Chapter 58 Shuttle Date

*

He actually had the answer in his heart. His heart was like a piece of lead, slowly sinking into the deepest abyss of darkness.

Fitzgerald tried to contact the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle again on the quantum communicator, but received no response. Su Xi's ID on the communication number also showed as offline.

Should we continue the mission or turn back?

The racial mission engraved deep in his genes drives him to move forward without hesitation. However, the small empty space in his heart reminds him to impulsively make another completely opposite choice.

Fitzgerald turned his head and looked out the porthole. The sky was silent and dark.

The dark porthole reflected the alpha's resolute and indifferent figure. A hint of hesitation he had never felt before flashed across his suppressed brows, and the phantom in his insect dream passed before his eyes again.

'Dark Flame, shut down the antimatter engine.'

Without hesitation, he made a risky decision and stopped halfway to the next maintenance site. The mecha Dark Flame quietly and hiddenly docked on the shadow side of a huge planet.

This place is only a hundred light years away from the star field where the Zerg Queen's nest is located. From the perspective of the universe, this distance is really too close.

While waiting for the mecha's engine to cool down, he walked towards the only seat in the inner cabin. His bony hands gently rested on the half-tilted seat. The red-haired alpha lowered his head slightly and stared.

The remaining omega-3s in the air are gradually disappearing.

"Command received, engine shut down. Cooling down countdown..."

He sat down, stroking and tapping the armrests of the chair with his long fingers. The petite figure had once curled up obediently in it. In the wormhole, she completed the advancement from an intermediate 'beginner' to an 'awakener', and on this recliner, she smoothly stabilized to the 'S' level.

On the other hand, the progress of the mission to the end of the universe on the suspended light screen remained at a red 65%, and there were still two star hours left, which did not leave much time for him.

"Cooling completed, entering the nuclear crystal wave simulation process." The cold mechanical sound rang out in the lonely mecha cabin.

'Very good, next, according to the Sun Devouring Beast Core Experiment Data A32 frequency, activate the auxiliary energy system 'Nuclear Crystal Engine' fluctuations, and download the data after the synchronization frequency with the Sun Devouring Shuttle reaches 80%.'

He issued instructions in the mental link between man and machine.

Looking from the universe, one could see the 70-meter-tall Dark Flame mecha hidden in the shadow of a giant ringed planet, anchored three kilometers outside the planet's gravitational tidal circle. The mecha was made to look as tiny as a grain of rice floating on the ocean.

However, just as Fitzgerald issued the order to preheat and start the "nuclear crystal engine", an invisible energy wave spread out in the deserted deep space of the universe.

For the transformation of the Dark Flame Mech, the Empire engineers innovatively planned a "trident energy engine" system, including a heavy nuclear engine, an antimatter engine, and a "nuclear crystal engine". The main driving force comes from the antimatter engine.

Although the 'Nuclear Crystal Engine' is only an auxiliary energy system, due to the special features of the 'Sun Devourer Core' loaded into the core system, the 'Dark Flame Mecha' and 'Sun Devourer Shuttle' that share the core technology can ignore the laws of time, space and dimensions and synchronize each other's application information, as well as specific time and space locations.

Although engineers have not yet fully understood the application principle of this technology, its practical application is clearer and more stable than the technical application under the 'quantum entangled state'.

To put it simply, now that Fitzgerald has lost contact with both sides, he can only use the above-mentioned special features to cross-dimensionally access the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle's 'space-time leap' operating data, and thereby analyze the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle's current status and specific space-time position.

"Preparation completed... debugging progress 75%..."

'Retrieve all the energy loss data of the Sun Devourer shuttle before and after it leaves the port, and pay special attention to analyzing the abnormal changes in the speed change frequency of the Sun Devourer beast core.'

He lay on his back in the only seat in the mecha's cabin, slightly closed his eyes in the faint remaining pheromones of the omega, and entered the data torrent of the Dark Flame mecha's main brain.

"Debugging completed... Data analysis in progress... Report compiled... Please download and read."

As the cold mechanical voice fell, the sky-high light curtain expanded around him. The raw data scrolling across the screen showed the energy loss of the completed Sun Swallowing Shuttle from its start to now. On the light curtain facing him, an analysis report was scrolling.

Fitzgerald did not immediately look at the final calculation analysis report given by AI. He had already fully understood all the situations through the mental link between man and machine.

As an elite alpha above the 4S level, he has a very strong mental power and does not rely entirely on AI when processing important data. Unlike the common and popular method of interstellar humans to implant nano-silicon-based computers in the brains of citizens before school age to store massive and mechanical data memories in order to adapt to the huge data flows of the interstellar era,

As he spent a long time living in the fringe galaxy during his childhood, he did not have the opportunity to implant nano-silicon-based computers before school age. By the time he surpassed the candidates for the throne of the same period and obtained the qualification of heir, he had already built a mature and sophisticated "Palace of Mind" calculation method of his own.

