Chapter 709: Chapter 399: An Ordinary Journey_2
Oh, it’s pirates.
Shang Yanwen had seen some news reports about this before, mentioning the issue.
In one editorial, Shang Yanwen also saw a viewpoint that he quite agreed with, the arrival of pirates was an inevitable situation.
In the past, pirates were a rare sight in the Tianma Star Sector. On one hand, the powerful Tianma Fleet was stationed right in the sector, and any pirate group foolish enough to commit crimes here was truly courting death.
On the other hand, the Tianma Star Sector didn’t have much to plunder. The Imperial Tax Fleet was not to be trifled with, and although the Imperial Merchant Fleet did have the Gu Commercial Firm, its shipping routes were difficult to pin down, and its vessels did not travel frequently. Plus, the Tianma Star Sector itself wasn’t a particularly important transportation hub, so the long-term return on pirating activities in this sector wasn’t too high.
However, in the last year or two, the situation had changed.
…
The main forces of the Tianma Fleet were absent, and the remaining ships, although they could still dominate ordinary pirates with their military might, the vastness of space allowed pirates to hide among asteroid belts or even leave the Tianma Star Sector to take refuge elsewhere, remaining undetected if they didn’t reveal themselves.
Moreover, due to the connectivity of the nine stars within the Alliance, a large number of fixed-flight schedules began to be carried out very frequently. And as most of them were single vessels traveling directly through the Star Sea, any that were marked by pirate ships were doomed.
The pirates thus had fairly substantial expected profits.
Of course, the pirates still had no means of confronting the reserve forces of the Tianma Fleet, and upon encountering an escort ship, those ragged pirate ships would be overwhelmed. However, the high potential profits had emboldened the pirates to take risks.
In the past year, there had been multiple incidents of pirate plundering, with three Alliance ships being looted, resulting in significant losses.
And the Alliance, undoubtedly, took severe countermeasures.
The current acting commander of the Tianma Fleet, Du Shiliang, had publicly issued a statement apologizing to the public and assured that the Tianma Fleet would strive to combat pirates and ensure the safe and unimpeded travel of interstellar flights.
At the same time, the Alliance’s Department of Public Transportation also urgently established a special task group and announced the formation of the Alliance Navy.
Of course, the official announcement did not use the term “navy”; this was what the citizens of the Alliance themselves thought. The official statement referred to the formation of the Alliance Escort Fleet.
The shipyards of Flying Wing Star and Rage Owl Star respectively received orders for the construction of Alliance warships. Reportedly, some travel vessels retrofitted with armed escorts and even several “Blackfish-class” rapid patrol vessels had already been put into use.
Three months ago, the Alliance had completed a significant strike against a pirate group known as “Red Eye”. Several of the Alliance’s rapid response patrol vessels had clung to the tails of those pirates, engaging in a drawn-out battle for several days. They pursued relentlessly but without recklessly charging forward and eventually, a detachment of the Tianma Fleet consisting of a destroyer and several escort ships arrived. They destroyed some of the enemy and captured three pirate ships of patrol vessel grade through boarding tactics.
It was a great victory, and for the three months that followed, there had been no news of pirate activities, but unexpectedly, there were still some now.
Shang Yanwen felt a bit tense inside, but overall, he remained fairly calm.
He trusted the capabilities of the Alliance Government. Since they had not suspended regular flights or scheduled escorts for every flight, the problem shouldn’t be too serious.
Indeed, two hours later, a new announcement was issued, stating that the pirate issue had been resolved, the ship was about to enter the Star Realm Tunnel, and all passengers were instructed not to move around inside the cabins. The duration of the journey through the Star Realm Tunnel would be thirteen hours.
To Shang Yanwen, these thirteen hours didn’t feel particularly special. The ship shook for a few minutes, which should mean they had entered the Star Realm Tunnel.
Reportedly, one should be able to see a vast and bizarre tapestry of brilliant images from outside the ship at this time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything from his cabin.
It was also said that despite the activation of the Starfield Force Field, some unknown dangers could still occur when traveling through the Star Realm Tunnel, but at least he had not encountered any.
These thirteen hours felt no different to him than any other thirteen hours, until, after about ten more minutes of shaking, along with the announcement he heard, he knew that they had left the Star Realm Tunnel and returned to the real universe.
Then, after traveling for just over three more days, the starship stopped moving.
The announcement said they had arrived at Korolya Starport.
Everyone packed up their belongings, left the cabin, and proceeded to queue orderly in the corridor outside, following the staff’s guidance, heading toward the nearest exit to disembark from the ship.
Flight B-1733 was a Flying Porpoise, this time carrying nearly ninety thousand passengers. For so many people to leave the ship with their belongings was a cumbersome task.
However, the design of the ship and the starport was specially equipped to handle this. Shang Yanwen waited in line and still, it was an hour and a half later when he left the ship.
Walking on the skybridge, he could see through the glass that on the starport side close to B-1733, there were twenty exits of different sizes, scattered in all directions, connected to the starport through the skybridges. People and goods were being exchanged through these movable skybridges in space.
Only here could one catch a fleeting glimpse through the glass windows of the skybridge at parts of the ship they were on, as well as the even larger body of the starport.
The Flying Porpoise was considered a small transport ship, yet with a belly that could hold ninety thousand people, along with a large amount of goods and living supplies, it was naturally also a huge object.
It stood like a small town in space.
But even so, compared with the starport, it was much too small.
The scale of Korolya’s starport wasn’t as large as that of Flying Wing Star, but it still ranked second in the entire Tianma Star Sector.
After entering the starport, he took an on-site monorail to a space elevator hub where he queued up again, waiting to depart from the starport.
Once off the starport and on the ground, he was in Korolya’s capital, Nest Capital, also known as Mingyan City.
After another vehicle transfer at the north station of Mingyan City, he waited half a day for a train to Nuo Yan City.
Nuo Yan City wasn’t too far from Mingyan City—certainly so compared to Nest Capital on the other side of the planet.
Even so, aboard the train speeding through the wilderness at over five hundred kilometers an hour, it still took him seven hours to reach Nuo Yan City.
After disembarking at Nuo Yan City station, he transferred to another vehicle and after swaying for six hours within Nest Capital, he finally reached his destination for this journey: Green Bee Street District in Nuo Yan City’s Lower Nest District.
The entire route was truly exhausting for even someone as composed as Shang Yanwen.
Interstellar travel was indeed troublesome; the vast distances, even with humanity’s various technological aids, were still too cumbersome for an ordinary person.
He couldn’t even remember how many times he had transferred or how much time had passed in between.
But no matter what, he was back.
Stepping off the vehicle, he looked around and saw some familiar scenes, but there were many things he had never seen before.
The streets had changed a lot. The dirty, cramped alleys had been cleared out; the strange smells of metal smelting, various gas emissions, and all sorts of domestic garbage still lingered slightly, but they were much milder than his memory.
The surrounding buildings, some remained the same, but the majority had changed beyond recognition.
There were many people moving about on the streets, many vehicles driving, unlike the past when people wouldn’t roam around aimlessly without a reason.
Although the clothes everyone wore were not luxurious, they were at least neat; faces bore smiles and an air of confidence…
Was this still his hometown?