Age of Cosmic Exploration, 4

by Zhttty

  Yao Yuan frowned and asked, "Do you mind if I ask what is this Star Craft 3? Is it a video game?"

  Xiao Niao rolled his eyes, but he still patiently explained the game, especially emphasizing on the Zerg, their image, and their unique combat system.

  "…Like I said, the Zerg in Star Craft 3 is an alien species that relies on absorbing genes from multiple species to evolve its own body to adapt to the space environment. Its battle mechanics is almost the same as the mother nest that we’ve countered, which is a heavy reliance on the advantage of numbers."

  "In other words, you suspect that this ZERO was behind our latest warp? She made us come into contact with the mother nest to prove to you that she is not a noob and that the actual Zerg exists in space?"

  Xiao Niao shrugged. "That is why we’re here. There is obviously something that I don’t know about the Hope. Do you know how much pressure I was under to schedule this meeting? On one hand, I needed to make sure ZERO couldn’t find out what I was up to, and on the other, to persuade you that I have important things to tell you but only in secret. The preemptive medical report to ensure I wasn’t infected by the alien and the deliberate motion to leave my weapons behind, the hoops I had to jump through. So how about it? Are you going to tell me the Hope’s secret?"

  Yao Yuan hesitated only slightly before saying, "You do have the clearance to know about it, but I need you to promise that you won’t reveal anything to your two friends…"

  Xiao Niao answered immediately, "I never intended to tell them in the first place. I didn’t even tell them about my latest conversation with ZERO."

  Yao Yuan continued, "In a hidden compartment underneath the Hope’s mainframe, we found the source of the ship’s future-tech devices for things like the anti-gravitational system and space-warping technology… It was an UFO, the one initially found by the US government in Tennessee."

  "UFO? Inside the Hope?" Xiao Niao was shocked, then he questioned, "Are you pulling my leg? Why didn’t the eloped government official take off with it if it’s something that important?"

  Yao Yuan replied with frustration, "I’ve been bothered by that too. There are still many mysteries surrounding this UFO, but one thing is certain: the UFO is real, and it is definitely the source of all the future-tech currently on the Hope…"

  "Could it be that… ZERO is the UFO’s AI?"

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  Chapter182 Embryo of the Mother Nest…

  Yao Yuan and Xiao Niao’s secret meeting didn’t reach a conclusion, but there was one thing that was certain: even though this ZERO might not be the UFO’s AI, she was an entity that held sway over the Hope’s space-warping technology. To be more specific, she could decide the warp exit.

  The threat of the cosmos was its size. It might not present itself as an active threat, but its pure existence alone would bring despair to any life forms. This was because its size was impossible; it bypassed all given logic.

  If the cosmos was described as an ocean, then the planets would be something smaller than the water particles in the sea. To enable the Hope to wrap into a star system, or in the most recent case, into the ground of a planet, was something impossible. The probability of that happening could be equated to winning the lottery every day for a whole year!

  However, the reality was that it did happen. Making it happen once might be a random luck, but it happened again and again. The Hope had committed to more than 100 warps, and a great majority of them was near or within a star system. One had to wonder, could this still be called random?

  In fact, before Xiao Niao came to him, Yao Yuan already had his own suspicions. And it was shared by Ren Tao. However, it was merely suspicion. They had no proof to say that the warp was controlled by someone or something, and that thing was the UFO.

  The secret meeting didn’t exactly add light to ZERO’s identity, but it wasn’t entirely fruitless either. At least they knew that the space warps could be controlled to a certain degree. The actual mechanics still eluded them, but it was a start. Furthermore, they were relieved that this ZERO didn’t appear to wish to harm mankind.

  "In any case, your biggest responsibility now is to find out this ZERO’s identity. Of course, you can’t just go ahead and ask her directly. Befriend her first and get to know each other. However, no matter what you do, don’t get on her bad side; endear mankind to her if possible." After Yao Yuan found out about ZERO’s existence, he nagged at Xiao Niao like he was his mom. In a way, he was giving Xiao Niao a mission, but it was one that didn’t involve any fights.

