Age of Cosmic Exploration, 3 Read online

  Yao Yuan looked at Guang Zhen seriously and said, "There can be no margin for error. We must give this mission our best shot. Only with the success of this mission will people stop turning to these cults, and without public support, they will eventually die out.

  "Ol’ Wong, I’ve made up my mind, so you can stop trying to persuade me now. If you really want to help, help me maintain the peace on the Hope after I’ve departed for the mission."

  Yao Yuan repeated the same speech to others that approached him with opposition. After several days of repetition, Yao Yuan finally convinced the ship that he was not going to back down from leading the party. Realizing his determination, the Hope shifted their effort to prepare for the worst.

  "When the Hope is 1,000 kilometers away from the junkyard, we will stop to release a fleet of upgraded, pilotless mining airships. We will control the airships to get close to the junkyard’s outer perimeter to see whether they’ll trigger any traps."

  In the Barracks’ war room, Yao Yuan elaborated as he pointed at the blackboard behind him using a cane.

  "If no danger is triggered, the upgraded shuttle will be used for us to get closer to the junkyard’s outer perimeter. This part of the operation will take about three days.

  "After the shuttle reaches the outer perimeter, we will once again control the airships to move closer to the area with giant, floating debris. With deliberate care, the airships will be used to gingerly bump against the debris to ensure that their weapon systems have been completely shut down. If this step is also successful, we will move on to the next course of action, which is the one that is most vital."

  Yao Yuan turned back from the board and looked at the ten something people gathered before him. "With me leading, the exploration party will enter this area to search for valuables to bring back to the Hope. Naturally, this mission will harbor all sorts of dangers, so while I’m gone, Guang Zhen will assume my position as captain of the Hope until my return.

  "This concludes the briefing for the junkyard scouting operation. The members of this mission are myself, Zhang Heng, Ying, Liu Bai, Lee, Ebon, Fei Biao (Black Star Member, Perceptor), Xie Xiao Yan (Black Star Member, Perceptor), Peng Huai Shi (Black Star Member, Perceptor), Wa Luo, Ren Tao, and Chou Yue.

  "Both Ren Tao and Chou Yue will be joining this mission as new military recruits in the ranks of Sergeant and as the Black Star Unit’s reserve members…

  "There are still four days until we reach our destination, so use the remaining time to train and rest adequately.

  "Dismissed."

  With that, Yao Yuan walked out of the war room.

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  Chapter103 Prep-Work

  Since Ren Tao and Chou Yue were siblings, they were given a shared residence. Due to limited housing on the Hope, this situation was unlikely to change at least until both of them were married.

  Nevertheless, since both were in their teenage years, there were bound to be inconveniences sharing one bathroom and bedroom, especially since they were siblings of opposite sex.

  Take showering for an example. Putting on clothes right after taking one was cumbersome because it trapped the moisture from the vapor within the clothing. It would be more comfortable if they could walk about naked or only wearing their bare necessities, but alas they weren’t living alone or in a romantic relationship. On this issue, Ren Tao had it easier because at least he could walk about bare-chested since he was a guy, but the same couldn’t be said for Chou Yue. One couldn’t expect a girl of her age to be able to go about her everyday activities in only her lingerie in front of her brother.

  Still, she was thankful that as inconvenient as it may be, she was sharing a living space with her adopted brother, the thought of having Ren Tao be some random stranger that she had to share lodging with brought upon some serious headaches.

  At the end of the day, the inconveniences aside, Chou Yue was glad for such an arrangement. The mundane frictions from living in close proximity had brought much joy to Chou Yue even though she wouldn’t admit it out loud. Sibling bickering provided her a semblance of normality in a life that otherwise sounded like sci-fi.

  Both Ren Tao and Chou Yue returned home straight after the mission operation briefing in the war room. After all, they were already exhausted from attending a whole day of training prior to the briefing. Furthermore, it was not like they had anywhere else to go to… With the exception of the biomes, which needed special clearance to enter, every corner on the Hope looked just about the same. If they wanted to stare at metallic walls, they might as well do it in the comfort of their own home.

