205: Chapter 209 The door was still open; the deliveryman came in first.

Power had not been restored to Frost Prison No. 4.

To be precise, only half of it was restored.

The lights on the upper levels of the main control tower were on, and two strings of guidance lights around the perimeter of the specimen area had been re-strung.

Deep in the corridors, it remained as cold as an ice cellar; some areas were still dripping, and blood flowed slowly down the drainage troughs. Yet from orbit, the prison no longer looked as if it had just been breached. It looked like it had weathered a localized riot: the main tower was damaged, elevator shafts were stalled, the outer ring was under martial law, and the specimen area had entered lockdown procedures.

It looked very much like the chaos a prison should have.

And because it looked the part, it was qualified to deceive.

The Exile Fortress sat in a silent orbit on the far side of Frost Prison No. 4. Most of its hull was buried in the dust rings and shadows, with only a few sets of fine communication arrays extended, aimed at the main tower's remaining whitelist channels.

Inside the main control room, the primary screen was split into over a dozen sections.

One showed the orbital paths.

One showed the interior of the prison.

One showed the inventory progress of the specimen area.

The largest section in the middle was locked onto the transport manifest.

[Status: In Transit.]

[Estimated Arrival: Forty-seven minutes.]

Li Cang read that line twice, then turned his head to look at Celine on the other side of the secondary screen.

She wasn't tied to a torture rack.

Li Cang had no interest in acting out that kind of drama.

She was pressed into a wide metal chair; emergency hemostasis had been performed on her legs below the knees, and her hands were fixed to the armrests on both sides. A set of scanning frames hung above her head, capturing her voiceprint, iris, and brainwave fluctuations in their entirety.

This wasn't an interrogation.

It was more like a living authenticator.

Celine looked terrible. Blood loss, cold, exhaustion, and the emptiness of watching the order she had personally maintained being dismantled into parts were all etched onto her face. Yet she still sat very straight, as if refusing to collapse in this final redoubt.

Li Cang held her whitelist clearance card, slowly spinning it once.

"I'll ask you one more time," he said. "The ship is arriving. How do we let them in?"

Celine didn't answer immediately.

She glanced at the transit time on the screen, then at the scanning frames above her head, and finally let her gaze fall back to the main screen in front of Li Cang.

"You can't fool them for long."

"I don't need long," Li Cang said, putting the card down. "I only need them to park the ship steadily, open the containers, and hand over the self-destruct permissions to the main console for verification. After that, it's no longer their concern."

The corner of Celine's mouth twitched slightly, as if she were smiling, or perhaps biting back something.

"Do you know what that cargo is?"

"I know half of it," Li Cang said. "The other half, I'll see when the ship arrives."

"You'll regret this."

"You people say that too often," Li Cang said, looking at her. "The Tax Official said it, the Warden said it, and now you're saying it. By the time I actually regret it, I've usually already finished making my profit."

The control room fell silent for a moment.

Celine lowered her eyes, as if finally realizing that the person she was speaking to was not someone who followed the rules. She remained silent for over ten seconds before speaking again.

"Docking Port Seven. That is the dedicated interface for the inner ring whitelist; it doesn't go through the main port or public berths. After entry, there will be three layers of permission verification. The first is station activity, the second is specimen area receiving authorization, and the third is voiceprint confirmation from the director on duty."

"We can handle the activity. The clearance card is in your hand." Li Cang tapped the desk. "The voiceprint."

Celine stared at him.

"You want me to open the door."

"Wrong," Li Cang said. "I want you to leave the door ajar for me."

After he said this, Celine looked up at him for the first time with genuine focus.

It wasn't anger, nor was it contempt.

It was judgment.

She seemed to be recalculating the situation, calculating how many chips she had left, and calculating exactly how far Li Cang intended to go.

"And if I refuse?"

Li Cang didn't reply immediately.

He switched the display to Specimen Area Two, where a row of 'batteries' had already been pulled out along with their bases by the Astartes and were being transported along the freight tracks toward the fortress. With another swipe, he showed the Third Incineration Well. Those 'waste materials' frozen into layers of deathly white were being shoveled into temporary lift cages by Servitors with massive treaded loaders.

"Whether you speak or not, the ship will enter," Li Cang said calmly. "If you speak, I'll burn a little less. If you don't, I'll first overturn every remaining warehouse in this prison, and then I'll test you piece by piece. It's just a matter of spending a bit more time."

Celine closed her eyes.

She knew this wasn't a threat.

It was a budget.

"After entering Port Seven, do not connect to the main control immediately," she finally spoke, her voice hoarse. "Link to the side-chain first. The main control will automatically send an acknowledgment. Once the acknowledgment is linked, they will hand over the container permissions to the prison sub-warehouse. Switch then."

"Continue."

"The escort officer will request video confirmation." Celine paused. "Only film the corridor. Don't film faces. The main tower cannot be fully lit; only turn on half. The outer door of the specimen area must be closed to show that the isolation protocol is still in effect."

"Very good." Li Cang turned his head. "Extract her voiceprint and turn it into a dynamic key. Don't kill her."

The auxiliary control Servitor executed the command.

A slender audio-sampling bone needle descended, pressing gently behind Celine's ear. She didn't struggle anymore. Because she already knew that her current function was simply that of a key that hadn't been thrown away yet.

—

Forty minutes later.

Beyond the far orbit of Frost Prison No. 4, a small escort fleet emerged from the dark warp zone and smoothly glided into the docking lane.

