From Terra to Terra, the Star Emperor's Holiday

Rapid alarms echoed across the bridge and corridors.

The emergency acceleration mode of the Natural Selection was turned off, the deep-sea fluid used for buffering receded, and Zhang Beihai opened his eyes.

20 minutes.

A small probe of the Three-Body Civilization, with the help of the technological gap, destroyed the courage accumulated by mankind over a hundred years in just 20 minutes.

Zhang Beihai stared at the screen which still displayed various parameters and coordinate information. When he saw the acceleration time and hibernation time of the starship, his face changed, and he suddenly pushed open the spherical cabin and floated out.

Normally, the starship's forward acceleration process would take at least a month, but now it only takes 5 days.

Was the starship captured by the Trisolarans?

No, in the eyes of the enemy, the outdated starship is no different from a bulky and dilapidated tractor and can be easily destroyed.

If we want to take prisoners, the thousands of crew members on the starship are too many...

What happened?

Before pushing open the cabin door, Zhang Beihai was ready to be besieged by the angry crowd, and also ready to be spitted on and insulted.

He believed that he had done the best he could, and no matter what he faced next, he was confident that he could face it with relief and calmness.

Zhang Beihai was not the only one who left the deep-sea cabin. Many crew members who had been forced to enter the deep-sea cabin with indignation and anger also walked out of the cabin in confusion.

After witnessing the one-sided massacre of the Combined Fleet by the Water Drops, they, as the last blood of the Earth's space force, looked at Zhang Beihai with eyes full of respect.

"what happened?"

Facing Zhang Beihai's question, Dongfang Yanxu, the captain of the starship "Natural Selection", floated over, but she was unable to answer the question and was confused.

"The acceleration has been terminated...but Natural Selection's self-tests are all normal. We haven't even left the Kuiper Belt yet..."

The holographic information panel was summoned by Dongfang Yanxu's captain's authority. Except for the fact that the fuel was not fully filled, all the data of the starship were normal, and no external interference that affected the starship's flight was detected. It was as if the starship was tired and stopped by itself.

"In space, without reverse thrust to slow down, expecting a starship to stop on its own is even more absurd than expecting it to accelerate infinitely..."

After witnessing the technological gap between humans and the Trisolarans, Zhang Beihai did not completely believe the computer data. He shook his head and looked at Dongfang Yanxu.

"What about the starships chasing us? Are they still behind us?"

When Zhang Beihai used the reset command to remotely control the Natural Selection into deep-sea state to accelerate its escape from the joint fleet, Blue Space, Deep Space, Ultimate Law and Enterprise formed a pursuit fleet to try to intercept the defecting Natural Selection.

But by chance, the four starships that came in pursuit became the few survivors of the combined fleet. After proving that Zhang Beihai's decision was correct, the four starships can be regarded as their allies today in a sense.

The communicator in charge of managing the communication module operated for a while. Although the long-wave communication seemed unable to directly contact the earth due to interference, the short-wave communication still allowed them to successfully contact the "Blue Space" at the rear of the starship, which also belonged to the Asian Fleet.

"Quick, look above your heads!!!"

As soon as the communication was connected, Chu Yan, the captain of the Blue Space starship, let out a cry of terror.

"On the head?"

Many crew members looked up when they heard this, but they could only see the metallic ceiling and lights on the bridge.

Dongfang Yanxu reacted a little faster. She quickly switched the starship's active scan to scan above the starship, but the sky above the starship was still empty.

“There’s nothing…”

"Forget about those outdated detection devices! Eyes! See with your eyes!"

Hearing Chu Yan's words, Zhang Beihai suddenly ran to the side of the bridge.

Physics is locked down and materials science cannot make a breakthrough. For the sake of structural stability and navigation safety, portholes on human starships are a device that should be reduced as much as possible.

The starships of the Asian Fleet generally rely on external observation equipment to project the environmental conditions onto the bridge, but if the observation equipment fails or is damaged, the only view above the starship is through the oblique observation windows on both sides of the bridge.

"???"

