The reverberation of the explosion echoed along the alloy walls in the dark and silent starship cabin. This is the battlefield 215 years later.
Although it was two centuries late, the "Heaven" finally stepped over the body of the unknown man and restarted the reactor that had been sleeping for two centuries.
As the reactor restarted, the shipboard server was reconnected to power, and the landing craft's shipboard AI restarted the hacking program, taking control of the entire starship without much effort.
but--
After all, this moment was more than two hundred years too late.
Shortly after "Celestial Being" seized control of the Orion guided missile cruiser, a silver-gray scientific research ship entered the former's field of vision.
That wasn't a threat worth paying attention to.
Compared with the entire "End War" plan, that thing is not even an eyesore. One neutron torpedo is enough to kill everyone on that spacecraft.
However, the accident happened after all.
After paying nearly 90% casualties, a lame rat still sneaked into the starship, launched electronic warfare against the shipboard server of the Orion guided missile cruiser, forcibly started the warp engine, and drove the spacecraft towards
Five light years away.
Seeing that the newly acquired starship was about to enter the hyperspace channel, "Luo Yi" had to detonate a second neutron torpedo to interfere with the activation of the hyperspace channel.
Withstanding the impact of the electromagnetic pulse, "Luo Yi" floating in the vacuum opened his eyes, pressed the button of the jetpack and continued to move forward.
The killing effect of the neutron plume on the android is quite limited, and it will hardly be affected much. This is why it did not hesitate to detonate two neutron torpedoes one after another.
But what it didn't expect was that the little cyborg mouse, which was shot by itself first and then suffered the aftermath of a neutron torpedo explosion, was not dead either.
not only that.
The guy even took this opportunity to distance himself from himself.
The electronic warfare intrusion on the shipboard server only paused for a moment, and soon started again after changing the intrusion node. Moreover, the new round of attacks was obviously much more powerful than the previous one, and the scope of the attack was also wider!
After seizing control of the warp engine and cutting off the circuits of the weapon system, the guy reached out to the starship's anti-gravity device.
However, her good luck ended here.
Just now, with the assistance of the Orion's shipboard AI, it had re-locked the data interface used by that guy to launch electronic warfare.
And what’s interesting is that the data interface used by that little mouse was the same landing craft that Gemini shot at the Orion guided missile cruiser more than 200 years ago.
Even not long ago, "Luo Yi" helped the shipboard AI on the landing craft restart the reactor of the Orion guided missile cruiser and completed the invasion of the Orion shipboard server.
That guy actually tried to use their hardware and the same "landing point" as them. He was really tired of living. Facing the corridor like a deep well, "Luo Yi" drifted forward and watched as he floated from the corridor.
The remains of the exoskeleton passed by, the subconscious nerves collapsed.
However, the corpse did not attack him, but quietly floated over. Looking at the wreckage, it suddenly opened its mouth as if it remembered something.
"... Speaking of which, there is one thing that I still can't figure out." "It's my honor to answer your confusion."
A gentle voice drifted into its signal receiving module.
It was the shipboard AI redesigned by the Gemini for the friendly ship Orion, and it was also an early version of the "Navigator" AI of the Lagrange Point space station.
"Luo Yi" was silent for a while, with a rare hint of confusion in his emotionless pupils.
"The man we met in the power room before, the electrical engineer... why did he cut off the power to the reactor."
Regarding this question, the navigator was silent for a long time before he said leisurely, "Yes...why?"
This is not only the confusion of "Luo Yi", but also its biggest confusion in the past 200 years.
215 years ago, at the same time that it successfully broke through the firewall and took control of the starship, someone suddenly manually cut off the power supply to the power room.
Logically speaking this is impossible.
Even if the neutron plume does not kill them instantly, it will render the entire starship incapable of action, from the command level to the execution level.
When isolated and helpless, human instinct must be to save themselves. Even if it is a meaningless struggle, they will never think of shutting down any reactor.
unless……
In that extremely dangerous situation and without receiving any orders, that guy made his own decision and made that choice without any hesitation.
But why? Why did he do this?
This is something that the "Navigator" has been thinking about for more than two hundred years, but still can't figure out. However, no matter how you say it.
In this way, history was changed by an inconspicuous little man. And the "Heaven" also waited for 200 more years for this.
"I thought you would give me an answer." The navigator said in a gentle tone.
"Not all questions have answers. Maybe it's because of a flash of inspiration or some kind of instinct. I can only say... there are no ifs in history."
""
It seems that even the omniscient navigator has problems that he cannot understand.
