Chapter 1 The Fleet's Probe

The fleet did not approach rashly, maintaining stealth mode, and released a miniature space-based probe satellite to slowly approach the planet's outer space, constantly scanning the planet's surface.

In the ship's cabin, the virtual screen displayed the satellite's scanning images. The surface had a large number of cities, but the streets were deserted and desolate, empty of people, and many piles of garbage remained on the streets, like the scene left behind by civilians hastily evacuating.

"This colony seems to have been abandoned." Nilo swiped his fingers across the virtual screen, constantly scanning one deserted city after another.

"Check the life signal detection." The squad leader nodded.

Nilo responded and switched to the control interface of the space-based satellite, quickly setting it up. This thing was a product of the legion. Although he didn't build it, it was very simple to operate.

This scout force had about two thousand legion warriors. Most of them were C-grade superhumans, and only the commander was B-grade. Nilo was the strongest besides the commander, and also the best mechanic in this scout force. Basically, all kinds of mechanical devices carried by the force were entrusted to him for operation.

Soon, the scanning results were displayed on the screen. The light spots of life signals on the surface were sparse, with the most dense ones in the wild, all of which were beasts, while in the cities, there were only a few scattered light spots of intelligent life signals.

Mia's eyes lit up. "There are still people in the city!"

"They should be civilians who are unwilling to evacuate." Nilo breathed a sigh of relief. Another task of their trip was to capture as many Kunder race civilians as possible and bring them back for interrogation.

"Kid, confirm the armed forces on this planet. If there are no problems, we'll land." The captain said.

Nilo nodded and scanned it.

Everyone stared at the screen, waiting for the results. At this moment, in the quantum network that no one could see, a group of data that had been ambushed for a long time unknowingly intercepted the information flow transmitted back by the satellite's detection, and quietly tampered with the information displayed in front of everyone.

"Well… there are no enemy ships around, and there are no abnormal reactions from the military bases on the ground. It seems that the enemy has completely abandoned this colony, and didn't even leave a force behind." Nilo glanced at it and read out the scanning results.

The captain grinned. "That's easy. The commander has already ordered. Everyone pay attention, we're going to land."

The fleet acted quickly. Most of the warships broke into the atmosphere and began to descend towards the city. Only three warships, including the commander's flagship, remained in outer space as support.

At the same time, a Kunder race medium-sized fleet was waiting in a floating military base high above this colony, with about a hundred warships. The military base maintained a disguised and concealed state, turned on the reflectors, and blended into the environment, looking almost transparent.

A large number of operators were busy in the main control room of the floating military base. A detection radar operator suddenly saw a signal of abnormal atmospheric fluctuations flashing on the radar screen, but when he looked closely, the signal disappeared and showed that everything was normal.

"Did I see it wrong?" The Kunder race operator was puzzled and had the radar perform another scan.

The detection results came out. Not only was there no problem with the atmosphere, but the radar didn't even detect Nilo and others who were landing blatantly.

"It should be a false alarm." Seeing this, the operator looked away.

The scout team didn't discover this military base, and this military base didn't see the scout team. They were so close, but they couldn't see each other, and for the time being, they were all blind.

The mastermind behind the scenes was Han Xiao, who hid his mechanical troops in the scout team's spaceship and directly tampered with the scanning results of both sides using virtual technology.

——The situation had completely fallen into the script of Grand Technician Han.

…

Not long after, the spaceship successfully landed in the city. Each combat team put on their equipment and walked off the spaceship one after another, standing in the desolate and desolate streets.

"Okay, let's divide up the tasks."

The many captains held a brief meeting. In the end, all the teams were divided into three groups. One group stayed on the spaceship to prevent accidents, one group went to capture the remaining civilians in the city and collect intelligence in the city, and the rest scattered to search for special facilities nearby, such as various factories, energy plants, and so on. There was also an abandoned military base on the outskirts of the city.

After determining their duties, each team acted separately. Nilo and Mia's team were responsible for exploring the abandoned military base in the suburbs, and together they took a ground vehicle to their destination, which was a heavy armored hovercraft.

In the carriage, the members of the two combat teams remained silent. Nilo looked left and right, coughed, stood up, moved to Mia's side and sat down with a thump.

Mia, who was maintaining her weapon, glanced at him, continued to look down and maintain her weapon, and said casually, "What are you doing sitting over here?"

"Just wanted to chat with you." Nilo scratched his cheek. "We haven't talked much during this time because we've been busy fighting."

"What's there to talk about?" Mia rolled her eyes and said unhappily, "I don't even have enough time to sleep every day. Do you think I don't need to rest like you?"

