Shadow space, parent star Gaia.
In order to maintain the ecological environment, on this artificially customized planet, there are also seasons like a natural planet. Now Gaia’s northern hemisphere is in the deep winter when the vegetation is withered. The cold air from the Arctic Circle has crossed the ice-ocean ring and the two narrow continental mountains, blowing a long-lasting wind in 70% of the northern hemisphere. cold wind. As the largest body of water in the northern hemisphere, the North Sea is directly connected to the Arctic ice ring, and a continuous glacier thousands of kilometers long extends from the Arctic Circle to the depths of the North Sea. This continuous glacier will last nearly half of the parent star year from winter to next spring, and will gradually melt after the arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere and shrink back to the Arctic region. And now is the heyday of glaciers. Standing on the edge of the glacier, there is an endless deep blue ocean in front of you. Looking back, you can see the endless "continent" of solid ice that reaches the pole. Under your feet is a trembling ice cliff that seems to be breaking at any time. Countless huge ice floes floating near the glacier form a mobile archipelago that can last for several months. Under the influence of ocean currents, they set off from the depths of the relatively warm North Sea to this thousand-mile glacier, and continue to crash into our land. On the solid ice cliff under the feet, every impact brought tremors and roars like landslides and ground cracks. The broken ice chips were swept into the air in the high wind, splashing like a blizzard, and occasionally there would be sharp The icicles were thus shaken from the great glacier and fell into the sea with a huge explosion, but each impact still brought greater growth to the glacier. Hitting, shaking, breaking, and growing—this glacier stretching from the North Pole to this point is growing in such a thrilling way, waiting for half a month to fully reach the peak, and then it will extend forward for hundreds of kilometers again, all the way to the top. Until the front of the glacier can almost be seen from the ecological control station of the northern continent.
Beneath the glacier, the ocean floor was slowly moving, and the modular planetary crust was forming a weak but steady vortex driven by the power plant in preparation for the imminent funeral.
The Imperial Royal Guard lined up on the glacier, forming a fan shape facing north, silently confronting the cold wind. Two teams of royal guard boats with golden patterns were lined up in two rows in the mid-air in front of the glacier, as if they were separated from each other. Guarding a road to the sky that is invisible to the naked eye, a medium-sized transport ship is moored on the ice in the north, and the blue indicator light projected by the anti-gravity device forms a hazy light mist in the water vapor directly below it. , A huge light beam shot out from the front of the transport ship, passed through the airspace between the two frigates, and disappeared into the sky. Even in the daytime in the northern hemisphere, this light beam is dazzling in the sky.
Hundreds of dark blue oval airtight cabins have been lined up at the front of the glacier, which looks like a tomb at a glance.
A small group of people stood more than ten meters behind these airtight cabins: me, my sister, Sandora, Harlan, Bella Villa, who was temporarily awake, and twelve other people wearing ancient Xiling military uniforms, looking Solemn ancestors.
These twelve were all there was—not one of the revived ancestors stood here. This is all our ancestors who have been resurrected after Tavel did his best and took all measures, and with the assistance of countless goddesses of life. The oldest of them was a gray-haired old man like Ansers, and the youngest was a couple—just married before the ark crashed. And in the hundreds of sealed cabins in front of us, there are other Ark crew members who cannot be resurrected. Now that all resurrection experiments have ended, we have prepared funerals for the ancestors who cannot be resurrected according to the agreement with Anses: on the northern glacier of the mother planet Gaia.
The apostles of Xiling have been away from their hometown for too long, and they know nothing about the funeral ceremonies in their hometown. These materials have not been entered into the original memory of the Primarch, so today's funeral is under the guidance of Ansers and other ancestors carried out below. But after all, it is a civilization that has been inherited in one continuous line. Even the Xiling people, who are mortals, have a very simple burial ceremony. Now the airtight cabin containing the remains of the ancestors has been placed on the edge of the glacier, and it is time to say goodbye to them.
"In the name of my home planet and ancestors, I, Ansers, the last captain of the Tenth Ark, hereby bid farewell to my compatriots who are about to leave this ship," Ansers stood quietly at the front of the queue, no longer young His body stood upright in the cold wind, and his vicissitudes of life and low voice spread over the entire glacier, "My crew, the helmsman, pilot, guards, navigator, and maintainers of the ark, I am your captain." .”
You have been far away from your hometown, and the fire of civilization has set sail from the mother star, and it has never been extinguished in your hands. "
The ark has crossed the void, and there is no turning back. You, in the name of Xiling, have gone through countless hardships and never stopped. "
Now, as the captain, I will tell you that our glorious civilization has survived, and it has grown into a towering tree in this remote and strange place; everything we once wanted to preserve is now standing proudly Here, strong, strong, unafraid of challenges, indestructible; our names are still written by our descendants, and engraved in the void, resounding through millions of worlds; the fire of the prairie fire has been made, and the storm cannot quench it . "
However, the abyss is still there, and the enemies who destroyed our homeland are still there. They are lurking in the depths of the void, eyeing all the universe of order; And has burned through all the worlds. "
But my crew, you need not worry about this, the young soldiers have taken over the weapons of their ancestors. They carry the names of their ancestors on their backs and move forward persistently, and now they are not afraid of any war. The long exile is over, the children are organizing a counterattack, veterans, you can now leave safely. "
My crew, the engines of the ark are out and the long voyage is over. "
My crew, your work is done, those hard years are over. "
Here you are in your resting place in your new home. "
So now disembark in peace, my crew, the ark's mission is accomplished..."
