The moment the enemy ship's shields collapsed, the wreckage swirled and scattered in the Black Sky like overturned tin cans. Ye Mo's finger was still hovering above the emergency protocol button, but his eyes had already scanned the three data screens on the main control panel—energy readings plummeted, communication frequencies were dead, and only a few small assault boats were still wobbling and adjusting their attitudes, as if they had been stunned and hadn't recovered yet.
"They're not quite dead," he said, his voice low but immediately switching to the all-hands channel. "The engines are still functioning. Three ships—two on the left flank and one on the right rear—their frequencies are all fluctuating. They're preparing for a forced landing."
Star-Lord's voice immediately came from the Milano: "Roger that, you in the suit, I'll go set them on fire right away."
Before the words were even finished, the silver-gray spaceship rolled sideways and plunged into the smoke cloud. The laser cannon muzzle lit up red, firing not in bursts, but in precise bursts. Each shot hit the edge of the assault boat's tail nozzle, not aiming for an instant kill, but specifically targeting the weak points in the propulsion structure. The first ship had just raised half of its shield when its right stabilizing wing was sheared off, and it crashed headfirst to the ground; the second ship tried to turn and escape, but was hit in the rear and spun in place; the third ship was the most ruthless, charging forward despite the fire, clearly intending to crash into the base's outer wall.
" Rocket!" Ye Mo shouted.
"We've been waiting for this!" Inside the weapons bay, with a flick of the Rocket claw, three miniature homing missiles roared out, slipped through the gaps in the ballistic trajectory created by Star-Lord, slid close to the back of the assault boat, and finally "snap" attached themselves near the fuel tanks.
"Three seconds left in the countdown. I pressed the fuse myself." The Rocket grinned and pressed the launch button.
boom!
The explosion illuminated the entire rock formation, sending debris flying everywhere, but no one let their guard down. Groot stood in the center of the base courtyard, his roots already spreading silently to the ground fifty meters away, like an invisible net. Just as the assault boat exploded into fireworks, three thick vines suddenly arched up from the ground, precisely entangled the three figures ejected from the escape pods, dragged them directly into the rock crevice, and pinned them down.
Gamora acted almost simultaneously. In a flash, she appeared at the edge of the designated landing zone, her back against the shadow of the observation window, her sword still sheathed, only lightly touching the communicator on her ear with her finger. Ye Mo's Spatial Perception data was projected into her visual system in real time, and a green dotted line marked the life signal trajectory of the remaining enemy soldiers.
"Two, 15 degrees east of east, moving slowly," she said.
"Leave them alive," Ye Mo replied. "Don't let them send any signals."
Gamora, lightly touched the ground with her toes, and glided along the rock face at a low altitude, her movements as light as the wind blowing through the grass. Less than ten seconds later, two muffled thuds came through the communication, followed by the sound of metal hitting the ground—she had been captured, and her equipment had been confiscated.
In the control room, Ye Mo didn't move, but his fingers were already rapidly sliding across the console. The Telepathy Fragment continued to scan the energy flow of the remaining enemy ships, and a silent notification sounded in his mind: [Target locked]. His vision distorted slightly, as if someone had dripped some alcohol into his eyes, and then he saw clearly—although the shields of those remaining warships were completely destroyed, there were still commanders inside directing operations, their emotions fluctuating wildly, mixed with fear and a near-madness in their decisions.
"They're preparing to retreat," Ye Mo said. "Not back to their home planet, their direction is all over the place, it seems like they're heading to some transit point."
"Scared, huh?" Rocket snorted, muttering as he dismantled the EMP torpedo's bomb bay. "He was acting all high and mighty just a moment ago, but now he's running faster than a mouse whose tail has been stepped on."
"Then let's send them on their way." Ye Mo typed the order, "Deploy three drones, equipped with biological signal decoys, to simulate our pursuit path."
"Got it, fishing." With a flick of the Rocket's claws, three drones disguised as small reconnaissance aircraft silently slid out of the launch silo and flew along the pre-set route toward the enemy ship wreckage. Almost simultaneously, one of the surviving enemy ships suddenly activated its warp drive, but instead of a standard long-distance jump, it made a short-distance flash—"whoosh," it moved thousands of kilometers away, paused, and then flashed again. Each displacement was extremely short, and the trajectory was completely irregular.
"It really is fragmented jumping," Ye Mo, staring at the screen. "An old trick to evade tracking."
