Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Nyx resided in the cargo bay at the bottom level of the ship. While Zhang Xingxing and I headed there, we encountered some Wargod soldiers that were alert and ready for combat. We also encountered some relaxed Akko soldiers who were resting in the cabin. One could easily see the difference in the quality of these soldiers.

"Reporting to the commander, we have obtained some clues on the wormhole. Please return to the command center," Jack's voice suddenly sounded, announcing a piece of news that caused our hearts to skip a beat.

We immediately canceled our plan to visit Nyx and ran back to the command center. Dodo and Jack were already rapidly analyzing the data to verify the accuracy of the scan results. At that time, Baron Sisse and Lin Feixue had also returned to the command center. We waited impatiently for the information to be released.

"It is confirmed. We have discovered a giant wormhole. I did not expect Domo to actually get it right. The giant wormhole is located at the mouth of the Horsehead Nebula. There, a super wormhole with a diameter of 100 million kilometers can be found," said Dodo in excitement.

"Great! With that wormhole, we no longer have to worry about our path of retreat," said Lin Feixue.

"We don't know that yet. We don't even know where the wormhole leads to. If it's a time tunnel, it will be even more troublesome as it might be a one-way trip," said Dodo, pouring a bucket of cold water over our burning excitement.

"No matter what, we've found the super wormhole and confirmed our previous guess to be right. Now, we need to focus on finding the three-star system and complete our mission," I said.

"Commander, we're four hours away from the appointed time with the princes. Skyhawk's infrared scans have also highlighted dozens of newborn stars. We're getting nearer and nearer to our target," said Dodo.

"I wonder if the princes and the others can return safely on time," muttered Zhang Xingxing.

"We don't even know what mission they're on. A bunch of people are confused because of those two. Is there even a mission they can complete in 24 hours here?" I said.

"Superiors, please believe that the princes of Akko will be able to shoulder the heavy responsibility and complete their mission," promised Baron Sisse.

"There are only four hours before their return. We'll wait patiently," I said.

Right at that moment, we received a series of weird images from our infrared scans. The images clearly depicted a clump of heat moving rapidly.

"What's that? Why is it moving so quickly? It's roughly 500 million kilometers away from us," said Dodo nervously.

Everyone focused on the moving clump of heat. Before long, a second clump of heat appeared, a third clump appeared, until finally, five clumps appeared. They were about 50 million kilometers from each other, and each was the size of a flagship and the corresponding support ships. They were all moving rapidly in different directions.

"Shit. That might be the imperial fleet performing a search in the nebula," said Jack anxiously.

"Notify everyone of an emergency meeting. All combat personnel will return to their posts. Skyhawk and Spacetime will immediately enter combat mode," ordered Zhang Xingxing.

The emergency meeting alarm blazed in the ship. In less than 10 minutes, everyone had either gathered at the command center or their respective posts.

"I've barely gotten any rest. What is it? Why are we having an emergency meeting?" Zhang Bao'er could be heard complaining before he even reached the room.

"Everyone, we have encountered an emergency situation. Our infrared scans have detected five imperial fleets searching through the Horsehead Nebula. It is now obvious that our enemies won't spare us easily. I need everyone to be ready for combat. A battle might start at any time," said Zhang Xingxing.

"What? The imperials are on our tail again? Those fellows are getting annoying. This place is so big. How can they find us?" Zhang Bao'er continued complaining.

"Baron, do you think the empire will strengthen the defenses of their beast breeding base as well? I believe the emperor is aware of our goal here," I asked.

"We have been living under the Divine Empire's rule for so many years, yet we weren't even aware of the beast-breeding base's existence. I don't think the imperial soldiers know it either. I doubt the emperor will easily expose the secret here to his soldiers. He still needs to be careful in case of mutiny. After all, not many people can accept the existence of a beast army," said the baron.

"Those soldiers are probably only searching the area to prevent us from discovering what we're here for. Therefore, we need to hide and get as far as possible from those battleships," suggested Master Crystal.

