Breakpoint

On the bridge of the missile cruiser Orion, a dignified man stood before the floor-to-ceiling viewing window of the cockpit. His resolute features were sharply defined, and his jet-black hair was combed neat, without a single strand out of place. His name was Zhao Tianhe, rank colonel, around forty years old. He was the captain of this starship and supreme commander of its three thousand crew members. Gazing fixedly at the boundless starry expanse outside, he spoke after a long silence. "Still not moving?" A troubled expression crossed the navigator's face. "We've entered the hyperspace lane, but... for some reason, we seem to have stopped." He phrased it delicately because he couldn't make heads or tails of the situation either. Usually, when they entered a hyperspace lane, the starry sky beyond the viewing window would instantly shift into a deep blue-violet. Following a violent shudder, a brilliant, daylight-like burst of illumination would pierce out from the black void dead ahead. None of that had happened. The eerie part was that the warp drive was undeniably active, and all readings indicated they were positioned within the hyperspace lane—merely "stuck" at the entrance. Zhao Tianhe said nothing. Beside him, a woman in her thirties wore a look of utter astonishment. "How is that possible? Entering a hyperspace lane without moving... Can a hyperspace jump even be stopped? Something like this... is completely unheard of!" Her name was Wu Mengke, Executive Officer of First Department—the Ship Command Department—aboard the missile cruiser Orion. In layman's terms, she was the captain's second-in-command, responsible for assisting him in managing the ship's day-to-day affairs, organizing the duties of support departments, and so forth. The organizational structure of the Human Alliance Aerospace Force closely resembled the navies of the old era, though with distinct operational responsibilities. Zhao Tianhe lapsed into thought, his expression turning solemn. Just as his second-in-command had said, nothing like this had ever occurred since the founding of the Human Alliance Aerospace Force. No— Strictly speaking, not since human civilization stepped into the interstellar era and developed the warp drive! The navigator continued hesitantly: "...That's the strangest part. We've run diagnostics; the engines are running fine, with zero anomalies detected. It really is as if we're stuck at the entrance of the hyperspace lane." "Can we confirm it's the entrance?" Zhao Tianhe suddenly asked. The navigator blinked, started to nod, but then shook his head uncomfortably. "We... can't be sure." Hyperspace was not classical space; it was a corridor bridged between massive celestial bodies. Within this corridor, travel was strictly point-to-point, and coordinates within classical space or distances relative to massive bodies could not be measured. Silence fell over the bridge. The crew members exchanged glances; no one uttered a word. After a while, Zhao Tianhe looked at Executive Officer Wu, who was also lost in thought, and asked in a low voice: "What do you think it could be?" "I don't know. If we're just speculating, the possibilities are endless," Wu Mengke replied, shaking her head after regaining her composure. "Perhaps the scientists in Fifth Department can give us a plausible explanation." Zhao Tianhe nodded, turning his gaze back to the window, his expression grave. "Let's hope so." He had an ominous premonition. And as time ticked by, that premonition only grew stronger... Just then, hurried footsteps sounded from the bridge entrance. An officer strode through the open alloy hatchway and hastily reported: "Report! Collision detected on the lower deck! An unidentified flying object has rammed us!" Murmurs of shock rippled through the bridge. Zhao Tianhe didn't hesitate. He strode over to a console and looked at the holographic screen. The operator seated at the terminal swallowed hard and said flusteredly, "No structural hull damage detected... Could you have made a mistake?" The reporting officer fired back immediately, "Impossible! My personnel are on the scene! We've already sealed off the affected section according to the safety manual's emergency protocols!" "But..." the operator stammered. Ignoring their bickering, Zhao Tianhe stared intently at the display. A look of astonishment surfaced on his stern face. The deflector shields were functioning normally. Hull integrity diagnostics read normal as well... Yet he trusted his crew wouldn't lie; there was certainly no reason for them to invent such a thing. Wu Mengke stepped beside him, her expression equally conflicted. "One bizarre thing after