Nilo was speechless, thought for a while, and said, "Actually, I can teach you how to fight fatigue. I'm very experienced in this area."

"Do you think a martial artist needs you to teach me?" Mia chuckled.

Nilo said seriously, "As a martial artist, you need to learn this ability even more. Mechanics don't need much physical strength, but you're different. If you don't have physical strength, a martial artist's combat power will decline severely. I'm afraid you'll encounter danger."

"You do care about me." Mia glanced at Nilo sideways.

"I said I would protect you." Nilo grinned.

"Hmph, don't smile. You look stupid when you smile."

Mia snorted, turned her head away, and after a few seconds, turned her head back and asked casually, "How do you train this fatigue resistance you mentioned?"

Nilo touched the bridge of his nose and said seriously, "First of all, you have to change your sleeping habits. Keep your brain running at high speed while in a state of fatigue. The beginning is the most difficult. I've been there, so I have experience and can help you. Look for me when you want to sleep."

Mia nodded, suddenly feeling something was wrong.

"Look for you when I want to sleep? Are you teasing me?!"

A wave of shame and annoyance rose in her heart, and Mia punched Nilo hard on the external armor on his chest, making a dull thud.

"Ah, did I say something wrong?" Nilo was confused. The armor was thick enough, so he didn't feel any pain.

Mia was about to say something when she suddenly realized that everyone in the carriage was focused on them at some point, with expressions of teasing, relief, envy, jealousy, and so on, as if they were watching a young couple flirting.

A blush rushed to her cheeks, and Mia glared at Nilo fiercely, then lowered her head in embarrassment and stopped talking, focusing on maintaining her weapon, and seemed to be about to rub sparks on the weapon with the sharpening tool.

Nilo touched his head, still wanting to talk, but saw the captain sitting diagonally across from him winking and secretly making hand gestures, one hand holding a fist, and the other hand extending a finger and poking it into the hollow of the fist twice. This was a common gesture in interstellar space, and the meaning was self-evident:

——Kid, don't dawdle, get to the point when it's time to get to the point.

"Old pervert…" Seeing this, Nilo couldn't help but mutter.

At this moment, the detection radars of everyone in the carriage simultaneously detected anomalies.

"Beep beep, two abnormal energy sources detected."

Everyone immediately put away their smiles and checked the radar. On the screen, two more signals suddenly appeared, one pointing to the underground of the military base, and the other pointing to the wilderness further away, far from here.

"That's strange, why didn't we detect it just now, and now we're only discovering it? Is this thing broken?" The vice-captain patted the radar, a little puzzled.

"No matter what, we have to take a look."

The captain glanced at it and said to Mia's team, "It seems we have to split up. When we get to the military base, drop our team off first, and then you guys go check out the abnormal signal in the wilderness."

After finalizing the plan, the hovercraft quickly arrived at the periphery of the military base. Nilo's team all got out of the car, watched Mia and her team drive away, and the two separated again.

"Kid, stop looking, let's get to work."

Seeing Nilo staring in the direction the car left, the captain snapped his fingers near Nilo's ear to get him to look away.

Nilo calmed himself down and followed the footsteps of his teammates, a little absent-minded.

For some reason, he felt a little uneasy at that moment.

With these thoughts on his mind, Nilo followed the team to explore the military base, found the abandoned elevator, and arrived at the intricate underground base to explore the "abnormal signal" displayed on the radar.

…

"Alarm! Unknown targets detected!"

More than ten minutes later, the Kunder race floating base in the sky was no longer blind, and after curing its years of cataracts, it suddenly discovered the scout force's spaceship landing on the ground.

The entire base's garrison personnel were startled and hurriedly took action.

The intelligence was quickly delivered to the base commander. In the office, the base commander widened his eyes, shocked and angry.

"When did these enemies land? Why didn't we discover them before? Did you fail in your duty?!"

The radar team leader argued, "The radar didn't react at all. The enemy's scouts must have used more advanced stealth equipment to avoid our detection!"

"That's terrible. If they have this kind of technology and were to attack this base, they might have already succeeded!" The base commander was afraid for a while, and then became furious. "Sneaking in secretly, are they treating us like we don't exist!"

"Commander, think about it. The enemy has this kind of ability, but they don't come to attack us, but land on the ground. Why is that?"

Hearing this, the base commander's eyes flashed, and he slammed the table, shouting loudly:

"I understand! They know we're here, but they don't come to attack, which means they have extremely insufficient troops, and they're not confident that they can take us down even with a sneak attack! They're actually ignoring us, and dare to swagger around collecting intelligence right under our noses. That's too arrogant. We must make them pay the price!"

