Chapter 124 (1/2)

Hao Ren had a gut feeling that he should not be putting his trust in Raven 12345 to arrange a proper interstellar journey. However, Wuyue and Y’zaks clearly did not share the same sentiment. The great demon and the siren quickly selected their places to bunk and dumped their luggage there. They approached Hao Ren to discuss what to do next. Y’zaks had a fine idea of playing Landlord, a game he just learned about recently…

Neither Hao Ren nor Wuyue really wanted to spend their first interstellar voyage playing a card game so, both of them turned to the MDT. “Recommend something nice for us to do now.”

The MDT then connected itself to one of the data ports in the cabin and generated a holographic image. “You can see what’s going on outside before we jump into light speed. We’re still within the asteroid belt for now. The ship will soon be turning into an area clean of debris. There will only be the darkness of space after that.”

Hao Ren noticed that the hologram showed the outside of the spaceship. The images must have come from the various cameras and sensors outside the ship. He caught sight of a gigantic metal platform being deployed on the far side of the asteroid belt. Whereas, the ones originating from the dock were being retracted back into the station. Two big pillars of light then beamed out from a pyramid-shaped tower along the side of the ship. According to the MDT, it was a navigating beam used to guide the course of ship.

“I thought the asteroids would be much, much closer to each other,” Hao Ren said as he stared at the vast space at the edge of the image. “Why aren’t there any near the station at all?”

“The galaxy is a very, very big place and the distance of asteroids is similar to the vastness that comes with it,” the MDT explained. “In most circumstances, two asteroids would be at least tens of thousands of kilometers apart from each other. Unless there is a celestial body nearby that went supernova, you won’t see asteroid fields like the ones you see in Star Wars, where the space fighters weave in and out of the asteroids. Kuiper Station was built after the fragmentation of one of these celestial bodies and it used the asteroid field as a foundation. Outside of the station however, it’ll definitely be an empty space. Stray asteroids or space debris would be removed from time to time. With the station being a busy place as it is, what do you think would happen if a ship runs into a stray rock?”

Hao Ren realized that he had much, much more to learn and nodded as he listened intently. Wuyue who was staring at the scenery outside then asked, “Why didn’t we feel anything when the ship accelerated?”

“Internal Inertia Stabilization my dear.” The MDT was surprisingly patient this time around. “All ships that can accelerate up to light speed come equipped with some sort of inertia stabilization device. This is to maintain a bubble that is separate from the outside world or as some means to absorb the inertia. Simply put, your position now is pretty much in a separate dimension or else, all of you would be meat paste when the ship hits light speed…”

Wuyue happily nodded. “Oh, didn’t understand a thing though.”

“What the h*ck are you so happy about then?”

At this time, Hao Ren spotted another bright illumination from the edge of the image. The cameras quickly panned over to the same direction. He saw another wedge-shaped spacecraft come out from a nearby dock. Her heat vents were slowly turning red. It was rather obvious that she was going into hyper-acceleration mode soon.

Hao Ren had yet to digest the volume of traffic that the station processed when he heard Captain 883’s gruff voice from the speakers. “Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls and our most honored guests, please turn to the camera in Zone C-15. The spacecraft there is from the Fairy Void Corporation: the high speed cargo craft, KN-03. She’s our top most competitor in this part of the galaxy. She seems poised to do a short-range hyper-acceleration and engage her hyperspace engine to let us eat dust. Please, hold on to your children tightly right after this broadcast. We are going to beat them!”

“F*********ck!” Hao Ren exclaimed.