AWB Chapter 157 may seem absurd, but if it's Lin Xuan, then everything makes sense.
Chapter 157 may seem absurd, but if it's Lin Xuan, then everything makes sense.
Deterrence Era 57, 2272 AD.
The night is the dominant color of space, and the stars, viewed from a distance, resemble solitary lamps in a quiet alley.
In the darkness, a colossal beast was slowly advancing, its blue tail feathers trailing behind it.
This is the third planet that the Navigator has swallowed. At this point, the size of the warship has changed from a flying fortress to a Leviathan behemoth in the night!
Nanobots don't devour entire planets.
Once the Navigator's radar detects edible metallic minerals, it will deploy a number of nanobots downwards to determine if the planet is dangerous.
If not, the nanobots will instantly assemble into mining stations and begin rapidly collecting and storing minerals and metals from the planet's surface or underground.
Because they don't need to consider the damage to the planet, their mining methods are quite violent.
To save time, the navigator's onboard AI, Chengxing, chose the fastest mining method.
She directly bombarded the surface of the planet she needed to mine with kinetic weapons, creating a hole in it, and then allowed the remaining nanobots to carry out production and construction on the spot.
They take away the minerals and metals they can carry, and let the nanobots consume the rest to increase their numbers.
With planetary radar scanning, it's not difficult for nanorobots to quickly locate the metal minerals that need to be mined. It takes about 4-5 years to complete the basic mining work on a planet.
And so, the size of the navigator gradually increased with each mining operation, until it grew into the behemoth it is today.
Logically speaking, since they expanded the ship so much, Zhizi should have noticed it long ago.
This was all thanks to the blueprints that Lin Xuan implanted into Cheng Xing's system.
Before the apocalyptic war, Lin Xuan almost emptied all the shock points in her system to buy all sorts of blueprints.
Since she didn't know what kind of problems Zhang Beihai and his group would encounter, Lin Xuan exchanged for all the blueprints she could think of.
In this way, Cheng Xing only needs to search for the corresponding blueprints in the inventory based on the actual situation and use nanorobots to complete the construction.
Sophon shielding devices are naturally included in this category.
The raw materials for this thing are almost everywhere, so manufacturing it isn't too difficult. The only challenge is that it consumes a lot of energy.
Cheng Xing only needed to use a few dozen cold fusion reactors to control the Navigator's direction, but just maintaining these shielding devices would require about a dozen reactors. It's fortunate that the Navigator is now separated from Earth and can obtain resources anywhere; otherwise, even a cold fusion device couldn't withstand such a high cost.
Just then, a series of hurried footsteps came from a distance outside the spherical cabin.
"woke up?"
Cheng Xing didn't turn his head, controlling the various systems of the spaceship.
She didn't even need to turn around; she already knew who it was.
Zhang Beihai looked at Cheng Xing, whose holographic image was projected in front of him, and spoke after a long while.
What happened during my hibernation?
Cheng Xing didn't turn around, busy adjusting the ship's navigation parameters.
"There's a lot of information. Which aspect do you want to know about?"
"How are General Chang Weisi and the others?"
"The situation is much more optimistic than we imagined; the Trisolaran First Fleet is currently rendezvous with them."
Upon hearing Cheng Xing's words, Zhang Beihai fell silent.
"You call this more optimistic than expected."
"At least they weren't killed directly by the water droplets, right? In my understanding, it's a good thing as long as humans are still alive."
Her words left Zhang Beihai speechless.
Yes, at least it proves they are still alive, but there's a high probability they'll be captured by the Trisolarans.
Unfortunately, they never had the chance to fight the Trisolarans again.
Otherwise, Zhang Beihai would definitely find a way to avenge the deep-seated hatred between the Trisolarans and the Trisolarans in the final battle.
"Speaking of Cheng Xing, where are we going? It feels like you're going in circles."
Zhang Beihai looked at the star map on the control panel and said.
Judging from the ship's trajectory, they are not far from the solar system, only about six or seven light-years away.
However, the Navigator's maximum speed has now exceeded 50% of the speed of light. Even if we take into account acceleration and deceleration, as well as the normal travel distance, it's impossible that it would only travel such a short distance.
“I’m trying to upgrade this ship, but only some nearby planets have the metal minerals I need,” Cheng Xing said.
"Actually, you might find the metals I need if you go a little further away, but I prefer to play it safe."
Zhang Beihai still doesn't know that the ultimate destination of this warship is to go to the homeland of the Trisolarans, so he just assumes that Cheng Xing is staying here just to be on the safe side.
"You must have woken me up. What do you want from me?"
Zhang Beihai stomped his foot, his military boots striking the metal deck with two loud "bangs".
The hibernation period was a bit too long, which caused them to feel a little uncomfortable in their current bodies as soon as they woke up.
"You are not the only one who has been awakened, Captain Zhang."
As soon as Cheng Xing finished speaking, Shi Qiang, who was yawning, walked over from a distance. Behind him were Chu Yan, the captain of the Blue Space, and Liu Chang, the ship's biological expert.
