Chapter 1 Physical Deletion

No observation lens or radar system noticed this attack aircraft leaving the battlefield and flying towards the moon. In fact, even if these devices had not been destroyed by the previous large-scale EMP, the chaotic situation on the battlefield would have been enough to overwhelm all the Zenith warriors. Although the drone swarm did not use lethal offensive weapons, these black-tech-made gadgets had the ability to influence the battlefield situation with any of their auxiliary equipment. They shuttled around the battlefield, using short-range quantum leaps and inertial dampers to perform high-speed maneuvers that completely defied common sense, causing the space station guard's fighters to be exhausted. At the same time, they were constantly releasing powerful interference signals, making the already overloaded Zenith communication network, due to data congestion, even worse, with no chance of recovery. This further undermined the command and coordination of the defending forces, but that was not all. As time went on, what caused even greater chaos and panic were the engineering drones mixed in with the armed drones—

Because these engineering drones were destroying the Zenith space station's command system and communication network in a more thorough and brutal way.

These little devils, with insect-like slender bodies and multiple mechanical arms, were tearing down everything detected to have signal transmission and reception processes. They even cut open the space station's outer shell, and drilled into the Zenith's interior along the latter's internal pipes and support beams, devouring the space fortress's command system and communication network hardware with amazing efficiency. Wherever they went, all equipment fell silent.

Nolan called this process "physical deletion."

Paralyzing the Zenith's command and communication system, and eliminating the space station's combat capability, was another important task that Hao Ren had assigned. The drone swarm's role was not only to cover Hao Ren's group's clandestine operation, but also to keep the troops stationed in the space station preoccupied in the short term, so that even if the mainframe on the lunar base went crazy, Hao Ren could ensure that at least half of the Executor troops were dragged down on the planet's high orbit.

At the same time, inside the attack aircraft flying towards the moon.

N-6 sat nervously next to Hao Ren. Thinking of the melee taking place near the Zenith space station, she suddenly began to doubt whether her choice was right or wrong. The alien lifeforms of unknown origin in front of her had been confirmed to be non-human from her home planet, and they had also demonstrated powerful force. They had even summoned a group of combat machines to besiege the Zenith base—although it was a siege for the purpose of "zero casualties," the fact that it was a siege would not change. Now, these alien creatures were about to set off to the lunar base, to the common holy land of humans and Executors, to that fortress that would never fall.

Their reason was that the mainframe had malfunctioned and they were going to help investigate and repair it—N-4 had indeed confirmed the malfunction of the mainframe.

But this did not diminish the conflict in N-6's heart. Although she was just an artificial intelligence, her logic circuits were as entangled as a human's at this time, and her power consumption was rising sharply.

"Are you okay?" Vivian looked curiously at the robot girl. "Several heat sources are rising on your body... Did we forget to install a heat sink when we repaired you?"

N-6 shook her head: "I believe you pose a great threat to us."

"Of course, if we look at it from the perspective of whether we have the ability to severely damage or even destroy your civilization, we can almost be considered a natural disaster to you—no less than the 'planet devourers' that once devoured human civilization," Hao Ren admitted this very frankly. "In fact, judging from this operation, if we had malicious intentions, your 'mainframe' and the human-inhabited Eternal Palace would be exposed to danger, because we have obtained an aircraft with an identification code that can directly land on the moon, and we have also obtained from N-4 the route map to the fortress and even part of the internal structure of the fortress, while the mainframe knows nothing about all this, and the only Zenith space station that can send a warning is in a state of being blocked by the drone swarm, unable to send even a short message."

After hearing these straightforward words, N-6 did not react excessively. She just looked at Hao Ren quietly, her eyes filled with a sense of inorganic matter: "If you were going to do this, then you wouldn't need to tell me all this, and even if you really would do this, I have no ability to stop you—I'm just very curious, why are you interested in a civilization like ours. From your spaceship and the drones you summoned, it can be seen that you have technology far beyond ours, and we and our planet are worthless to you."

Hao Ren glanced at the robot girl who was in a tangle, and smiled lightly: "6, you don't understand, it's because of the year-end bonus..."

"N-6 doesn't understand, N-6's society doesn't have this concept."

"You don't need to understand, you just need to know one thing," Hao Ren shrugged. "If we had malicious intentions, we would have sent thousands of drones to flatten this star system. If we wanted to attack the lunar base, there would be countless simpler and faster methods to choose from, but we didn't do any of them, so you don't have to worry about us doing that later. N-4 has confirmed to you that the mainframe has malfunctioned. The mainframe is the foundation for your society to operate and maintain itself. If its malfunction cannot be repaired as soon as possible, then even without external attacks, the entire lunar base and the Zenith will self-destruct before long. In this case, we are at least a hope for you. Your logic system should be able to easily judge this."

