Age of Cosmic Exploration, 1

by Zhttty

  Bang, bang, bang!

  In the next instance, Ebon unloaded three rounds and three creatures burst in mid-air. Without taking a moment to breath, Ebon took a leap backwards, and not a moment sooner, a creature landed before his feet. Before it could recollect itself, Ebon gave it a relentless stomping.

  The creature, dangerous as it was, was a newborn after all, so its shell hadn’t had the time to harden. Unable to bear Ebon’s weight, it was easily squished into a pulp.

  The other four soldiers were not as lucky as Ebon. Their rifles were too unwieldy to take down the creatures that were closing in, so in a blink of an eye, the creatures latched onto the men’s suits and deployed their needles. Amidst the men’s helpless cries, the creatures bloomed from their initial palm size into something as big as a car tire, and they showed no observable signs of slowing down. The men slowly shrunk before everyone’s eyes.

  Taking no time to dally around, Ying shouted his commands. "Retreat! Everyone, retreat back into the shuttle! That includes you, Ebon! Get back in here!"

  Further away, the big creature’s body ballooned up once more. Another dozen of its "babies" scurried out from underneath its belly as it deflated. The newborns floated across the sand towards the retreating party. Abandoning their victims that had already been completely sucked dry, the first batch of the creatures joined in the pursuit. Even though all of them were paper thin, the difference in size between the two batches was obvious; the newborns were still palm-sized but the older group was already one meter wide and one meter long.

  Even though the party was retreating, they had never ceased shooting as they were working to clear a path for their comrades. All of a sudden, Ebon let out an agonizing scream. Before everyone’s eyes, the leg that he had used to stomp the small creature started smoking. It seemed like the creature’s bodily fluids were incredibly corrosive. The toxin did a quick work on Ebon; before the man even dropped to the ground, his left calf had been wholly eaten away.

  At the same time, a few of the bigger "children" were still gliding towards the party. Ying and Liu Bai exchanged a look and then instinctively moved forth to rescue Ebon. As he was doing so, Ying felt an overbearing silence submerging his surroundings, rooting him to the ground. Within that silence, time slowed to a crawl and he found himself able to see everything with much greater clarity. Training his eyes on the big creature furthest away, he found himself with a clear vision of it, down to the patterns it had on its brown shell. He had a complete visual of the panorama around him; from the sand lifted off Liu Bai’s boots, to the bedlam behind him as people stumbled into the shuttle; from Ebon, who was crawling on his arms towards them, to the needles that the creatures were using as paddles to glide rapidly over the sand.

  He was presented with a clear picture of everything around him with the option to zoom in at any location at will. Subconsciously, he dropped his assault rifle in exchange for the sniper rifle on his back. Without the aid of a scope, he unloaded numerous rounds into the distance. The rate that he was firing at could be compared to that of an assault rifle. As the sound of gunfire came to a close, Liu Bai was already at Ebon’s side. Shouldering Ebon’s massive weight, both of them struggled towards the shuttle.

  On the other hand, the few soldiers who were standing guard at the shuttle door as well as Zhang Heng, who had been shaking in fear, were in a complete daze because every round fired by Ying shot right through the centers of the many one-meter-wide creatures. Every single one of them pirouetted for a few moments in the air before falling inanimately to the ground.

  Ying himself was shocked by his marksmanship, but without allowing himself the time for shock, he ran towards Liu Bai to help him carry Ebon. As the three finally careened through the shuttle door, it slammed shut.

  It was then that the party had the time to reflect over the nightmare that they had just encountered. The cries of their friends and their mummified portraits were still vivid in their minds.

  "…Are those aliens?" asked a shivering Zhang Heng in a timorous voice.

  The question fell unto a quiet room with everyone still trapped in their abhorrent memories. The uneasy silence was shattered by Ebon’s sudden moan of pain. Liu Bai immediately yelled, "Guys, help me carry Ebon into the inner chamber, and remove his space suit!"

  Everyone moved to heed Liu Bai’s orders. After they removed Ebon’s suit, the party was greeted with a nasty surprise. The place where Ebon’s left calf was supposed to be was nothing but a stump that ended with a mess of bones, tendons, and blood vessels. On it still remained some of the acid, burning away and releasing an uncomfortable sizzling sound.

  The seriousness of the prognosis was written all over Liu Bai’s face. He uttered no words as he leaned to reach his medicine kit. After extracting a surgical knife from within it, he said, with much difficulty, "Ebon, old friend, hang in there and don’t you dare fall asleep! You’ve lost a lot of blood and are seriously dehydrated, but I’m sure you can pull through. No matter what, just focus on my voice and keep yourself awake!"

  An ashen-faced Ebon replied listlessly, "Do what you have to do. I know it’s not my day today, so don’t worry. The name’s Ebon for a reason; the life’s as tough as its namesake."

  Liu Bai turned to exchange a signal with Ying, who then walked over and inserted a part of Ebon’s spacesuit into Ebon’s mouth. Then Liu Bai sawed Ebon’s infected leg. Pieces of muscle and bones fell off until there were no longer any sounds of corrosion. Liu Bai quickly retrieved a container with white powder from his kit and applied the powder over Ebon’s leg. After that, he quickly bandaged it and moved to check up on Ebon.

