Deep Space Scavenging, Hand Over Alien Warships at the Beginning

Chapter 171 You call this an engine? This is clearly a planet-destroying cannon!”Thump.”

A human popsicle covered in white frost was thrown onto the floor of the dragon sparrow’s command room.

Zeta, a patrol officer who was usually pampered, was curled up into a shrimp-like ball at this moment, his teeth chattering with a crisp sound that stood out in the silent room.

He had spent a full hour in Lin Yuan’s system space; that place, piled high with scrap metal, had a temperature even lower than the deep space outside.

”Give... give me hot water...” Zeta tremblingly reached out a hand, which was purple like a rotten eggplant.

Lin Yuan sat in the command chair with his legs crossed, holding half a bottle of red wine he had pilfered from Black Shark Fortress; the label on the wine read ”Special Supply,” and the taste was indeed smoother than Erguotou.

”No hot water, only this bottle of wine, an ’82 vintage.” Lin Yuan shook the bottle. ”Want a drink?”

Zeta nodded frantically, his eyes full of longing.

”Answer a few questions, and this bottle of wine is yours.” Lin Yuan placed the bottle on the floor, only half a meter away from Zeta. ”Otherwise, I’ll stuff you back in. This time, I won’t put you in solitary confinement; I’ll throw you straight into the decomposition furnace.”

Zeta shuddered; the fear of watching his own body decompose sobered him up instantly.

”What... what do you want to ask?”

”That ’Reaper,’ and what kind of game you Order Bureau people are playing.” Lin Yuan pointed to the terminal that was still broadcasting on the full-frequency band. ”Don’t give me that ’for justice’ nonsense. If someone like Black Shark could live this long without your nod, he would have died eight hundred times over.”

Zeta fell silent for a moment, but when Lin Yuan raised his hand in a gesture to ”recycle” him again, his psychological defense collapsed completely.

”It’s... it’s a deal.” Zeta said, trembling. ”The Orion Civilization Order Bureau... has actually been rotten for a long time. The higher-ups signed a secret agreement with the ’Andromeda Trade Alliance’ to designate this chaotic star region as a ’buffer zone.’”

”A buffer zone?” Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.

”It’s... a pig farm.” Zeta gritted his teeth. To save his life, he spilled everything. ”Pirates are responsible for beating those low-level civilizations to a pulp, then the Order Bureau steps in for ’humanitarian rescue,’ and finally, we legally sell the populations and resources of those civilizations to the giants in Andromeda as laborers and raw materials. In return, we get a twenty percent profit share.”

Chen Weiguo, listening from the side, clenched his fists so hard they cracked: ”So in your eyes, we low-level civilizations are just walking cash?”

”No... not even as good as cash.” Zeta gave a miserable laugh. ”In the eyes of those true god-level civilizations, we are just slightly higher-level foremen.”

Lin Yuan touched his chin thoughtfully.

”Very good, that makes sense.”

He turned to look at gaia: ”Did you record it all?”

”Crystal clear! Even the ice chunks in this kid’s nostrils were captured perfectly!” gaia replied excitedly.

”Send it out.” Lin Yuan kicked the bottle of wine to Zeta. ”Broadcast it on all channels. Strip these hypocrites naked and hang them on the walls of the galaxy to dry.”

This move was called killing the heart.

As long as this footage spread throughout the Orion Arm, those self-proclaimed ”defenders of order” would fall into a massive quagmire of public opinion. Although this kind of public opinion was painless for the higher-ups, it would at least stop them from openly sending regular armies to suppress Earth—after all, they still needed to save face.

What remained were the ”black hands” who could only act in the shadows.

Having settled the intelligence, Lin Yuan didn’t have time to deal with the young master who was hugging the wine bottle and weeping, so he got up and walked to the hangar.

”Old Chen, how are things going with Old Man Wang? He said he had something new to show me.”

”You should go take a look. That old madman is so excited now that I’m afraid he’ll have a brain hemorrhage.” Chen Weiguo sighed. ”He welded all the shield generators and focusing lenses taken from the fortress onto the planetary engine.”

...

Earth’s equator, planetary engine Base No. 1.

This place, originally a propulsion nozzle for jet flames, had undergone a massive transformation.