I handed over to another world

For the first time in a year and a half, the lights in the command center were turned back to full brightness.

At this time, Chen Lin was standing in front of the panoramic observation window. He looked up and saw the silver halo projected by the Dyson cloud on the surface of the sun, like a layer of veil on the star.

His reflection was reflected in the glass, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were much deeper than before the Devourer Crisis - although Chen Lin was only thirty-seven years old, because he had a lot of things to do during his term of office, Chen Lin showed that he was more "mature" than the average person very early on.

"The statistics from the vice president are out, President."

Secretary Zhao's voice came from behind him, and the holographic screen unfolded in front of him. "During the Devourer threat period, there were 37 public surrender speeches within the association, involving 124 senior officials and scientists, 477 related media news channels, and more than related practitioners."

Chen Lin's fingers ran across the familiar names, pausing slightly on one of the three-character names.

The Minister of Space Defense, who was once an old comrade who had fought alongside him, actually proposed "establishing a communication channel with the Morning Star Community" at three internal meetings, and repeatedly expressed the tendency that the association's current plan would fail at high-level meetings. Most importantly, this Minister of Defense later participated in the incident related to Zhang Fengwu.

Although after investigation it was found that Zhang Fengwu did not win him over as a core member of the same group, his expressions of capitulationism and defeatism were taboo.

After the incident was over, Chen Lin naturally had to free up his hands to completely deal with these people.

Otherwise, this group of people will become an invisible scourge in the future.

"Prepare for a Level 1 confidential meeting."

Chen Lin closed the list and said to the secretary general behind him, "Everyone on this list should be included. Just deal with them in the same way as we dealt with Zhang Fengwu's incident."

"Yes."

Secretary Zhao nodded slightly and was about to leave when Chen Lin stopped him: "Don't be so hasty."

"I see……"

In the confidential meeting venue, Chen Lin and the twelve core members of the Strategic Committee were sitting around the obsidian round table. Chen Lin noticed that Chen Xuwen deliberately chose the seat farthest away from him.

The conference room uses the latest quantum encryption technology, and even air vibrations are converted into random noise.

"Today we will only discuss one thing." Chen Lin called up the data projection, "At a time when the survival of mankind is at stake, someone wants to be a traitor."

The temperature in the conference room seemed to drop suddenly.

Chen Lin simply waved his hand, and a clip soon began to play on the projection in front of him: the chief of the Academy of Sciences privately stated that "resistance is meaningless", and the general manager of the Mars base actually secretly recorded a video pledging allegiance to the Morning Star Community!
The most shocking thing is that Chen Xuwen said in a private communication that "Chen Lin's resistance policy will lead mankind to extinction" - this is no longer a simple content, but naked capitulationism!

“This is taken out of context!”

Chen Xuwen slammed the table and stood up, the scar on his forehead turned red with excitement - this scar was left when he was handling an incident, and he was later commended by the association for it.

"I proposed communication to buy time! Has no one here ever thought that we have no idea how powerful the Morning Star Community is?"

Chen Lin looked at him quietly: "So you think we should surrender?"

"I think it's sensible!"

Chen Xuwen turned to the other committee members, "We just escaped death, and now we have to start an internal cleansing? This will only cause the Red Dragon Association to fall apart!"

There was some commotion on the committee side, and Chen Lin noticed from the corner of his eye that at least five people nodded slightly.

He called up a new video - the footage of the Devourer tearing apart the Morningstar spacecraft, and deliberately zoomed in on the human corpses floating out of the wreckage of the spacecraft.

"The Morning Star Community uses humans as bait and experimental subjects." Chen Lin's voice was terrifyingly calm. "And some people would rather believe that such a civilization will give us a way to survive."

"Then what are you going to do?" Chen Xuwen sneered, "Lock us all up?"

Chen Lin tapped his fingertips on the holographic table, and everyone's file suddenly popped up in front of them. In the upper right corner was a glaring red "Special Assessment" - Chen Xuwen's score was 58%, and the system recommended "immediate termination of position."

"This is not dictatorship." Chen Lin stood up, "This is survival."

The meeting ended in tension.

When the others left, Xu Ruolan stayed behind. She pulled up a set of neural scan data: "We found this in the brains of the surrenderists."

Zooming in on the image showed that the people had tiny silvery particles in their prefrontal cortices, arranged in the same hexagonal pattern as the Morningstar cube.

