At the same time that Coulson "abducted" the young man to join S.H.I.E.L.D., Merlin, who had returned to New York, was frowning and looking at the documents sent by his e-mail.

It was sent by Fury on the final outcome of the discussions between the World Security Council and the German and Russian governments on the issue of the intellectual center.

Pierce and Fury adopted Merlin's suggestion, agreeing to the stationing of troops in smart industrial zones, and the two countries agreed to the requirement to form a military dedicated to smart machine affairs.

But the trouble is that Merlin's agents, who are the proposers of the plan, seem to have a new job to do.

"The officials of the two countries asked S.. L.D. was also involved in the small-scale tryouts of these soldiers? ”

Merlin looked at the contents of the email, and he said with some confusion:

"Why? Is that how they trust us? ”

"Probably because they saw the outfit of the Overwatch team in the Eichenwald incident."

Icarus analyzed:

"In the face of an industrial area that has been largely completely occupied by thugs, and more than thousands of armed robots, the extremely inferior Overwatch team can completely solve the chaos caused by the Ten Rings in less than 1 hour. L.D.'s commando team has a super combat power. ”

"Since the German and Russian authorities are asking for the formation of an army in the name of ensuring the security of the industrial zone, then there is no reason why they would ignore the performance of the watch squad. L.D. helped them to conduct trials for the selection of soldiers, which was also meant to be. ”

"Well, there does make some sense."

Merlin nodded, and he looked back at the second half of the email, in which Fury appended the very different ideas of the German and Russian officials to build the army.

"Tsk, although both countries have chosen to use their armor to assist soldiers in battle, the details are completely different."

Merlin said as he browsed through the instructions:

"The Germans tend to have their armor run by soldiers, which is similar to Tony's Super Mark Armor, and they trust human power more. But the name of this unit is really the second middle school... Crusaders, oh my God, the strict Germans are not bad at all. ”

"The Russians are more radical, they have adopted a similar design to the Titan Intelligence of the Ten Rings, designing various mechas, and then controlled by professional pilots. Well, the torrent of steel in another sense is really Lao Maozi's style. ”

"Merlin, Coulson's invitation has come to fruition."

Icarus Says:

"Miss Song Hana has just become a first-class agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson is taking her to the Pagasus base, are you really sure that girl can succeed Agent Patton as the driver of the 'Red Spider'?"

"I'm not sure, Icarus, but that girl is really talented at that, she's brave and bold, and you can see how she wields that Titan Intelligence, she's experienced, and Steve thinks highly of her, so I'd like to believe she's going to make a good driver."

Merlin flicked his fingers and said:

"Of course, she wouldn't have been allowed to fly weapons to the level of 'Smash' and 'Red Spider' at first, and she should probably start with the basics, isn't Winston designing a small assault robot? It's just enough to give Miss Hana a practice. ”

"She still has a lot to learn, but I'm sure she'll be able to grow up quickly in the Watch Squad. But now that we do the math, we already have 5 Cybertron warriors ready to join the fray, including Ghost, Murmur, and Horus, and it may be time to set up a separate mech team. ”

"It's 6 units!"

Icarus reminded:

"And 'Lola'."

"Lola..."

Merlin hesitated, and he said:

"Coulson has been hiding Lola's secret for the past few years, he doesn't seem to want Lola's existence to be exposed, you have to understand, everyone has their own secrets, everyone has the right to keep their own secrets, Icarus, I can't interfere in this matter."

"Are you really going to keep it a secret?"

Icarus asked rhetorically:

"Do you think he doesn't have any suspicions about the real relationship between you and Coulson? Although Coulson may seem gentle on the surface, you should know that he is also a very sensitive person. ”

"I'm not going to tell him that it's going to make our relationship become... Complex. ”

Merlin closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, his fingers lightly circled the table, and said:

"It's something that's gone, something that's been forgotten, and since I've taken the price, let it pass. Maybe it's good for me and Coulson. ”

He was silent for a few minutes, and then remembered something again, and he said to Icarus:

"Speaking of which, Dr. Reid and his research team have been in space for almost 3 years, right? How long is it until their scheduled return time? ”

"Three days to go."

Icarus replied:

"If all goes well, in three days, they'll be back in the world."

—————————————————

In the lonely group of stars some distance from Earth, a white spaceship is following a predetermined route, lightly bypassing the constraints of Martian gravity, heading back to Earth.

The 1-kilometer-long irregular ship doesn't quite resemble the ones that Earthlings have seen in science fiction, and its design is borrowed from the Kree in many ways.

During the 1994 Kree invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D., with the help of Captain Marvel Carroll, captured several Kree ships, and Dr. Reed also consulted the S.H.I.E.L.D. database when designing his ship.

At this time, in the ship, the bearded Dr. Reid is doing his daily routine of recording in the huge laboratory, because of the internal gravity generator, the interior of the ship is not in a weightless suspension state, and the people in it can move freely as if they were on Earth.

The large laboratory in front of Dr. Reed was divided into many small compartments due to the needs of different experiments, but due to the ship's large size, each compartment was quite large.

"Well, this long journey is finally coming to an end."

Just as Reed had finished recording the growth data of a plant cultivated in the sun, a gentle voice rang out behind him.

"yes, Ben, 3 years, it's hard to imagine that we've been away from home for 3 years."

Reed put down the recorder in his hand, and he looked back at his friend behind him, it was a man a little older than him, his name was Ben. Graemm, a college classmate of Reed and Susan, worked at NASA for a while after graduation, but Ben lost that job due to some accidents caused by Hydra's "Far Star Project".

