Chapter 793 - 749: Deploy

"Take a break, don’t stay up,"

Yu Man watched Lin Ju yawn incessantly and refused to brew him any more strong tea out of concern.

It was now just past 2 a.m., and Lin Ju, Zhong Cheng, Ye Changsi, and Shen Zuozhou were sitting in the base’s guest room, gathered around a small coffee table, having discussed matters for so long that they’d lost count of the numerous cups of strong tea and coffee consumed.

The physical exhaustion was ultimately hard to resist, and all four were now in the most sleepy period, but nobody wanted to go to sleep; they were all constantly on the lookout for news.

Lin Ju gently took Yu Man’s hand, persuading her to go rest first, and then called the service robot to make him a specially brewed black coffee.

"Ding!"

The mobile phone on the table vibrated suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention immediately.

It was Lin Ju’s phone, which he had set to notify mode. He quickly flipped open the notification bar, only to find the message quite unexpected.

It was Little Blue Bird; he had set notifications for messages from particularly watched individuals, and now there was a private message alert from the backstage.

Under the gaze of others, Lin Ju opened the app to see a brief message in English, filled with many acronyms, but all commonly used words that were easy to understand at a glance.

The other three didn’t need a translation and roughly comprehended the message with just a glance.

However, they found it hard to believe the content they were seeing; Shen Zuozhou’s eyes widened in disbelief as he said:

"Is it really sent by him? If this gets out, he’s probably going to be in for a complete teardown, isn’t he?"

"A complete teardown? If we had someone like that, getting shot would be getting off easy!"

Zhong Cheng also found it hard to believe the message on the phone, no matter which aspect he considered.

The head of NACA was using Little Blue Bird to warn us to stay calm, be careful of desperate moves by the Pentagon?

Who would believe this if it got out? It’s more unbelievable than the existence of Martians.

The four of them reviewed the message for a long time before they could confirm its authenticity, which instantly scattered the recent heaviness of sleepiness.

"What do we do, Director Zhong?"

"What do we do? Follow the rules, of course! But it really is ’know the face, not the heart.’ Seeing something like this, we’re experiencing history,"

Zhong Cheng kept emitting bitter laughs. The message from Robert didn’t contain much value, but this action was truly baffling.

After all, using Little Blue Bird... It’s just like an incident in the past, where there was news of a plan to snatch a militia arsenal using WeChat for loud conspiring, with too many illogical points that made it difficult to critique.

"Should we cover it up?"

Ye Changsi suggested, but Zhong Cheng thought for a moment and shook his head:

"What’s happened has happened. We won’t deal with the aftermath, nor reply. As for Robert... his fate is up to him. Let’s keep waiting for news.

The First Aerial Transport Squadron probably won’t take off until morning; we’ll wait."

The four of them didn’t pay too much attention to Robert’s warning; this kind of reminder might have been very important for Russia, but for the domestic side, which was on high alert, it was just icing on the cake.

After the brief excitement had subsided, the atmosphere once again grew silent, and the four continued their night talks, increasing the frequency of coffee and tea.

At 2:42 a.m., the first significant piece of news arrived: NACA had successfully launched an emergency satellite and had ingeniously achieved a rendezvous with Artemis, sending it commands.

Although Artemis’s orientation was still flipping, the massive reflector was slowly retracting, and it was safe to say that the extremely expensive spacecraft had been preserved.

Following closely behind was the East Sea. At present, there were already more than 60 warships gathered there, with nearly 300 planes circling the surrounding airspace. The smell of gunpowder in the air was suffocating, somewhat worrisome.

At 3:02 AM, a trending topic took over the top spot in online news:

"World of Warcraft Asia server shuts down due to sudden reasons, officials say it can’t be resolved for the time being."

At the same time, several locations across the country spotted "Xuehu" flying overhead, even including the Island Country, with a reported number of more than 5 aircraft—an unprecedented event.

At 3:22 AM, the Maritime Authority announced that due to the typhoon and severe weather, a temporary control would be enforced for 24 hours, banning fishing vessels and other ships from setting sail.

At 3:26 AM, the Civil Aviation Authority also issued a notice, informing that multiple transoceanic flights were delayed due to the weather, and that they were actively working to rebook and refund affected passengers as quickly as possible, while several coastal airports were temporarily closed.

At 3:40 AM, which was afternoon time in America, McMaster publicly declared that they would fully ensure the stability of the international situation and maintain the status quo, preventing any disruption of the balance.

An hour after this, multiple parties continuously issued statements. Because it was still late at night across the nation, not many were paying attention, but there were always some who stayed awake and witnessed this quiet, drastic change.

At 4:05 AM, the UK announced that the royal family would travel to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to enjoy the cooler summer weather and conduct a friendly visit.

At 4:25 AM, the director of Hair Country Space Agency suddenly spoke up on social media, stating that the planetary defense functions of the Huayin Organization were still effective, and that they would advance or retreat together.

At 4:30 AM, as the sun was about to rise above the sea, the Seventh Fleet announced that due to a wide-range exercise accident, 1 EP3E, 2 F2s, 1 F15, and 1 F35 had crashed into the sea, resulting in 26 casualties and 3 missing persons.

Five minutes later, the Pentagon released a notice, stating that the DDG-107 "Gravely" had a minor collision with a Chinese vessel during routine patrol, with no casualties reported at the moment.

The four individuals at the base, constantly monitoring the news, were well aware of the real situation. From the brief analyses, they could already imagine the collision of iron and blood, flames and flesh, but they patiently continued to wait for more information.

At 4:50 AM, news from the Aerospace Development Committee stated that four aero-space planes had all taken off.

At 5:05 AM, as the first light of dawn appeared and the temperature in the East Sea began to cool down, the mass of aircraft and ships that had assembled finally started to retreat in succession.

Meanwhile, the entire eastern hemisphere of the world was beginning to wake up, and the domestic internet started buzzing with activity as countless trending topics were born on this day.

...

Underneath the massive body of the An-1250, the captain of flight B4143 stood as the rising sun elongated the shadow of the plane to completely cover his body.

His feet were surrounded by cigarette butts, and his eyes were bloodshot and slightly sunken.

In reality, he had been forcibly instructed to sleep for three hours, but he couldn’t fall asleep at all, and after getting up, he regretted it, continuing to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes to stay alert.

However, this was clearly superfluous. As the fiery sun rose from the coastline and shined upon him, his heart started to beat wildly as if injected with a stimulant, dispelling his fatigue faster than he had imagined, soon without a trace.

The surface of his skin, which had been chilled by the cool breeze, felt scorching when touched by the sunlight, making his blood flow more freely.

Even without anyone urging them on, the sunlight seemed to serve as a signal that made everyone act a little faster.

The soldiers, who had entered the cabin early, sat on the floor silently eating their breakfast quickly.

No one spoke. The hundreds of people inside the plane only made the sounds of chewing and breathing, occasionally unscrewing their canteens to take a gentle sip, and then letting out a soft sigh of relief.

The co-pilot appeared on the lawn, holding a thin sheet of paper in his hand. He walked up, stood at attention, and handed it over with both hands clasped.

"The flight path and key have come down, sir. Please give the order," he said.

As the person with the most flight hours on the An-1250, the captain, also the deputy commander of the First Aerial Transport Squadron, took the paper, nodded slightly, then looked towards the cabin. With a firm swing of his right hand, he commanded:

"First Transport, move out!"