Chapter 288: 143 High Stakes Gamble 2

Three middle-aged men carried heavy boxes forward and placed them on the pre-arranged table.

The captain, first mate, and second mate couldn’t stop smiling as they eagerly stepped forward to open the boxes, their eyes glistening.

Click, click.

The three boxes suddenly popped open on their own, revealing nothing but three flat nozzles inside.

The crew’s smiles froze on their faces.

The nozzles suddenly began to spin, and a strong wind arose inside the bridge. Most crew members didn’t have time to react before they clutched their necks and fell to the ground.

Crew members further away turned and ran, but after just a few steps, their bodies became weak and fell to the ground, their hearts stopping instantly.

The formal attire of seven agents shimmered with a faint glow, revealing a protective layer similar to spacesuits.

“Thank you for your efforts along the way.”

The leading senior agent expressed sincere gratitude.

Then he snapped his fingers, and the seven of them passed through the thick smoke, left the bridge, and walked to the cargo hold filled with containers and large shield machines.

Each of the seven took out devices resembling simple remote controls and began to operate them.

The top and four sides of the transport ship’s cargo compartment walls began to unfold.

One by one, the machines powered up, and the large shield machine had begun to run automatically.

The sealed containers gradually became transparent, revealing neatly arranged eggs inside.

“We tamed these monsters,” one agent said with a smile.

“Still a long way from taming them, but now we can get them to do some dangerous tasks, like taking revenge on this overconfident little country.”

“Let’s go. Just seeing them makes me sick.”

“Don’t worry, after the memory wipe when we return, you won’t remember anything from here.”

The group joked as they boarded the hundred-meter-class small passenger ship and slowly piloted it into the sky.

The efficiency of the large shield machine was astounding.

It had already drilled through the bottom of the transport ship’s compartment, with a third of its size cutting into the beach, and streams of sludge were being transported to the lowland of the marine ruins nearby.

This made Yang Ming quite envious.

In the compartment at the rear of this shield machine sat a first-rank Mother Worm, roughly more than ten meters long, resembling a giant bamboo segmented insect, still in a state of hypnosis.

“Lyu, don’t destroy this shield machine later. With it, our base can expand much more quickly.”

“Got it, boss,” Lyu reminded, “Should we let these seven agents go?”

026 whispered from the side, “It’s terrifying how they killed so many people without any change in expression.”

Dabich was slightly agitated, “Letting them go is too easy! They’ve already threatened our base!”

Yang Ming squinted slightly, as thoughts raced through his mind.

If we don’t let these seven go, Professor Pat will naturally know that the plan to deploy the eggs has failed. What will they do to respond?

Will the New Federation dispatch a massive fleet, or even send a Dreadnought to destroy this planet?

If we let them go, the New Federation will mistakenly think the Gray Moth plan has been successfully implemented, giving Yang Ming more time to prepare.

But we can’t rule out the possibility of continued monitoring from the New Federation here.

–They might want some experimental data.

“This matter is really not easy to handle,” Dabich said gravely, “Choosing Dark Star as the burial place for the eggs, they saved us a lot of trouble, but how to handle these eggs has become a headache.”

Lyu added, “The New Federation’s reaction is critical. They absolutely won’t dare to expose the Gray Moth plan.”

“How about full-scale war?”

Yang Ming suddenly suggested.

The bridge fell silent.

Lyu and Dabich pondered briefly and quickly understood the crux of the matter.

026, slower on the uptake, whispered, “Even with the cannons under the Imperial Palace, we can’t beat the New Federation.”

“Idiot,” Yang Ming scolded with a smile, “What do we currently have?”

“Intelligence,” Lyu quickly answered, “Information gathered from Ram Star.”

Yang Ming asked again, “What else?”

“Eggs,” Dabich gazed at the planet below, “A shipload of eggs.”

“Lyu, get two high-performance transport ships ready, fast, with enough Energy-Gathering Bombs on board, and some defensive measures.”

Yang Ming narrowed his eyes slightly as he gave orders systematically:

“Get all matured Mechanical Thought Bodies at the base to work, use any means necessary to load these eggs quickly onto the ships.

“Remember to get more hypnotic potion.”

“Yes! Boss!”

