The Ultimate Evolution

Major General Mungo’s face turned grave. He already had an idea of what was happening.

A group of people rushed in led by the Intergalactic Military Policemen with their red armbands. Following behind them were the Chief Engineer of the ship, the Captain of the ship, the First Mate, the army Colonel, other high-ranking personnel and Major General Fiji with a strange smile on his face. The last to enter were two people.

Two Lieutenant Generals, to be exact.

One of the Lieutenant Generals was a middle-aged woman with a gloomy face, as if everyone in the world owed her money, or as if she’s a discontented old virgin.

The other Lieutenant General had a huge smile on his face. He looked more like a businessman than a Lieutenant General.

What was happening was obvious. Fiji, cold and vicious to the extreme, had immediately betrayed Mungo the moment he decided to give up. This way, he could slightly atone for his wrongdoings and could also trample his ex-superior under his feet!

“I might be in a terrible situation, but my ex-superior is having it even worse….” That was Fiji’s thought. Such a mentality could at least provide him with some comfort.

***

To judge Fiji’s actions, we must first examine the current structure of the human empire.

In this era, the Empire had dominated most of the Milky Way. The borders of the Empire were large and far away. With such a vast territory, they had to face an awkward problem similar to the Yuan Dynasty in the Old Earth era.

After Genghis Khan conquered a vast territory which spanned across Asia and Europe, a communication problem surfaced. It often took the huge Empire several years to pass down an order.

Such inefficient means of communication could easily lead to various emergencies not being dealt with in time. Thus, as soon as Genghis Khan passed away, the Mongol Empire immediately fractured into four separate khanates, namely, the Golden Horde khanate in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in the southwest and the Yuan Dynasty in the east, based in later-day Beijing. Although all the other khanates recognised the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, they actually operated as independent regimes.

In the current era, advances in technology had solved this problem. During the research into telepathy, scientists of the Empire found that a special connection existed between identical twins. Even if the twins were really far apart, if one of them fell sick for example, the other would feel it regardless of the distance between them.

Based on such principle, the scientists solved the problem of long-distance communication.

Despite that, and despite the discovery of dimensional folding technology and various wormholes, it still took a long time for information to cross the vast sea of stars.

The fact that Major General Fiji could bring so many people here in just a few days showed that he had been planning for this for a long time. He had long planned to shift all the blame on Mungo as soon as anything went wrong.

Otherwise, to deprive Major General Mungo of his position in such a unique mission would involve a lot of tedious and complicated procedures. It would normally take at least a month.

“Andean Mungo?” The old woman with a sharp voice took out a document and proclaimed rigidly, “According to the latest report from the Imperial Constitutional Command, you’re suspected of the crime of dereliction of duty, damaging valuable assets of the Empire, forging intelligence, and provoking interstellar disputes. You are now relieved of all your positions and responsibilities! You will be put under the supervision of the Military Police and will be tried in military court!”

Mungo said nothing. He just sneered and let himself be handcuffed by the Military Policemen without putting up any resistance.

Fiji went up to Mungo. Seeing Mungo’s indifferent expression, an inexplicable rage rose in his heart for some reason, but he could not lash out at Mungo with so many eyes here. So, he kicked Mungo’s heavy mahogany desk instead. The heavy mahogany desk was instantly tilted askew from the kick.

Because the table was now askew, Fiji could now see the super-thin display screen on Mungo’s desk. It was showing the real-time feed from Cyborg No. 1’s eye. Fiji smirked when he saw this.

“You’re still hoping for a miracle? Such a pity. There’s nothing left for you but despair!”

Fiji immediately pressed a few buttons on the desk to cancel the signal masking, and ruthlessly ordered, “Heed my order! Stop the Kitty Hawk’s overload operation immediately and cut off all contact with Uplos!”

Upon hearing this, Mungo’s eyes turned bloodshot and the veins on his forehead bulged. He shouted furiously, “You can’t do that! If you stop the overload operation, the Kitty Hawk faces the danger of losing its thrust completely!”

The reason Mungo had no fear was due to the Big Ben Research Institute. The process of dealing with the crimes of an Imperial Major General – from becoming a suspect to finding proofs to conducting a trial to reaching a verdict – would take years, unless it was in times of war and the accused crime was treason or rebellion. That was to say, the Big Ben Research Institute had plenty of time to get him out.

