155: Dawn of Ashes

"...Decryption complete."

A cold electronic voice was the only sound in this dead silence.

Darkness swallowed everything. The main power, backup power, and even the emergency lighting had been completely annihilated in that frantic data storm.

The "lucky dice" had become a steel coffin floating in the void.

"Beep— Beep— Beep—"

A sharp alarm pierced the silence without warning. On the bridge, a row of blood-red emergency light strips flickered on, casting a ghostly glow on everyone's pale faces.

"Ah—!"

Captain Fili's four eyes stared intently at a red countdown popping up on the console, and he let out a pig-slaughtering scream.

"Life support system... only the last of the independent power remains!" His voice was distorted by fear. "Oxygen circulation will... completely stop in... two hours and fifty-nine minutes!"

"It's over... we're all going to suffocate in this tin can!" Fili collapsed to the floor, desperately scratching his scalp with his multi-jointed fingers. "I still owe the Butcher thirty thousand credit points... I can't die in such a pathetic way!"

"Shut up."

In the darkness, Eve's voice rang out, calm and without a ripple, like a cold scalpel that instantly sliced through Fili's wailing.

"Crying won't solve the problem," she said, fumbling to turn on her personal terminal's light. A faint beam illuminated her dust-covered yet remarkably calm face. "I've downloaded the original structural diagrams of this ship."

Her gaze turned toward Chen Feng, and the light followed.

"Chen Feng."

"I'm here," Chen Feng's voice was equally calm.

"I need your hands," Eve's tone was unquestionable, as if she were directing a precision surgery. "Fili, I need your legs. Now, follow my lead."

"Me?" Fili pointed to his nose in disbelief. "I'm just a pilot!"

"You're familiar with every pipe on this ship, aren't you?" Eve countered. "That's enough. Now, take us to the physical connection point of the main power line, quickly!"

Inside the narrow, greasy maintenance duct, a nauseating smell of burning and metallic stench permeated the air. This was the ship's entrails, a place where even maintenance robots rarely entered.

"Turn left ahead, it's right under that thickest silver-gray pipe!" Fili led the way, scrambling on all fours. His screams had turned into rapid panting. "Good heavens, the smell here could choke an Interstellar Great Rhino!"

"Stop talking," Eve's voice came from behind him. She was holding the terminal, comparing it with the structural diagram, her face flickering in its light. "Chen Feng, do you see that scorched distribution board?"

"I see it," Chen Feng's voice came from deeper within the duct, sounding somewhat muffled. He was kneeling among the intricate cables; the hands that once devised strategies and commanded empires were now covered in grease.

"Use insulated pliers to cut the three blue lines connected to it. Note, they must be pure blue, not blue-and-white striped," Eve's instructions were clear and swift.

"Zzzzt—" A faint spark of electricity flashed.

"Done," Chen Feng replied.

"Good," Eve's pace quickened. "Now, find the backup power diversion pipe next to it. Do you see the manual valve on it? I need you to physically connect it to the C-7 port of the main circuit. Fili, hand him the backup adapter!"

"Here... here you go!" Fili scrambled to pull a heavy metal connector from the tool bag at his waist and shoved it through the narrow gap.

"It's too tight; it won't fit," Chen Feng's voice betrayed a hint of strain.

"Use brute force!" Eve commanded. "The ship's hull deformed during the jump; the data is off! Trust your feel, line it up, and smash it in!"

"Clang!"

A dull thud echoed through the duct.

Chen Feng remained silent as he executed the command. The business genius who once dominated the corporate world was now like the most obedient apprentice, precisely carrying out every order. He didn't ask why or question anything; he simply trusted.

Eve trusted him just as much.

This tacit understanding, born in absolute darkness and desperation, required no words.

Time ticked away, second by second, as the life support system's countdown hammered against everyone's hearts.

"It's done!" Finally, Chen Feng exhaled a long breath.

