Chapter 379: Enemy Coordinates

Danger... danger!

Extremely dangerous!

In the pitch-black void of the cosmos, several tiny, imperceptible points of light suddenly flared to life. Compared to the brilliant backdrop of the stars, these pinpricks of light were microscopically small, yet they carried a terrifying, localized aura of absolute death.

While massive by human standards, the Deep Space was only an average-sized vessel on the galactic scale, utterly dwarfed by planetary-class juggernauts. Drifting in the dark, silent universe, it looked like a fragile, helpless lifeboat lost at sea.

But it was humanity’s mothership, their only home.

Frantic shouts, furious roars... Federation Special Forces operators sprinting breathlessly down the corridors, crowds of terrified civilians frozen in shock... faces flashed rapidly through Jason’s mind.

In a split second, the starboard drive array of the Deep Space violently detonated, tearing the entire structural spine of the starship apart. Only the reinforced core sections managed to survive the catastrophic decompression...

Once primary power and life support failed, the surviving crew were helplessly captured.

...Then, in a different timeline, the planet’s second moon suddenly cracked open, unleashing a massive, devastating explosion that shredded the Deep Space in orbit...

Even Planet Dige suffered an apocalyptic blow, its entire surface swallowed by a blinding sea of searing plasma.

"The coordinates! Those are the enemy’s coordinates!"

"Get to the escape pods! Go!"

"Hull breach! We’ve lost containment!"

"Deploy the high-yield thermonuclear warheads!"

"...Initiate the Warp Drive! Do it now!"

A chaotic flurry of fragmented, terrifying images looped violently in his mind, like a series of imminent futures he was about to face...

Different timelines, all of them ending in horror.

A crushing fleet defeat... forced enslavement... total annihilation... a relentless cascade of tragedies playing out one after another...

No!!!

In the cold vacuum of space, only Jason remained, screaming silently into the void...

He suddenly gasped, his eyes snapping open.

A soft, warm yellow light filled the room. The thermal blanket covering him felt secure and comfortable. For a long moment, he lay there in a daze, his chest heaving as he dragged in heavy breaths of scrubbed air.

A dream?

Just a nightmare?

Jason struggled violently against the lingering paralysis before managing to push himself into a sitting position on the medical bed. He felt incredibly weak. The terrifying visions had felt entirely real, burning into his retinas.

His heart hammered erratically in his chest, and his temples throbbed as though his skull were being crushed in a vice. His entire body felt feverishly hot; he had never felt so physically drained.

Every time he tried to focus his thoughts, a splitting, stabbing pain shot through his brain. He sat there motionless for two minutes, riding out the agony. Suddenly, the medical monitor beside him let out two sharp beeps, and four armed operators immediately burst through the reinforced door.

"He’s awake! The Commander is awake! Get Captain Marcus down here!" one of the operators shouted excitedly. He immediately rushed to Jason’s side, running a portable medical scanner over him.

Modern Federation soldiers were highly cross-trained. While they might lack decades of frontline combat experience, their overall proficiency was exceptional. At the very least, they were fully certified to handle advanced trauma and basic medical care.

"Get the doctors!" another operator yelled, sprinting out of the ward toward the medical bay.

In reality, there were very few dedicated trauma surgeons stationed down on Planet Dige; the medical staff consisted mostly of research biologists and geneticists. While their theoretical knowledge was cutting-edge, their practical, bedside clinical skills were severely lacking.

When they had tried to hook Jason up to an IV drip for nutrient fluids, it took a researcher several botched attempts to finally hit the vein. Marcus had been so furious he pointed a finger directly in the researcher’s face and tore him a new one.

Fortunately, Jason had been deeply unconscious at the time and felt none of it, so a few extra needle pricks hardly mattered.

Moments later, the medical experts rushed into the room, looking slightly embarrassed as they crowded around Jason’s bed to check his vitals.

"Core temperature is 38.7 degrees Celsius, blood pressure is slightly elevated. Patient ingested a significant amount of irradiated seawater, introducing trace amounts of native extraterrestrial microorganisms and biological toxins into his system."

"But the critical danger has passed. He’s mostly just suffering from an acute allergic reaction now. The Commander’s genetically enhanced physiology is incredibly resilient, and combined with our broad-spectrum antivirals..."

"For protocol, he still needs to remain in quarantine for a standard observation period..."

The lead medical researcher concluded, "We ran a full-body scan a few days ago and found no hidden internal trauma. He just needs a few days of strict bed rest."

"I was unconscious for several days?" Jason asked, pressing the heel of his hand against his throbbing forehead.

