"Voyage Record, Day 3546," Changbai still remembers that day three years ago, when he came to the command room, he heard the captain as usual, making a logbook with his voice, "We have entered the outer solar system, the ship's life support equipment is normal, the communication equipment is normal, the 29th rescue operation from the Federation yesterday also failed, and we received a message from the Third Fleet 2 hours ago that we have been abandoned." ”

Changbai was stunned at that time, and the feet that had just stepped into the command room consciously wanted to retract, but the captain had already turned his head at this time.

"Changbai," the captain called his name for the first time, not the battle number, "go pour me a drink." ”

"Captain!" Changbai shouted. During the war, alcohol was not allowed on board. He was not trying to stop the captain's violation, he was afraid of the captain's despair.

"We've been kicked out of the combat sequence," the captain smiled wryly, "From now on, our military status will also be automatically canceled." The commander of the Third Fleet told me that we could surrender to the rebels on our own initiative. ”

"But they ......," Changbai screamed, "they won't accept any surrender!" ”

"So," the captain nodded, "we all understand what that means. This is the battlefield, Changbai, you should be able to understand, this is the fate of the military. ”

"From today onwards, you don't need to report to the command every day," said the captain, "an attack ship without power and weapons...... In the outer solar system, it is like a floating wooden sampan in the ocean...... We're dead. ”

"No, it won't!" Changbai became excited, "The war will take a turn!" We're not drifting fast now, and the life-sustaining system can last at least twenty years! Twenty years we can definitely win this war! When the time comes, the Federation will send someone to save us! ”

Now, three full years have passed.

Changbai woke up as usual and did a while at the desk, but did not turn on the computer as usual. He stood up, opened the hatch, and walked out.

The captain was not in the command room, and half a year ago, the captain locked himself in the room.

Many times Changbai thought he was dead, but the food circulation system showed that the ship was still maintaining the normal consumption of food and water for two people.

The captain just didn't want to see himself.

Changbai can understand the other party, in a desperate situation, seeing the same kind of people actually does not help the psyche at all, on the contrary, the desperate eyes of his companions will always remind him of the bad situation.

It's better not to look at all, as long as you don't look in the mirror and don't take pictures of yourself, life here seems to go on as usual. They can play games that are never updated, and they can look at books that never end...... For a great civilization, the product of spiritual abundance is enough to pass the time for them.

Changbai remembered that the last time he walked out of his living cabin by himself was half a month ago.

In order to save as little energy as possible and make the system last longer, they turned off the unrelated cleaning system as soon as they were sure they were going to survive the ship for a long time. In three years, the original new and clean command cabin is now covered with a thick layer of dust, and there is an unpleasant rancid smell in the air - the captain must have come here to eat and drink, and did not clean it afterwards.

In fact, he has been here too, the only difference is that he has better control over himself.

All the authority on board has been shared, and from the moment he was abandoned, there was no difference between him and the captain, who was once a combat operator, responsible for all power and weapon systems. The captain is a combat commander who is responsible for confirming that his operations are in accordance with combat orders. And now, they are just two little beetles floating on a sampan in this desperate cosmic sea.

Changbai turned on the communication system, and as before, there was not a single message in it.

Sometimes Changbai wondered if the captain had deleted the information without permission, but then he dispelled this malicious speculation - because the captain came to the command room much less often than him.

Changbai was unwilling to turn on the radio search, and put the communication drink in the command room to the maximum.

He didn't hear anything.

"It can't be!" Changbai kept switching frequencies of self-talk, but it was still the same. In the command room, only Changbai himself was alone, and the sound of heavy gasps was as quiet as a grave.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of communication knows that around a galaxy with a huge civilization owner, it is easy to receive all kinds of messages from civilization using radio. All kinds of radio stations, communication stations, needless to say, in the six months after their accident, they can even hear voice shouts from their family members from their home planet - with the help of several scientific research stations close to the edge of the galaxy, about every two months, can only be heard once in a few days.

But as time passed, as the distance between them and the solar system became more and more distant, the frequency of this became lower and lower, and Changbai himself forgot that the last time he heard his father's voice calling out to him was when it was.

However, even in an area where there is no signal, as long as he turns on the communication station, he can still receive the sound - it is a noise mixed with countless radio waves from the home galaxy, and it is completely meaningless to hear in the ear, even if all the computing resources on the ship are invested in parsing, no information in the noise can be heard at all.

But now, even the noise is gone.

"No, it can't be!" Changbai constantly passed through the command center, controlled the command system to check the communication system again and again, and the answer was the same - system failure.

