Age of Cosmic Exploration, 4

by Zhttty

  The expert continued, "Because of this, our soldiers need to have a better response system and dynamic vision. This will help increase their combat capability by increasing the chance to inflict critical hits on their enemies as well as to evade enemy attacks. This new vaccine enables our bodies to naturally produce Component X, and the only negative effect observable so far is longer fatigue and increased appetite.

  "Therefore, our team’s plan is to use the new cocktail to induce an evolution in our soldiers’ bodies. When combat reaches its height, a shot of harmless bacteria and nutrients can be used as a trigger. This way it acts as a drug. Granted their prowess won’t be as powerful as the troopers’, at least that will put them at a more level playing field. Yes, there is the fatigue to contend with, but our team feels that overall it is a worthy price to pay!"

  After the expert descended from the stage, Guang Zhen took his spot. He began, "I have something to add to this. First, it is undeniable that the Black Star Troopers are incredibly strong, but we have so few of them. After this war with the flesh alien, we’ve lost about 30 of them. That is not a small number for a unit that totals at just over 100 members. Let’s not forget that this is just one war. If this continues, we’ll be shutting down the entire Black Star Troopers unit pretty soon.

  Therefore, I agree with the need to improve our soldiers’ physical attributes. Future warfare will be centered on close quarter combat, as the expert before me just explained. Other than the improvement in weapons technology and grounds transports that we’ve discussed, I truly believe it is time to initiate the bionic project."

  As the Hope’s second-in-command, Guang Zhen’s words carried more weight than the expert’s. Even Yao Yuan had to consider what he had to say.

  Yao Yuan took the podium after Guang Zhen. He said, "I believe everyone here has a report on the bionic project. I’ll be honest, ever since the inception of Homo Evolutis Faction, we have been working on research that investigate why and how a common person turns into a Homo Evolutis, but with our current technological level, the research has hit a wall at every turn. The only success we have so far is the identification of Component X that appears within the Homo Evolutis’ bloodstream whenever they activate their power.

  "First, even though there are now 20 plus successful examples of inducing an evolution in our immune system with a cocktail of Formula X and Saburo’s ultimate vaccine, it is worth noting that all these success stories are about the Homo Evolutis. They already had Component X in their systems to begin with."

  Yao Yuan’s tone got serious as he continued, "Before this, the researchers from Homo Evolutis Faction tried experimenting this Formula X on animals, and there hasn’t been a single survivor, so they have come up with a hypothesis…

  "Could it be that non-Homo Evolutis can’t support Formula X? Therefore, even though the bionic project is incredibly alluring, the fatalities that it could cause might be greater than what anyone of us here could have predicted. I dare say a 100 percent fatality rate is not impossible, so I have to announce that…

  "Until the safety of the project is ascertained, the bionic project will be indefinitely delayed. Dismissed!"

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  Chapter180 The Confinement Order and Logging Order

  It had been a month since the war with the mother nest…

  In the past month, news was sent through either Hope Weekly, the Barracks, or the government bodies to the general public. The civilians finally knew of the danger they had been in, the underground death trap, the sea of fleshy monsters, and the threat of the mother nest. Even though the war was officially over, news of such dangers still brought fear into people’s hearts.

  More names were added to the Remembrance Hall, and the fear slowly dissipated in the past month. Now it was completely replaced by an excitement to see the planet outside of the Hope!

  Currently, the Hope was suspended at a spot 3,000 meters above the hole it was once in. The scenery wasn’t entirely inviting since the place had suffered 3 alien monster assaults. The area had the highest monster body count and was covered with broken body parts. It was one of the main focuses for the Hope’s cleaning efforts.

  The defense unit was split into 6 squadrons, each with 500 people for the cleaning purposes. The workload couldn’t be considered heavy because their daily working hours only lasted for 8 hours. The biggest pressure came from the possibility of ambush by surviving monsters. After all, the defense unit wasn’t good at close quarters combat. One or two surviving monsters might tear through their ranks if they were not careful.

  That was why their squadrons worked in rotations. Some rested while other worked. This way they could keep an eye out for each other.

  Of course, these were not the concerns of the citizens. They were only interested in when could they take the transport shuttle to the ground.

  The desire to see the blue sky and touch the green grass was palpable!

  Everyone knew there was bound to be danger waiting for them since this was, after all, an unfamiliar alien planet. Nobody knew what kind of dangerous animals might be lying in wait for them. A cute rabbit-type critter might kill with its hidden fangs. One simply couldn’t be too careful.

  However, these possible threats paled in comparison to the people’s desire for a new home planet. Some of the more hot-blooded youths had even formed crews among themselves, petitioning the Hope to allow them to survey the area around the ship. They wanted to document the scenery because they detailed an important part of human history. At the same time, they could find out more about the planet’s unique ecosystem, like documentation of its herbivores and carnivores as well as edible flora, like roots, leaves, fungi, or even herbs. Chinese legends said consumption of certain herbs could allow one to fly above the sky. Who knows, maybe there were such plants on this planet. Anything was possible in the great cosmos.

