Chapter 794: Chapter 794 Mist God Star Base
Yesterday was the second day back on Mist God Star.
The endless helium-nitrogen-hydrogen ocean of Mist God Star was topped with a continuous overgrowth of new buildings, which soldiers who had participated in the Kepulu battle knew all too well: General City.
Realizing that the Mobra Star System was inevitably becoming the frontline, we established a second base here. The Imperial Admiral sank 20,000 kiloters into the clouds below, unfolding on the vast surface of the ocean under this intense pressure into an iron fortress. Centered around this fortress, more arsenals and beacons were being built vigorously, now beginning to take form. These illuminated constructions flickered like ghosts floating on the ocean under Mist God Star’s dense rolling clouds.
The “Tomb” had already been subrged beneath General City, turning it into an underwater ghost city. Through simple research, Imperial Technicians discovered how to control this Doomsday Fortress and fully restored it. They were astonished to find that the relic’s structural integrity was still perfectly intact; it could even sink near the solid core of Mist God Star and remain unscathed under that horrifying pressure, solely relying on its own shell. Unfortunately, it seed that when the Doomsday arrived, the ancient Mobrans didn’t even have the ti to sink to the star core, as the terrifying Armored Scorpions had destroyed the fortress’s control system before the defenders inside could react.
The Imperial Admiral itself included several research centers, and after the expansion of General City, these centers combined according to temporary programs to form a large joint research institute. The space inside this institute was even more expansive than it appeared from the outside. With space expansion technology, it could even handle the task of dissecting a starship as large as the Imperial Admiral itself. Currently, the Imperial Technicians here were busy analyzing a brand new sample: a captured Revenge Army Mother Ship.
The Eternal-class Battleship that had lost one-third of its structure in self-destruction had been completely dismantled. Fortunately, the main structure of this type of starship comprised almost entirely of the main cannon; its self-destruction had destroyed only this part, and the rest of the warship was preserved very well.
In the dark isolation space floated countless research platforms. These circular, gravity-free platforms each served as an independent laboratory, equipped with complete analysis and testing kits and uncertain interfaces to accommodate different testing needs. Valuable fragnts of the ships were placed independently on each platform, scanned by specialized technicians or probes. Now, in front of and Sandora, was a massive spherical structure with a silvery tallic luster, about dozens of ters in diater, its surface covered with honeycomb-like depressions, making it resemble a giant soccer ball. So of the hexagons on the “soccer ball” were open, revealing dark hollows below, and according to signs next to the hollows, these openings were originally intended for physical connection cables.
This unremarkable-looking tal sphere was actually the onboard main computer of the Eternal-class Starship. Despite its appearance causing so regret, it possessed the most superior tactical core and ship coordination module among conventional warships. For a warship over seventy kiloters long, boasting countless facilities and auxiliary equipnt, the ship coordination module was the primary standard to asure whether the warship could maintain its combat effectiveness with reduced crew. This main computer could ensure that the Eternal-class Mother Ship could fight autonomously if the entire crew perished, making the Eternal-class the only large warship in Imperial service capable of unmanned navigation. Of course, unlike the Xyrin Host, the onboard main computers weren’t designed to develop personalities, a design limitation that prevented them from making erroneous tactical decisions in monts of sheer boredom and kept the over 300 officers and soldiers in the ship’s command center busy—at least, that’s how I understood it.
Taville’s translucent mass projection stood beside it, holding an information terminal, almost as recognizable as her glasses, in one hand, while the other controlled several probes moving back and forth across the tal sphere, connecting uncertain interfaces onto it. These magical little devices could adapt and read any terminal capable of producing information flow, including the commonly used Imperial data quantification ports and USB2.0.
Blue light traveled along the hexagonal depressions on the sphere, and the gravity-free platform started to play an audio signal retrieved from the onboard main computer: “External information connected, onboard main computer initializing. Current state: main body detached, judged as the first activation of this unit, please load initial tactical intelligence and warship matching codes. Onboard main computer is ready.”
“It was completely reset,” Taville pressed her hand against the surface of this massive tal sphere, and from where her hand touched the sphere, rings of light blue halos rippled, “This is a troubling situation, obviously the Revenge Army reset the mory core of the onboard host before detonating the spaceship. Apart from the self-destruct code loaded as firmware on the core, this host now is as clean as if it had just co off the production line. I tried different thods to scan this thing, but the deletion was just too thorough.”
I don’t know much about this advanced stuff, but Taville’s aning was fairly easy to understand, seeing the best researchers looking helpless, I knew it was impossible to analyze anything from this gigantic machine.
The activated onboard host had a faint blue glow on its surface, which made this massive tal sphere look especially beautiful—it was the host’s Ghost Energy Shield. Since it was the most important device on a starship, don’t be fooled by it just being a component; the onboard host also had its own armored plating and energy shield. Now, its shield had resud operation, but since the base programs were not yet loaded, the host itself could only maintain the minimum level of shield value, which looked as thin as if it were about to extinguish. I thought for a mont and called Bubbles through the Spiritual Connection.
