Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 210: Hope Landing

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The incident with the super species did make many break out in cold sweat. The result, though, was indeed heartening. The girl ended up giggling and pinched the female dragon’s face to play with it. The female super species allowed her to do this without growling or roaring. It wasn't until the girl wanted to climb on top of the dragon that Yao Yuan came forth to stop her.

After apologizing to the Asian teen for spooking them, Yao Yuan called the medic to bandage the girl up. When the girl mentioned she liked purple plums, Yao Yuan promised he would have someone send a box over as an apology.

The teen had recognized Yao Yuan. Even though he was in space armor, the only person that wore red space armor in all of the Hope was Captain Yao Yuan. However, he was surprised Yao Yuan would be so friendly and apologize even though the blame didn’t exactly fall on him. However, the teen was still on his toes during his interaction with Yao Yuan, giving Yao Yuan the respect he was due.

The same couldn’t be said of the little girl. She saw the baby dragon cupped in Yao Yuan’s palms. The baby dragon, which was the size of a small kitten, blinked curiously at her when it poked its head up from Yao Yuan’s palms. The girl immediately fell in love with the cute, white ball of fur.

"Uncle, can I see the small animal in your hands? He’s so cute. Wow, it has six legs." The little girl sidled up to Yao Yuan when he was engaged in conversation with the teen. She could see the baby dragon when she was further away, but she couldn’t see anything when she was near. After all, Yao Yuan was more than 3 feet tall when he was in the space armor, and the little girl barely reach his knees, so how could she possibly see the baby dragon in his palms?

Yao Yuan squatted down, but even so, he was still taller than the little girl. He lowered his hands. The baby dragon clung to Yao Yuan’s fingers using its two front claws and nodded its head at the girl. The emerald in its eyes shone brilliantly.

The little girl was ecstatic. She carefully pushed out her finger to touch the baby dragon’s head. She felt like she had been touched by ice when contact was made. Then she used her fingers to lightly caress the baby dragon’s body, and the baby dragon closed its eyes like it was enjoying the light massage. Then it used its front claws to hug her fingers and used its slightly spiky tongue to lick it. The girl giggled happily from the tickle.

And thus ended the super species’ first contact with human beings. Even though it wasn’t perfect, it was already much better than what Yao Yuan had expected. It was truly a pleasant surprise.

Things with the super species and settlers had made things on the Hope extremely busy. Not only Yao Yuan, but pretty much everyone had a long to-do list waiting to be completed.

Yao Yuan’s to-do list comprised of the Hope’s eventual landing, the human country’s constitution, the selection of the second set of settlers, testing of the Defense Unit’s new weaponry…

In other words, the one hour Yao Yuan allocated to spend bonding with the super species was his own precious resting period as well. However, these were things that he had to do, the issue of landing being the most pressing.

This was caused by the appearance of the first batch of settlers. They lived in the villas and ate the new planet’s various fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish hunted by the Defense Unit daily. Of course, each of them had their own assigned occupations. Engineers, scientists, and technicians bustled about busily almost every waking hours of their lives. Families of honor medal bearers and those that purchased the slot through H-coins found jobs through the government as well. These jobs included taking care of the construction robots, cleaning the food ingredients, or cooking the daily meals for the construction site workers. After all, they needed to pay for their housing, so working was compulsory.

Even so, their lifestyle was the thing of envy on the Hope. The first batch of settlers only had 16,000 people, that was 10 percent of the Hope’s 160,000 total population.

Therefore, even though everyone knew that the second selection list was coming in about 2 months’ time, the desire for the new planet wouldn’t die down. One person commented on the official government forum asking for the Hope to land on the surface. That way, even if they weren’t selected, they could enjoy the nature and perhaps go for a walk around the landing spot early every morning.

Surprisingly, the comment gained enormous traction. The Hope Weekly did a survey on it, and other than those who were scarred by the alien attack, almost 95 percent of the Hope was in support of the idea.

Because of this pressure, the manufacturing speed for the public-use Ultimate Vaccine had increased. If necessary, the vaccine for all 160,000 people could be done in 2 days. This included the vaccine for the animals and plants on the Hope to prevent them from contaminating the new planet’s existing ecosystem.

After a long meeting with the Academy and Barracks, Yao Yuan ultimately decided for the Hope to land on the new planet. After all, the Hope couldn’t last forever floating aboveground. They would land half a month after the appearance of the first settler batch, which was in 5 days.

After hearing this news, a group of experts approached Yao Yuan with a proposal. If the Hope was landing, why not use the day itself to host the human government’s founding ceremony? After all, they had the military power to host it. The Defense Unit was training daily, and the Troopers were impressive in their space armor. Even though there were no tanks, weren’t the space combat jets 100 times more powerful than tanks?

The administrative reassignment could wait, and the governing policies could temporarily use the ones upheld by the Hope. The key to first host the founding ceremony was to calm human hearts. Also, wouldn’t it be momentous if the founding ceremony was done on the day the Hope landed on the new planet?

Of course, this proposal was greatly welcomed by a series of people, like Guang Zhen, but Yao Yuan had his reservations. First was the lack of preparation. How could something as important as the founding ceremony be rushed? Everything must be perfectly in place.

Second was the issue of ground siege engines.

The founding ceremony’s purpose was to instill confidence in the citizens’ hearts; it was to let the citizens know that they were well-protected by their government! Both soldiers from the Defense Unit and Black Star Troopers had to appear in the marching ceremony, there was no denying that. Of course, the Space Combat Jet Prototype 003 had to make an appearance as well. However, since they had already landed, it would be weird if there wasn’t a powerful on-the-ground siege engine. It might cause a portion of the public to worry.

With the 4th industrial revolution, there were naturally siege engines that were more powerful than tanks, including a super long-ranged bomb tank that was equipped with large Gaussian and automatic cannons. There were also blueprints for a robot army, and these could all be a reality. Other than that, humanity had a secret weapon, which was the anti-gravity technology.

Combining all of these, the Workshop could create a contraption that could float off the ground, had a polymerized reactor as its power source to support its mobility and supermagnetic shield, as well as a large amount of high power Gaussian weaponries… A Heaven’s Cloud!

This was the contraption Yao Yuan wanted to create the most. It could carry at least 500 soldiers and drop Gaussian bombs down from a high elevation. The bomb barrage would have one-fifth the power of the Hope’s own bomb barrage. If needed, the platform could also descend to the surface to act at temporary base. If there was one or two of these, humanity wouldn’t fear the revival of the flesh alien or even the combined assault of 1,000 super species.

Therefore, Yao Yuan vetoed the founding ceremony; it could happen when everything was ready. However, the landing was still going to happen. 5 days later, the Hope would land on a plateau 10 kilometers away from the capital. A perimeter was set up 50 meters from the Hope. Other than the two known Black Dragons, any other animals that could pose a threat would be hunted down immediately.

Therefore, over the next 5 days, everyone on the Hope was given the Ultimate Vaccine and was informed of the Hope’s landing date and time. Everyone prayed for the landing to happen safely.

On the fifth day, new planet time 10 AM, with Yao Yuan’s order, the Hope started descending to the planet's surface. Everyone crowded the windows, watching the sea and forest inch closer to their faces. Eventually, they could see the sunlight rippling off the water's surface and butterfly-like things that flitted among the flowers.

Following a slight shake, everyone on the Hope cried out in whooping cheers. The cheers were echoed by the Defense Unit soldiers and the first settlers that were on the surface.

The Hope had finally landed on the new planet!