The four people gathered in the conference room. Although it seemed like they had only been apart for a moment, nearly fifty years had actually passed.
That apocalyptic war that shocked humanity was already half a century ago.
Once all four had arrived, Cheng Xing's holographic projection slowly turned around and handed over the control of the ship to the back-end system for calculation.
"How did you all sleep?"
Shi Qiang rested his elbow on the table, wiped the sleep from his eyes with his other hand, and yawned.
"It's alright, I slept for longer than I was born."
As he spoke, he casually took out half a pack of tobacco leaves that he had taken from Liu Chang years ago from his pocket, lit it, and started smoking. Liu Chang, who was watching from the side, immediately felt his veins throbbing.
"My tobacco!"
It had been almost fifty years since this incident, and he had almost forgotten about it. But Shi Qiang's actions brought back very unpleasant memories for Liu Chang, who had just woken up.
"Hey, Principal Liu, don't be so stingy. It's just tobacco leaves. Once we get back to Earth, we'll all be heroes. You can plant tobacco leaves all over the Earth and nobody will care." Shi Qiang chuckled and took another puff of his cigarette.
"That's great! With Lao Chang not here, we can smoke freely during meetings from now on."
In the past, Shi Qiang always felt stifled whenever Chang Weisi was in a meeting. Now that Chang Weisi is not here, these people can't control him.
Upon learning that Chang Weisi was still alive, Shi Qiang couldn't help but feel relieved.
Regardless, the other party was his former superior, who was willing to take him in and bring him into the PDC when he was dismissed from the Public Security Bureau; otherwise, he might have starved to death long ago during the early stages of the major downturn.
"Okay, let's get down to business."
Zhang Beihai gestured for Cheng Xing to get straight to the point; he was starting to get fed up with the two of them arguing.
Cheng Xing nodded slightly, and then displayed an image captured by the detector on the big screen.
It was a planet, but from the footage taken from a distance, the entire planet appeared green and vibrant with life.
This was the first time anyone had ever seen such a strange planet. Even Liu Chang, who was an expert in biology, couldn't help but stand up.
"This is a planet that the probe has captured that is relatively close to us. Doesn't it look strange?"
Everyone nodded.
"That's because this is what the planet originally looked like."
As Cheng Xing spoke, he pulled up another image.
It was an Earth-like planet, with a whiteish overall appearance, completely different from the green planet we see now.
"This footage was taken about 45 years ago, and by the time we got here, it had become like this."
Cheng Xing pointed to the two pictures.
"It seems that something caused a dramatic change to this planet in just a few decades, which is very strange," Chu Yan analyzed.
"Did his wife cheat on him? How come she's so cuckolded?" Shi Qiang leaned forward and took a closer look at the two comparison pictures.
"Oh dear, it's moldy."
Everyone was immediately drawn to Shi Qiang's words and crowded around to examine the photograph that had been taken.
Then everyone noticed that on that green planet, there were small black dots one after another, making it look like it was moldy.
Liu Chang recognized what it was after just one glance.
"Volcanic rock."
"How strange. This planet seems to have many active volcanoes, so how come there is such lush green vegetation?"
The contrast is strange; it's like having a pool of water inside a pool of lava.
According to natural conditions, it is impossible for two completely contradictory phenomena to occur. Even if there is a difference between the biological communities of this planet and Earth, you should not plant trees on an active volcano, right?
That leaves only one other explanation.
These green things don't belong to this planet at all; they are products brought by extraterrestrial species.
Before encountering the Trisolarans, people were not so sure about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. However, after experiencing two hundred years of crisis, people have long been convinced that various extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the universe.
“That’s why I woke you up,” Cheng Xing said.
“Our fuel reserves are running low. I originally planned to mine minerals and fuel on this planet, since we are still some distance from the next planet where we can replenish our fuel. If we drive slower, we can still get there, but the speed will definitely be reduced.”
Everyone immediately understood what the other person meant.
"You want us to go down and investigate, right?"
Cheng Xing nodded slightly.
"After all, this planet is very special. It is very likely that it has been visited by extraterrestrial visitors. I just think that these things may have great research value, so I woke you up and asked if you want to study them."
"However, I must warn you in advance that everything is unknown once you go down there, and there may be some dangers. If you don't plan to go, I will handle it according to the default method set by Lin Xuan."
"Default mode? What mode?"
Chu Yan was somewhat curious, since planetary environments are varied and complex, and using the same method to deal with different planets might not be entirely applicable.
Cheng Xing's next words left everyone present completely dumbfounded.
"Lin Xuan's default program for me is that when encountering an unidentifiable planet, the Navigator's main cannon should be used to 'purify' the planet and the life on it."
"Grass!"
Shi Qiang couldn't help but curse out loud.
Although the program is a bit outrageous, it seems to make a lot more sense when you think about how Lin Xuan set it up.