Xiling Empire Chapter 1606: Desolate land

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It has been three days since the fleet left the Imperial Zone.

Of course, because there is no concept of time in Void, this "three days" is calculated according to the Empire's standard timeline. No matter how far away from the Empire, we will keep the time scale on the battleship consistent with the Empire.

For the warships in Void, hurrying is to constantly "jump". Each time the Void engine modifies its own information identification code, it is equivalent to transferring the entire fleet once. This is a non-linear way of forwarding, and each jump is very fast. Without the "absolute path" as an obstacle, only the ability calculation of the Void engine affects the advancing speed of the fleet. And three days is enough for us to go very, very far-but we seem to have a long way to go from our destination.

After all, the movement speed of the fleet is compared to the can do nothing about it and Void shuttles. Although the Tavel installed as much as possible to the fleet every spaceship modified plug-in to increase the sailing speed before the departure, but this improvement is limited. It takes about half a month to arrive at the first suspected coordinate.

The fleet is now far away from the border, but it is still within the range that the detached garden system can barely radiate. The empire has launched some sporadic outpost and automatic observation posts into this area. In addition, there are some self-proliferation and self-evolution base , They can be said to be the limit of the empire's power. Through the frontier outpost at the border station, you can still receive some unclear civilian channels here. Although there will not be any civilian expedition ships here, these civilian channels still use their own weak signals to declare that the imperial hegemony is here. Of presence.

It's a desolate place, we have never developed it here, because there is really nothing to develop here-only three or two Universe can be found in the information offset of thousands of units , And all of them have no life response. The empty place here is like a large cemetery, and even the residues of World are rare.

This very empty area occasionally appears in Void. The distribution of World in Void is uneven, where there are dense areas, there are sparse areas, which is such a desolate area when it is sparse to the extreme. The desolate area is a desperate situation for the local civilizations that happen by chance. Even if they have developed the technology of sailing across World, it is difficult for signify to find other Universe alive. They will die on the long road of the first voyage; but For some trans-World civilizations, this desolate area is a rare natural barrier: without Universe as a springboard, the signify abyss and foreign enemies are difficult to penetrate. You do n’t need to set up a sovereign hub in each World to build a huge cost "The Great Wall of Whistle". This desolate area belongs to the latter, and it has been an excellent barrier for the new empire for several years. Facts have proved that it is indeed effective-since the establishment of the new empire, it has never received an early warning of the abyss infiltrating from this desolate area.

However, this time we are going to travel in this rough place. This journey is not difficult for the Imperial fleet, but it is extremely boring, and I can't see anything at all along the way. Even the shallow girl who is always energetic at any time and anywhere is quickly bored.

Fortunately, the empire spaceship is quite large, even to the extent that there are cities and towns inside. There are additional space expansion warehouses inside the hundreds of kilometers of the Admiral, and the size of the town has reached the metropolitan level. Although each spaceship is a purely industrialized military town, walking on those city streets can also make people temporarily forget that they are on a starship sailing in Void. In addition, there is a huge ecological ball in spaceship, which is shallow enough to live a long time-the girl will not hold back depression.

But I can run around everywhere, but I have to be on duty here in the command hall. Although I know that I am not an expert in the professional field, after all, as a commander, I have to set an example. Anyone can be absent in this significant voyage, except me and Shandora. Although we usually always hang mixed foods on our mouths, we still have some consciousness at the critical moment.

Of course, the more important thing is that the casual shift will be bitten by Shandora. I ca n’t bite her ... Uh, I ’m not used to biting!

This is the afternoon of the third day. After lunch break, I was called by Shandora to order her to accompany her within half an hour. Here is always a brilliant and busy state, each command seat and each data terminal constantly receive information to send commands, as the brain of the entire spaceship or even the entire fleet coordinates everything. And here, Shandora and I seem to be supervising the working state of this brain-is this metaphor a bit strange?

"Hoo, it seems to be another day for be occupied with nothing," Shandora is also a bit boring (in fact, I suspect she called me just to find a hard friend to eliminate time with her), she exhaled and looked at her Embedded data terminal, "You can still receive the signal of the detached garden here. It seems that the system upgrade of the detached garden last time was quite effective. However, it is also time to drop the outpost to develop the station. Although the network of the mind has always been reliable, more stay Several communication channels are always good. "

Looking at the images returned to the external monitor, dozens of large-scale engineering barges are located in the middle and rear of the fleet. These barges are used for bridging operations after arriving at their destination. at the same time is also responsible for navigation. On the way, the outpost development station was constantly set up, and the function of the outpost development station was to ensure the smooth communication between the fleet and the Imperial Zone.

After all, we are going to a fairly distant place. There are many unproven environments in between, and a large number of sites must be set up along the way to prepare for various accidents.

