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(I hope everyone can relax during the May Day holiday. Though it only adds up to one extra day off, this holiday may still be exhausting. That was the case for Yi Zui. I got up early this morning for a family barbecue outing. The traffic was maddening, and the parking spot was practically a mountain away from the barbecue site. I only got home just now and hurriedly wrote a bit. This chapter is a little short, but Yi Zui really couldn't hold on any longer. In tomorrow's two chapters, I will make up the missing word count in the first one. My apologies, everyone.)
When the four participants gathered together again, warship military police lay sprawled all around them. Some had passed out outright, while others kept letting out pained cries, no longer able to stop the four from advancing.
After the four regrouped, they understood one another's intentions with a single glance. The sleeveless Sman picked up four weapons from the ground and handed them out one by one, then the group rushed toward the bridge.
Along the way, the blue-haired Harvey was filled with rage, his eyes blazing as though he wanted to destroy everything before him. Yet he managed to remain rational as he asked the only woman among them, "Sis, what do we do?"
Eshe's expression darkened at Harvey's words. "Abandon the first mission. We don't have the ability to fight in space. If we'd boarded the Archangel, we might have been able to take on that mission with those two mecha. Now, we can only give it up. But we must accept the second mission. C-class mecha data is no simple thing. Perhaps once we complete this mission, we can use that data to obtain C-class mecha for all of us. The moment we capture Harborton, we'll immediately head for the Shuttlecraft and force our way out of this battle zone. We absolutely cannot let Harborton suffer any harm before the battle begins. Barnes, go to the hangar immediately and make sure the Shuttlecraft is operational. Break into the warship's systems and take control of everything."
"Yes." The silver-haired Barnes, who had remained silent the whole time, quietly answered. When they passed an intersection, he left on his own.
Harvey said bitterly, "That idiot Harborton actually had us arrested and stopped us from acting. If it weren't for the mission, I'd really like to strangle that old bastard to death!"
The short-sleeved Sman shot Harvey a glare and cursed under his breath, "Idiot. I thought you'd become a little more mature. You hit pretty hard just now, but at least no one died. Don't forget, those Low-species you killed before cost you quite a few Merit Points."
"You're the idiot! You're just as much of an idiot as Barnes!" Harvey snapped. "If we'd knocked those guys down earlier, we wouldn't have ended up in such a passive position."
"Shut up!" Eshe suddenly raised her voice, a trace of viciousness appearing in her seductive tone. "Are you questioning my decision?"
Harvey gritted his teeth and said nothing more. Sman looked at his expression and curled his lips disdainfully. He raised his hand and fired a shot ahead without even looking. A cry of pain immediately came from around a corner, and a soldier clutched his arm as he fell to the ground, wailing.
After firing, Sman, Eshe, and Harvey did not slow down as they ran past the fallen Earth Force soldier. Sman suddenly frowned and said, "I keep feeling that something isn't right. Harborton wasn't exactly friendly to us before, but at least he didn't interfere much with what we did and let us do as we pleased. So why did he have us arrested the moment we returned from that ship?"
"Mm, I was thinking about that too." Eshe nodded, narrowing her eyes. "I think something may have happened aboard the Archangel. From the questioning earlier, I realized someone had become suspicious of our identities and started investigating us. Those photographs were strange too. Why show me so many photos and ask whether I recognized the people in them? I suspect many of those photos were of people closely connected to our current identities."
"So our identities have been exposed?" Harvey's face changed drastically.
Eshe shook her head. "No. They couldn't have guessed our true identities. But why? What happened aboard that ship?"
No matter how the three thought it over, they could not come up with an answer. They could only be certain that something may have happened aboard the Archangel, causing Harborton to begin suspecting the identities of the four of them. But they could never have imagined that there was another participant aboard that ship, one who knew everything they did not.
It wasn't as though Eshe had never considered that possibility. She had suspected that other participants might be aboard that ship, but after thinking about it, she found it unlikely. No one could have predicted that the Archangel would appear in Heliopolis, the birthplace of all the participants. Moreover, the eight-hour countdown had been like a death warrant, driving them to find every possible way to leave Heliopolis. By the time the Archangel appeared, most participants had already boarded Life Pods or left Heliopolis.
Even if someone had been unlucky enough to find no way out, it would not have been so easy to board the Archangel. Even if someone really had been that lucky, Eshe asked herself honestly that there was absolutely no way they could influence the decision of a fleet admiral. Even if there truly were participants aboard the Archangel, both sides had chosen the same faction, and their future interests would be bound together. There was no need to target one another. That would be a losing deal for both sides.
But Eshe could not have known that the participant aboard the Archangel, Xiao Ran, had chosen the Earth Force but did not belong to the same faction as the Earth Force they had chosen. To Xiao Ran, his faction consisted of himself alone. Every other participant could be considered his enemy. If other participants were around him, he would not dare rely on his familiarity with the plot to gain an advantage. Once anyone noticed something suspicious, the one in danger would never be the other participants. It would only be Xiao Ran, the weak Earthling who could not beat any other participant.
Eshe shook her head, suddenly thinking of another possibility. "Could it be that the things those idiots did in Heliopolis implicated us? We have too many similarities with them. In order to better complete Main Mission Two, we displayed many abilities that Low-species humans simply don't possess. Could that be why they associated us with those people?"
"Sis, you mean they think we're with those idiots?" Sman frowned and snorted heavily. "Those idiots got themselves killed and dragged us down with them. If I run into any of the ones who escaped, I'll make them pay!"
"I'll kill them!" Harvey roared with bloodshot eyes and a twisted expression. "I'll skin them alive and make them taste, little by little, the most unbearable pain in this world!" (A great giveaway has fallen from the sky—win a cool phone! Follow Qidian Chinese Network's official WeChat account [WeChat: Add Friends - Add Official Account - enter qdread] and join now! Everyone gets a prize, so follow qdread on WeChat immediately!)