"Nano-scale mechanical parasites." Xu Ruolan's voice trembled. "They will intensify the host's fear, especially the fear of unknown civilizations... The most terrifying thing is... these machines can spread through close contact."

Chen Lin stared at the image: "Chen Xuwen has it too?"

"The scan shows that the concentration of parasites in his brain is the highest." Xu Ruolan called up a surveillance video, showing that Chen Xuwen had privately come into contact with the wreckage of the Morning Star spacecraft a month ago. "He may be infected person zero."

In the special interrogation room late at night, Zhang Fengwu was tied to the quantum confinement chair.

As Chen Lin demonstrated his discovery of the nanomachine, the former Morning Star agent suddenly burst into shrill laughter.

"You have finally discovered the 'good news'!" His eyeballs twitched abnormally fast, "This is not surrender, this is transformation!"

"Morning Star doesn't need slaves, what they need is...resonance bodies."

Chen Lin grabbed Zhang Fengwu by the collar and said, "Explain it clearly."

"Every harvested civilization will go through this stage." Silver liquid flowed from the corners of Zhang Fengwu's mouth. "First, let the smartest among you see the 'truth'. Once they convince enough of their compatriots to accept the 'gospel'...bang! The entire civilization will become the nerve node of Morning Star."

After the interrogation, Chen Lin stood alone in the purification room and let high-intensity ultraviolet rays irradiate his entire body.

Secretary Zhao reported through the communicator: "It has been confirmed that 37 of the 28 major infected people have recently come into contact with Chen Xuwen...Do you want to implement the standard elimination procedure?"

Chen Lin closed his eyes. If the top leaders of these associations were to think according to common sense, they would most likely not choose this step. Some of them were proactive, but some were passive.

So he wasn't going to get rid of it all.

"Prepare the neurosurgery team." Chen Lin finally ordered, "For Chen Xuwen... I will personally supervise."

"understand!"

……

In the isolation room of the medical center, Chen Xuwen was tied to the operating table. When he saw Chen Lin coming in, the anger in his eyes suddenly turned into understanding: "You found out, didn't you?"

Chen Lin did not answer, but simply called up the brain scan image, which showed that the nanomachines had formed a complete neural network.

"I can feel them thinking." Chen Xuwen smiled bitterly, "It's like there's another me living in my head... a me who believes surrender is the only way out." The medical AI indicated that the success rate of the operation was less than 15% - Chen Lin waved to the two white coats beside him, then turned to this guy and asked, "Anything else you want to say?"

"If you fail..." Chen Xuwen swallowed hard, "Don't let others know the truth...Humans need to believe that their leaders have never wavered."

When the nerve stripping laser cut into Chen Xuwen's frontal lobe, the brain waves on the monitoring screen suddenly turned into neat hexagonal ripples.

The moment the alarm sounded, Chen Lin pressed the kill switch that had been prepared long ago.

Then Chen Lin let out a deep sigh.

At the memorial service three days later, Chen Lin announced that Chen Xuwen and 38 other senior members of the Red Dragon Association had unfortunately died due to infection with an alien virus while on duty.

Chen Xuwen in the holographic image was wearing a neat uniform with medals hanging all over his chest.

No one saw the remains, because according to the newly enacted "Extraterrestrial Contamination Prevention and Control Law", all infected people must be incinerated at the molecular level.

"President."

Xu Ruolan's voice suddenly came from the communicator, with unusual tension, "Just received an alert from the deep space exploration station... A new morning star signal was discovered in the Kuiper Belt."

The signal sent back from the Kuiper Belt flashed on the main screen of the command center. The familiar hexagonal ripple pattern made Chen Lin's fingers tighten unconsciously.

When he turned around, he found Xu Ruolan standing behind him, holding the latest analysis report in her hand.

"The signal characteristics are completely different from before." Xu Ruolan called up the comparison chart, "This time it's not a detection signal, but... some kind of activation command."

Chen Lin's eyes swept across the spectrum analysis chart in the report and suddenly stopped at a certain frequency band: "This harmonic structure..."

"It's exactly the same as the infected person's brain waves."

Xu Ruolan lowered her voice and said, "It's like awakening something."

The air in the command center seemed to freeze in an instant. Chen Lin quickly walked to the holographic projection table and called up the solar system model.

As he did so, thirty-seven red dots lit up near Earth's orbit - each dot representing the current location of a high-ranking official infected by the nanomachines.

"Initiate 'decontamination protocol' immediately."

Chen Lin's voice was like ice. "Treat them according to the degree of infection."