  In conclusion, there were great expectations for this planet. With the passage of time and the signs of enemies decreasing, even though they knew that the planet’s native life forms might still posed their unique dangers, the public was restless and eager to get down to the planet's surface.

  However, with such demands, the government had more things to worry about.

  First and foremost, how to ensure the civilians’ safety if they were allowed down to the planet. The obvious danger of the straggling monsters aside, there were the planet’s native flora and fauna to contend with. There were simply too many unknowns. Would the animals be harmless or harmful to human presence? Nobody could tell for sure. And who was to say the plants wouldn’t pose some sort of danger? Even Earth had rumors of man-eating plants, much less an alien planet. Yao Yuan himself had run into a species of vampiric vines that was native to the tropical rainforest. Thankfully, he reacted quickly then, or else there wouldn’t be a Hope today.

  To conclude, carelessness could spell doom when venturing into a new environment. The Hope was already lacking in military number. Yao Yuan went as far as considering sending out the recovering troopers into the field. That spoke volumes of how much Yao Yuan was in need of capable men.

  If he allowed the civilians passage to the new planet, should they be escorted by the military? If not, who would be responsible if something were to go wrong? He was sure the blame would fall on him, the captain of the ship.

  On the other hand, if he were to allow military escorts? How big would the unit be? Several hundred or thousands? Currently, the Hope had about 100,000 in population, and the number would increase to over 170,000 if adding in the children that were less than 4 years old. Allowing one group of civilians to visit the planet would lead to another demanding the same treatment. Allowing only a section of the people to leave couldn’t possibly work because it would lead to libelous rumors against the government, citing favoritism.

  Therefore, even though Yao Yuan understood the public’s desire to descend onto the new planet, he maintained his
stance that only military personnel were allowed to go outside of the Hope.

  Nonetheless, he was quickly faced with another problem… The Academy too demanded access to the new planet.

  The Academy’s request was harder to deny because the reasons behind their demand were valid. They wanted to carry out experiments and analyses on the new planet. Things like the planet’s mineral composition, and the intricacies of the planet’s food webs couldn’t be revealed by the Hope’s scanning devices. That was why the researchers hoped to continue the previously halted sampling process. Ivan himself had handed in 3 requests. This was, after all, his area of interest, a new ecosystem to analyze and study.

  Demands from the Academy and the public found support in each other and grew louder as the days went by.

  Simultaneously, reports from the defense unit who had been on the ground came trickling back. First was an update on the cleaning mission. After a month, all of the carcasses in a 300 meter radius around the Hope had been cleaned. They needed to expand their perimeter.

  However, they stumbled into a problem. A lush and wide jungle terrain stood in their way. In reality, the planet had a warm and wet atmosphere that was perfect for forest growth. 60 percent of the planet was jungle, and they were separated by the occasional grasslands and deserts.

  This was, of course, a good thing, for it meant a wealth of natural resources. However, it had proven to be a headache-inducing problem when they were hunting down the monsters.

  The defense unit consisted of normal human beings with military training. Their speed couldn’t catch up to the monsters’ enhanced mobility. They could stand a chance in the open grasslands, but jungles provided cover for the monsters to ambush the defense unit.

  Because of this, the cleaning mission was halted. After an emergency meeting, the Barracks came up with a solution, and that was dispatch low-flying modified shuttles to first scan the jungle area. Cleaning efforts would be focused on spots where signs of large animal presence or alien monster-like presence were picked up.

  The military still couldn’t wander aimlessly into the jungle, so in total, Yao Yuan released 2 orders. They were the Confinement Order and Logging Order.

  The Confinement Order was jointly released by the government and the Barracks. It required non-military personnel to ask for clearance before stepping out of the Hope. Failure to obey the order would result in detention under the crime of actively harming human survival since the person would bring the planet’s viruses back to the Hope. If convicted, the guilty party would serve 3 to 5 years in prison. For serious offenders, the sentence could be increased to 10 years!

  The Logging Order, even though it was a military order, due to its sensitive nature, was released through the Hope Weekly. It allowed the clean-up crew to commit deforestation whenever the sensor picked up suspicious activities of possible monster stragglers. The range of actions permitted included burning less than 10 acres of forest land, infinite logging, and killing of any wildlife…

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  Chapter181 A Secret Meeting

  "Yao Yuan, I heard you’re leaving the Hope for a mission."

  This was the second day after Yao Yuan released his two orders, and he sat in command central waiting patiently to be peppered with opinions and criticism. However, he didn’t expect the first one to visit him to be Qi Xiao Niao.

  Yao Yuan frowned and said, "You heard wrong. I’m the captain, why would I assign myself an outstation mission? I need to be here to keep the ship afloat and the government running."

  "Huh? Really?" Xiao Niao said in an excessively surprised tone. "But don’t you need to evade the crowd for a while after the release of the Containment Order and Logging Order? Aren’t you afraid the parties that want to get down to the surface and the nature lovers are going to crowd your office and question your decision? What do you say, shall we go down there for a temporary reprieve?"

  Yao Yuan’s frown deepened as he activated his Thinker power. He tried to tease out the underlying meaning in what Xiao Niao was saying.