"Luo Yi" floated forward wordlessly, heading towards the dying little mouse. I wonder if it was his imagination.
He always felt that from the moment the silver-gray scientific research ship collided with the starship, everything on the starship was working against him and pushing things in a direction he had not expected.
Including this corridor. The distance of only two hundred meters is darker and longer than it imagined.
This place was obviously its home and it was obviously here to save them... but its comrades treated it like an enemy.
Every corpse here seemed to be against him, like seaweed growing wildly in the deep sea, trying to entangle its oars.
The pitch-black darkness is like the entrance to an abyss. Except for the light source emitted from its own body, no trace of light can be seen.
So dark.
It’s so dark.—— “Boom——!” The battlefield 215 years ago.
The deafening explosion swept through every cabin of the Orion guided missile cruiser. More than 2,700 crew members were killed instantly, and only 227 survived.
Not long after, there was a large-scale power outage, and red alerts flashed in various areas. "Woo——!"
The ups and downs of the alarm were stretched and distanced along with the rapidly disappearing air. However, the only 227 crew members left did not show the slightest panic.
Even before the siren sounded, when they heard the initial explosion, they already acted as if they heard the starting gun.
Just like it has been practiced countless times.
Facing their doomed death, they unanimously gave up the illusion of self-rescue and survival, and accepted their own death calmly.
not only that.
They also have to use the remaining time to leave the ghost-killing sword for the children who will break into this tomb 200 years later. Sitting in the duty room looking at the hair and skin falling off like a collapsed sand barrier
Lin Youyou laughed at herself... From now on, I am also a member of the Burning Corps."
Blood seeped out from his nostrils, dripping on the table one after another.
She felt as if every cell in her body was burning, and life was passing by at an almost visible speed... There was no time to hesitate.
Death's scythe was already on her neck.
Pushing away the chair and standing up, Lin Youyou endured the severe pain and held on to the edge of the table, passing by her colleagues who were already "asleep" and stumbling into the drug store with flashing lights.
She opened the cabinet where the hemostatic gel was kept, grabbed a handful of the stock and took it with her, then hurriedly rushed out the door and rushed towards the area where the explosion occurred.
Her patient was on that landing craft—
The girl who will arrive on this starship in 200 years!
In that non-existent timeline, she personally told her that she would be cured!
Seeing the red warning light turn on, she knew that there was not much time left, so she walked forward, opened the recorder in her pocket, and spoke in a hurry.
"I don't have much time, so I can only make the story short. I hope you listen carefully..." "About the method of thawing the hemostatic gel..." At the same time that Lin Youyou rushed to the scene of the explosion, she was in the repair room of the fourth department.
Koala, who was busy inside, finally completed the last work of his life.
It was a robot modified from a magnetic levitation repair drone.
There are two mechanical arms inserted into the round body, which mainly rely on magnetic control components to move. It looks ugly like a college student's graduation project.
In outer space, where there is no gravity and no air, this is probably the only drone that can work properly.
As for things like sweeping robots, they will all have to wait until the artificial gravity device is turned off. They will either be sucked out of the starship hull by the huge negative pressure, or they will stop in mid-air and be unable to move.
Although Koala also thought about installing some awesome weapons on it, he had no time to go to the equipment warehouse to retrieve combat prosthetics.
All he can do is to install ten intelligent boot programs designed with the help of engineers on it, guide her to seize control of the warp engine on that day more than two hundred years later, and guide her to the starting point of this battle...
…
That is also the starting point where the two timelines meet.
Looking at the stupid robot, the finished koala grinned and admired it for a while... I didn't expect that the last work in my life would be such an ugly thing, hehe."
The blood gushing from the mouth and nose dripped on the robot's body. He subconsciously raised his arm and wiped it. As a result, instead of stopping the gushing blood, it started to flow more and more.
Probably because of the negative pressure.
Knowing that the bleeding couldn't stop, Koala simply ignored it, reached out and patted the robot's round body, leaving the sticky bloody fingerprints on it.
"Please, my little koala... I don't have time to give you a nice name." "Anyway, I leave it to you..."
Just as he said these words, he finally breathed his last breath.
Looking at his master who died in front of him, the round little koala slightly moved the camera in front of him, then went into hibernation as planned, and began the long wait.
And this wait--a full 215 years!
The raging neutron plume penetrated the sleeping starship, and the long-awaited explosion shock woke up the sleeping little koala. According to the set procedure, it unplugged the external power supply connected to its body.
Driven by the magnetic force, the round body slowly floated up, pushed aside the rotting corpse, left the repair room of Department 4, and slowly floated towards the site of another collision accident.
