Musk was an outsider

This was the second time Elon Musk had barged into the launch control room that day, less than three hours after the first.

The entire room froze in surprise.

Blackwell's expression swiftly shifted from surprise to disgust, then restraint. He looked at the world's richest man much as he would an old dog that had wandered into a banquet hall.

"Elon, do you really have that much free time?"

Blackwell waved a hand, and the NASA Security Force behind him immediately converged from every direction. Some were ready to act, using righteous force to subdue this evil capitalist.

"Two million dollars each if you stay put," Elon Musk said with a sneer.

The security agents immediately stopped.

Blackwell roared, "Elon Musk, you money-throwing idiot! You know nothing about rockets or spaceflight! You're a businessman, a fraud, a nouveau riche outsider!"

Elon Musk ignored him. Instead, he seized the opportunity to send his private security rushing forward. Within moments, they had secured half the room, establishing a standoff.

He continued addressing the agents. "Don't worry. Besides the two million dollars, I'll arrange red-state residency for you and relocate your families there. If you're still afraid, I can arrange Canada, New Zealand, or somewhere else. All you have to do is stay put."

The security force consisted entirely of NASA special agents. They were United States federal government employees with statutory authority to make warrantless arrests, carry weapons, and conduct criminal investigations—effectively NASA's own federal police.

Many had previously served in Air Force security forces, Army military police, or local police departments. They had chosen to apply to the NASA Security Force for one reason alone.

They were broke.

Of course, professional ethics kept them from openly switching sides. Instead, quite a few became engrossed in fiddling with equipment, servicing their guns on the spot, tying their shoelaces, or straightening their appearance.

They stood behind the chief commander, preening and fussing, each busy with his own affairs.

Seeing this, Deputy Administrator Anderson shouted, "What are you all doing? You'd believe a businessman's sales pitch? You think he'll actually give you those two million dollars? He's a treacherous bastard! Don't forget, he's an old fox who's spent years hopping between both parties' voting blocs!"

He had barely finished when a cold, electronic female voice rang out from a NASA agent's phone.

"A wire transfer of 2,000,000.00 US dollars has been deposited into your checking account ending in 4217."

The agent fumbled to silence his phone.

The agents' expressions immediately became a colorful spectacle. Some could not resist secretly waking their phones, and their lips curled with delight when they read the messages.

Smiles were contagious. Within moments, almost every NASA security agent was struggling to suppress his grin.

A simple capitalist offensive easily shattered the deputy administrator's bluster. His face turned deathly pale, and he staggered back several steps.

Elon Musk took a step forward. The two bodyguards behind him, broad as doors, stepped forward as well, flanking him protectively.

Blackwell gritted his teeth. "Elon, what exactly are you trying to do?"

Elon Musk sneered. "Expose your geomagnetic storm lie. There is no geomagnetic storm!"

"Elon, have you lost your mind? We've always worked well together, haven't we?" Nelson, head of the Artemis Program, could not help saying.

SLS project director Miller spoke up too. "Elon, we've always been friends. Good friends, regardless of party affiliation."

Elon Musk shot back, "Then why didn't you take me to Epstein's island?"

All four men froze.

The bastard was still holding that grudge.

Deputy Administrator Anderson tried to placate him. "If an opportunity comes up, we'll invite you to a gathering. But as you know, we must firmly reject an island of depravity like Little Saint James Island. We can arrange a new party for you, though, whatever your tastes..."

Elon Musk cut him off and addressed everyone loudly. "Listen, friends! Your chief commander is deceiving you. From the very beginning, he never wanted us to land on the moon!"

The entire room erupted.

With that declaration, Elon Musk had dragged the conflict into the open.

Many felt a sudden rush of understanding. Their instincts had been right: the higher-ups really did not want the rocket to reach the moon. No wonder everything about the launch mission had seemed strange.

Anderson could not help unleashing a torrent of abuse at Elon Musk.

The flight director below wore an expression that said he had known it all along. He asked Elon Musk, "Mr. Elon, why?"

Elon Musk answered offhandedly, "Because Blackwell is a KGB spy. His goal is to sabotage this moon landing!"

"Bullshit!" Blackwell snapped. "Since when have I been a KGB spy?"

"Then how do you explain your mansion in Moscow, your pool, and your pretty young Slavic girls?"

"Bullshit!" Blood rushed to Blackwell's head.

Elon Musk had naturally made it all up. But in a situation like this, each side fought its own battle. While his opponent floundered in the trap of proving his identity, Elon Musk climbed onto a chair with his bodyguards' help, then stepped onto a table.

The flight director seated nearby obligingly shoved the computer, documents, keyboard, and everything else on the table aside.

