Chapter 56: Hidden Dangers in the Asteroid Belt

“Phew…”

“Looks like they didn’t spot us!”

On the bridge, George let out a long sigh of relief and spoke up.

This was already their third day in this region.

They’d run into patrol warships from the Klein twice already, just like a moment ago.

Fortunately, both times the Klein ships only skirted the outer edge, never getting close enough to where the special operations unit was hiding. They remained undiscovered.

It wasn’t that the special ops unit couldn’t handle a single warship, but with the Klein-controlling territory so close, no one could say for sure there wasn’t a massive fleet lurking nearby.

Taking out one warship might be easy, but what if that drew out a hundred more?

If it were just Lin Yu’s special operations unit, then honestly, even two hundred Klein warships in the Asteroid Belt wouldn’t stop him from leading the fleet out safely.

But right now, they were towing over a hundred resource ships, most of which had their holds stuffed full with various micro-asteroids and larger chunks of cosmic debris.

Behind them, massive ropes made from special materials trailed, pulling entire celestial bodies, some over a hundred meters wide.

So there was no way they could reach top speed.

“Don’t let your guard down. We need eight more days on this route. Make sure Si Rong stays on high alert.”

“Relax, I just reminded him.”

Lin Yu trusted George completely—and besides…

Despite how prickly the two of them seemed in the academy, their bickering was all just a misunderstanding.

In fact, once paired up in the fleet, the two worked together in perfect sync.

Most of the time, George didn’t even need instructions—he’d just take care of things on his own. It made Lin Yu’s job a breeze.

Lin Yu nodded, then bent over the three tactical star charts spread out before him.

A slight frown formed between his brows.

“Problem?”

Noticing the change in Lin Yu, George spoke up.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ve got a bad feeling something’s about to go wrong.”

“Isn’t that just you overthinking it?”

“Maybe.”

Of course, Lin Yu couldn’t tell George that his own innate brain capacity reached 32%—and that he’d awakened a rather unique ability.

A big part of that ability was boosting his mental calculations.

So, Lin Yu didn’t truly predict the future or see visions of what was coming. Instead, he gathered all available data and ran countless simulations in his head, which then warned him whenever danger might be close.

The whole process ran on its own; Lin Yu couldn’t directly interfere.

That’s exactly why his precognition was usually dead on.

After all…

It all relied on analyzing the present—how could it not be accurate?

Take this, for example—

Someone walks past you, and you watch them for a few seconds.

So, did you really see everything about that person?

You probably think you did, but in reality, more than 99.99% of the actual information processed by your brain gets filtered out.

Don’t believe it?

Let me ask you—how many times did that person blink?

How long was each stride?

How much did each finger move?

And on and on…

I could toss out hundreds, even thousands of questions like this. How many could you answer?

And that’s only talking about things you actually saw.

So, did you really see everything?

Most information is right in front of us, but we just overlook it.

However, Lin Yu’s ability stored every scrap of data, even the details he would otherwise miss.

It automatically analyzed and integrated that data, then ran simulations that bordered on seeing the future.

Only it didn’t show him direct images—it…

Delivered everything as a kind of warning signal.

That’s why Lin Yu often got those sudden hunches that something was about to go wrong.

Basically, that’s how it worked.

Of course, this was only a small part of the ability Lin Yu was in the process of awakening.

It didn’t mean this would be his final power.

As Mu Qingxue once told him, the symptoms you see before awakening usually mislead you into thinking you already know what your ability is.

But once you really awaken, things might be…

The complete opposite.

A classic case of drawing the wrong conclusions.

Nothing could describe this better.

Either way, one thing was clear—

Something unpleasant was probably about to happen.

And that trouble would almost certainly involve the Klein.

So Lin Yu kept digging into his charts and the surrounding data.

He also checked and rechecked the latest patrol mecha reports along the outskirts again and again.

But after two hours, he still hadn’t found a thing.

Had he…

Missed something?

——

Elsewhere, tens of millions of kilometers away—

At this very moment, Shivana’s fleet was already several million kilometers deep into the Asteroid Belt.

And they were heading even further in.

“Tell them not to act rashly. Wait until we arrive.”

“Understood, Lady Shivana!”

A month ago, Shivana had pitched an idea to Tumelo.

It was a highly secretive Asteroid Belt surveillance plan.

Both sides had been monitoring the belt for months.

After all, spotting the enemy first always meant having the upper hand.

But Shivana’s plan was different—it would let them monitor the enemy without the enemy ever realizing.

So how would it work?

Find high-value asteroids in the belt and bury tracking devices deep inside them.

Since both factions were madly mining the Asteroid Belt for war prep…

The daily grind was making sure your side could harvest safely while disrupting the other side whenever possible.

This had become the standard routine for both armies.

The usual surveillance and video relays picked up plenty of human mining fleets—but the same problem always came up.

The Asteroid Belt was just too vast.

Even if they set out the moment they spotted the enemy, by the time the fleet got there, the humans would already be long gone.

And with no clue where that fleet had gone, chasing was impossible.

But with Shivana’s method, things…

Were different.

Now all they had to do was monitor for any strange movement in those select asteroids. Spot one, and—

It was almost a sure bet that humans had harvested it, maybe even towed it away.

So then, all you had to do was send a fleet to pursue, because those full-laden ships were slow as snails returning home.

Though many objected to Shivana’s idea, Tumelo approved it.

He could see the opposition wasn’t about the plan itself—it was just…

Plain old bias; the idea had come from a female member of the Klein.

So everyone opposed it just to make a point.

The first batch of tracking devices was small, since they were a hassle to plant.

Unlike before, where you could just toss sensors out the side of a passing warship,

This time, you had to drill a hole in the asteroid first, then hide the device inside.

Plus, with so many crew stubbornly against the project…

After a whole month, only about 3,000 had been deployed.

Not even a drop in the cosmic bucket.

Still, even Shivana herself hadn’t expected what happened next.

Almost as soon as she set out, she’d found a target.

And it was all thanks to the tracking devices she’d proposed.

She didn’t know for sure if this was her intended target, but even if it wasn’t—

At the very least, she could wipe out a human mining fleet and prove her plan really worked.

But of course, Shivana was overlooking a crucial problem.

That is to say…

She had no idea just how much the front-line troops resented her.