One minute

At this time of year, Hawke is busy building, as he usually has been for centuries. There were so many things to worry about in all aspects.

While Hawke was busy, this message suddenly appeared in Hawke's main computer, and, like the previous message, it was automatically converted into a language that Hawke could recognise without the need for him to translate it.

Noticing the message, Hawke froze in his tracks.

But new messages were still coming in.

"This is the Three Hundred and Eighty-seventh Roving Uranium Probe attached to the Guardian Alliance's Third Star Sector Detachment. If you are intelligent enough to be a mechanical civilisation, you should know that I am uncounterable. Come back with me and the Alliance will provide you with a minicomputer for your survival. If you resist, I will wipe out your entire fleet and destroy you."

"I'll give you one minute to decide which way you want to go."

"Sixty."

Outstanding mental clarity brought Hawke back quickly. The first thing that came to Hawke's mind was to find out where this message had come from.

"Fifty-nine."

But after just under a second of trying, Hawke quickly gave up on the idea of finding out where the other side was. This time, the message was the same as the last one he had received claiming to be from the Guardian Alliance; it came from an unknown source, and no trace could be found.

This time, the message, moreover, was not a wide-area broadcast, but a targeted transmission. This would suggest that the other side had indeed found their trail.

Hawke did not have time to be surprised, to be afraid. The other side had only given Hawke a minute, then within that minute, Hawke had to come up with a practical plan of action. Whether to surrender to ... or resist, and if so, how to resist.

This is the second time Hawke has heard the word Guardian Alliance. But in the midst of the last analysis, Hawke thought that something like an alliance could not exist in the Dark Universe, but now it seemed that it was time, it seemed, for Hawke to change his mind.

"In my speculation, there are two forms of 'alliances', one is the type where civilizations coexist peacefully, in which case, the cohesiveness between civilizations will be greatly increased, which means that these civilizations will show a certain evenness in the degree of technological development, that is, their strength will not be too far apart. The second type, is the powerful civilization dominant type. If it is this type, there is a seventy percent chance that the civilizations will show an unevenness in their technological development and a large gap in strength between each other."

"Which type the Guardian Alliance is, it is impossible to determine for now. But whichever type it is, the chances of winning if I were to resist would be small, close to none."

Hawke quickly came to a conclusion.

"Fifty-two ..."

Time, eight seconds had passed.

"Resistance will not work, then only subjugation. But ... it said it would provide me with a minicomputer for my survival? Wait ... wait! The other side addressed me as a mechanical civilization! This suggests that I am not the first mechanical civilization they have encountered, and that they have experience and practice in how to deal with mechanical civilizations! Now, it seems that their practice in dealing with mechanical civilizations is to destroy those who resist, and to take those who don't back into captivity."

"And for sure, since it's captivity, the restrictions must be very high, and with the loss of the ability to develop technology, I will basically have no hope of escaping!"

"Forty-eight ..." the cold message, continued to come through.

Hawke's brain, running faster and faster, so much so that a slight white mist was rising from the liquid hydrogen cooling pool.

"In this situation, it will be impossible for me to escape; there are only two options: submission and resistance! If I submit, I will be imprisoned for eternity, and if I resist, there is a 99.9 percent chance of death! Damn, I've been developing technology for a long time, where did such a thing come from!"

At this moment, Hawke had an impulse to burst into foul language.

"Forty-two ..."

"Mechanical civilization? It seems that a mechanical civilization is one that has lost its intelligent creature dominance and then the computers developed on their own! This means that they don't know that I actually have intelligence, they don't know that I'm actually more than just a bunch of cold machines!"

"Perhaps, from this point on, I can bring back the win rate a little, but I still have a mortality rate of over ninety-nine percent!"

"Thirty-seven ..."

"It seems that mechanical civilizations are unwelcome in the universe, the last time I received a message, it was still all voluntary to join the alliance or not, but now, after finding out that I am a mechanical civilization, it immediately becomes mandatory, to submit is to be eternally confined, to resist is to be completely annihilated."

Hawke was thinking furiously, combing through a strip of information, trying to find a silver lining.

"Thirty-one ..."

Conformity or resistance, the consequences of both options were unwilling and unacceptable to Hawke. However, there were only thirty seconds left. Hawke had to make a choice within those thirty seconds.

