Age of Cosmic Exploration, 3

by Zhttty

  "One has to wonder… what does that make mankind? An existence that’s inferior to a bug… so, bacteria?"

  His face reddening, Yao Yuan continued agitatedly, "The Hope has been incredibly lucky so far. We’ve managed to escape certain death on Planet Sahara, and not only that, managed to secure benefits in the form of the alien plant and development of the crystal reactors and supplies from all the space mining. But it is foolish to expect this streak of good luck to last. The Hope as a whole needs to be better prepared and equipped. For that, we need technology!

  "Yes, the cosmos is a harsh place, and I’m sure it’ll have many nasty surprises lying in wait for us, but we shan’t quiver in cowardice, because mankind is the most innovative, resilient, and favorable of all intelligent lifeforms!"

  Yao Yuan looked Ren Tao squarely in his eyes. "I know how much danger I’m undertaking with my upcoming plans. Like you said, it could lead to the downfall of humanity, but it is a step that I’m forced to and willing to take. We can’t always depend on luck, so this time, I’m taking matters into our own hands… Both you and Chou Yue have the freedom to opt out of the upcoming missions, but I’m not ashamed to say we truly need your powerful mind…"

  Yao Yuan turned to head towards the captain’s room with the rest of his Black Star comrades falling into his footsteps. His parting words were, "My mind’s made up. Before the mission begins, I will give an order to the Hope’s officials that will allow them to abandon the troop and warp if the ship comes under any form of a threat.

  "…Of course, as the one responsible for leading the troop, I will gladly make a last stand with the troop and proudly lay down my life alongside my friends and comrades!"

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  Chapter119 Space Troopers

  "For the 300 candidates, they need to be physically fit and have combat experience, but it’s preferable that they have a good sense of direction as well. That is what I’ve learned from our previous mission."

  This was 3 days after the war room meeting. Yao Yuan and Guang Zhen were sitting in the captain’s room, flipping over the Hope’s military files. Their first draft of selection contained 800 people, and even though the 800 selected were experienced soldiers, Yao Yuan’s frown deepened as they went deeper into the pile.

  Guang Zhen argued, "Couldn’t we rely on intense training? How about former air force… Then again, the Hope doesn’t have many of those to begin with."

  Yao Yuan sighed. "I suppose it’ll have to be that way. How about this, we’ll ask the Workshop to build us a space-combat simulator inside a faux shuttle cabin to test these people’s power of adaptation to combat in space… All the Homo Evolutis will have to join, the Whisperers and Thinker included."

  Guang Zhen stopped short of his work. "Do you mean to bring them to the battlefield? Ol’ Wong, this is unadvisable. The Academy is highly protective of Bo Li and Ivan. I swear to God, they will go on a strike if you actively put them in harm’s way!"

  "Don’t worry. This is just for the simulator. I want to test Ivan’s theory that Homo Evolutis is a result of mankind adapting to the space environment. I feel there might be more than a grain of truth in his hypothesis. Actually, in that case, arrange for all the Virus X survivors to take part in the simulation as well."

  The simulation was carried out 1 week later, and of the 800 first draft candidates, only 106 people passed, while all but 1 Virus X survivors passed the test. That person was… Qi Xiao Niao.

  "You idiots! Have you two lost your minds or do you really want to join the army? Didn’t I tell you to fake failure beforehand?" Xiao Niao lectured Dan Dan and Qiu Qiu.

  Chewing a piece of tomato, Dan Dan retorted smugly, "But it is simply too simple. Who knew I had the potential to be in the air force? All they wanted me to do was to use my eyes to follow a small, red dot. It’s not my fault that I managed to locate it every time even though it moved really fast across the 3d screen."

  "Will you stop eating!?" an angry Xiao Niao howled. "All you do is sit on your ass every day and eat! We already know we are Homo Evolutis! I’m a Thinker, Qiu Qiu is a Perceptor, and Dan Dan, you’re a Diviner. We’ve tested and confirmed that on our own! Now look at what you 2 have done! We’ll have to join that ridiculous Homo Evolutis Faction and be experimented on for the rest of our lives!"