  "Good god! Finally it’s over! Who knew military training could be so draining!?"

  Chou Yue exclaimed as she jumped onto a sofa bed the moment they stepped into the door. After rolling about in it for quite some time, she yawned satisfactorily.

  Ren Tao sat opposite her on a solitary sofa and groused, "Chou Yue, you’re messing up my bed. Go sleep in your own bed."

  Chou Yue turned to lie on her back and glanced haughtily at Ren Tao. "You dummy, it’s only 5 PM. What am I to do if I wake up at dawn tomorrow? Stare at the walls?"

  "Be my guest. Anyway, since we have three days of downtime starting tomorrow, you can sleep until noon if you want… I’m going to shower, so can you please prepare dinner in the mean time? I’m hungry." Ren Tao shrugged as he stood up.

  Chou Yue might seem like the bossy one in their relationship, but she was also the one who was responsible for housework like cleaning and cooking. If their schedule allowed it, Chou Yue would prepare meals herself because she knew Ren Tao preferred not to eat out.

  There was another reason why Chou Yue appreciated their living arrangement, and this could be seen from the fact that she started blushing after Ren Tao left to use the shower. Enveloped in the bed that still lingered with her adopted brother’s body aroma, she blushed even harder.

  (That dummy. We’ve been living under the same roof for almost six months now. How much longer is he going to wait?! He really is going to treat me like his actual sister if this continues. I can’t allow that to happen. If he’s not going to act, I suppose I’ll have to. Okay, I’m going to make him confess his feelings to me within the next three days!) When Ren Tao came out of the shower, he was immediately attracted to a sweet and sour fragrant in their room. Rushing to the kitchen, he saw Chou Yue making roux for a pan of sweet and sour sauce, while on the table sat a plate of fried pork ribs. He squealed excitedly, "We’re having sweet and sour pork today?! Yes! But why did you suddenly decide to make my favorite?"

  Chou Yue smiled coquettishly. "Well, it’s not common that we have off days. Plus, you have been going at it hard for the past few days. I figured a little reward is in order. Speaking of which, could you help me set up the table in the living room, dinner is almost ready."

  During dinner, Ren Tao immediately went for a piece of his favorite dish after a mouthful of rice. In between mouthfuls, he praised Chou Yue’s cooking effusively.

  "Is that true? Then please take some more." Chou Yue smiled brightly in reply. Happiness blossomed in her heart as she sat watching Ren Tao wolf down her cooking.

  After Ren Tao polished off half their dinner, Chou Yue asked sheepishly, "Ren Tao… We’ve spent the past few days training. It has been incredibly boring, so why don’t we go to the biomes for a change of scenery?"

  "The biomes? Tomorrow?" Ren Tao asked, surprised by the invitation.

  "Sure." Chou Yue giggled. "I’ve heard people say they have farms and petting zoos up there. We’ve not seen living animals and plants for such a long time. Let’s take a break and go there tomorrow."

  "Can’t."

  Ren Tao rejected the offer outright. Taking another piece of the meat, he elaborated, "I have to go see Bo Li tomorrow. This has been set this up since last week, so I’ll probably have to spend the next three days with her. Plus, since you’r
e a sergeant now, I’m sure you can get into the biomes without my help, so why don’t you go there on your own?"

  "Bo Li!?" Chou Yue said the woman’s name with gritted teeth. With an increasingly chilling voice, she added, "The hot scientist girl? 17 to 18 of age, small in build, cute face, the one people call stone-cold fox?"

  "Stone-cold fox?" Ren Tao repeated, chewing over the unfamiliar term. He then shook his head. "That I haven’t noticed. I suppose she is of a slight build, indeed she is smaller than you. Huh, I guess she’s even smaller than me."

  "I don’t need the details!" Chou Yue reared up in anger, swiped the rest of the dinner, and retreated back to her bedroom.

  "Wait, where are you taking the food? I’m still hungry," Ren Tao called after her.

  "Then go eat s**t! I’m taking back what’s mine… If you want some more, ask Bo Li to cook for you!" Chou Yue replied harshly before slamming the door in his face.