  For one, Xiao Niao was personally present when they were discussing the release of those 2 orders. He should understand that the release was necessary to protect humanity from the dangers of their human desire. With Xiao Niao’s brilliance, he should know as much.

  For another, even though Yao Yuan would be annoyed by those parties that would come bearing opinions and criticisms, he wished to meet them. He preferred to discuss his decision with these parties face-to-face to calm and inform them instead of allowing them to spread false rumors around the ship. As the captain, how could he have escaped due to fear of criticism? Where was he going to put his face then?

  However, since Xiao Niao had purposely come to say such things, he must have something else in mind. As one of the only two Thinkers on the Hope, he couldn’t not see the two orders’ actual purpose. He must have been vying for another angle, but what could it be?

  Is it…

  Yao Yuan asked suddenly, "Why? Do you intend to follow me if I go on this reprieve?"

  Xiao Niao snickered and said, "Of course. I too have the desire to see the blue sky, green grass, and plants. Instead of going on some mission, I’d rather follow you on a holiday."

  Yao Yuan thought about it before adding with a nod, "Alright, we’ll go on this ‘holiday’ as you call it, but to be sure, I want you to go for a body check. There’s no medical help out there if you suddenly fall sick."

  Xiao Niao laughed as he pulled out a medical report from his coat. "I’ve predicted as much. Since we’re going on a holiday, there has to be a body check, so here you go. As you can see, I’m not down with any ‘virus.’"

  Yao Yuan read the report wordlessly. He focused on the part about Xiao Niao’s genetic mapping. The report was signed by Ivan and a few other scientists. Xiao Niao was clean as a whistle.

  (It is as I’ve expected, he has some secret that he wants to tell me, something that can’t be revealed while we’re on the Hope. Since the report states clearly that he’s not under the control of some alien monster… Fine, he probably has something important to say.)

  Yao Yuan thought about it some more. Currently, the Hope was running along just fine, there were no reports of emergency disasters, and Guang Zhen had a good hand over the military. The cleaning crews were going through the motions, and the Hall of Communications was handling the administrative part of the government well. It was absolutely fine for him to excuse himself for a few hours, even though it might disappoint the few parties that wanted to meet him to discuss the 2 orders. Yao Yuan laughed, thinking they would end up believing he was running because he was too afraid to meet them in person.

  The two of them moved to the hangar and put on their space armor. After Yao Yuan put on his red space armor, Xiao Niao said, "How about we take one of the newer transport shuttles? They are the updated models that haven’t been field tested yet. We can take one and kill two birds with one stone."

  Yao Yuan frowned and his brain started churning, but he didn’t voice his thoughts out loud. He merely nodded. He noticed that unlike him, Xiao Niao hadn’t reached for his weapons or gear, and it didn’t appear like he was going to do so. "That’s not a bad idea. Wait here, I’ll go fill in the required forms."

  With Yao Yuan piloting, the pair left the Hope in the biggest transport shuttle the ship had. It moved further and further away from the Hope until the blue sea came into their view. Yao Yuan landed the shuttle on an isolated stretch of the beach and stared intently at Xiao Niao.

  To his surprise, Xiao Niao said, "Aren’t you going to activate the creator’s particles generator? Aren’t you afraid those people are able to locate you? In the meantime, I’m going to go for a stroll. I wonder if this planet has crustaceans, like crabs."

  Without waiting for a response, Xiao Niao strode towards the exit.

  Yao Yuan took the hint and activated the shuttle’s creator’s particle genera
tor. The shuttle was a new model and was still in need of modifications. It was more of an armored shuttle than a transport shuttle. It had a built-in creator’s particle generator and a small polymerized reactor.

  After Yao Yuan descended from the shuttle, he realized that Xiao Niao had wandered outside of the 100 meter range that was unaffected by the creator’s particle. He walked to him wordlessly until he was within 1 meter of Xiao Niao. Only then did he ask, "Get on with it; what is it that made you act so weirdly? Could it be that you feel you’re being monitored on the Hope?"

  Xiao Niao checked his status using his space armor, and after he made certain that they were in the creator’s particle coverage, he admitted, "I am… no, we are being monitored, but I’m not sure who or what is doing the monitoring."

  Yao Yuan frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"

  Xiao Niao structured his thoughts and explained, "I’ll reveal everything to you in detail. It started way before you realized I was a Homo Evolutis. That day me, Qiu Qiu, and Dan Dan were playing a game of Star Craft 3 in the internet café when…"

  Xiao Niao spoke at length until he concluded, "I have no idea what this is ZERO. To be honest, I thought she was just a random troll before this war we had with the mother nest. After all, what she was saying was simply impossible.

  "However, she made true to her words, and we did stumble into a Zerg-like alien. It is impossible to tell whether this mother nest and the Zerg were one and the same, but you have to admit that their unique characteristics were way too similar. Even my latest conversation with ZERO proved that ZERO herself believed the mother nest was the Zerg. Can you believe this was all a coincidence? Or to put it another way, do you think a random nobody could make something that was obviously said in frustration a reality?"