After a pause, the base commander stood up abruptly and shouted: "Order the fleet to mobilize, surround the enemy, and don't let anyone escape!"

"Commander, try to capture them alive. The higher-ups want superhumans for research. This is an opportunity." The adjutant beside him reminded.

The base commander's eyes lit up, greatly surprised, and quickly said: "Yes, yes, I almost forgot. The higher-ups want superhumans. These people are practically delivering credit to our doorstep. Capture them alive for me and take them back to report!"

…

In the underground of the abandoned military base, Nilo's team was exploring the underground base. The power supply here had long been cut off, and it was pitch black and extremely silent. Everyone could only hear each other's breathing and footsteps, echoing in the empty corridors, creating a rather eerie feeling.

Nilo released a few small mechanical pathfinding bees, emitting strong light, to lead the way in front and illuminate the environment of the underground base.

Without electricity, all the base's access control systems had failed, so they could only be opened by force. A few high-energy thermelt cannons could turn the closed metal doors into red-hot molten steel, making the path unobstructed.

After walking with the team for a while, Nilo's intuition became stronger and stronger, and he couldn't help but speak:

"Captain, I always feel like something's not right."

"What's not right?" The captain turned his head to ask.

"I can't say, it's just a feeling."

"Is that so…" The captain frowned and made a gesture. "Then you take a few people and stay behind to guard the rear, and I'll go with the others to check the abnormal signal."

After saying that, the captain pointed out a few teammates to follow Nilo, and then led the others to continue forward.

Nilo waited in place for a while, and finally the captain's puzzled voice came from the communication channel.

"We've already arrived at the source of the abnormal signal, but there's nothing here."

Nilo's heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly opened the shared vision and saw the scene on the captain's side, which was a completely empty warehouse, without even a hair.

However, the signal marked by the radar was in this place, and the altitude and distance were completely compatible, so there was no mistake.

"Is it a radar malfunction?" Nilo swallowed. "Or…"

Rumble!!

Before he could recover, the next moment, a violent tremor suddenly erupted!

"Warning! High-energy impact detected! Please take cover in time!"

Rumbling—

The sound of artillery bombardment rang in his ears, and the dome and support columns of the underground base suddenly collapsed!

The structure of the base instantly disintegrated, and the floors on each level shattered one after another, and the bottom became a dark bottomless pit, leading to the deeper underground levels.

Nilo only had time to open his shield to protect himself before being blown away by the shock wave of the explosion, smashing through the wall of the corridor, his body falling downwards.

The exclamations of his teammates came from the communication channel, but he couldn't care about them. At this time, he was only preoccupied with his own safety, and his heart was filled with astonishment.

How could they suddenly be attacked?!

They had clearly confirmed that there were no garrison troops on this planet!

At this moment, Nilo couldn't think of any other explanation. In his eyes, there was only one possibility:

"Damn, this colony is a trap! The enemy must have deliberately ambushed in other places and warped over to kill us. We've been tricked!"

As soon as the thought flashed through his mind, Nilo hit the bottom and fell heavily to the ground.

Bang!!

A human-shaped crater was smashed into the ground, stirring up a large cloud of dust.

"Hiss!" The huge backlash caused his whole body to shake violently, and he couldn't help but groan.

Before he could stand up, a large pile of rubble and metal followed him and crashed down, suddenly magnifying in his field of vision!

Nilo's heart was cold, he gritted his teeth and raised his arms, propping up his shield to protect himself.

Bang bang bang!

Countless debris fell, filling every inch of Nilo's vision, burying him tightly.

…

At this time, in the abandoned city not far away, the Kunder race fleet that belatedly and fiercely launched an attack had already engaged in battle with the other combat teams guarding the spaceship. One energy cannon after another crisscrossed and shot in all directions, piercing one unmanned building after another.

Rumble—

A large number of buildings collapsed, and smoke and dust filled the air.

Several Kunder race warships also hovered above the abandoned military base, their ship cannons fully opened, and energy cannons poured out, launching a bombardment on the military base.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

It was not until the entire base was blown down and became a pile of rubble that these warships stopped attacking and retracted their ship cannons.

The hatch opened with a whoosh, and Kunder race armored soldier squads jumped out of the ship one after another, landing with a bang, bang, bang, adjusting their posture, forming formations, and holding weapons to go to the underground base.

The life signals of Nilo and others were exposed on the Kunder race's radar, and the goal of these soldiers was to capture alive this isolated squad of superhumans who did not have the protection of a fleet.

"Good! The operation is going smoothly!"

At this moment, in the command room of the floating base, the Kunder race base commander smiled with satisfaction.

What he didn't know was that a group of highly invisible mechanical troops were hovering outside the window, silently watching him.