N-6 nodded. In fact, this was exactly where she was caught in a contradiction: the logic system made judgments based on existing data and predictable future projections, determining that if the mainframe's malfunction continued, then no matter what actions the Executors took, the lunar base and the Zenith would slide into a crisis of destruction, and the "aliens" in front of her, who possessed advanced technology and expressed a certain degree of goodwill, were the only factors that could change this development trend. However, on the other hand, the emotional system made her worried, because she could not be sure whether the goodwill expressed by the "aliens" was trustworthy.

She didn't like this situation that couldn't be calculated precisely. Entrusting the future of the race to "probability" overloaded her logic circuits.

So after a lot of thinking, Miss N-6 chose to enter power-saving mode.

"She seems to have suddenly cooled down," Vivian looked back at the robot girl with a bit of surprise. "What a strange life form..."

"Maybe you just blocked her cooling vent," Lily glanced at Vivian. "She's just embarrassed to tell you."

"I didn't! I'm at least a meter away from her! It's you, with your big furry tail wagging around and shedding fur, maybe you blocked N-6's air intake..."

Seeing that these two rivals were about to quarrel more and more fiercely, Hao Ren had to intervene: "You two, that's enough. N-6 doesn't have a cooling vent or an air intake at all. I heard Nolan say she's liquid-cooled."

"Landlord..." Lily glanced at Hao Ren with a slightly disdainful look. "Most liquid-cooling systems also need cooling vents."

Hao Ren: "..."

He was actually looked down upon by a husky! Looked down upon in the field of common sense and intelligence!

But he couldn't bother to argue with Lily about this, because the aircraft was gradually approaching the moon.

Hao Ren's group was located in the belly of this fighter. This was originally a storage compartment for weapons and ammunition and some redundant systems, but after the modification by the autonomous machinery, this wide space became a temporary crew compartment. Hao Ren, Vivian, Lily, N-6, and Izhaks were the main members of this operation. In addition, there was a little burden who didn't know if she could be considered a regular member, who was drilling into Hao Ren's clothes, poking her little head out of Hao Ren's collar and looking around curiously.

The little burden was of course Doudou.

Originally, Hao Ren didn't plan to bring the little merman to this operation, but he didn't know what idea the little guy had this time. Before setting off, she suddenly became excited and begged to go with him. Considering that the little guy had actually participated in several operations with him and had always been very well-behaved, Hao Ren reluctantly brought her along.

Anyway, he could put the little guy into his personal space at any time if he encountered problems. Besides, even if she stayed on the Tortoise Rock Platform, that spaceship in the center of the battlefield didn't seem like a place for the little guy to sleep peacefully...

In addition to them, all the remaining personnel stayed on the Tortoise Rock Platform, including N-4 and the team members she led.

After discovering that the two transport planes that N-4 had brought had lost their identification permissions, Hao Ren felt that the mainframe was likely already adding N-4 and her team members to the blacklist in its confusion, and even actively searching for them. In this way, if N-4's team appeared on the lunar base, it might trigger an alarm. In order to avoid causing the operation to fail as a result, Hao Ren decided to let those people stay on the spaceship, but he needed a guide, so he brought N-6 with him.

Through the monitors set outside the aircraft, Hao Ren could clearly see the situation on the moon.

Thousands of years of development and transformation had completely changed the appearance of this originally cold and desolate large natural satellite. It was now like a wrinkled and dehydrated fruit pit, covered with deep ravines and pits, and a layer of metallic "clothing" covered its land. That was the factory complex and residential area built by the Executors.

The entire lunar base did not have obvious city boundaries. Its entire surface seemed to be a giant base connected as a whole, with countless factories, mining machines, domes, and reactors covering the lunar surface, and crisscrossing rail and pipeline systems connecting these things together. In this endless base facility, you could see several more densely packed facility groups—if you had to say that there were any cities on the lunar surface, those more densely packed facility groups would probably be them.

And in the airspace above the moon, you could see space stations and satellite groups orbiting, and orbital cannon arrays neatly arranged like soldiers, pointing vigilantly towards the mother planet.

The battered space attack aircraft continuously decelerated, changed its orbit, and smoothly and lightly crossed these orbital cannons and surveillance satellites. Every time it crossed a layer of surveillance circle, there would be a brief information exchange.

Identity verification, then pass.