Age of Cosmic Exploration, 3

by Zhttty

  The electromagnetic shield was useless against the robot; it phased through it like it was nothing. Without even revealing its weapons, it basically shot through the lines of warships like they were marks at target practice, which, in a way, they were. In just 50 seconds, other than the main battleship, everything else floated about in shambles!

  Then the robot flew into the battleship and exited several seconds later. Behind him was a trail of aliens.

  The alien looked like an amalgamation between shellfish and human. They had basic features like mouths and eyes, but their eyes were as bulgy as a fly’s and were 5 times the size of humans’. Half of their bodies were occupied by an overgrown brain, and around their bodies was a shell-like exoskeleton. Other than the pair of hands and legs, their upper body also showed an extension of multiple tentacles.

  The aliens appeared to be lassoed by an invisible rope, and this rope also helped protect them from direct exposure to vacuum space. Tied by the lasso, the aliens formed a long string as they were swallowed by the silver spaceship. The whole eerie procession took about half an hour to complete.

  "There are at least 200,000,000 of them… How could they possibly fit in that spaceship? A space folding technology?" Bo Li asked.

  No one answered. They were still stunned by what they had just witnessed. This was an alien fleet that could demolish Earth in a day, but they had just been destroyed by a robot blob… It was… After the trail of aliens were completely consumed by the spaceship, the robot showed itself again. Melting into a silvery band, it sailed around the damaged fleet in an incredible speed and brought out another trail of aliens, but this time, the aliens were all dead. This continued for another stretch of time until it appeared once more. It lifted a finger and aimed it at the alien battleship. Several seconds later, a ray of silvery light shot towards it.

  Even though the silvery, ionic ray was extremely thin, the moment it hit the battleship, the ship shattered into pieces, the bigger pieces among them disintegrating into nothingness… Shattering was not the perfect description because it was more like the ray made its center disappear, and without the central anchor, everything else drifted away on their own.

  After completing its task, the robot returned to the silver spaceship. Then, a wormhole appeared to swallow the spaceship… The video ended to a room of silence. Everyone held different expressions, but be it shock, disappointment or alarm, there was an undercurrent of fear.

  "Is that the end?" Yao Yuan rubbed his eyes before standing up to ask the technician.

  After checking, the technician replied, "That’s the end of the reel."

  Yao Yuan nodded before turning around to face the room. "This video will be accepted as one of the Hope’s grade 1 classified subjects. I’m sure everyone is familiar with this clauses, so I won’t repeat them here. I only have one question to ask…

  "Would the Hope have enough time to warp away if we were attacked by this liquid spaceship?"

  Yao Yuan sat down to wait patiently as the scientists started their calculations. After some time, a researcher stood up. "I’m sorry, Captain, but the time taken by the spaceship to fully appear from the wormhole was less than 5 seconds. If the creator’s particles device is not activated within these 5 seconds, we’ll be taken down by long-ranged artillery in less than 2 seconds. With the device activated, there would be an interval of about 10 seconds before the robot is deployed, but since the Hope is only a singular ship, we would be an obvious target, so there wouldn’t even be time for us to warp…"

  "Is that so? We wouldn’t even be able to run?"

  Yao Yuan collected himself and ordered, "I request all units to return to the Hope. The junkyard exploration operation will be ending in the next 3 days…

  " In 3 days, the Hope will initiate space warp!"

  -------

  Please visit www.webnovel.com to read advanced chapters!

  Chapter139 Warping

  The Hope was already done preparing for its next warp.

  They had stayed at this same spot for several years, and those years weren’t spent idling . This was the period when mankind truly became a space civilization, when mankind gained the ability to flourish in space.

  For many, the Hope was a completely different entity from the Hope of 6 years ago. In fact, if they were to return to Earth now, the Hope would not be a last desperate measure at escape but an armored spaceship competent enough to blow up Earth itself!

  And the Hope wouldn’t even need to land! By activating the creator’s particle, mankind’s technology would be undone just like that!

