Chapter 186: The Mystery of the Jump
Overall, despite the recovered section of the hull being 800 meters long and the Whipple shield having a diameter of over 1 kilometer, it still only represented the bow section of the cangyuan one colony ship.
It's hard to imagine how massive the complete colony ship must have been.
At the very front of the bow were the oxidation-phase phased array radar and other observation equipment, followed by various compartments.
Upon entering these compartments, the players were continuously surprised.
They first discovered seven brand-new night heron aerospace planes parked in the hangar, and then found a total of 600,000 tons of reserve supplies, including various metallic and non-metallic materials, as well as fresh water.
These supplies were originally intended for constructing the ground colony.
Additionally, there was a small fuel tank.
"Small" was relative to the size of the colony ship; in reality, it contained 50,000 tons of gaseous xenon mixed fuel, plus 5,000 tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the aerospace planes.
Lu Yuan realized that with these supplies, they could fully consider building a second space dock and a second Qinling-class frigate.
Finally, the players entered the core part of the bow, known as the "Spire."
This section was about 300 meters long, and it was called the Spire probably because its internal structure resembled a skyscraper.
When the colony ship accelerated or decelerated, an equivalent gravity of about 0.3 G would be generated internally. At this time, the main corridor along the ship's long axis would become the vertical elevator shaft inside the Spire.
At the "top" of the Spire was the magnificent bridge of the colony ship, and below it were the living and entertainment areas, the hospital, and the stasis chambers for the Executive Officer himself, Cangyuan executives, and elite technical personnel.
Many areas here showed traces of battle, with both bullet holes from solid projectiles and burn marks from lasers on the walls.
An hour later, after confirming the internal environment was safe, Lu Yuan was the last to board. Black Smoke, who was in charge of commanding this operation, stepped forward to report.
"Reporting, Executive Officer! All compartments have been checked. I apologize, but no survivors were found."
"Understood. Can you determine what happened here? What's with the battle damage?"
Black Smoke shook his head.
"Specific details are still unclear, but it can basically be confirmed that this place was forcibly boarded by armed personnel, meaning a boarding action occurred. There are breaches on the outer hull left by ultra-high temperature cutting.
"Among the more than 1,000 stasis occupants inside the ship, at least 200 attempted to resist the boarding action by unknown enemies, but all died in battle; the remaining 800 died because their stasis chambers were hacked, freezing them directly in the devices, except for—you, sir. Your stasis chamber was physically disconnected from the ship's network, fortunately escaping the hacker attack."
Lu Yuan nodded silently.
"Also, Jubian is leading a team to restore power. We'll be able to light up the bridge very soon."
Strictly speaking, Lu Yuan didn't know those who died, but learning that so many human space pioneers had perished along the way still left him feeling quite heavy-hearted.
"Recover the remains and use them as raw material for Cangyuan's new employee clones. I think this is also a way to continue their will."
"Understood!"
"Were the bodies of the boarders found?"
"Yes! But not many. Their technology level was higher; the laser guns they used seemed to completely suppress the solid-projectile weapons in the hands of the crew."
Just then, bright lights illuminated the "elevator shaft" where Lu Yuan was located.
"Great! Jubian and his team have restored power. Let's go to the bridge, Executive Officer!"
"Let's go!"
The colony ship's bridge was a spherical space about 100 meters in diameter, laid out much like a dome theater but far more luxurious. The entire inner sphere was a high-definition display screen, showing the complete view around the spaceship with no blind spots and built-in 3D effects.
It was quite "bright."
These views were acquired by cameras, with those positioned in front of the Whipple shield set at 15x redundancy to account for inevitable damage during travel.
Hundreds of operator stations were grouped on multiple platforms in the center of the sphere.
The sci-fi level of the bridge scene exceeded most players' prior imagination.
"Is this really a ship from 2095? How does it feel even more futuristic than the interior renderings of our Qinling-class frigates?"
"Of course! This was Cangyuan's most awesome project back then. They definitely had to pour money into a place like the bridge; all sorts of corporate promotional videos would be filmed here."
"Hmm, that makes sense! Although VR headsets can achieve similar effects, they still fall a bit short in terms of intuitiveness and realism.
"Ugh—if Cangyuan had that much spare money, they should've put nuclear power on the aerospace planes instead."
"I guess the small nuclear power systems back then were still very expensive laboratory products. Aerospace planes were originally only planned for shuttling between orbit and planet surfaces, so forcing nuclear power on them wasn't really necessary."
"Sigh! It made our pioneering work so hard!"
Jubian once again activated the "internal reference" live broadcast mode.
Every detail here held significant reference value for the construction of large spacecraft on Earth in the future.
The technology of 2095 was already very close to the technical level of the present!
Lu Yuan came to the platform at the very core of the bridge. There were five stations here, with employee ranks from low to high: First Mate, Captain, Chief Engineer, Chief Scientist, and Executive Officer.
