Interstellar Survival: Invasion

We returned to Saturn, and on the mothership, our return was welcomed in a ceremonious manner. Chen Qiang and I handed over all the samples we had gathered. We even gave a detailed account of our experiences. We then smoothly returned to Blue. The League Exploration Headquarters held a grand welcoming ceremony for us. I saw my father and mother present. Everyone was happy that I had returned alive.

I then spent several days resting at home. Over the past few days, Zhang Bao'er and Old Du had been harassing me without end for stories of my experience. Zhang Bao'er, in particular, had been bragging by retelling my story as his own experience, gaining fame for himself within his family.

Everyone was in disbelief whenever the story reached the part about five-dimensional existences. A human brain was simply not equipped to even imagine what a five-dimensional existence looked like. We still had much evolving to do. 

A few days later, the analysis of our samples and account was done. The headquarters had named the massive creature Primal.

According to our experts, Primal was a drifting creature that had arrived from other stellar systems in the Milky Way during the inception of the Solar System. Initially, it drifted about in the Solar System. Upon approaching Jupiter, it affixed itself to the planet's orbit. It used Jupiter to protect itself from meteors and asteroids and started hibernating.

A conclusion was also reached that the previous conjecture of Jupiter II being a young celestial body was wrong. From its stored memories, it was an ancient creature probably as old as the sun.

The spraying holes at the north and south poles were probably the cloacae of the creature while the other spraying holes were its pores and sweat glands. As they endlessly secreted excrement out of the creature's body, the creature became covered in waste after a long period of time. And thanks to Jupiter's gravity, the waste eventually took a spherical form. The famous red streaks of the moon were actually the blood vessels of Primal, and Fe did exist in its blood. At the moment, the exact quantity of blood Primal had was still unknown.

As for the so-called invisibility, it was a unique state of a five-dimensional being. In order to obtain the secrets of invisibility, we required a complete five-dimensional specimen so that comparisons could be made between our system and the five-dimensional system. Compared to iron, invisibility was evidently much more important for the league. Thus, new ships had been sent after Primal.

As for the crew members of Saturn, all of us were on holiday. Due to the impactful discovery of our exploration, the entire crew had been awarded. Old Du, Zhang Bao'er, and I were promoted by a single rank, becoming middle-ranked officers in the army. Since I had gone deep into Jupiter II to gather all these samples, I was further awarded the Silver Star Medal. As for Chen Qiang, he was awarded a higher-tier medal, the Golden Star Medal.

Holidays were always comfortable. And without knowing it, two weeks passed. While resting, we did not forget to participate in the numerous maintenance jobs on Saturn to further increase our work experience.

One day, while I was still lazing about on my bed, I received the order to return to the ship. I jumped off my bed, dressed myself, and rushed to the gathering point. Zhang Bao'er and Old Du had arrived before me. I hurriedly returned to my unit.

Captain Angela could be seen standing in front of everyone with a solemn expression. Beside her was a young woman who was apparently a major. From her suit, she seemed incredibly impressive and capable. However, her complexion also looked wan and sallow.

"Warriors, we have an urgent situation today. The headquarters suddenly lost all contact with the Milky Way Ship in charge of exploring the planet Sirius I at the Sirius System for minerals at about 5 billion kilometers away from the Sirius System. The person piloting the ship was the renowned Captain Zhang Han. The woman beside me is his daughter, Miss Zhang Xingxing," introduced Captain Angela. "This is an emergency, and the headquarters needs us to set off immediately and mount a rescue operation. Major Zhang Xingxing will be joining us in this operation. It has been ten hours since the ship's disappearance. Everyone, ready up. We will depart in one hour."

"Captain Zhang Han? That's a living legend," said Zhang Bao'er.

"Yeah. His footsteps can be found in Mars, Saturn I, Triton, other neighboring stellar systems, the Algol System, the Seven Sisters, the Nubecula Major, and even the Andromeda Galaxy. His most successful exploration involves the discovery of a stage-5 star with a high density of pure iron. From this discovery, he had discovered enough iron to fulfill the league's energy requirement for three whole years. I would never expect someone like him to go missing at Sirius," said Old Du.

"He went missing once at Andromeda before," said Zhang Bao'er.

"Yeah. At the time, Captain Zhang Han wanted to explore Andromeda's black heart (Andromeda's black hole) and almost perished. Subsequently, the rescue personnel found him near the black hole," said Old Du.

"I wonder what's the reason for his disappearance this time? It must be pretty serious," said Zhang Bao'er.

"Yes. It's obvious from his daughter's expression," I said. "Get ready, guys. We're going to perform the wormhole jump in a bit."

Once, I yearned greatly to leave the Solar System. Unexpectedly, the moment had come just like that. After experiencing the harsh Jupiter II incident, I should have stayed calm despite how novel all this was, but I still couldn't stop myself from feeling excited when I was about to perform a wormhole jump and see the universe outside the Solar System with my very own eyes.

Without a doubt, Zhang Bao'er and Old Du were as excited as me. This was especially true for Zhang Bao'er whose excitement was written all over his face. It was as though he wouldn't be satisfied before exploring the entirety of the universe.

Sirius, the brightest fixed star visible in Blue's sky with a visual apparent magnitude of 1.5, was a binary star system in the Canis Major constellation. The main-sequence star in the Sirius System was known as Sirius A, a whitish blue star. It was slightly bigger and much hotter than the sun. It was 8.6 light-years away from the Solar System.

Its companion star was known as Sirius B, a white dwarf with a mass slightly higher and a diameter much smaller than the sun. Together, the main star and the companion star orbited each other.

In 2091, the Hans telescope discovered a planet in Sirius A's orbit. Probes indicated that the planet might be rich in iron. Thus, the league sent the experienced explorer, Captain Zhang, to explore the newly discovered planet. Surprisingly, an accident had happened right after he reached the Sirius System.

Our preparation time was over before we knew it. All crew members had arrived at their posts, and Saturn soared into the sky, entered the atmosphere, and flew toward the moon. About 30,000 kilometers above the moon, the wormhole was waiting.

For the few of us, this was our first wormhole-jump experience. Zhang Bao'er was so nervous that he tightly gripped the handrails of his seat.

The countdown started: three, two, one…launch!

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With one command, our ship leaped into the wormhole. The hull shook violently before the flight smoothed out. The stars and the universe outside the window seemed to fuse into a glossy wall of light as we traversed the wormhole. About three hours later, with a jolt, Saturn arrived somewhere else. For the very first time, we had left the Solar System and come to the Sirius System.

'Voyager 1 had taken 37 years to leave the Solar System while we only took 3 hours. I hereby offer my respect to the pioneers of stellar exploration who were from Blue,' I chanted inwardly.