Chapter 139: Fawning

No intelligent person likes to rely on “luck,” because that means relinquishing control over the future.

With power comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes pressure… This immense, crushing weight of life and death constantly bore down on Jason, making it hard to breathe.

The others were fine; they had entrusted their lives and futures to him without hesitation. The people aboard the Noah had a near-blind faith in him, believing that Director Jason would find a perfect solution to the crisis. There is an old saying: “When the sky falls, the tallest among us holds it up.” Right now, Jason was the tallest person on the Noah, not in physical stature, but in status. As the leader of the Federation, he had to shoulder the heaviest burden.

In a situation like this, even the most stoic individual couldn’t remain calm. Although he was confident their grand bluff would work, no one could truly predict how the Viridian Empire would react until the final outcome was decided… What if the aliens were driven mad by desperation?

Humanity was walking a razor-thin tightrope, trying to maintain a delicate balance between deterring the enemy and provoking a full-scale eruption. If the Viridians discovered a single flaw in the disguise and called their bluff, humanity… wouldn’t even have a one-in-ten-thousand chance of winning!

And losing didn’t just mean death; there are fates far worse than death in the dark forest of the universe.

Humanity’s technological backwardness wasn’t just limited to weaponry; it extended to all scientific fields, including life sciences and neural technology. Jason was keenly aware of this terrifying reality.

A true interstellar empire could completely subjugate humanity in horrifying ways. What would happen then? Even if they weren’t exterminated, the outcome would be a living nightmare. Would they be used for grotesque biological experiments? Farmed like livestock for meat or genetic material? Or something even worse…?

This fear was a thousand times more terrifying than a quick death in battle! Just thinking about it sent a deep chill down the spines of even hardened soldiers like Marcus and Austin.

However… they still had someone to rely on. The spark of hope within their hearts still burned brightly, and they unanimously chose to put their blind faith in Jason.

Yes, blind faith…

This was actually a psychological defense mechanism. When faced with insurmountable, incomprehensible threats, relying on a strong leader is a subconscious human instinct.

Although brilliant minds like Dr. Arthur Lambert and Evan offered strategic advice, the final diplomatic message to the aliens had been drafted and approved by Jason alone; no one else dared to pull the trigger.

Jason could only pray that the grand deception was the right move. He desperately hoped Lady Luck was watching over them.

He let out a long, heavy sigh. Sitting in the director’s chair carried an unbearable weight, and he couldn’t simply shift that burden onto his subordinates.

Fortunately, recent intelligence reports were increasingly optimistic, leading many of the top brass to prematurely celebrate. The suffocating tension aboard the Noah began to ease.

According to the tactical team’s calculations, the alien ship had long since received the human ultimatum. If they were going to react aggressively, they should have fired back a hostile response or weapons fire by now.

Instead, the opposite was happening. The communications array remained silent… and according to the Astronomical Observatory, the Viridian vessel was rapidly decelerating.

What did this indicate?

It meant the enemy was taking a very long time to make a decision. They were hesitant, uncertain, and debating their next move! In interstellar standoffs, the longer it takes an enemy to fire, the lower the probability of war.

In other words: they were terrified!

Courage in the face of the unknown is often fleeting; once the moment passes, it’s replaced by doubt. The more you overthink, the more you fear. This was the consensus among the Federation’s top psychologists… assuming, of course, that the Viridian psychology was somewhat analogous to human thought processes.

Would humanity win the gamble?!

Jason’s nerves wouldn’t settle until the final results were in.

He sat solemnly in the command center of the Astronomical Observatory, reviewing a report on recent R&D progress. Looking at these technical documents usually brought him a sense of peace; watching humanity’s technological tree slowly illuminate was deeply satisfying. It was the only thing that took the edge off his anxiety.

In reality, after issuing that heavy-handed ultimatum, there was no point in agonizing over the situation anymore. All they could do was wait. The burden of choice had successfully been passed to the enemy.

But Jason was still a nervous wreck!

“We have a response! Incoming transmission!” an officer suddenly shouted. His fingers flew across his console, routing the data through the decryption software as quickly as possible.

The officer glanced at the translated text just once, and a wave of triumphant joy washed over his face.

Emotions are highly contagious. Hearing the officer’s tone, Jason felt a massive weight lift from his chest, and he shot up from his command chair. Dozens of analysts and high-ranking officials crowded around the main terminal.

A message appeared on the main screen, written entirely in English, yes, broken, halting English: “…Great Unknown Empire, our vessel was attacked by an unknown force and we urgently require sanctuary to rest and repair in this star system… We humbly beg you to grant us permission… Very good, merciful lords…”

Jason only read the first few words before a tidal wave of relief and pure joy crashed over him. It felt like a drowning man finally breaking the surface for air, or a man dying of thirst swallowing a block of ice, it was incredibly, unbelievably refreshing!

Wild shouts of victory erupted across the Astronomical Observatory. The disciplined crew broke protocol, cheering and embracing each other. Even the usually reserved Jason found himself grinning as his officers huddled together, screaming in triumph.