You guys are home. "
All the frigates and all the defensive facilities on the surface of the planet sounded the sharp enemy alarms, the alarms rang throughout the planet, there was no military band, and there was no dirge, the sirens of the battleships and positions were the endless revenge Before the end of the war, the only farewell the Apostles of Xiling needed. Hundreds of millions of years have passed, and countless times of turbulent inheritance that has almost been re-emerged from genocide, this deafening alarm is the only thing that has never changed in the slightest, since it was first fully sounded on the original mother star, It will always reverberate in the hearts of everyone named Xiling, whether they are Xiling people or Xiling apostles.
"Salute to the ancestors, see you off!"
The moment Sandora's voice fell, the five existing emperors of the empire (including the former emperor's sister) saluted at the same time, followed by hundreds of senior commanders on the glacier, and finally all the royal guards on the scene. And those airtight cabins broke away from the fixed base in a roar, rose into the air under the action of the anti-gravity device, came beyond the glacier, and finally fell soundlessly into the endless darkness below.
They will be brought safely to the bottom of the ocean by the vortex, and will be hidden forever in the thick crust of the mother planet Gaia. They don't need tombs and tombstones, they only need a "Xiling" that is not covered by the abyss. The disturbed resting place will suffice.
The roaring alarm also weakened the moment the airtight cabin fell into the sea, and gradually stopped. The slanted beam of light in the sky also dissipated in the air when the alarm completely stopped. Ansers turned around, his expression was very calm, or just regained his calm, the old captain nodded to us: "It's over, let them have a good rest like this."
"I need to send you off..." Sandora was interrupted by the other party just in the middle of her sentence, and Anses waved her hand: "No, just let us go back by ourselves, and don't let any guards follow-just treat it as a gift." Let us old guys have a little wayward chance."
The ancestors walked into the portal back to Shadow City, and the royal guards also gathered and began to teleport away. I let out a long breath, and suddenly shook my head self-deprecatingly: "At first, I was still thinking about whether it would be appropriate for me to join in. I really think too much... "
"So what are you talking about?" Sandora turned her head and glanced at me slightly, "You are the person standing at the forefront of the empire, so you can't have such messy thoughts."
"I'm going back to work," Harlan who was walking behind suddenly said, "The first abyss starport will be in trial production in the next few days, and I have to personally supervise it during this period, so as not to disappoint the ancestors."
"I'm withdrawing too, I'm withdrawing too," Bella Villa waved her hand, and a portal opened beside her when the voice fell, "I have to switch back to rest immediately, and I will go to the Celestial City tomorrow to discuss the expansion with Alleria If you consume too much energy, it will be troublesome."
So in the blink of an eye, there were only three of the five emperors left. Among them, the elder sister was still not in charge of affairs. Sandora and I looked at each other: "It seems that they are all very motivated—shall we go to the executioner's production line to see..."
Just halfway through my words, an emergency communication suddenly came into my mind. It was Tavel's voice: "Your Majesty! Emergency! A major accident occurred in the deep diving test port, and the main facilities were destroyed!"
Of course, Sandora and Elder Sister also heard this message, and all three of us were stunned for a moment, while Qianqian and the others who had just greeted us from not far away saw the three of them standing there in astonishment, and suddenly fell silent. Gossip about what happened: they didn't get a report.
"You guys go back first," I waved to Qianqian and the others, "There's something wrong with the Deep Submersion Port, I'm afraid Sandora and I have to go."
"I'll follow." Before Qianqian could speak, Lin Xue's voice came from the other side, the eldest lady looked very serious, "Remember why I called to stop the deep diving plan—this is the reason .”
I suddenly remembered that the deep-diving plan that I saw not long ago was urgently stopped by Lin Xue. I was afraid for a while, and said to myself that fortunately I have a prophet, and this accident really happened as expected!
According to Tavel, the entire test port may have suffered heavy losses in the accident, and according to the schedule in the deep dive plan...these two days should be the time when the deep dive ship dives continuously, if there is no Lin Xue a few days ago Forewarning, what we are going to lose is not a port, but a deep dive ship that is more difficult to build.
Qianqian actually wanted to come along, but she also knew that she might only make trouble in this kind of incident, so she went home with the others: Although this girl is a bit energetic, she is also very sensible and obedient at critical times. And I came to the highest research center with Lin Xue and Sandora. Tavel's body was waiting here in person, and behind her was a small team of senior assistant technicians: the extremely efficient glasses girl had already organized Good accident investigation team.