“Dabich, have the Sixth Fleet dispatch an elite squadron to tour the Constant Star System where this planet is located, remember not to come here directly, see if they have other hidden Detection Ships monitoring here if there are, destroy them directly.”

Dabich breathed heavily, “Understood, great Father!”

Then Yang Ming looked at 026.

026’s round face was filled with seriousness, with a hint of expectancy in his eyes.

“026!”

“Yes!”

“Make me a pot of tea, remember to add sugar.”

“Okay, okay.”

026 turned and ran off.

Yang Ming hummed a pirate ditty, wearing exoskeleton armor, returned to the control panel, skillfully piloting the Feinan, quietly following the small passenger ship.

The small passenger ship’s jump distance would not be too far.

Yang Ming would allow them to jump once or twice, then, when the timing was right, he would use the Feinan’s secondary gun to blast this defenseless passenger ship.

His plan was simple.

Since it was time-consuming and laborious to search for New Federation’s buried eggs within the Sherman Empire, with a low probability of success, and it was easy to encounter the Valkyrie wandering around.

He decided to send the Sherman Empire a shipload of eggs!

…

Half an hour later.

Two high-performance transport ships jumped to the nearby space, avoiding the course of the small passenger ship, heading to Dark Star at full speed.

Hundreds of Mechanical Guards acted as crew members, under Lyu’s control, engaging in various tasks.

A dozen warships of the Sixth Fleet appeared in the nearby Star Domain, began scanning and patrolling the Constant Star System, the routes just missing the passenger and transport ships.

Everything was under the control of the Intelligent Machine.

Three hours later.

The small passenger ship with the seven agents began its jump.

Lyu simultaneously calculated its landing point, and the Feinan completed its jump half a minute ahead.

The Sixth Fleet’s patrol squad passed near Dark Star, not detecting the hidden ships, and left a batch of jammers as required before jumping away.

Two of Lyu-controlled high-performance transport ships entered Dark Star’s atmosphere, the shield machines below still working smoothly, and those automatic robots had ceased activity.

Three thousand kilometers in a direct line from the egg ship, in a valley, a fleet of somewhat rudimentary engineering hovercrafts raced out, carrying hundreds of silver robots, speeding across the planet’s surface.

Many of the jammers deployed by the Sixth Fleet were activated by Lyu, creating a small-area zone of strong electromagnetic interference.

Yang Ming’s simple plan was being pushed forward intensively.

Two hours later.

The small passenger ship suffered an unknown attack, three laser beams pierced its power cabin, and the whole ship exploded into fragments in uninhabited space.

None of the seven agents survived.

The Feinan jumped toward the border of the Sherman Empire.

Two high-performance transport ships were loaded with eggs and successfully rendezvoused with the Feinan two hours later.

“Lyu, remember to erase all information on the transport ships.”

“Don’t worry, boss, when it comes to information and networks, I’m more professional than those agents.”

“Hmm,” Yang Ming asked again, “Did you leave any experimental materials for Hera?”

“A portion of the eggs have been reserved, and sufficient sample cells extracted from the Mother Worm.”

Lyu hesitated a bit but still asked:

“But boss, don’t you feel some regret? Cultivating these insects to the Third Rank, and then for you to kill them, you’d likely gain power, we could also slow down the killing process to study how all of this is achieved.”

“Currently, the increase in my personal power is valuable solely for dealing with Po Suo.”

Yang Ming said quietly:

“In the future, it’s possible the active period of the Insect Race will come early, and I’ll have plenty of opportunities, but now, we need to use this shipload of insects to open a strategic window period.

“What decides the outcome of a battle is not a superhero but a powerful fleet and large-caliber ion cannons.”

“That’s true,” Lyu chuckled, “The jump point has been repeatedly confirmed, it can jump to a star region in the Ninth Province of the Sherman Empire.”

Yang Ming said, “After sending the eggs over, destroy the transport ships’ power reactors, self-destruct the Mechanical Guards, remember to cover them with several layers of New Federation clues and then completely erase those clues. If exposed midway, detonate one ship directly and leave one.”

“Yes! Boss!”

Yang Ming looked out the porthole.

In the distant starry sky, the border monument of the Sherman Empire glimmered faintly.

The two transport ships had begun their jump.