Aking from his recent memories, Mimiros silently glanced around his office, and finally his gaze rested on a large photograph of himself slapping on his desk. The four people in the photograph are smiling in a green room, in which the little boy standing in front is playfully holding his father's chin with his hand, and the little girl standing next to the little boy is smiling uncontrollably as she watches her father's interaction with her brother.

Mimiros slowly reached out to touch the surface of the photograph, and at the same time, he whispered to himself, "Am I too impulsive——? Or have they lost their enterprising spirit——? With that, he closed his eyes and relied only on the sensation of his fingers to feel any subtle difference in the photo. After a moment of rubbing, Mimiros opened his eyes, and then he carefully placed the picture in its original position. Withdrawing his hand, he let out a long sigh and ordered the outside, "Let all the teams stop the attack on Sakincha for the time being......

And just like that, ten days passed peacefully—

"It's strange, it's been more than a week since the last large-scale attack, how come those attackers have completely failed to react?" On this day, after arranging the daily work, Dart, who was idle, brought up the topic in the command cabin with a puzzled tone, "Even small-scale attacks are completely extinct." ”

"That's not good." Spred replied angrily as he busied himself with his work, "Do you still want to live the days when you hear a dozen sirens a day?" ”

"I didn't mean that." "What I'm trying to say is that after so long without any real action, will they be secretly preparing for any large-scale operation?" ”

"I've been thinking about this for the past few days." Zhou Xin took their conversation with a solemn expression, "I have to say that the other party has been calm for too long, you must know that they haven't been quiet for so long before the large-scale attack on our mining site on the planet." If they were really preparing for something, the intensity of the attack we would face next would be extraordinary. After saying his thoughts, he immediately instructed, "So, Atlas, our probes on the planet can't let their guard down just because nothing abnormal has happened in the past few days. By the way, our detectors really haven't noticed any abnormal movement from the other party in the past few days? ”

Shaking her head, the little girl on the screen replied, "No, although the probes at the bottom of the trench still occasionally detect the entry and exit of submersibles hidden on the bottom of the sea, none of these submersibles have appeared in the shallow water. Once or twice, the probes were allowed to follow the submersible from a distance, only to find that although they were moving in different directions, they all stopped not far from the shelter. The tracked submersibles then stayed in place for about half an hour before heading straight back to their shelters. Judging from the time of entry and exit, the range of action of other submersibles that are not tracked should be similar. ”

"Can you determine the purpose of the other party's stay in that area?" Dart asked.

"Judging from the probe's investigation of that area after the fact." Atlas's face suddenly turned strange, "Those submersibles seem to be collecting organic matter from the nearby area. ”

"What is the other party doing?" This answer was really a bit unexpected by Zhou Xin, and he subconsciously asked.

"They're not going to have some unknown biological weapons in store." A terrible thought popped into Dart's mind.

"I don't know." The little girl shook her head, "Those submersibles didn't leave any clues, only the reduction of organic matter can't fool people." ”

"There's no way, since we don't know what the other party's intentions are, then we have to be careful." Zhou Xin said helplessly, "Atlas, from now on, any detectors or other equipment that have been in contact with each other in the future must be strictly inspected before returning to the Voyager to prevent substances that may harm any crew from entering the spacecraft." ”

"Well, people get it." Atlas nodded solemnly.

"That's right." After explaining this matter, Zhou Xin continued to ask, "It's been so many days, have you made any progress in deciphering the languages used by the civilizations on the planet?" ”

"Well—" the little girl replied after a moment's hesitation, "there is good news and bad news, which one do you want to hear first, brother captain?" ”

"Let's have bad news first." Zhou Xin chose without thinking.

"Well, here's the bad news - the alien civilizations inside the three undersea shelters we tracked down seem to have sensed something, and all three have raised their alert levels almost simultaneously. In view of this, people no longer dare to send any detectors inside. ”

"What's the matter, did they find the probe we sneaked into?"

"They didn't find out directly." Atlas replied with an unnatural expression, "It's just that the probe was trying to access the database in the shelter according to someone's instructions, and some traces were found by the people inside." Then she smiled awkwardly, "Haha-haha-it seems that it is impossible to rely on the probe's own computing power to crack their database, but it is too simple." ”

"You, you're so daring, didn't you have been reminded to be careful a long time ago." Zhou Xin reluctantly continued, "It's okay now, there is one less channel for such an important channel to obtain information." Considering that something had happened, it was useless to blame it, and there was another piece of news waiting for him next, so Zhou Xin continued to ask after complaining, "What about the good news?" ”

"Good news-" Seeing that Zhou Xin didn't criticize herself too much, Atlas's mood was much better, and she replied with a little excitement, "Although the probes can no longer sneak into the hideout, according to the text and audio materials they have collected from it several times before, as well as the daily conversations between the aliens who are now left on our spaceship, there has been a breakthrough in the analysis of the language and writing of this civilization." ”

"So we're able to communicate with them?" Spred asked excitedly.

"I'm afraid it's going to take some time." The little girl on the screen scratched her head in embarrassment, "The breakthrough that people are talking about is just discovering some patterns in their language and being able to analyze them further." If you want to understand it thoroughly, you need to collect more vocabulary in those people's conversations......"