The moon base — strictly speaking, it was not a base. It was what it looked like after the entire surface of the moon was completely covered, reinforced, and armed. This natural satellite had become a steel fortress after thousands of years of continuous construction. It floated coldly in the vast universe, using a forest of guns and heavy armor to point in the direction of the mother planet. It was a sad sight.
The exiles who had been expelled from their homeland had been looking in the direction of their home for thousands of years, hoping that one day they could return to the homeland where they had once lived and thrived. However, they had no choice but to be armed with weapons hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from home, pointing all their weapons in the direction of their homeland, because their homeland — their homeland — had become their enemy.
A society of survivors built and maintained under such circumstances could hardly have the vitality and vitality that a normal civilization should have.
The lunar base was a huge, well-disciplined barracks. Factories and barracks occupied 70 to 80 percent of the facilities. Mining scaffolding and production centers for assembling war machines were everywhere on the steel land. The highly intelligent cyborgs called Executors were manufactured in these factories and sent to the Zenith after a short period of adjustment and preparation. In an even shorter period of time, half of them would be used as consumables in the never-ending shredder on the home planet.
An Executor like N-4, who had served for more than a decade, was almost a miracle. Most of them were like N-6, who was easily shot down by the First Born during a bombing mission, crashed, and became a pile of broken wreckage on their home planet.
If she had not met Hao Ren and his team, N-6's existence would have ended at that moment.
Carefully avoiding a group of patrol planes flying over the avenue, N-6 poked her head out from her hiding place. She did not know why she had these inexplicable thoughts: the world she lived in, the life of an Executor, and her own fate.
This was the first time she had thought about her own fate. To be honest, the Executor felt that this question was a waste of electricity.
Perhaps this was what those Executors who had served for more than a certain amount of time often referred to as "emotional problems"? N-6 curiously checked the running state of her logic circuit. She knew that those Executors who had served for a long time would be very different from those who had just left the factory. Even if the former had not downloaded new logic programs from the big think tank, the differences would appear over time. N-4 had talked to her about this before. She called it the accumulation of experience and emotional development, but N-6 still could not understand these things. Now she felt that she was about to understand.
It turned out that after a period of time … the logic circuit would begin to generate code that had nothing to do with the main program.
"There are automated things everywhere." Lily looked around curiously, her golden eyes reflecting the steel buildings in the distance. "It's so quiet …"
"That's normal." Hao Ren nodded. "There is no entertainment in this society, and there is no need for livelihood industries. Along the way, we have seen factories and barracks. The newly produced soldiers and war machines are all stored in their respective warehouses, and when they go into battle, they are directly sent to the frontline by transport plane. I can't imagine such a society with busy streets and wandering pedestrians."
Vivian frowned. "But the Executors actually have emotions … at least like N-4, and N-6 is not bad either."
Y 'zaks nodded. "Yes, they have the foundation to build a normal society, but they do not have the luxury."
Hao Ren did not continue the topic. He looked up and looked in the direction they were heading. A huge "mountain" was in front of them, and it did not look very far. That was the "fortress" that N-4 and N-6 mentioned.
The fortress was a circular steel fortress. Looking down from the sky, it looked like a round cake with regular edges and slightly sunken inside. On the edge of the fortress were neatly arranged black cubes. Huge metal pipes and corridors extended from these cubes, connecting to each other and pointing to the central structure of the fortress. At their intersection, there was an alloy cylinder hundreds of meters high. The cylinder had no doors or windows, and it was as dark as a prison. It was the place where humans lived — the Palace of Destiny.
It did not look like a palace for the creator, but it was the place of faith and belief of all the Executors.
The neatly arranged black cubes on the edge of the fortress were actually part of the Cortex Prime. They were the upper structure of the thirteen giant servers. Under the steel earth, these black cubes had a larger body and more complex secondary server array, and all these things were concentrated in the Inevitable Palace. According to N-4, there was also a computer room inside the Inevitable Palace, where there were also thirteen servers, which was the interface and control center of the Cortex Prime.
Simply touching or destroying the black cubes on the edge of the fortress was useless. Hao Ren and his team's destination was the core computer room of the Inevitable Fortress.
