She had run into many officers, and all of them seemed frustrated. Of course, they were frustrated. The mercenaries had always been the bully in the galaxy, and they had never experienced this total failure before. She walked into the commanding center and found out that nothing had changed since she left. The technical officers were still focusing all their attention on the war. They calculated their loss, analyzed the situation, and then handed the reports to the chief mate. The ground staff in the machine maintenance group were repairing the equipment behind the commanding center as fast as possible, and the communication officers were checking the number of the warships and the people who survived. Patrick was still standing there writing something with several captains. Emerald thought he must have been standing in this way for hours. She asked an officer beside her, “What is the Commander doing?” “My lady,” the officer knew her, and he answered with pride on his face, “The Commander was planning a counterattack.” Emerald was shocked. It could be extremely difficult for them to counterattack since the leading technology of the enemy is unbelievable. However, Patrick hadn’t given up, maybe because he wouldn’t accept failure in his heart. At this moment, the logistics officer led a group of soldiers in with trays. “Commander, it has been a day.” The logistics officer said with the resolution, “Let everyone have something to eat.” Patrick looked up and stared at the officer for a few seconds and finally woke up from his thoughts. He threw away the pen and said, “We’ll keep working in ten minutes.” The logistic soldiers gave away the food quickly, and all the officers started eating immediately. Patrick walked quickly to Emerald and sat beside her.“You have to eat on time.” He pushed the tray to her, “Next time, I’ll let the soldiers send you food on time, and you don’t need to wait for me.” Emerald nodded, and the two ate the food silently. Patrick was eating very fast, and he didn’t actually eat much. Then he stood up to go to the podium. Emerald grabbed his arm, and he sat down again to look at her. “You’re doing very well,” she stared at him, “We have seen that the machine civilization defeated the civilizations which were more advanced, but you almost won the war. You don’t need to…” “I don’t.” He calmly interrupted her words and smiled, “and you don’t need to worry about me.” After hesitating for a while, Emerald said, “Do you need me to go to Stonehenge?” “Never.” He suddenly said, “Emerald, that will only distract me. You just stay here so that I can think more clearly.”Emerald couldn’t say anything. In fact, she also knew that Stonehenge might not be very helpful. The machine man had gained the technology of leaping continuously. If she directed Stonehenge to attack them, she would already be killed before the stones came near the machine men. Patrick didn’t say more and just kissed her heavily with one hand holding her head. Then he went back to the podium. After a few steps, he stopped and thought of something, and he said to the communication officer, “Cancel the pass for Mrs. Lewis. She has to stay on the ship and can’t go anywhere else.” “Yes, sir.” The officer didn’t dare to ask more and just adjusted Emerald’s highest permission into the lowest. Emerald heard all the things they said, but her heart ached more when she saw the man’s stubborn, straight figure. After the war, the mercenaries’ six fortresses and the Alliance’s five had run away. Other fortresses couldn’t leap for a long distance since they were severely damaged, and they were surrounded by the machine men with the civilians on the planets. But the counterattack was not easy. Although all the officers couldn’t wait to defeat their enemy under Patrick’s leadership, they couldn’t do anything but wait for the right time to launch a sneak attack to avoid the enemy’s offensive. The best time for them was to wait until the enemy thought that they didn’t want to attack anymore and started to focus on the colonization of the planets. Patrick sent two air scouts to sneak into the edge of the galaxy to observe the situation. Other fortresses stayed there, and the officers checked all their left resources. The chief mate reported that they could hold on for a month. Three days passed quickly, but the air scouts didn’t come back. Taron insisted on attacking the machine man immediately because almost all the officers’ families and friends were still on the planet. This process was killing them, and they would rather die than run away. Besides, they still had the hope to win when they still had the opportunity to attack the enemy. Patrick didn’t agree with Taron, and he thought they should go to a galaxy far away to have a rest. The two couldn’t make an agreement, and Taron led the five space fortresses to leap back to Galaxy Eternity, and they have been lost since then. Patrick, however, led his ships to leap to the new emergent coordinates. Patrick was also astonished when the machine man leaped at them and surrounded the ships of the mercenaries because the chance was extremely small for the enemy to find their new coordinates unless the enemy could track them down accurately. After another round of fierce battle, the mercenaries lost one fortress and tens of Cheetahs. They ran away while fighting the enemy and leaped to a new coordinate. Patrick ordered them to examine all the fighters and look for the tracking devices of the machine man, but they found nothing. The machine man leaped to them and surrounded them after one hour for the second time. And it was only after half an hour when they came for the third time, which was the last one. Finally, they not only attacked the mercenaries with bombs and missiles but also sent them a declaration directly. “Mr. Patrick Lewis, the Commander of the mercenaries. It is meaningless to run away. No matter which coordinates you run to, we can find the accurate coordinate immediately. However, your courage has won the chance for your survival. If you surrender now without condition, you will be accepted as the soldiers of the Empire army, and we will not hurt you. Otherwise, all of you, all the people on the planets, and the thirty thousand soldiers on the space fortresses will be killed. This is my last declaration. Evan Silas Carslaw.”