Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 308: Warp and Surrender!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Photon pulse wave was a real plasma weapon. This was completely different from Earth’s supposed laser weapons that could only singe metallic surfaces and cut through thin, metallic layers. This photon pulse wave was a type of high energy pulse wave that could directly undo the material’s atomic structure. Therefore, the target hit would disperse like dust, no matter whether it was metal, stone, liquid, or… a life form!

This was a weapon available to level 3 space civilizations in their middle stage. Photo pulse wave was the smallest weapon among all the plasmatic weapons, and as long as the target didn’t have energy shields, normal electromagnetic shields were no longer powerful enough to defend against such a weapon, so the target was confirmed dead! This was why level 3 space civilizations had such drastic advantages over pre-level 3 space civilizations. In terms of combat, it was a one-sided slaughter!

The moment Blue 6’s small group stepped into the Hope, the Black Star Troopers started attacking these 6 people, but a hazy layer of shield appeared in front of this group, blocking all the attacks. The bullets fired from Gaussian weapons disappeared when they hit the shields. Yes, the Seekers saw this development perfectly; the bullets weren’t blocked but disappeared into thin air!

"Energy shield! Energy shield!"

Just as the few Seekers yelled out the warning, a series of lightning flashes occurred and 5 Black Star Troopers evaporated into dust. Then the platoon leaders started yelling to order, "Disperse, retreat and go into hiding! The mission is to exhaust their energy, or have all of you forgotten the mission briefing?!"

Very soon, after the 5 Black Star Troopers were evaporated, the remaining troopers scurried behind structures that were set earlier around the space port. When the Hope was still on Earth, many defensive measures had been done there, and after the adventure on the new planet and the latest upgrade, the defensive measures around there had improved and increased. The troopers huddled into the available bunkers and started combating the infiltrators.

However, the difference in technology was simply too great. Gaussian rifles, the sniper rifles of more than several hundred Black Star Troopers, and mechanized Gaussian turrets were useless before the energy shield. The focus fire didn’t even manage to cause a ripple on the shield. If this was just a normal electromagnetic shield, this level of attack would have decimated the attackers.

In actuality, at this moment, Blue 6’s group was still in shock. The earlier attack was an unconscious counter attack. Now, the 5 bionic men stood in front of Blue 6 because Blue 6’s life was the most important, or at least objectively several millions times more important than theirs combined. However, the consecutive series of attacks confused them… because the attacks were too weak. They were just electromagnetic weapon attacks, causing them to use less than 50 percent of their energy shield’s capability.

The 5 bionic men regained their senses and countered immediately. They aimed the photon pulsers in their palms at the bunkers. However, to the 5 bionic men’s shock, the metal structures that they predicted should have evaporated only bent slightly. This kind of defensive power was greater than they imagined.

"How is this possible?! What kind of metal crafting is this? This is a level 4 space civilization’s energized atomic metal structure. How come they have such expensive metals but no energy shields?" Blue 6 gasped in surprise.

However, he quickly returned from his shock and ordered, "Retreat, retreat immediately! We’ve been tricked. This is not a ruin but a civilization’s spaceship… But not all has been lost, because this place does contain immeasurable treasures. Return to the mothership now and tell them to send out the military to enslave this entire ship. Do not kill anyone, because all these lifeforms will be the Blue Race’s greatest spoils of war!" While he was talking, Blue 6 had already stepped back from the spaceport and was rushing back to the spaceship.

The remaining 5 bionic men, after getting his order, suppressed the enemy’s bullets and assault through a constant barrage of photon pulses. Blue 6 was escorted safely out of the space port, and on the outside, the tourism spaceship was still there. Nothing had changed, and its energy shield wasn’t even active. This meant that it wasn’t under attack. Blue 6 was overjoyed. He led the 5 bionic men into the spaceship and yelled his order, "Depart now and leave this ruin… no, leave this spaceship. We’re returning to the mothership!"

The operators were all elite pilots who were loyal to Blue 6. With his order, the spaceship shot out of the Hope with incredible speed and charged towards their mothership…

Mothership?!

Their mothership had disappeared! The large Blue Race’s fleet and mothership had disappeared without a trace! In front of the tourism spaceship was an unfamiliar swath of solar system. Although it couldn’t technically be called one, because the nearest sun from their location was at least 2 light years away! This was no longer the solar system the Blue Race was in earlier, this was a completely new area in space!

"Gone! None of the surveillance systems can locate our fleet, no signal at all. This place… is no longer the same space we were supposed to be in!"

About one minute ago, Guang Zhen had received the news of ZERO’s arrival and had confirmed they could warp already. No one dared to delay, and the people at the control center initiated the Hope’s space warp system at the fastest speed. The process was successful, way more successful than they predicted. There was no attack or other negative influence, the 4th space warp was completed just like that. And the Hope was only one space warp away from the Noah One!

During warp, Blue 6’s tourism ship was still within the Hope, so they too were warped along with it. This was the explanation behind the thing that happened to Blue 6 and his men.