That's the mess hall on the lower deck.
Just like the message left by the owner, a silver-gray scientific research ship crashed through the decayed steel armor, and the twisted and deformed cockpit was embedded straight into the wall.
Two mechanical arms stretched forward, and it opened the twisted and deformed alloy door, revealing the girl in the space suit.
At this moment, she was lying on a sleeping cabin, her consciousness seemed to have fallen into a coma, her lips were moving, and she seemed to be mumbling something.
How pitiful.
Just like his own master.
However, probably because she was equipped with a lot of random prosthetics, the neutron plume that erupted earlier did not kill her.
Pulled by the magnetic force, the little koala floated to Jiang Xuezhou's side, stretched out his hand and patted her helmet gently, awakening the shaky consciousness.
"Hey, wake up."
Jiang Xuezhou slowly opened his blurry eyes, his chapped lips opening and closing. "Who are you?"
She couldn't see anything, she could only vaguely feel that someone was standing in front of her. There was a rusty handprint printed on that round body.
It seemed to be dried blood. But—— This guy didn't look like an enemy.
After all, if it were an enemy, it wouldn't wake itself up at all.
The figure standing in front of her thought for a while and then connected to her communication channel.
"Me? My master's name is Little Koala... Of course, I should have a better name, but he said he didn't have time to give it to me. Maybe you can do it for him."
koala……
Jiang Xuezhou's eyes widened slightly. The name was so familiar.
She always felt a strong sense of immediacy, as if she had heard it somewhere but could not remember it at all. In fact, it was normal to not be able to remember it.
Although they had met more than 200 years ago, and had met more than once, in her timeline, their encounter had not happened yet.
At this moment, not long after the first neutron torpedo exploded, the Orion guided missile cruiser was still firmly stationary in the earth's synchronous orbit.
And there is still nearly an hour before she opens the hyperspace channel and enters the superposition state... "Have we... met somewhere?"
Looking at the dazed girl, the little koala made a sound like the clinking of metal cans. "Of course, we have seen you and will see you again... We have been waiting for you for a long time."
It really knows itself!
Jiang Xuezhou's eyes were fully opened. Not just his eyes.
She tried her best to push herself up and slowly floated up from the cold sleeping cabin, casting a look for help at the strange robot.
"Please help me...someone wants to kill us. It's not just us, many people will die..."
Her opponent was the "Celestial Being" who had taken control of the entire starship, and the Burning Corps that assisted her was almost completely wiped out. She was in a desperate situation and almost gave up - even gave up.
Different from Ye Shi's imagination, she has never been a very powerful person, let alone very strong.
She is just an ordinary person who is talented in her professional field and well-educated and trained.
She used her remaining strength to drag the unconscious Ye Shi into the sleep cabin. It was not a carefully thought-out plan, but she just hoped that the "celestial beings" would spare Ye Shi's life for the sake of being a resident of the shelter.
She knew that this idea was childish, but she still couldn't help but comfort herself. Even if only one person survived...
And just when she was about to fall into a deep sleep, a life-saving straw suddenly floated in front of her. It was this straw that made her suddenly realize that she was not alone, and the desire to survive was rekindled in her heart.
.
It’s not over yet. She’s not dead yet! And neither is he…
Looking at the girl floating up from the sleeping cabin, the little koala gently tapped her round body and said in a gentle electronic voice.
"I'm just here to help you."
After saying that, it turned around and stretched out a mechanical hand to her. "Grab it and follow me..."
"Before the ghost catches you." The race with the ghost begins.
This will be a relay spanning two centuries, and the player from 215 years later has already taken over the first baton of this relay from the hands of 227 comrades.
Holding the little koala's robotic hand, Jiang Xuezhou followed closely behind it, shuttling through the dark corridor as dark as a deep well. He didn't know why.
She is obviously someone who is afraid of the dark.
Especially in this claustrophobic darkness, just being in it would scare her so much that she couldn't move her legs, not to mention that there was an evil ghost carrying a knife hidden in this starship.
However, at this moment, she surprisingly didn't have any fear in her heart, and she even allowed the guy who called himself Little Koala to lead her to the unknown front.
It was obviously the first time she had stepped into this tomb, but she felt like she had been here a long, long time ago. Is this... the so-called "perception"?
Ye Shi always used to brag to her, saying that he could foresee the danger that was about to happen.
She had always been skeptical about things that could not be explained by science, but at this moment, her doubts could not help but waver.
Maybe it's not that science can't explain it, but that the existing theories can't cover it. Just like now.