  True to his word, even without anesthetic, Ebon had endured through the surgery. He came out of it fully exhausted with barely any energy left to move a muscle.

  One of the scientists broke free of their cowering huddle and went over to the spot where Ebon’s discarded flesh had fallen. To his dismay, the flesh had sunken several centimeters into the floor. It was obvious how corrosive the creature’s bodily fluid was.

  "This is some strong acid. It’s not blood but acid that flows through these alien creatures’ bodies…" commented the scientist before turning to address Ying. "It’s necessary to bring him back to the Hope to conduct a full blood test. This is the first time we come into contact with an alien species that could produce such a level of acidity. We can’t remove the possibility of it containing latent toxins, so to be safe…"

  Ying sighed. "That is easier said than done. If we could access the amenities on the Hope, we wouldn’t still be stuck here now…"

  That squelched any semblance of hope present within the party. They were still hopelessly stranded on the planet, but they didn’t have the monstrosities outside the door to deal with before…

  Ying stole a glance at Zhang Heng and sighed as he said, "We have no supply of energy left, so the communicator is non-operational, but we have to stop the Hope from coming here. Even if we all die, there will only be thirty-two deaths, but there are 120000 people on the Hope, including our families and friends. We must…"

  Right then, a series of beeps issued from the shuttle’s control panel, giving everyone a shock. As Ying rushed towards it, he asked Zhang Heng, "Is that communication from the Hope? Tell me!"

  With a complicated expression, Zhang Heng replied, "No, that’s... it just means a shuttle is flying towards us; it’s pinging us of their proximity through sonar relay. Plus, as you’ve said, we have no energy left, so the communicator can’t even be powered up."

  Everyone stared blankly at Zhang Heng, trying to wrap their heads around the words he had just said. Meanwhile, Liu Bai was caught murmuring to himself, "So a shuttle is flying towards us… According to a previous update, as long as they have proven the anti-gravitational system was indeed weakened by electrical resistance, the Hope will…"

  "The Hope will land here soon?!"

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  Chapter28 The Search!

  It was a mixed bag of emotions when the expedition party found out about the possibility of the Hope landing on the planet soon. They were happy because this meant a greater chance for their survival, but they were also simultaneously worried because the landing would mean more innocent deaths in the face of those monsters!

  Ying slammed his fist into the shuttle wall and gravely said, "We must reach that approaching shuttle and use its communicator to warn the Hope!"

  Ying’s directive was met by a room of silence until Liu Bai spoke up. "Ying, calm down. First, you need to understand that it’s night time right now. This planet doesn’t have something that’s akin to Earth’s moon that can reflect the sun’s light at night, so it’s literally a world of darkness outside. And since we only prepared for a scouting mission that was supposed to last for three hours, we did not pack any lighting equipment. Furthermore…

  "There’s still those creature outside to worry about…"

  At this juncture, Ebon said, in a shaky voice, "Those are indeed monstrous creatures. There is no chance for communication nor negotiation…"

  Ying rushed to Ebon’s side, peering at his struggling friend grimly before finally asking, "Those were some sick moves you demonstrated out there. Was it because of…"

  It took him much effort, but Ebon grinned and replied, "It was an out-of-body feeling. Didn’t you experience it as well? When I was in that condition, I could clearly sense that those creatures had no mental faculty nor sentient consciousness. Their only intention with regards to us was… to feast, or more specifically, to drink. There was a deep hunger for liquid in those creatures. They would risk their lives for even just one drop of water. Ying, don’t go out there to go searching for that shuttle, and don’t let your concern cloud your judgment."

  Ying stood up, shook his head, and gave himself a loud slap, hoping it would clear his mind. He took a few deep breaths before continuing, "Yes, Ebon, you are right. I was in that condition as well, but mine was different from yours. I couldn’t sense their consciousness; instead, I was gifted with a clear vision of my surroundings. It was as if I was seeing with my mind’s eye, and no matter the distance, everything was crystal clear… It’s hard to put the sensation in words, but it felt something like that."

  Turning to the scientists, Ying resumed, "Everyone, I will now describe every detail that I’ve observed about those creatures. And I would like you to confirm how they detect our location."

  Ying recounted everything he had noted about those creatures down to the smallest detail. His audience of scientists was rapt. As Ying finished his tale, the biologist among the group offered, "If you’re absolutely certain that the creature has no exterior organs, including eyes, nostrils, and ears, then I am fairly certain that their needle-like apparatuses act as sensors, probably highly sensitive ones at that. Like how echolocation works in bats, the needles are mostly used to detect surface vibrations."

  Ebon, who was lying at the side interjected, "And water… I have a strong feeling that they are extremely attracted to water."

  The biologist, however, shook his head. "We depend on scientific method and not intuition. We can’t come to conclusions like that without any actual evidence…"

  Surprising everyone, a scientist beside him added, "That might not be true. We may actually have the evidence to support his observation…"

  The room turned towards this scientist. He was the lead meteorologist, the man who suggested that the planet’s air was corrosive during the conference meeting.

