The indicator light on the tactical board flashed three times, the green light short and steady. Ye Mo didn't move, his fingertips still resting on the edge of the table, the slight warmth in his palms lingering. He knew the message had been delivered.
Five seconds later, a muffled thud came from the direction of the living quarters, like someone had kicked open a toolbox. This was followed by Rocket's voice. "Who's setting off the alarm in the middle of the night? I was sleeping soundly, dreaming about dismantling ten cannons!"
No one answered. But the ventilation ducts' silent mode had been manually switched off, and the sound of airflow resumed, a beat faster than before. This was the signal for the base to enter semi-alert status—not a drill, and it wouldn't be at full alert, but everyone was awake.
Star-Lord's terminal lit up first. He leaned against the wall of the pod, data panel tucked under his arm, his fingers tracing the waveform, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper. "This frequency... doesn't seem like a natural phenomenon," he muttered under his breath, "It's more like an old-fashioned radio stuck between two channels, making a crackling sound."
He looked up towards the control room. Behind the glass partition, Ye Mo was still sitting in his original spot, back ramrod straight, his glasses reflecting the cold light of the screen. Star-Lord hesitated for a moment, then attached the data pad to the communication interface and uploaded his analysis notes: [Estimated distance to the fluctuation source: approximately 42,000 light-years; no known civilization activity records match].
Groot reacted the quietest. He slowly moved from the hibernation area to the corner of the main control room, his roots silently sinking into the energy nodes beneath the floor. His branches glowed faintly, and greenery spread in concentric circles along his veins, as if injecting a biological buffer layer into the entire building. His language module emitted a low-frequency vibration. "I am Groot." Meaning: I am ready.
Gamora didn't touch any terminals. She simply picked up her dagger, crossed the corridor, and went straight to the outer door control system. Her fingers slid rapidly across the panel, bringing up all the entry and exit logs, infrared scan records, and air pressure change curves from the past twelve hours. Everything was normal. But she still casually activated the mine array in passage number three and turned the refresh rate of the surveillance cameras to the highest level.
"You're too tense." Rocket jumped onto the workbench, its claws gripping the welding torch, its tail thrashing irritably. "Just a bit of noise, can it bite or explode? Could Ye Mo have suffered some brain damage from holding up the shield for too long last time?"
As soon as he finished speaking, his terminal beeped. The original waveform graph was automatically synchronized, with a note attached: [Not a drill, please check].
Rocket paused for two seconds, then turned to look at the control room. Ye Mo remained motionless, his posture unchanged. But Rocket suddenly noticed something—the man's fingers were constantly moving, tapping the table with extremely subtle rhythm, perfectly matching the high-frequency vibration.
"Damn," Rocket muttered under his breath, then bent down to disassemble the EMP jammer in his hand. "Fine, you win. I don't believe you can keep this up for so long."
Star-Lord had already brought up the star system projection, and the location marker of the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy appeared in a pitch-black void. He zoomed in on the area, overlaying it with an energy thermal map, but found nothing. "I can't see it with the naked eye, but this data... is definitely wrong," he murmured. "It's like there's a smell in the air; you can't quite put your finger on it, but you know it shouldn't be here."
He turned and walked towards the control room, stopping at the door. "You can still feel it?"
Ye Mo opened his eyes and nodded. "It's increasing. It's increasing by about 0.7% per minute. Not fast, but continuous."
"How do you know it's not a malfunction? Or some idiot forgot to turn off the signal generator?" Rocket leaned closer, his ears perked up.
"Because my Gene Tower is shaking," Ye Mo said calmly. "That ' Unnamed-Primordial Awakening Type ' fragment trembles every time the fluctuation occurs. This is not a reaction I can control."
The three of them fell silent for a moment. They all knew what this meant—the system wouldn't lie, especially about this kind of physiological resonance.
Gamora returned from the outer corridor and stood listening. "So you mean this thing might be related to Mutants?"
"It might be Origin-level," Ye Mo said. "I've never seen such a pure energy base. It doesn't seem to be made by technology, nor driven by magic; it's more like... some kind of life itself breathing."
Groot gently shook the branch and whispered, "I am Groot." -- We have to keep an eye on it.