A deep intuition told her that maybe the "new theory" was right in front of her.
Just as she was thinking about the mystery, the little koala leading the way suddenly seemed to remember something and said in a gentle voice.
"If you are afraid, you can tell me. My master has prepared some songs for you."
"...It's better not to. It's scary to play music suddenly at this time." Jiang Xuezhou shrank his neck and said. "Is that so? Well, it seems that my master has done something unnecessary."
Looking at the round metal body, Jiang Xuezhou nervously asked the question that he had been holding back in his heart for a long time. "Where...are we going?"
The little koala said in a gentle voice.
"Go to the nearest data port. I need you to hack into the warp drive of this starship."
"Hack, hack into the warp engine of this starship?!" Jiang Xuezhou's eyes widened, "Your master...are you serious?!" This is a missile cruiser of the People's Federation!
Although she had also dug up the ancestral graves of some Alliance Aerospace Forces, hacking into the warp engine of a missile cruiser was still a bit fanciful.
As if he guessed that she would be surprised, the little koala in front smiled gently.
"Don't worry, we have prepared a surprise for our opponents on the warp drive... Don't worry, the starting coordinates and destination coordinates of the hyperspace channel have been calculated, and the key has been inserted into the keyhole. You just have to
It requires a slight twist, I believe it is not difficult for you."
Hearing these words, Jiang Xuezhou finally breathed a sigh of relief and whispered, "Thank you... You are so considerate."
The little koala laughed like metal friction, and the sound was like a wind chime with a distorted tone. "You're welcome."
"My master said... we cannot let our children face the ghosts of the past alone."
····.
Just as the little koala said, its owner and its owner's comrades have prepared everything, and all she needs to do is just hold the key that has been inserted in the keyhole, and then gently twist it
.
Accompanied by a tremor like the earth was shaking, this starship that had been sleeping for two centuries was like an awakening dragon, letting out a silent roar in the boundless starry sky.
Everything went as planned.
However, just when Jiang Xuezhou was about to disconnect from the data interface, "Luo Yi" finally found her and emptied the magazine towards her.
A fight broke out between the two sides in the narrow corridor.
Although the Orion's space combat team left a lot of equipment near the data interface, it was a pity that Jiang Xuezhou was still no match for "Luo Yi" and was shot in the abdomen.
And a guy with a round body was not a combat robot. He could only drive the magnetic control element to pull the surrounding metal debris and smash it towards Luo Yi, covering Jiang Xuezhou who was shot and evacuated the scene.
Maybe that is also a part of destiny.
Her owner didn't tell her what would happen in the future, and she didn't know she would be shot.
Before being grabbed by Luo Yi, he passed the map leading to the gym on the lower deck to the little girl who successfully escaped.
That was the scene of the accident where the Gemini landing craft collided with the Orion cruiser.
There is a sleeping cabin left there, as well as the last usable data interface. That's not all.
It was also the data interface that once broke through the firewall of the starship's shipboard server!
She will use this sword stuck in her heart that has not yet been drawn out to complete the final blow to the ghost lingering in this tomb!
Just when she used the data interface to invade the warp engine, the data packet that broke through the firewall had been uploaded to the bionic chip in her brain through the cache server in the warp engine control room.
"The engine has been started... Please follow the AR guidance path to the coordinates on the map. There is a landing craft there, and there is a sleeping capsule in the cockpit of the landing craft..."
After sealing the hole in the space suit with emergency tape, Jiang Xuezhou struggled through the half-open hatch. When she heard the voice on the communication channel, she had no time to care about the little koala's condition and asked hurriedly.
"What's next...what else do you need me to do?!"
A clanking sound came along the bulkhead, followed by intermittent sounds from the communication channel. "Lie in... plug the data cable into the brain-computer interface... and then there is nothing to do, the rest is
Just leave it to us..."
Jiang Xuezhou asked blankly. "...Leave it to...you?" Is there anyone else here?
Intermittent but unwavering answers came from the communication channel.
"Yes...trust us...we won't let you face the cruelest future alone." That was the last message it left in this world.
After sleeping in the cold tomb for more than two hundred years, it finally completed the mission assigned to it by its owner. "Why?!"
"Luo Yi", who broke free from the blockage of the wreckage, let out a roar and reached out to grab the little koala's head.
It tore off the ridiculously crude camera and sensor, then swung the titanium alloy blade in its hand, splitting the old robot into two pieces.
Looking at the garbage integrated into the wreckage, it roared at the top of its lungs. "Why are you going against me! Why!!!"