They were stunned beyond belief, as this was something impossible. In just a matter of seconds, the space they were in had completely changed, their fleet had disappeared, and they had found themselves in another unknown part of the cosmos. This was impossible, be it warp drive, wormhole, or the legendary star gate, this was impossible. According to the law of conservation and transformation of the 4 elements, the greater the distance travelled and the greater the mass transported, the greater the energy required. This was the law in space, it was an evolution of the conservation of energy law found so many decades ago. The law of conservation and transformation of the 4 elements, everything in the cosmos had to abide by this most basic rule!

Blue 6 realized that this weird spaceship had violated this universal truth. Time was still uncertain because in space, time was relative. Perhaps you felt one second had passed, but another race in another space had gone through millions of years. However, distance was observable. They had moved at least 2 light-years away from their original spot. Even if the Blue Race’s main fleet was still in the same solar system, it would take them 2 light-years to reach their position, and crossing such a distance would require an astronomical amount of energy.

The polymerized reactors utilized by level 2 space civilizations was only sufficient for spaceships to travel for several thousand years in space, while cold agglutination reactors utilized by level 3 space civilizations would have enough energy to support the exhaustion of energy during warp drive. a level 4 space civilization with its ionic particle collision reactors would have enough energy to break through a wormhole in space. This was valuable information the Blue Race had received after sacrificing a lot.

Both wormhole and warp drive required a large amount of energy and time to warp through space; however, they couldn’t have warped through such a long distance in such a short amount of time. This was a violation of the cosmos’ most basic rule, this was like 1 + 1 equals to X, this was scientifically impossible!

The Blue Race had good education, so these types of cosmic laws and theories were taught to almost all the citizens. Furthermore, the people on the tourism spaceship were all elites, so when they realized what had happened to them, they were shocked. At the same time, they felt chilled by fear, a deep fear of the unknown. There were simply too many things that they didn’t know…

"We will surrender to this race." Blue 6 was the first to recover. After he tallied up their current situation, this was what he concluded.

The people around him were shocked again. One of the bionic men shouted, "We cannot do that, Your Highness! It is possible for us to surrender, but if you surrender… you are a cosmic adapter, an S-grade cosmic adapter! Your Highness, you mustn’t do that!"

The advice was picked up by everyone else, but Blue 6 was exceptionally calm. He said directly, "Other than surrender, do you see another way out of this? If I’m not mistaken, we should be in this spaceship’s heavy artillery range, right?"

The operators pulled up the surveillance screen, and as he said, the energy level of the spaceship was climbing, and the surveillance showed the weapons that were targeting them.

"Electromagnetic cannons, super electromagnetic railguns, track cannons… These are all heavy duty weapons. Even though these are one level lower than ours, this tourism spaceship can’t withstand the collective fire of all these cannons…"

Blue 6 studied the data on screen and mumbled, "Furthermore, we are only a tourism ship. Yes, we can escape from this spaceship, but what happens next? This ship only has enough food to last us 3 months, and that has to be shared among 6 of us. This ship doesn’t have a warp drive system, and we shouldn’t bank on the hope that we’ll be saved by our mothership…"

Blue 6 pointed at the far sun and said, "Even if the mothership is still within this solar system, we are at least 2 lightyears away from them. When our SOS signal reaches them, 2 years will have already passed for us, so we will already be dead from starvation by then. Even if we don’t die from starvation somehow, do you think the mothership will wait for us for as long as 2 years? So our only solution is to surrender… You said it earlier, I’m a cosmic adapter. Under such circumstances, we should definitely surrender because cosmic adapters are too valuable to be killed. As my men, all of you will be given the most basic right to live. Unless I die, none of you will be harmed."

The room was silent, but a short while later, they all nodded. The leading operator nodded in agreement. "Your Jighness is right. He is a cosmic adapter, so his safety should be our priority at all times. As long as he is alive, the Blue Race will try everything to save us, so we should definitely surrender. This civilization is probably at the peak of level 2, so they will understand the space contract. Our lives are negligible, but Your Highness must survive… We understand, we will surrender."

Just as they prepared to send out a surrender message, at that moment, the space was covered with creator’s particles, blocking all signals, and the spaceship had disappeared. The spaceship had activated its ECS system. This meant… the spaceship was entering combat!

The leading operator was sweating profusely. Blue-coloured sweat covered his body as he turned to Blue 6 to ask, "Goodness! They’re going to attack us. Your Highness, why is this happening? Do they not know you’re a cosmic adapter?"

Blue 6 was first shocked, but then comprehension came to him. He slumped down into his chair and mumbled after a long pause, "This is bad. I know why, they’ve lost so much that they don’t care about one cosmic adapter like myself anymore… Earlier, when we entered their spaceship, we killed 5 of their cosmic adapters. This is bad…"

"What?" The room yelped in shock. The faces of the bionic men were pale, and two of them even collapsed on the spot. They couldn’t believe the 5 people they had so easily killed were all cosmic adapters!