The route to the fortress was clear, but it was not so easy to get close to it without being noticed. While the First Born (the planet devourer in the mouth of the Executors) had never carried out complex tactics such as sending spies or internal sabotage, the humans who first designed and built the lunar base had set up layers of sentries and patrols around the fortress. These designs were inherited and carried forward by the Cortex Prime who later took over the management of the lunar base.
Hao Ren and his team saw many patrols and sentries along the way. Some were Executor guards in small combat vehicles, and some were fixed in certain places, constantly scanning the surroundings. But most of them were little things called "patrol planes." They were disk-shaped intelligent aircraft the size of a basketball, usually in groups of three or six. They were distributed all over the moon, especially around the fortress.
They were the eyes and ears of the Cortex Prime.
It was not difficult to get rid of these "eyes and ears". A trained husky and a brick that could attack from afar and defend at close range was enough to take out all the sentries. But this would inevitably cause a riot in the lunar base, and by that time, the army of Executors would be enough to overwhelm Hao Ren's team.
Hao Ren's team was indeed the best fighter, but they were not invincible here. Even if Vivian could knock out a hundred ordinary Executor soldiers with a bat, she did not have ten thousand bats to throw out when faced with a million-strong army.
So Hao Ren had been very cautious along the way. N-6 could guide the team around the main surveillance equipment, and the MDT could constantly sense the patrolling troops and send out warnings in advance. With these two help, they were able to get so close to the fortress.
At first, Hao Ren wanted to let the MDT fly a certain distance and teleport everyone away. But the moment the MDT activated the teleportation equipment, it sensed at least 70 radar signals, so he had to give up the idea.
Obviously, while the Executors had not yet pointed out the hyperspace technology, their radars were not blind. The abnormal energy fluctuations and electromagnetic radiation before the portal opened were enough to alert the Cortex Prime. Considering that the temporary dizziness and sensory disturbance after the teleportation would reduce everyone's combat effectiveness, Hao Ren had to give up on this overly risky method.
But fortunately, the "show" that Hao Ren had arranged in the Zenith had worked. The Cortex Prime's attention was almost entirely drawn to the battle in space, and a large number of troops on the lunar base had also been drawn to the battle. Although there were still a considerable number of Executors on the moon to maintain the necessary force of the base, their numbers were greatly reduced.
Just like that, Hao Ren and his team crossed the distance to the fortress, and the dark steel structure finally appeared in front of them.
"The fortress was built on a crater. It was originally just an underground bunker with an alloy shield dug at the bottom of the crater," N-6 said proudly as she looked at the towering black rampart in front of her. "But it has undergone countless modifications and enhancements over thousands of years. Now, except for this circular outline, it is basically impossible to see what it used to be. Its shell is covered with sensors and electronic eyes of the Cortex Prime. The entire black wall is built of activated metal, and any contact with the wall will be transmitted to the Cortex Prime in real time. How are you going to deal with this thing? "
Y 'zaks looked at the black wall not far away. "In the air or underground?"
N-6 shook her head. "There is a repulsive shield in the air. Although it is not as good as your shield technology, the repulsive shield itself is' sentient '. The Cortex Prime can also sense through the shield what has entered its fortress. Underground is also not possible because the whole underground is wrapped in a hemispherical activated metal shell, and it is impossible to sneak in quietly."
Vivian said thoughtfully, "It sounds like the entire fortress is wrapped in a barrier … This structure gives the impression that it can break away from the lunar base at any time."
N-6 glanced at her and was silent for two seconds before she said, "You guessed it right. The entire fortress is indeed an independent structure that can break away from the moon at any time. This great project was completed 3,000 years ago, and subsequent improvements and revisions have continued intermittently until today. It is designed to preserve the last light of the survivor society when the situation is too critical to be salvaged. If the lunar base falls and the Zenith is destroyed by the planet devourer, then the fortress will lift off and fly into space, becoming a new 'Zenith Ark'. Humans and the Cortex Prime still have a glimmer of hope to find a place to live in the vast universe.
"At the same time, the Executors have buried an annihilation reactor inside the moon, enough to push the entire planet out of its orbit. If the fortress really has to flee again, the Executors will detonate the annihilation reactor after the fortress lifts off. The moon will then change its orbit and eventually crash into the mother planet. We don't know if this will eventually destroy the planet devourer, but at least … we can go home. "
The plan made everyone gasp. Lily's eyes widened. "Are you guys crazy?"
"We just want to go home."
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