  Xiao Niao laughed garrulously. "Look at who you’re talking to. It is not for nothing that I’m known as the Love Master within the Black Star Troopers. As if I need your help to teach me how to chase after girls. Just leave it to me."

  Yao Yuan frowned, but he kept his mouth shut because after he thought about it, he suspected that this ZERO approached Xiao Niao because he didn’t have a hidden agenda. If he told Xiao Niao to change his MO, it might raise red flags. ZERO would get suspicious of their intentions, and who knew what tragedy that might entail?

  If Xiao Niao’s two best friends were there, they would not hesitate to point out that Xiao Niao was blowing his own trumpet. The whole Love Master thing was a straight up lie. Xiao Niao had no relationship experience and was a virgin. His boastfulness was to hide his own insecurities.

  The pair returned to the shuttle to get back to the Hope, each nursing their own thoughts.

  When they were within the 100 meters range of the Hope, the intermission said that the shuttle was to be taken over by the Barracks. After the shuttle landed inside the hangar, the two of them went through the decontamination room. Yao Yuan believed that the takeover was because they had given false alarm by activating the creator’s particle away from the Hope. He even rebuked Xiao Niao for it.

  It wasn't until Guang Zhen rushed over with a bunch of troopers in company that Yao Yuan knew that something serious had happened.

  Without wasting any time, he asked, "What happened? The Hope is under attack? Or we discovered a giant monster?"

  Guang Zhen passed him a photograph, adding, "Look at this. This was taken by the defense unit about 30 minutes ago. They were given the order to clear this area of the forest, but after a subunit was sent to the area, 2 soldiers mysteriously disappeared. After they returned to the Hope following a failed search, the Hope’s radar picked up a genetic mesomeric action at a location 50 meters underneath the surface."

  Yao Yuan gave the picture a close look. It showed a dark brown patch of land that had a different coloration from its surroundings. It looked like a combination of dirt and muscle.

  "A mother nest embryo… So what’s next? Why didn’t we just destroy it? Insert high volume explosives underground and blow it up from within!" Yao Yuan ordered instantly.

  Before Guang Zhen could reply, a voice came from behind him. "We can’t do that. It is not so easily destructible." The person who said that was Ivan. He led a group of scientists.

  Yao Yuan frowned. "Why not? Don’t tell me you want to experiment with it. I’ll not allow it! I might consider it if it’s one of those flesh monsters, but we can’t let this embryo fester. This thing has to be eliminated, or it’ll be a pain in the butt in the future. I’m more than willing to give up the scientific discovery that would result from its analysis than leave such a potential threat to our future generation! You have to understand that this is going to be our new home planet, not the ruined Moon 2. If you still think the experimentation is worth it, just look at what Moon 2 has become. It’s a complete death planet! Furthermore, after we clean up everything here, I have plans to clear up Moon 2 as well, so don’t even think about persuading me to let the Academy keep this thing!"

  Ivan chuckled mirthlessly as he said, "I believe Captain might have misunderstood us. We have no intention of keeping this thing to experiment on. We are on the same wavelength; the Academy also wishes to leave a cle
an planet for our future generations to enjoy. For that, we have a proposal that could remove this threat completely with one go."

  Yao Yuan scratched his face in thought. After some time, he said, "Alright, I’ll hear you out. If it’s worth the effort, I’ll allow it. If not, I’ll order the Barracks to blow it up immediately."

  Ivan turned to a middle-aged woman that stood beside him. She nodded at Ivan as she came forward. "Captain, I am Peto Nora, an entomologist. My research interest has been in the similarities between the flesh aliens and bugs ever since the war began. To be honest, I have to say that my research couldn’t have been so successful without Zhang Heng’s help. He allowed us a greater and deeper contact with this alien race.