  In other words, the Hope had finally come into the title of a spaceship, and not a just a metallic casing ferrying humans through space.

  Of course, other than these physical changes, mankind’s knowledge about the cosmos had a drastic increase too, and they had learned one cruel yet eternal truth about the cosmos.

  There was no peace in space!

  Even if there was a time of peace, it was a precarious peace between two equally powerful civilizations, like the short encounter between the junkyard civilization and the space merchants. It was a peace brokered upon trade and profit because God knows things wouldn’t end well for that pair of Cosmic Adapters traded away by the junkyard civilization.

  After the designated 3 days, all of the operational units had returned to the Hope, carrying resources from the junkyard with them. There was such a great salvage that empty residences had to be converted to warehouses to store metallic tablets, heavy water, chemicals, and solid hydrogen oxides… These hydrogen oxides were the alien civilization’s way of effectively storing a huge amount of water. Stored in their solid state, the hydrogen oxides had a smaller volume when compared to liquid or gaseous hydrogen and oxygen of similar mass. They stored well in this state and could be broken down and compounded into water, hydrogen (for the reactor), and oxygen (for mankind) when necessary.

  These resources filled the Hope, and their amount was 8 times the amount they had when they left Earth!

  Of course, this couldn’t be accorded to the additional supplies alone. The 8 times increase also accounted for the added weight coming from the new metallic armor added to the Hope’s surface and the 2 additional layers that had been added to the Hope.

  Other than that, the Academy had come forth with a crazy proposal. They wanted the Hope to add an additional 8th level, a level that would be longer and wider than the Hope itself to house an electromagnetic large hadron collider that would be used to study the theories that would be later revealed as their technology continued to improve. The scientists swore that without the collider, it would be impossible for the Hope to dream of entering the fifth revolution!

  Yao Yuan rejected their proposal outright!

  Yao Yuan had seen for himself the broken pieces of such hadron colliders during his expedition into the alien battleship. Even though they weren’t intact, pieces of them were already 1/4 the size of the whole battleship. In other words, the collider would be larger than the Hope itself! It was preposterous!

  In any case, the junkyard had supplied the Hope with more than enough supplies, and it was finally time to bid it farewell. At the late evening of the fateful day, many gathered by the window, looking at the junkyard, praying. There were tears because this was the graveyard for their many families and friends.

  Then, space warps… Coordination, the nearest space body to the Hope was about 40 light-years away… Coordination, 20 light-years… Coordination, 26 light-years… Coordination, 9 light-years… Coordination, not in any galaxy… The external cabin came in and out of the Hope as it warped, and because the Hope could warp more than 10,000 times and could survive for more than 1,000 years without stopping, they only stopped for 1 day after every warp for the purpose of cartography.

  Just like that, in 2 months alone, there were more than 60 warps… Staring at the game over screen of Starcraft 3, Xiao Niao sighed. "This is just ridiculous. Ever since we watched the
video on the destruction of the battleship fleet, this game has gotten more and more unreal for me."

  Qiu Qiu and Dan Dan beside him though were happily enjoying the game. Qiu Qiu even reprimanded him, "Why are you being so serious? This is just a game after all. Plus, if you put the events from that video in this game, wouldn’t that make this even more unreal? Reality’s often stranger than fiction, man."

  Xiao Niao sighed audibly. "It is unreal, alright. No one expected a robot, an incredibly powerful one at that. It was not even a war. It took the robot less than an hour to completely wipe out a civilization."

  While munching on a bag of chips, Dan Dan asked, "Now that you mention it, why is the presence of a robot such a surprise? You, the scientists, and even the captain seemed so taken aback when the thing changed into a robot. But shouldn’t that be expected? All of the greatest weapons in movies and anime are robots."

