Chapter 376: Chapter 151 The True Secret of the Command Room
“Black, I think I’ve stumbled upon something over here.”
“What? I still have 4 minutes to complete the hack,” Black replied. It couldn’t see what was happening in the command room, only listen to Mu Fan reporting from there.
Mu Fan’s brow was furrowed, his tone notably serious.
“Have you come across the Broken Axe Star Thief Group in the database?”
“Broken Axe, aren’t they the Star Thieves who invaded Loga Star? There’s some connection between them, the Wen family, and the Gardot Empire. Why the sudden interest?”
“I saw their mark! But this time, the mark is of a broken axe intersecting with a broken sword.”
“This Star Thief Group is called the Sword Axe Star Thief Group, could it just be related to their name?”
“No, I can’t forget the mark of this axe.”
Mu Fan’s gaze was fixed intently on the screen.
“Then this matter really gets interesting, tsk tsk. The starship’s light computer I’m hacking into right now, I’ve also found some interesting things. For instance, their central control system isn’t the parallel command system commonly used by the Federation, but one derived from the Gardot Empire’s military system.”
“That being the case, there could indeed be some issues between the two.”
Mu Fan nodded, his left hand unable to leave the control panel as he looked off into the distance.
On the other side of that marker, there was an odd platform.
The control panel beneath that platform was a different color from the rest, shinier and newer-looking, almost like it had been added later.
Then, in the middle of the platform, there was a recess with dozens of circuits connecting to the empty space.
The more he looked… the more familiar Mu Fan felt.
It was a hexagonal metal socket, and Mu Fan couldn’t shake the feeling he had seen it somewhere before.
Hexagonal…
Hmm?
Could it be this!
Suddenly, as if remembering something, Mu Fan pulled a metal token from his pocket and squinted at the socket from a distance, making a few gestures.
Maybe it’s worth a try?
“How much longer until you’re done?”
“128 seconds.”
So, Mu Fan suppressed his curiosity, waiting for Black to finish the hack.
After a while, all the screens in the room suddenly went dark, then lit up again, one by one.
A bright, grinning face appeared on every screen.
“Mu Fan, the invasion was successful! Can you let Lin Hao and the others know now, then proceed with the next step of the plan?”
“No rush.” Mu Fan glanced at his wristwatch, almost ten minutes remained until his rendezvous time with Lin Hao.
“Now that you’ve taken over the system, do you know what this metal socket is for?”
“Metal socket? I haven’t found anything in the system about it, wait a moment.”
As Black finished speaking, a hidden door opened on a mechanical high platform beside Mu Fan, extending a camera towards him.
“Now I can see inside the command room,” Black said with satisfaction.
Mu Fan looked at the camera, then got up and walked to the place where he had found the metal socket, pointing it out. “Take a look at this, what is it?”
The camera switched through several angles, and even Black’s tone held a hint of uncertainty.
“I really don’t know, there’s no description of this thing in the shipboard database. But looking at its structure, it seems more like a control panel requiring physical unlocking, and it’s utterly independent of the ship system. I feel this will be interesting, Mu Fan. What were you about to tell me?”
In Black’s view, Mu Fan slowly lifted the hexagonal metal token, “I feel that this shape matches the token in my hand quite well.”
The rotating camera suddenly froze.
“Can you tell me where this thing came from?”
“It was on that Solomon mechanic before,” Mu Fan said nonchalantly.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I didn’t know what it was, either. I just thought it looked refined and decided to wear it.”
“I really hate things related to luck, because all sorts of unreasonable things tend to happen.”
“Should I try putting it down?”
“Go ahead and try.”
Black’s complaints didn’t continue because its curiosity had been piqued as well.
So, with an expectant position from the camera, Mu Fan carefully aligned the hexagonal metal badge and then set it down.
A perfect fit!
“Why isn’t there a reaction?” Mu Fan muttered to himself.
At that moment, a low buzzing sound began, and a metal secret door opened on the control console below, as the platform descended.
Dark red lights started to shine.
Different from the intermixing of blue and white lights around, the color of these lights looked incredibly heavy and solemn.
When the metal badge had fully descended, a screen slowly rose.
“Mu Fan, hurry and press your wrist against it, I think this thing is about to send a signal!”
Black suddenly said, and Mu Fan reacted quickly, pressing his left hand directly onto the control console.
“Hunting Target control system activated, access recognition: Soashre, insufficient first-level privileges, not granted… beep, privileges approved. Solomon list system master control platform activated.”
“This… this is actually Solomon’s stuff! Good thing you touched it in time, Mu Fan. If we hadn’t just interrupted its signal transmission, this console would have sent a signal to Solomon’s headquarters! That Solomon mechanic’s privileges weren’t enough to access the master system, he only had level three mission inquiry privileges. Heh, but in front of me, this system is as weak as trash.”
Three planets appeared in the holographic light screen projected from the screen.
Mu Fan could recognize that the largest planet was Blue Capital Star, and the two smaller ones nearby should also be nearby planets.
At this moment, Blue Capital Star was covered with numerous red dots, roughly hundreds at a glance.
Mu Fan slid his finger across the planet and found that the area with the densest red dots was still located in Zhongjing City.
“Mu Fan, you’ve hit the jackpot! This is Solomon’s Hunting Target master control platform. The Mechanical Ant that was placed on you during your tracking earlier is what they call a Hunting Target. You can zoom in and look at the part about Dingchuan Academy.”
The planetary image kept enlarging until finally, Mu Fan could make out the contours of Dingchuan Academy.
A bright red light point was constantly flashing.
“This is because I’ve restored the shielding on that Mechanical Ant, and now you can see its actual position,” Black explained.
Mu Fan frowned, “How did Solomon’s stuff end up on a Star Thief Group ship?”
“Ha-ha, this is why I said you hit the jackpot. All the confidential information from this ship’s body was actually saved here. Solomon’s contact person is this Star Thief, whom you’ve already slit the throat of in the corridor.”
A character portrait appeared, and Mu Fan recognized it as the number 2 Star Thief he had killed with the Snake Blade.
So he was Solomon’s man!
“What other confidential information is there?”
“Come on, let me give you a rough idea. The Gardot Empire has been secretly working with Solomon for 17 months and to a certain extent, Solomon’s military technology even received clandestine support from the Gardot Empire. Solomon’s goal is to rely on their power in the Dark World to infiltrate key administrative planets within the Federation. And this Sword Axe Star Thief Group… is nothing but Gardot Empire’s lapdog!”
“The most important thing is, your previous deduction was correct: Broken Axe indeed belonged to them, but starting from six months ago, it suddenly broke away from Sword Axe, operating under a solitary Broken Axe marker to execute another secret mission.”
“And this attack by Sword Axe wasn’t by chance, but rather based on a secretly altered fake intelligence report that misled the Star Thieves into thinking this was truly a smuggling ship. The report even accurately detailed the Federation starship’s arrival time down to the minute. And the source of the intelligence… unknown.”
Suddenly, a huge volume of information flooded into his mind.