Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 115

Yao Yuan was already searching for solutions before the partition dropped completely. He looked left and then right before yelling, "The hole on the wall, follow me!"

Before he finished his sentence, Yao Yuan had already leaped over the hole [1]. He landed in a room whose door had already been blasted off and miscellaneous broken machine parts covered the floor. Training his weapon at the opening where the door once stood, he yelled behind him, "Don't let your guard down! We are moving forward! Ebon and Wa Luo, you two bring up the rear!"

Yao Yuan took big steps towards the opening… but he remained careful. Try as he might, he could only go so fast in zero-gravity space.

Yao Yuan involuntarily moved his eyes to the red lights blinking at the top of his helmet, but he quickly caught himself. It was still not the time to employ the one-use propellers.

The propellers must be reserved for emergencies only because they would only stop after they had exhausted their fuel. Attached to the back of the spacesuits' shoulders, waist, and heels, the propeller ports, the size of a coin, were impressive marvels!

They were emergency movement devices that made use of man's newest battery model!

The technology was harvested from the internal mechanism of the music box. Even Yao Yuan was impressed at the inroads the scientists had managed within the 15 days after the music box was discovered.

The music box's battery was the size of a button, but it held an energy storage that was tens of thousands of times larger than normal lithium batteries!

It was so extraordinary that it could hardly be described as a battery. It was more akin to a high-energy electromagnetic device. Such an object the size of a button could bring immeasurable progress to the fields of Gaussian technology, nanotech, and electromagnetic technology.

It was a device that was well beyond man's scientific possibility at the time!

However, while it was something man couldn't create from scratch, with the presence of a replica, duplication was entirely possible…

The fact that it could be duplicated proved once more that the technological level of this alien race wasn't so far off from the Hope's. Some of their technologies might seem far-fetched, but scientists pointed out that they were already in the theoretical stage for some of them. Further contact with this alien civilization would only hurry that process along.

The batteries that powered the rocket propellers were such duplicated replicas. Through the process of electrolysis, the battery supercharged its surrounding chemical carbides into forming thin wisps of powerful corpuscular streams which then propelled the wearer forward at high speeds. That was the theoretical mechanism behind the rocket propellers.

Nevertheless, not many knew of the existence of this future-tech battery. The actual number of the people who were in the know was less than 100, and of those 100, 90 percent of them were pertinent scientists and researchers. Yao Yuan had a hard time explaining this propeller to Chou Yue and Ren Tao without divulging top secret information. It was very likely that this battery would spearhead mankind's fourth industrial revolution!

(Yes, I mustn't lose sight of our goal. The catalyst for the fourth revolution has to be inside this junkyard. Replicating the battery inside the music box alone has already brought incremental progress to the Hope's technological level. Understanding it fully will definitely introduce a giant leap to the Hope's scientific standard!) Yao Yuan reminded himself. Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward… His eyes were burning with the determination of a man who wasn't afraid to face death!

"Quickly, we must get away from this area that still has electrical currents!"

Leaping out of the room, Yao Yuan unhesitatingly waved his team down another broken down corridor. They had only taken several steps before the world around Yao Yuan silenced and he sensed a danger source rushing towards them!

"Be careful! Danger incoming!"

"From the front!"

Zhang Heng and Chou shouted in unison. With their warning still reverberating around the walls and Yao Yuan barely lifting his space rifle, a luminous robot appeared in front of them, floating down their direction fast!

Yes, the robot was floating. It was about 30 centimeters off the ground to be precise, and it was gliding towards the group with lighting speed. But most surprisingly… other than the few weak spots of lights that lit up its joints, the robot didn't appear to be corporeal; like a ghost, it floated freely in zero-gravity space.

Could the robot be… a tentacle monster?!