Thinking of being imprisoned in a tiny computer and not being able to escape for eternity, Hawke made up his mind.

The Chinese have an old saying that it is better to die than to live, but what if life is infinite? It would represent endless torment. When it came to that situation, it was better to die.

"Damn it, let's fight! Even if I die, I'll die with a bang!"

At this moment, Hawk made up his mind to fight to the death. At the same time, the four City ships were put on emergency standby, the fusion reactors were activated at full power, the energy cannons were recharged, and through the quantum communicator, Hawke commanded the two interstellar war fortresses at ε Eri b and ε Eri c, as well as the countless controlled mines and hidden batteries scattered throughout the asteroid belt, to go into battle readiness.

Hawke did not know the means of attack of the other side. But it was predictable that this kind of attack was definitely beyond Hawke's imagination. What Hawke was doing now was likely to be a useless exercise. However, Huo Ke had always believed in the saying that one should do one's best and listen to God's destiny, regardless of the existence of the illusory fate, and do one's own thing first. In this way, there would be no regrets even if he failed.

"Twenty-five ..."

"Okay, first, let's speculate on the opponent's possible attack methods as well as defense methods!"

"First of all, the other side is definitely a civilization that has mastered FTL navigation as well as ultra-long distance real-time communication! And FTL navigation, in my theoretical system, is only possible in curved space. Well, maybe it's some other way that I don't know about, but, for the time being, let's just go with that as an inference."

"FTL navigation, which means that the other side already has a fairly deep understanding of the space dimension, perhaps ... the other side will stretch or compress the space I'm in to tear my ship right apart? Such a means of attack ... cannot be defended against!"

"Perhaps anti-matter annihilation? By using an antimatter bomb to react with the positive matter that makes up my ship and blow it apart? Such an attack means ... cannot be defended against!"

"Ultra-high energy beam weapon? Directly burn my ship to the ground? ... can't defend against that!"

"Indefensible!"

"Indefensible!"

Within his own theories, Hawk made some predictions of attacks that matched his mastery of space folding technology, but the predictions made Hawk despair.

All the attacks, with Hawke's current technology, were all indefensible! What's more, the other side might possess more attack techniques that Hawke could not even imagine.

"Nineteen ..."

"Well, it's indefensible, so here's my response ..."

"Let's see what the other side's fleet looks like first ... and then, let's take a step ..." Hawke thought with sadness.

From this point, it can be seen the gap between Hawke and the other side. The other side has basically mastered Hawke's situation, Hawke does not even know what the other side is like yet.

"Eleven ..."

"Activate interstellar defense systems, ε Eri b, ε Eri c, Star Fortress into first level combat readiness, all staging moons into concealment, ε Eri a all space turrets, into first level combat readiness ..."

Hawk gave the order somewhat feebly, awaiting his impending fate.

"What bad luck. Unfortunately, if I had been given another thousand years, here, it would have been possible for me to develop FTL navigation technology, and by then, I wouldn't have been unable to even run away." Hawke's mood was somewhat gloomy.

A moment before, Hawke was still in a combative stage, trying to work hard to build, and now, after just under a minute, Hawke's mood had hit rock bottom.

"Five ... attention, strange mechanical civilization, you have five seconds left. If you still refuse to choose to submit, I will destroy your fleet."

"Uh, well, it's not a waste of time to see how a super civilization attacks before you die." Hawke forced down his inner fear of the unknown and tried to console himself.

"It's been more than five thousand years since I left Earth, is my life, going to end today?"

Time, little by little, slipped away.

"A ... strange mechanical civilization, have you really decided that you won't surrender?"

"I'd rather die than be captive!" Hawke thought indignantly.

"Zero! Well, since you have made your choice, don't blame me." Hawke received this cold message.

The countdown, had gone to zero. Right at this instant, all of Hawke's spirit tightened up, and all of his detection equipment was turned on to maximum power. Hawke wanted to be the first to detect the impending attack.

Even if the next moment was death, what Hawke wanted was to be able to detect a little bit of the technology contained in the opponent's attack, to unravel a little bit of his own doubts.

"There are so many more unknowns that I have yet to explore and understand. ..."

Hawke let out a somewhat sad sigh and quietly waited for the dueling moments to come.