Zhang Beihai, a soldier of the old times and a man of strong will, lost control of his facial expression the first second he pushed open the porthole baffle. His look of surprise and doubt made all the crew members on the bridge feel depressed.

"What's up there..."

Dongfang Yanxu stepped forward quickly, and then one more person became speechless.

Above the Natural Selection was a massive warship, so massive that when viewed only through the portholes, it looked as if the sky was made of a piece of black and red metal, obscuring everything.

The longest starship of the Earth United Fleet is no more than 1.2 kilometers. Dongfang Yanxu estimated that the Natural Selection is not even as long as one of the wing panels of this huge monster's wide wings. Such a huge monster is floating above the starship, but none of the starship's detection equipment can detect it.

"Is it...is it the Trisolarans?"

Although they should have disregarded life and death from the moment they became international soldiers of the fleet, fear was still inevitable to spread in everyone's hearts due to such a huge contrast.

"…no…"

Zhang Beihai seemed to have recovered from his initial shock. His voice was firm and decisive, which alleviated a lot of the panic in the bridge.

"The Trisolaran First Fleet is still en route. If they were capable of deploying such a massive warship, Earth would have been theirs by now. This...this enormous warship belongs to someone else."

Because of Zhang Beihai's decision, the Natural Selection and the four pursuing warships were able to become survivors under the Droplet of Death's scythe. When he stood up at this time, everyone looked at him as if they had found their backbone.

"…So, what should we do now?"

Chu Yan spoke, implicitly acknowledging Zhang Beihai's leadership position at the moment.

"I don't know... but they didn't destroy us directly. I think... we still have a chance. There's no point in making random guesses. Can we send a contact signal to this giant ship?"

"Calm and composed, Zhang Beihai is worthy of being called the Fifth Wallfacer."

The broadcasting systems of the five starships suddenly sounded, and Si Ye praised Zhang Beihai, a wallfacer with a strong will and who was not a wallfacer.

"As the first group of 'Sparks' who have passed the assessment, the Pan-Human Community welcomes you."

The Natural Selection trembled slightly, and the ship seemed to suddenly have gravity, causing many crew members floating in the air to fall to the ground unexpectedly.

Zhang Beihai didn't care about the pain from his bumped arm. He struggled to crawl to the porthole. A faint blue beam of light shot out from the giant black and red battleship and fell on the Natural Selection.

Just like aliens capturing humans in science fiction works, the Natural Selection is slowly being pulled higher by the traction brought by this beam of light.

...

Chapter 256: Master of the Universe

The treatment injection ultimately failed to prevent Ding Yi from having to stay in the medical cabin.

After Si Ye demonstrated the shuttle's light-speed curvature cruise and psychic jump to Ding Yi, the old scientist entered a state of confusion.

After Si Ye surpassed the fleeing starship and reached the Kuiper Belt first, he broke into the outer space in his physical body, used his own psychic energy as a guiding beacon, and pulled the temporarily recruited Overlord into this world.

This mobile space base with a horizontal arm length of 456 kilometers became the last straw that caused Ding Yi's blood pressure to explode. The old scientist made a "click" sound and was then carried into the medical cabin by the autonomous robot.

"Is there actually a warship built horizontally?"

After landing at the dock, Si Ye retracted the shuttle and walked with Shu on the automatic walkway of the Overlord.

Shu had seen many ships in the empire these days, some as small as a few dozen meters and some as big as blocking out the sun, but this was the first time she had seen a warship like the Overlord, which was built along the longitudinal axis and had two huge horizontal arms, unlike other warships.

"The Overmind is a mobile planetary hub specialized as a forward base. Its left and right arms each have two docks. As long as there are sufficient materials, the Overmind can construct a fleet anytime, anywhere."

Si Ye explained to Shu that the deterrent-class stone ship developed by the Overlord and Wu Zaifei of the Star Sea Empire could even save the step of refining alloys, so that they could be dug and exploded immediately, and use the deterrent-class guard sea to overwhelm all enemies of insufficient level.

Si Ye sent over the Overlord because he felt that the Fourth Fleet alone might not be enough as a main force. Before the matrix sentinels in this world were built, it would be a good idea to first create some stone ships and spread them out to serve as wards.