Therefore, Fitzgerald has always preferred this ancient and long-standing thinking training.

At this moment, he is collecting data streams through the human-machine synchronization in the mental link, and performing data calculations in his brain simultaneously.

He reached his conclusion 2.8 seconds later than the result given by AI and completed the verification and comparison with the analysis report given by AI.

The conclusions are consistent.

Just as he predicted, the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle that Chris and his crew were riding landed before the scheduled rescue time.

However, an abnormal data with six decimal places caught his attention.

Although it did not exceed the normal value, the mass carried by the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle was indeed overloaded.

This abnormally redundant data flashed by like a tiny wave in the data flow that was as vast as a river. The insignificant deviation value did not even have a hint in the analysis report of the Dark Flame AI.

But there was an intuition so sharp that it was almost painful, which made him extremely concerned.

Fitzgerald's fingers on the armrest moved slightly, and he suddenly opened his eyes and issued a hasty order: "Anyan, connect to Albert Quantum's real-time video and request a full-staff meeting."

If his calculations were correct, Chris and his companions were being followed.

*

The entrance to the Zerg Queen's lair, one hundred light years away from this earth-ringing planet.

This is an area that has obviously been transformed by a highly intelligent biological community. At the edge of this area, the planetary resources that were originally distributed naturally have been eaten up.

From the perspective of the cosmic energy spectrum, this barren area is like a clean and dark patch, appearing naked and abruptly against the background of the entire universe.

In the center of this area, there is a dense group of lifeless planets orbiting a small artificial black hole, slowly rotating.

Contrary to the definition of a stellar galaxy, this is a black hole galaxy.

However, the Zerg Queen's lair is not in it, it is just an entrance. In other words, the entire black hole galaxy is the first line of defense for humans to lock the Zerg Queen.

Only by crossing this black hole galaxy can you reach the real nest of the Zerg Queen.

At this time, the deepest part of the nest is the heavily guarded egg-laying chamber.

The queen of the insect race, who had just survived the birth of a king-level heavy armored insect soldier egg, was in a dormant state. Her fat and sturdy insect body suddenly twitched and woke up!

It shook its round, transparent tentacles, trying to capture the same fluctuations again, but found that everything was normal.

It was not mistaken for the crystal core fluctuations that resembled the Sun Devouring Beasts of the ancient universe. The familiar fluctuations were clearly engraved in its genetic inheritance.

It became excited, opened its mouth slightly, and uttered a few rapid, low-frequency chirps.

Woo la la——

Dozens of engineers rushed in, circling around it busily and orderly. The Zerg Queen opened her mouth again and let out a high-frequency howl of three long and two short sounds.

The worker insects touched their head antennae to each other, and then retreated in an orderly manner.

The Zerg Queen moved slightly twice out of fatigue, and then she fell into a deep sleep again due to postpartum fatigue and energy conservation.

Having been trapped in the cosmic wasteland for thousands of years, the edible energy areas of this cosmic desert have long been eaten into "holes". As the queen of this generation, it has held on for too long, and the organs of its body have been exhausted and are almost approaching the limit of cellular survival.

However, the genetic algorithm of the Zerg takes the survival of the entire race as its most essential goal. Before the next generation of queen is hatched, it cannot even die and can only survive in a half-asleep state.

As for the birth pattern of the next queen, during the period when the resources for the survival of the Zerg are very abundant, there is a high probability that the previous generation of queen will directly produce 'queen' level eggs, which are a kind of hard-shelled golden eggs.

Once this kind of insect egg is born, it often indicates that the insect race will usher in a heyday with lush aquatic plants.

The insect queen of this generation was born from a golden insect egg.

However, it has inherited the genetic memory of its tribe and is more sensitive to the various changes in cosmic energy than any other tribe in the universe. It knows deeply that after it, there will no longer be any golden eggs.

Because the entire universe will once again enter a doomsday-like period of decline.

*

The Zerg's genes are engraved with the program of "scavenger", and the plunder of energy and matter is their most instinctive life drive. However, the energy contained in the barren land that currently surrounds them is far from enough to give birth to the next generation of "Queen" and its immediate family.

Therefore, it can only try to slow down its metabolism and energy needs as much as possible to delay genetic failure, because once the current queen of the insect race dies, the worker insects who are its direct descendants will be programmed to open the "death lock" by the genetic preset program, accelerating the death process of cells in the insect body.

However, when the universe inevitably collapses, it, as the last "Golden Queen", and its race will most likely become the last generation.

As the decision-making center and breeding center of the tribe, it cannot die before breeding the next generation of queens.

As for the birth of the next generation of queen, how will they face the impending exhaustion of cosmic energy and the continuation of the race?

Its aging body is no longer able to think.

