From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 677 Surprise Infiltration

Inside the operations conference room of a stealth-class warship;

The room is filled with cool blue light, and the air is permeated with the metallic scent unique to the nanofiltration system.

More than twenty members of the special operations team from the investigation department sat on fixed metal chairs. Their nano-combat suits appeared as a flowing matte black in the dim environment, as if they could swallow up all the surrounding light.

Each person's helmet screen displays encrypted data streams, projecting mission parameters directly onto their retina.

A holographic projector at the front of the conference room is building a 3D map with millimeter-level accuracy.

The blue image of Earth slowly rotated, then rapidly zoomed in on the European region, gradually revealing the full view of the Earth Federation (UED) headquarters complex.

It is a complex consisting of seven diamond-shaped towers, with the central tower reaching a height of 1,200 meters and its surface covered with smart glass that changes color depending on the angle of sunlight.

Three kilometers around the building, there is a pulse force field generator, and an automatic sentry turret every hundred meters.

"Pay close attention to the northern forest area."

Lyon, standing at the front of the conference room, began to speak, his words reaching the ears of each team member.

He tapped his finger on the holographic interface, and the screen immediately focused on the coniferous forest covering about 30 square kilometers to the north of the UED headquarters.

The fibers of the nanosuit shimmered slightly on his muscular arms as he continued:

"This will be our entry point."

The holographic image switches to a 3D scan of the forest.

Hidden among the pine trees are numerous pipes connecting to the UED headquarters, some of which are just the right diameter for a fully armed special forces soldier to crawl through.

The fluctuations in the inner wall of the pipe were captured by the stealth class, which then analyzed the patrol gaps and performed an automatic scan every fifteen minutes.

"We will enter the atmosphere aboard a single-soldier assault boat."

As Leon spoke, he pulled up a cross-sectional diagram of a streamlined aircraft. "The raiding ship is equipped with optical camouflage and sound wave cancellation systems, which are enough to lead us silently into the surface of Earth 18."

His nanogloves swept through the air, using holographic imaging to display the equipment list carried by the team members—

Pulse firearms, neurotoxin bullets, holographic camouflage projectors, and so on—each weapon undergoes special treatment to leave no traceable energy signature.

Mike, standing on the left, added, "The casual clothes we carry are made of memory fiber material that can simulate the RFID tag of any UED uniform. Our informant in Mars New Chicago has already prepared identity chips for us."

Mike naturally picked up the conversation and pulled up several holographic images for examples. "Remember your cover identities: Department of Energy inspectors, atmospheric treatment plant technical advisors, and quantum communication network maintenance team."

As Mike finished speaking, the conference room suddenly fell silent.

At that moment, Chris took a step forward, his nanotech combat suit shoulder armor etched with numerous mission insignia.

The presence of this special operations team commander was so imposing that it seemed to weigh heavily on the entire space, especially since the nanosuit accentuated his extremely muscular physique.

"Intelligence first, zero firefights." Chris's voice was deep and thunderous. "In addition to official personnel, generals, and armed security, the UED headquarters also has 200,000 civilian employees. Any gunshot will trigger a chain reaction."

The holographic view switched to a security distribution map inside headquarters, with red dots marking the locations of thousands of armed guards. "Our target is the data core and the command chain, not the number of corpses."

He zoomed in on the structural diagram of the 78th floor of the main tower, marking key areas with six blue cursors: "Quantum communication nodes, main server room, and three biometric databases. Obtaining these is more valuable than killing a hundred generals."

Chris's gaze swept over each team member's mask. "If we have to take action..."

He made a throat-slitting gesture, "Make sure it's silent, and the body decomposes within ninety seconds."

The holographic image suddenly flickered, displaying real-time updated weather data. A blizzard was moving toward the target area, and the white snowflake icon was particularly eye-catching in the projection.

“God is on our side,” Lyon said. “The snow will cover some of the signals and footprints.”

A countdown appeared on his nanosuit gloves: "The raid window is in four hours, when visibility will drop to less than 15 meters."

Mike then pulled up the last document, which was the daily schedule of the senior UED personnel.

A dozen holographic heads floated in the air, each marked with a movement trajectory accurate to the second.

"The federal president's security chief goes to the underground parking garage alone every day at 18:00 PM, which is the best time to obtain the biometric key."

Chris turned off the holographic projection, and the conference room lighting returned to normal levels. "Remember, we're not here to start a war."