"Fili, get back to the bridge immediately and prepare for the power surge!" Eve ordered.

Fili, as if granted a grand reprieve, scrambled back in a panic.

"Chen Feng, you come back too," Eve told him.

When the two emerged from the maintenance hatch one after the other, Fili was already in the captain's seat, his four eyes fixed on the black screen in front of him.

"It's coming!" he shouted.

"Zzzzt-zt-zt—"

A violent burst of electrical sparks exploded in every corner of the bridge, the smell of burning intensifying. Then, after a series of flickers, the main screen and basic lighting finally flickered to life!

"Huff... huff..." Fili collapsed into his chair like a pile of mud, gasping for air.

Chen Feng and Eve looked at each other, both seeing the exhaustion on the other's grease-stained face, but also a hint of a relieved smile.

"I did it..." Eve murmured to herself. Her tense body finally relaxed, and she slowly slid down the cold bulkhead to sit on the floor.

"No," Chen Feng walked over to her side and reached out his hand, "We did it."

Eve froze for a moment, looking up at the hand Chen Feng offered, which was just as filthy as hers. She hesitated but eventually took it.

Chen Feng pulled her up.

"It's not time to celebrate yet." Eve immediately regained her composure. She pulled her hand away and hurried to the console, her fingers tapping rapidly on the screen.

"The decryption is complete." She brought up the crucial file.

On the screen, a waterfall of deep blue data cascaded down. Fili leaned in curiously as well.

"Is this... a detailed deployment map of Xing Zhan's fleet?" Fili cried out in shock. "Patrol routes, firepower configurations, warship models... My god, it even has their internal communication encryption frequencies!"

He looked at Chen Feng excitedly. "We're rich! Chen Feng! We're rich! This intel could sell for at least five hundred thousand credit points on the black market!"

However, neither Chen Feng nor Eve paid him any attention. Their gazes were locked onto the final section of the file.

It was a top-secret directive encrypted with the highest clearance, originating from the [Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance].

The issuer was a name they had never heard before—Augustus van Cole.

And the content of the directive caused the air on the bridge, which had just begun to warm, to instantly drop to the freezing point.

In a dreamlike, trembling voice, Eve read the line aloud:

"Order: Giant Star Mining Commander Xing Zhan, immediately eliminate all unstable factors in Mining Area No. 7 of Ashen Earth Star. Mission Priority: Highest. Destroy all transaction records, experimental data, and personnel related to our side (Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance Asset Risk Assessment Department)."

"...Ensure that not a single... survivor remains."

Eve's face turned ashen.

"Including..." She swallowed hard. "Giant Star Mining's own people."

Fili's smile froze, and the color drained from his face at a visible rate.

"Silencing... silencing everyone?" he stammered. "What... what does this mean?"

Chen Feng didn't answer. He just stared at the cold text on the screen, his eyes as deep as an abyss. He finally understood that what they were facing wasn't some kind of commercial retaliation.

It was a Great Purge from the top predators of the universe, aimed at incinerating the chessboard along with the pieces.

"Beep!"

Just then, the navigation system let out a crisp notification sound.

[Arrived at target star system: Jintu System]

Through the bridge's massive viewport, that familiar planet, shrouded in gray dust, hung quietly in the blackness of space.

That was home.

However, the joy of returning home lasted less than a second in everyone's hearts.

An encrypted communication request savagely cut into the ship's public channel, even bypassing Fili's captain clearance.

Su Li's voice, anxious to the point of being out of tune, boomed across the entire bridge!

"Chen Feng! Is that you? You're finally back!"

"It's an emergency! Listen! Xing Zhan's fleet arrived suddenly half a day ago. They didn't say a word and just completely blockaded the entire system!"

"We... are surrounded!"

Before she could finish, the star map on the main screen automatically switched to an external real-time feed.

Above the orbit of that gray planet, dense clusters of golden light points formed a massive, cold web of death, wrapping Ashen Earth Star so tightly that not even air could escape.