Age of Cosmic Exploration

Eva’s fainting spell lasted for two days and two nights... the reason for her early resuscitation was because of Yao Yuan, the Homo Evolutis "charger". Yao Yuan spent about one hour every day holding Eva’s hand, even though he had no idea what kind of science this operated on, but it did help decrease the pressure applied after over-exertion of Homo Evolutis power.

It was worth noting that Yao Yuan’s "charger" power had no effect on other Double-S grade Homo Evolutis; therefore, Jay, the Deceiver, was still asleep. Furthermore, it felt weird for him to hold another man’s hands and stare at his face intensely, especially in Jay’s wife, Xiao Chen’s presence. Therefore, he stopped after giving it a few tries.

With Eva’s recovery, it would be 27 days until the supposed alien infiltration into the Hope. It might sound like a long time away, but who knew how long the aliens had hesitated before the attack? They might have been observing the Hope for a long time already. Since they had no way of figuring out the answer, discovering the time for a safe space warp seemed to be the better solution.

However, Eva was still weak after her recovery, so Yao Yuan waited for another three days before rushing to the hospital. When he arrived, he saw Eva playing with the newest scientific product, a palm-sized computer, excitedly... it was truly palm-sized because it was the size of a normal Sony PSP or Apple iPhone, but its internal hardware was at the level of actual 4th revolution computers. The girl was happily engrossed in her game, and Ren Tao, Xiao Niao, Bo Li, and Guang Zhen were already gathered in the room.

When Eva saw Yao Yuan arrive, she put down the game and yelled, "Hey, Uncle Yao, I’m not the Hope’s slave! You can’t ask me to use my power again when I just recovered from exhaustion from using it. Do you want to kill me?"

Yao Yuan noticed other people’s helpless smiles. Obviously, they had tried to advise her before he arrived, but this time, the young woman was stubborn and refused to use her Sage power again.

Yao Yuan shrugged helplessly and sat down beside her to console her. "Little Eva, you practically grew up on the Hope, so I believe you have a great connection to it... Do you really have the heart to see it destroyed just like that? Be it through alien infiltration or a space disaster, do you have the heart to see it destroyed? Come on, stop fussing about and tell us what the new vision is, or do you have any demands? We will fulfil them to our best capacity. You see, this palm computer is not out in the market yet, but because we heard you’re a gamer, we obtained one for you ahead of time."

Eva looked at the device in her hand, and her reaction startled Yao Yuan. Her eyes started watering and she threw the device at Yao Yuan. Then she scurried under the cover to cry.

Yao Yuan was dexterous enough to catch the computer Eva threw at him, but facing the weeping of a little girl, he was immediately flustered. Eventually, Bo Li took his hand, led him outside of the room, and revealed to him why Eva was so stubborn this time.

"It’s because she saw death..."

Bo Li continued with a straight face, "You and Uncle Wong are professional soldiers, special agents used to death and killing. Me, Ren Tao, and Xiao Niao lived through the period of anarchy back on Earth, so we’ve seen our fair share of death, but when she got on the Hope, she was only several years old. Even though the Hope has seen a few disasters and wars since then, she didn’t see the massacre personally with her own two eyes. However, this time she saw the aliens kill people and then the Hope’s explosion. Think about it, she saw you being incinerated by the sun into a skeleton and probably the death of her many close family members and friends. How real are the Sage’s visions? We have no clue, but what if the visions are as real as real life experiences? You want her to relive that whole experience? No wonder she’s crying."

Yao Yuan was speechless. Indeed, death and killing had become something normal for him and Guang Zhen. There had been at least 1,000 lives that he had taken, not counting the massive amount of aliens. He was inoculated to the fear of death, but Eva was different. Even though the Hope was forced to leave Earth, Yao Yuan did one thing well, which was to prevent the people on the Hope from being influenced by negative feelings. He gave them a fair system and law and tried his best to fulfill their needs, which was why civil movement and science had been progressing so smoothly on the Hope.

However, this also meant that the people on the Hope hadn’t really experienced serious strife. Eva was one of the lucky ones, so it was entirely possible that she was stressed out by her visions.

Yao Yuan and the others spent a few hours in Eva’s room just talking to her. Finally, Eva had relaxed enough to give her power another try.

"Perfect." Yao Yuan’s face split into a broad smile. "In the few days after you awakened, did you see any more visions? What is the future for the Hope like?"

Tears started appearing in Eva’s eyes again, but she took a deep breath and continued, in a shaking voice, "Of course I’ve seen some visions. The future is unfortunately still the same. Either the aliens infiltrate the Hope to murder all of us or enslave us, or the Hope explodes after warp. There are no other visions than these two."

Yao Yuan looked at the rest and said, "Then I decide to warp at tomorrow 4 PM. In that case... has the future changed?"

Eva hesitated before shaking her head. "No, I don’t see a new visions, so this means that the future is still the same. Either you don’t warp tomorrow at 4 and 20 plus days later we will be infiltrated by aliens, or you do warp and the Hope will be destroyed near the sun’s surface. I don’t see anything else beyond that."

Yao Yuan frowned and sighed. "Then rest for now. If you see anything else, you must inform us immediately... Contact Ren Tao or anyone of us; as long as you contact us it’s fine."

Eva nodded weakly before lying down. The rest shuffled quietly out of her room and back to the secret meeting room.

A heavy silence fell in the meeting room. After a long pause, Xiao Niao said, with apology, "I couldn’t contact ZERO. I’ve kept my computer open for 24 hours for the past few days, but there has been no sign of her. I bet she is staying inside that UFO, so I have no chance of asking her about controlled space warp."

Yao Yuan sighed. "It has been incredibly careless of us. We thought the controlled space warps would happen only every 3 months and we could use random space warps the rest of the time. However, it seems like controlled space warps are long lasting and will go on for 15 months. In other words, the moment we decided to save the Noah One, the process cannot be changed or reverted, unless ZERO appears and tells us more about controlled space warp... So, what shall we do now? Warping is not an option, and we’ll have to wait for ZERO to appear one and a half months from now, but what’s the point then?"

Guang Zhen asked, "What about fighting? Our Black Star Troopers have been strongest since we left Earth. We have the second generation space combat jet, the Prototype 011... If possible, why don’t we ambush the alien troops that will attack us? Since we know about their existence and the time of their attack, ambush should be a very effective tactic."

Before Yao Yuan answered, Xiao Niao did. "Commander Wong, that won’t work. You should have heard many things in the past few days from Professor Bo Li about this group of aliens. Based on Eva’s vision, these aliens utilize plasma weapons from the 5th revolution, and that is something undeniable. The space merchants had several 5th revolution technologies, yet their main weapon was still from the Gaussian level, but this alien civilization will be using plasma weapons. This means that they are at least at the 5th revolution and a level 3 space civilization, a level higher than us. We’re like American Indian natives using stone axes to fight with settlers armed with firearms. There’s no chance of winning!"

After another long, uncomfortable silence, Yao Yuan suddenly raised his head to address the room. "In any case, we will have to figure out a way to survive somehow. Didn’t the strategist department come up with a solution earlier? We’ll just use that...

"The last section of the silent journey plan...

"Ruin Deception Strategy!"