Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 712: Chapter 214 Invitation_3

”Our regular investigators have looked into Hu Yi’s social circle and places where he had lived previously; there were no clues at all, like he vanished into thin air.”

Chen Ming nodded, not insisting on finding anything specific.

”Then let’s wait. If he made a move once and couldn’t take me out, there’ll surely be a second time.”

The time quickly turned to noon the next day.

After concluding the morning’s lessons, Bai Quan helped Chen Ming calibrate the equipment and then left the dome.

About half an hour later, Chen Ming received Bai Quan’s signal and activated the holographic projection device.

His projection appeared immediately in a conference room.

Bai Quan himself was at the head of the table in the conference room.

In the conference room, there were about twenty people, most of whom were holographic projections; none of them held ranks lower than Colonel.

It seems that because the impending war between the Empire and the Mechanical Race is still in its early stages, the high-ranking individuals who could participate in the meeting are still spread across the Empire.

This probably indicates that the Empire won’t make any significant moves for now; otherwise, the military personnel who could attend would have to gather here.

At the same time, this also means Chen Ming’s ideas are far from being realized.

Opportunities in small-scale confrontations are very limited.

Chen Ming’s thoughts only emerged within his mind, unknown to anyone else.

However, his projection in the conference room was visible to everyone there.

Bai Quan specifically gestured to Chen Ming, stating: ”Before we start the meeting, let me say one thing. Chen Ming has an irreplaceable role in the upcoming war against the Mechanical Race, so he will be joining our meetings henceforth; let’s avoid any unpleasantness.”

No one spoke in the conference room, and no one was expected to speak.

Bai Quan, seeing this, proceeded to start the meeting normally.

Soon, a three-dimensional star map projection appeared in the center of the conference table.

Chen Ming immediately recognized it as the Gallo Star Realm and two other star realms nearby bordering the Mechanical Race and Dusk.

The areas belonging to the Empire were marked in a friendly green, Dusk’s area marked with a deep blue, while the Mechanical Race’s area was marked in gray-white.

The deep blue area was not the primary focus of the meeting, so the projection mostly centered on the Mechanical Race’s gray-white area.

A large part of the edges of these gray-white areas were tinged with green.

Chen Ming could directly access the data from these areas using his terminal.

If it were before, Chen Ming might not have been able to understand it.

However, after a few days of intensive study, he could comprehend all the data on the terminals at a glance and understand the meaning behind each data string.

In addition to natural data like star systems, planetary data, and navigation coordinates.

The terminal also highlighted details such as the number of Mechanical Race colonies, approximate number of stationed troops, composition ratio of stationed ships, distance to the nearest colony, among other detailed data.

These seemed to be the results of the Empire’s initial investigation of the Mechanical Race at the onset of the war.

All those areas with gray-white tinged with green were zones where the Empire had some knowledge of the Mechanical Race.

Chen Ming quickly scanned through and realized that the majority of the Mechanical Race’s fleet wasn’t concentrated in the star systems bordering the Empire, while the opposite side was almost undefended, with forces scarce.

Of course, this might also be due to the Phase Giant Beast.

Regardless of the reason, Chen Ming felt the Empire might soon make a move in this direction.

While Chen Ming was contemplating, Bai Quan had already begun speaking: ”Last month, our ships suffered the loss of six destroyers and seventy-two guards.”

”We had a personnel loss of five hundred and thirty-two people, including those missing and deceased.”

”The Mechanical Race is strengthening its border defenses, they’ve sensed some of our actions but can’t pinpoint them yet.”

”However, we can confirm the Mechanical Race has deployed scout units to our borders; their numbers are yet to be investigated.”

”We have responded by feigning just having discovered the Mechanical Race’s enhanced border management.”

A Vice Admiral’s holographic projection responded immediately after Bai Quan finished speaking: ”Hold off on investigating the Mechanical Race’s border areas, our preliminary reconnaissance of the star systems has been confirmed, there’s no need to continue, we should devote more to investigating the deeper regions of the Mechanical Race’s territory.”

Bai Quan immediately operated his terminal and said: ”Currently, we have reconnaissance fleets coming from multiple directions via the Dusk Star Realm, about to reach the rear areas under the Mechanical Race’s control.”

As Bai Quan spoke, several green lines appeared on the star map projection, originating from the Fourteenth Legion base and surrounding military outposts.

In three-dimensional space, they skirted the borders of the Mechanical Race, targeting areas near the star systems where the Phase Giant Beast was previously sighted.

”Fleet conducting detection missions cannot use high-power communication devices, signal feedback will take some time, expected to receive updates in three days.”

From this sentence onward, Chen Ming couldn’t quite follow the discussion.

Various military internal technical jargon seemed to discuss fleet numbers, their specific reconnaissance task requirements, and procedures in case of unforeseeable events, among other things.