Four bodyguards climbed up too, enclosing Elon Musk in a tight protective ring.

From his elevated position, Elon Musk called out, "Listen, friends! I've monitored geological activity worldwide. Over the past seventy-two hours, Earth's magnetic field has remained stable, and that stability has persisted for two years. The last G4 geomagnetic storm was in April 2026. It would take at least a G5 storm, or a Carrington-class event, to affect a lunar spacecraft."

Having said that, Elon Musk looked down at Blackwell from above.

"And over the past seventy-two hours, sunspot activity has remained at G1. There haven't been any warnings for CMEs, proton events, or geomagnetic storms. All this data is publicly available. Black, weren't you ashamed when you trotted out that radiation graph? Tell me, which parallel universe did you pull those geomagnetic storm readings from? The universe inside your mother's womb?"

Elon Musk's entourage included professional SpaceX engineers, some of whom could not suppress quiet laughter.

The control room instantly filled with merriment.

Blackwell said coldly, "Elon, our Deep Space radiation monitoring system operates independently of civilian observation networks. Its precision and sensitivity far exceed publicly available data. Your public-level warnings are unreliable."

Elon Musk scoffed. "How much money have you put into your Deep Space radiation monitoring system? Is it as accurate as mine?"

Blackwell said, "..."

Fucking capitalist bastard.

In the United States, whoever spent more money had more accurate data. That was an indisputable iron law. Even he could not brazenly deny it.

Elon Musk continued, "Enough. I think your performance can end now. The Orion spacecraft's service module has sufficient radiation resistance to pass through the radiation belts. I'm demanding that you issue the SUS ignition command."

Blackwell refused outright. "Impossible. For safety reasons, I cannot authorize ignition. We can have the rocket return first. At worst, we'll wait for the second lunar mission. We still have a backup SLS rocket."

Elon Musk exploded. "Next time? China's lunar spacecraft will have had babies on the moon, and you'll still be talking about next time! This is a space race, not playing house! We must ignite! This isn't just my demand-it's President Vance's order!"

Even invoking the new president did not move Blackwell. He even sneered at this small-town, test-taking grind of a president.

"Elon, you don't get to order me around," Blackwell said with a cold laugh.

Seeing this, Elon Musk wasted no more words. He surveyed the room. "Then sorry for the trouble, friends. Time to act."

With that, he jumped down.

At his words, many NASA staff in the launch control room stopped pretending. They stripped off their NASA work clothes, revealing SpaceX employee shirts underneath. They were all SpaceX employees!

Calling them employees was not entirely accurate, but they were indeed working two jobs.

There was no shame in making money.

In the United States, this was merely a small precaution against sliding down the social ladder.

More than a fifth of the launch control room's staff held both jobs. Without the chief commander's authorization, they independently sent secondary ignition commands. A few NASA-only employees, such as the flight director, also sent secondary ignition commands out of a sense of moral duty.

But they soon discovered that the secondary ignition commands were useless.

The EUS propulsion system actually had one final command interlock, and only leaders with L5 clearance could authorize it.

In other words, only the chief commander and others at his level could grant authorization. Middle managers such as the flight director lacked the necessary access.

When they reported all this to Elon Musk, his expression darkened.

Besides Blackwell, three people present could grant authorization: NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson, Artemis Program chief Bill Nelson, and SLS project director Greg Miller. But the four were clearly birds of a feather.

All four leaders stood against Elon Musk.

Even with the national cause of landing Americans on the moon on his side, President Vance's verbal order, and his status as a top capitalist tycoon, Musk was powerless against the four NASA executives' determined resistance.

A trace of resolve appeared in Elon Musk's eyes.

The bodyguards behind him sensed their employer's determination and raised their guns. The time had come to earn glory and make a fortune!

Elon Musk did not want a mutually destructive showdown, but he had no choice.

This was his only chance to establish contact with those people.

If Counselor Wang had not lied to him, Observer Gao was very likely the grandson of a member of some ancient organization. This was the perfect opportunity to forge a connection.

Especially after witnessing Gao Jian's uncanny disappearance and the streak of Escape Light in the sky, he was more convinced than ever that those ancient rumors were true. As long as he could establish contact with the power behind Gao Jian, every sacrifice he made this time would be worth it.

He hoped Counselor Wang had not lied about Gao Jian's identity.

So the rocket had to launch.

Even if he had to seize control by force.

With Elon Musk's private bodyguards aiming guns at them, the four NASA leaders' expressions grew strained. If the confrontation turned deadly, they could well be discarded as expendable pawns.

Then the new president would only need to conduct a modest purge, and the Zion Elder's promises would dissolve into empty fantasy.

