Chapter 587 The Big Nebula

Accompanied by the sense of spatial chaos caused by the acceleration of hyperspace, the starry sky on the exterior projection turned into a blurry band of light. The channel composed of red shift and blue shift became the only light scene outside. The whole world was like a monotonous gradient channel. , then, the light belt gradually dimmed, and the spacecraft had entered a state of hyperspace.

According to the super-light propulsion engine power of this Protos warship, this process may take several hours before we can reach the station.

Ten light years is really a confusing distance. For the Protos battleship, this distance is a bit too close with high-dimensional jump, and a bit far with hyperspace acceleration. However, it is delayed by the messy things encountered on the Jetas side. A few hours is nothing compared to so many days.

We can finally find Lilina's crazy girl - although we only know her approximate location, but at that distance and with the help of Sakura's power amplifier, it shouldn't be difficult to find her, right?

"so boring……"

Just as I thought of a certain Crystal Madonna who transformed into a wireless router, I heard the other party’s boring complaints from behind me, as well as the pleasant sound of crystal friction.

The several-meter-high crystal colossus is connected by more than a dozen gratings and is semi-fixed two meters above a bowl-shaped depression. As the crystal resonates and floats up and down slightly, countless blue and white colors are revealed from the inverted cone base of the colossus's lower body. The dense energy sparks on the crystal cluster hit the surrounding grating again and again - don't get me wrong, it's just for communication. In the upper half of the colossus, the sky-blue crystal girl sculpture is lying on its base with a bored expression. Sakura rotated her entire upper body seven hundred and twenty degrees in a terrifying way to show how good her yoga skills were. Many days had passed since Sakura maintained this state. After the novelty of forwarding the information at the beginning wore off, she was left bored.

"Proteus' battleship is so boring, it doesn't even have cartoons or the Internet."

"...Normal battleships can't have that kind of thing, right? Don't take Pao Pao's nasty modifications to the imperial battleship for granted, okay?"

And if you look at the circle of hard-working heroic guards around you, although more than half of them are just here to join in the fun, and almost 80% are now playing Landlords, at least none of them are bored, right? As a group employee, you must have a positive work attitude.

But Qianqian is not around, it is indeed a bit boring - missing the feeling of a happy little animal, although there is a happier little one in the pocket, but in daily life, a naughty and cute pet and an off-line funny girl Friends can bring you completely different pleasures.

Because we were worried that Jetas would be suddenly attacked by the imperial rebels, and were not sure whether the Shepherds would send more supervisory teams there, we left the main force of the Federation and several of the strongest combat forces there to assist in the defense, including Including Qian Qian, who has the most reversible ability, Jin Shining, who has just approached the high-ranking apostle on the strength list, and the super killer Pandora. Now the only people around him are his elder sister and Viska, and a guy who is so boring that he is on his base. With rolling wireless routers and a bunch of heroic guards fighting against landlords, this configuration is indeed much duller.

Oh, I also forgot about one person, Tavel. Since he appears in this universe in a state of mass projection, the girl with long black straight glasses needs to be next to Sakura to work. The signal here is better, so Tavel also comes with us. By the way, I’m studying what the God-talking Great Nebula is, but even if it’s a little rude to say it, I have to say that after this workaholic joined, the journey became even more boring...

The Void Ranger is a high-speed, long-distance self-sustaining spacecraft built by Protos after imitating the Xiling Expedition-class battleship. It is considered their highest technological achievement at present. In this regard, the existence of the Kprulu humans and their Protos friends can be seen. What a huge gap. Although they have received more technological guidance from the empire, the basic technological gap of several times means that the former can only passively use the ready-made technologies handed over to them by the empire. They even need to devote all their efforts to understand how to operate them. However, the Protos clan has been able to draw inferences from one example and create their own psionic battleship based on our drawings.

This is the Void Ranger spacecraft we are riding now, a battleship filled with psionic energy, but its appearance and overall structure are very different from the imperial spacecraft.

The Great Nebula is the most famous area of ​​this caged universe. It is an interstellar dust cloud with a radius of three light-years and gradually becomes denser from the outside to the inside. Its composition has amazing order - uniformly combined heavy metal molecules, as well as thickness The radioactive gas cloud isolation zone has no deviation of even one millimeter as a whole, there is almost no wrinkles in the material layering phenomenon for tens of millions of kilometers, and some strange dense states are absolutely impossible under natural conditions. The material aggregates that turned into that shape together formed this large nebula with a radius of three light years, an absolutely spherical shape, and a surface "smoothness" exceeding 99.99%.

Obviously, this is not something that nature can produce.

A ship traveling faster than the speed of light will produce an amazing amount of mass (you can think of it as infinite, although it is still a calculable number in the eyes of Xiling people), and gravitational disturbances will have devastating tidal effects on nearby matter, even if The Void Ranger is equipped with the most advanced gravitational counterbalancing equipment that the Protoss can develop to offset this damage to the surrounding environment. The gravitational disturbance effect still exists, but when we entered the large nebula, the observation device found that it was unable to Phenomenon explained by conventional science: Those fragile clouds and fog that have no strength at all in local areas seem to ignore the spacecraft passing by at a hundred times the speed of light. Even though the space is slightly warped, their structure still remains. The height is uniform.