This was… a victory for the greatest bluff in history! The weak monkeys, wearing the lion’s skin, had successfully terrified the apex predators!

After several long minutes, the command center finally calmed down, and the staff began to seriously analyze the alien transmission.

“Damn, thank God we nuked that crashed spacecraft,” one analyst muttered. “Otherwise, just by intercepting this English transmission, that biological entity would have known the Viridians were talking to us. Who knows how it could have sabotaged the situation?”

“True enough… but what exactly are the Viridians trying to say?”

The first few sentences of the message were logically sound and clearly conveyed their desperate situation. But the second half devolved into a bizarre, rambling string of adjectives. The Viridians seemed to be babbling, and it was hard to parse their exact meaning.

It looked… almost like they were fawning?

“Austin, did the English Dictionary we transmitted contain this much strange vocabulary?”

Jason smiled faintly. He honestly couldn’t make heads or tails of the latter half of the message, but he understood the core intent. The fact that the enemy had taken the time to compose their surrender in English, humanity’s language, was a massive sign of submission. That was all that mattered!

These English sentences were constructed using the crude translation software humanity had provided.

Austin straightened his uniform and replied seriously, “Director, I believe they are attempting to flatter us. The basic dictionary we transmitted did not contain complex syntax for diplomacy or groveling. They likely had to cobble these phrases together themselves!”

Having served in the military for over a decade, Austin usually maintained a stoic demeanor. But right now, a rare flush of excitement colored his cheeks, clearly indicating he was in fantastic spirits.

The “English Dictionary” humanity had sent was a highly redacted, simplified version. It contained roughly three thousand basic keywords and deliberately lacked complex grammar rules. This was a calculated tactical decision; providing a comprehensive linguistic database could inadvertently reveal the limitations of human knowledge, allowing the aliens to deduce that they were dealing with a young, primitive species. Dictionaries, after all, reflect the technological and cultural state of their creators.

But because of this limitation, the Viridians couldn’t accurately express complex diplomatic nuances and were forced to awkwardly string basic words together.

“Good… merciful… generous…” A series of mismatched adjectives had been stacked together. They were clearly begging the “powerful” humans to be generous and grant them a safe harbor.

But this raised a new, critical problem: psychologically, the enemy had completely submitted and admitted defeat. Physically, their vessel’s speed had dropped significantly. But this didn’t mean they were leaving; they were still slowly, inevitably drifting deeper into the solar system!

“It seems they truly have nowhere else to go,” Dr. Arthur Lambert noted, studying the telemetry. “If their warp drive was functional, they would have fled the moment we threatened them. No advanced race acts this subservient unless they are staring death in the face.”

“Exactly,” Jason nodded, his smile fading into a serious frown. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about. The situation is vastly better than it was three hours ago, but it’s still incredibly dangerous…”

If they let the aliens into the system, humanity would have to maintain their flawless disguise while living right next door to them. If they denied them entry and forced them away? The desperate aliens might realize they were going to die anyway and launch a suicidal final attack. And the bitter truth remained: in a direct firefight, humanity would be slaughtered!

“Based on their response, this civilization possesses a psychological profile somewhat similar to ours,” Evan chimed in from the tactical console. “They understand submission, fear, and diplomacy. This means we can use standard game theory to predict their actions.”

“Judging from this message, they are absolutely terrified of us!”

“As long as we don’t back them into a corner where death is certain, they won’t dare initiate combat with a supposedly ’god-tier’ empire. Therefore, my recommendation is… we double down on the grand bluff and grant them conditional entry.”

Jason nodded in slow agreement. Humans were notorious for bullying the weak while cowering before the strong. Following this logic, the Viridians likely operated on the exact same principles. If you looked at the situation strictly from the aliens’ perspective, humanity appeared utterly terrifying!

First, there was the near-light-speed warning shot, the Ion Cannon. The Viridians would never guess that humanity’s Ion Cannon was actually a half-finished prototype. The underlying technology wasn’t even that advanced, but its targeting precision was phenomenal. Looking at the telemetry, Jason was incredibly proud of Leo’s marksmanship; that single, perfectly placed shot had completely shattered the enemy’s morale.

Second, the exterior hull of the Noah was an ancient, inexplicable marvel. There was no way the Viridians’ sensors could penetrate its strange composite alloys or comprehend its design.

As for the visible human modifications on the hull, they had used the highest-grade titanium and composite armors available, even retrofitting advanced plating salvaged from the crashed UFO. Humanity didn’t know whose metallurgy was superior, the UFO creators or the Viridians but they had slapped the alien armor on their ship to make it look as intimidating as possible.

Third, and most importantly: buoyancy. The Viridian Empire would never in a million years guess that the massive, moon-sized Precursor Ark was simply floating in the Martian atmosphere like a giant balloon due to natural buoyancy. Any advanced race looking at a structure that massive hovering effortlessly in a gravity well would immediately assume one thing: anti-gravity technology! No one could fathom that a ship that size was actually mostly hollow and possessed such a low total mass.

The Precursor’s Noah, this ancient, god-like vessel, had truly saved humanity from the brink of extinction time and time again.

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