Chapter 931 Silent Wanderer

In the dark and vast universe, a strange team of exiles is sailing silently. They formed a formation of some kind of huge aircraft, with a total of more than ten ships, and they seemed to have been sailing for many years. The appearance of those aircraft is impressive. They have short and thick shells, covered with thick gray-black armor. Neat, scale-like additional structures can be seen on the armor. These scale structures tilt upward and look like It's a lot of blunt triangular short spines. The size of each aircraft is extremely astonishing, with a scale of hundreds of kilometers. Due to the thick and gloomy armor covered, these aircraft look like a group of huge asteroids floating in the universe from a distance.

I don’t know how many years these aircraft have been sailing in the universe. Without exception, they all look extremely old and dilapidated. Although objects in space will not be weathered, these huge spacecraft have obviously experienced countless impacts, high temperatures, corrosion and plasma air masses. The baptism of war, their uneven armor can be seen everywhere with large and small scratches and missing parts. On one of the most seriously damaged spacecraft, the severe trauma to the outer shell even tore off part of the armor layer, revealing what looked like a sponge underneath. A solid support structure - Hao Ren believed that this was probably the result of a powerful meteorite impact, or it could be worse. But even if the situation is so bad, the structures of these spacecraft are still basically intact. Sparse lights are distributed along their pitted surfaces, flashing in space and sending out various indicator signals. These lights do not make the entire The fleet looked a little more angry, they just made the team seem more weird and miserable.

But the lights also show one thing: these ancient craft are still in operation.

This fleet is moving forward at a very slow speed. According to various traces previously discovered, it should have left the hyperspace state decades ago, then decelerated several times, and finally sailed at this low speed until today. The reason why they left hyperspace is not yet clear, because there is nothing for them to stay in this star area: there are no celestial bodies or ports of call that can be used for supplies, and there are no traces of civilization. Some are just nowhere. Absent lilac stardust. Perhaps a mechanical failure forced these spacecraft to break away from faster-than-light travel?

The Giant Turtle Yantai slowly caught up with the fleet from behind the track cloud and approached one of the large aircraft. Although the technology of these aircraft is relatively primitive, their size is really huge. The Giant Turtle Yantai hovers like a hummingbird over the black armored belt that stretches out mile after mile. The pictures that are transmitted back are all huge and Rugged ancient structure. There were some strips of lights flickering slightly on the surface of the armor, and the approach of the Giant Turtle Yantai did not change the flickering pattern of these lights: the aircraft did not react to the approach of the unknown spacecraft.

"A radar is shining on our ship." Nolan's holographic projection enlarged and became life-size and stood next to Hao Ren. She didn't know when she changed herself into a military uniform, reporting the situation like a starship adjutant. , "There are seven radar sources, from three different spacecrafts, but other than that, no hostile reaction was found, and no signal for weapon system activation was found."

Hao Ren looked at the picture from the external monitor. At this time, the Giant Turtle Yantai was slowly passing over a large aircraft. It was only a few hundred meters away from the latter's shell. He saw those rough metal shells. Like a land of steel, it slowly retreated on the monitor screen: "Is there a contact signal?"

"No, I have sent out inquiries - all frequency bands, but I have not received any response." Nolan shook his head, "But I intercepted the signals between these aircraft. They still maintain communication with each other, but …”

Hao Ren raised his eyebrows: "Just what?"

Nolan put the intercepted signal on the holographic projection, and Hao Ren saw that it was a large area of ​​regular symbols and numbers. When these things scrolled rapidly, he found that all the contents were just mechanical repetitions.

"Each aircraft is sending these things mechanically. The basic meaning is to confirm their respective positions and system integrity, and nothing else. I suspect this is an automatic signal."

Nangong Wuyue swung her long tail and snaked her way to the console, with a rather interested tone: "So...a ghost ship?"

Hao Ren glanced at her: "Why are you so excited when you say ghost ship?"

"Fifty percent of the ghost ship legends in human history are transformed into sea monsters, and the remaining 50 percent are caused by sailors who got drunk." Nangong Wuyue raised the tip of his tail and shook it, "It turned into a ghost ship to scare people. People are our race and culture, do you understand race and culture?”

