157: Spider Web and Meteor

"Calling C-47, you have deviated from your scheduled course by 0.3 percent. Report your secondary verification password for today immediately."

A cold, synthesized electronic voice came through the communicator like a blade dipped in ice, instantly piercing the deathly silence within the bridge.

Fili's multi-jointed fingers trembled violently over the console, his four eyes staring fixedly at Chen Feng. That face, slightly pale from blood loss, held no expression, only a pair of deep black eyes calmly looking back at him.

That look said: Speak.

"Damn it..." Fili squeezed out a barely audible curse through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath and, in a raspy voice that startled even himself, recited the damned string of characters from the dataplate into the communicator.

"Password, 'Morning Dew on the Cobweb.' Requesting confirmation."

"..."

The other end of the communicator fell into a silence that lasted over ten seconds.

Every second felt as long as a century. Fili could hear his heart pounding wildly, nearly jumping out of his throat. He could even imagine the scene of countless cannons tearing this junk ship to pieces once the other side saw through them.

Just as he was about to break down completely and jump up screaming in surrender, the cold voice spoke again.

"Verification passed. Supply ship C-47, your clearance is confirmed. Enter according to the scheduled route. Repeat, do not deviate."

"...Received." Fili exhaled the two words as if he were about to collapse.

"The first checkpoint... we passed it." Eve's voice was very soft, yet it carried a hint of relief.

"Ha... haha!" Fili slumped into the captain's chair, letting out a dry laugh of survival. "I told you! I told you! That idiot Xing Zhan! He thought he could stop the great Master Fili with a bunch of junk ships? His brain is only fit for digging rocks in a mineshaft!"

"Maintain silence." Chen Feng's voice wasn't loud, but it instantly snuffed out Fili's wild laughter.

"We aren't out of the web yet," he said coldly. "Continue to maintain the disguised flight path."

The lucky dice glided submissively past the massive sentry ship like an obedient slave. Looking out from the porthole, one could even see the cold muzzles of the cannons on the enemy's hull.

The ship entered the interior of the blockade, an area marked as a "Safe Zone" on the star chart. Red light dots representing enemy ships moved regularly around them, as if truly treating them as one of their own.

Fili stopped talking, tensely piloting the ship and strictly following the flight path—narrower than a blade's edge—calculated by Eve.

Everything was going incredibly smoothly.

They were getting closer and closer to the blind spot intersection Eve had calculated.

Ninety seconds.

As long as they passed through there, they could— "Beep— WOOO——————!"

An unprecedented, heart-wrenching alarm suddenly exploded within the bridge without warning!

On the main screen, an invisible web composed of countless fine energy lines instantly emerged from all directions, tightly enveloping their ship's icon in the center!

"Impossible! What is this!" Eve cried out, horror showing in her eyes for the first time. "Our sensors didn't detect anything at all!"

"It's a Gravity Induction Net! It's a trap!" Fili's scream became distorted and desperate. "Damn it! That madman Xing Zhan deployed mobile traps here! We're caught!"

Almost simultaneously, the sentry ship they had just passed, along with three nearby patrolling destroyers, instantly turned their prows.

Four crimson hostility markers flashed frantically on the screen, closing in from different angles.

The high-frequency hum unique to charging naval cannons traveled through the spatial medium, even causing the hull of the lucky dice to vibrate slightly.

"We've been tricked! Chen Feng! We're finished!" Fili turned his head wildly, his four eyes bloodshot. "Surrender! It's still not too late to surrender! I don't want to die!"

"Surrender?" Chen Feng looked at the rapidly approaching enemies on the screen, his lips curling into a cold, almost cruel arc. "They would grind our bones to ashes."

He ignored the collapsing Fili and instead turned to Eve, shouting an order.

"Eve! Calculate! Calculate the nearest entry point that can use the atmospheric ionization storm as cover! Three seconds! I only need three seconds!"

Eve was momentarily stunned, but then a terrifying light erupted in her eyes. She didn't ask why, only began operating the console like a madwoman.

"Fili!" Chen Feng's roar was like thunder. "Prepare to fly this ship like a meteor!"

"What?" Fili seemed not to understand.

"I said," Chen Feng grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the captain's chair, sitting down himself, his eyes fixed on the planet's atmosphere churning with purple lightning, "burn everything we have left, damn it!"

"Coordinates, X-771, Y-903! Angle of depression 75 degrees!" Eve shouted at the last moment of the third second. "A massive ionization storm is occurring there, along with volcanic eruptions! We'll be torn apart!"

"Excellent!" A mad smile appeared on Chen Feng's face. He looked at the dumbfounded Fili beside him and said in a tone that was chillingly calm:

"Ace pilot, it's time for your performance. Or would you rather I do it?"

Fili's face turned from pale to a sickly green. Looking into Chen Feng's inhuman eyes, he suddenly let out a miserable laugh.

As if accepting his fate, he lunged at the pilot's station and crudely injected all of the ship's remaining energy into the two already overburdened engines!

"Boom—!"

The lucky dice let out a pained wail. Like an ignited meteor trailing a long, burning plume of fire, it abandoned all evasive maneuvers and dived headfirst into the death zone of Ashen Earth Star, where purple lightning churned, at a suicidal angle!

The ship rubbed violently against the atmosphere, its outer shell instantly turning glowing red. Countless parts peeled away and disintegrated under the high temperature and g-force overload.

The enemy ships behind them chased to the edge of the atmosphere and hesitated.

"Target is disintegrating; structural integrity lost."

"Energy signal is dropping off a cliff."

"Reporting to Commander, the target is in a terminal fall. Survival confirmed impossible."

A few symbolic rounds of energy cannon fire followed, but they all dissipated into nothingness within the violent ionization storm.

The enemy ships stopped their pursuit.

In their eyes, this bold smuggling ship was now no different from an ordinary meteorite.

And under the cover of the endless purple lightning and black volcanic ash, the lucky dice, like a soulless steel corpse, completely lost contact with the outside world in an uncontrolled tumble, falling toward an unknown white wasteland covered in eternal snow on Ashen Earth Star.