The thing was a cylindrical, alien-made machinery of some sort. Four tentacle-like appendages that mirrored robotic arms came out of the top and middle end of the creature as it floated above ground on a spinning, circular plate. The creature wasn't at its top form because the damage on its body was conspicuous, two of its appendages were torn apart, and a giant wound cut across its torso, revealing the gears within. Regardless, it still posed a threatening presence, especially when it got increasingly closer, radiating a milky-white glow.

"Aaaaah!"

Standing in the middle of the group, a panicked Ebon roared. Training his machine gun at the robot, he muscled his way forward to the front of the group where Yao Yuan stood.

"Stop! Calm yourself!" Yao Yuan yelled when he realized what Ebon was up to. Unlike the other Black Star members who respected him as the leader, Ebon looked at him with a starry-eyed admiration. Ebon had once said on the battlefield that he would die before he would allow any harm to come to Yao Yuan!

As Ebon pushed others out of the way, the color of the glow surrounding the robot started to deepen. First it changed to yellow, then pink, red, green, and finally blue… Ebon used his elbow to push Yao Yuan behind him as he pointed his machine gun straight at the robot, his eyes bulging and his whole body tense.

"Calm down!" Yao Yuan shouted again as he pulled Ebon backwards. After he regained his position at the front of the group, he added, "The thing moves incredibly fast, so if it truly meant us harm, it wouldn't be standing there now. I suspect there's some restriction preventing it from attacking us! Don't you agree, Ren Tao?"

Ren Tao had his hands out, shielding Chou Yue, who stood behind him. He replied instantly, "I concur. Since we're in the middle of an alien warship, it should come as no surprise that there are alien guards… after all, isn't it the same on the Hope? That said, even if we don't have the proper ID, it probably won't attack us indiscriminately!"

"ID, huh?" Yao Yuan echoed. "Right, some scientists did mention that in the future, for the sake of convenience, ID might be embedded in one's arms or even head to replace conventional ID cards. Of course, to account for fringe cases where the ID chip or the scanning device in the robot is broken, it is unlikely the robot guards are programmed to attack indiscriminately on sight…"

Right then, Ying, Liu Bai, Lee, and most of the Black Stars had also reached Yao Yuan's side. Ebon roared, "Have you two lost it? The robot is standing right in front of us and you're still arguing scientific theories?!"

"Chill," Ren Tao shrugged. "Didn't you see that the color around the robot has changed back to normal? I believe that as long as we don't do anything hostile, it will not rashly attack us. I bet it's still trying to analyze our group, which has no proper ID. We should take this opportunity to learn more about this warship, things like how many robot guards it has, what weapons these guards carry, where is their zone of defense, and of course, the possibility of bypassing our lack of ID conundrum. As long as we avoid unnecessary conflict, things should be just fine…"

"Shut it, you d*ck!" Ebon howled in return. "I wasn't talking to you…"

"Ebon!" Yao Yuan cut him off. "Who are you calling a d*ck? Ren Tao is now part of our team, so watch your mouth!"

Ebon mumbled recalcitrantly, but eventually he apologized. Ren Tao wasn't paying him much attention though. He stared directly at the robot as if he were in trance. Several seconds later, he told Yao Yuan, "Something's off… The robot's light has returned to its normal white, but it doesn't seem to be staying that way. Plus, the fact that it's standing there without any response while blocking our way is a bit weird…"

Yao Yuan too had the same suspicion. Lo and behold, the color of the robot slowly changed to yellow, but it still showed no sign of moving… "It's communicating with us! I bet it's producing some kind of sound, but we can't hear it because we're in space! Then again, we wouldn't be able to understand what it's saying anyway. I believe it wants us to drop our weapons and follow it to perhaps their police station or barracks…

"Our failure to do so might cause it to start attacking us!"

As Yao Yuan explained, the color on the robot turned a faded yellow… They didn't have much time left!

Translator's Thoughts Lonelytree

[1] There wasn't much of an explanation about why there is suddenly a hole when it had been explicitly stated that there wasn't such a thing in the previous chapter. My guess is that tremor from the partition shook the foundation enough that one such opening peels off wide enough to form this hole.

Chapter end