Chapter 696: Confused Organizations
On the other side, somewhere in the Star Empire, a small fleet was sailing slowly.
The logo on the outer armor of the spacecraft showed that this fleet belonged to "Sapar", a well-known chamber of commerce in the Star Empire.
Like most chambers of commerce, it has close ties with the top leaders of the empire, providing funds in exchange for protection.
Its nominal security chief, Jonas, stood at the bridge window with his arms folded, staring at the starry sky outside.
Beside him, his trusted subordinates were waiting for orders.
"How long will it take to leave the Star Empire?" Jonas asked without turning his head.
"Chief, it will probably take another day's journey," the subordinate replied.
"Keep an eye on that guy, he is the key." Jonas said in a deep voice.
"I understand. He has been injected with a suppressant and has fallen into a coma. He has no response to the outside world." The subordinate reported.
Jonas breathed a sigh of relief: "While Lehman was away from the Operations Command Center, we finally caught such a senior officer. He is the proof that the Star Empire forged evidence and framed His Excellency Long Zun."
"This was achieved at a huge cost to the organization, and there must be no mistakes," he emphasized again.
That’s right, this chamber of commerce, which is quite famous in the Star Empire, is actually a hidden pawn of the Reformers.
Not long ago, I received an order to investigate the frame-up of Long Zun and the A-level alliance incident.
After finally getting the harvest, they were about to send it out of the country urgently to continue the next operation.
At this moment, the spacecraft's radar suddenly sounded.
"Warning, there is a space anchoring area ahead, and the jump mode cannot be maintained. Please stop the jump or take a detour ..."
He was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly became nervous.
This waterway was specially opened up by them for the transportation of goods across civilizations, and there should be no spatial anchoring areas.
An accident happened! ?
Jonas's face was uncertain, and he was about to order the fleet to bypass the spaceship when the spaceship suddenly received a communication.
"This is the Imperial Fleet, temporarily checking all passers-by. Please stop your ships immediately and cooperate. I repeat, please stop your ships immediately..."
"This..." Jonas felt guilty and was naturally nervous.
But after hesitating for a moment, the fleet stopped.
He didn't know what was going on, but it would be even more inappropriate to just run away.
They broke out of the jump state and saw outside the window a line of defense formed by Imperial warships, which seemed to have blocked off a large area ahead.
Several imperial ships immediately came over and turned on various detection equipment to scan Jonas's fleet.
At the same time, a projection of an imperial officer appeared on the communication screen. He looked at Jonas and the other man and said expressionlessly:
"Please show us your identification code, sailing permit, crew list, and sailing log..."
Jonas frowned slightly and said, "We are the Sapar Chamber of Commerce. We have a cross-civilization business license and the Inst Senior Executive..."
"This is an order from the Supreme Council of the Empire. No matter who you are, execute the above requirements immediately!" the other party scolded mercilessly.
Jonas's expression flickered, he stopped talking, exchanged glances with his men obliquely, and began to accept the test.
The Imperial officer began to check and found that Jonas was an A-level life form. His expression changed slightly and he asked:
"Why would such high-level guards be needed for the transportation of ordinary goods?"
"There has been some interstellar unrest recently. In order to avoid danger." Jonas was displeased and asked, "What on earth are you doing? I am a senior citizen of the empire and have the right to know!"
"Routine inspection!" The imperial officer was reluctant to say more and continued to inspect.
At this moment, he suddenly discovered that Jonas's logbook had been tampered with, and it came from a designated high-level suspicion area.
His pupils shrank immediately, and he shouted in an unquestionable tone:
"You have tampered with the logbook. Everyone leave the ship immediately for further inspection!"
"Otherwise we will enforce it!"
After saying that, the imperial fleet in the rear activated its weapon array without a second thought, and aimed its naval guns at Jonas' fleet, ready to open fire at the slightest disagreement.
"It's just one officer. Is it worth such a big fuss?"
Jonas gritted his teeth. They acted very secretly and the Star Empire should not be able to discover it in a short time.
But there is really no way to tamper with the navigation log, they need to pass normal inspection before.
But the Imperial fleet's tools were advanced enough to easily detect that they had tampered with the logs.
What is going on?
Do you want to take action?
If it was really a routine inspection, maybe you could get away with it if you paid some price.
If you force action...
"Boss, look..."
Just as Jonas was hesitating, his men suddenly brought the smart terminal over.
Jonas frowned and suppressed his anger for the moment. Then he saw the latest news and his face changed drastically.
Lyman is missing?!
Who did this? How brave!
Jonas' body shook violently, and he immediately realized that the current situation was not about the officer, nor was it a routine inspection, but about Lehman!
At the same time, he also understood that the only option today was to take action.
For such a serious matter, no imperial officer would dare to miss any clues, not to mention that they themselves were guilty.
"Do it!" He shouted in a deep voice, and a strong energy wave burst out of his body. He was the first to rush out of the warship and kill into the imperial fleet camp.
Other reformers disguised as members of the caravan followed suit.
The battle broke out!
…
"To sum up, I guess... although they intended to attack His Highness Lehman, someone must have taken action before them, resulting in them missing out..."
Loren made his own analysis, and based on the clues at the scene, he had roughly guessed the context of the whole incident.
"Besides the forerunners, is there someone else lying in ambush in secret?"
This is a core high-level meeting, which includes not only the top eight but also the top leaders of each department.
The one who was speaking at this moment was a general. He was very confused. Has the Star Empire reached this point?
It would have been fine if they had just attacked the candidate for heir to the empire, but I didn't expect that there would be more than one person doing it?
"Are you sure?" Lloyd asked. He actually knew who did it, but he couldn't say it now.
