Age of Cosmic Exploration

The disappearance of the three Blue Berets were knowledge only to the soldiers themselves, their immediate family members, and a few higher officers. The rest had no idea what kind of danger hid in the darkness...

However, an anxiousness still fell like a veil over the Noah One. After all, the ship was only so big. It was hard to pretend nothing happened when the officers were all under the public’s scrutiny.

"Austin, how come I never realized you were so clever before? No, not clever per se, but more intuitive, especially your focus towards details." Norton studied Austin, who was standing beside him.

The two of them were standing outside the Noah One. Norton just gave the orders to three units to move towards the planet’s surface. These people were scouts as they were the first batch of soldiers to be ordered to go to the surface.

Austin was taken aback. He thought about it and said, "Indeed, I too didn’t notice this quality in me earlier. Honestly, I have no clue what happen, but I do have a hypothesis. Well, I doubt Captain will believe this. After the mysterious virus, an elusive voice seems to remind me of the details I’ve missed whenever I am thinking about a problem or issue. It’s hard to explain, but to put it simply, there seems to be a voice in my head."

Norton didn’t expect such an absurd answer, so much so that he was rendered speechless. He stared blankly at Austin, waiting for the latter to tell him it was a joke, but that didn’t happen.

"You’re serious?" Norton grumbled. "What do you mean there’s a voice in your head? Do you think we’re in a movie? Answer me seriously!"

"I’m being 100 percent serious," Austin answered with an extremely serious face.

Norton was speechless. He chose to ignore Austin’s obvious ploy to play with him. After some time, he continued, "How do you think the surface of this planet will be?"

Austin replied, "Probably the same as the scientists predicted. This planet’s water mass is lower than Earth’s, but due to global warming, the ice-caps at the two poles have been melted, so the sea level is still sufficient... I guess this will be a rather warm planet with a high average temperature. Not that many jungles, but due to lack of civilization, the jungles will be untouched..."

Norton nodded. "It’ll probably be like what you said, a warm, sprawling, and untouched world, but... is this really our Eden?"

Austin was intrigued. "Captain, why would you say that?"

"Because I feel a sense of unpreparedness..." Norton shook his head and sighed. "Are our actions really suitable? Even though we were mentally prepared to face death before we warped from Earth, have we really reached a level where we can colonize in space?"

Austin was going to say something but was interrupted by Norton. "Let me finish first.... The Noah One’s mission was to build a coordinated star gate on this planet and link it to Earth. You don’t know the details, but I do know a thing or two, and this small amount of knowledge is enough to be forced into committing ’suicide’."

"Forced into committing ’suicide’?" Austin repeated curiously.

Norton smiled bitterly and continued, "If we were back on Earth, we definitely wouldn’t be having this conversation, but we’re not on Earth anymore. After all, there were real cases where people had been forced into ’suicide’ due to this information... Do you know where the Noah One’s technology came from?"

Austin opened his mouth, but no words came out. He frowned and looked at Norton before saying, "It’s from the alien UFO, or you mean to say this news by the government is fake? No matter what, it is unlikely that the technology was created by us humans, but based on what Captain just said, there seems to be some inside stories... Don’t tell me, the technology actually came from some ancient civilization."

Norton laughed with good humor. "No, you were right earlier, the technology did come from the alien UFO. The government didn’t lie about this.... But do you know? The technology that we managed to get from the UFO only includes the space warp engine and anti-gravity technology. These are complete technologies; even though our scientists still can’t understand them, but they can replicate the blueprints and use them. They are the only future-tech we human beings can actually use!"

Austin nodded along, but he noticed the worrying detail...

"Wait, wait, Captain, you mean we have not really understood the star gate technology?" Austin gasped with fear.

Norton laughed coldly. "That’s right. Now do you understand everything? The technology we have on the Noah One are the anti-gravity system that allows this spaceship to move in space and the space warp engine that allows us to move across large distances. Other than that, we human beings didn’t get any other complete future-tech from the UFO!"

"...Complete future-tech?" Austin calmed down from his shock and started thinking. He repeated this phrase because he felt it was important.

