Chapter 45 Blasting Open a Path

The icy voice of the *Arbitrator* acted like a tangible iron collar, tightly choking the throat of the *Explorer 7*.
Inside the bridge, the remaining alarms buzzed like dying groans, casting a stark, flickering light over every strained and furious face.
Outside the viewport, the sharp-lined surveillance vessel, bearing the gray insignia of the Interstellar Command Center, maneuvered with the deliberate grace of a hunting shark. Beneath its bow, the terrifying collector-cannon aperture pulsed with an ominous, eerie glow.
"Damn it! That old bastard Shen Shanli! His nose is as sharp as a bloodhound's!" Duan Peng growled, slamming his fist against the console and rattling the structural stress warnings into an even higher red zone.
He struggled to stand, only to be forced to gasp in sharp agony from his injured left arm and ribs, collapsing back into his seat.
"They've locked onto us. Propulsion systems are damaged; evasive maneuvers are impossible." Wu Mingjie's voice remained calm, though his speech was lightning-fast. His single hand operated the auxiliary console at blinding speed, trying to carve out a sliver of survival. "Electronic warfare systems are entirely suppressed. No distress signal can get through."
Ouyang Nan's face was drained of all color, her hands gripping the armrests so hard her knuckles turned ghostly white.
She looked toward Xu Yan, her eyes filled with frantic anxiety and a shred of desperation.
Xu Yan stood motionless. The wound on his arm was still bleeding, trickling down his fingertips to patter against the freezing deck.
He did not look at the lethal surveillance ship outside the window, nor at the continuously refreshing threat parameters on the screen.
His gaze was locked, unblinking, onto that newly deciphered, shocking piece of intelligence—
"Project Gateway," "Pioneer Prospecting Team Data Eradication," "Induced Wormhole Collapse," "Coordinates Matched"...
Every single term felt like a red-hot dagger plunging deep into his chest, twisting mercilessly.
The faces and voices of his parents flashed through his mind, finally freezing upon that cold, ambiguous missing-persons notice.
Rage, grief, and an almost destructive impulse surged within his cavity like boiling magma.
The cold calculations of the entity known as Covet seemed pale and powerless at this exact moment.
*‘Probability of successful confrontation is lower than 0.01%. Recommendation: Execute surrender protocol, preserve data and personnel, and seek legal defense.’* Covet's voice remained glacial, yet it seemed to carry a microscopic, imperceptible tremor, as if it too struggled to fully process this overwhelming torrent of human emotion.
"Legal avenues?" Xu Yan sneered in his mind, his voice trembling from sheer emotional overload. "Redeem is embedded right inside the Command Center! Shen Shanli is their lapdog! Surrender? Hand the evidence over for them to destroy? And then 'go missing' like my parents?!"
He jerked his head up, his eyes blazing with a terrifying light that fused agony, resolve, and a reckless madness.
"No." The word squeezed past his clenched teeth, stained with the metallic taste of blood. "We aren't just going to survive. We are going to smash all of this right into their faces!"

He ignored Covet's warnings entirely, his gaze sweeping across his teammates.
"Duan Peng, can you still move?"
"I'm not dead yet!" Duan Peng gritted his teeth, propping his body up with his uninjured right hand. "What's the play?!"
"Ouyang, package all the data—including the spatial fold parameters, Redeem's signal signatures, and that final decoded message. Apply multi-layer encryption and prepare for a directed hyperspace pulse transmission. Target... the Interstellar Command's highest-priority channel, authorization code... 'Dawn'."
Xu Yan issued rapid orders, reciting the highest-level emergency authorization code that Jing Zhimin had once secretly entrusted to him.
"The Dawn Channel? That requires Level-1 Command Center authorization!" Ouyang Nan gasped in shock.
"Since we don't have authorization, we'll blast a path open with raw energy! Couple the resonator's remaining energy with the main engine's overload pulse, and broadcast it like a miniature spatial jump signal!"
Xu Yan's voice brooked no argument. "Duan Peng, prepare the energy guide ring for overload! Mingjie, calculate the optimal pulse window to steer clear of the *Arbitrator*'s interception zone!"
This was an utterly insane plan.
Using unstable spatial energy for hyper-distance communication had a negligible success rate, threatened to trigger unpredictable spatial disturbances, and could easily annihilate the entire ship.
Yet, at this moment, not a single person hesitated.
"Hell yeah! I love it!" Duan Peng grinned hideously, operating the controls frantically with one hand, completely ignoring the system's renewed overload warnings.
Wu Mingjie fell silent, throwing himself into calculations as fine beads of sweat broke out across his forehead.
Ouyang Nan took a deep breath, her fingers dancing across the console to compress all their hopes and incriminating evidence into a desperate energy pulse.
*‘Energy overload risk: 97.8%. Chain collapse probability triggered by spatial disturbance: 83.1%. Survival probability: less than 2%.’* Covet reported the final figures.
Yet this time, its voice seemed devoid of absolute negation, carrying instead a faint trace of... observation.
"Xu Yan..." Ouyang Nan suddenly looked up, her eyes complex. "If... if we fail..."
"Then we fail," Xu Yan cut her off.
His gaze swept over Duan Peng's injuries, Wu Mingjie's severed arm, the terror in Ouyang Nan's eyes, and the coordinates of his parents' murder glowing on the screen. "But we will have tried. Not to prove how great we are, but to make damn sure certain people know that the truth cannot be suppressed!"
At that moment, he felt as though he wasn't merely speaking to his teammates, but making a sacred vow to his departed parents and to every obscured sacrifice in the universe.

"Energy guide ring overload critical! Pulse ready!" Duan Peng roared, his voice distorted by pain and excitement.
"Calculation of launch window complete! T-minus 3 seconds!" Wu Mingjie reported urgently.
"The *Arbitrator*'s main gun is fully charged! They're about to fire!" Ouyang Nan's voice tightened to a squeak.
Xu Yan slammed the master control button!
"Launch!"
The battered hull of the *Explorer 7* shuddered violently! A horrific wave of energy, far exceeding safety thresholds, surged frantically from the engine exhausts and resonator probes. Instead of providing propulsion, it condensed into an intensely sharp, hyper-penetrating hyperspace pulse—a faint spark in the dark, shooting unfalteringly toward the distant Interstellar Command!
Almost simultaneously, the main gun of the *Arbitrator* blazed with blinding brilliance!
Yet, right before that destructive beam could unleash—
An even more authoritative and formidable voice forcefully overrode and pierced through the *Arbitrator*'s communication channels on the highest priority frequency!
"This is Mu Chengzhu!"
The voice cracked like thunder through the dead silence of the channel.
" *Arbitrator*, cease fire immediately! Hold your position! Xu Yan, report your status and the authorization basis for your transmission!"
The blazing glow of the *Arbitrator*'s main cannon froze as if seized by an invisible hand, rapidly dimming into lifelessness.
Inside the bridge, the four survivors could hardly believe their ears.
Xu Yan breathed heavily, leaning against the console to keep himself upright.
He glanced at the faint "Transmission Successful" notification on the screen, raised the communicator to his lips, and with his very last ounce of strength, rasped out a clear, resolute reply:
"Reporting, General! During deep-space exploration, the *Explorer 7* encountered anomalous spatial phenomena and accidentally intercepted critical evidence concerning the illegal activities of the 'Redeem' organization and... the cover-up of their crimes! Transmission basis: Article 17 of the Interstellar Security Emergency Act, authorization code 'Dawn'! Requesting... permission to report in person!"