It gave me the feeling that a typhoon could not blow away a puff of green smoke, and a flood could not wash away two fallen leaves. We rushed into the clouds and mist with thunderous momentum, but the light and airy ones seemed to be watching us coldly from another world.

Yeah, I'm all about rhyming.

Tavel began her research work after the spacecraft entered the Great Nebula. She occupied the intelligence officer's seat as a temporary workbench: "We have just passed through the thin area of ​​the Great Nebula that is 0.1 light-year thick. Along the way, The density of the surrounding matter does not fluctuate more than one part in a billion. In front of it is the radiation layer mentioned by Queen Gotak. After the radiation layer, the density of the large nebula suddenly increased three times, and then came the next material cloud belt with infinitely uniform density, and then another. The radiation layer, another material belt... is like layers of nutshells. The density of matter in each layer is very uniform, and it suddenly increases in the next layer. My lord, the interior of the Great Nebula may be solid. We really Why don’t you go take a look? There shouldn’t be any danger - in theory.”

Scientists are very dangerous, especially Xiling scientists. This group of madmen with no lower limit will do any sensational things for the sake of research. For example, it is suggested that our lonely spaceship rushes into the suspected shepherd. Go to the core of the Great Nebula in the Human Fortress.

Yes, the core area of ​​the Great Nebula is one of the well-known forbidden places in the universe, and compared to other places that can only be guessed at, it is almost 100% certain that there is a base of Shepherds in the center of the Great Nebula, at least they often The place where we stay has been listed as a key monitoring target by us. The 137 large star ports in the Red Star Fortress are working overtime to build fleets in order to attack here first after the full-scale war begins. We will bring it with us on this trip. The purpose of recruiting so many people is to pick up Lilina. Anyone who agrees to Tavel's crazy suggestion is definitely out of his mind.

"Okay, I understand His Majesty's concerns. I will try my best to let the probe fly in the outer layer of the Great Nebula. However, there is not much information we can analyze at the speed of light. If we can stop for a while again..."

"Let's talk about it when we get back."

I rolled my eyes at the sky. You don't need to be polite to this research geek, because as soon as you are polite, she will crawl along the pole and you will be doomed.

"This area must have been created by the rebels," Viska stood on his chair, trying to create a bird's-eye view using this method. "The natural laws of this universe cannot form this kind of area."

The tone is quite serious, and the expression is in line with the majesty of a general, but if you can just stand on tiptoe to be on par with Tavel... you'd better go down.

"It is said that this is the most brutal battlefield since the beginning of the cosmic melee cycle." My sister looked at the holographic projection in front of me. Although there was only a blurry band of light on the exterior scene, after compensation calculations, the simulation of the large nebula was still clearly presented. In front of everyone, "Those races that lost their territories in the war or have just arrived here and have not had time to establish a territory will be driven to the outer area of ​​​​the Great Nebula, where a melee will take place. Only the surviving races can leave, otherwise they will be killed by the shepherds." The supervising team was wiped out."

"Humph, those lunatics also made up the rules." Viska's tone was sarcastic, and he jumped down from the chair lightly, his face flushed. Usually, if he made such stupid moves as just now, Pandora would be responsible for using the knife. Maybe she could have knocked this girl down with just a few punches, but now that the "idiot sister" is not here, she could only notice the embarrassment and jump down on her own. Besides, speaking of crazy people, it seems that you are about the same, your 1.2 meter tall General.

"It's really unfair," Sister sighed, "Many races that just came to this universe were inexplicably thrown into the battlefield and wiped out. But it is also strange that after so many years of war accumulation, even though the Great Nebula has a radius of three light years, There should also be some battleship wreckage left here, right?”

"They should have all turned into the material of the large nebula, or the energy of the radiation belt." Tavel turned his head and pushed up his glasses. "The rebels must not have built this zone just to use it as a battlefield. This huge cloud and mist The district has obvious traces of planning, and its operating mechanism is not yet clear, but it definitely has some function, if..."

"Let's talk about it when we get back."

"...Okay, Your Majesty."

Now is not the time to launch a frontal impact on the Great Nebula. Our spacecraft has taken a huge arc inside it, bypassing the first radiation layer of the Great Nebula. It is said that this is the boundary line set by the shepherds in the balance cycle. , the spacecraft of ordinary races will be attacked by them once they cross the radiation belt, which lengthens our voyage twice. However, six hours later, the spacecraft still passed through this huge piece of "interstellar dust". When the spacecraft gradually After slowing down to a light-capturing speed, the first ray of starlight from the eastern part of the Great Nebula shone on the smooth, fusiform hull of the Void Wanderer. Like a silver barracuda, the Federation Army's spaceship entered this silent space.