Because of these idiots, they have been suffering in the darkness for 200 years! And now these dead people who are already cold have to stop them!
This is not just the roar of "Luo Yi".
It is also the roar of the "navigator" and even all "celestial beings"!
However, their roars failed to stop the bullet that had been fired 200 years ago. In the end, the warp engine completed charging.
The intelligent virus rooted in the shipboard server was helpless to do anything about the engine that had been started, and could only watch the hyperspace channel open again after two centuries.
"Luo Yi" placed its hopes on the second neutron torpedo being loaded. The missile, which was more than ten meters long, broke away from the launcher.
In a dazzling light, the hot neutron plume was released in an instant!
Almost at the same time, a silent roar tore through time and space, and thousands of rays of light converged on a point so small that it was almost invisible, carrying a huge mass and penetrating the space in an instant.
Standing on the earth and looking at the synchronous orbit, the several-kilometer-long starship seemed to have disappeared out of thin air, leaping to Nanmen II five light-years away in an instant.
Not long ago, Jiang Xuezhou, who was lying in the hibernation cabin, looked at the hatch cover that was gradually closing, and slowly closed her eyes. When the neutron plume swept over her body, she had completely entered cryogenic hibernation.
.
Polymer proteins maintain maximum structural stability under ultra-low temperature freezing, which reduces the damage of neutron plumes to organisms to a certain extent.
Her consciousness fell into a deep sleep.
However, the bionic chip in her brain did not stop working.
A small data cable is connected to her neck, slowly importing the data in the chip into the sleep cabin, and using the sleep cabin as a springboard to spread to the Gemini landing craft, and through the bridge built by the latter to invade the Orion.
, Infiltrate into the Orion's shipboard server.
Two parallel timelines intersected at this moment, and a huge flow of information was exchanged in the form of resonance between two mutually irrelevant superposition states.
From the dimensions of space and time, they did not come into direct contact and could not meet. However, the series of unswerving and unhesitating choices they made seemed like they had made an appointment.
That was indeed an appointment.
Because they all believe unanimously...
Time goes back to 215 years ago.
As the last bit of energy was exhausted, the red warning light stopped flashing, and the entire starship became silent as if dead.
Dragging his increasingly heavier body, Luo Yi, who was wearing power armor, opened the twisted and deformed hatch and dragged the dormant cabin into the empty cockpit alone.
Not surprisingly, he is probably the longest living among the 227 survivors.
Perhaps because of the large number of prosthetics installed, the neutron plume was not as lethal to him as expected, so he actually survived for so long.
However, he is almost at the end here.
As Dr. Wu said, there was no one in this landing craft, not even a chair.
The crew of the Gemini had abandoned their physical bodies long before they launched their attack and became another existence.
Yes.
They have already become "celestial beings".
It probably won't be long before other people on the Lagrange Point Space Station will become similar beings.
And what happened after that was probably the "history" the child told him.
I didn't expect that a dying person like me would know so many things that I would never have known.
So, did you actually earn something?
Looking at the sleeping cabin lying in the cockpit, Luo Yi grinned and exhaled a breath of turbid air that didn't have much temperature left. This was probably the last brick.
They have done everything they can, and the rest can only be left to the children who will step into this grave 215 years later.
Just when Luo Yi was about to find a place to sit down and wait quietly for death to come, he suddenly remembered something.
wrong--
There is one last thing left.
"If it were me... I would definitely not leave me alone, haha."
Thinking of this, he stood up again, held on to the open hatch and floated out.
If it were "me", for the so-called sense of identity, I would definitely try to find my own body.
If that guy finds this place and sees the dormant cabin, their plan may go wrong...
Simply put, he had to find a place to die that was easy to find.
In order to avoid unnecessary complications, Luo Yi returned to the duty room, closed the hatch, took off his power armor, and then climbed into the emergency sleeping cabin and lay down.
This kind of emergency dormant cabin powered by chemical energy batteries can probably sleep for about fifty years. However, with his current physical condition, which is only half a breath of life, if he wakes up in fifty years, he will probably have to wait for death, or even not at all.
Can't wake up.
From this point of view, the Wastelanders are still thick-skinned and have all kinds of prosthetic bodies installed on their bodies. Although they have given up part of their flesh and blood, they have become more "resistant".
He suddenly admired the boy a little.
His bloodshot eyes could no longer see clearly. Luo Yi, who was lying in the dormant cabin, held the soldier card tightly in his hand and finally breathed his last breath.
"Please-" "Stop the other me!"
(Thanks to the leader of "Stardust 20190920" for the reward!!!)