Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 648 - 647: Surrender and Capture

Various firefights were taking place in the critical passages of the Asteroid Fortress. Explosions shook this space-bound "Giant Stone Fortress," while heat waves swept through the complex network of channels and corridors. More cloned soldiers kept arriving from the nearby garrison facilities, and they were continuously thrown into the fortress to fiercely contest the already devastated airlocks and halls with the "invaders" who had occupied the core area.

What was supposed to be a "retake the homeland" operation had turned into a grueling away battle. Old Qiao was momentarily dazed, even feeling as though the fortress had sided with the invaders against him, making him and his clone troopers the real "invaders" here.

In that dazed moment, yet another ironclad hull lost contact with the main consciousness. A squad of cloned soldiers was wiped out in the tunnel leading to the reactor core. They encountered a giant silver Nine-Tailed Demon Fox — the monstrous creature punched through countless layers of thick partitions and rammed its way from the upper connecting hall right into the reactor core's passage. The soldiers' light weaponry couldn't penetrate her "Protective Force Field," and they were annihilated in the scorching firestorm that swept through the corridor.

The battlefield situation analysis system's feed showed that the red areas representing occupied zones had almost covered two-thirds of the space and were still expanding.

After another squad was wiped out, some cloned soldiers and squad commanders suddenly realized that the fortress itself seemed to have turned into their "enemy."

"Sentry cannons are firing at us! Repeat, we're under attack from the base's self-defense systems!"

"The gates are locked — we're trapped on the second connecting bridge! The access control system reset automatically... the ground is sinking! The metal is melting!"

"Life support in sector B12 is offline, gas leak, gas leak! Toxic gas is flooding the ventilation ducts, we can't get out—"

Several units that had penetrated deep into the base, led by clone officers, sent back unsettling calls. The remaining sensors in the base repeatedly transmitted bizarre failure signals through the intermittent communication links. The monitored "Blackout" areas had spread to the outer layers of the fortress. Despite the clone warriors' fearless efforts, even they began to realize that the entire situation had spiraled completely out of control.

The "invaders" occupying the core area were merely stalling for time. The truly terrifying fact was the change occurring within the fortress itself — this vast space facility was gradually transforming into some kind of living organism, and this organism... was evidently hostile.

A Black Spot tactical squad was trapped on the first connecting bridge of an airlock. The flash of particle rifle fire lit up the passage, and the blasts from plasma grenades sent waves of heat through the space. Yet their adversary was the surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling.

Two soldiers had their feet swallowed by the suddenly softened ground, with their bodies half-sunk in the blink of an eye. The walls around them turned into "living metal," continuously flowing and reshaping. Nearby clone soldiers fired futily at the walls and ceiling, their weak firepower only causing tiny ripples on the walls — meanwhile, the "mutation" within the passage was advancing with an unstoppable momentum.

The squad commander retreated near the airlock, staring through the Power Armor's visor at the events unfolding before him.

He seemed to see that advancing "line" — a boundary just meters away in the corridor, beyond which lay the "living entity," growing within the base. Inch by inch, it transformed the cold metal into its warm, eerie flesh. Within two minutes, that line would reach his feet and then overrun the airlock behind him, consuming the base's outermost layer of protection.

The squad commander activated the communication device: "Commander, airlock nearing breach, we are taking heavy losses, request retreat, repeat, airlock breach, request retreat."

The animated region was just a few meters away. The last of the cloned soldiers backed up against the airlock, raising their rifles yet unsure of where to shoot. Above them, the sentry turrets on either side of the airlock slowly lowered their barrels from the ceiling. Their bases trembled as if in a seizure, before slowly rotating to aim.

"Commander, Commander, do you copy? Request retreat!" 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Only a series of crackling noises came from the communicator; no one responded to the squad commander's call.

But suddenly, the signal light on the communicator lit up again. The signal encryption was brutally cracked, and a female voice came through the commander's helmet —

"This is Senior Project Manager of the Corporation, Luo, identification code S-P-O-1055. Former Special Commissioner Qiao is under investigation for serious dereliction, espionage activities, and responsibilities for significant losses. He has automatically lost jurisdiction over this facility. Now issuing a notice to remaining warriors in the fortress — immediately lay down your weapons and surrender to the nearest surveillance device. Timely surrender will be regarded as maintaining loyalty to the Corporation. Repeat, surrender immediately and prove your loyalty!"

...

In the core area's hall, the stored blood in the diffusion device was already depleted. At this moment, Yu Sheng was staying next to the diffusion device with a hole punched in his arm by Luna. He inserted one end of a tube into himself and the other into the blood reservoir's fill port, sitting there like a human blood bag.

