Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 453: The Ship Landing On Earth

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After the Special Operations Team had left Hope City, Luo Yuan handled several documents and activated his space-time bubble, adjourning after them.

Now, the outside the Earth was a harsh, freezing winter that blanketed the entire planet. The time for humans to leave their life underground to return to the surface seemed infinitely far. The underground storage and the remaining industrial system could not save five to six million people living around Hope City, let alone rebuilding an entire civilization and development!

Taking into account the surviving population in the three cities nearby, it was still very difficult to reorganize them with an efficient administrative system.

Although the arrival of aliens almost wiped out the entire human race, it had left a ship intact.

Moreover, it was a massive ship, due to the fact that the alien technology was highly automated, the use of its interior space was pitifully tiny, even luxurious, especially in the living quarters. It was designed in such way that prolonged periods of time being exposed to tight corners can result in adverse psychological side effects. The living quarter's height was two hundred meters or so, taking up 2/7 of the ship's height, and its diameter was a staggering 1.5 kilometers long.

The central ecological garden took up most of the space. With the alien's technology, such an ecological system was trivial, as the ventilation system in the ship can assist in subtle adjustments to the air, allowing it to remain fresh and crisp.

The existent of the garden was to quench one’s boredom on a long-haul flight and preventing space adaptation syndrome. For a human being facing survival crisis, such things were overly luxurious.

If the botanical gardens and some useless cabins were removed, the entire ship would have a living quarter of 1.7 million square meters, multiplied by the height of 200 meters, amounting in 350 million cubic meters of usable volume.

With the standard of having 2 people for every three by three by three volume, the living quarters could house 26 million people. Of course, that would be an ideal scenario.

The actual space usage would not be this high, but even with a quarter of its maximum capacity, it can still house almost 7 million people, which was equivalent to the remaining earth population.

As compared to Hope City, Twilight City, United City, and Victory City were just small cities. Before the disaster, every city had several million people. Since Victory City was a closer rural area, it had only 900 thousand people or so.

After the disaster, all the population could not even achieve three million. With the remaining population of Hope City, it now has only 5.4 to 6 million people. The workers had built a high-rise building that boasted a huge housing capability on the ship.

...

Ten minutes ago, his space-time bubble was at its peak velocity.

After the last battle with the alien, he had a small breakthrough in his Will. Although it still could not reach 20 points in an instant, it was enough to make a monumental increase in his space-time bubble's velocity, from 150 kilometers per second to 1,000 kilometers per second in a single leap. The ship was 600 thousand kilometers away from Earth, but with such incredible speed, it only takes ten minutes to get there. Even with the long priming time, it would only take 17 minutes.

He saw the ship getting bigger every moment. After one minute, he slowly decelerates. Soon, the space-time bubble took him straight into the ship’s interior.

"Welcome aboard, Captain."

Right after leaving his space-time bubble, the sound of the artificial intelligence lit up softly.

Luo Yuan was not surprised. With the ship’s surveillance ability, it was impossible to infiltrate the ship. He briskly walked into the control room, while asking: "How is everything lately?"

"Everything is fine, except for the communication to the production area, which had been severed. Production has been put on a halt. Please assign an engineer to repair it." The artificial intelligence said gently.

"Noted!" Luo Yuan responded monotonously.

It was a paradox if it was repaired. The artificial intelligence's core program would automatically connect to the production area's communication device, and restore it to maintain a connection to the alien planet. If it was not repaired, the production area could not activate it, and the automated factory in the ship would be idle.

This was just a temporary setback until all the humans had relocated here and learned the functioning modes of the automated factory. It would allow the disconnected artificial intelligence to regain automation and carry out production as normal, albeit with decreased efficiency.

The artificial intelligence made an announcement and remained silent after that.

"Can this ship travel to Earth?" Luo Yuan asked.

"Unfortunately, not. The total mass of this ship is 1.57 billion metric tons, and it can only withstand the acceleration of 5.3 meters per second squared, and Earth’s gravitational acceleration was 9.8 meters per second squared. Therefore, traveling to Earth can cause problems and unforeseen consequences."