"A little over three days, sir! Approaching four. Your brain suffered prolonged oxygen deprivation, resulting in mild hypoxic damage. We’ll need to initiate a round of targeted stem-cell therapy to repair the neural pathways, but... it shouldn’t cause any long-term cognitive issues," the expert explained nervously.

Hearing this, Jason was momentarily stunned. It’s already been four days?

But another, far more urgent thought slammed into his mind. "What about the nanobots? What is the status of the facility?" he demanded, his voice raspy.

At that exact moment, Marcus sprinted through the doorway. Seeing Jason conscious and sitting up, a massive grin broke across his face. "We glassed it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "We leveled the entire grid! We dropped multiple high-yield thermonuclear warheads and blanketed the zone with EMPs! There shouldn’t be a single atom of that facility left..."

"Our psychology teams have been in constant communication with Elara, and she hasn’t detected a single surviving nanite signature... We wiped them out completely."

Hearing the definitive tactical confirmation, Jason finally let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.

He took several deep breaths to center himself. Perhaps due to the hypoxic brain damage and the lingering fever, his thoughts felt sluggish, and he struggled to immediately formulate his next question...

However, his violently pounding heart made him feel physically sick.

The suffocating sense of impending doom had not faded when he woke up; it had magnified...

...It’s getting worse!

In that instant, the dread felt so heavy it was almost tangible, pressing down on his chest.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Jason pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the erratic, violent rhythm of his own heart.

The precognitive sense of crisis was so intense it felt like a thousand needles piercing his skin—the primal, physical manifestation of incoming death. His muscles twitched involuntarily under the sheets.

"What is it, Commander?" Marcus noticed Jason’s sudden pallor and quickly grabbed a pillow to prop him up.

"The coordinates? Did the engineering teams extract the enemy’s coordinates?" Jason finally managed to force the words out.

It was the burning question that had dominated his nightmares.

Marcus’s smile vanished, his expression turning grim. "Yes, sir. The engineering teams should have cracked it by now..."

As he spoke, the heavy doors opened again. Arthur Lambert and his senior analytical team hurried into the ward. The moment Arthur saw Jason, he blurted out, "Commander... that alien hardware you ripped out of the facility? It’s a localized neutrino transmission array!"

"...It’s a communication technology we haven’t even theorized yet! It’s a tragedy that you only managed to salvage the transmission dish... The primary power core and data drives were buried in the sublevel and were completely vaporized by our nuclear strikes..."

Before Arthur could finish his lament, Jason interrupted him with a weak, furious shout, "Do we have the coordinates?! Did you extract the orbital coordinates of their home base?!"

He lunged forward, nearly collapsing off the side of the medical bed, but Marcus caught him by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the mattress.

Arthur was taken aback; he hadn’t expected Jason to be so violently agitated. However, he immediately nodded. "Yes, sir! We recovered the target vector, and the astrometrics lab has already analyzed the trajectory!"

"This specific array was designed to fire a highly concentrated, continuous beam of neutrinos toward a very specific sector of deep space... Think of it like a laser pointer, but firing a perfectly focused stream of subatomic particles!"

"However, this neutrino beam has absolutely zero offensive capability; it is strictly a communication laser. Neutrinos easily pass through almost all physical matter—including entire planets—without interacting with it..."

"This specific exotic technology is perfect for zero-latency, ultra-long-range interstellar telemetry. We’ve already encrypted the target coordinates and transmitted them to the astrometrics lab aboard the Deep Space..."

Hearing this, Jason gave a slight nod, but the crushing sense of existential dread in his chest didn’t fade; it felt as immovable as a mountain.

He tried to process the tactical implications, but the effort sent agonizing spikes of pain through his skull, making him groan.

"Actually, Commander..." Arthur frowned slightly, noting Jason’s obvious distress, but he pushed forward, needing to deliver his prepared tactical assessment.

"Based on our latest simulations, our strategic position has not improved... The primary issue is that the nuclear bombardment we used to sterilize the nanites was massive. The thermal bloom was easily bright enough to be detected by long-range optical sensors."

"Given that the detonations occurred in the Southern Hemisphere... if an alien scout or listening post observes those flashes, they will easily deduce that a highly advanced, hostile force is operating on this planet. Because of that thermal flare, the coordinates we extracted might already be tactically useless."

"Of course, the photons from our nuclear strikes have only been traveling outward for four days, so it is highly unlikely the enemy fleet has detected them yet... but I still strongly recommend..."

"We must evacuate this system immediately!"