  Ren Tao sat looking at what remained of his dinner with a stunned expression. He finished what was left on his plate and said quietly, "What did I say to anger her this time? I mean, she is taller than me and Bo Li; I thought she would be happy by that compliment. She didn’t even give me the time to explain that it’s because of the upcoming mission that I’m meeting with Bo Li."

  Regardless, Ren Tao knew that he had pissed Chou Yue off, but he had no idea why… So, the day after that, he wandered over to Bo Li’s lab to discuss the equipment they needed to prepare for the mission.

  He stayed until almost noon. At the entrance to Bo Li’s lab, he crossed paths with Yao Yuan, to whom he merely nodded as acknowledgement. Passing Ren Tao, Yao Yuan arrived at Bo Li’s lab to find her submerged in a pool of sketches and blueprints.

  "Ren Tao wanted you to design some stuff for him?" Yao Yuan asked without preamble as he collected a stack of blueprints to study.

  Bo Li narrowed her eyes at Yao Yuan, annoyed at his brazenness before finally replying, "You’re right. He wanted me to design two things: a sturdy rappel belt and a frequency-stable communicator."

  "Looks like we have the same idea." Yao Yuan nodded. "I suspected him to be here because I saw his sister outside in T-shirt and jeans as well as a baseball cap. I almost didn’t recognize her. But back to business; I need you to finish designing and creating these two devices as soon as possible. We need at least 12 sets of them. Feel free to solicit help from other committees if that’s necessary."

  Bo Li nodded absently. She then walked past Yao Yuan to a metallic safe. After keying in the password, she retrieved a box and placed it before Yao Yuan.

  "This is the thing that I promised you," Bo Li said nonchalantly.

  Yao Yuan flicked open the box and nestled within was a weird-looking gun. Its barrel was way too long; it gave the impression that it came equipped a built-in silencer.

  Bo Li continued, in a measured voice, "This is a lightweight gun that can pierce through heavy armor. Gaussian pistol prototype 1…"

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  Chapter104 Aerospace Combat Suit Prototype 1

  The Gaussian gun felt hefty in Yao Yuan’s hand.

  Although, to be fair, what he held in his hand wasn’t actual Gaussian weaponry. Those were still impossible for man at the time to make. What he had was a simplified prototype.

  Actual Gaussian weaponry, or electromagnetic weaponry, destroys its target at the atomic level. Its projectiles create an electromagnetic vortex that disrupts atomic stability through the formation of bipolar magnetic fields.

  The Gaussian prototypes created by Bo Li’s lab were weak imitations. Using magnetic coils in the configuration of a linear motor, they formed accelerators that could shoot out projectiles at high velocity. The accumulative magnetic pulse formed by the succession of coils and small projectile mass added up to a high velocity bullet. Theoretically speaking, with the increase in voltage and decrease in projectile mass, the bullet could even reach light-speed!

  And the faster the projectile traveled, the greater the damage it could inflict. According to experiments done by Bo Li’s lab, the prototypes they had had a range of several tens of thousands meters. In other words, if its gunner had a good aim, he or she could incapacitate Earth’s hardest tank from tens of thousands meters away with just one shot.

  Needless to say, before it, even man’s sturdiest armor vest was as flimsy as paper.

  To conclude, even though the Gaussian weaponry created in Bo Li’s lab wasn’t at its optimum form, it could already deal immense damage to its target. That was the reason it was touted as the invention that would usher in the 4th industrial revolution!

  Before they venture into the junkyard, Yao Yuan took time to predict all possible dangers that they could encounter. The biggest possibility was the threat of automated defense robots, not unlike the ones found on the Hope.

  The reason for this assumption was the glowing bigger pieces floating among the sea of spaceship scraps. The fact that they still gave out a weak glow meant that they still contained energy, and it was not unlikely that this energy was strong enough to activate automated defenses. Based on the spaceship’s technological level, those defenses would either be a robot fleet or immobile turrets. Either way, it was going to be a challenge for the 12 unit party… Yao Yuan feared the gap in the technologies might be too big for them to overcome.

