Super Mothership
At present, the entire galaxy’s navigation routes are in a state of chaos.
The electromagnetic storm caused by the white dwarf explosion had just passed. Supplies from the rear were already being delivered continuously to rebuild defensive lines, while ordinary civilians scrambled to board ships and flee the warzone.
The Fallen Angel was quietly docked at the military port, and at the same time, it welcomed two guests.
“Brother Arthas, thanks for saving my life! I won’t say much—it's all in this drink!” Reno’s face was slightly flushed as he raised his glass and downed it in one gulp.
Thinking back to the white dwarf explosion earlier, Reno still felt lingering fear.
If Nie Yun hadn’t warned him in time, prompting him to move his flagship back a bit earlier, he would have barely managed to slip behind the Dreadnought War Star just before his ship was critically damaged.
Otherwise, he might already have been among the fallen.
Beside him, Isabel didn’t say any words of thanks. She simply raised her glass toward Nie Yun in acknowledgment, her mood somewhat low.
“I only had a bad premonition and mentioned it casually. Even if I hadn’t said anything, you two would probably have noticed something was wrong anyway.
Unfortunately, given the situation at the time, that was all we could do.
Everything happened too suddenly. Even though Lord Girard issued the retreat order immediately, it still couldn’t save the entire fleet…” Nie Yun said with a regretful expression.
In truth, Nie Yun’s decision to warn Reno and Isabel in advance wasn’t out of sentiment or old friendship.
The real reason was that he wanted to… build alliances.
Only by forming his own faction and gaining greater influence within the Gemini system could he better fulfill Arthas’s role as a double agent.
With that in mind, he naturally didn’t want his two natural allies to die so soon.
And the facts proved that Nie Yun had made a brilliant move this time!
With the destruction of the Gemini fleet, Girard dying in the line of duty, and heavy losses among the officer corps, there were now very few high-ranking commanders left.
As a result… Nie Yun, Isabel, and Reno—who had all survived—ironically became a small but powerful faction with the greatest influence among the remaining officers.
At this rate… they might even compete for command of the warzone?!
Thinking of this, Nie Yun couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious on behalf of the Gemini system.
This spy of yours has practically stumbled into your decision-making circle… If you don’t come arrest me soon, I might lose control and run for the next Speaker myself…
“Sigh…” Isabel let out a worried sigh.
“Our main force has been completely wiped out. Reorganizing troop deployments and assembling a new fleet will probably take at least several months. The situation doesn’t look optimistic.”
“What’s there to fear? We’ve suffered heavy losses, but the enemy hasn’t had it easy either! And we still have the ‘Reaper’ as our trump card! If we had used it earlier, maybe the fleet wouldn’t have been wiped out…” Reno said confidently.
“You’re being too optimistic…” Isabel shook her head.
“Although the ‘Reaper’ is incredibly powerful, its energy consumption is even more terrifying!
Every change in direction of its vector engine requires an enormous amount of energy. This battle alone has probably drained more than half of our energy reserves.
If we calculate the cost based on destroying dozens of enemy ships per maneuver, it’s hard to say whether we actually profited or suffered a loss…”
“Huh? The data didn’t mention energy consumption. How do you kno—oh! Right, you’re from the Assad family…” Reno stopped midway as he suddenly realized.
He glanced at Arthas and saw that he also looked unsurprised, clearly already aware of this information.
These noble families… their privileges really are everywhere.
Nie Yun had indeed obtained a more detailed set of intelligence from the Cruze family in private—far beyond what was publicly available.
He even knew that for the War Star “Reaper” to return to the battlefield, it would take at least three months.
After all, speed was everything to it. Once it lost its kinetic energy, accelerating back into a lightning-fast force would be a long and arduous process…
It wasn’t that the council deliberately wanted to conceal information.
It was just that after such a crushing defeat, when everyone was treating the “Reaper” as a savior, this kind of morale-damaging information was naturally better left undisclosed.
However, the issue Isabel raised about energy consumption gave Nie Yun a wake-up call.
If the vector engine consumed so much energy, didn’t that mean the Gemini system’s treasury was probably running dry?
He’d better notify Xiaoxiao later to quickly prepare for increased energy crystal trade—such a huge wave of wartime profit must not be missed…
“But where exactly did this vector engine come from? Altering vectors… that’s really something quite unscientific…” Nie Yun looked at Isabel, hoping she might know more.
Relatively speaking, although the Cruze family currently had a Speaker and thus held higher political status, the Assad family was an old aristocratic house. Its historical foundation was something a rising family like the Cruze family simply couldn’t match.
Naturally, Nie Yun was very interested in this vector engine. In fact, because of the mechanical bugs, he was interested in all kinds of cosmic artifacts.
“I do know a bit more about the vector engine,” Isabel said. “According to my grandfather, when it was discovered over 500 years ago, one of our ancestors participated in a top-secret research project.”
“Oh?” Nie Yun’s eyes lit up.
Honest friends, well-informed friends—being a spy, he really did like this kind of “well-informed friend”!
“To be precise, its ability to alter vectors is actually quite scientific.” Isabel casually pulled over a sheet of paper and drew an arrow pointing to the right.
“What do you mean?” Reno looked confused.
“Look, this is an arrow pointing right. Now what if we do this?” Isabel said as she folded the paper in half.
“And now?”
Reno was still puzzled, but Nie Yun seemed to grasp something. “You mean the arrow has become left-pointing?”
“Exactly! From the perspective of a two-dimensional plane, the direction of the arrow has changed!”
“You’re saying that our three-dimensional world can alter vectors in a two-dimensional world. By the same logic, if higher dimensions exist, they could alter vectors in our three-dimensional world?” Nie Yun guessed.
“Correct!” Isabel nodded approvingly. “Cosmic artifacts are incredibly mysterious. They may involve higher-dimensional technologies that we simply cannot observe!”
“I see…” Nie Yun nodded thoughtfully.
“Then… is this something that naturally formed, or is it some kind of engine we created that mutated due to higher-dimensional influence, leading to the birth of the vector engine?” Nie Yun asked again.
“As for that, I can tell you clearly—it is… an artifact created by an alien civilization…”
“What?!” Both Nie Yun and Reno were shocked.
“Actually… that ancestor of mine once secretly took a photo of it. Originally, only the head of the Assad family had permission to view it, but the confidentiality restriction was recently lifted, so showing it now shouldn’t be a problem.” Isabel hesitated for a moment before operating her personal terminal.
Soon, a projection of an object appeared.
The image was somewhat blurry, clearly not captured by normal means. But one could vaguely make out a faintly glowing blue diamond-shaped object floating in midair, its entire body a deep azure.
This… was the core of the vector engine?
“Look! There seem to be words on it!” Reno exclaimed.
On one side of the diamond-shaped object, there were several symbols of unknown meaning, resembling some kind of script.
Naturally, Nie Yun wouldn’t miss the chance to closely observe the vector engine. He immediately activated all his enhancement and analysis tools, scanning the image frantically.
The picture went from blurry to clear…
And when Nie Yun finally saw the text clearly, his eyes widened instantly, and he froze like a statue!
Th-this… how is this possible?!
Nie Yun was completely stunned—yes! He actually recognized those characters!
It wasn’t because some divine artifact had acknowledged him, nor because he truly understood the alien language.
It was because the words engraved on the engine core… were deeply etched into his memory, his mind, and even… every part of his body…
And the meaning of those words, when translated into Earth language, was—
Made in Iris!
Mechanical Bugs: “…” (⊙⊙)
TL Note- Conspiracy?
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