Secretary Zhao behind him immediately turned around and went out, and the holographic image in front of Chen Lin was divided into three categories: 12 people marked in red needed immediate surgery; 15 people marked in yellow were temporarily isolated; and 10 people marked in green could still work normally but needed to be closely monitored.

Chen Lin noticed that three red marks were moving towards the low-Earth orbit space station.

"Intercept them." Chen Lin pressed the communication button, "Use nerve anesthetic bullets, and kill them alive."

Before the Orbital Commando finished replying, the main screen suddenly flickered.

The medical center's emergency communication was forced to cut in. The director of neurosurgery, who was wearing a protective mask, looked pale: "President, Chen Xuwen's body... is undergoing abnormal changes!"

The surveillance footage from the incineration center made everyone in the command center gasp. The corpse that was supposed to be incinerated at the molecular level was now twisting and deforming in the sealed cabin, with pulsating silver lines appearing under the skin!
What’s even more terrifying is that the other 37 bodies in the incinerator also showed synchronous reactions.

"Resonance effect..." Xu Ruolan suddenly grabbed Chen Lin's arm, "Those nanomachines are forming a network!"

Chen Lin suddenly looked up at the real-time infection distribution map and found that all the infected people marked in red stopped moving at the same time, as if the pause button was pressed.

At this moment, the signal strength of the Kuiper Belt suddenly increased three times.

"This is not a coincidence." Chen Lin pressed the ship-wide broadcast, "Attention all units, immediately perform the following operations: close all quantum communication channels; activate electromagnetic shielding; immediately power off any equipment showing hexagonal ripples."

The alarm sounded throughout the Red Dragon Association headquarters.

Chen Lin turned to Xu Ruolan: "I need a solution, and I need it now."

Xu Ruolan's fingertips danced on the holographic keyboard: "In theory, it is possible to develop nanomachine blockers, but it requires a special material - liquid metallic hydrogen, which we can only collect deep in Jupiter's atmosphere."

Chen Lin's gaze shifted to the huge gaseous planet in the projection of the solar system. At this moment, the screen of the medical center suddenly shook violently. Chen Xuwen's "corpse" actually stood up. A crack appeared on the face covered by silver liquid, and a harsh mechanical synthesized sound was emitted:
"……resonance……"

The scene stopped abruptly.

The voice of the captain of the orbital commando came from Chen Lin's communicator: "The target has been controlled, but... their brains are melting!"

The red marks on the holographic projection went out one after another. Chen Lin looked at the approaching Kuiper Belt signal and made a decision: "Prepare the Abyss-class exploration ship and send someone to Jupiter immediately."

"Yes!"

Fifteen minutes later, the "Abyss" broke through the thick atmosphere of Jupiter. The team leader was standing in front of the observation window wearing special pressure-resistant suits, looking at the churning ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen outside the window. This special substance formed under millions of atmospheric pressures was the purpose of their trip.

"There's a space distortion behind us!" The pilot's voice changed due to fear, "It's... it's the Morning Star spaceship!"

The captain looked back and saw three shuttle-shaped spaceships emerging from the distorted space. The same hexagonal light patterns as those in the infected people's bodies flowed on their surfaces. What was even more terrifying was that the two frigates of the Red Dragon Association turned their guns and aimed at their ships.

"They are under control..." the communications officer said desperately, "There are also infected people in our fleet!"

Chen Lin in the command room slammed his fist on the control console. After a few seconds, he quickly picked up the device and shouted to the ship, "Attention, all ships. Execute the separation agreement!"

This is the most extreme emergency plan - abandoning all non-essential modules and retaining only the core cockpit and collection equipment.

With a series of explosions, the Abyss shed most of its hull like a snake shedding its skin and dived deeper into Jupiter at an almost suicidal angle.

The Morning Star spacecraft chased closely, but soon lost its accuracy due to the increasingly strong magnetic field interference.

One of the ships crashed into a sudden ammonia crystal storm and was instantly torn into pieces.

"The depth has reached the critical value!" The hull was shaking violently, and the engineer shouted, "If we go any deeper, the pressure hull will shatter!"

"continue!"

The captain of the ship stared at the collection progress bar, "7% left!"

Accompanied by the terrifying sound of metal twisting, the Abyss broke through the depth that had never been reached by human probes. The entire ship's windows were no longer filled with a silver ocean, but a strange golden fluid - this was the supercritical hydrogen in the core region of Jupiter.

They have reached the core mission area... (End of this chapter)