  Take for an example the best weaponry during the first industrial revolution, the flintlock. It was the best gun one could find at the time, but if faced with a gunner wielding even the worst rifle of the third industrial revolution, it would be nothing more than a piece of junk. That was the fear Yao Yuan had.

  The presence of Bo Li’s Gaussian gun was thus a calming salvo. Yao Yuan knew fights weren’t won by confidence and bravery alone. They needed actual firearms to back that up.

  "This firearm uses the most durable metal among all the special metals created by the alien plant. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about it clogging or exploding. The one aspect you need to worry about though is its energy preservation system…

  "I’ve used the superconductive metal to make the magnetic coils, but I still can’t find a good energy source. Several groups are working on a new battery design using the same superconductive metal, but there are still several technical issues we need to iron out. Give us another six months and I promise we can present to you the prototype 2," Bo Li concluded.

  But Yao Yuan knew they didn’t have another six months to wait. They were inching closer to their destination by the day; therefore, he holstered the Gaussian gun and left.

  "…Bo Li, thank you… for your recommendation of that rice cakes stall. They were indeed delicious," Yao Yuan said as he stepped out of the room.

  "Of course, you dummy… they are my recommendations after all…" Bo Li uttered after a while, surprised by the random comment.

  Yao Yuan’s next destination was supposed to be another science lab, but he believed the place would be deserted because it was lunch time, so he took a detour to the canteen.

  Yao Yuan finished his lunch hurriedly and arrived at the other lab at around 1 PM. This was the bionic new material lab hosted by Ivan.

  Yao Yuan feared he was too early because he hadn't spotted anyone on his way there. Therefore, it was to his surprise that he found Ivan busy arranging a huge stack of files on his table when he stepped into the lab.

  "Captain, I didn’t expect you to be here so soon. Sorry for the mess," said a flustered Ivan as he stood up to offer Yao Yuan a cup from the nearby dispenser.

  Yao Yuan smiled kindly in return. He held a secret admiration for Ivan, the Hope’s other whisperer, because not only did his brilliance save everyone on Planet Sahara, it was thanks to his chemical potion that the Hope would have access to the incredibly useful crystal reactors. This was not even mentioning the passion that he had shown when he used his life to protect the potion formula during the lab explosion. The fact t
hat Ivan was still working while everyone else was out for a break further increased the admiration Yao Yuan had for this young man. Yao Yuan found his dedication commendable.

  Yao Yuan accepted the water cup politely and smiled. "You don’t need to be so courteous, Dr. Ivan. It’s me who should be sorry for disturbing you. I heard from the patrols that you have been working late for the past month."

  Ivan smiled bashfully. "My working hours are normally that long, so the added hours are nothing… Plus, Captain, you don’t need to worry about that affecting my performance. As the whisperer, many times I will subconsciously enter a working state even without the need to memorize important details. The power has wired my brain that way. Nevertheless, it is also thanks to this power that we’re been able to finish creating these 12 new spacesuits within this past month."

  Ivan then walked to a door that sat at the end of his lab. He opened it to reveal 12 silver spacesuits. Based on touch alone, they appeared to be thinner than the spacesuits they currently had.

  "By mimicking the cellular arrangement of the alien plant, we are able to create this new spacesuit using the latest ceramic-embedding and nano-sewing technologies. This type of spacesuit is at least half the weight of our current one. Matter of fact, why don’t you give one a try, Captain?" Ivan retrieved a spacesuit from the closet and handed it gingerly to Yao Yuan.

  Because Yao Yuan had a part in the design of these spacesuits, he knew of their importance and worth. It had taken about six different scientific committees to produce these 12 spacesuits. The time, effort, and not to mention materials that were poured into just one of these spacesuits could buy a Boeing 747.

  The moment the spacesuit fell into Yao Yuan’s hands, he could instantly feel the difference in weight. Their current spacesuits, even though they were already one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century, weighed at about 40 kilograms each with the added accoutrements like liquid oxygen tank, communicator, and homeostatic systems.