Warhammer: The Time Traveler

Chapter 322 Stasis Grenade (Sixth Update)
The members of Mann's squad were like tigers among sheep.

Dorio's powerful punch, combined with the explosive effect, sent a Klingon soldier flying, armor and all, with a single blow.

Valerie and Jack, leveraging their power armor and precise shooting, quickly cleared the flanks; Falco moved like a ghost among the rocks, eliminating enemies with accurate short bursts of fire.

The most shocking was Mowell.

Her Sianwistan system activated instantly, leaving an afterimage in place, and the next second she appeared like a ghost behind the Klingon commander who was giving loud orders.

The cold, sonic blade, vibrating at a high frequency, was firmly held against the opponent's thick neck, its sharp edge almost cutting into his tough skin.

"Don't move." Mowell's cold voice rang in the commander's ears, instantly freezing him in his hand as he held up his bat'leth (Klingon scimitar).

The battle turned into a one-sided affair within just a few dozen seconds, with most of the Klingon soldiers being quickly knocked down or subdued.

However, just when Mann's team thought they had the situation under control, another unexpected event occurred!
In the chaos, two Klingon soldiers who were originally chasing the Vulcan child managed to capture him.

One of the tall Klingons gripped the child's neck tightly with his thick arm, while his other hand pressed the disruptor against the child's temple. The child struggled, but the difference in strength was too great.

"Federal dogs! Back off!" the Klingon soldier holding the hostage roared in broken Common, his eyes fierce and... with an almost fanatical certainty, "or I'll kill this 'weapon'!"

Kirk immediately raised his hand to signal a ceasefire, and the members of Mann's squad also stopped attacking, but their weapons remained aimed at the enemy.

“Weapons? What weapons? He’s just a kid!” Kirk tried to reassure him, his mind racing.

"Don't try to fool us!" the hostage-taker roared, glancing down at the struggling child in his arms, his eyes filled with a mixture of fear and greed. "We've scanned him! He contains the same energy signature as this planet!"

He is the ultimate weapon your Federation is secretly researching! Capable of creating planets, and capable of destroying them! Hand him over to our Klingon Empire!

Chen Yu's crimson optical lens instantly focused on the Vulcan child.

With all high-precision sensors activated, a faint but extremely unique energy fluctuation was detected. It shared the same origin as the environmental energy field of Genesis Star, but was even more... condensed and introverted.

A...living carrier of primordial energy? This discovery shook the very core of Chen Yu's logic.

This far exceeded any of his previous expectations.

Carol was stunned. She muttered to herself, "Impossible... The energy of 'creation' should permeate the entire planet, how could it be concentrated in one individual? Unless..."

Unless the birth of this child is itself an unexpected, or even unnoticed, consequence of the "Genesis Project".

The situation has reached a stalemate.

Mann's team has the ability to kill the hostage-taker instantly, but they cannot guarantee the child's absolute safety.

The Klingons have mistaken the children for planet-destroying weapons and are in a state of heightened agitation, posing a risk of harming the hostages at any moment.

Kirk faces a difficult choice: should he launch a forced rescue or try to negotiate? And who exactly is the Vulcan child who has been kidnapped? What are his intricate connections with Spock and the Genesis Project?
All the mysteries focused on the small, thin figure with an energy weapon pointed at his head.

Faced with the savage and fanatical threat of the Klingon soldiers, and the Disruptor pressed against the Vulcan child's temple, Kirk and the Federation members were on tenterhooks, while Mann's squad was already calculating the risks of a forced kill.

However, Chen Yu's crimson optical lens merely swept indifferently over the hostage-taker, and the internal processor did not even create a dedicated high-priority thread for it.

In his understanding, rooted in the Warhammer universe, this inefficient stalemate, reliant on biological emotional threats, was an insult to the word "efficiency." He couldn't even be bothered with verbal negotiations or tactical deployments.

While everyone—including the Klingon hostage-taker—was focused on the tense standoff, a nimble auxiliary mechanical arm silently extended from Chen Yu's massive mechanical body, its fingertips pinching an inconspicuous, dark gray, egg-shaped device.

Without warning or any indication, he tossed the "grenade" precisely at the hostage-taker's location as casually as if he were discarding a piece of trash.

"Chen Yu! What are you doing?!" Kirk's voice, filled with shock and anger, rang out almost simultaneously with his throwing motion.

He couldn't understand why this otherworldly sage would escalate the situation during the hostage crisis!
The Klingon hostage-taker was also stunned. He had anticipated that the Federation personnel would retreat, negotiate, or even risk shooting, but he never expected that they would throw something that looked like an explosive device directly at him and the hostage!
He instinctively wanted to pull the trigger, but his brain momentarily froze because of this completely illogical behavior.

In the blink of an eye, the "grenade" silently "exploded".

There was no deafening roar, no scorching flames, and no flying fragments.

Instead, a pale blue energy field, rippling like water, rapidly expanded from the point of explosion, precisely enveloping the Klingon soldier he had taken hostage and the Vulcan child in his arms.

The next second, the scene within the energy field became incredibly bizarre—all movement abruptly ceased.

The Klingon soldier's expression, a mixture of astonishment and ferocity, froze. His finger, poised to pull the trigger, hovered in mid-air, and the energy beam condensing at the muzzle of the Disruptor seemed to freeze as well.

The child he was holding hostage, his wide-open eyes filled with fear and his slight struggles, were also put on pause.

They seemed to have become a lifelike sculpture, trapped inside an invisible amber.

The wind was still blowing outside the energy field, and the light was still flashing, but time and space inside the field had stopped.

There was dead silence.

Everyone was stunned by this unimaginable scene.

The members of Mann's squad lowered their guns slightly, their faces showing surprise; Kirk and Carol stared in disbelief; even the Klingon commander, who was being held captive by Mowell, widened his eyes through his mask, making a hoarse, incredulous sound.

Only then did Chen Yu's steady synthesized voice slowly ring out, as if he had just done something insignificant: "Static grenade. Upon detonation, it generates a local spacetime locking field, halting the flow of time within the field. During its duration, all activity within the field falls into absolute stillness."

His understated explanation struck everyone's mind like a heavy hammer blow.

Stop time?! This technology, which only exists in theoretical fantasies, is being used so casually by the other side, just to solve a "minor problem" that they might not even consider troublesome?
“Now,” Chen Yu’s mechanical arm pointed to the still energy field, his tone completely flat, “we can go and retrieve that Klingon and… that special individual.”

Note that you should not touch the boundary of the stasis field to avoid triggering unpredictable spacetime disturbances.

Kirk recovered from his shock and gave Chen Yu a deep look, gaining a more profound and awe-inspiring understanding of the technology and behavior of this otherworldly sage.

He quickly gave the order: "Quickly! Valerie, Jack, carefully bring the child out! Mann, control the Klingon!"

The crisis was resolved in a way that no one had anticipated.

Chen Yu used the most direct and efficient means to show the inhabitants of this universe what a "solution" from the dark age of technology was.

The Vulcan child, who possessed the energy of creation, finally escaped danger, but he clearly harbored an even greater secret.

(End of this chapter)