"After we stand guard and fish out the survivors of the Combined Fleet, we'll go take a stroll next door. This world really isn't very suitable for sightseeing."

It was said that they were going on a date, but the Three-Body Universe didn't seem like a suitable place for a date. Earth was okay, but it just happened to be at this point in time. Si Ye couldn't imagine how ugly the behavior of the humans on Earth would be when they learned that the Combined Fleet was doomed.

So Si Ye could only hope that the little bastard next door wouldn't do anything to him.

"Si Ye, I just followed you to this other world to take a look. If I delay your important work, I won't come again."

Shu frowned slightly, as if he didn't want Si Ye to miss his important business because of accompanying him. The grand cosmic war, the battle for survival between civilizations, the shock brought to Shu by the Three-Body Universe was no less than that brought to Ding Yi by seeing the jump engine.

"No, there's no delay. Even if the Empire is highly efficient, assembling the fleet and establishing outposts won't be accomplished overnight. This cellular universe has a unique shape, and I was planning to visit the next world later."

There is one downside to crossing worlds. The Empire's means of cross-stellar strikes are left to Si Ye himself, and image-control artifacts such as the Matrix Sentinel must also be built in miniature versions, otherwise there will inevitably be omissions if the scanning array alone is relied upon.

I wonder when the Academy of Sciences will be able to expand the capacity of the cross-world gate. For places like the Three-Body Universe where there are many beyond-visual-range attacks, at least the Falling Star Sky Lance should be able to hit them.

“…Is it true?”

Shu wanted to use her power to confirm the truth of Si Ye's words, but unfortunately her power could only work on herself when facing Si Ye.

After trying several times, Shu could only see herself and Si Ye strolling among the beautiful mountains and rivers, so she had to give up.

"You and I have long lives, and we have plenty of opportunities to gaze upon the vast ocean and bask in the morning glow. We can walk together across the world, so there is no need to be obsessed with a single moment or a single word."

"Of course it's true. How could I lie to the lovely Shushu?"

Si Ye spread his hands. He had only lived for more than 500 years. Even if the time of his previous life was included, it would be no more than 600 years. It was still difficult for him to adapt to the carefree life of the immortals, who could see millions of years pass by in the blink of an eye.

"This name always feels a bit strange. Can't you change it? It's a bit embarrassing."

"Hey~ Wouldn't it seem strange if we changed it?"

...

The Overmind activated the electronic countermeasure array and, in conjunction with the optoelectronic signal shielding system, created an anti-detection zone in the Kuiper Belt to protect the engineering ships from building outposts.

The Natural Selection and the other four pursuing starships finally arrived at the edge of the Kuiper Belt and were pulled out of their accelerated state by the dominant traction field, and then the previous scene happened.

When the vibration stopped, Zhang Beihai learned from the starship's external sensors that their starship had been placed on a berth. Looking at the huge steel structure above his head, he couldn't help but sigh again at the size of this giant ship.

"Are we going to get off the boat?"

The sudden shock of being snatched away by a giant alien ship made the crew somewhat at a loss, and they could only rely on Zhang Beihai to make decisions.

"Can we contact the coalition government?"

Dongfang Yanxu shook her head. She originally thought that the water droplets had done something to the earth, causing the long-distance signal to be unable to contact the earth, but now it seemed more like the owner of this giant ship had blocked and controlled their signal transmitter.

"Then get ready and we'll get off the boat."

Looking at the many crew members who showed resistance on their faces, Zhang Beihai sighed.

"At least we can detect water droplets, but this giant ship is right in front of us and its sensors don't react. If they aren't Trisolarans, then their science and technology must be more advanced than theirs."

"There's no difference between being on the starship and on the ground. Furthermore, compared to the Trisolarans, they didn't attack us and even communicated with us. I think only by disembarking and negotiating with them can we understand the true situation."

Si Ye did not restrict the communication between these starships. After some effort, the captains of each starship finally made up their minds.

The deputy captain led a group of remaining starships, and the captains of each ship led a group of elite troops to disembark to understand the situation.