"Oh, that's great."
Sith peeked out from behind Elisa, stared at the escape pod, and mumbled something indistinctly.
"...Those guys sent us to Sunu for a two-year exploration mission, but all they gave us was this kind of thing?"
With the hope of returning home within reach, yet forced to confront such a disturbingly makeshift lifeboat, everyone present now appeared dejected.
"In my memory, we should have had some medium-sized lifeboats."
Bryce said, frowning.
“Hmm… that’s right, and those were a new batch. I wish we could still have them, but those lifeboats were all damaged in the previous emergency landing. Don’t you remember? Many parts were taken off to repair the Helios.” Elisa replied somewhat somberly. “By the way, the lifeboats we see now are original 300-year-old lifeboats. They were forgotten here, so they were preserved.”
"It sounds absolutely amazing. If we were on Earth at this time of year visiting a similar lifeboat, we'd probably have to pay for an air museum ticket."
Sith said.
He seemed devastated, and then he looked at Elisa and Bryce.
Fear flashed in his eyes.
Nothing is more painful than giving someone hope and then destroying it—and they seem to be facing that situation now.
Lin Xi and his group then checked the other lifeboats in the warehouse, but their discoveries only made their last bit of hope disappear even faster.
These ancient artifacts, dating back three hundred years, were all, without exception, the large, thin, paper-like metal bottles from where they were first discovered. There were only two cryogenic hibernation pods, and the central control center's computer was as simple as a child's toy.
As they have emphasized before, these lifeboats were not designed for long-distance travel.
"...just so that the passengers of the spaceship could maintain their vital signs before the rescue fleet arrived."
Elisa braced her temples with both hands. After a quick check, she returned to the lifeboat they had first opened, and then sadly added to Lin Xi.
The only good news they have while inspecting these lifeboats is that they discovered a movable part between two lifeboats. After removing this part, they can remove a cryogenic hibernation chamber from another lifeboat and install it here.
"It sounds like good news! Our choice has changed from 2 out of 4 to 3 out of 4. It seems that we have no way to escape the fate of taking turns resting."
Sith stared sadly at the loose part.
And it was precisely because he was so upset that he didn’t notice that just as he said those words, Xavier, who had been silently eavesdropping on people’s conversation, suddenly twitched his tentacles.
Although he hadn't received any formal instruction, Xavier had already learned to count without a teacher, and the words Sith had just said were quite clear—four people.
Clearly, Xavier was the only one among their group who was not human.
Xavier's movements suddenly froze.
It had always felt incredibly happy helping Lin Xi and doing things according to Lin Xi's instructions, but in that instant, it suddenly realized something cruel.
What do all these things I've done really represent?
It is working hard to help Lin Xi and her group leave this planet.
but……
Xavier forgot that while Earth was Lin Xi's and the others' home planet, it was a completely alien world to him. And what awaited him once he escaped his current environment? Xavier didn't know, only feeling a surge of intense panic.
Just then, Lin Xi glanced at him.
"It's not a choice of two out of four, nor is it a choice of three out of four."
Lin Xi said.
"What?"
Sith was still a little taken aback by Lin Xi's words.
“There are five people,” Lin Xi said, looking directly into Sith’s eyes. “We’re taking Xavier with us.”
Lin Xi said in an unquestionable tone.
Sith stared at Lin Xi with a strange look, as if Lin Xi had suddenly grown ivory or something else.
He is indeed the kind of person who doesn't know how to control his emotions at all. Sometimes this trait makes him seem straightforward and naive, but at other times it makes him particularly annoying.
“Take Xavier away…Are you kidding me? You mean you’re going to take this monster with you…”
At the last moment, Sith abruptly stopped speaking, carefully swallowing the word "monster"... Not far from him, he clearly saw Xavier's tentacles stand up straight.
After the human's blue eyes faded, there were cold and cruel crimson compound eyes, like those of an insect. At that moment, Xavier's gaze fell directly on Sith, causing the human to involuntarily shiver.
"...Are you really planning to bring this alien friend back to Earth?"
Sith finished speaking, his face pale.
The sudden tension between Lin Xi and Sith caused the other two people present to involuntarily cast questioning glances at them.
Upon hearing Lin Xi's answer, not only Sith but even Bryce was quite surprised.
“Take Xavier away? Back to Earth? Hey, Lin Xi, you need to know…” Bryce was about to speak when he heard Elisa suddenly raise her voice, abruptly interrupting his attempt to dissuade him.
“Can we talk about all that later? Guys, the most important thing right now is… we at least need to figure out how to survive, and then use this old relic…” Elisa patted the lifeboat beside her forcefully, “to get us back to Earth…”
Elisa tried to appear calm, but she knew in her heart that things were not going well.