Holding a huge pillow with a displeased face, the little girl appeared in front of with a ‘piu’ sound, and Bubbles lifted her leg to give a Princess Kick: “What do you want, I was just catching up on episodes!”
“Look at this,” I grabbed Little Loli’s head and turned it ninety degrees, making her face that massive tal sphere, “You recognize it?”
“An Eternal-class Starship’s onboard host? What about it?” Bubbles rubbed her face against the pillow, “It might look like a ball, but it can’t be used to catch little monsters.”
I stumbled, “Cough cough, don’t digress. This is the onboard host from the Revenge Army battleship, but its mory core was reset. With your information analysis capabilities, could you still analyze sothing from it? After all, you’re close kin.”
I asked with great hope, thinking regardless, Bubbles is also a powerful Xyrin Host, adept at handling various kinds of data. Taville was only unable to read the host’s mory from a hardware technology perspective, but perhaps the direct control ability of the Xyrin Host could still scan sothing. Moreover, the host being referred to, perhaps Bubbles could communicate so sibling affection with this silent iron sphere, maybe even get so information out of it. But Bubbles just paused on hearing this and then glared darkly at , grinding her teeth: “I’m saying… kiddo’s dad, just because I’m called a host doesn’t an I am the sa thing as this big iron lump, okay!!”
: “…”
“But scanning it isn’t much of a hassle; analyzing data from such low-level logic machines, Xyrin Hosts hold an advantage.”
I thought to myself that Bubbles really could catch her breath, and like Taville, she had already started her action, pressing her hand near a hexagonal cavity on the surface of the tal sphere to directly read the feedback signal from within the host, causing the blue halo to expand, indicating that information flow had begun. The only thing I need to complain about is that due to her height limitation, Bubbles had to stand on the pillow and stretch her arms high to reach the data interface at the very bottom of the big tal sphere, looking like she was lifting the Hercules Cup.
“Error, no feedback information.”
After several minutes of communication, the shipboard mainfra responded to Bubbles’ retrieval request with nine punctuated words, causing her expression to twist montarily before she furiously punched and kicked the innocent mainfra into oblivion right in front of and Sandora. Taville approached sorrowfully to inspect the nurous dents on the surface of the large tal sphere, while Bubbles quipped, “Don’t bother trying, it’s a core destruction reset, absolutely no information left, and I guess the other logic machines you guys recovered from the starship are pretty much in the sa condition. Those guys wiped out all data devices that could potentially expose secrets just before self-destructing to prevent leakage of main base information, not a single drop leaks out!”
After finishing, Bubbles still seed unsatisfied and pulled out a large-caliber handgun, turning around to fire a shot. The already minimally operational shipboard mainfra shield finally extinguished—even though I knew from the start she had a bit of a violent streak, it seed her mood was particularly bad now.
Out of concern, I casually asked Bubbles a question, only to receive a teary response, “To think Qianqian and the Edge didn’t end up together, how can one ever believe in love again! Give so comfort, Dad…”
I imdiately kicked her back through the teleportation gate.
The shipboard mainfra was thoroughly formatted, thwarting our plans to use this breakthrough to locate the headquarters of the Revenge Army, but it also gave us intel that the Revenge Army’s “madness” did not affect their tactical judgent. Their discipline and comndable combined arms tactics exhibited during the surprise attack on Mist God Star, and even in the face of losing battle, erasing all confidential before self-destruction, indicated so rationality in their actions. It’s still unclear whether this judgent ca from the starship captains’ deliberation or was a fixed tactical program, but it mainly rules out irrational situations like those seen with the Big Nebula.
Sadly, this is bad news: compared to the irrational madness of the Big Nebula’s sentry starships, an enemy force still possessing tactical intelligence is obviously much harder to handle.
“Sivis, did we collect anything valuable?”
Sandora surveyed the surroundings, her gaze sweeping over the massive fragnts of warships in the distance, speaking into the air. Sivis’s holographic projection imdiately appeared before us, “We have reconfird that the Revenge Army has not suffered any Abyss infection; the structure of their ships is normal with no autonomous combat devices like those of the Holy Temple Defense Army, nor any functional defects. In the warship command center, we found many bodies of Revenge Army soldiers, all dead at their posts, maintaining their final monts of battle stance, with no signs of abnormal activities, showing high discipline. In the warship’s energy matrix area, two bodies of war engineers were discovered; they were likely busy manually increasing the energy level to ensure the self-destruction process was more rapid. All signs point to their deaths being orderly and in compliance with operating procedures, of course, no signs of mutation or infection were found on them. The only anomaly discovered so far involves two Revenge Army soldiers found beneath the class coordinate engine platform, an off-limits area barring non-technical staff entrance; their behavior defies logic, leading to an initial contradiction in our judgent that the Revenge Army was ‘completely lucid.'”
