Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 183

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…

Chapter end