He felt that if he drained any more, he'd die, but draining a bit more would secure the space base — who would eventually win or die was still uncertain, but given the situation, those details no longer mattered.

Erin was standing on "Old Qiao's" head (his body had completely stopped functioning) with her arms crossed, muttering incessantly, "That old fool not playing by the rules, just started shooting! TV shows don't go like this...

"I mean, when such a beautiful puppet falls in the hallway, wouldn't a normal person go up with curiosity to check it out for a while, then pick it up and examine it again, standing there in shock and amazement while I hard-control him for thirty seconds? Who fires three shots from across a dozen meters right after seeing it? I was ambushing in the ventilation duct, just waiting for him to come over and pick up the puppet so I could focus fire on his head, and he just skipped all the martial virtues...

"Yu Sheng, I'm telling you, with his style, he wouldn't even be able to complete a side quest in a game, skipping all the important clues on his own..."

"You're talking as if all this was according to your plan," Yu Sheng lifted his eyelids, "Didn't you slip and fall from the ventilation duct?"

"...Even if I slipped and fell, it was all part of the plan! It's the other side lacking martial virtue..."

Yu Sheng ignored the chatty little thing, instead raising his eyelids to glance at Luo, who was holding a communicator: "Did that surrender broadcast you sent out have any effect?"

"Not sure how effective it will be," Luo shook his head, his attitude frank, "Just fulfilling our duty, giving those clone soldiers one last chance to retreat in their final hour—if anyone does surrender, it will be a major blow to Old Qiao, and a significant gain for us. If no one surrenders, it's fine, as this fortress will soon fall completely, and we won't lose anything."

"But those are clone soldiers on the other side, indoctrinated since childhood," Yu Sheng smacked his lips, "I doubt they even understand what you're saying."

"I've had a lot of dealings with clone soldiers—I've commanded them, trained them, and even mass 'produced' them," Luo said slowly, arms crossed, "In my interactions with them, I discovered something."

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow: "Oh?"

Luo turned his head, speaking earnestly: "I found out they're human too—unless they've been implanted with mind control chips and undergone composite neural excision, they actually have emotions of joy, anger, sadness, and happiness, even more facial expression changes than the Ironclad Expression."

Yu Sheng: "..."

Luo mistook Yu Sheng's momentary silence for doubt, and hurriedly emphasized: "I'm serious, Boss! Clone soldiers are human too! And most standard models don't have mind control chips or neural excision surgery. I found that if you arrange holidays and entertainment for the clone soldiers under your command, they'd be very happy..."

Watching Luo's anxious yet earnest reaction, Yu Sheng remained silent for a while, suddenly speaking after a few seconds of quiet: "Two Black Spot units near the upper airlock and cargo lanes have surrendered."

Luo blinked.

Yu Sheng then frowned: "Wait, there's a sudden heat source appearing in a region at the fortress's edge...A shuttle is attempting to break out!"

Luo reacted instantly, his expression changing: "Stop it!"

...

"None are reliable, all are traitors...I knew long ago, all are traitors..."

A creaky, angered voice synthesized from the sound system, as the cockpit echoed with the activation sounds of each system going online, the shuttle engine warming, the launch channel's gate slowly opening. At the end of the passage emerged the vast dark space and the distant flickering stars.

"AI will betray, clones will betray, trade 'partners' will betray, even iron and stone will betray...I was right from the beginning, all are potential traitors...All of them!"

The control stick pushed forward, anti-gravity engines buzzing, the shuttle slowly disengaged from the docking platform, suspended in the stasis field, lights lining the passage illuminating in sequence. The person inside the cockpit lifted his head, eyes gleaming with near-crazed red light.

"Corporate groups, Hidden Monastery...you all are worthless! Inferior life forms! You've offended true big shots! Real big shots! I still have a chance, just as long as I can get out of here, I still have a chance to turn the tables..."

Old Qiao opened the command panel on the console, embedding his finger into a custom groove on the panel.

"Shut down the stasis field," he said in a deep voice.

The holographic projection above the control panel flickered a few times, popping up two words: "Don't shut."

Old Qiao: "...?"

He was stunned, then suddenly felt the shuttle drop sharply. The stasis field on the docking platform intensified by several magnitudes, forcefully "pulling" the entire craft back to the platform, while the gate at the end of the launch channel began closing rapidly, distant starlight blocked by thick alloy armor.

Even this secret launch channel, isolated from the main system and known only to him, had betrayed him?!

"No! It shouldn't be like this!" The cockpit finally resonated with a roar, "It shouldn't be like this!"

However, new text soon appeared on the holographic projection of the console: "Should."