Sandora frowned in contemplation, but clearly, the current intel was not sufficient. She finally sighed lightly, “Did we get any data from those soldiers’ mory cores?”
“Regrettably, Your Majesty Sandora, as with previous instances, all the deceased souls have dissipated, and their mory cores are empty. The Revenge Army obviously operates under absolute logic; once situations beco uncontrollable, their priority is to utterly destroy themselves, such tactics…”
“This thod is as if they were facing the Abyss army,” Sandora said solemnly, “they treat normal Xyrin compatriots as the Abyss, which is truly heartbreaking. Continue your work and report imdiately if there’s any situation.”
Taville nodded, and the holographic projection flickered in the air before disappearing. Taville was still tinkering with the ship-borne main computer that Bubbles had just severely beat up. Although Bubbles had declared this iron sphere of little value, Taville still wanted to pry so secrets out of it: won always have a bit of a gossipy mindset, it just manifests differently according to the profession.
“I will check the navigational records of this starship, but the best scenario is to trace back to the beacon when the warship entered the Main Material Plane,” Taville reported. Sandora simply nodded, indicating she understood.
Sandora wanted to stay in the research center a bit longer, but I myself went to the upper platform area of General City. This place was originally part of the corridor of Imperial Admiral, and after unfolding into General City, most of the central corridors of the starship turned into the city’s upper platform, which can be considered a viewing deck for the officers. The wide terrace of over a hundred ters was half-covered by a transparent energy shield, like a layer of glass. Inside the shield, I stood looking out at the magnificent view outside.
The lower atmosphere of Mist God Star was restless, with 360 kiloters per hour hurricanes and low-hanging clouds of Chaos wreaking havoc just beyond reach, creating a hellish scene of madness. Outside the thin shield, the atmospheric pressure was enough to flatten any war chariot on Earth into an iron pancake. The nitrogen-helium-hydrogen atmosphere transitioned from gaseous to liquid under this extre pressure, forming the tumultuous “ocean” below us. This ant that Mist God Star’s ocean was actually the sa as its atmospheric makeup, and General City was situated right at the “gas-liquid” boundary of Mist God Star’s surface, with about three kiloters of thickness where the atmosphere transitioned between gaseous and liquid states, the result of billions of years of unceasing fierce storms and massive tsunamis. This spectacle, unimaginable and indescribable on Earth, currently no human-made spacecraft could last more than fifteen minutes in such an environnt.
In the vastly different humid environnt from Earth’s, outside the shield, the sky spilled curtain-like “rainwater.” Even with the fortress’s powerful lights, the visibility on the platform outside didn’t exceed fifteen ters. So vague gray-black shadows wrapped in blue halos flashed past behind the dense curtain of rain—those were the flying devices on patrol in the base. This wasn’t the most hazardous environnt we had ever established; the nuclear storm inside Red Giant Star Fortress was hundreds of tis more terrifying, but in terms of the shock of the scene, the storms in this gas giant were much more thrilling. I rembered yesterday at noon, Qianqian whimsically dragged outside the shield to experience the wind and rain. We set off near the Arctic Cloud Ring, and a few hours later, Sandora dragged us back from a cyclonic void at the North Pole—an unforgettable experience that gave a deeper understanding of Qianqian’s lethal power and made it clear: two directionally challenged people should not travel together.
“The storm outside is even stronger than yesterday,” a gentle voice suddenly sounded by my ear, and I turned around in surprise to find Big Sister looking at with a mild smile. She gently stroked my hair, just as she often did when I was a child—the only difference being that back then there would usually be a knuckle to the head, not anymore. “The Holy Pope has already announced the war news, but the transfer of power will be handled privately with the United Governnt. The general public is not aware of this.”
“Even if people knew, they wouldn’t concern themselves with the ‘mortals’ changing power now,” I smiled, “How is Mobra society now?”
“It’s chaotic, but I haven’t interfered,” Big Sister smiled faintly, with that subtly warm smile that makes one’s liver tremble. “Zagu is right, Mobra has been peaceful for too long and they believed too unquestioningly in ‘Holy Sage’s Blessings.’ Now including the heads of the United Governnt it’s all a ss. The enemy hasn’t even reached the Mist God Star defensive line, yet they act as though Doomsday has already arrived, it would be chaos to see what happens when the Revenge Army’s fleet actually reaches Mobra Main Star’s airspace.”
“Perhaps this is an opportunity for them to break through their difficulties, since their ancestors were servants of Sandora. It would be disappointing if they were suffocated by a greenhouse environnt.” Watching the raging storm outside the shield, I felt deeply moved and suddenly felt inspired to write a poem.
As you might have guessed, in the end, I couldn’t co up with anything…(to be continued. If you like this work, please vote for it at QiDian, your support is my biggest motivation.)
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