  "…It’s improbable." Xiao Niao continued, with obvious frustration, "First of all, shapes or forms have no meaning in a vacuum. There is not air or gravitational resistance, so the technology can take on any shapes it wants. With their technology, this civilization could very well not design a humanoid robot, and in fact, just a sphere might even be better. Think about it, which would fare better in space combat, a ball or a robot? A ball has a smaller size and can fire out bullets from all sides. A humanoid robot, on the other hand, would be hampered by its two hands because that would be where the weaponry was concentrated. You could argue that it could open up its body to reveal more weapons, but in that case, what’s its difference from a ball? Why go through the added trouble?"

  Qiu Qiu thought and retorted, "You mentioned arms, right? That gives the robot an upper hand in close combat."

  Xiao Niao snorted. "Based on the aliens’ technology, if they had gone with a sphere, the sphere could have easily extended into multiple arms. Who would have the upper hand in close combat then? If you’re thinking the humanoid robot is meant for ground combat where gravity plays a role, then wouldn’t a spidery robot makes more sense? Or one of those that have a track frame. No matter how you see it, a humanoid robot is not the best choice for a combative role.

  Finally, let’s just say the race is particular about the humanoid shape, they’re in love with it, but they still need to consider the most crucial element: its control system."

  Xiao Niao paused to look his friends in their eyes. "You 2 are also Homo Evolutis. Let me ask you a question: when you first piloted the Space Combat Jet, didn’t it feel like it was a bit hard to control?"

  After the pair nodded, Xiao Niao quickly added, "That’s right. Now a humanoid robot is more than controlling its direction and weapons, the pilot has to take care of its 4 appendages and so much more. Do you think a simple combat stick could manage so many nuances? And let’s say it can; does mankind have such perfect hand-eye coordination to master it? The answer is a big no! On the battlefield, a misstep could mean death! So it is highly improbable that a humanoid robot would appear in space combat."

  His friends were speechless, overwhelmed by his argument, but after some time, Qiu Qiu asked, "Then why did that civilization go with a humanoid robot? Could it be a pilotless AI?"

  "…A cybernetic cerebral linking matrix."

  Suddenly, this phrase appeared on the trio’s pc screens. Unbeknownst to them, the player ZERO had entered their server, and it was ZERO that had sent over this phrase.

  Xiao Niao turned his body around to peer out of their private room before replying, "Please, Noob, this is not something to joke about. What cybernetic cerebral linking matrix? You’ve watched too much sci-fi."

  "I’m not a noob, and my answer is correct. Might I add, the Zerg is not correctly portrayed by this game!"

  Xiao Niao laughed insolently. His mean streak surfacing, he typed, "Then, Noob, what is the real Zerg like?"

  "…To be precise, the Zerg should be called a genetically stress-mutated alien race, a race without a fixed set of DNA, a group of hive-like organisms that are formed by an accumulation of bacteria. The whole race shares a unified purpose, and they are the second greediest race in the cosmos. Their current technology level is unknown, but based on their growth rate and ability to absorb technology, the safest extrapolation puts them at the rank of a Level 9 civilization…"

  Xiao Niao laughed even louder, inputting his retort before ZERO could finish typing. "Hey, Noob, it’s time for your medicine."

  "…What medicine?"

  "Your mental medicine of course, LOL"

  "…I swear I’ll let you witness this Zerg with your own eyes… And I’m not a noob! I’m not on mental meds!"

  After that, ZERO disconnected…

  -------

  Please visit www.webnovel.com to read advanced chapters!

  Chapter140 Underground

  Of course, Xiao Niao didn’t think much of ZERO and his so-called promise. He spent the few days after the encounter playing or training.

  The Hope was starting another warp on the 5th day after the weird encounter. Space-warping had lost its novelty though because the Hope had been through it literally hundreds of times. The initial worry that everyone seemed to struggle with was gone. Even if the warp was to cause their deaths, like, for example, warping into a black hole, the Hope would see its end in a matter of seconds, and since there was nothing they could do to prevent that from coming, worrying about it would be futile.