The superstructure of an engineering barge slowly opened, and a dozen or so self-regulatory machinery and a small work boat floated out of it. Behind them was a silver-white cube dragged by a towing beam. This silver-white cube is the "building core" of the outpost development station. They have a long-term maintenance order field, and they contain a set of architectural blueprints and information needed for self-development. - material transformation equipment is the most important when Void is exploring. Easy-to-use basic unit. This basic unit can be operated with little external intervention, basically it is thrown into Void by self-discipline machinery and work boat, and then positioned, set a startup mode, and the rest of the work can be handed over to the construction core After completing it by yourself, they will grow and grow rapidly, and finally become a sustainable station like God Clan Void Node. The standard configuration of an outpost development station is this: a core computer room, located in the dome building in the center of the site; two sets of high-power Void communication modules, which are two large antenna towers, at each end of the site; a medium-sized factory, Self-discipline machinery and small working ships can be produced continuously. These work units are used for self-maintenance and basic defense of the site (although there are no enemies in Void, but Xiling Apostle is used to hang guns everywhere); two sets of transmission equipment, these teleports equipment lead to the next outpost development station, all outpost development stations rely on this Void portal to connect, and eventually lead to the imperial zone; finally is a living space that can accommodate hundreds of people (loaded with new empire survival The agreement can provide ecological environment for seventeen types of life, and provide "quick-frozen preservation" services for other life formats).

The Pioneer Station is actually unmanned, but its main purpose is to provide security for nearby explorers in a variety of extreme environments, plus a survival cabin that accommodates hundreds of people puts pressure on space to expand equipment It ’s not big, so these sites have living areas.

The basic shape of an outpost development station is a short and obtuse olive shape, with antenna towers protruding from the main body at both ends, and the alloy carapace and secluded energy barrier completely cover the rest of the outpost development station. Their scale is one kilometer. Between ten kilometers, it depends on whether they need to be "long" so big. In such a desolate area, the outpost development station is an important communication equipment, and it is also the "insurance" of the duty staff working here. If you are in danger in Void, then escape to the outpost development station is likely to be your last lifeline— -And you can also quickly return to the Imperial District through the transmission of equipment from the outpost development station. But to be honest, people who are in danger in Void may not have time to escape to the nearest outpost development station. Anyway, most of the artificial objects are too fragile in Void.

"Perhaps we should take advantage of this opportunity to set up more pioneering stations," watching the work boat and self-discipline machinery pulling the silver-white cube with a side of 100 meters out of the order field and disappearing behind the fleet, I suddenly had an idea, "We can connect the pioneering stations into a network in the desolate area, and then use them as a standard to build a transmission channel to the hometown World. After all, the hometown World is too far away. The power from the world garden is simply" dragging "but we ca n’t come to it. I ca n’t fly half a month every time. It ’s harder than Sheila coming to our house. ”

"This is indeed a problem, but I will have a chance to talk about it in the future," Shandora pondered for a moment and shook his head slightly. "It takes a lot of energy to set up the continuous jump channel you said, and this place is a desolate area. surroundings has no Universe. Nodes, the jump channel itself requires many self-maintenance components, our fleet is not for construction along the way. "

I'm nodded, I still keep this in mind. This problem will be solved sooner or later: the hometown of World is far away from today's imperial area, and the practice of Xiling Apostle's "dragging the new World over as a territory" always has a distance limit. At that time, Old Empire used more than one hundred for some years The sky zone was formed, and the "distance" between the new empire and the hometown World is now farther than the first day zone to the 135th day zone! It's unrealistic to slowly crack the ground and push the past, so we can only make a temporary channel to connect.

As for me, at this moment thinks of the Silk Road, can we save this history?

The fleet left an outpost to move on, and then it was a more boring long journey.

It ’s been another week. The fleet has arrived in a strange Void that no one has ever dabbled in. If the previous intelligence and calculations are correct, this is already the leading edge of that wave of destruction. We will probably soon See a lot of World fragment(s).

But the first thing we saw was something surprising.

Shandora called me to the research facility of the Admiral early in the morning. The mass projection of Tavel's has been busy here, and the abyss Xiling is also present. I saw the Hologram projection in the center of the hall showing a large broken wreck like appeared at the front of the order field, and the fleet had stopped in front of the wreckage.

A large number of work boats are shuttled among the wreckage, dragging out bright lines. I looked at the wreckage with familiar eyes, and could n’t help but ask Shandora: "What is that thing?"

“It ’s a self-proliferating drone group that we launched two years ago,” Shandora frowned. “Some of them lost contact last year. didn't expect has already multiplied to this place. But it seems that something was given to it. Ruined. "

Self-proliferating drone group? I froze for a moment, and then quickly remembered this thing: this was a detection plan two years ago. At that time, the new empire and the abyss area were still in full swing, and we urgently needed to expand the territory to increase its strength, so Shandora led the launch of a large number of self-proliferating drones. This kind of drone is not a single device, but a kind of "ethnic group", including a lot of things like the drones mother base, conventional clusters, exploration laboratories, and factory development, like ant colonies or bees. Groups can also generate huge collective power. Once this drone group enters Void, it will quickly multiply, look for World, drop a colonial station, send an invitation signal to the imperial zone, and at the same time will desperately spread and spread. Only the commands set by Xiling Apostle can make them stop. This kind of fleet is used for "exploration and discovery", so they are not offensive except for leaving a circle of markings everywhere, and they are "safe products" (at least for Xiling Apostle, but many ordinary race seem to be quite doubtful) . In the Old Empire era, this docile and loyal drone group has always been an important auxiliary tool. They have helped the belligerent Xiling Apostle to break through the territory. They have worked diligently for hundreds of millions of years. Their work in the New Empire era has also achieved remarkable results. That pioneering plan two years ago brought us at least a third of new territory.

