The Summer Country fleet replied:
"Received! Rest assured! The Summer Country evacuation fleet extends deep respect for your release of hostages!"
Deep respect?
Zhou Lin understood.
Regardless of how other countries, especially the Beautiful Country, would react to this communication, Zhou Lin opened the ship-wide broadcast:
"I'm not afraid to tell you, the apocalypse is coming, the world is doomed... Now you have two choices..."
"One, you can take the lifeboats. The Summer Country evacuation fleet will pass nearby soon, and they will rescue you. Or two, you can meet your maker."
"In fifteen minutes, anyone who wants to leave should raise their hands and gather on the deck."
The reason Zhou Lin spared the lives of these Beautiful Country officers was entirely to cover for the data. Whether the Beautiful Country suspected collusion between him and the Summer Country fleet or not, they wouldn't openly fire missiles at their own people, right?
Fifteen minutes later, about three hundred Beautiful Country officers gathered on the deck, all waiting obediently.
"Good, you can go and release the lifeboats."
Several ship cannons swiveled, the dark barrels preventing any move. But not everyone was obedient, like Lieutenant Colonel Magree.
"The Beautiful Country will never compromise!" Lieutenant Colonel Magree shouted, raising his fist.
"Still got some spirit." Zhou Lin smirked. "Just what we need. Glorious Lieutenant Colonel Magree, off you go."
In the next moment, the cannon flashed, "Boom!"
Fragments scattered, blood mist dispersed.
In front of everyone, Lieutenant Colonel Magree's sacrifice proved Zhou Lin's decisiveness and ruthlessness, serving as a strong deterrent.
"At least I didn't waste a shell." Zhou Lin nodded, satisfied as the officers dwindled.
Once everyone transferred to lifeboats, Zhou Lin stealthily released the unmanned underwater vehicle carrying the hard drive box, setting its hover depth. It would stay fifty meters below the lifeboats, awaiting the Summer Country fleet's retrieval.
"I've done all I can; the rest is up to fate." The risk was immense. Without hostages, he lost his "shield". No one could guarantee the Beautiful Country wouldn't fire missiles, or even tactical nukes, at the Theodore Roosevelt next.
In fact, as Zhou Lin drove the Theodore Roosevelt at top speed towards Summer Country's waters, in an underground facility in the Beautiful Country, knowing hostages were released and handed to the Summer Country evacuation fleet, Beautiful Country leaders held an emergency meeting.
"I believe we should immediately destroy the Theodore Roosevelt!" The newly appointed interim defense minister stood and declared. "In fact, I've already ordered our new strategic bombers to take off from the mainland. In no more than three hours, we'll find it and... completely destroy it!"
Onboard the Theodore Roosevelt, Zhou Lin had just received a message from the Summer Country evacuation fleet, stating they had rescued the Beautiful Country soldiers from the sea, emphasizing "rescued every one of them," and expressing "deep respect" again.
Zhou Lin replied, "You're welcome," and continued inventorying supplies.
Though symbiotically bonded with the Theodore Roosevelt, allowing him to control the ship and its equipment seamlessly, he still had to handle items outside the ship personally. More so, having taken the huge risk to capture the Theodore Roosevelt, he needed to inventory everything himself, lest he miss out on the satisfaction of his efforts.
Survival in the apocalypse required "clothing, food, shelter, and transportation," so he started with food. As a super warship accommodating five thousand people, the Theodore Roosevelt had several food freezers and storerooms.
Due to dietary habits, there were over a million burger ingredients alone. Assuming a daily consumption of ten thousand burgers, if Zhou Lin's family of four ate twenty burgers a day, they wouldn't finish them in a hundred years.
Considering the tastes, nutrition, and health of five thousand people, burger ingredients occupied only a third of the freezers and storerooms. Besides common meats, staple grains like rice, fresh and dehydrated vegetables, and fruits, Zhou Lin also found items like "Wagyu beef," "foie gras," "caviar," and various high-end seafood totaling dozens of tons.
With ample staples, there were also plenty of beverages and snacks. For example, there were over ten tons of cola concentrate stored in refrigeration. Two barrels of concentrate could produce 250,000 liters of cola with just purified water and dry ice. After all, what's a Beautiful Country person without cola? Stockpiling this much on a ship made sense.
Since the Theodore Roosevelt was nuclear-powered, unless the reactor failed or needed refueling, electricity was abundant, ensuring food stored in the -60°C freezers wouldn't spoil.
A total of nearly two thousand tons of food combined with the ever-powered ultra-low temperature freezers eliminated Zhou Lin's food anxiety. The downside was the lack of ingredients fitting Summer Country dietary habits and the shortage of specific local seasonings, like the chili peppers and bean paste essential to Summer Country's Bashu people—there were some, just very few.
He noted to restock these after returning.
Compared to the abundant and diverse food supplies, clothing on the aircraft carrier seemed monotonous and scarce, mainly various sizes and types of military uniforms, from summer to winter, including a limited number of polar thermal combat suits.
Fortunately, Zhou Lin wasn't picky about this. Military uniforms and combat suits emphasized performance and functionality, matching the post-apocalyptic needs for clothing, making them barely sufficient.
Shelter wasn't a concern.
Based on the disaster sequence, Zhou Lin didn't plan to go far from his hometown. Bashu had always been a blessed land. As long as he found a place over a thousand meters above sea level to conceal the aircraft carrier, his family could live comfortably and securely.
Protected from ice, cooled in heat, safe from floods, untouched by earthquakes... just thinking about it made him content.
The more Zhou Lin inventoried, the wiser he felt. Rather than painstakingly gathering supplies, lacking space and as a regular family, funds were the biggest limitation—unless it was a total "free shopping spree"...
The "beep beep beep" of an alarm interrupted Zhou Lin's inventory.
"LRASM detected, warning!"
"LRASM detected, warning!"
"LRASM detected, warning!"
...
The LRASM was the Beautiful Country's most advanced anti-ship missile, supposedly still in development and not yet in service!
"Damn!" Zhou Lin's consciousness moved, instantly teleporting from the storeroom to the captain's cabin. The red emergency lights flashed, and alarms blared.
In the sky, sleek silver figures flew towards the Theodore Roosevelt at 1.5 Mach.
They shifted from "S" to "B" formations... finally, at just over twenty kilometers from the Theodore Roosevelt, they skimmed the sea surface, accelerating almost like "surfing."
The Beautiful Country had really invested; the first wave of anti-ship missile attacks exceeded twelve missiles. Just one or two successful hits would severely damage the Theodore Roosevelt!