Worst of all, the NASA Security Force behind them was still wavering. Not one agent was willing to protect them for a ten-thousand-dollar salary. Damn those two million dollars. Damn that capitalist.

Adding fuel to the fire, the flight director, a key figure among middle management, had actually led the defection.

Facing the chief commander, the flight director said sorrowfully, "You've suppressed too much. You've been deceiving us all along. Abnormal fuel loading, separation bolts that didn't detonate, engines that wouldn't ignite... Mr. Black, I don't understand why you're doing this."

The four leaders' expressions changed completely.

More and more mid-level and junior engineers stepped forward.

"If the technology is mature, there are no malfunctions, and there's no geomagnetic storm, why aren't we going to the moon?"

"Is the chief commander really a Russia spy?"

"Why do you get to date young Slavic girls?"

"How long have we worked day and night to return to the moon? Three years? Five?"

"Mr. Elon has brought the president's verbal order. Why are you trying to stop him?"

"Are we really supposed to wait for the Chinese to land on the moon first?"

"What are you afraid of? Aren't you from the United States?"

"Who... are you, really?"

That final question, "Who are you, really?" almost instantly pinned the four leaders in opposition to every NASA engineer and the entire United States public.

"Wait." Deputy Administrator Anderson's face was deathly pale.

Blackwell remained composed, but Nelson and Miller were already close to wavering. Blackwell and the deputy administrator had set them up and forced them aboard this ship in the first place.

Just as the situation was about to spiral out of control, a voice as solid as an anvil suddenly rang out.

"I authorize EUS ignition."

Those words quelled the agitation throughout the room. Elon Musk turned and saw NASA's actual administrator, the agency's top man: Jared Isaacman.

Jasade wore a dark-blue NASA administrative jacket. He looked rather like an ordinary office clerk, but his bearing was entirely different.

Thank goodness. The administrator had finally arrived.

Deputy Administrator Anderson looked toward him with a pleading gaze. Yet the administrator did not spare his deputy another glance. Instead, he addressed Elon Musk apologetically.

"Elon, I heard what happened on my way here. This was indeed caused by the chief commander and his colleagues misjudging the geomagnetic storm situation. It was a serious strategic misjudgment."

Elon Musk nodded expressionlessly.

This administrator was a legend within NASA. His almost freakish attendance record and political survival skills were astonishing. Even the former president could find no fault with him. Whenever Congress cut the budget, he managed to preserve the core programs. Under him, NASA's priority never fell; it only rose. Opinions of him within the industry were also sharply polarized.

He never participated in partisan struggles, never publicly supported either side, and never made mistakes. He simply devoted himself wholeheartedly to NASA's work.

Elon Musk did not particularly enjoy dealing with workaholics like him.

Most importantly, Jasade's family was in New York real estate. He did not lack money, and Elon Musk hated rich people other than himself.

Administrator Jasade walked slowly into the center of the room.

As the superior of Anderson, Blackwell, and the others-and the person they feared most in all of NASA-the pressure his presence exerted was easy to imagine.

Administrator Jasade accepted the data report the flight director handed him, glanced at it, and said casually, "Engine status, radiation levels, navigation systems-all normal. Every condition for ignition has been met, yet you still insist on preventing the rocket from heading to the moon."

Jasade looked at Blackwell with some disappointment. "You won't even accept losing the wager?"

Blackwell remained expressionless.

Jasade turned to Deputy Administrator Anderson. "You can get the hell back home. You're fired."

Anderson looked pleadingly at Jasade, but the latter remained unmoved.

Jasade's gaze swept over Miller and Nelson. Both leaders retreated half a step, their lips trembling.

Finally, Jasade's gaze settled on the face of the launch site's chief commander, Blackwell.

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

Blackwell tightened his jaw and walked stiffly to the main console. He tapped the screen, bringing up the highest-level access interface.

Faced with the flood of secondary ignition commands, he granted L5 authorization.

[Ignition authorized for the EUS upper stage's four RL-10 engines]

Seeing this, Elon Musk smiled.

On the big screen, actual onboard telemetry footage replaced the CGI animation. The nozzles of the four RL-10 engines began swiveling in the vacuum. The telemetry feed had come online so quickly that a certain cultivator lying on an engine nozzle, hammering away at it, failed to react in time and was caught squarely on camera.

Elon Musk's smile froze.

Not just Elon Musk—everyone's expression froze at that moment.

Administrator Jasade stared at the footage in astonishment too.

The next instant, the liquid oxygen ignited. The ignition system, shackled by lies and fear, finally came alive. A ferocious dragon of flame blasted the unsuspecting CNSA observer away.

Before the eyes of the entire control room, legendary rocket repairman Gao Jian vanished from the screen.