“Hahaha! Thank you for the compliment! I'm glad you two are satisfied with your meal! Really, I'm just a technician for the Broadsword Pioneers, not the real owner of this restaurant. The true owner here is my wife Ellie; I just help out with the guests when I'm not busy," Old Zhou said, raising his hand in gratitude for Grace's praise.

"So, Mr. Zhou, what brings you over to us?" Yun Ge asked after the pleasantries were exchanged.

"Hahaha! Didn't I mention it? My job here is to look after the guests. So, seeing that you two have finished your meal, I took the liberty of coming over to inquire about your dining experience. Also, I wanted to express my gratitude to you both. After all, you've made the long and arduous journey here to supply us with the necessary materials for our development efforts," Old Zhou replied with a tone full of appreciation.

Then, with a puzzled expression, Old Zhou asked, "Ah? By the way, why did only the two of you come over after the Express Vanguard's landing? I don't see Captain Tim or the rest of the crew around."

"Oh! Them. They—, probably still in a meeting, right? We came out early due to special circumstances," Yun Ge said, scratching his head with a hint of unease.

Old Zhou, upon hearing this, gave Yun Ge and Grace a look that seemed to say, "No need to explain, I understand," and then said, "Oh! I get it! I get it! By the way, we offer not only free dining services here but also complimentary rooms for you both. If you need anything, just let Old Zhou know at any time!"

"Ah, Old Zhou! You're thinking the wrong way! We're not what you're imagining! We really did complete our mission and that's why we could leave the spaceship early!" Yun Ge hurriedly explained, seeing that Old Zhou seemed to have misunderstood something.

Grace, on the other hand, after spitting out the slime she had just sipped, quickly changed the subject with a slightly flushed face, saying, "Free? You mean our meals and accommodation here are for free? Why?"

"Hahaha! Because you two are different from other Vivispherians visiting E-Star; you are specially transporting material staff for us. To express our gratitude for your hard work, it's only natural for me to offer you free dining and lodging services on behalf of the Broadsword Pioneers! So, if you need a room, please let me know. After all, the rest of the crew from the Express Vanguard hasn't arrived yet, and I can provide you with the best rooms on the side according to your needs. Whether it's a room with twin size bed, we can provide any type of room you want!" After saying this, Old Zhou didn't forget to wink at Yun Ge.

Yun Ge was so frightened that he quickly picked up his cup, wanting to express his gratitude to Old Zhou by clinking glasses and diverting from this extremely dangerous topic. Because at this moment, Yun Ge didn't need to look directly; he could feel the murderous intent from Grace out of the corner of his eye. Moreover, Yun Ge's foot was already feeling the intense pain caused by Grace's heavy stomping. Making Yun Ge couldn't help but wail in his heart, "Ah! Miss Grace! You also saw it! It's that bastard Old Zhou who's talking nonsense here! I have nothing to do with this! You can't vent all your anger on me! I'm also a victim!"

Fortunately, Old Zhou finally saw a hint of anger on Grace's face, so he realized that he seemed to have done something wrong out of kindness. He quickly gave Yun Ge, who was in pain, a toothy smile to show his apology and then said awkwardly, "Ahem! Anyway, in short, you two can rest assured that you can consume here for free. Oh, right! To celebrate the successful landing of the Broadsword Pioneers on E-Star, our restaurant will hold a special gourmet evening party tonight. Everything is ready, just waiting for the rest of the crew from the Express Vanguard to come and dine, and the party can officially start. So, I hope you two can stay here for a while longer. Because when the party starts, there will be even more delicious food for you two to enjoy for free!"

Although Old Zhou's verbal offense just now made Grace very upset. However, she, who had given a very high evaluation of the food in this restaurant, accepted Old Zhou's invitation for the sake of the free food that the restaurant would provide later. So Yun Ge and Grace ordered several different types of slime drinks after Old Zhou left, chatting about the issues Yun Ge thought of, while waiting for the upcoming gourmet feast in the evening.

As Captain Tim led all the crew members of the Express Vanguard to arrive, the atmosphere in the restaurant also became heated. A wide variety of gourmet food and wine, lively music stimulated everyone's happy nerves, making everyone enjoy the food while not forgetting to sing loudly and dance enthusiastically. As mentioned before, after the Vivispherians transformed their bodies into semi-intelligent mechanized organic life forms, their energy became extremely vigorous. Therefore, this grand evening party with the theme of gourmet food lasted until the next evening due to the enthusiastic atmosphere on the scene.

Due to the continuous party, everyone was too excited and felt tired only after the party ended, thus they fell into a deep sleep. The pioneering work of the Broadsword Pioneers on E-Star, as well as the material handover with the Express Vanguard, had to be forced to stagnate again. But everyone didn't care too much about this, because even if they needed to sleep to recover, they only needed to sleep for two or three hours at most.

Moreover, the Express Vanguard came to E-Star after a long journey and naturally needed to be meticulously maintained. Plus, the crew also needed to rest to ensure they could safely return to the Vivispherian Star Alliance. So, postponing work for a day or two naturally wouldn't cause any impact.

However, things didn't go as everyone thought. Just after everyone finished the party and returned to their residence, falling into a dream not long after, an explosion that resounded throughout the sky of the E-Star town immediately awakened everyone.

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"What's going on?!" Yun Ge exclaimed, jumping out of bed.

"Not good! We may have been attacked! Yun Ge! Hurry up and grab your weapon, let's go!" Grace, who was resting on the bed next door, commanded Yun Ge to follow while opening the door and running out.

