Chapter 400, An Ordinary Journey
Shang Yanwen finally set out on the journey back to Korojia alone.
Of course he wouldn't let Lu Shaoyu come with him.
As he said when he left, they were not from the same world.
He has decided to devote his life to a great cause. Lu Shaoyu doesn't have to do that. Her life will be more exciting and leisurely. She shouldn't go to that dark and backward place with him.
He knew Lu Shaoyu's feelings, but love was probably just a momentary impulse, how long could it last?
It is his responsibility to change his hometown. He knows the road ahead is long and full of difficulties. He doesn't even know how many years he will have to spend on this. He shouldn't drag a beautiful girl along with him.
His difficult journey was even directly reflected on his way back home.
It took him two days to take public transportation to the ground part of the starport of Feiyi Star; then it took another three days to queue up to get to the starport and wait for the boat.
The alliance has now established its own interstellar transportation system, the main force of which is the "Traveler II" and "Flying Pig". The former can carry 2,000 people at a time, and the latter can carry about 80,000 people.
The Angry Owl Star Shipyard and the Flying Wing Star Shipyard have both received a large number of orders from the Alliance's Public Transportation Department to produce these two types of spacecraft for the construction of public flights within the star region.
In the past, normal people - even many wealthy people, tycoons, and high-ranking officials - did not have the opportunity to travel between star regions.
Intergovernmental affairs rely on the ships of the star district government; business transactions depend on whether each company can find connections and contact forces like Gu's Trading Company that have the ability to conduct interstellar navigation, or they happen to have a ship passing by the destination so they can take a ride.
A year and a half ago, the Alliance's interstellar flights to the star zone were officially opened. Although the ticket price is still very expensive and not affordable for ordinary people, this way is a big step forward. If there is really something that must be visited on another planet, at least there is a way to go now.
Not to mention, if it is a business or official trip, it is the government or the company that will pay for the budget.
Shang Yanwen himself certainly didn't have the money to take a boat ride back and forth between Korojia and Feiyi Star. In fact, he had never been back during the past three or four years of studying.
This time when he went back, he also got a free boat ticket with the government approval.
There have been quite a lot of people returning to Korojia recently, and he waited in line for three days before he boarded flight B-1733, which was a Flying Pig transport ship.
The conditions on the boat were not very good. There was a compartment of about six square meters with two rows of four-bed bunks and a corridor in the middle. Each bunk could accommodate one person.
There are countless such compartments, stacked up layer by layer in the cabin.
Shang Yanwen was quite used to it. Although his accommodation during college was good, the life he spent in Koroja for most of his life was no better than this.
After placing his luggage in one of the four separate public compartments under the bed, he lay down on the second layer from the top.
It's very crowded here, and Shang Yanwen can barely fit in. If it's any higher, his head will hit it.
He took out the book he had brought with him and began to read.
He prepared several books to use during the long journey from Wing Star to Korojia.
The total journey, at Flying Turtle's speed, would take six days, and he planned to kill time by reading.
It's a pity that there are strict restrictions on the carrying of various items on interstellar spacecraft. Books are on the restricted list and you are not allowed to bring too many. And before making a jump through the star tunnel, all books have to be placed in a designated place for special storage, which is very troublesome.
But Shang Yanwen still brought as many books as required so as not to waste any time.
The ship left the star port and drifted in the void for two days.
Shang Yanwen estimated in his mind that they should be approaching the star tunnel node by now.
Although it is a "point", and it is indeed a point in the context of the entire universe, in fact, the jump point is a very large area. As the starship gradually approaches this area, the signal received by the jump identification system will gradually increase until the signal strength exceeds the critical point, which means that the current position of the starship has reached the jump standard. As long as the jump engine is started, the entire starship will jump into the star tunnel. From the outside world, it will be as if the spaceship has disappeared from the real universe in an instant.
These are all the knowledge Shang Yanwen learned from books, including the fact that the ship is almost at the jump point, which he also judged based on his knowledge. He stayed in this box-like compartment every day, unable to see or hear anything, and could only guess.
However, the starship's jump engine was never started.
He was quite confused. Could it be that he guessed wrong?
But he soon realized that it was not.
Inside the cabin, an alarm sounded:
"We are sorry to inform all passengers that our journey may be delayed. There have been traces of pirates appearing around the route recently. The Alliance Navy tracked down a group of pirates two hours ago. A battle is taking place around the jump point of the Korojia galaxy. We may have to wait here for two hours for this. We are sorry to delay the itinerary of all passengers..."
Oh, it turns out to be a pirate.
Shang Yanwen had seen this matter mentioned in some news reports before.
In an editorial, Shang Yanwen also saw a point of view that he quite agreed with, that the arrival of pirates was inevitable.
In the past, there were few pirates in the Tianma Star Region. On the one hand, the powerful Tianma Fleet was stationed in the star region, and any blind pirate group that dared to come here to commit crimes would be really risking their lives.
On the other hand, the Tianma Star Region is not particularly profitable. The Imperial Tax Fleet dares not plunder. The Imperial Caravan does have a Gu's Company, but it is difficult to track the route and the flights are not frequent. The Tianma Star Region itself is not a particularly important transportation hub, so the profit from long-term pirate activities in the Tianma Star Region is not high.
However, in the last one or two years, things have changed a bit.
The main force of the Pegasus fleet is absent. Although the remaining ships can still form an overwhelming military advantage over ordinary pirates, space is so vast that the pirates can hide in an asteroid belt or even leave the Pegasus star area to hide somewhere else. No one can find them unless they show up on their own initiative.