"It's happening!"
Seeing this, everyone temporarily put down what they were doing.
The historic moment to witness a major development in the main storyline had arrived again!
Under the employees' unwavering gaze, Lu Yuan, with a sense of ritual, sat in the Executive Officer's chair, which symbolized "kingship," then activated the DNA recognition to unlock the terminal display screen in front of him.
"System, pull up the navigation log."
"Understood. Welcome back, Mr. Executive Officer."
After some operations, he finally obtained the navigation log and the surveillance footage from inside the ship, completing a part of his "memory."
The boarding incident happened 18 months ago.
At that time, the crew discovered the enemies boarding the ship and successfully hacking into the ship's network, attempting to seize control of the stasis system. They then urgently physically cut off the network.
But they were still a step too late, and many colleagues tragically froze to death.
Fortunately, at the critical moment, the Executive Officer's chamber was timely disconnected from the network and power.
However, this also led to him not being awakened.
Upon realizing they could not defeat the invaders, the brave previous generation of Cangyuan employees managed to detonate the area where the enemies were most concentrated, ultimately achieving a heroic act of mutual destruction.
This explosion completely separated the bow section from the main body behind it, and at the same time, unexpectedly triggered a deeply hidden protocol, causing a "mysterious device" in the rear of the colony ship, with no records or remarks, to activate.
Reading up to this point, Lu Yuan could easily guess.
The effect after this mysterious device activated should have been to make the disintegrated colony ship suddenly jump, with the bow section jumping into the current star system.
The main body behind it was nowhere to be found, and it must have undergone more jumps thereafter, leading it to become the "ghost ship" mentioned by Star Alliance adventurers.
Nine more months passed, and the stasis chamber's backup energy was about to run out, forcing the Executive Officer to awaken.
At this point, he discovered that the colony ship had disintegrated, and all his subordinates were dead. So, he took supplies and traveled alone in an aerospace plane to Li Star, where a habitable environment might exist, to investigate the situation.
Without a Zero Element Furnace and warp drive, this journey took a full five months.
Moreover, according to the voice log synchronized by the Executive Officer to the colony ship along the way, the aerospace plane also collided with debris when flying out of the asteroid belt.
This minor bump, which didn't receive enough attention at the time, directly led to a major accident when entering Li Star's atmosphere.
After that, it was the forced landing after crossing over.
While watching the logs, many players crowded behind Lu Yuan, so they also learned the entire past. They were now in heated discussion.
Lu Yuan did not stop them, contemplating seriously for a few minutes.
Afterward, he called Black Smoke: "Later, you'll take the invader's genetic map and weaponry back and give these things to the task force going to New Hope. Have them investigate the source of the equipment in the Star Alliance, as well as the faction or species that matches the genetic map."
"Understood!"
The initial act of hacking the stasis chambers indicated that the invaders' purpose in boarding was piratical looting, not assassination, otherwise they would have simply blown up the ship.
However, with the popularization of zero element technology and the discovery of wormhole routes, stasis technology was no longer widely used in the aerospace field.
Under this major premise, the invaders' ability to successfully hack the system after boarding implied they had already prepared corresponding data interfaces and hacking programs in advance.
The other party knew from the start that this was a Cangyuan colony ship launched in 2095 that had survived the apocalypse! And, miraculously, they had somehow obtained detailed engineering data, including operating system programs and data interface protocols, which should have been lost long ago.
It was absolutely not a chance encounter or an impromptu decision; it must have been meticulously planned!
How could a mere group of pirates achieve this?
Could it be that the pirate attackers were merely being used? Was there a true mastermind behind the scenes?
This matter was very unsettling and needed to be thoroughly investigated.
Furthermore, what puzzled Lu Yuan even more than the attack incident was the "mysterious device" inside the colony ship.
Currently, all signs pointed to this "mysterious device" being a jump engine.
That was a high-tech item even for humans of the golden age, and for today's Star Alliance, it was nothing short of a miracle!
Cangyuan had secretly mastered jump technology when the colony ship set sail? In 2095?
Don't be ridiculous. What would be the point of having such a large solar sail on the ship then? This thing must have been acquired midway. As for whether it was given by aliens, dug out from the ruins of another civilization, or had some even more bizarre origin—there was no record in the navigation log. The Executive Officer and some executives should have known.
Unfortunately, the executives could no longer speak, and he himself had not inherited the original owner's memories.
Lu Yuan looked up at the huge spherical screen above his head, gazing into the endless, vast void.
Cangyuan's secrets, and the secrets of humanity and the universe, he could only slowly uncover himself.
"Let's head back first!"
He stood up and said to the employees.
"Later, I will issue tasks to the Engineer and pilot players. No matter what, we must first find a way to drag this behemoth into Li Star's orbit, and quickly!"