The fleet consisted of five ships in total. The one in the middle was the heaviest, with a long, narrow hull and a fully sealed exterior; even its observation windows were pitifully few. Two escort ships on either side guarded the middle section, one in front and one behind, their formation tightly packed like a blade that didn't want to be seen.

Inside the lead ship's bridge, Escort Officer Lorne stood before the main console.

He wore the standard black-and-white double-layered uniform of the Federation's Inner Ring; his epaulettes were narrow, with no publicly disclosed unit number. The light screen in front of him was repeatedly verifying the docking signals sent from Frost Prison No. 4. The process was still underway, and the results were all normal. The main tower was damaged, some elevator shafts were stalled, and the specimen area was in lockdown—this was the current status returned by the system. It didn't look pleasant, but it was plausible.

The adjutant beside him was somewhat uneasy.

"Sir, the activity of the main tower at Frost Prison No. 4 is unstable. Should we stop at the outer ring first and re-verify the whitelist?"

Lorne was in no hurry to answer.

He raised his hand to enlarge the video feed from above the prison. In the image, half of the corridor lights were on, there was uncleaned blood on the floor, the specimen area's outer door was closed, and the seals were intact. Two fully armed guards stood at the end of the frame, their faces obscured.

It was messy, but not out of control.

"They just had an incident," Lorne said. "If it were truly out of control, the main tower wouldn't even be back online."

The adjutant hesitated. "But it's too quiet."

"A prison is not a port," Lorne said, looking at the gradually enlarging Frost Prison No. 4 ahead. "Quiet is normal."

He paused, then added another sentence.

"Besides, even if there's a problem with the main tower, the cargo cannot stop. The people behind this are more anxious than you or I."

The adjutant stopped speaking.

The origin of this cargo was too powerful—so powerful that their escort team was only tasked with sealed transport; they were not allowed to see the contents, inspect the hold, or ask about the destination. The only person on the ship who knew the full whitelist was the Research Inspector sitting in the sealed cabin in the rear section.

A woman who called 'people' 'carriers' and 'death' 'recycling'.

Lorne did not like her.

But he disliked delaying the schedule even more.

"Notify the lead ship," he ordered. "Take Docking Port Seven. Keep the fleet together."

The fleet began to tighten its angle, gliding into the side-docking track that had been intentionally left open by Frost Prison No. 4.

In the main control room, Li Cang watched this scene, his fingers slowly leaving the desk.

"They're here."

He didn't smile.

Smiling was meaningless at a time like this.

The real show would have to wait until the door was closed.

The outer gate of Port Seven slowly opened. The heavy steel plates retracted to both sides, revealing a dark and long docking corridor. The guidance lights on both sides lit up one by one, making the path straight, quiet, and devoid of any ripples.

The escort fleet glided in sequence.

The first escort ship entered. The second followed. The cargo ship in the middle crossed the line. The two ships at the rear brought up the tail.

Just as the stern of the last ship cleared the edge of the gate, Li Cang finally raised his hand and pressed the black button on the main console that had remained unlit.

The outer gate of Port Seven closed first.

Then, the inner gate slammed down as well.

The lights throughout the entire docking corridor, from front to back, went out simultaneously.

Only the red lockdown lights that followed lit up section by section, like blood crawling forward along a spine.

Inside the escort ship's bridge, the adjutant snapped his head up.

"What's the situation?!"

The main console instantly flashed over a dozen error prompts.

[Main Control Link Disconnected]

[Station Verification Failed]

[External Whitelist Acknowledgment Aborted]

[Losing Master Permissions for Port Seven]

Lorne's face darkened, and his finger pressed directly onto the emergency detachment valve.

No response.

Just as he was about to switch to manual, the entire ship suddenly jolted.

It wasn't an external impact.

It was something heavier than an impact, stepping onto the top plate of the docking corridor.

Thump.

A single sound.

The entire corridor echoed with it.

Then came a second sound.

Closer.

The adjutant's face turned pale instantly. "What is on top of us?"

No one answered him.

Because in the next second, the thick layer of armor at the top of the corridor was forcibly torn open from the outside. An impossibly long chainsword descended from the rift, its teeth idling, sending sparks and metal fragments falling inward. Behind it was a dark green steel foot.

Executioner Knight.

It wasn't here to block the door.

It was here to stomp on the vehicle.

Lorne finally understood that he hadn't come to receive cargo.

He was the cargo.

"All ships fire! Cut the connection—"

The order was only half-given when the left bulkhead exploded. It wasn't artillery; an entire row of magnetic locks had been forcibly ripped away from the outside. The bulkhead peeled back, and air screamed out. Black-armored figures surged through the breach in rows, the tongues of fire from their bolt shells instantly painting the entire cockpit section with a blinding white light.

The Astartes had arrived.

No shouting.

No accepting surrenders.

No unnecessary steps.

The first round of bolt shells swept the control consoles.

The second round swept the people.

The third round swept the doors.

Lorne had just drawn his sidearm when half his body was torn apart by a bolt shell. The adjutant was thrown back by the blast wave, his head hitting the back of the main control chair, his neck snapping at a sharp angle on the spot. The entire bridge lasted only seven seconds before it was washed into a mess of shattered glass, blood plasma, and burning cables.

In the main control room, Li Cang watched the structural diagrams of the five ships light up red layer by layer, and finally leaned back gently.

"The door is closed," he said. "Now, let's open the boxes."