But Mungo was an ambitious man! Right now, he had only recouped what he had lost. To gain more, he must count on a large amount of subsequent information being sent from Uplos!

But Fiji would now cut off and stop the overload operation of the Kitty Hawk. If he did so, the overloaded reactors were likely to become useless immediately; it would be impossible for the ship to enter the overloaded state again! That would kill off Mungo’s plan completely.

Seeing the anxious look on Mungo’s face, Fiji finally felt better. He laughed wildly and said, “You’re still trying to turn the tables? What a fool! You think you still have the final say on this ship? Pass down my order! Stop the overload operation of the Kitty Hawk at once!”

A quick response came from the other end of the communicator.

“Reducing energy output….”

“Calculating energy consumption….”

“Stopping fuel supply….”

“Stopping the overload operation now will likely lead to a complete paralysis of the power system. It is recommended that this operation be carried out after returning to Alps Base 7.”

“We already have three towships on standby! Don’t worry about the Kitty Hawk losing power. Execute the order!!” instructed Fiji coldly.

“The order has been executed. Please confirm with the highest level of authority immediately.”

The so-called confirmation with the highest level of authority required Mungo to cooperate by surrendering the base’s key of highest authority. Despite his frantic struggle, a Military Policeman still managed to find the key on his body…. In the end, the key was handed over to the old female Lieutenant General behind Fiji.

“No! NOOOOOOO!!!!”

Mongo started screaming furiously once more.

Fiji came over and stepped on the face of Mungo, who was currently held down by the Military Policemen. He repeatedly wiped the bottom of his shoes on Mungo’s face like he was wiping away mud and said through gritted teeth, “Having a fool like you for a partner is a real catastrophe. You ruined everything! If it wasn’t for you, would things have ended up like this?”

Watching the old woman mercilessly insert the key of highest authority into the slot on the command podium and twist it, Mungo closed his eyes in despair and said no more. He found that he truly had no way of communicating with a mad dog like Fiji.

In the mind of this arrogant child from an influential family, all achievement belonged to him, and all faults belonged to others. Mungo sighed and closed his eyes painfully. There were only three words in his mind:

Everything is over!!!

But just then, the 3D holographic projector next to them started to glow, and the lights on the ground started to light up like the guiding lights on airport runways.

Although Mungo cut a sorry figure right now with his face covered in blood due to the beating he had taken, he was also the first person to notice the anomaly as his face was the closest to the ground. His eyes suddenly shined with a feverish hope!

A vivid 3D projection of a human was soon formed from the complex intersection of numerous rays of light. The projection had reached the high-def resolution of at least one hundred thousand dpi. The person in the projection looked rather young. A white coat was casually draped over his body, and one side of the collar of the button-up shirt inside the coat was flipped inside out. His hair seemed like it had not been washed for quite a while; it was so greasy that it appeared to stick together.

There were a lot of stains on his white coat and also a few burns made by cigarettes. The worst was the hem, where a large piece had been torn off, exposing the cartoonish shorts on the person’s lower body and his hairy legs!!

To be honest, the alternative look this guy was sporting would not look out of place on a homeless man wandering around the garbage cans in the middle of the night.

But! He was actually able to use a long-distance 3D communication method across a distance of numerous light-years! That itself indicated a lot of things.

To use such a highly-advanced technology with strategic significance, a Lieutenant General must schedule a week ahead, and even a General could not do as he wished! Take the old man from before for example. Although he would no doubt like to personally monitor the situation here every day, he could only use the technology every 48 hours or so.

The unkempt man clicked on a lighter and lit himself a cigarette. He seemed to be mildly surprised at what was happening in front of him, but that surprise faded almost immediately.

He asked in an indifferent tone, “Who’s Andean Mungo?”

“I am!” exclaimed Mungo, who was being held down firmly to the ground.

The unkempt man spared him a glance and said, “We’ve received the information you sent us. It’s very realistic, and you seem to possess some of our internal knowledge. I’ve been authorised to contact you to acquire the technology you used to produce those recordings, as it may prove useful for our research.”

“Also, I believe a Major General doesn’t have the level of clearance to know so much about the Ten Strongest Project. You better tell me your source of information at once. If you delay my afternoon tea, the consequences will be very severe.”