  Just like that, everyone carried on with their lives like normal, and sometimes normalcy was all a civilization could pray for. With the introduction of new agricultural and farming technologies, for the first time, there was a surplus of food items on the market. These sort of things might seem negligible, but they actually have a deep impact on the citizen’s morale. For example, the doomsday rumors had stopped completely.

  During this new warp… the Hope was suddenly shaken by a huge tremor. Things toppled over and they included important lab apparatuses. Thankfully, it was approaching dusk when this happened, so the amount of labs still working and thus seriously affected was small. Regardless, thanks to the store of flammable materials stored in most labs, many labs burst into flames, drowning the Academy in a cacophony of sirens.

  The 4 levels below the Academy were equally chaotic. No one truly knew what was happening, but everyone found it difficult to be calm, because such a violent quake hadn’t followed a space warp before. Many naturally turned to the worst scenario possible.

  And the fear spread from one to another like a disease.

  Yao Yuan was in central command when the quake hit. People fell alongside the non-stationery items, crashing into one another. Yao Yuan was the first to stand up, yelling, "Activate the supermagnetic radar, and I want a damage report on the Hope, stat. What’s happening?!"

  He looked outside the window, and it was a world of darkness. However, it was not the heavy darkness like the one associated with space, but darkness with a brown, gradient-like… soil?

  Before Yao Yuan could make heads or tails of it, the radar had completed its initial sweep, and a 3-D image was projected in the room.

  On the image, a long, box-shaped spaceship was stuck in the middle of a rock layer. This rock layer was incredibly compact, as there were few observable cracks. Zooming in, it appeared like… the Hope was stuck in the underground of a terrestrial planet!

  "…We’ve warped into the middle of a planet? Then how are we still alive?" a shocked Yao Yuan asked around, but none could give him an answer.

  At around 8 PM, Yao Yuan arrived at a conference room where many related personnel had already gathered. Without wasting any time, Yao Yuan strode to the podium and began, "I’m sure everyone has already familiarized themselves with the situation. It would appear that the Hope has again found itself in a troubled position. We’ve warped into the underground of a terrestrial planet. According to the reports by the geologists, this rock layer doesn’t show any indication of it being hollow prior to the Hope’s arrival, but for
some reason a space that perfectly matches the Hope's shape was taken out just before we appeared here. You’ve heard right, the perfect size, the Hope fits into this cavity perfectly, with zero budging space!"

  Right then, the 3D image appeared behind Yao Yuan. It certified what Yao Yuan was saying.

  "I want to know why, two whys to be precise. First, why are we still alive? According to the warnings from the Academy, if we warped into a solid object, there could be complications within the molecular structure, so why hadn’t that happened? Secondly, the Academy told me we can’t warp right now. Why is that so?"

  Yao Yuan then looked down the stage, waiting for people to answer.

  Then someone pressed the ‘speech’ button, wishing to speak. "Captain, I believe I can answer the first question. First, we have to realize that the Hope’s space-warping technology is a future-tech that we still don’t fully understand yet. Unlike wormholes or star gates, it’s a technology that is conceptually different… The opinion of my team is that during the process, there’s a matter displacement of some sort. In other words, if we’re warping from spot A, the original matter at spot B, no matter what it is, will be displaced to Spot A. That’s the only logical explanation as to why we’re still alive even though we should theoretically be crushed within the rock layer."

  Yao Yuan nodded. "I understand that there needs to be more breakthroughs in the school of physics before this question can be fully answered, but your explanation does sound valid. Then, what about question 2? Why can’t we warp again? Do you know how deep into the ground the Hope is now? Based on the radar sweep, we’re 4,000 meters underground. This means that to surface, we’ll need to dig a several dozen thousand by 4,000 meters hole!

  "The crust of this planet consists of mostly rock layers, and near the surface, clay and soil. Even with the aid of the engineering and worker robots, we would need at least a year of digging to get to the surface. And let’s not forget about the danger of collapse! We’re not lacking in supplies, so I’d rather miss out the opportunity of an adventure or surveillance than let any unnecessary harm come to the Hope!"