Chapter 108: What Happened?!
“What gave birth to this egg?” Cary poked at the egg Tang Qiuqiu was hugging and asked.
“I don’t know. Uncle Lu Suo said that they ran into a few types of alien beasts earlier, but he wasn’t sure which one this belongs to. Although, I’ve recorded all of the alien beasts Uncle Lu Suo told me.” Tang Qiuqiu took out an electronic notebook and showed Cillin and Cary the pictures.
“Hmph, there’s no need for such trouble. I only need sniff it once to know what it is!” The gray cat said disdainfully.
“Really?!” Tang Qiuqiu’s eyes lit up, “I saw that there are some alien beast claws or furs or something that Uncle Lu Suo and the others killed on the spaceplane. Can you really sniff out what it belongs to?”
“Of course!” The gray cat raised its head and looked incredibly pleased with itself.
While Tang Qiuqiu led the gray cat inside the spaceplane, Cary asked Cillin, “What do you think is inside that egg? The alien beasts Lu Suo’s group ran into were pretty scary. Whichever it may be, It should be pretty dangerous.”
“It’s also possible that it belongs to neither of those beasts.” Cillin said.
When Cillin had analysed its isotopes when he touched the egg earlier. Although there were no accurate comparisons, Cillin could assert that the egg was at least five hundred years, or even one thousand years old. It was even older than the gray cat, and the strangest thing was that this egg was ‘alive’. Although the life inside the egg wasn’t strong, it was easily detectable in close range.
As expected, not long after Tang Qiuqiu and the gray cat exited the spaceplane, the young girl wore a puzzled look on her face. The conclusion was, “They’re all wrong.”
“When we go back we’ll put it in an incubator and wait. Maybe we’ll know what it is not long after.” Cary suggested. What Cary was thinking right now was that it better not be a second Dough that jumped out of the egg, or he might as well not bother to stock up anything inside his cabinet any longer.
“Okay. But I’ll still visit it often!” Tang Qiuqiu caressed the egg in her lap and smiled joyfully.
At the end of the meeting, Dias summoned the man for another meeting to inform them that there was a change in plans, and they were to leave Sector Z and be set on a return journey.
Going by the GAL Standard Calendar, the Sixth Squad had entered Sector Z for several months now, and by the time they head out, it’d be about a year in total. It was a lot of gain to discover a rank B planet and these ores in just a year, but still, there were some people who were unwilling to discard all their original plans and head back so suddenly. Usually, they would not stop here just because they had had a very productive run. But they wouldn’t complain about the decision either; naturally, the commander and the lieutenant commanders’ decision wasn’t founded on nothing.
When Dias was finished with the briefing, he requested a few core members to stay behind and continued the meeting, briefly explaining the matter with ‘Poison Fang’.
The moment the group heard about ‘Poison Fang’, they immediately understood what was going on. It was no wonder that the commanders would make such a decision. After all, who would want to run into those lunatics at such a time?
After loading a portion of the energy ores into the starship’s energy warehouse, the Sixth Squad left the planet. The A Squadron would take over the remaining duties on the planet, and the Sixth Squad no longer had to do anything any longer.
For the return journey to leave Sector Z, Shawton did not retrace their footsteps from the way they came from. Instead, they would return through a different route. This was also the joint decision he and the lieutenant commanders had arrived at after the meeting. While the route had been explored by someone else before, the exploration process was incomplete. Therefore, if they could discover something that the previous explorers missed, then it would balance out everyone’s feelings and curb any dissatisfactions.
They had to say that the planets along this route were pretty great. It didn’t take long for them to discover an unmarked and unreceptive planet with planetary habitability of Rank C.
Hence, the Sixth Squad stopped by the planet as Shawton sent out the men to explore it.
Right now, Cillin, Cary and a few other members were chatting idly at the lounge outside the control room.
“Cillin, the commander’s looking for you!” Cary yelled on his chair without turning over.
Cillin saw Shawton coming in through the door the moment he turned his head around. He could’ve just called him through the communicator, but since he had arrived personally then it probably meant that it was no simple matter.
“Cillin, I just got wind from Barthes that there’s something they need Wheeze to deal with. Luckily, we’re not too far away from them yet, so it should take you less than two days to reach them in a long distance spaceplane. If there are no problems, then please go with Wheeze meet up with them. It’s probably something with the energy ores. Our exploration will probably take another five or six days, and when you come back we may not even be done yet, so there’s no need to be too hasty.” Shawton said.
This planet was huge, and someone had just reported that they’d discovered some energy ores. Although it was just normal energy ores, it was still a good haul, so the squad had sent out more than just a small team this time around. Judging from the current outlook, the exploration would probably be taking some time.
“Okay. I have nothing to do now anyway. We can depart immediately.”
“We’ve prepped the spaceplane, the pilot and other support staff for you already. You will not have to pilot it yourselves.”
“Wait a second, can I go with them? Commander?” Cary moved closer eagerly. He was just regretting the fact that he forgot to stock up on food, and he remembered that there were plenty of unique fruits on that planet. If there was time, then he would like to hunt a few beasts and make them into jerkies as well.
“I want in too I want in too!” Tang Qiuqiu jumped over. The egg was already put inside the egg incubator, but Eudy said that they were still missing some parameters. Although these parameters could be calculated slowly, there was no harm to go back and test out a few variables.
“No problem.” Shawton had no objections to their requests.
“Alright, go pack up your things and get ready to leave then.” Cillin informed Cary and Tang Qiuqiu, lifted the gray cat who was bullying Dough, and headed towards the spaceplane Shawton had prepared for them.
Although a spaceplane’s top speed was incomparable to a starship, Shawton’s estimation that they would arrive in two days was not incorrect.
When Barthes and the others acquired new parameters and reperformed their calculations on the planet, they had deduced that there might be a few more mining spots on the planet. However, they could only come up with an approximate range, and not a precise location. Even the optimised scanners could only reduce the range by a bit and not determine an exact spot. Coincidentally, the Sixth Squad hadn’t left too far away yet, and they ran into a Rank C planet that they needed to stay behind and explore for a time as well. So after discussing with Shawton, he requested for Cillin and the gray cat return directly.
The scanners couldn’t detect the exact location, but the gray cat solved the problem very quickly the moment it arrived. There were energy ores in these locations, but the deposits were small, and their quality was far lousier than the ones the gray cat had consumed, which was why the gray cat paid them no heed in the first place. Since Barthes wanted them, the gray cat assisted him in discovering all of the mining spots. In return, Barthes purposely gifted the gray cat a huge energy ore of exceptional quality, which the gray cat hugged and bit at occasionally when it had nothing to do.
Cary went to hunt a few alien beasts with some members of the A Squadron. He roasted them and made them into jerkies, and in passing, he even acquired some fruits that were stored in an extra large preservation package to be taken back to the spaceplane. Under the guidance of Barthes’ men, Tang Qiuqiu headed to the land of ice and tested the parameters Eudy said that they had missed, so that the incubator could be calibrated to simulate a more suitable environment.
After a day’s time, the group finished all that needed to be done on the planet. Cillin and the others did not stay for long before they went back to the spaceplane and left the green planet, flying towards the squadron.
The round journey and the one day they stayed on the green planet added up to a total of five days. For the Hunters who often fly back and forth between Sectors, this really was just a short time. But it was in this five days that a great change occurred to the Sixth Squad.
When Cillin and the others arrived at the squadron’s parking spot, the first thing that greeted them was many fighter wreckages floating in space.
“Wh… what the hell happened?!!”