Age of Cosmic Exploration

The overall mood on the Hope was one of joy after the ship landed, even though there wasn’t a luxurious villa waiting for each person. The curfew didn’t dampen the spirits either. After the landing of the Hope, the construction of the capital continued. Project number one was the construction of a giant plaza in the middle of the capital; it would be named Human Plaza.

The decorations, wiring, size, foundation, and the location of surrounding buildings were given to the expert architects to figure out. When Yao Yuan picked them from Earth, he honestly didn’t expect them to be much use, and in fact, they weren’t as useful as the scientists, but at moments like this, they were instrumental.

All these issues could be solved with enough time and effort. The one mind-boggling detail was the several statues Yao Yuan wanted to set up on the plaza.

Since this plaza was to signify humanity’s presence on a new planet, it had to be perfect and detailed. Yao Yuan wouldn’t settle for work that cut corners, especially when it came to the statues that were to be built. The House of Representatives suggested building 5 statues overall, 2 human statues, male and female, each situated at the north and south side of the plaza; the east side of the plaza would have the statue of a deep blue planet, representing Earth; a statue of a minimized Hope on the west side; and lastly a statue of Yao Yuan in the middle. This proposal was vetoed by Yao Yuan. He counter-offered to have the statues represent humanity’s heroes instead.

These heroes were the men and women who had sacrificed themselves in the 6 years the Hope had left Earth. There must be an equal representation of men and women and people of all skin colors. The theme would be one of remembrance and appreciation.

The statues fell into the domain of fact since they couldn’t be done by machines. However, when Yao Yuan left Earth, he didn’t bring along any artists. Even though art was an important part of human civilization, it was more of a want than a need.

The government was unable to find a single artist from the original 120,000 people who left Earth on the Hope. It was quite a headache for the government.

As a last resort, 2,000 teachers who had relations to art were selected to handle this momentous project. They were tasked to figure out a blue print and create the 5 statues while the foundations for the statues were being built on the plaza. Whenever the statues were ready, they could be attached to the foundations.

In conclusion, life for humanity was busy but rewarding. The new human capital slowly came into shape, and the people weren’t given much time for recreation. The only daily breaks were the morning before work and dusk after work. The fruits, vegetables, and wild game on the new planet were great luxuries. The fact that there were only 800 people in the gathering team but the gathered product could feed 180,000 people went to prove how untouched the new planet was. The new planet was filled with nature’s bounty.

Of course, humanity, who once felt the pain of pollution, knew the dangers of overfishing and overhunting, so they had a rotation method. The gathering spots were different every time. With the transport shuttle’s aid, it was easy travelling within a several hundred meters radius. After all, the Hope only had 180,000 people, and 60,000 of them were children, so the planet could provide more than enough to feed humanity.

The wealth of resources kickstarted the progress in the food industry. The French, Chinese, and Japanese approached the government for business permits. Thus, in the Hope residential levels, a lot of French, American, Chinese, Japanese, and other local cuisine appeared. Thanks to the increased demand from these eateries, middle-men who would purchase raw ingredients from government to clean, categorize, prepare, and ship them to the various eateries also appeared...

With the government’s direct and indirect aid and encouragement, the entire human society was resurging at an impressive speed. Mankind was projected to become a full-fledged powerful race in the next decade, where the shadow of the helpless space nomadic race it once was would be long erased.

"Hmm? Saturday and Sunday? What about them?"

Yao Yuan was signing a document on the Defense Unit’s weapons and armors upgrade when a few representatives and calendrical science experts approached him with a fairly weird question.

One of the experts responded, "The problem is we can’t apply them to this new planet. First, there are 27 hours to a day here, then 410 days to a year with 4 changing seasons. Actually 5 if we are to count the drought in the middle where even the sea will dry up. This complicated time issue throws the calendar we are familiar with into complete chaos. Since the second selection for settlers is coming up, almost everyone on the Hope has eschewed their weekly days off. Furthermore, they can’t take a break even if they want to, as there are simply too many things to be done. This would be fine if we were back on Earth, but the new time issue on this new planet means that almost everyone is overworked."

Yao Yuan considered it and realized that the expert was telling the truth. Since the construction robots’ progress was incredibly fast, salaries couldn’t be divided by sites but rather by working days. The workers would fill up a form to show that they wanted to work that day and the government would assign them to sites that were understaffed.

Therefore, taking a day off meant a day without salary. To rush the construction progress, the government was handing out double pay, and since the second selection was coming soon, everyone was trying to earn H-coins to purchase the villa slots. Everyone was indeed overworked since the longer daytime on the new planet meant that the daily working hours were also longer.

Yao Yuan proposed, "Then starting from tomorrow, there will be a designated five days holiday, let’s call it Landing Anniversary. We will celebrate it every year. There will be no working for all other than the Black Star Troopers and the Defense Unit. The people are allowed to spend their leisure time in the green area, but not beyond the warning yellow lines. Other than that, we’ll move back to the regular working schedule after this. Normal days off on Saturday and Sunday, hmm, we’ll give half salary on those days off, which is the normal salary."

Barbie, who was beside him, jotted everything down. She typed and printed the document out for Yao Yuan to sign right after. After Yao Yuan authorized it, the document was passed back to Barbie, who would then hand it over to Hope Weekly’s office. The details would be broadcasted on the 7 PM nightly news. The details would also be posted online on the Hope’s official website. The system was streamlined.

The people who were there left with a satisfied smile. To be fair, they were affected by the hectic working schedule as well, so more days off was a good thing.

After they left, Yao Yuan stretched lazily and scanned the small stack of papers on his table, then he turned to look outside the window. It was a piece of blue sea.

"Maybe... Taking a rest is not a bad idea after all. Didn’t Bo Li say she wanted to see the ocean? I should live up to my promise."

Yao Yuan smiled. The accumulated pressure from setting up the new planet was pressing down hard on him. He was definitely the most hardworking individual in all of the Hope. Maybe he too should give himself that 5 days holiday. When he considered that option, Bo Li’s expressionless but lovely face floated into his mind.

As Yao Yuan went to pick up the communicator to give Bo Li a call, the communicator rang. He picked it up and Guang Zhen’s screaming voice came through.

"Yao Yuan! This is bad! We have 17 Black Dragons coming our way. I’ve charted their journey and I believe they are coming for our capital! They will reach the capital’s defense wall in about 10 minutes!

Yao Yuan cursed and ordered Guang Zhen to gather the Black Star Troopers. Then he had the Hope activate all its surveillance devices and prepare the weaponry needed to take down 17 Black Dragons. Finally, he rushed to the ordnance warehouse to put on his red space armor.

When Yao Yuan arrived at the walls, 151 troopers and Guang Zhen, who was also in space armor, were already there. They were waiting for the 17 Black Dragons to appear from the forest, and stationed behind the troopers were 500 Defense Unit soldiers setting up camp.

Yao Yuan only managed to say hi to Guang Zhen before 2 adult Black Dragons materialized among the trees. Behind them were 15 other six-legged Black Dragons!

However, when Yao Yuan saw the Black Dragons, he sighed in great relief. Anticipation rose in his heart.

That was because the scales of the two leading Black Dragons weren’t as dark as the others; they had more of a brownish hue, and the bigger among the two had 5 legs.

Yes, they were the Black Dragon couple that had disappeared for the past few days!