slowly detached from the docking platform and hovered in the stasis field. The lights on both sides of the tube lit up one after another. The person in the cockpit raised his head, his eyes glowing with an almost manic red light.

'The Corporation, the Hermit Order... you are all useless! Lowly lifeforms! You have offended a truly great figure! A truly great figure! I still have a chance, yes, as long as I can get out of here, I still have a chance to turn things around...'

Old Joe opened the command panel on the main console and pressed his finger into a special recess on the panel.

'Shut down the stasis field,' he said in a deep voice.

The holographic projection above the main console flickered a few times, and two characters popped up: 'Won't shut down.'

Old Joe: '...?'

He froze for a moment, then immediately felt the shuttle lurch downward. The stasis field on the docking platform instantly intensified several times, violently 'sucking' the whole aircraft back onto the platform. Meanwhile, the blast door at the end of the launch tube began closing rapidly, shutting out the distant starlight behind thick alloy armor.

Even this secret launch channel, isolated from the main system and known only to himself, had betrayed him?!

'No! This shouldn't be!' A roar finally erupted in the cockpit. 'This shouldn't be!'

However, new text soon appeared on the holographic projection of the main console: 'Should.'