This surprised Norton. He laughed after some time. "That’s right, we only got two complete future-tech from the UFO, but the experts did find out some other information about the UFO... There is another ’world’ within the UFO. I have no idea what it really means, but after the release of that information, a series of incomplete future-tech appeared. One of them was a quantum entanglement communicator. I hear it is some kind of communicator that allows messages to be sent over light years without losing its contents. There were other incomplete future-tech, and one of them was the star gate technology.

"Now do you understand? We don’t have the complete star gate technology, and that is why the Noah One even exists in the first place. Star gate technology involves a deep understanding of space science, and this incomplete future-tech is so far beyond our current scientific understanding that filling out the incomplete parts will require decades to complete. Other than time, this technology also requires stable space coordinates to send signal back to Earth so that the scientists back on Earth will have enough data to conduct experiments on the star gate. This is the Noah One’s mission, to send the space coordinates of our location back. You have been briefed on this mission, so I won’t go into details. What I really want to tell you is this... At least in the next 100 years, no, 500 years, we should not expect to see another human spaceship. Now do you understand? We’re essentially Earth’s abandoned sons."

Austin was speechless. This was completely different from what the government told him. The government had siphoned many future techs from the UFO, like the anti-gravity system, the space warp system, future energy sources, the star gate technology. The Noah One was indeed on dangerous mission, but since government had mastered the star gate system, they only needed space coordinates and some time to build the star gates. It was not like what Norton told him. Such hopelessness...

"Therefore, Captain told the groups go up to the surface to prepare a site to build the quantum entanglement communicator?" Austin asked calmly after a long sigh.

Norton shook his head. "No, this is only one of the reasons. After all, that is our mission. Even though we are the abandoned sons, for the hope that our future generation can one day return to Earth, building the communicator is a must, but not now. I mentioned this earlier, the communicator is an incomplete future-tech. First, it cannot be controlled in the sense that we cannot decide which direction it will send the message, and the message can only be received by another spaceship. Thankfully, the other spaceship is back on Earth, so that is not much of an issue. The real trouble is its energy exhaustion. If we keep it active for one day, its energy requirement equals to the energy production for the entirety of Noah One, so we will not be building the communicator now. That will be planned after the next decade... The purpose of this scouting is because of you, actually. Your analysis from before has spooked way too many people.

"...Yesterday, I received the report from the Blue Beret scouting unit. The report states that there are no bullet holes or signs of combat near the location where the blood trail was found... Other than the footprints of the three Blue Berets, there are no other creature footprints, and that blood trail... Do you know how it was produced?" Norton suddenly stopped to ask.

Austin thought about it and shook his head. "No clue, too little information to come up with a hypothesis."

"It was produced by pricking the skin with the sharp point of a bug-like appendage," Norton continued seriously. "According to the analysis in the report, the Blue Beret scouts suspect that the bug was already dead and was prepared to be bagged as sample when the 3 soldiers were ambushed. For some unknown reason, they were immediately apprehended and voluntarily walked into the darkness. At the same time, one of them took out the bug and used its sharp point to pierce through his spacesuit... Shocking, isn’t it? The spacesuit that is made of enforced fiber was pierced through so easily. The scientists came back with the result that the bug’s appendage is really sharp and stable, more stable than even metal. They are serrated as well, so with enough strength, they can indeed pierce through the spacesuit, but... the amount of force needed for that to happen is several tons. Do you think that amount of force is something a group of human beings can create?

"However, that did happen. The elite Blue Berets didn’t fire off a single bullet and didn’t fight back before disappearing into the darkness. Other than their own footprints, there are no traces of others, and one of them somehow created several tones of energy to pierce through his own spacesuit. All of these things that shouldn’t occur naturally have occurred."

Norton turned to look away from the Noah One. He looked down at the tunnel facing away from the spaceship. It led deeper and lower into the darkness. The darkness felt even palpable.

"I have no idea what is hiding behind the dark veil, but I do know one thing... it is a terror beyond human imagination! I just pray for one thing: to find a surface area to colonize before this terror expands its territory to engulf us, or else..."

Norton suddenly looked at Austin and laughed bitterly. "I think I will activate the Noah One’s self-destruct sequence and let everything disappear into nothingness!"

Translator’s Thoughts

Lonelytree Lonelytree

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