His gaze was as sharp as a hawk's. "What the Emperor wants is a complete solar system, not a smoking ruin."

"."

The team members nodded silently.

Everyone was checking their final gear: neurotoxin ammunition, subcutaneous trackers activated, and retinal projections displaying their respective mission routes.
“May the Emperor guide us.” Chris closed his helmet visor, and encrypted data flashed on the screen.

As he moved, all the team members' nano combat suits simultaneously went into active mode, their surfaces rippling like mercury before finally solidifying into the uniform appearance of the UED security forces.

The doors to the operations room slid open, and the group walked down to the orbital drop module below, where numerous assault craft resembling black daggers were waiting in formation.

Their surfaces are covered with a scale-like stealth coating, and their engine nozzles are cryogenically treated, so that even the most sensitive detectors cannot capture their blurry afterimages.

A blizzard is coming, and its silent infiltration will be quieter than the sound of any snowflake falling to the ground.

More than three hours later, the coating on the surface of the Shadow Eye's hull flowed like a living thing, and like a deep-sea fish swimming in the darkness, it silently broke away from the moon's shadow and slid towards Earth along a carefully calculated gravitational trajectory.

"Orbital parameters confirmed."

Chris heard the voice of the bridge's intelligent AI: "The raid window will open in 17 minutes and 32 seconds."

Chris stood in front of the observation window, and through the specially treated transparent armor, he could see the blue planet below slowly rotating.

The outline of the European continent gradually became clear, and white vortices formed by the blizzard were gathering over the target area.

Behind him, more than 20 special forces soldiers had completed the final equipment check. Their nano combat suits now mimicked the standard appearance of the UED security forces, with even the radio frequency identification on their chests flashing the correct verification code.

"Raid craft warm-up complete," Lyon's voice came through the communications channel. "Special jamming is in place."

Chris looked at the quantum clock on the bulkhead; the numbers were ticking at an extremely precise frequency.

The moment the countdown reached zero, the belly hatch of the Shadow Eye opened, and Chris, Leon, Mike, and the others completed the boarding procedures.

Then, more than twenty completely black raiding craft shot out like arrows, activating full-band optical camouflage before even exiting the stealth-class ships, becoming nothingness in radar and visual observation. Inside raiding craft numbered "six";

Mike's fingers slid rapidly across the virtual control interface, and the raiding ship's sensors projected the external environment onto the bulkhead in an augmented reality manner.

From Mike's perspective, this was like "jumping into the atmosphere alone."

They were entering near-Earth orbit at a relatively steady speed, with UED patrol vessels occasionally passing below—

On one recent occasion, a frigate came within 300 meters of them, but its bow scanning array did not react to the intruders who were so close at hand.

"Look at that."

At this moment, Lyon marked the left side of the group.

A two-kilometer-long colonial transport ship is slowly turning below, its hull bearing the inscription "New Homeland Project - Batch Seven".

Through the porthole, one could vaguely see the densely packed cryogenic chambers inside, each containing a colonist preparing to travel to an extraterrestrial star system.

The raiding boat suddenly trembled slightly, and the nano-coating began to heat up due to atmospheric friction.

Mike immediately activated the cancellation system to reduce the roar as it entered the atmosphere, while outside the assault ship, an orange-red plasma sheath gradually formed, but it appeared unusually dim due to special treatment.

"Enter the blackout zone," a special operations team member calmly reported. "Expected breakthrough in 43 seconds."

Mike adjusted the perspective mode of his mask, and through the plasma turbulence, the outline of the building below gradually became clear.

The megacity where UED headquarters is located is like a circuit board embedded in the earth, with skyscrapers thousands of meters high forming intricate geometric patterns, and aerial train tracks weaving a network of light between the high-rises.

In the northern suburbs of the city, the diamond-shaped building complex surrounded by coniferous forests, namely the UED headquarters, was their target.

"The population density of the capital region is 9.8 people per square kilometer," Mike read the tactical data. "There are seventeen suitable buildings for building safe houses in the eastern district."

Chris's voice came through the communication channel: "Remember, we only need 96 hours of infiltration. Once the intelligence is extracted, immediately activate the emergency evacuation protocol."

Not long after
Visibility was less than 15 meters in the blizzard.

The raiding boat landed perfectly vertically at the designated coordinates. The silencers on the landing gear ensured that the landing would not trigger any detection alarms from the UED.