"Such an intense weight?" The artificial intelligence's answer caused Luo Yuan to furrow his eyebrows. Such mass had indeed exceeded his imaginations. 1.57 billion metric tons was equivalent to 15 thousand to 100 thousand metric tons of aircraft carrier before the apocalypse.

"The total mass came from three sections – the ship’s mass, the resources it had gathered, and the spare parts in the storage.

The ship weighed 110 million metric tons, and the spare parts in the storage weighed 400 million metric tons. The rest of the mass had come from resources, including 530 million metric tons of pure water, 180 million metric tons of pure iron, 120 million metric tons of pure copper…"

The resources in the ship were astonishing; it encompassed almost all the elements in the periodic table. Out of all the resources, water took up the most mass – it was one-third of the ship's mass. From a human's perspective, water was the source of life. But from the ship's perspective, besides sustaining life, water was the fuel of nuclear fusion and the raw material of all the organic compounds and industrial chemical reactions. In a long-haul flight, the consumption of water was staggering.

"What about the small ship on the upper deck?" Luo Yuan probed further while arriving the control room.

"If you meant the emergency escape ship, it can travel to Earth!" answered the artificial intelligence. Luo Yuan exhaled in relief, and asked, "How does it operate?"

"Its control system belongs to my subsystem. You only have to give the authority, and it will be able to assume autopilot."

"Great, and one more thing, give me several copies of comparison data between Mandarin and the Glassian language." Luo Yuan said before leaving.

...

After a moment, Luo Yuan held a stack of papers and arrived at the ship's upper deck. After performing authority checks, the ship's door had opened automatically.

"Captain, welcome aboard. This is the emergency escape ship’s control system 002, at your service."

Luo Yuan entered the control room. Its layout was similar to that of the mother ship. He took a glance, and said, "I am traveling to Earth."

"Please input the coordinates."

On a holographic screen, the image of the Earth appeared, with numerous coordinates displayed.

After some time to get familiarized, he understood the holographic screen’s interface. It was able to capture hand movements and perform a series of algorithms. Its working principle was similar to that of human’s touchscreen technology. But it was unquestionably more advanced by countless times.

He gently swiped onto the display with two of his fingers in an outwards motion, and the image of the Earth was magnified, stuffing the entire control room, displaying the real Earth.

Furthermore, it was the Earth in its current situation, with its surroundings blanketed by a layer of whitish gray fog – the land was totally covered.

"Remove the polluted atmosphere layer!" Luo Yuan said with a slightly knitted eyebrow.

After that, the Earth’s original form appeared, Luo Yuan pointed at a location. "Let’s go there."

"Coordinate entered. Authorization to open hatch..."

"Granted..."

"Anti-gravitational engine activated..."

"Virtual reality imaging system engaged..."

"Detachment of mother ship is imminent, kindly be on standby."

The hatch opened like a petal, and the small ship rose slowly and leaving the mother ship. Within one minute, the main engine had blasted out a magnificent and dazzling light, and the whole ship cruised towards Earth steadily.

It was accelerating, and in a moment, the mother ship was left behind and shrank to what looked like a tiny dot in the universe.

Luo Yuan sat on a levitated seat, curiously inspecting the virtual reality system, but he had lost interest after a while. He retrieved the comparison data between Mandarin and the Glassian language, studying it carefully.

This paper of alien origins was harder than that of the Earth’s, and it was more durable. But in reality, paper such as these was hardly used by the aliens, as it was mostly used in historical archives and backup data.

Such paper can last for a long time as it was also water and fire resistant. It can survive in natural environments for thousands of years and was treated with strictly regulated preservative measures. With every procurement, its purpose has to be clearly registered. Of course, Luo Yuan could not care less about such regulations.

He was seated at the captain’s seat. Just after few minutes, the ship had entered the Earth's atmosphere.