another... Could this be a trick by the Gemini?" Zhao Tianhe replied in a tone that brooked no argument: "They're dead." Wu Mengke countered, "And what if they aren't? Nobody actually went aboard to verify." "...Verification isn't necessary. We punched clean through their shields. That's a settled fact. Let's not debate it further." After delivering the words flatly, Zhao Tianhe paused, then added: "Besides, even in the wildly improbable event that they managed to survive, there is no way they could trap us inside a hyperspace lane." Shutting down a hyperspace lane was possible—deploying a massive gravity well to disrupt nearby gravitational fields would do it, which wasn't particularly difficult. However, closing an already opened hyperspace lane was utterly impossible. At least, human technology possessed no known means of doing so. Wu Mengke sighed. "Then aliens must have intervened in our war." "Unless there's concrete evidence of their existence, I'd rather not entertain groundless assumptions." Leaving it at that, Zhao Tianhe turned to the officer standing by the bridge doorway. "Can you confirm what hit us?" The officer was clearly checking his comms. Pressing an index finger to his ear, he waited a long moment before reporting with an odd look: "It's a... uh, lifeboat-class civilian craft? My people aren't sure... but there are no friendly transponder codes or markings on it." "A civilian craft?" Wu Mengke raised an eyebrow, the faint crow's-feet around her eyes creasing with surprise. "Why would a civilian vessel be out here?" "Could be terrorists from some radical faction, or maybe an unlucky journalist... What was found aboard?" Zhao Tianhe pressed. Confirming the situation over the comm channel, the officer looked at the captain. "We found a hibernation pod inside. A boy who looks about seventeen or eighteen was inside it... He... claims to belong to an organization called the Alliance, serving in the Burning Corps..." "Alliance? Burning Corps?" Wu Mengke's face shifted slightly, and she murmured, "Could it really be aliens..." Zhao Tianhe's expression grew somewhat strange as well. Staring at the officer, he asked, "What else did he say?" "Quite a bit..." The officer paused for a moment. Suddenly, his expression changed, and he looked up. "He's gotten into a fight with our men..." ... In the cybernetics repair bay of the Engineering and Maintenance Department, Luo Yi—having successfully subdued a certain teenager—leaned against the operating table, allowing the robotic arm suspended overhead to work on his left arm. Standing next to the control terminal in coveralls, Koala deftly operated his tablet, slicing open the bionic skin on Luo Yi's left arm and extracting a charred metal cylinder. "Capacitor's fried... gotta swap in a new one." "Bad?" asked a burly man standing nearby with folded arms, his brow furrowing. His name was Xiao Yong. Like Luo Yi, he belonged to the space combat unit under the Sixth Department and held the rank of sergeant. "Bad? Not really. Just a burnt capacitor. Capacitors are the one thing I've got plenty of," Koala said with a grin, shaking his head. "Though I gotta say, these young punks hit viciously. Every move went straight for the kill." "Youngsters really don't know restraint. And whoever did his cybernetic surgery must have a fucking death wish," Xiao Yong cursed. Under the Cybernetics Regulation Act, installing offensive weapon modules into bionic prostheses was strictly prohibited, especially on minors who hadn't finished growing. They had already preserved the evidence; once they returned to Earth, criminal charges would be filed against the parties responsible. Sitting on the operating table, Luo Yi looked at his newly replaced right cybernetic arm. After a moment of silence, he spoke up: "That kid has seen combat." Xiao Yong raised an eyebrow. "You're saying he's a soldier?" "Yeah." Seeing Luo Yi nod, Xiao Yong uncrossed his arms in disbelief. "...Do we even have soldiers that young?" An eighteen-year-old should still be in high school; enlisting required at least a college degree. As for the colonial rebels... Those bastards had likely been turned to ash by now. Luo Yi looked up at him. "Didn't you hear him say he's from the Alliance?" Xiao Yong frowned. "You actually believe what he said?" Luo Yi's expression was conflicted as he shook his head. "I don't know, but his reaction speed and combat instincts weren't weak at all. Hell... if he hadn't just thawed out, I might not have been able to take him down alone." Xiao Yong stared at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? That kid?" Luo Yi looked him dead in the eye. "I'm not joking. I'm dead