According to the 8th constitution of the cosmic contract, unless it was in the middle of war, opposing parties with the same level of power would not harm or kill each other’s cosmic adapters. Those that killed cosmic adapters, be it directly or indirectly, were punishable by death…

Fine, history was written by the winners, and the civilizations that really abided by the cosmic contract were rare, but it was true that most wouldn’t just go about killing cosmic adapters.

These 5 people knew that no matter how the Blue Race was protective of Blue 6, if the Emperor, royal committee, or even the citizens knew what they did, murdering 5 cosmic adapters, the only thing waiting for them would be the death sentence.

Just what kind of civilization would send out cosmic adapters at the frontline facing an unknown civilization? Could it be that this level 2 space civilization had so many cosmic adapters that they had an army just filled with cosmic adapters?

No matter how the 5 bionic men turned this situation in their minds, the only thing that came to them was death. There was no civilization in the cosmos that could stomach the death of 5 cosmic adapters. This was a sin big enough equal to the destruction of a whole civilization. Other than wiping them out, there was no other way; they could see no other option for the level 2 space civilization…

Blue 6 was caught in an impossible quandary. He was unwilling to let go of his loyal men, but he didn’t want to die just like that either. It was not that he was afraid of death, but his life was no longer his own, it belonged to the entire Blue Race… So no, he couldn’t die just yet!

Blue 6 thought about it and told the 5 bionic men, "5 brave men, I allow you to use suicide to rectify the sin of having killed 5 cosmic adapters, and I promise you that as long as I can return to the Blue Race alive, your graves will be craved with the brave deed that you committed today. You’ve sacrificed yourselves to save the Blue Race’s cosmic adapter."

The 5 men were silent before kneeling before Blue 6 in unison. None of them spoke a word. They stood up soon and headed towards the exit. From the ship’s surveillance, one could see the five bionic men in spacesuits heading outside the ship. When they were floating in space, the spacesuits suddenly opened to reveal a chamber right above their hearts. At the same time, the 5 bionic men covered their exposed chests with their pulser palms…

At the same time, in the Hope’s control center, Yao Yuan, Guang Zhen, and the rest of the higher officials were deciding what to do with the alien spaceship. Other than Yao Yuan, Guang Zhen, Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, and the Black Star Unit, the rest of them argued to capture this spaceship… After all, it was a group of aliens from a level 3 space civilization and their spaceship, this was a treasure for the Hope.

However, Yao Yuan’s group had their own reservations. This level 3 space civilization was too powerful. They had energy shields and plasma weapons. If they started to rampage after they were captured, even if there were only one or two that did so, none of the people on the Hope could detain them.

While they were in the middle of arguing, they saw 5 aliens float out of the spaceship. The round spacesuits could be seen from far away. The atmosphere in the room became nervous, and all of the Hope’s weapons were trained at the small spaceship. The moment it showed any signs of gathering energy, all the weapons would be fired, shattering the spaceship into pieces.

The image stunned everyone. The five aliens opened their spacesuits and aimed the plasma weapons at themselves… Yes, the video was replayed, and the people inside the spacesuit were indeed the aliens, aliens that looked suspiciously like human beings. They were committing suicide.

Then the surface of the small spaceship showed signs of slight energy waves, not enough for it to charge a weapon, but the color of the ship started to change from silver to a light blue…

"I think…" Yao Yuan turned back to tell everyone, "Earlier, there were 6 aliens that barged into the Hope and killed 5 of our Black Star Troopers. I believe this is their attempt at surrender. They decided to neutralize their military force first and then change the colour of their ship… They plan to surrender.

"…Send out the AI robots and use the alien language system to ask them what kind of air they breathe and what temperature, air pressure, and gravity level are suitable for them. Get all the answers, and Bo Li, you take some engineers and build a chamber with this data. Then…

"It’s time we go collect our spoils of war."

After 10 minutes of waiting, an AI robot entered their spaceship. Even though the robot looked primitive to them, to their consternation, the robot had mature AI.

After answering all the questions, everyone, including Blue 6, could feel their hearts palpitate. The leading operator asked directly, "Your Highness, this is weird. That was a robot with AI system… Could it be that the whole ship is controlled by AI?"

Blue 6 suppressed the fear in his heart and answered, "That's impossible because that wouldn’t explain the cosmic adapters that we saw. No matter what, we have no choice but to follow their directions. Just be careful."

9 hours later, Blue 6’s group left their spaceship and entered the chamber this civilization had prepared for them. It had 25 percent oxygen, and even the air pressure and gravity levels were all suitable for Blue 6. Just like that, Blue 6’s group became this level 2 space civilization’s prisoners.

Right then, Blue 6 finally met the emperor of this civilization. He was a lifeform in a red spacesuit. From the way the people around him treated him and the way he had the handle over the situation, Blue 6 knew instantly his identity. Compared to the fear in other people’s eyes, Blue 6 was in complete shutdown from apprehension.

"…Oh my God, he is, is…

"An Immortal! The legendary double S-grade cosmic adapter, the leader of all cosmic adapters… The Immortal!"