As soon as Reed set up his own lab, he was invited to Ben, an excellent astronomer and physicist, who was also responsible for the progress of several important experiments during this long journey.

"Do you miss your hometown too? Reed. ”

Ben handed Reed a can of beer in his hand, and he sat down in a chair in the laboratory and said to his good friend:

"I remember when you set out, you told me that you yearn for the stars more than on Earth."

"That can only mean that I was too young at that time."

Reed smiled nonchalantly, he looked out the porthole, at the empty space except for the cold starlight, and said:

"It's only when you're in this infinite universe that you realize what Earth means to you, it's home..."

"I also thought I was tired of a world full of divisions and disputes, especially after working on S.H.I.E.L.D. projects, but in the past 3 years, I have thought a lot, and I have found that the stars are not as beautiful and beautiful as we thought."

"I miss my hometown, and occasionally I dream of a car trip with Susan, the warm sunshine, the warm wind, the friendly people, and the delicious food..."

The Doctor drank a strange-tasting beer, and he said to his good friend Ben:

"Maybe I'm not really ready to step into the stars, but anyway, this trip is enough for me... I'm going to propose to Susan when I go back, Ben, I don't want to wait any longer, I've wasted 3 years. ”

"Okay!"

Ben said with a smile:

"She'll definitely accept you, but you'll have to think of a romantic way, women love romance, they're incorrigible romantic creatures."

"That's a big problem."

Reid shrugged his shoulders and said:

"I'm not good at that, but maybe I can ask Jonathan, he's very good at dealing with women."

"Yes, Jonathan."

Ben took a sip of beer and said to Reed:

"Your future wife's younger brother, a super engineer, actually, I would have liked him more if his personality had been a little more calm."

"He's a young man after all."

Reed wanted to continue chatting with Ben for a while, but just as he finished saying this, the entire spaceship suddenly shook violently, as if it had been hit by something, making Reed unstable on his feet and almost falling.

Ben helped him to his feet, and the expressions of the two men became extremely serious, and they quickly rushed out of the laboratory and walked towards the bridge of the ship.

Susan and her brother Jonathan, the two remaining members of Reed's research team, were already on the bridge.

"What's the shaking just now?"

Reed asked, and Susan, who was at the console, replied as she steered the ship around:

"It's a sudden debris that the radar system can't detect its source, I think it should have been thrown by a nearby meteorite or asteroid when it disintegrated, it's not very large, but it seems to be in a bad situation."

As he spoke, the young man beside Susan projected the situation outside the spaceship on the bridge projector, and on the deck at the back of the ship, a half-human-high stone was being thrown away by the advancing spaceship little by little, but there was already a visible depression on the deck of the spaceship, and some of the rubble remained on the outer deck of the ship.

It is worth mentioning that in the holographic projection screen, the stones embedded in the outer deck of the spaceship are emitting faint green points of light, as if they are some kind of radiation.

"The damage process has been initiated, but I think we'll need to stay on the extraterrestrial space station for a few hours to see if the residue is harmful, and if we need emergency repairs, and maybe an unscheduled spacewalk if necessary."

Susan's younger brother, engineer Jonathan, turned back to his future brother-in-law and said:

"But if we can, maybe a robot can help us with this task. I don't want to wear a bloated spacesuit anymore, I'm running out of stomach acid tablets, my gum is gone, hell, I really want to eat a burger..."

"We'll be home soon, Jonathan, bear with me a little longer. Let's go to the space station first. ”

Reed carefully checked all the parameters of the spacecraft, and after confirming that it could still fly normally, he sent a docking request to the space station hovering in orbit beyond the earth, and said to the other three:

"Ben, you and Jonathan are going to wake up our robot assistant, Susan, I need you to prepare a container that can contain meteorite fragments and isolate energy, this may be an accidental discovery, you see, the energy readings on the stones left by the meteorite are a little abnormal, it should be something we haven't discovered yet."

"But there's no hurry, we'll have to stay on the station for at least 24 hours."

Dr. Reid said,

"The Life Foundation's deep space spacecraft will return in 7 hours, and we need to perform a test of the samples collected by the unmanned exploration vessel. If there are samples of living life in them, we may need to report them to Earth in advance. ”

"To S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Dr. Susan ruffled her hair, and she whispered:

"I guess Mr. Merlin will be happy to hear from you, after all, you two seem to be on good terms."

"Just a regular friend, Susan."

Reed shook his head, and as he busied, he said:

"It's very, very difficult to be a good friend of a veteran agent like Merlin."

"When I was working with Tony, he told me that if Merlin smiled at you, you have to be careful... Uh, of course, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but how to put it, based on the information I've gathered, Merlin... He's a complicated guy. ”

"Does that Merlin matter?"

Jonathan, who was eavesdropping on the conversation next to the two, suddenly said:

"I often mention this name when I hear you talk to my sister, and he sounds like the traditional villain in the movies."

"Merlin, he's amazing."

Reed glanced at his future brother, and he joked:

"You'd better not speak ill of him, Jonathan, I'm not sure if he has bugs in the ship, if he's upset, he'll probably eat you for breakfast, and Susan and I can't stop him."

"Shh

Jonathan pursed his lips, he snorted, stopped the chat, and turned away from the bridge.

Reed looked up and looked ahead, beyond the observation window of the bridge, the blue planet was already in his mind.

That's Earth...

That's home.