serious." The kid had anticipated his strikes and reacted instinctively; his body just hadn't kept up. That kind of prowess was never forged on a drill ground. It could only be honed in brutal, life-or-death melee combat. The only puzzle was one thing: Just as his squadmate had said, the boy was simply too young. To them, he looked like a half-grown child. Right then, an unexpected voice chimed in from the doorway of the repair bay: "My view matches Sergeant Luo Yi's. That kid is no civilian; he's a soldier through and through. And unlike you folks... he fought his way out of a wasteland." Three startled pairs of eyes turned toward the door, only to see their "ship chaplain" sauntering in, sloshed, clutching a flask of whiskey. He even let out a boozy hiccup as he crossed the threshold. Xiao Yong frowned. "Wasteland? Is that some movie?" The Fifth Department had the lowest presence of any division on the missile cruiser. Nominally established to handle the volatile, unpredictable deep-space environment, no Fifth Department on any starship had ever proved useful since its inception. The shipboard scientists couldn't fix an engine, nor could they contribute to strategic planning. Their sole purpose seemed to be churning out piles of academic garbage known as papers. Xiao Yong didn't deny the contributions physicists had made to the Era of Prosperity; he merely doubted whether assigning a research team to every single starship was at all necessary. Confronted by Sergeant Xiao Yong's skepticism, Wu Xinghuan couldn't hold back another hiccup and sheepishly wiped his mouth. "A movie? Nothing like that... This kid comes from our future. Or rather, he is our future." Koala looked at him strangely. "What kind of crazy talk is that?" Xiao Yong sneered dismissively. "That kid? If he's our future, humanity is truly beyond saving." "Haha, don't say that. Who wasn't young once? I bet when you were his age, you were far more of a punk than him, and probably didn't have half his moves." Wu Xinghuan chuckled oddly, glanced around at everyone present, cleared his throat, and added, "Also, I've got bad news for you all. Our ship is stuck in a hyperspace lane... and that time traveler might just be the reason we're pinned." An eerie silence fell over the room. Three pairs of eyes stared blankly at each other, trading looks of complete bafflement. The hyperspace lane... Stuck? Seeing the other two staring at him, Koala quickly raised his hands. "Don't look at me... I've never heard of such a thing, and fixing FTL drives isn't my job." Xiao Yong couldn't help asking, "Aren't you the fucking engineering supervisor?" Koala coughed and explained: "Fourth Department is officially Engineering and Maintenance. Hyperspace engines fall under the maintenance branch, handled by specialized engineers... Furthermore, critical equipment like that is overseen directly by First Department—the Captain's side." His head spinning from the bureaucracy, Xiao Yong slapped his own skull. "We have too damn many departments. Time to downsize." Koala snapped his fingers. "Great idea. I think Fifth Department is dead weight too." "Ahem." Wu Xinghuan tucked his bottle behind his back, looking sheepish. "Is now really the time for this...?" "Let me sort this out..." Luo Yi pressed his index finger to his temple, brow furrowed as he thought. "You're saying that kid comes from the future? And our future... is a wasteland? Which means... our world is destroyed?" "The world isn't destroyed; our civilization simply transitioned from one historical phase to the next," Wu Xinghuan said, seizing the opportunity to steer the conversation back on track. "Did you notice the clothes he was wearing? That's an authentic shelter jumpsuit, not some cheap replica." Xiao Yong scoffed. "You'll look pretty stupid if he's just some cosplayer." Wu Xinghuan stared at him with burning eyes, an irrepressible thrill in his voice. "Except he clearly isn't! We found mutant slime mold spores on him—spores of a strain we've never seen before!" The room went silent once more. This time, not just Xiao Yong, but Luo Yi's face shifted as well. Wu Xinghuan didn't notice—or didn't care—and rambled on: "I know it's hard to accept, but that's what happens in the future! In the distant future, humans achieve symbiosis with mutant slime mold. They're no longer lethal to us, and we no longer view them as mortal enemies; we become part of one another!" "Bull-fucking-shit," Xiao Yong spat. "By your logic, didn't we fight this war for nothing?" Looking at the brutish soldier who couldn't stomach the idea, Wu Xinghuan shrugged with a smile: "From an individual's perspective, perhaps. But from the vantage