But not all of these drone groups can work safely. Last year, a batch of drones disappeared with a female base.

This sudden loss of contact is not uncommon, because the drone group is to explore some extremely dangerous and unknown areas. Their forward speed is no match for Void shuttle, but the spread range is much larger than any Void exploration team, so it will always be A group of drones is missing in the White Zone. These missing planes either encountered an abyss or happened to hit the end of World unluckily. When the situation was serious, it was too late to send a warning signal back.

Last year, the disappearance of the drone group was considered to be a serious one, because they also brought a mother base that had just been built, and they were considered to be a large group. Sives also organized several searches for this purpose. Action, but because the missing aircraft group went too deep into the white area, and the abyss area was so restless at that time that the empire had no time to care for him, this drone group gradually faded out of everyone's sight.

didn't expect, we will see the wreckage of the fleet here. They are obviously not the original batch that disappeared, but should be the new fleet that has multiplied afterwards. It must be said that the speed of expansion of these things is simply terrible. Even without the coordination of the headquarters, they have spread all the way to the white area. Fortunately, the core instructions of each drone have "not interfere with the local civilization process, "Do not undermine the stability of the local World" ​​(after all, they are used to mark new territories, the empire does not want to get a piece of scorched earth and a group of enemies when receiving territory from the drone group), otherwise this thing is definitely a group of terrifying wars. plague.

Even if the extraordinary material made by the empire falls into Void when it loses its energy supply, it will quickly disintegrate and assimilate, so these wreckages encountered by the fleet on the face should have been destroyed not long ago. Most of them have serious signs of "evaporation", and the edges of some wreckage have been blurred like a phantom. Even I can see this obvious blurred scene on the surveillance screen, but many of the wreckage are still intact, and they are salvaged. It should be possible to confirm what has happened recently in this area.

The work boat found a spherical device that looks pretty good from the wreckage. This is a silver-gray metal ball with a radius of more than one meter. The surface still has a dim blue light floating slowly. It used to be It should be installed on a certain base, but now there are only some broken metal stubble at those connection points. I watched a work boat pull the spherical device into its container cabin with a towing beam and then flew towards the Admiral. Tavel explained beside it: "That's the thinking of the drone group equipment, each Thousands of drones have such a "brain", and every 100 "brains" can form a female base. Of course, there is also a phenomenon of expansion or reduction of the system, which is decided by the drone group. These ' The brain has a very powerful protection function, even if the carrier where they are located is blown up, these cores of thought can sail independently, and can survive for a long time in the Void. Probably these brains record the recent encounters of the drone group . "

The core of this thought was quickly sent to the research facility of the Admiral. Tavel led a group of experts to quickly disassemble it, and found database in it-fortunately, not bad.

According to database records, this thing was destroyed a few months ago.

A report was sorted out and sent to Shandora and me. Abyss Xilin also got a copy. She looked at the analysis conclusion and shook her head slightly: "It seems to be related to the wave of destruction. The log says that the drone group and the imperial zone are lost. After contacting, I chose to continue to expand into Void while rebuilding the communication chain. They proliferated normally for several months. Finally, a large group of drones finally found a stable new Universe, so the fleet consciousness decided to integrate itself with this new Universe together. They seem to be planning to build an industrial World, then build a giant mothership, and send a copy of database back to the Imperial Zone, but before then ... the entire Universe 'shattered' without warning. "

"As reported by the expeditions, World died in a film, and the cause of death was strange," Tavel looked at the core of the drone's thinking that had been disassembled, and the tone was quite sighed, "It seems that we know Void There is still too little to explore. There is no end to exploring ... The World barrier will suddenly 'crack', which obviously can only be done by Void itself. theoretically is like this. "

"Do n’t study these ultimate secrets first," Shandora put down the data terminal in his hand and looked up at the large Hologram projection not far away. The projection showed a panoramic view of the Imperial fleet, and the work fleet has cleaned the order. The remains of the drone group at the front of the field, and some automatic work boats were released to find if there are other groups nearby (if possible, we still hope to recover some things, will live a life), and the fleet itself is ready to sail again , "We should be close to the" wave of destruction "now, and then we may encounter unprecedented situations at any time, prepare the fleet, the sensor power is fully on, and the order field turns into the alert cruise mode-the speed can be reduced Some are better than what you missed. "

The next second I realized that Shandora's ’s sixth sense may be similar to Lin Xue, because her voice rang as soon as she landed on the shipboard broadcast: "Attention, when an information tide is detected, I will be in contact with the order field soon! Prepare for shock resistance! "

(I ’ve been wondering what new writing is good ... and finally decided to open my brain hole style with no rhythm.)