Moreover, due to the interconnection of the nine stars within the alliance, a large number of fixed flights began to travel very frequently, and most of them were single ships running directly in the sea of stars. If they were targeted by pirate ships, they would be doomed.
The pirates had a considerable expected gain from this.
Of course, the pirates still had no way to fight against the remaining forces of the Pegasus Fleet. Even those shabby pirate ships could not withstand a frigate. However, the high profits had already made those pirates dare to take risks.
In the past year, there have been many pirate raids, and three alliance ships have been looted, causing heavy losses.
The alliance has undoubtedly taken severe countermeasures against this.
The current acting commander of the Tianma Fleet, Du Shiliang, has made a public statement to apologize to the public and promised that the Tianma Fleet will work hard to combat pirates and ensure the safety and smooth operation of interstellar flights.
At the same time, the Alliance’s Ministry of Public Transport also urgently established a special group and announced the establishment of the Alliance Navy.
Of course, the word "navy" was not used in the official announcement. This was what the citizens of the alliance thought. The public statement was that it was the alliance escort fleet.
The shipyards of Wing Star and Wrath Star also received orders from the Alliance to build warships. It is said that some escort armed ships modified by the Travelers and even several "Blackfish Class" fast patrol ships have been put into use.
Three months ago, the Alliance completed a heavy blow to a pirate group called "Red Eye". Several Alliance fast-response patrol ships bit the buttocks of those pirates and fought for several days, chasing them without letting go and rushing forward recklessly, and finally dragged a destroyer of the Pegasus Fleet with a squadron of several frigates to arrive, destroyed some enemies, and seized three patrol ship-level pirate ships through boarding tactics.
It was a great victory, and there was no news of any pirates for the next three months. I didn’t expect that there are still some now.
Shang Yanwen was a little nervous, but overall he was calm.
He believed in the ability of the federal government. Since it did not stop regular flights and did not arrange escorts for every flight, the problem should not be too serious.
This was indeed the case. Two hours later, a new announcement was issued, saying that the pirate problem had been resolved and the ship was about to enter the Star Tunnel. All passengers were asked not to move around in the cabin, and the mission in the Star Tunnel would last for thirteen hours.
For Shang Yanwen, these thirteen hours did not feel that special. He just felt that the ship vibrated for about a few minutes, and they should have entered the astral tunnel.
It is said that if you look out from the ship at this time, you should be able to see a large area of colorful, bizarre and brilliant scenes. Unfortunately, in the cabin where he was, he could not see anything.
At the same time, it is said that even with the astral force field turned on, some unknown dangers may still occur in the ship when traveling through the astral tunnel, but at least he did not encounter them this time.
To him, these thirteen hours were not much different from the other thirteen hours. Until the ship vibrated for another ten minutes, and he heard the announcement, he knew that they had escaped from the astral tunnel and returned to the real universe.
Then, after sailing for a little more than three days, the starship stopped moving.
The announcement said that they had arrived at the Koroja Starport.
Everyone packed up their things, left the cabin, and lined up in an orderly manner in the passage outside, following the workers' instructions, and headed to the nearest exit, ready to leave the ship.
Flight B-1733 was a flying dolphin that carried nearly 90,000 passengers. With so many people, it was a hassle to get off the ship with their belongings.
However, when designing the ship, including the starport, there were special considerations for this. Shang Yanwen queued up and left the ship after an hour and a half.
While walking on the corridor bridge, he could see through the glass that there were 20 exits of different sizes on the side of B-1733 close to the starport, scattered up and down, left and right, connected to the starport through corridor bridges. People and goods were communicating through these movable corridor bridges in space.
Only here could they catch a glimpse of part of the ship they were on, as well as the larger star port, through the glass windows of the corridor bridge.
The Flying Pig is only a small transport ship, but it can carry 90,000 people in its belly, as well as a large amount of cargo and daily necessities, so it is naturally a huge vessel.
It's like a small town standing in space.
But even so, it is too small compared to the starport.
The scale of Korojia's starport is not as large as that of Feiyi Star, but it still ranks second in the entire Tianma star region.
After entering the star port, we took the tram in the star port to a connection point of the space elevator, queued up and waited to get off the star port.
After leaving the star port and reaching the ground, this is the capital hive city of Koroja, named Yancheng.
I changed vehicles and arrived at the northern station of Mingyancheng. After waiting for half a day, I finally got a train to Nuoyancheng.
Promise City is not too far from Mingyan City - compared to the hive city on the other side of the planet.
But even so, the train, which was running at a speed of over 500 kilometers per hour across the wilderness, still took him seven hours to reach the City of Promise.
After getting off at the Promise City Station, he took another bus and after swaying in the Hive City for six hours, he finally arrived at his destination: the Green Bee District in the Lower Hive District of Promise City.
This journey was truly exhausting, even for Shang Yanwen, who was always calm and composed.
Interstellar travel is really troublesome. The distance is too far, and even with the support of various technologies possessed by humans, it is still too troublesome for an ordinary person.
He couldn't even remember how many times he changed trains or how much time it took.
But anyway, he came back.
After getting off the car, he looked around and saw some familiar scenes, but there were more things he had never seen before.
The street scene has changed a lot. The originally dirty and blocked alleys have been cleared out. The strange smell of metal smelting, various exhaust gases, and various domestic garbage is still there, but it is much lighter than he remembered.
Some of the surrounding buildings remain the same, but most of them are no longer what they used to be.
There were many people walking on the street and many cars driving, unlike in the past when no one would walk around unless there was something going on.
Although the clothes they wore were not gorgeous, they were at least neat; their faces were full of smiles and boldness...
Is this still my hometown?
(End of this chapter)
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