Epoch of Twilight

Chapter 510: Before The Departure

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The interstellar flight was counting down. Not long after the collection of interstellar creature's carcass, the first mission to mine an asteroid to replenish the resources on the mothership before their departure had finally started. They targeted on an asteroid that was not far away. It was huge, with its widest surface at six kilometers and its narrowest at least three kilometers wide. It was covered in snow. As it was near the sun, there was a 100 kilometers tail behind it. It was stunning.

Fortunately, the layer of ice on its surface was not thick from initial detection. The ice layer was only tens of meters thick with an abundance of iron beneath it along with other elements. The amount of water humans consumed was not too much of an issue, the bigger issue was their consumption of metal. The mining operation was mainly to collect metal and an asteroid like this was sufficient to replenish all their resources.

The first batch of 100 engineering robots landed on the asteroids with all the tools and materials. They would be responsible for clearing the ice from the surface to build simple power plants and lay the cables. Besides that, there would be three engines installed on the side of the asteroid so that it would not sway too far away from its initial trajectory. The work took less than a week. Soon, the second batch of engineering robots launched massive modular factories shaped like containers into space. There were jets of plasma flames shooting out the back of the robots, making them look like fireflies as they landed on the asteroid.

The modular factories landed on their designated locations and locked onto the surface. The factories were up and running within a short period of time. These were actual unmanned factories with no lights and no additional space aside from what was necessary. Most of them were shaped like cylinders or had a complicated structure of pillars for massive metal smelting equipment. All the space in these factories were fully utilized. Soon, a gigantic metal tunnel with a diameter of 30 meters was activated and sounded similar to a gigantic beast. The opening of the factory was aimed toward at the empty space not far away.

Then, a terrifying magnetic field was emitted from the tunnel. The surface of the asteroid began to melt and as the factory absorbed the melted asteroid, it continued to dig deeper into the tunnel. The reason why the tunnel was able to have such huge diameter was because of its adjustability, having over 100 layers of metal pipes above it. With this design, it was able to go five kilometers underground to get to the minerals beneath the surface layer. The Glassians already had mature asteroid mining technology. The programming was complete and once humankind adapted the technology for their own use, they easily mastered it although it was only their first time.

…

Soon it was April in the year 2020. It had been four years since humans ventured into space. All the preparation work for their interstellar flight had been completed and for safety purposes, they even fixed all the holes in the hull of the mothership. The spaceship looked as good as new, with most of the parts that were old being replaced. Throughout the months, countless maintenance engineering works were underway everywhere with various detection devices, checking every corner of the spaceship to see if there were possible hidden hazards.

…

The peaceful and calm atmosphere soon became stressful. Although the media had been promoting positive messages, as time went by, everyone began feeling insecure. Even Luo Yuan was worried. After all, it was an adventure into an unknown future. Perhaps humankind would rise again or maybe it would be a dead end. No matter what happened, they continued to approach the departure date day after day. The route had been set, they were heading to Barnard’s Star that was six light years away from earth.

One of the reasons why the star was chosen was because of its close distance. As it was their first interstellar flight, it would be risky if they chose a star that was far away. On the other hand, the light that it emitted was of the lowest level. It was a red dwarf, an old star with a dimmed red light. It was the best hiding place.

In reality, the distance between both civilizations was huge so the detection was not as easy as they imagined. No matter how advanced a detection system or computer was, it was redundant. Moreover, the distance between both civilizations were light years away. The distance of one light year would take one year of flying. Just like the Glassian who were 28 light years away from earth, it took the light for the light from their solar system 28 years to reach us. This meant the videos of Glassians that the humans saw was already 28 years old history.

It was less than five years since the wiping out of the Glassians advanced army which meant that humankind was safe for the next 23 years. That is, unless the Glassians had developed the ability to detect their location via ultralight or if they developed a spacecraft that could travel faster than the speed of light. No matter how they hid, humans were a confirmed target for the Glassians if they developed an advanced detection technology. It would, however, be much better if the Glassians had invented a craft that could fly faster than the speed of light as it would afford humankind some time to hide but this was a worst-case scenario.

Usually, Glassian detection systems relied heavily on light. The dimmer the location was, the lower the probability would be of them discovering their hiding spot. It was similar to the dark side of stars, it would be impossible to find spaceships there. However, humankind could not live in hiding forever. It was a vacuum and they would have nowhere to replenish their resources. They could possibly live like rats for the next ten years but it would limit human development. Throughout the past six months, humans had given birth to 240,000 babies with 50,000 of the newborn children being born through surrogates while the remaining 190,000 were produced in laboratories. With such progress, the human population would multiply several-fold 10 years later and the spaceship would be even more crowded, lacking the capacity to accommodate further population expansion.

Therefore, it was crucial for humankind to find a new star for temporary residence. According to the spaceship's detection system, there were rocky planets and gaseous planets in the Barnard solar system. Be it the issue of resources or development, the Barnard system was the perfect place. The harsh environment on the star was nothing to humans who had already ventured into space. As long as they were given sufficient time, with the level human technology was at today, they could absolutely create a star on their own. It was only the matter of efficiency.

"Mayor, good news from the antimatter lab!" Luo Yuan’s secretary Chen Xinjie came into his office.

"Oh!" Luo Yuan took over the documents and flipped through them. His frown was then turned upside-down, "The energy conversion rate is now one-third of a million!" In reality, the first antimatter lab had been established for six months. As the technology had yet to be matured and its safety was not guaranteed, it was put on hold. The production was within the safety regulations they had. After all, it was a spaceship. If any accidents were to happen, the consequences would be beyond imagination.

"Too bad. This is too dangerous, we can't produce this in the spaceship. We can only use it as a reserve." Luo Yuan said to Chen Xinjie, "Publish an award announcement to encourage them to work harder!"

"Yes, mayor!" Chen Xinjie left immediately. Luo Yuan proceeded to look at the documents again, he was happy. Although it was one-third of a million, to be able to arrive at such ratio, anti-matter research had basically matured. With the production efficiency of the nuclear fusion furnace, six to ten million tons of water could be converted into one ton of anti-matter. Such an energy source might be wasteful, but as an ultimate weapon, its value was beyond measure!