"Dodo, plot a flight trajectory. We will enter the nebula and hide from the enemy ships," ordered Zhang Xingxing.

The two ships immediately moved away from the three-star system in the opposite direction of the enemy ships and entered the belly of the Horsehead Nebula. The moment we entered the nebula, the familiar roiling clouds reappeared around us once again. The deeper we went, the darker it was outside the window.

Skyhawk was in the middle of high-speed travel when its collision alarm blazed. According to our scanners, there was a massive object flying right at us. The ship was still surrounded by darkness, but the system clearly depicted an object the size of the moon heading rapidly toward us. There also seemed to be some sort of attractive force pulling us toward the incoming object.

"Immediately move out of the way. Have all our weapons enter attack mode," ordered Zhang Xingxing.

"Reporting to the command, we have changed direction. According to the system, no life signatures have been detected on the object," said Dodo.

Jack and Dodo were in charge of piloting Skyhawk, and Spacetime also changed its trajectory behind us under Old Du's control. The two ships moved quickly to the right, trying to avoid colliding with the incoming object. Not a single person spoke as everyone was focused on the screen. The object that had suddenly appeared was spherical, and our ships had yet to fully move out of its way.

Desperate, we further accelerated. Skyhawk, in particular, was forced to use our bioelectricity energy supply once again. With the rapid acceleration, when we were 10 million kilometers away from the incoming object, which was also the critical point before we could no longer evade it, we moved out of the collision zone. The alarm immediately stopped.

"That was close," I broke out in cold sweat as I looked at the trajectory on the screen. We had barely avoided the collision.

I gazed outside the window. We were still surrounded by darkness, but I could clearly feel the pressure of the giant object passing by us. The massive sense of suppression seemed to be telling me how insignificant a mere human was before that giant.

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"That is probably an asteroid. Why would it appear here? It's so big!" said Zhang Bao'er, who appeared fearful as well.

"No, that's not an asteroid but a large wandering planet. It is actually flying around randomly in the nebula," said Dodo.

"Wandering planet? Its appearance only proves how powerful the ripples of the space fortress are. The super wormhole is clearly constantly attracting different celestial objects here. I suggest we visit the super wormhole and study it while waiting for the result of our scans," said Baron Sisse.

Everyone agreed with the baron. Not only could we satisfy our curiosity by studying the wormhole, but we could also avoid the imperial ships that were searching the waist of the Horsehead Nebula.

"We'll follow the baron's suggestion. Move toward the super wormhole," ordered Zhang Xingxing.

With the commander's order, the two ships started moving toward the mouth part of the Horsehead Nebula. This time, we used the wormhole-leap method to reach our destination. After about 15 minutes, we arrived at the head of Horsehead Nebula.

"Reporting to the commander, we have reached the nebula's head. We are currently scanning for the accurate location of the super wormhole. The result will be out in 10 minutes," reported Jack.

At that point, we had also reached the agreed-upon time to reconvene with the two princes. However, our communication channel was still silent because we had left our earlier location by going through wormhole-leaps. From our new location, our electromagnetic waves would take about a year to reach Fearless. Thus, we had temporarily lost contact with Fearless. However, everyone was still fully focused on the super wormhole.

"Dodo, make sure to not fly out of the nebula's head. There might be a lot of invisible mines right outside," reminded Zhang Bao'er.

"The invisible mines should all be outside the wall of light. We are now within the area covered by the wall of light. So long as we stay inside, we will be safe from the mines," said Dodo, allowing Zhang Bao'er to stop worrying about the mines.

"Damn that emperor. He had actually wasted so many resources to cover the entire Horsehead Nebula with a wall of light. But in that case, why can we see the appearance of the nebula outside the wall?" said Domo. To be precise, he was actually jealous of the emperor's wealth.

"We weren't actually looking at the nebula. What we saw outside was actually a fake appearance. Perhaps we were only looking at a scene from tens of thousands of years ago that was being replayed again and again. Its actual appearance has been covered by the wall of light," said Dodo, tossing out an answer that shocked all of us.