It is also possible that after the next generation of queens are born, they will not have enough energy to grow and reproduce the population, and will face individual death the moment they are born...but those are things that the next generation of queens need to consider.

Now it cannot die because it has not completed the most important reproduction mission carried by the queen's genes.

Therefore, when it is not necessary, the queen of the Zerg will fall into a deep sleep to save her own energy consumption, and for a more important consideration - delaying the aging of her genes.

The queen of the insect race, who originally shouldered the two major functions of "central brain worm" and "direct line reproduction", could only wake up to eat, mate, and lay eggs as quickly as possible when necessary for reproduction and egg laying, in order to maintain the growth and loss rate of her generation of direct line population.

However, in the last three hundred years, it has had to wake up from more than seven hundred years of pure hibernation.

During the more than 700 years of its low-energy hibernation, humans have developed genetic technology that not only builds defenses specifically targeting the characteristics of the Zerg, but also develops genetic weapons and pheromone missiles. In order to maintain the loss of individual soldiers in the group during its "deep hibernation", it differentiates from its genes into a pure female species called "Mother Zerg" to take on the natural supply of Zerg losses below the King-level Zerg Soldier for the group.

Against the backdrop of the universe's energy depletion, the old and new queens of the Zerg race take turns, and the system has changed from the previous absolute inheritance system of a single "golden egg" to a risk-dispersed "mother worm" competition system, which is also an inevitable evolutionary model.

When the extremely exhausted Zerg Queen was about to fall into a low-energy sleep, she received a message signal sent back by the Zerg soldiers.

The wave that woke her up appeared in the Great Wilderness Galaxy, but the exact location was unknown.

It suppressed its fatigue and sleepiness, opened its mouth wide, raised its head and let out another series of sharp howls.

Urge the scouts to contact the reconnaissance point on the border as soon as possible and report back.

It’s the Great Wilderness Galaxy again!

Its precious eggs! Thousands of years ago, on the eve of the defeat, the 503 eggs of the 'mother worm' that it had differentiated urgently were destroyed by the despicable humans who activated antimatter weapons before they could be sent to the then resource-rich Great Desolate Galaxy, which was used as a battlefield to destroy it.

That batch of 'worm mother' eggs was produced urgently when the energy was at its most abundant. Their quality was many times better than those ordinary 'worm mother' eggs that were produced intermittently during the seven hundred years of dormancy to sustain individual soldiers' consumption!

After so many years of cultivation, it vaguely sensed that its first generation of "worm mothers" were gradually hatching in the direction of the Great Wilderness Galaxy. It did not dare to act rashly, and even did not dare to send worm soldiers to approach, for fear of being discovered by human reconnaissance points.

For so many years, it has been sleeping patiently! Waiting!

Finally, we have the hope of the next generation of queens hatching! The last hope for the continuation of the Zerg race!

The Great Wilderness Galaxy!

Humans, dare to step into the Great Wilderness Galaxy again!

*

Just as the Zerg Queen let out an angry and rapid howl.

At this time, it is the farthest corner from the center of the 'Universe' where the Queen of the Insect Tribe is located. The time flow rate ratio to the Insect Nest is 35:1.

This is the edge of the desolate universe, a land of death isolated by antimatter energy pollution, and also the second strategic line of defense that humans used to trap the Zerg thousands of years ago.

This is the Great Wilderness Star Region. If you were in it, you would only see a dark background of starry sky with only very rare galaxies and celestial bodies.

In the gray cosmic dust, among these sparsely scattered planets, there is a white dwarf that is jokingly called a "stellar corpse", emitting a lonely and miserable white light.

In its third planetary orbit, there is another life planet numbered BV-32II by humans.

This is a lucky planet with extremely rare life conditions in the Great Wilderness Star Region. Unfortunately, due to its special periodic magnetic field subversion, it does not have the conditions for the continuous evolution of primary life after its birth, so no advanced intelligent life has ever been born.

At least, it has never been discovered in current human exploration.

'Circle of Life' Wilderness Dry Plains North.

On an ammonia-freezed lake 3,000 kilometers above the polar night line.

Buzz——

The mirror-like frozen lake suddenly broke! The continuous frozen waves rose one after another, breaking the ice surface! Forming a 500-meter-high wave, rushing into the sky!

However, the extremely cold environment of -30 to -180 degrees Celsius instantly freezes the liquid ammonia under the ice into tall, solidified waves.

From a distance, it looks like time has been paused. Or it looks like a performance art created by some kind of intelligent race who doodled on a whim.

Then, the huge waves weakened layer by layer from the outside to the inside, and the liquid solidified finely layer by layer.

Finally, this state came to a halt.

Looking down from the sky, a pure white daisy suddenly bloomed on the mirror-like frozen lake, and in the middle of the daisy, a drop of silver water was flowing slowly on the petals carved out of ammonia ice.

That is the Sun-Swallowing Shuttle.