"Once again, the footprints of man are imprinted on the land of the moon, but this time we are here for conquest."

In front of the lawn of the presidential palace, John, with his back to the setting sun, gave a televised speech to the nation.

It's 6 p.m. Central Time on the 23rd, and an hour ago, the Origin successfully landed on the moon with two astronauts from Artemis III, and carried out an out-of-cabin activity in five minutes.

"The moon is our closest companion, a stepping stone for humanity to go to space and beyond, an outpost for expansion into space, and it has abundant resources to be exploited, just like San Francisco in 1830, a ...... with treasures."

John's speech was impassioned, and the various aerospace highlights that switched from time to time were very infectious, and the audience in front of the TV was immersed in it.

Outside the frame, however, McMaster has been wandering, staring fixedly at the sunset with John as the background.

The sun shines as magnificence as it can on the horizon, as if it is going to shine as far as possible on the whole land before it goes out.

He looked at the sunset, as if he saw the end of the entire human civilization.

It's just that the sun will rise when it sets, and after the death of human civilization, it will be the end of dead silence.

"What a beautiful sunset."

The middle-aged white man standing next to him suddenly spoke, as if he was just enjoying the view.

McMaster turned his head tiredly and whispered:

"David, you're more important than we are now."

David Usino, an astrophysicist and mathematician, currently chairs the Department of Sociology at Princeton University, is a member of the Aramco Mathematical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A physicist serving as the head of the sociology department would have been the focus of attention, not to mention that David's fame is more due to the fact that he is an alien lover - not a group of psychopaths who chase flying saucers everywhere, but a serious scholar who studies extraterrestrial civilizations.

In order to study the possible structures and even language types of aliens, David also devoted a lot of time to cryptography, philosophy, and linguistics, and achieved quite good results.

However, he still has a hidden identity as the director of the "13th Office" of the Hexagon, directly responsible to the president.

In a little more than two days, the federal government, which was running at full speed, made initial preparations.

Unknown signals were discovered - now referred to as "M Event", M comes from the initials Mars, and it took the Bureau of Investigation only 8 hours to contain all 22 people in the M Incident, 4 of whom heard about it by way of conversation.

At the same time, the agents followed the instructions of the higher authorities overnight to find David, who knew both aerospace science and sociology, and preferably linguistics and encryption.

The Hexagonal Corporation, with David as the core and on its own, set up two teams to conduct a systematic analysis of the "M incident", and both came to conclusive results:

Signals are not given by humans.

Strange encryption methods, disguised as natural signals, are clearly characteristic of intelligent life, and can judge that the inclination of malice is greater than the tendency of good intentions.

There can be no gratuitous goodwill between two strange civilizations, but there must be reason to have sufficient malice.

Is it a signal from an unknown probe, a spaceship, or something else? Why are they sneaky, why are they doing it, what are they sending? How skilled are they and where do they come from?

There are no answers to these questions yet, and it is enough to confirm the existence of "them".

The Hexagon named the 13th Office after the alphabetical order of M, and the 13th is an ominous representation in Western history, sending shivers down the spine of the very few people in the know.

So far, there are less than 30 high-level and experts who know about the M incident and the Thirteenth Office, but their level and level are already on par with the highest level.

Obviously, they did not intend to make the M incident public, let alone share it with other countries, but instead sent agents to find out whether the other two European and UAE detectors had received the signal.

After all, there is still a very small probability that Ami will come into contact with aliens in advance and benefit from them.

Only at the last moment when the truth has to be revealed will the outside world be able to learn this ultimate secret.

But for McMaster, the first thing he has to think about is Ami's safety, and the pressure on him from the aliens is almost limitless.

However, David did not show excessive excitement after learning all this, but looked expected after a little surprise.

"There will be such a day for mankind, but sooner or later, there is nothing surprising about it."

These were the first words of David when the Thirteenth Office was founded, but he could accept any outcome calmly, and the elites such as McMaster and John couldnnot, and it seemed to them that the Federation had begun to move forward on a mission to save all mankind.

The world situation is in chaos, but after all, it is necessary to rely on the beacon of freedom to guide the direction of civilization!

……

"I don't feel a little compassionate."

Zhong Cheng looked at the clip of John's speech on his phone, and said his feelings with some uncertainty.

"Is there one?"

Lin Ju on the side was full of question marks, but he didn't hear anything.

"Maybe it's my delusion...... In fact, I feel as if he is criticizing us, and the tone of his words is not right. ”

"That's normal, it's okay if you didn't jump out and scold us for destroying the harmony of the moon."

"Again, let's take a look at our ship."

It's 8 o'clock in the morning, and the four astronauts on the Wutu space station have all entered the Jiuzhang and are ready to land at any time.

Artemis III landed one step ahead of them, but no one cared much from the ground to the moon, just focused on working according to plan.

Due to the size of the Jiuzhan and the confidence in himself, the landing was carried out by four astronauts + three robots together, and there were no astronauts left behind in the Wutu space station.

Of course, there are advantages to having more people, although the time of landing this time is short, but counting "14", a total of eight laborers plus a large number of auxiliary construction machinery, can do quite a lot.

Zhong's plan is to stay only 36 hours, of which the astronauts will need to work a total of 20 hours to complete the assigned tasks, and then return to the space station to eat and get a good night's sleep, waiting for the follow-up expedition team to arrive and prepare for the second landing.

At 8:30, the Jiuzhang broke away from the Wutu space station.

Lin Ju just stood up and said with a little pain:

"I'm a little uncomfortable, leave me alone later."

"What's wrong?"

Zhong Cheng immediately asked with concern.

"I had a spicy hot pot with Manman yesterday morning, and I did this all night, so I'll find a place to lie down."

"That Landing ......"

"Hey, what's so strange about this, it's a little interesting if I go up by myself, I can see it after just looking at it."

Zhong Cheng was a little relieved at this time, and hurriedly instructed:

"Xiao Wang, send Chairman Lin to rest quickly, if you can't call a doctor immediately, understand?"

"Yes...... You come with me, I'll help you ......"

(End of chapter)