"It's a communication silence mechanism......" The captain didn't know when he appeared, and his voice came from the doorway. Changbai raised his head to look at him, and found that the captain was leaning against the door, staring at him with a pair of fierce glasses, looking at him covered in hair, as if he was a beast that had just come out of the lair, "After the combat ship is out of the combat sequence for a period of time, it will automatically destroy all internal communication protocols and disable permissions...... Prevent exploitation by the enemy. You were lazy in the original technical course. ”

Changbai was drained of all his strength by this passage and sat down dejectedly.

The two of them stared at each other for a long time, and after looking at each other for a long time, Changbai got up and prepared to leave the room, but the captain sat down in Changbai's direction, as he had done when he was still the captain, opening many of the ship's functional pages.

"How long do we have left?"

"It's long, huh," the captain spat out a syllable disdainfully, "so long that I'm afraid I don't have the confidence to live until then." ”

"We still have ......" Changbai paused, "Is there a chance of being rescued?" ”

"Of course there is, there will always be," the captain coldly spat out a number, "0.0000000454752 percent, do you want to hear the main source of this probability?" ”

Changbai stopped.

"If the Federation wins a big victory, the rebels are preparing to flee to other systems from our direction, and the Federation's pursuing fleet passes by...... Moreover, we happen to be in their line of sight and send out a distress signal in time, and the opponent can also tolerate the tactical attrition caused by reducing speed...... Then it is possible for us to be saved, at least 13 years later. "Do you know why this probability is so small?" ”

Changbai didn't speak, they had had a similar discussion countless times, although he didn't admit it once, but in his heart he had already agreed with the captain's judgment.

"Because we have no hope of winning!" The captain suddenly shouted nervously, "After thousands of years of intelligent life, we have been raised into another animal!" We lie on the technological legacy of our predecessors, having endless pleasures, and spending the resources of the entire 15 planets of the solar system to build games instead of exploring new worlds! ”

"On the contrary, our worst enemy works for us all the time, and in the name of work, we keep delegating more technical details to them! From mining to smelting, from manufacturing to weapons, from science to war, we have taught them everything about civilization by hand, hoping that they will take over the burden of these civilizations and provide for us to continue this life for free! ”

"What is left of the entire federation now! Except for a few fleets, that's four Earths! Do you know how many fleets can be built in the resources required to maintain a virtual Earth? Why haven't we gotten authorization yet? Because those people don't care at all! They don't care about this civilization, and they don't care about this war! ……”

The captain shouted frantically for a long time, until his voice began to hoarse, and finally stopped. Then, like no one, he returned to the same movements as when he first sat in the captain's seat, and calmly began one operation after another......

Changbai wanted to leave this room that made him uneasy, but because of some kind of faint loneliness, he didn't take a step. When he returned to his room, he didn't have to face the captain's resentment and the despair of reality, but the boundless loneliness and the imagination of the terrible situation in the future were more unbearable than these two.

"Hehe," the captain sneered over there, "the last battle report, two months ago, we lost the long star. ”

Changbai walked to the seat he was sitting in battle, but did not open the operation interface, just sat down and looked at the captain. He was still muttering something to himself, whether it was a curse on the fleet, a contempt for the citizens of the home planet, or a "compliment" to the rebel brains......

When he first heard these complaints, Changbai was bored, but now it sounds, and it feels a little kind. In fact, he is not in his own room, in his personal computer, in his own virtual game, in front of himself, in front of NPCs, in front of all the things he can face, babbling and repeating these things.

Changbai stood up and walked towards the captain, because he suddenly felt that he and the captain were both pitiful.

At the very least, in this desperate space, there should be more trust between the two desperate people.

Changbai patted the captain on the shoulder, but the captain didn't look up, but his voice stopped.

"Changxing," Changbai called the captain's name, "don't look at it. ”

"No," said the captain's voice, with a strange, excited tremor, "no...... Wait, wait! ”

"Changbai, what's wrong with you?"

"There's a boat!" The captain began to shout, echoes reverberating through the room like a storm, "Ship! A big spaceship! ”

"Spaceship?" Changbai looked at the captain blankly, feeling scared, "This is the outer solar system...... There is not even a gravitational source, how can a spaceship pass through here? ”

"No, I saw it, no, it was the spaceship that saw it, just 23 hours ago!" The captain quickly operated on the interface, and after a while, the combat optical surveillance system put the suspicious targets that had been found on the portholes.

The captain didn't go crazy, it was indeed a ship, and it was a big ship, and from the analysis of the computer alone, it could be concluded that this ship was nearly a hundred times larger than theirs. This shows that the other side is most likely a colonial ship - and then, almost knee-jerk, vigilance appears in the minds of the two soldiers - who they are! Why came to the solar system?

"Whoever it is!" The captain reacted immediately, "We're going to call them!" Tell them, we surrender! ”