Star-Lord sighed, resting his hands on the control panel. "Okay, I believe you. What's next? Call a team meeting? Contact the Shenhe Civilization Early Warning Center? Or send a reconnaissance boat directly there?"
"No need," Ye Mo shook his head. "We can't make a decision right now. We only know it exists, but we don't know if it's friend or foe, or even if it will make a move. The only thing we can do right now is wait and see what its next move is."
"Then we'll wait." Rocket jumped off the platform, waving his paw. "But I need to upgrade my weapons. In case this thing really comes for us, at least it'll know that the Raccoon's cannons aren't just for show."
He finished speaking and disappeared around the corner of the logistics bay, his tail trailing a pile of parts. Star-Lord glanced at the time and decided to stay in the command area to monitor the changes in the star map. Gamora, on the other hand, set off again. This time, she laid out miniature sensor wires along the ceiling, each connected to an independent power source, triggering an alarm if a wire broke.
Groot didn't move. He rooted himself deeper, the green light emanating from his wooden trunk becoming the only warm light source in the control room. His roots trembled slightly, resonating with the base's electrical system, acting as a living voltage regulator to prevent any external pulses from interfering with the internal equipment.
Ye Mo closed his eyes and once again immersed himself in a state of perception. This time, he no longer just tracked the main fluctuation, but instead launched a fan-shaped scan to investigate all abnormal signals within a radius of 100,000 kilometers. Spaceship engines, crew members' heartbeats, equipment leakage, cosmic background radiation... everything was categorized and archived. He built a temporary database in his mind, recording each fluctuation and marking it with a timestamp.
Five minutes passed, and no new discoveries were made.
Ten minutes passed, and the fluctuations remained regular.
Fifteen minutes later, Ye Mo suddenly sensed something unusual—not from the outside world, but from within his own body.
The inactive gene fragment trembled again. But this time it was different. The previous times it was a passive response, like a bell being struck. But this time, it seemed to move on its own, as if it had gained consciousness.
Ye Mo suddenly opened his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. He immediately activated his " Neural Self-Healing Feedback " to check his nervous system, confirming that there were no hallucinations or delirium. Then he took a deep breath, slowed his heartbeat, and allowed his blood flow to stabilize. He tried again.
Close your eyes, concentrate, and lock onto the location of the fragment.
Here it comes again. Slight, but undeniable. It wasn't driven by external factors, but rather it actively responded to a certain fluctuation peak.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.
This is neither a misjudgment nor a coincidence; it is a two-way resonance.
He raised his hand, looking at the faint golden lines that appeared beneath the slightly pale skin at his fingertips—a precursor to the activation of the third layer of the Gene Spiral Tower. But according to the rules, this layer had not yet met the unlocking conditions and should not show any overt reaction.
But now it has appeared.
He didn't call for help. It wasn't that he didn't trust his teammates, but these kinds of things are hard to explain. You can't just point to your arm and say, "My DNA just jumped on its own." People would think he was crazy, even if those people had just experienced talking trees and flying Raccoon.
He simply took a deep breath, suppressing his unease. Then he turned on the public channel recording function and whispered, "I'm watching."
The voice wasn't loud, and it was even a little hoarse, but everyone present heard it.
Star-Lord glanced up at him, said nothing, and silently shared his terminal screen to the main screen.
The Rocket added a voice message in the background, "Don't play dumb, I'm watching too."
Gamora paused, then increased the trigger sensitivity of the last trap by twenty percent.
Groot's branches gently touched the ground, as if in response.
No one left their post.
No one raised any questions.
No one asked, "How much longer do we have to wait?"
They simply held their positions, like five nails firmly anchored to this base floating on the edge of the universe.
Ye Mo closed his eyes again and continued scanning. His breathing became extremely slow, his chest almost motionless, with only his fingertips occasionally twitching, recording each fluctuation of energy. He knew that this battle had not yet begun, and he didn't even know what the enemy looked like. But he also knew that the real battle often didn't begin with an explosion, but with someone sitting in the dark, staring at something no one could see, waiting motionless.
His glasses slipped down half a centimeter, but this time, he still didn't go to fix them.
The cracks are still there, and a layer of dust has accumulated.
But he no longer cared.