35 It's Time to Establish Authority

"Does Earth really dare to provoke us?"

Zhao Yu was skeptical, thinking that Earth wouldn't be foolish enough to provoke them without fully understanding their capabilities.

At the very least, he wouldn't dare to do so if he was in their shoes.

"That's the truth!" Uncle Da insisted.

"Perhaps it was really an accident. Let's not rush to conclusions."

"Send Ba Jie to negotiate and find out what's going on," Zhao Yu suggested, shaking his head slightly.

..

Earth Alliance Defense Agency

"Thomas, you owe us an explanation. You owe one to the aliens too!" Colonel Chu's face twisted in frustration.

"What explanation do you want? We didn't plan for the rocket to malfunction!" Thomas said with a displeased look.

"A rocket is very expensive, it contains many precious resources, and we are missing a rocket worth of watches. I think the three of you should compensate us."

The other three were infuriated. How could someone be so shameless?

"If we don't talk about this, what will you do if the aliens come knocking on our door?! "

"What do you mean 'what if'? Our technology is outdated, and the rocket malfunctioned. We can't be blamed for that!" Thomas put on a fake smile, trying to mask his annoyance.

While they were talking, Liu Ning suddenly stood up.

"Zhang Yi Xia is calling!"

The entire room fell silent.

Colonel Chu gestured for Liu Ning to answer.

The call connected, and a holographic projection appeared, with Ba Jie appearing next to Zhang Yi Xia.

As expected, the supervisor was here!

Everyone's heart trembled. This supervisor must be representing the aliens.

"Sister Xia, I just received news that one of our rockets malfunctioned and nearly caused a disaster. We apologize for the incident," Liu Ning said.

Zhang Yi Xia was about to said something, but Ba Jie interjected in a cold tone, "Get your manager out here to talk!"

Liu Ning panicked and looked to Colonel Chu for guidance.

Colonel Chu took a deep breath and walked over to Liu Ning, who turned on her half-mirror to capture the surrounding environment.

Seeing Colonel Chu appear, Ba Jie didn't waste any time and got straight to the point, "On the Moon, your rocket exploded at the entrance of our base. What is the meaning of this?!"

Colonel Chu pursed his lips and look apologetically. "It was an accident. We didn't anticipate such a mishap. As you know, our Earth Alliance has only recently begun to explore space, and we're still at the rocket stage of space travel."

Ba Jie interrupted, "The explosion triggered automatic defense system at our base. We consider this a declaration of war."

Colonel Chu gave Thomas a hard stare before reluctantly explaining that Earth's technology was still lagging behind and fortunately, no damage was inflicted on the other side.

He knew that the conflict between him and Thomas was internal, while the one with the aliens was external. Shifting the blame to Thomas would be shortsighted when facing the aliens.

"No damaged caused?!"

Ba Jie scoffed. "We activated the energy shield to defend against your rocket explosion and consumed a huge amount of resources. How are you going to compensate for that?!"

"We're willing to compensate for any reasonable losses, as long as the friendship between our two sides remains intact," Colonel Chu replied.

"Then how about five times the amount of traded resources as compensation?" Ba Jie immediately proposed a number.

Colonel Chu hesitated for a moment. It wasn't a substantial amount of resources, and any of the four countries could provide it, but he couldn't make the decision alone.

"Can we discuss this further?"

"Sure."

The communication ended.

Colonel Chu turned to Thomas and said, "You heard what they said. You'll have to pay five times the amount of resources for this trade!"

"That's impossible!" Thomas protested like a squawking duck. "That's way too much. Their energy shield couldn't have consumed that many resources."

The two sides began to discuss the issue.

No matter what Colonel Chu said, Thomas would not budge. In the end, his said, "Unless…"

"Unless what?!" Colonel Chu asked.

"Unless the aliens can show us how much resources they have lost. Then, we'll accept whatever amount they've lost!"

Colonel Chu's eyelids twitched in disbelief. "You're not giving up, are you?!"

During the conversation, Thomas made a few phone calls. He thought he was going to ask if compensating five times the amount of resources would be acceptable. But instead, he decided to probe the aliens further.

Thomas saw Colonel Chu's reaction and stopped pretending, saying with a faint smile, "The aliens' defense system is indeed powerful. Their energy shields are something that our Earth has yet to develop..."

"But have you noticed that their negotiations are weak?"

"If they really had a very powerful attack, they would have launched it already. But in the end, during the negotiations, they only asked for compensation," he smiled and said.

Colonel Chu frowned, " That's what you guys think. We've always been polite before resorting to force. The aliens probably think the same way."

"Courtesy before violence is the way of the weak. A truly strong person should use their strength to suppress them," Thomas said confidently.

"If you don't agree, fine. You can compensate the aliens with the resources they want. We have no objections either."

Colonel Chu felt powerless and could only make a phone call to see what his superiors had to say.

Half an hour later, he received the order to wait and observe.

This indicated that they believed the aliens' reaction was too weak and not characteristic of a high-ranking individual facing a lower-ranking one. They had therefore implicitly approved of the probing attempt.

Although Colonel Chu disagreed, he had no choice but to step aside and let Thomas handle the negotiations.

The call was reconnected.

"How did your discussion go?" Ba Jie glanced at the new arrival next to Liu Ning with some confusion, but didn't ask.

Thomas smiled and said, "We are willing to offer compensation, but we also think that if we can see the specific consumption of the base energy shield, no matter how many resources it takes, we are willing to compensate."

Ba Jie frowned and said, "The base energy shield is the core of the base's defense, and we cannot allow you to see it."

Seeing Ba Jie weak attitude, Thomas was pleased and said, "Well, we can't do anything about that. Hey, friend, why don't you go back and ask your boss if it's possible?!"

The call was disconnected again

 Ba Jie turned to Zhao Yu, grinning. "Commander, how was my acting? Did I look like a leader?

Zhao Yu rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You're too soft!"

As a person who came form Earth, he had already detected the probing intentions from Thomas.

But he couldn't interrupt the real-time call, for fear that the other side would hear him.

From this point, he suddenly realised that the androids under his command, even if they looked human, they were not truly human.

They had no emotions and desires. Even if he installed a set of programs that was designed to let them have emotions, their behavior was very rational and logical. Humans, on the other hand, sometimes acted irrationally.

For example, in this situation, Ba Jie should have been furious and felt offended as a high-ranking alien, but he didn't understand these concepts and couldn't express them.

Furthermore, Zhao Yu noticed another problem.

The main direction of their base's development was in the fields of science and engineering, which were based on the laws of the natural world.

Subjects such as sociology, philosophy, economics, humanities, linguistics, and psychology, which were part of other human groups, were all very poorly developed.

It was like Ba Jie social and interpersonal skills had a limit, which was the same as Zhao Yu, while in most case were inferior to Zhao Yu.

"Now, the people of the Earth probably think that we don't have any means of attack."

"They think we're easy targets that can be manipulated at will!"

After careful consideration, Zhao Yu made up his mind and said slowly, "It looks like we need to find an opportunity to fire a shot and demonstrate our military power. We need to establish our position and let the Earth people understand where they stand!"