point of civilization, isn't it always like this? We cannot judge civilizational questions from the level of the individual, just as we cannot look down upon the individual from the heights of civilization. Questions of the same dimension must be studied from perspectives of the same dimension! Believe it or not, those are the facts... I need to refine my theories. You should feel honored—you're sharing a ship with a rising star of future physics." "What does that have to do with being a rising star in physics?" Koala scratched his shaggy hair, perplexed. "Isn't it obvious?" Wu Xinghuan smiled and threw his arms wide, revealing the bottle he had hidden behind his back. "Time can be reversed, as can the motion of matter, and even entropy! I have discovered a new physics!" "I think you've lost your fucking mind." Xiao Yong snatched the bottle from his hand and took a swig, ignoring the scientist's protests. He still couldn't swallow it. That a war dragging on for three years would conclude like this... and in the far future, punk kids would casually graft on combat cybernetics, piloting quasi-starships fitted with anti-gravity drives to scurry across the universe like roaches. If that was how it ended, the world might as well be destroyed. Luo Yi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You said we're stuck?" "Yes, correct." Seeing the whiskey drained dry, Wu Xinghuan gave up on trying to snatch it back, disappointed. Luo Yi stared speechlessly at this carried-away fellow—this supposed future titan of academia. "For now, I'll take your word for it. But since things are already like this... how about you focus on figuring out how to get us out of here?" At that, a confident smile returned to Wu Xinghuan's face. "It's actually quite simple. Whether that kid fell into a black hole or hit some neutron star or whatever, the bottom line is he blundered into our timeline." "And so?" Luo Yi didn't find it simple in the least; his head was already beginning to throb. Yet Dr. Wu, standing before him, took an entirely different view. "So all we need to do is find out what happened before he arrived here, and send him back." Hearing this, the other three men in the repair bay froze. Was it really that simple? It sounded like putting spilled items back into a box and shutting the lid. Luo Yi's eyes showed skepticism, but looking at Dr. Wu's bright, confident gaze, he couldn't help finding it somewhat persuasive. At least the guy was a professional in the field. "Looks like Fifth Department is finally going to pull its weight," Koala shrugged. "On the eve of the war's conclusion, rescuing a kid from the future, and saving over three thousand crew members along the way." "My achievements will reach far beyond that. I believe that many years from now, you will reminisce about this meeting today... and how approachable I was." Wu Xinghuan bowed extravagantly, as though already standing atop the podium at an awards ceremony. Xiao Yong gave a disdainful snort, his expression still full of contempt. "Sounds idiotic, but let's try it anyway..." Though their homeworld was caught in the crosshairs of war, it was nowhere near sinking into a desolate wasteland. And making peace with the mutant slime mold... Wouldn't that mean the radicals who had ruined everything won in the end? Not a chance in hell! "Let's deal with the problem right in front of us first." Luo Yi didn't want to dwell on things so far off. He had been away from home for too long; all he wanted was to return soon. If they reconciled, then they reconciled. The universe was vast; beyond Alpha Centauri, countless star systems existed. Giving them a single world wasn't unthinkable. Spreading mercy to the other side was sparing oneself. Besides, that planet had originally belonged to "Gaia." They were living peacefully there; if human colony ships hadn't disrupted their sweet slumber, they probably would have kept playing by themselves until the heat death of the universe. From the Human Alliance's perspective, the Three-Year War was unquestionably glorious, but from the opposing side's view, it might look entirely different. Rising from the operating table, he rolled his shoulder and turned his gaze toward Dr. Wu by the door. "Where is that boy... Ye Shi? Where is he now?" Wu Xinghuan grinned. "In the sickbay. Xiao Lin gave him an exam; he's basically fine." Luo Yi nodded. "Let's go see him." "I'm coming too." Koala raised a hand, quickly powered down his equipment, and fell in behind the three. Shipboard security was Third Department's responsibility, but how could he pass up something this interesting? Besides, as someone had put it, this was a historic