  "In short, this alien race has many similarities with bug civilizations, like bees and ants. They have a hive mind. However, there exists some minor differences between the two, most notably being the alien’s hive mind is concentrated on the mother nest… Anyway, now is not the time to get into the details. Based on our current observations, the mother nest’s hive mind only has one purpose, and that is to instigate cellular renewal for the sake of consumption… Then it brings us to the question: how come the mother nest couldn’t regrow itself from the remaining alien monsters or even just splices of alien DNA?

  "Therefore, we feel the mother nest might have some sort of unique method that prevents its cells from splitting this way. This is why we’ve seen that no matter how big these cells grow, as long as it has been separated from the mother nest, it will not evolve into another mother nest…"

  Yao Yuan nodded along.

  The middle-aged woman continued, "Because of this, we have a hypothesis that if there is already a mother nest, there won’t be another. This leads us to an extended hypothesis that for this alien, each of its monster types is unique. For example, the squishy foot soldiers are the only close-quarter combat type, and the giant meat blob is its only transportation type. Back to the issue at hand, this means that if we don’t destroy this mother nest embryo, it means that we will never have to deal with a new mother nest."

  "But this is no reason to keep this embryo alive. If there’s another mother nest embryo that appears, we will similarly hunt it down; we will not give it the chance to grow," replied Yao Yuan.

  "But what if the next embryo grows at a location that evades our detection? Like in the middle of the ocean? Like what Lieutenant Zhang Heng had said, we have no clue whether this alien can only survive on land. In other words, we should consider ourselves lucky that this new embryo was found on land."

  Xiao Niao, who had been quiet, suddenly piped up. "Wait, you previously mentioned bees and ants. Don’t tell me…"

  The middle-aged woman nodded. "It seems like you’ve guessed our plan. Yes, it’s correct, we plan to use this embryo as bait to lure the rest of monsters back to its location. The plan is actually very simple. Because the alien has a hive mind, every single monster out there technically is a part of it. They will not shy away from saving its brain. Therefore, we should keep this embryo and limit its growth by burning it once in a while. That will also provide the necessary stimulus for the monsters that are hiding on the planet to come save it.

  "With a good army stationed around the embryo, we’ll be able to eliminate the remaining aliens in one go!"

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  Chapter183 The True Ending

  Yao Yuan had another secret meeting to discuss the entomologist’s proposal.

  There were two arguments that were brought forth in the meeting even though they were basically the extensions of a singular one, which were: does the flesh alien have intelligence? If they do, was such an obvious exposure of its embryo a trap? Could it be possible that the exposed embryo was just a useless extension of its body, like the tail part of the lizard?

  It could have used this method to lull mankind into a false sense of security. When mankind was certain they had the alien under control, it actually had another part hidden away from sight that was growing into another mother nest.

  This was entirely possible. If the alien had sentient intelligence, the possibility of this happening was more than 70 percent.

  The counter-argument cited the mother nest’s action when it was being pushed into the sun. If it had any semblance of intelligence, it would have known what mankind was up to. However, it was primitive enough to only focus on evolving into the supercell and passively allowing itself to be pushed into the sun. Furthermore, various surveillance videos had shown that the mother nest had reached the supercell level moments before it was pushed into the sun. Theoretically speaking, it could have used the newly acquired technology to absorb and grow from the solar winds. However, it didn’t do so. It resisted the sun’s gravitational pull when it should have leaned into its force and used the energy from the sun’s gravity and solar winds to align itself into the sun’s orbit.

  This proved that the flesh alien’s intelligence was still primitive. Its basic understanding still equated the sun to death. The alien technically could be said to be sentient, but it wasn’t an intelligent sentience. It had something that was more of a basic instinct. Its only missions were to consume and to evolve.

