Captain's Office, Starship.
Xu Qing strode in with a swagger, followed by a robot carrying a stack of documents with a force field.
She walked to the desk and, under Ou Zhanpeng's bewildered gaze, turned around and placed a pile of documents on the table with a dull thud: "These are today's notices."
Before Ou Zhanpeng could speak, she turned and picked up another pile: "These are today's reports."
Then came the third pile: "This is the training plan."
"These are requests."
"These are reports."
"And these are..."
In the blink of an eye, the desk was piled high.
Xu Qing clapped her hands: "Notify me when they're signed!"
Ou Zhanpeng nearly collapsed: "Why so many?"
At this moment, he greatly missed the battlefield. Although it was a bit anxious and dangerous, there were no documents!
This was quite something; before anything else had happened early in the morning, his entire desk had been occupied. If he hadn't guarded it strictly, he wouldn't even have the last bit of remaining space in front of him.
Furthermore, they were all paper documents that couldn't be archived electronically, each classified as confidential.
Xu Qing shrugged, offering a sympathetic smile: "You've been saving them for months, so how could there not be many?" She then prepared to leave.
Ou Zhanpeng didn't dare let her go and grabbed her arm: "Don't leave, help me sort them out!"
Xu Qing didn't fall for it: "Find a robot that's physically disconnected from the network to help you sort them!"
"Forget it," Ou Zhanpeng sighed, resigned to flipping through the documents.
He basically only read the titles. As long as there was nothing major, he immediately signed and set them aside.
At the same time, at the edge of the solar system.
In the absolute darkness, a colossal spaceship slowly emerged, like a large fish surfacing from the black water.
Its rear was strangely shaped, and its volume was unimaginably vast.
Besides the giant spaceship, several normal-sized warships followed closely behind, step by step.
Ahead lay an asteroid exceeding a hundred meters in size. This colossal ship neither dodged nor weaved; instead, it suddenly opened its bow, like a shark opening its gaping maw, effortlessly devouring the asteroid.
The mysterious fleet continued forward, swallowing all celestial bodies along the way. Once there was nothing left to consume, the internal facilities finally activated, concentrating and decomposing all the small celestial bodies. The final harvest was sorted: everything with an atomic weight below iron was discarded, while those above iron were categorized and temporarily stored.
Not long after, the mysterious fleet officially entered the Kuiper Belt, voraciously consuming various celestial bodies and extracting the heavy elements contained within.
Most heavy elements were concentrated in the inner solar system. The Kuiper Belt, far at the edge of the galaxy, was primarily composed of icy dirty snowballs, with celestial bodies containing heavy elements being a minority.
Even so, the harvest from this expedition filled the mysterious fleet with elation.
It was no exaggeration to say that this galaxy was an absolute treasure trove. If not for their concerns, the mysterious fleet would have immediately charged into the inner solar system to conduct a massive sweep.
Several days later, Ou Zhanpeng, still buried in mountains of paperwork, was suddenly jolted awake by a piercing alarm. Without a second thought, he abandoned the desk piled high with documents and rushed into the bridge: "What happened?"
Ling Xiao's tone was grave: "We just received news. Satellites have discovered a fleet of unknown origin!"
Ou Zhanpeng sank into the command chair: "At what location?"
"The edge of the Kuiper Belt!" Ling Xiao immediately provided the precise coordinates.
Ou Zhanpeng's fingers flew across the controls, quickly projecting the situation at the designated location in the center of the bridge. He happened to see the mysterious colossal ship swallowing an asteroid.
His eyes widened instantly: "What is that thing?"
"We're not sure yet," Ling Xiao shook his head, also showing a surprised expression, unable to understand the action of eating asteroids. "Could it be a large, unknown interstellar creature, trying to supplement its water by consuming dirty snowballs?"
"Then what about these?" Ou Zhanpeng swiped his finger, enlarging the projection.
Ling Xiao squinted hard at the projection, finally managing to discern some extremely blurry images behind the colossal ship: "Are those warships?"
"They should be," Ou Zhanpeng said, his face grim. He immediately contacted the command center.
Zhou Guangyi appeared on the screen and couldn't help but smile upon seeing Ou Zhanpeng: "What's going on? I heard you were driven mad by documents?"
He had previously heard that this kid was being tormented by piles of paperwork and had specifically asked Shan Qiuyu to intercede, requesting that no more useless documents be sent to the Starship in the future.
It was a nice thought, but the problem was that even someone of his stature couldn't avoid dealing with various documents. How could this kid be exempted?
Ou Zhanpeng’s expression was serious: "Something has happened." He then immediately explained the situation.
Zhou Guangyi's face instantly darkened: "Where are the images?"
Ou Zhanpeng immediately packaged and sent the received data to headquarters. After reviewing it, Zhou Guangyi frowned: "Do you know which civilization they belong to?"
"I'm not sure. If the satellites hadn't detected the anomaly, I would still be in the dark," Ou Zhanpeng said. "They shouldn't have used wormholes, otherwise, the base would have sounded the alarm long ago."
Zhou Guangyi nodded: "This thing might not have just arrived. It's possible they've been here for some time... Judging by this, it looks like they intend to mine secretly, to fleece us!"
Ou Zhanpeng immediately perked up: "Leave it to me. No matter where they came from, I guarantee they'll be wiped out!"
He thought it would be a straightforward matter, but unexpectedly, Zhou Guangyi slowly shook his head: "Those who come with ill intentions are not good. I suspect they are not just here for the heavy elements at the edge of the galaxy, but are targeting us. This is merely a probe for now!"
Ou Zhanpeng raised an eyebrow: "You mean... a reconnaissance by force?"
Thinking about it, this matter indeed wasn't that simple.
The fleet's refitting was not yet complete. Although the overall strength of the human fleet had improved significantly, it was still far from comparable to the Rour people. It could only be considered to have some strength in this star domain.
If a civilization that knew humans, even if they didn't know humanity's strength, could estimate it with a high degree of accuracy.
Therefore, this was likely an alien civilization that had traveled a long distance for heavy elements but was unaware of humanity's strength!
It might even have been brought by the Rour people.
In that case, the situation was very clear. The key was how humanity would react. If they ignored it, the other party would undoubtedly become more aggressive and encroach on human interests.
Conversely, if they launched a strong counterattack, it would also depend on humanity's strength. If strong, they would entice with benefits; if weak, they would strike with force. At most, they would leave the solar system and continue to purchase at high prices from the Rour people.
They could advance and retreat, their intentions could be described as sinister!
Having figured out the key, Ou Zhanpeng had a plan: "How about I bring the Starship base over directly?"
Zhou Guangyi pondered for a moment and said: "This is a rare opportunity. Let the fleet try first. You and the base will provide support for the fleet!"
"Understood!"