The moment the hatch opened, a biting cold wind carrying snowflakes rushed into the cabin, but was neutralized by the intelligently regulated temperature field when it came into contact with the surface of the nano combat suit.

"Meeting point confirmed."

A green beacon was flashing on Chris's retinal projection.

He made a tactical hand signal, and the special operations team members immediately spread out in a defensive formation, with their pulse guns ready to fire at any moment.

The nanosuits' camouflage system automatically adjusts, transforming them into the appearance of UED security forces, allowing their silhouettes to blend completely into Blizzard's design.

Chris knelt beside the raiding boat, his palms pressed against the snow-covered ground.

The tactical glove releases dozens of miniature detectors, these rice-grain-sized devices immediately penetrate the snow layer and begin constructing a holographic topographic map covering an area of ​​500 meters in radius.

"The pipe entrance is at the 11 o'clock position, 367 meters away," he relayed via encrypted channel. "Guard patrols are spaced 14 minutes and 30 seconds apart; the next patrol will be now!"

The team members immediately froze, and the active camouflage system of their nanosuits perfectly concealed them in the current environment.

Dozens of meters away, four UED security force members sped past on special sleds, their helmet searchlights drawing cone-shaped beams of light through the snow.

One of the guards suddenly stopped, and in the instant the sled turned slightly—

squeak-

An old pine tree, unable to withstand the weight of the accumulated snow, broke off many branches; however, the sound of the branches breaking was almost inaudible in the blizzard.

The guard didn't pay much attention and turned back to follow his teammates.

Only after the patrol had gone far away did Leon release his finger from the trigger of the pulse rifle.

"Leave four men to guard the equipment," Chris ordered. "The rest of you proceed according to plan one."

The four selected team members immediately returned to the area where the raiding boat landed and began setting up camouflage fields and automated defense systems. Their nanosuits switched to snow camouflage to blend in with the environment, and they disappeared into the white forest in the blink of an eye.

The remaining special forces soldiers followed Chris, Leon, and Mike to the pipe entrance.

This metal passage, only 1.2 meters in diameter, was half-buried by snow and covered with a thick layer of frost.

Lyon took out the molecular cutter and silently cut a notch at the edge of the entrance. Imaging showed that the temperature inside the pipe was maintained at 12 degrees Celsius, and several thermal energy tracks indicated that this was the path of some kind of small maintenance robot.

"Remember," Chris reminded the team members one by one before they entered the pipe, "we're not here to change history, we're here to record it."

As the last special forces soldier silently disappeared into the darkness deep within the pipe, Leon's fingers lightly brushed the cutting edge.

The nano-repair spray seeped from the wrist of the combat suit, moving along the metal cross-section like a living thing.

This smart material, containing shape memory alloy microparticles, immediately begins to self-reorganize upon contact with a cut, rearranging its molecular bonds in a precise lattice structure, and repairing the cutting marks as if they were brand new within thirty seconds.

The blizzard had by then transformed into a true "white demon."

The snowflakes, as large as goose feathers, lashed the forest at an almost horizontal angle, causing the pine branches to groan in pain under the weight.

The temperature plummeted to minus thirty-five degrees Celsius, and even the UED's automated patrol team shortened its duty hours. The newly fallen snowflakes accumulated rapidly, completely erasing the marks on the landing gear of the assault boat, the footprints of the team members, and even the faint traces of heat energy in less than two minutes.

The entire forest has returned to its pure white state, as if no human had ever set foot there.

Only the tiny probes released by Chris and hidden in the snow continue to work silently, transmitting real-time images back to the Shadow Eye in low Earth orbit.

The inside of the pipe presents a completely different scene from the outside.

The special forces soldiers' nano-combat suits automatically adjusted to a dark gray tone, blending into the metal inner wall, as they advanced in a standard infiltration formation.

The lead scout maintained a distance of ten meters, followed by two others providing cover. Leon, Mike, and other key players were scattered in the center, while Chris personally brought up the rear.

The foot-attachment devices on the nanosuits allow them to walk on sloping tube walls as if on flat ground.

Furthermore, the sound-absorbing properties of the nanosuits make them quieter than falling snow when they move, while the built-in quantum communicator ensures that they can maintain contact even in the most electromagnetically shielded environments.

Three hundred meters ahead, the infrared scanning lines of the first security checkpoint were clearly visible, but the team members knew that UED's security system had never been designed to deal with special forces from the human empire.
(End of this chapter)