" Star-Lord, can you keep up?" he asked.
"Yes, but only the afterimage of the last jump," Star-Lord replied. The Milano's engines roared, rapidly approaching the energy ripples left by the most recent jump.
" Groot, help me."
Groot remained silent, and a thin, hair-like root silently extended, attaching itself to a piece of metal debris ejected by the shockwave of the explosion. The debris flew at high speed, tracing an arc in the air, and the root, propelled by the force, extended, briefly reaching nearly a hundred meters, capturing the last frame of the enemy ship before it disappeared—the ship's markings were blurred, but its outline was highly similar to the remnants of Ronan's fleet.
"Got it." Ye Mo pulled up the footage. "Not the new main threat, just Ronan's leftovers."
"No wonder they're such cowards," Rocket sneered. "A bunch of orphaned stray dogs, all they know how to do is run away when they can't get a bone."
Gamora then returned, carrying a twisted piece of armor with obvious signs of high-temperature burning. "This was recovered from a crashed assault boat. Material analysis shows it underwent non-standard modifications, and its power system is unstable," she said, placing the fragment into the analyzer tray.
Ye Mo took the data and glanced at it. "The modifications were hasty, and the parts were pieced together, which indicates that they are short of resources and loosely organized. This kind of team will run away if they can't win, and won't fight to the death."
"Then what are we waiting for? Chase them!" Rocket slammed his fist on the table. "While their legs are weak, kick them all the way down in one go!"
"No," Ye Mo shook his head. " The Telepathy Fragment has entered its cooldown period; it cannot lock onto targets at long distances for twelve hours. If we chase it now, it's like the blind men and the elephant."
"Damn!" Rocket almost jumped up. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"It was just in use a moment ago, and the cooldown is only now triggering." Ye Mo shrugged. "It was a system notification."
"It's the system again." Rocket rolled his eyes. "Your mouth is more reliable than Tony's reactor; it's a perfect tool for shifting blame."
Star-Lord then connected to the comms. "I think Ye Mo is right. They ran away, which means they're scared. That's more meaningful than killing a few. If we chase them now, we might run into an ambush and become passive."
Gamora nodded in agreement. "The enemy abandoned a large amount of equipment when they retreated, and didn't even take the wounded, which indicates the situation was urgent. This isn't a tactical retreat; it's a rout."
"So the conclusion is?" Rocket gritted his teeth.
"They ran away." Ye Mo stood up, took off his cracked glasses, and casually tossed them into the recycling bin. "But we know they were scared. A bunch of penniless, cobbled-together remnants of an army, they ran when they couldn't win, even losing their pants in the process. That kind of enemy isn't scary."
After he finished speaking, he walked to the main control panel and pulled up the warp-remains data chart of the enemy ship. On the screen, several discontinuous trajectories, like cut threads, eventually disappeared somewhere in deep space.
"They escaped," he repeated, "But we'll remember this smell—panic, agitation, a chaotic rhythm. Next time we smell it, we won't guess; we'll act immediately."
Rocket snorted and continued fiddling with his weapon systems. Star-Lord was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed, "Well, you in the suit, you're starting to sound more and more like Captain America."
"I never wanted to be the captain," Ye Mo rubbed his temples. "I just wanted to live."
Groot stood in the eco-zone, his branches swaying gently, as if nodding. Gamora turned and walked towards the training room, her steps steady. Inside and outside the base, the warning lights were still on, but the atmosphere had changed—no longer the tense silence of the past, but a relaxed feeling of having taken control of the rhythm.
Ye Mo didn't sit back down; he stood in front of the control panel, staring at the data analysis screen. He knew that the enemy's escape didn't mean the threat was over. But at least for this moment, they had won.
The Rocket's roar came from the weapons bay, "Hey, could you get your glasses frames changed next time? You look like a librarian; you're not even fierce enough to fight the villains."
"How fierce it is isn't important," Ye Mo said calmly. "What matters is whether you can win."
He picked up a new pair of silver half-rimmed glasses, put them on, and the lenses reflected the cold light of the screen.
Just then, a small screen in the lower right corner of the main control panel suddenly flickered—it was the last signal transmitted back by the roots that Groot was attached to the wreckage. The image was extremely blurry, showing only a fleeting outline of the bridge and a hatch that was closing.
Through the crack in the door, it seemed as if a figure turned and glanced back.