To use the word "bad" to describe their current situation is an understatement—the word "doomed" would be more appropriate.
For them now, the best-case scenario is that this makeshift lifeboat will send them directly into the jump gate. If they are lucky enough (meaning that the thin and fragile spacecraft won't be crushed into foam during the jump), they will be ejected into a public orbit on the other side of the jump gate. At that point, they will have to find a way to send out a distress signal, and then they can only pray to God that some kind soul will be able to pull them back to Earth at the same time.
Well, after mentally rehearsing the ideal scenario, even Elisa, who had been the most lenient with Xavier, was extremely worried about Lin Xi's decision to bring Xavier along.
Lin Xi seemed to sense her emotions as well. He immediately turned around and gave Elisa a deep look.
"There won't be any problems. Xavier has a very strong ability to mimic."
Lin Xi answered calmly, then paused before adding.
"It is a creature that I hatched with my own hands, and no matter what it eventually becomes, it is my responsibility."
Lin Xi had barely finished speaking when she heard Xavier's voice behind her.
"I am Lin Xi."
It was a joyful and sweet cry.
Xavier gently fluttered his wings, nestled behind Lin Xi, and softly repeated the sentence that made his heart flutter.
It wasn't stupid; it clearly understood the argument between the humans (if Lin Xi were next to it, it would probably have tried to tear that lowly creature named Sith to shreds with its claws). Similarly, it also understood Lin Xi's insistence.
Lin Xi said himself that he would stay with it.
Upon realizing this, the sweet feeling almost sent a tingling, stinging sensation through Xavier.
In that instant, all the perseverance and resistance against one's instincts paid off.
Lin Xi cares about it...
Xavier moved uncontrollably closer to Lin Xi, its wings twitching and a low, indistinct murmur emanating from its chest.
Lin Xi patted its paw reassuringly.
Regardless of what Lin Xi and Xavier were really feeling at that moment, the intimate way the alien monster and Lin Xi were acting was extremely irritating to Bryce.
Bryce coughed and stepped forward firmly, subtly separating Xavier and Lin Xi.
“Alright, Alyssa is right. Our top priority is to get out of this hellhole. Whether it’s those monsters, those insects, or those damned machine warriors, they’re all a huge problem for us. The longer we linger here, the more trouble we’ll face later. Now let’s get moving and see what we can do.”
Bryce clapped his hands loudly, then pretended that the previous argument had never happened, and said this.
Just as Bryce said, they really needed to get other things sorted out first.
Bryce and Alyssa quickly began scavenging supplies from the other lifeboats. They would then have to remove another hibernation pod from the remaining lifeboats and install it in the one they planned to use. Sith's task, however, was to decode the star map in the system, alter its orbit, and use hacking techniques to modify the lifeboat's incredibly old and rudimentary computer system, enabling the fragile metal box to find its way home in the vast universe.
Of course, these are all minor details; what truly troubles everyone is...
"Fuel is a big problem."
"I'm pale," Sith said after inspecting the lifeboat's fuel tank.
These escape pods were built under the premise of a serious malfunction in the spaceship or a pirate hijacking, so their engines were designed to have extremely high thrust...
"...In the event of a spaceship malfunction, at least these lifeboats can carry the surviving crew away from the potential blast radius as quickly as possible."
It also has an excessively small size.
"...Everyone was dispersed into extremely small units to escape, so even if the space pirates had set up a capture system outside the spaceship, it would have been difficult for them to capture all the lifeboats, which were so small."
Elisa explained in detail to the three men behind her.
However, this design gave these lifeboats a fatal flaw—the high-powered engines would quickly deplete all the fuel stored in the fuel tank within a very short time.
"In that case, we would lose power before we even get into the warp gate. We would be adrift halfway, but in this godforsaken place, no passing ship would be kind enough to salvage us."
While checking the various data of the lifeboat, Bryce finished speaking for Elisa.
"If we replaced it with a larger fuel tank, wouldn't that also..."
"It's no use. These damn engines consume too much power, and once we replace them with large fuel tanks, the weight and strength of the fuel tanks themselves might be crushed into pieces during the jump. In that case, we might be in a worse situation than if we stayed in this godforsaken place—we would be stuck in the gap between the jump sites, eternally enduring the moment our bodies are turned into pieces."
Elisa said in a low voice.
Many of the Sith's previous plans were designed based on the premise that they at least possessed medium-sized lifeboats with some intra-system flight capabilities.
But now, the lifeboats they have available have completely dashed his hopes.
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