  Finally aware of their mistake, Qiu Qiu coughed and added, in way of reconciliation, "We tried our best to fail, but our eyes naturally moved to follow the red dot. It’s like our sight was glued to it… We’re very sorry, Xiao Niao."

  Xiao Niao slumped to his bed listlessly and uttered, "I know, I know… Even I myself almost trailed after the red dot involuntarily. It was as if we were forced to follow that dot… Damn it! Betrayed by our own instinct!"

  In the captain’s room, Yao Yuan was reviewing the test results. It was fair to say he was appropriately surprised by them. The first surprise was that other than former air force soldiers, almost none of the military passed the exam. The second was the fact that all Virus X survivors, regardless of gender and age, sailed through the test!

  The last surprise was the presence of a sole failure among the Virus X survivors… Qi Xiao Niao.

  "To be honest, you’re tripped by your own careful planning."

  Yao Yuan poured Xiao Niao a cup of tea and continued, "I bet you thought that most, if not all of, the Virus X survivors would fail the test, so to prevent yourself from standing out and thus being exposed as a Homo Evolutis, you would purposely fail to blend in with the rest, right?"

  Xiao Niao picked up the cup and spun it carefully in his hands before laying it down without taking a sip. He then laughed bitterly to himself. "Indeed, I didn’t account for mankind’s instinct to be so visceral that we would involuntarily followed the red dot. You’re right. I was caught by my own careful planning."

  Yao Yuan smiled. "So… that would make you a Thinker? To my knowledge, only the Thinker can access a multi-lineal thinking strategy to conduct multi-directional deduction. If you activate your power during the test, that’ll definitely help you overcome your base instinct."

  Xiao Niao nodded. "I realized I might have fallen into a trap halfway through the test, but it was already too late, so I figured why not go for bust? If I had known everyone else would pass the test, I swear to you I would not have failed no matter what."

  Xiao Niao hung his head in defeat, but on the opposite end of the table, Yao Yuan could barely contain his smile. Now that Ren Tao had expressed his intention to bow out, God decided to present him with a replacement… he couldn’t believe his luck!

  "I’ll cut you a deal. The 3 of you will keep your hold over the news agency’s share, but in exchange, you’ll join the Homo Evolutis Faction. Nevertheless, before that, I want to correct your misconception about it. This faction is not some genetics lab. Its main purpose is to learn more about the Homo Evolutis powers and, more importantly, their side effects. In fact, I myself am one of them, so to speak, test subjects," Yao Yuan said jokingly.

  Yao Yuan might call it a deal, but Xiao Niao knew this wasn’t something that he could negotiate or weasel out of. His status as a Homo Evolutis was exposed during the test and, based on his captain’s past actions and policies, Xiao Niao knew this was not a simpleton that he could swindle with his words.

  Therefore, he stood up and declared, "I understand. I will join the faction…" Then, he turned to leave the room.

  Yao Yuan called after him though. "Not so fast! You’ll not only join the Homo Evolutis faction, but also the military. And this includes your 2 friends. However, I promise I won't send you blindly into your grave… but if that were to occur, I’d be the one leading the charge."

  Xiao Niao sighed. "I’d rather it not come to that, because if you die, the Hope will most likely follow in your footsteps. You might not have realized it, but you’ve grown to become a symbol that’s more meaningful than this ship’s captain, yo
u’ve become its religion… or rather, the spiritual anchorage of its people."

  Xiao Niao shut the door behind him, leaving behind Yao Yuan, who was stunned into speechlessness.

  It wasn't until Barbie knocked on the door and walked in that he recovered and asked, "Yes?"

  Barbie pointed at her watch, "Captain, it’s 2 in the afternoon. You have a meeting to attend at the House of Representative on the definition of crimes against humanity. There will be reporters there, and the meeting will be broadcast live across the Hope. You haven’t forgotten about it, have you?"

  Yao Yuan leaped off his seat and shrugged into his general’s suit. He then hopped onto the electromobile waiting outside the room, and when Barbie sat down beside him, he asked, "Barbie, let me ask you a question. What will you do if I die?"