Because on the surface, he is one of the best beneficiaries, and Lehmann is already a relatively threatening heir to him.
Now that he is captured, the threat to him is gone. If he directly says that it was Li Yu who did it.
Even if the top management trusts him, they will probably have some doubts in their hearts.
Was this something you and that kid Li Yu planned together?
So now he can only remain silent and wait for Li Yu to be found next.
"It's basically certain, but of course we can't rule out the possibility that they are deliberately creating confusion." Loren usually doesn't say things with certainty, in order to avoid being embarrassed later.
"No matter who they are, they always have their own purpose. Simply capturing His Highness Lehman will do more harm than good to them." Someone added.
It was understandable that the Forerunners attacked them, after all, they were slapped in the face by the Star Empire and the alien camp.
They couldn't find the alien camp, nor could they determine Li Yu's location, so they could only attack them.
The third party who can hide in the dark really doesn’t understand what is the point of arresting Lehman?
For the secrets of the Star Empire?
With Lehman's status and position, he is not yet able to access the most core secrets, but he can get some basic information by just catching a descendant of the nobility.
They really can't figure it out!
Can't figure it out?
Lloyd looked at the senior executives who were lost in thought and couldn't help but sigh inwardly, "There's still more to come that you won't understand!"
"In addition, the news that His Highness Lehman was attacked has spread throughout the stars. Someone must have secretly leaked it, otherwise it shouldn't have been known to the outside world so quickly."
"According to our investigation, the news was spread from the black hole network." The head of the intelligence department said:
"We have asked Black Hole Network to trace the source, but they said that the message appeared very strangely and appeared directly in their core database without a source."
"This matter is not important. The news will leak out sooner or later. Their original plan was to find out who did it as soon as possible before the news leaked out, and it would be best if they could get the person back."
"Let's issue a verification announcement to the public and ask all major civilizations to cooperate." Loren said after a moment of thought.
"I think that's inappropriate." Lloyd spoke up, attracting everyone's attention.
If a verification announcement is issued now, there will be no room for maneuver.
When Li Yu explodes himself, everyone will be forced to respond in a high-profile manner.
Therefore, we cannot issue a joint investigation notice now and we must remain silent.
He did this purely for the sake of the empire, otherwise it would be another mess.
"We don't know the other party's purpose. I think there is no need to rush for the time being. If Lehman can be welcomed back with gentle means, then the attack on the territory would not have happened."
He gave a seemingly plausible reason, and everyone's faces flickered, as if this was indeed the truth.
If the guy who did it wants something, he will definitely contact them, and then they can reach an agreement in secret.
The shameful event that the heir to the empire was attacked and captured within civilized territory can be treated as if it never happened and is just an interstellar rumor.
Loren frowned slightly and turned his gaze to Lloyd, which seemed to contain deep meaning. Controlling the Mirror of Omniscience, he had a far sharper intuition about certain things than others.
However, Lloyd's reasons made sense on the surface, so he didn't say much.
The meeting ended after summarizing the intelligence gathered over the past few days. The next steps were to continue the search or wait for contact from the perpetrators.
The Emperor, like most meetings, did not express his opinion.
…
"Someone took action ahead of time!? You didn't catch Lehman?"
The Forerunner leader was also confused. He was very excited when the news of Lehman's capture was revealed in the interstellar space.
He thought that his men had succeeded and was preparing for the next plan.
Although the Second Xianguan had not contacted him before, he did not think much about it, thinking that the other party was hiding from pursuit in the territory of the Xingyao Empire.
As a result, when they just got in touch today, he learned a piece of news that made him confused.
He thought he was being radical by sending men to ambush Lehmann.
Unexpectedly, there was someone who had the same idea as him and was even closer to the ambush area than theirs, resulting in their attack being empty-handed.
"That's right. Loren searched along the way himself. The person who did it should be very strong. He should have found out that it wasn't us who did it, so he didn't pay the price and forced me to stay."
The second advance officer reported that the noise in his environment was very loud and he didn't know where he was.
"I'm glad you're okay..." The Forerunner leader comforted him, his head was full of brainstorming, various figures flashed through his mind, but he still couldn't determine who to suspect.
"I'll send someone to pick you up..." The Forerunner collected his thoughts. Although he was confused by the news, he was not too disappointed.
They were even thankful that the second vanguard was not caught, otherwise their losses would have been huge.
"Not for now. The Star Empire is under martial law now. It's not easy for me to be exposed alone. Let's wait until this storm is over before leaving." The second vanguard hung up the phone.
The special system for pioneers means that these pioneers have a high degree of freedom and do not have to obey the orders of the leader completely.
He contacted the Forerunner leader only to report the general situation.
The screen went black, and the Forerunner leader frowned. Li Yu's figure flashed through his mind, but did not stay for too long.
"Who on earth is so crazy..."
If the pioneers had not suffered such a great humiliation, the entire organization would have been outraged and would have demanded an explanation.
He didn't really want to attack Lehmann because the cost-effectiveness was too low.
A guy who has a very high status in the enemy camp, but is useless once captured.
In just a few days, this news swept across all star regions like a hurricane, causing a sensation in countless civilizations!
It became the number one trending search and was hotly discussed by the whole nation.
Some interstellar media backed by great civilizations began to open columns to take advantage of this wave of popularity, and the response was so great that it was astonishing.
The plundering organization was even more stupid and actually claimed responsibility for the incident.
However, in less than a day, they were mysteriously destroyed, and not a single person was left alive!
Many forces were silent, keenly sensing the impending storm, and it seemed that things were about to change.
But what is strange is that the Star Empire has never made a positive response to this news, neither denying nor admitting it.
This makes the development of the incident even more confusing.