moment! The four arrived at the entrance of the sickbay to find quite a crowd already gathered. Not only were there doctors and nurses from the Medical and Life Support Department, but there were also personnel from other departments, and even senior officers from Ship Command. Luo Yi even spotted an AI specialist from the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Department. Even Tenth Department had come to join the spectacle—something he truly hadn't expected. Luo Yi's heart sank slightly, and he couldn't resist shooting a glare at Dr. Wu beside him. That blabbermouth... No doubt the word about the kid being from the future had spread like wildfire. Now every crew member aboard knew they had a visitor from the future. "Excuse me, let me through..." Wu Xinghuan raised his arms like a celebrity, elbowing his way to center stage. Seeing the Fifth Department researcher, the onlookers parted, curiously watching what he was about to do. Walking straight up to the boy sitting dazedly on the examination bed, Wu Xinghuan crouched down beside him with a genial smile. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wu Xinghuan, a scientist here." Ye Shi looked at him, feeling that this guy didn't seem like a scientist at all, but rather a clown. Then again, thinking of the Academy folks, he figured it made sense, nodding expressionlessly. "Oh." His mind was in utter disarray. On the one hand, after so much time had passed, he didn't know whether Jiang Xuezhou was still alive. On the other hand, he couldn't figure out his own current situation. Two possibilities: Either he was in some hardcore single-life dungeon, or he had genuinely traveled through time. Contemplating the latter felt a bit foolish, but he couldn't help panicking. Ah Guang hadn't responded to him at all, and since he hadn't logged off, he couldn't reach his friends on the forum either. He even regretted staying in the cockpit instead of letting Fang Chang take the pilot seat. If it were Brother Fang Chang, he would have solved the problem in minutes... Or even Lao Bai. At least that guy tended to handle things more maturely. Looking back on his gaming career, Ye Shi realized that almost every time, he had relied on reckless charging rather than his brain. "Perhaps I can help you," Wu Xinghuan said with earnest sincerity, trying to earn the teenager's trust. "Help me?" Ye Shi tilted his head slightly, an amused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "You?" As he spoke, he caught a strong whiff of alcohol. This guy reminded him of Mosquito—no one could possibly be more unreliable than Mosquito. By comparison, Tail was practically dependable; at least she didn't truly mess things up. The man, however, seemed oblivious to his own drunkenness and babbled on: "According to my deduction, you ran into trouble during hyperspace transit. I might be able to help you... which would benefit both of us." Ye Shi looked at him with amusement. "From the sound of it, your deductions aren't very reliable. That research vessel of mine didn't have a warp drive. At best, it used anti-gravity repulsors to take off and land on planets. It's incapable of hyperspace travel." Wu Xinghuan gestured with his fingers as he went on: "I know, but the technical principles behind anti-gravity devices are actually similar to warp drives—just different applications of gravitons. And... uh, maybe that was just an escape craft, and you have another ship nearby—" The guy was probably hammered, stumbling over his words. Ye Shi curled his lip and cut in: "That was a research vessel organized by the Academy. I don't have any other ship, just that one. You must have heard of the Academy—I remember that organization existed before the war." "It's an academic organization... Wait, you mean they played a huge role after the war?" Wu Xinghuan looked at him with wide, delighted eyes, as if he had stumbled upon a monumental secret. Ye Shi could guess what was running through his mind. The guy was probably already figuring out which powerful tree to cling to once he got back to Earth. But he was obviously getting ahead of himself. As for why... "We took a hit from a neutron torpedo. Or even if it wasn't a direct hit... the damn thing detonated right near us. I'm not sure how much damage the deflector shields absorbed, but the ship lost control, and then we collided with you..." At that point, Ye Shi paused. Looking into the so-called scientist's eager eyes, he uttered words that instantly turned the blood cold in Wu Xinghuan—and everyone else in the room: "Care to guess what I went out there to do? Or why I collided with you?" "That's right. I was grave-robbing." "Your graves."