  Barbie was first shocked by the morbid question, but she quickly blushed. Turning her face away from Yao Yuan, she mumbled, "I’ll most probably cry because the ship has lost a good captain… But, I have to ask, do you always tease your secretaries like this, captain?"

  This time it was Yao Yuan’s turn to be shocked. He was quick to realize how easily his question could be misinterpreted. Believing that explanation would only make the situation worse, he laughed it off and turned to look out the window.

  (Is mankind’s faith so malleable? Perhaps solving the multiple tragedies the Hope has faced in space has nurtured their spiritual reliance in me… I can’t believe I didn’t notice that earlier.) Looking back, he realized that those weird rumors and cultish behaviors that had troubled Guang Zhen greatly had disappeared or gone stagnant right after he woke up and assumed control over the Hope again.

  With Yao Yuan back at the helm, life on the Hope gradually returned to its optimal pace. 30 days later, the Hope’s first space army unit was finally ready. It included all of the Black Star members and 6 new Homo Evolutis: Xiao Niao, Qiu Qiu, Dan Dan, Ming Ji Jie, and 2 others.

  As fate would have it, this Ji Jie was incidentally the nurse who was responsible for looking after Yao Yuan after his return from the warship husk. She was a Virus X survivor and now a confirmed perceptor.

  "…With this, I declare the formation of the Hope’s first unit of space troopers!"

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  Chapter120 6 Months

  6 months had passed since the formation of the Hope’s first space troopers. The year was December of 0001 according to Hope Calendar. This meant that mankind’s life in space was reaching its second year.

  The first half of the 6 months was mostly dedicated to space combat training. Other than physical training, a majority of the regime was designed to familiarize the troop with combat in zero-gravity environment.

  This was because unlike combat on Earth or solid ground, combat in space was multi-dimensional. Guang Zhen had described it as air-combat, but it was, in reality, more complicated than that. At least there was a general sense of up-or-down in aerial combat, a luxury that was conspicuously missing in space.

  Furthermore, common directives, like the 4 poles, were also useless in space because conventional signs, like the constellations or the sun, were sorely missing.

  However, a sense of direction and, more importantly, a common frame of reference was crucial to paired or group skirmishes during space warfare. There was no obvious solution unless one was to consider the Homo Evolutis’ innate ability.

  All of the Homo Evolutis appeared to have some sort of inner compass that allowed them to easily and quickly ascertain the necessary target even in directionless space.

  Therefore, to solve the general issue of disorientation, Yao Yuan had to assign each Homo Evolutis as a unit leader. Using one another as points of reference, Yao Yuan managed to devise a set of unique coordinates.

  Of course, one needed more than just practice to truly master this rudimentary coordination system. It fell on the unit leaders’ hands to not only efficiently cooperate and fully understand each other, but also instantly digest and process geological coordinates to correctly lead their team.

  Yao Yuan was worried this might prove to be too much of a hurdle for the Homo Evolutis, but his worry was ultimately unfounded. The Homo Evolutis turned out to be spatially-gifted, but whether that was caused by that their superhuman power remained unknown. Nevertheless, with this talent, the unit leaders mastered the coordination system with less than a month’s training.

  In comparison, the other soldiers took more than 3 months to merely have an adequate grasp of it… After that was the space artillery training. The recruits were asked to try out space-use rifles, sniper rifles, machine guns, explosives, and finally, the Gaussian guns.

  The recruits were not the only ones busy these 6 months. The researchers had also poured extra effort into the combat suit prototype. Modifications were added to the propeller system so that it could now last for 8 minutes. Its speed had gained a 0.2 percent increase, but regretfully, it still needed to exhaust its battery before it could be stopped or slowed down.

  Other than that, using the research on the robot parts, the Academy was able to fashion a new type of space-use ammo that could neutralize the recoil force. This ammo relied on an opposite particle flux created during bullet discharge to find a balance in force. This unique mechanic, when paired with the electro-magnetized bullets initially found on Earth, could cause devastating damage even if fired from a common space rifle.