"It looks very peaceful. The introduction also said that this is the most chaotic pirate-dominated area in the entire universe. There are wars every day." Cu Chulainn shouldered his magic gun with a look of regret on his face, "It's so dark that you can't see anything. .”

"Do you think the population density of the universe is the same as that of Caishikou, where we fight all day long?" I glanced sideways at this guy who didn't even know what universe civilization was. "Adjutant, connect the teleportation controller."

"Zizzi", after a slight sound of energy, the crystal panel in front of the commander's seat disappeared like a phantom, and a strange-looking handle-like controller rose up. This is a gadget we gave to the New Eden Federation. The instantaneous teleportation device that can gather dispersed armies within the galaxy into a base in a very short time and with minimal consumption allows them to initially possess the legion teleportation capabilities of the Xiling regular army under any circumstances. Previously, The Protos advance team we sent here should have established a base nearby. If we use regular space to jump there, we have to wait for the spacecraft's hyperspace engine to cool down, but as long as this thing has coordinates, it can be teleported no matter how many times. No cooling required.

Let me think about it, what is the startup code for calibration transmission...

Well, go down and forward and go down the front square, and go back and go down the front triangle.

... Just laugh if you want. This thing is designed by Bubble. The return code of the Imperial Admiral is still up, down, left, right, left, a+b.

There was a flash of white light - although it was very vulgar to use, the ultra-advanced Imperial teleporter was indeed much faster to use than the Protos jump engine which took several minutes to start. In a flash of white light, we entered an asteroid belt.

Ahead is a semi-fixed base that is beginning to take shape. It is a typical asteroid belt fortification template. A dozen larger asteroids are connected together by a high-strength interstellar alloy skeleton to form a base based on their original relative positions. In the three-dimensional defense line, there are traces of hollowing out inside each asteroid. The metallic luster has covered almost 80% of their internal and external areas. Various golden buildings with Protos characteristics are fixed on the surface of these asteroids. , and its interior should be a place like a warehouse. The alloy skeleton that fixes this asteroid has extended outwards, connecting several star ports and take-off and landing platforms. It seems to be ready for use.

However, the entire base was silent.

After the communication call, we were greeted by a noisy background sound. The interstellar alloy skeleton of the base glowed with a cold metallic luster, but only the flow of energy was missing. Only a few buildings in the entire asteroid system still maintained lights. The rest of the place was pitch black as if it had lost energy. There were messy supply containers stacked on the landing platform, half of which were damaged, and the contents were scattered everywhere - the artificial gravity of the base had been turned off.

This is all we see after completing the teleportation.

"Stop pushing the spacecraft, let the exploration plane pass, and transmit the picture back."

My sister immediately said cautiously. Now she has the demeanor of a regular legion commander.

"They're under attack," I immediately came to the obvious conclusion as the footage came back and each detail zoomed in. "There's not a soul."

The base that had just been established seemed to have been abandoned during an emergency operation. When the screen was zoomed in, we discovered that one-third of the interstellar alloy skeletons that made up the entire base structure had been broken, and two metal cores containing the psionic energy reactor had been broken. The asteroid was thrown out of the building cluster due to the fracture of the connecting frame and some kind of shock wave. It was floating alone and spinning rapidly behind the base. As a result, the entire base lost its energy supply. Two of the three take-off and landing platforms had obvious The traces of melting and the surface covered with pitted metal bubbles should be the result of continuous bombardment by high-intensity energy weapons. The asteroid in the center of the base that may have been used to install the nether energy shield generator has been torn apart and looks like it was destroyed in a single attack. Severely overloaded, and around the base, we only found the remains of some sentry guns and photon cannon turrets.

There are some inconspicuous metal fragments floating in the more distant space, which seem to be fragments of battleships, but the main parts of those fragments have obviously been salvaged by someone, and the remaining fragments have been abandoned here.

"The entire frequency band is silent, and the exploration force's mothership channel is not in the broadcast domain," a Protoss officer shook his head and said, "Great mentor, there is no life response in the base, are we getting close?"

"Well, stay alert."

The spaceship reflecting silver light slowly approached the abandoned base and landed on its only intact landing platform. Most of the heroic spirits and Protos warriors were ordered to stay on the spacecraft to protect the Void Rangers and the more important crystal. Holy Mother, my sister and I, along with Viska, led several high-powered heroic spirits to this silent outpost.

"All artificial gravity has failed."

Wandering lightly on the landing platform, looking at the mechanical devices and broken stone pieces suspended in mid-air around me, I said through my spiritual connection.

"This... this is a really difficult combat environment..."

A very disturbing voice sounded in my mind. When I turned my head, Saber was floating towards me with its head tilted at 35 degrees.

"Saber, just use the magic jet. No matter how fast the spin is, it can't be used like a propeller."

"...It's so rude! In your capacity, please don't say such rude words!!"

Come and bite me if you can!

"Okay, okay, there is still business." My sister is still the eternal peacemaker. One sentence can calm the indignant Lion King and the evil head of the empire. "Now, it's best to see if there is anything here. Corpses and the like..."