With the sound of the explosion, the E-Star town also immediately set off a piercing alarm. Although everyone's faces still had a hint of fatigue, these Vivispherians who were able to come to E-Star had all undergone formal military training. So, they quickly entered a combat state at this time. Some members of the Broadsword Long-Range Pioneer Team quickly returned to the defense turret, and the rest, along with the crew of the Express Vanguard, ran out onto the street with weapons in hand, ready to meet the enemy at any time.

After Yun Ge followed Grace onto the street, he saw a cloud of smoke slowly rising from a distance in the town. Then, he heard someone shouting, "Not good! It's the dock! Our dock has been attacked!"

Hearing this, everyone reacted with a sinking feeling in their hearts, they rush to the dock. Then, they found that the interior on the left side of the dock had already caught fire. As a result, many people immediately rushed into the fire scene and started emergency firefighting operations. Other people began to be on alert for the dock to check inside and outside, in order to catch the enemy who caused the fire as soon as possible.

"Could it be that there are still our enemies on E-Star?" Yun Ge, who joined the alert work outside the dock, asked.

"There shouldn't be, right? You know, before we decided to develop E-Star, we had already used landing robots to monitor this planet in advance. And after we landed, we also conducted more detailed biological detection here. Plus, E-Star is very desolate, and it is difficult to have basic resources to sustain life without artificial intervention. So, we can be very sure that there is no other life here except for us Vivispherians. Besides, we have been living here for a long time, and we have never been attacked by any other unknown creatures, right?" Old Zhou, who arrived at the dock with Yun Ge and the others, replied.

Yun Ge noticed that Old Zhou's tone obviously changed from certainty to a hint of doubt at the end. At the same time, he couldn't help but scratch his head. These small reactions obviously indicated that Old Zhou had already begun to doubt the biological detection results of the Broadsword Pioneer Team before.

Although the fire inside the dock seemed very fierce, fortunately, there was only one fire point, and with the timely response of the crowd, the fire was quickly controlled before it spread widely, which prevented the fire from causing more property damage. This was very fortunate for the dock that had not yet been completed, but for Yun Ge and the others, it was a very sad thing. Because from the situation that everyone understood on the fire scene, the electromagnetic rail slider on the left rear side used to support the Express Vanguard just happened to be in the center of the fire. This resulted in the left rear side of the spaceship also being in the fire, and a large area was smoked black by the raging fire.

After the fire in the dock was controlled, the main force responsible for searching for potential enemies also returned to the scene. According to these people's feedback, they did not find any suspicious traces around the dock. So they initially believed that the explosion and fire that caused the dock were not related to potential and unknown external enemies. Of course, these guards also stated that in order to ensure that their judgment was correct, a small team of them would continue to investigate near the dock to avoid making mistakes due to the enemy being too cunning.

Since these team members also serve as guards in the Broadsword Pioneer Team, everyone naturally would not question their professional judgment. Therefore, according to the feedback from the guards, everyone temporarily shifted the cause of the explosion and fire from the outside to the inside. Could it be that this incident was caused by internal personnel? Could it be that there are enemies among us?

In fact, everyone's idea is not groundless. Because when the staff responsible for managing the dock came to put out the fire, they found that the automatic fire extinguishing system of the dock had actually been turned off. This seems to further explain that tonight's fire was caused by their internal personnel.

As a result, while everyone continued to clean up the fire points, they began to search for possible saboteurs around the dock. At the same time, the Express Vanguard and the Broadsword Pioneer Team quickly carried out an investigation of their respective members. At the same time, the team members who were fighting the fire on the front line were also continuously cooling down the fire scene so that they could quickly enter the center of the fire to find the cause of the explosion. And just at this time, as a pioneer team member who participated in the fire extinguishing suddenly took the initiative to surrender, everyone finally had a clearer idea of the cause of this fire in advance.

The pioneer team member who took the initiative to surrender was named Zhao Zhiqiang. Because he is simple and honest, likes to make friends, and is willing to help others, everyone usually gets used to calling him "Big Brother Qiang." According to Big Brother Qiang, because he is a technical manager in charge of the maintenance of the dock, he naturally found it easy to find a common topic with the flight crew members on the Express Vanguard who are specifically responsible for technical maintenance at last night's gourmet evening party. As a result, he and three other dock technical personnel quickly became familiar with three flight engineers from the Express Vanguard and sang and danced together throughout the evening, enjoying the food.

It was precisely because these technical personnel had a common topic that they naturally talked about each other's next work. As a result, Big Brother Qiang and others learned that the three flight crew members were going to carry out a comprehensive maintenance of the Express Vanguard after the gourmet evening party.

At the same time, Big Brother Qiang and others also introduced their work content to the three flight crew members, and said that they need to check and repair the lines in the dock yard next to ensure that the monitoring system and automatic fire extinguishing system in the dock yard and other settings can return to normal work. The three flight crew members frankly said that they have rich experience in the repair of spacecraft circuits. Therefore, if Big Brother Qiang and others need help, the three people are very willing to help them solve the dock yard line problems in their spare time.

As a result, the seven technical personnel slapped together and decided to go to the dock after the evening party to cooperate with each other and complete their work as soon as possible. Make good use of the remaining time to get together more and increase the feelings between each other. It's just that everyone didn't expect last night's party to be so successful that the party didn't completely end until this evening. However, because these seven people had a great time, and they happened to rest sufficiently due to the shift relationship before this. So, even after almost a whole day of revelry, they were still very energetic. For this reason, the seven decided on a whim to go to their work after the party, so that they could complete the work as soon as possible and leave more time to enjoy drinks together.