  There was equal support on both sides. For example, Guang Zhen was adamant that there was a hidden growing mother nest elsewhere, because the location for this one was too obvious. It had to be a trap. There was no way it wasn’t a trap. It was biding its time, waiting for mankind to lose its vigilance and then it would strike, like how it did with the aquatic civilization!

  Therefore, Guang Zhen was totally for burning it up. Not only this embryo, any other places on this planet that appeared to be suspicious needed to be neutralized. He even guaranteed that none of the monsters in hiding would come to save this mother nest, because they would be too busy protecting the actual nest.

  On the other hand, both Xiao Niao and Ren Tao, who were still recovering, were of the other opinion. Both Thinkers believed that the embryo’s vulnerability was real and the plan could work. The reason was simple: if the alien did have high intelligence, mankind would have been dead when it evolved to become the supercell. There was no need for it to drag the whole thing out unless it had a sadistic streak, which it didn’t appear to possess. It could have easily gotten mankind’s DNA when it was at its supercell stage, so there was no need for it to jump through all these unnecessary hoops.

  Arguments kept on mounting from both sides, each with support from their own scientists and experts. They reached a stalemate, and finally both decided to pass the decision to Yao Yuan.

  Yao Yuan was caught in the fray. Instinctually, he was on Guang Zhen’s side. It was better to rid mankind of this huge problem before it could fester into something worse. It was for the sake of their future generations. They were the pioneers, so they couldn’t leave a huge problem for their future generations to handle.

  However, rationally, he was on Xiao Niao and Ren Tao’s side. Logically speaking, the flesh alien wouldn’t have a high IQ; otherwise, it would have squash mankind when it had the chance. There was no need for it to lose and then restart everything from its embryonic stage just to toy with them. Furthermore, Guang Zhen’s plan was going to cause irreparable damage to the new home planet’s flora and fauna.

  In the end, he settled for something that was in the middle. He announced, "I’ll go for a plan that utilizes benefits from both sides. First, we’ll use the bait plan and see whether any monsters will come to its rescue. Secondly, the surveillance crew is going to continue its work, but there will be limitations on the scope of deforestation. The focus will be on detecting abnormal growths underneath the planet's surface.

  "The operation will be called… Operation Bait."

  So a weirdly named operation was born. Most of the defense unit was assigned to surveillance and scanning duty using the shuttles since they were not suited for close quarters combat. The troopers, on the other hand, were separated i
nto 3-member teams to conduct the ambush part of Operation Bait. They were ordered to kill any monsters that emerged from the embryo, or any monsters that ran into their perimeter.

  Both parties carried on with their assigned orders for a month. A month later, the troopers had killed about 70,000 monsters, while the defense unit located 2 more mother nest embryos…

  It turned out that both sides had something wrong and something right.

  With the discovery of 2 other mother nest embryos, the Bait Operation was extended to cover 3 distinct locations. The Hope’s surveillance team utilized everything at its disposal to search the planet, its deep mountains and deep seas especially, for more mesomeric actions, but it couldn’t pick up any more of those signs. They were certain there were only 3 mother nest embryos on the planet.

  To compensate for the workload increase, the Black Star troopers were also separated into 3 parties, each responsible for one embryo. After another month, none of the troopers came across any other returning monsters. Yao Yuan finally ordered everyone to return after they destroy the 3 embryos.

  Other than that, he gave an order to the Hope’s surveillance unit that they use their best device to scan every corner of the new planet on the 1st of every month. This order was to be continued after his death. In other words, as long as human civilization continued to exist, the order would have to be obeyed.

  Lastly, the cleanup crew would be cut to 100 members, but they would continue on with their responsibility to burn any spots that they considered suspicious. This too was to be continued after his death. The size of this crew would only increase with 100 as its minimum.

  However, at this juncture, everyone could finally sigh in relief. They had finally reached the true ending with regards to this flesh alien. It meant that mankind finally had a new home planet. Needless to say, there was another huge celebration that lasted for 3 days following the defense unit and Black Star Troopers’ heroic returns…