50: Chapter 50 Surrender or Not

Inside the White House, President Trump watched his secretary standing at the doorway, holding a folder and panting.

"What happened?"

"Mr. President, a message has arrived from Advisor Cole."

"Speak."

"Maya just passed on some new intelligence." The secretary opened the folder and scanned it quickly. "She confirmed with Chen Mu that the solar shielding operation at nine o'clock tomorrow is the Commander's plan."

"Furthermore, Chen Mu revealed that if Blue Star surrenders under the threat, the Emperor of Guga Planet will send someone else to Blue Star to supervise Chen Mu on-site, and may even gradually replace Chen Mu's position."

President Trump stood up abruptly and grabbed the internal phone on the desk.

"Assemble the think tank, Situation Room, fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, the Situation Room in the White House was full of people again.

President Trump stood at the head of the conference table, his hands pressed against the surface.

"Have you all read Maya's latest intelligence?"

Everyone nodded.

"Professor Bloom."

Bloom had already spread out several sheets of paper on the table, which contained a power structure diagram he had drawn with a pencil.

Two circles represented the two factions, and a larger circle in the middle represented the Emperor. He pointed to Chen Mu's circle and drew a diagonal line across it.

"I previously deduced that this solar deterrence operation was led by the Commander, and Chen Mu was being marginalized. Maya's new intelligence confirms this and adds a key detail: the Emperor has not completely abandoned Chen Mu."

"The person he is sending is not a replacement, but a supervisor. This distinction is extremely important."

He used his pencil to draw a line from the Emperor's circle to next to Chen Mu's circle, adding a question mark.

"If the Emperor wanted the Commander to take full control, he should have directly replaced the ambassador. But he didn't; he chose to retain Chen Mu's ambassador position and then install a supervisor by his side. What does this mean?"

The Secretary of State replied: "It means the Emperor is balancing."

"Correct." Bloom's pencil quickly drew two-way arrows between the three circles of the Emperor, Chen Mu, and the Commander, forming a triangle. "The Emperor does not want the Commander's faction to become too powerful."

"Therefore, although this deterrence operation was advocated by the Commander, the Emperor did not put all his chips on the Commander. He kept Chen Mu as a backup option. This means three things."

He held up three fingers.

"First, the power struggle within Guga Planet is more intense than we imagined. Although the Commander has the upper hand, Chen Mu's faction still has the strength to fight back."

"Second, it confirms that the decision-making style of the Emperor of Guga Planet himself is one of balance. He lets the Commander demonstrate power while keeping Chen Mu in his original position. He is observing the performance of both sides."

"Third, and most importantly for us: we have not lost Chen Mu as an interlocutor, at least not yet."

"If we surrender now, the object of our surrender will be the Commander, and by then, Chen Mu will truly be replaced."

President Trump listened very carefully, his fingers tapping lightly on the table.

"So your advice is still that we cannot surrender."

"It is not to surrender to the Commander," Bloom corrected. "We can talk to Chen Mu, but we absolutely cannot talk to the Commander."

"The moment the sun is blocked, if we surrender immediately, it will be equivalent to proving to the Emperor that the Commander's route is correct."

"If we hold out, the Emperor will re-evaluate. By then, our negotiating partner may still be Chen Mu."

"A dove who is willing to let us observe our civilization is better than a war hawk who wants us to completely submit."

President Trump turned to the Secretary of State: "If the other side really keeps threatening Blue Star with the sun, can we choose not to surrender?"

The Secretary of State was silent for a moment, then he opened the folder in front of him that he hadn't opened yet and pulled out a sheet of printed paper.

"Mr. President, this was received ten minutes ago. It is an internal opinion sampling from the Pentagon. The subjects were from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the Navy's Atlantic Fleet, and the Air Force Global Strike Command, totaling 12,000 active-duty personnel."

He pushed the paper toward President Trump.

"The question is simple: If an alien civilization has the ability to block the sun, do you tend to support surrendering or continuing to resist?"

President Trump looked down at it; the 83% surrender rate printed there needed no explanation.

The Secretary of State said in a low voice: "It's not about whether we want to surrender now, but that the people outside will force us to surrender."

"The public, the soldiers, Congress—yesterday they were still holding signs saying 'Humanity Does Not Kneel,' that was because the sun was still there yesterday. If darkness really descends tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, the choice will no longer be in this building."

"Furthermore," the Secretary of State continued, "Even if we bet that they won't dare to exterminate the Blue Star civilization and hold out without surrendering, the Guga Civilization fleet could completely block the sun for a period of time. When we are sufficiently weakened, they could then appear as saviors."

The Situation Room fell silent. Everyone understood that this was a completely asymmetric, dimensionality-reduction strike. You think the opponent will use high-tech equipment to fight you head-on, but in reality, they simply cut off your energy, making you collapse without a fight.

President Trump leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling: "You all go out first, let me think by myself."

Everyone stood up silently and left.

"By the way, tell the leaders of the Permanent Five that if darkness really descends tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, I want to talk to them one last time."

The Secretary of State nodded and shut the door, leaving President Trump alone in the empty Situation Room, surrounded by twelve empty chairs and walls filled with electronic maps.

——————

The next morning, Chen Mu slept until he woke up naturally.

For the past six days, his alarm clock was never his phone, but the slogans from downstairs.

The sounds of "Humanity Does Not Kneel" and "Get Out of Blue Star" would wake him up from bed at seven o'clock every morning sharp.

He turned over, picked up the phone on the nightstand, and checked the time: 8:15 AM.

Then he threw off the quilt, walked barefoot to the window, and pulled back the curtains.

He saw that the lawn, which was covered with flags of various countries yesterday, now only had a few bent flagpoles left. Even the placards had been neatly stacked on the side of the road, as if someone had collected them.

The door opened, and Maya walked in with a tray, on which were two cups of hot coffee and two rolled crepes.

"Where did they all go?" Chen Mu asked.

"Times Square." Maya placed the tray on the table and handed Chen Mu a cup of coffee. "Now everyone in the world is staring at that big screen, waiting for nine o'clock."

"The big screen in Times Square was switched to a countdown clock this morning, and television stations in over a hundred countries around the world have switched their signals to the same feed."

He picked up a crepe, took a bite, then unlocked his phone and tapped into Sima Bei's livestream room.

Sima Bei had already started broadcasting. Perhaps because he was in a rush, his hair wasn't combed, his glasses were crooked, and the collar of his Chinese-style jacket with toggle buttons was open, revealing the white undershirt underneath.

The bullet comments were scrolling by so fast that it was impossible to read any complete message.

"Everyone, it is now 8:30 AM Eastern Time. There are thirty minutes left until the solar shielding mentioned by Chen Mu."

Sima Bei was clutching his folding fan tightly in his hand, using it like a hammer, tapping the table every time he said a sentence. "I started the broadcast today just to wait with everyone."

"Wait for nine o'clock, wait for the sun to go out. If the sun doesn't go out, we'll all see where Chen Mu can hide his face."