  However, its damage was still lacking when compared to the Gaussian gun. Nevertheless, this also meant that they couldn’t solve the Gaussian gun’s recoil issue using this method… With all the training and research bustling about the Hope, the 6 months passed in a blink of an eye. By December of year 0001, all the training and equipment preparations had been completed. Now they only awaited Yao Yuan’s order before the venture into the junkyard would begin in earnest.

  "Gaussian gun prototype 2, a new transport shuttle, prototype 2 combat suit, anti-recoil ammunition, particle flux propeller system… Looks like war and conquest will always be mankind’s biggest scientific catalyst."

  Reading the data on his report, Guang Zhen sighed.

  Yao Yuan corrected him, "No, not war, but survival. The meaning of this so-called war is not for conquest but survival. As the saying goes, a cornered animal is a dangerous animal. So it is the same for the Hope; we are desperate to survive and thus, we are desperate to improve."

  Guang Zhen sighed once more, but he finally spoke his mind after a long pause. "Ol’ Cap’n, to be frank, I’m incredibly envious of the rest of you. Because I’m the only person in the Black Star Unit that’s not a Homo Evolutis, I’ve missed out on all the missions... Can I still call myself part of unit if this is the case?"

  Yao Yuan looked at his friend in silence. Finally, Yao Yuan broke the uncomfortable silence. "Ol’ Wong, your situation is not so bad. Think of it this way… There is a high possibility that you’ll be the last Black Star standing, so it’ll fall on your shoulders to rebuild the unit… Promise me that you’ll not let it die… This star needs to have its place in the cosmos!"

  The unexpected pun in his captain’s reply worked to lift Guang Zhen’s dampened spirit. He lifted his head and solemnly said, "Don’t you worry, Yao. I promise to keep not only the Black Star Unit, but also the Hope and humanity alive as long as I live… Your legacy will surely live on…" Uncomfortable with discussing such a mushy topic with his captain, Guang Zhen coughed. "Is the departure at 9 AM tomorrow?"

  "That’s right. The first space troopers will board transport shuttle 1 to the junkyard at 9 tomorrow. We’ll finish exploring the previous warship husk and then search and secure the one nearest to it. That’s the objectives of our first mission."

  The next day, 11 December 0001, the space troopers stood assembled at the shuttle hangar, inspecting their equipment and gadgets. Even though the unit consisted of only 301 people, it was the Hope's and mankind’s first large-scale operation. Ev
eryone fell hushed, pressured by the uncertainty of their future and the solemnity of the occasion.

  Yao Yuan could be found within the retinue of soldiers. It was 8:55 AM when he finished checking his spacesuit and arms, but the person he was waiting for still hadn’t arrived.

  "Did you guys see Ren Tao?" Yao Yuan asked of his Black Star comrades that had congregated around him.

  They shook their heads in return. It was Ebon who said, "I’m thankful that he’s not here. I’ve had it with that sissy. He and his sister are more burden than asset anyway. They’ll only bring shame to the military and Homo Evolutis name!"

  Yao Yuan gave a wry smile and added, "It’s alright. We each have our own goals to pursue in life. We can’t really fault them for not going on a suicide mission. Furthermore, we’ll need to leave some Homo Evolutis with Ol’ Wong in case anything happens to us. Not all superhuman abilities are useful on the battlefield. In the end, it’s also for the good of humanity, so… let them be.

  "We’ll start boarding now. Everyone, get on transport shuttle 1 while I alone shall pilot the shuttle. Over!"

  Following Yao Yuan’s order, each unit leader led their team onto the transport shuttle. Yao Yuan noticed a slight commotion among the troops and realized it was caused by the team led by his nurse, Ji Jie. The nonplussed nurse caught Yao Yuan’s eyes and stuck her tongue out at him before grabbing hold of the situation and continuing to lead her unit up the shuttle. Yao Yuan smiled in spite of himself.

  What Yao Yuan missed was the condescension and bloodlust that temporarily flashed across Ji Jie’s features after their little exchange… Finally, at 9 sharp, both shuttles left the Hope for the junkyard.

  Using the communicator, Yao Yuan maintained control over his troop through Ying.