"I'll talk about the details on the way," Sandora interrupted Tavel when he wanted to report, "The test port is in the border area, and the fastest void shuttle will take two hours to arrive. Sivis is ready Good spaceship, let’s go now.”
Since "deep diving" is an experiment with extremely high risks, and a little carelessness will cause catastrophic pollution, the place where the experiment is conducted must be far away from the inland of the empire, and it must be ensured that there is no other life in the experimental universe. In addition, After the first deep dive test, Tavel further improved the security measures of this project: after the completion of the deep dive test port, the local world gate will be dismantled, and there is no direct transmission between the empire area and the test universe, but only The high-speed shuttle is used to prevent the abyss from polluting the gate of the world after a catastrophe breaks out, and then jump to the entire empire through the gate.
This is of course a bit of an inconvenience, but to be on the safe side, a little hassle sometimes is not a bad thing.
Soon we and Tavel's expert team boarded the fastest void shuttle. In the crew compartment of the shuttle, I had time to ask Tavel about the details of the accident.
"The specific reason is still unclear. Everything happened too fast, and the front-line personnel basically didn't have time to react," Tavel frowned. The test site she painstakingly built was destroyed like this, and the glasses girl was absolutely uncomfortable. "The subordinates Three mass projections are also in the test port, one of them was damaged in the accident, and the other two were moved in time, so the subordinates could see the scene. The current situation is that the entire control center has a continuous explosion from the ground floor, and the explosion destroyed 100% Eighty percent of the energy supply system and all the control functions of the site, all six sets of energy furnaces are offline, because the residual psionic energy field is too strong, and it is temporarily impossible to approach, so I am not sure what the situation inside the energy furnace is, so another explosion is not ruled out Observation towers No. 1 and No. 3 are already offline, the underlying buildings are severely damaged, and the internal equipment is completely unresponsive. It is basically certain that the towers are completely scrapped. In addition, the cause of the explosion is unknown."
"How are the casualties?" My first reaction was to ask that.
"It's pretty optimistic," Tavel breathed out. "Because it's a high-risk project, the resurrection facilities are the best. The soldiers and scientists who died on the spot are all in the resurrection queue. At present, only the loss of equipment is confirmed."
"What about the Gate of the Abyss?" After confirming that there was nothing wrong with the personnel, I hurriedly asked this more serious question.
The structure of the deep diving test port is as follows: a stable and suppressed abyss gate is the main body, and a series of energy suppression towers are around the abyss gate. These energy suppression towers completely lock the activities of the abyss gate, and Confine it to a fixed dimension to prevent the gate from collapsing, and then establish an observation near the gate of the abyss (depending on the size and activity of the gate of the abyss, this distance is not certain, the current critical point of the test port is 100 kilometers) And control center. This distance is the "radiation critical point" of the gate of the abyss. Within this critical point, the power of the abyss can directly affect everything with its own "radiation" without media pollution. The control center determines the gate by detecting the drift and strength of the critical point stability, and issued adjustment commands to the surrounding energy suppression towers. At the same time, the observation tower in the control center is also a direct communication tower with the deep diving ship. Considering that the information sent back by the deep diving ship may contain abyss pollution, we do not allow the deep diving ship to directly connect with the conventional communication network. The observation tower with protection and filtering functions is the only communication relay node.
On the periphery of this entire system, no civilian installations, military installations without special protection, or military ships that are not on the registration list are allowed within ten light years, unless they themselves are targets for observation. Only things that have been specially protected can approach the gate of the abyss. It can be said that the protection degree of the whole system is quite high.
This is the basic structure of the deep dive port. After the first deep dive test, Tavel made many improvements to this system, and it is now finalized like this.
So the question I am most worried about right now is whether the Abyss Gate is still safe: the core of this system is the monitoring station on the control center, and the equipment of the monitoring station must be offline now, will the Abyss Gate lose its suppression at any time? May explode
Fortunately, it seems that the experts have been prepared for this, and one of Tavel's senior assistants leaned over: "Your Majesty, there is no need to worry. The possibility of a sudden shutdown of the control center was considered at the early stage of the construction of the experimental port. Around the gate of the abyss, In addition to receiving commands from the control center, the energy suppression towers also have their own independent command module and a set of low-power communication networks. If the signal from the control center is interrupted, all energy suppression towers will automatically switch to the highest alert state, closing the gate of the abyss. Suppression to the limit. All suppression towers are equipped with three sets of independent energy sources, and they can conduct basic negotiations with each other without instructions. Even if half of the suppression towers are destroyed together, the gate will be safe and sound."
"In addition, there is no need to worry about the control center issuing wrong instructions due to system failure before the crash, or the power of the abyss gate distorting these instructions," Tavel also added a few words, "The subordinates have designed several sets of protocols that allow those devices to verify each other , the control center sends instructions to the suppression tower with different lines and codes at the same time, as long as two of the instructions are contradictory, or one of the instructions does not arrive in time, the suppression tower will not respond. This is the theory."
"That's good," I breathed a sigh of relief, "Then let's wait until the scene to talk about it—and don't say it's like this in theory at this time—it sounds creepy."
Tavel: "... oh..." RS