"Forget about the Kraken who has never been to the sea in the first half of his life." Hao Ren waved his hand and pushed Nangong Wuyue aside, then nodded to Nolan, "Can you find the entrance to these spaceships?"

"Deep scanning shows that there is a groove at the waistline of the spacecraft below. It should be the entrance gate, but it is not large enough for the ship to enter: it is only a dozen meters wide."

Hao Ren smacked his lips: "Tsk... As a giant ship that is hundreds of kilometers long, this is really a shabby little door. Okay, let's go down, Nolan, you follow our signal, and you will be outside after we enter. Have the teleporter ready so we can evacuate."

"Are you all going down?" Vivian looked at the people on the bridge. All the monsters and monsters who had been eating at Hao Ren's house were here today.

"Um... just a few, you and Lily, and then..."

Before Hao Ren finished speaking, Nangong Sanba suddenly took a step forward: "My sister and I will go there too. Hunters and sea monsters should be needed in a place like this."

Hao Ren thought about it and felt that what Nangong Sanba said made sense: this was obviously neither the Guardian nor the traitor's spaceship, but should be a wandering fleet of a mortal race that had escaped from the world-destroying natural disaster. According to the fleet's Under the circumstances, the chance of becoming a ghost ship is quite high. What is needed in this environment is not high combat effectiveness, but people who are good at reconnaissance and search and adapt to various environments. Nangong Sanba is a demon hunter, and Nangong Wuyue has ever-changing water forms, so it would be suitable to explore the ghost ship.

Hao Ren handed the beans in his hand to "Gun" and turned around to walk towards the transfer room: "The others will be on standby on the spaceship first, and a few of us will go down together."

The Giant Turtle Yantai arrived at the suspected entrance and exit gate and stopped at a height of more than 100 meters away from the "iron land", while Hao Ren and his party appeared on the surface of the mysterious spacecraft accompanied by a beam of light.

There was almost no gravity on the surface of the spacecraft, and the group moved forward with the help of the auxiliary propulsion device. Hao Ren raised his head and looked into the distance. He saw a slightly curved piece of black-gray steel stretching out in his field of vision. The faint light of distant stars and the light gray interstellar dust cloud hung like stains on a distant curtain. At the end of the steel horizon, some sporadic lights are dotted on several protruding structures in the distance of the earth, shining slightly like will-o'-the-wisps.

"Deadly, lifeless..." Vivian muttered into the communicator, "I can't feel any breath of life."

Hao Ren pressed his forehead: "Terminal, share vision."

The radar view of the data terminal immediately overlaid his human vision, and he saw that the "steel land" in front of him suddenly turned into a complex layered structure, with many orderly lines on these structures outlining the details below the shell. information. He found the location marked as the gate, and after leading the team closer, he found that it was a wide ramp that sloped downwards. The ramp did not extend very deep, and he could see a particularly thick-looking metal below. barrier.

When everyone came to the metal barrier, Lily ran around quickly with her claws on the wall, but found nothing that seemed to be a control device.

"Partner, do you want to explode?" the data terminal asked casually.

"No, find some normal way," Hao Ren waved his hand, "What if there are still people alive?"

"I don't like working on this stuff," Lily muttered. "It's big."

Hao Ren didn't say anything, and just searched for nearby clues through the shared vision. He could see the mechanical structure under the surrounding metal plates. Under the thick steel covering, there were some shallow trenches where pipes and lines were distributed, some of which should be the controllers of the gates. The data terminal was much faster than he could analyze. Soon the PDA found the suspected activation switch based on the circuit layout around the gate, and marked it in Hao Ren's field of vision with eye-catching red.

Hao Ren pointed to a metal plate on the wall next to him: "dig up this place - be careful not to hurt the inside."

Lily immediately floated forward, waving her claws of ice and fire, a burst of golden light flashed out, and quickly removed the metal plate, revealing the complex and old cable and substrate structure behind it.

This device uses electricity.

Hao Ren found the key control circuit with the help of the data terminal. He carefully tore off the two cables from the base plate and waved Vivian over: "Put on some electricity, 28 volts DC."

Vivian: "..."

(The voting for this year’s Forbes annual list has begun. Although I still don’t understand what the mechanism of this list is, I hope everyone can vote to support it. The Forbes year-end ceremony on the homepage of Dianniang is, well, it should be. )