  He went on. "It is no secret fact that this planet having only a desert surface despite its young age is a scientific mystery. Since we’ve ruled out the possibility of wind erosion and acidic corrosion, then it must have been caused by something else. This mysterious reason aside, the possibility that a species can survive on this planet where not a single trace of water could be found shouldn’t be dismissed." Turning to the biologist, he continued, "As you should know, all carbon-based lifeforms require water to survive. Take us as an example, we would die without water. So, they’re either like us or they are silicon-based creatures that don’t require water to function. The fact that these creatures physically grow and reproduce after liquid intake points to the simple conclusion that they need water. According to the theory of natural selection, all creatures evolve towards the direction that best helps them reproduce and survive. Contrary to what you have suggested, I believe that these sensory needles were the result of their evolution to aid them in triangulating water sources, not vibrations. They sense us through the water particles in our sweat and our breath."

  The biologist was flabbergasted by the lead meteorologist’s argument. It didn’t take long for him to cede his position. "Indeed, you are probably correct. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, because those needles might be able to sense both water and vibrations…"

  After the back-and-forth between the two scientists, Ying suggested, "If we were to put on the space suits and helmets and breath only the air within them, how long would we last?"

  The room quieted down as everyone rushed off to give it a test. The result was satisfactory. They found out that one could last about fifteen minutes in the suit before the air inside become overly saturated with carbon dioxide.

  Liu Bai shook his head at this result. "It can’t be counted this way. The rate at which we consume oxygen when we are standing still is drastically different from when we’re moving or running. Ying, I understand where you’re coming from, but we won’t last more than five minutes trekking through the desert using only the air in our space suits. Five minutes is the limit I’m giving; going on for more than that will only lead to suffocation and asphyxiation."

  "Five minutes, you say?" pondered Ying as he paced the room, before finally stopping in front of Zhang Heng.

  This gave Zhang Heng quite a shock. He quickly protested, "Please don’t use me as an experiment! I’m so much less qualified than you people, and I haven’t even had any formal military training!"

  Shaking his head, Ying explained, "We’re not going to use you for some twisted experiment… But Zhang Heng, I want you to tell me, remember before when Chen Wei stepped towards Ebon? Why did you yell out a warning then? I thought that the creature was still hidden beneath the sand at the time. There shouldn’t have been anything you could notice that would prompt you to yell out that warning!"

  Zhang Heng hesitated before answering, "You guys are probably not going to believe me, but when Chen Wei took that step, I suddenly felt like the world had gone quiet. It was an eerie serenity, silencing all of your voices and gunfire. It was like the world had been peeled away. During that weird moment, my mind was blasted with a flash of prophecy. I could somehow tell that Chen Wei was going to meet his end in the next two seconds. It was a weird experience. Told you it was hard to believe."

  Instead of confusion, which Zhang Heng was expecting, Ying appeared to be relieved. In a serious tone, Ying told Zhang Heng, "I believe you. Even though you, myself, and Ebon have all gone through that mysterious experience, it was different for every single one of us. However, it was clear that we were in some sort of superhuman condition. Ebon could sense malicious intentions and respond accordingly, I was granted super vision, and yours… has something to do with divination. In any case, all the weirdness that happened has been explained.

  "Everyone, I will now lay down my plans. After I finish, you can decide whether you will follow me to go intercept that shuttle.

  "First, we will leave this shuttle in the space suits. With the help of a timer, we will allow a change of air every five minutes. Zhang Heng, during these brief windows of vulnerability, I want you focus your attention. As soon as you can see those creatures approaching, yell out their direction… To make things uniformed and easy, use the clock as a direction indicator. For example, if the thing comes out from our northern side, you yell ‘twelve o’clock.’ Then, I’ll try to
reenter my superhuman state to snipe those bastards!

  "Listen, I know that the plan is foolish and rash… but I believe this is the best bet we have. Ask yourselves: are the lives of thirty-two really more important than the lives of 120000 people? We have to think of the innocent people that are on the Hope; we can’t just send them to their deaths without trying our best to stop it.

  "Dawn will come in about half an hour. Until then, make your decision whether to follow or not…"

  After that, Ying strode off to a corner of the room and slept. He even started snoring, not at all worried about the death mission that awaited him.

  The rest of the soldiers were heavily conflicted. Zhang Heng opened his mouth multiple times, but actual words never came out… His intuition told him that if he dared to request a retraction of his involvement in the upcoming mission, Ying would personally shoot him dead.

  As dawn broke, a total of twelve soldiers volunteered to join Ying because these men had their children, wives, and parents on the Hope.

  Liu Bai also decided to join Ying’s operation. Without necessary medicine and facilities, there was no reason for the field medic to remain with Ebon. Even though some of the scientists had also volunteered to follow, Ying denied their requests. Ying was given explicit orders to preserve the safety of these scientists before they left for the planet, so he was adamant that all of the scientists must stay behind in the shuttle.

  Right as the small party stepped out of the shuttle entrance, Ebon, with the last bit of his energy, shouted, "FOR GLORY."

  "OR FOR DEATH!" finished Ying and Liu Bai in unison as the pair led the way out into the open desert.

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