Chapter 425: Civilian Ship No. 23 _1

More than twenty hours have passed since the fleet was attacked.

Jiang Yu tossed and turned, unable to sleep, so he came to the command center again.

Cao Yang was there too; he also couldn't sleep.

A staff officer made them strong coffee, and the two men drank it, chatting in a corner of the command room.

Jiang Yu said, "Now, every time I close my eyes, I can hear Wu Xinghai shouting in my ear: Soldiers! Charge!"

"Same here," Cao Yang said. "When I close my eyes, those captains appear before me, I want to talk to them, but they don't say a word, just looking at me smiling."

Cao Yang touched the corner of his eye, "The captain of Q-125 had just become a father, and every time he met me, he had to boast about his precious son.

"The captain of P-1569 had just been promoted; his whole family was proud of him.

"And then..."

Cao Yang couldn't continue.

"Tell me, was my decision wrong? Was I too impatient?" Jiang Yu sipped his coffee, which seemed to have no taste to him:

"Such a fierce battle, so many dead, does our effort to expand still make sense?

"Is it that I've become so accustomed to half a century of peace that I've lost the ability to judge calmly?"

Cao Yang looked at Jiang Yu in surprise, seeing this somewhat despondent side of him for the first time.

"We've always treated you like a god, forgetting that you are just like us, a living person," Cao Yang carefully chose his words before continuing:

"Treating you like a god doesn't mean taking your word as a holy decree, but because you always manage to show us the light."

He set down his coffee cup, "How much time does the Solar System have left?"

Jiang Yu's thoughts wandered in his own mind, glancing at the countdown of the Two-dimensional foil strike, "Forty, perhaps three to four decades left."

"Yes," Cao Yang said. "Both you and I know, our time is very, very tight!

"At such times, we can only take risks to find a way out.

"You've told us this before, and we've always agreed.

"Wu Xinghai didn't regret his final charge, and neither did any soldier who died in battle.

"Because they knew that their sacrifice would secure a lifeline for humanity, a better future!

"We don't have a second choice!"

Jiang Yu was stunned for a while before he suddenly smiled, "At least one thing I just said was correct, the peace and prosperity of the Solar System State have made me somewhat apprehensive."

When Cao Yang saw Jiang Yu's gaze turn resolute again, the grand and majestic Wallfacer had returned.

"Wallfacer, Commander!" reported the duty communications officer, "We just detected several ships surrendering to the enemy."

Jiang Yu stood up, downing the rest of his coffee in one gulp, "Do we have live images?"

The communications officer: "Our detectors are currently in a position to observe the surrendering ships."

While speaking, he displayed the footage from the detectors on the large screen.

The site of the surrender was obviously not far from this planet, otherwise, the detectors wouldn't have been able to spot them.

A total of five ships had surrendered: two include damaged warships and three civilian ships.

Cao Yang clenched his fists, "How dare these two warships surrender!"

The surrender of warships has little to do with honor or oaths. Instead, it can lead to the leakage of many important pieces of information.

Warships are the technological crystallization of a civilization. If they fall into enemy hands, many of humanity's technologies could be mastered by the enemy through reverse engineering.

Then humanity would fall into an even more passive situation.

Especially the military-grade Galaxy III, which stores too much critical information, the enemy might even use this information to locate the position of the Solar System.

The communications staff officer reported, "Both of these captains enlisted within the last twenty years and have not been through the baptism of war."

Jiang Yu asked, "What forces can we still employ now?"

The duty tactical staff officer replied, "There are still more than seventy J195s, but this amount of force simply can't break through to the warships; they'll be destroyed by enemy ships."

Jiang Yu asked again, "Have the enemy's warships arrived?"

The tactical staff officer enlarged a picture, "Near the surrendering ship, we found some flying objects, which we speculate to be enemy warships."

Guided by the tactical staff officer, Jiang Yu saw those enemy warships.

The shapes of the enemy ships were a bit like the ancient anvils used for forging, bizarre and peculiar, with no sense of beauty.

Cao Yang gradually unclenched his tightly held fists, "There's nothing we can do."

"Wait." Jiang Yu seemed to have discovered something new, "Zoom in on that spot."

What Jiang Yu asked to be enlarged was a civilian ship, and its hull number was 23!

Jiang Yu gave a wry smile, "I don't know whether to be happy or to regret."

...

A few hours earlier, on the far side of a satellite of the White Planet.

Weide cursed while smoking a cigar, "These idiots! The universe is so cold, yet they actually hope for the enemy's sympathy!"

"Are they deaf? Jiang Yu explicitly warned them."

A subordinate with a gloomy face said, "Captain, why are you smoking a cigar in the captain's quarters again? This is against regulations."

Weide waved his hand dismissively, "This is the last one."

The subordinate smirked; Weide had said the same thing when he lit up the last one, and the one before that.

Weide held the cigar in his hand and said calmly, "I am going to surrender as well."

There was immediate silence in the captain's quarters; having dealt with Weide for so long, they did not believe he would surrender, he surely had some plan.

Weide pointed at the distant surrendering site, "The warships cannot fall into the enemy's hands! How can there be such fools in the military of the Solar System State!"

Then he continued, "Inform the passengers that our nuclear engine is about to explode and tell them to quickly head to the escape pods.

"And remind them, once the escape pods are launched, they must immediately enter hibernation and wait for rescue!"

Weide took a deep drag of his cigar and turned to the people beside him, "I won't force any of you, whoever wants to come with me, we leave in twenty minutes.

"Those who don't want to come, hurry to the escape pods."

Twenty minutes passed, and no one present had left.

"Good." Weide rarely smiled, "I am pleased to have worked with you all."

After confirming that all the passengers had entered the escape pods, Weide launched the escape pods and sent a request to the enemy to surrender, slowly moving towards the surrender site.

Civilian Ship No. 23 was the second civilian ship to surrender; regardless of how the enemy arranged things, he could always be next to a warship.

While hovering in space, Weide intentionally almost collided with a warship.

The captain of the warship immediately connected with Weide, "Do you know how to steer?"

"Sorry, sorry, we are all novices," Weide said, with the cigar in his mouth, "Don't your warships have weapons? How come you surrendered too?"

The captain's face turned red and then pale, "My warship has been heavily damaged and is unable to move."

"You fought until the very end." Weide consoled the captain with a few words, leaving the captain feeling much better.

What the captain did not know was that the old man he was chatting with had once been a professional intelligence officer, with a mastery over human psychology that was truly proficient.