Age of Cosmic Exploration
chapter-313

Chapter 313: Missing Persons

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Operation Water was very successful.

After all, the Noah One was a product from 21st century, and its military had gone through years of training. Combined with the mature weapon technology of the 3rd revolution, like firearms and explosives, it took them less than 2 days to demolish all the medium to large aliens within a 3 kilometer radius around the Noah One. Other than a small amount of shadow creatures that managed to escape, they had killed 800 plus shadow creatures. Among them were more than 100 large shadow creatures, providing the scientists with many alien samples.

On the other hand, the creation of water transport cars using existing vehicles helped solve the Noah One’s water problem. However, only 8 water transport cars were converted from armored tanks. The Noah One’s heavy siege engines had disappeared during warp, so the remaining ones were treasures. With the Noah One’s current situation, it would be another year before they could start building another siege engine. so they were absolutely important. They were used for scouting, battles, and even as temporary pit stops. With the protection of the siege engine’s heavy armor, mankind could spend a night outside of Noah One without much worry. In other words, it was these siege engines that allowed mankind to move beyond the confines of the Noah One.

Therefore, only 8 tanks were converted to become water transport cars. However, with 24 hour transportation, they were just enough to solve Noah One’s water crisis. This would have to continue until the second phase of Operation Water.

With the completion of the first phase of Operation Water, the second phase would begin soon. The technicians within the Noah One had started work in earnest. Of course, they were protected by a large amount of military escorts whenever they left the Noah One to complete the underground water pipe.

"…Demarcation of area safety. The immediate zone around the Noah One is green, the zone within 3 kilometers from Noah One is light red, the zone within 10 kilometers is red, and any places beyond 10 kilometers are black. Non-military personnel not allowed beyond the green zone. No personnel, including soldiers, are allowed beyond the red zone without explicit orders. You can refer to the housing pamphlet for more information…"

The announcement was broadcasted around the Noah One. It was lunch, so the engineer team and soldiers had returned to the Noah One. Other than the few soldiers who were tasked to man the pit stops, almost everyone had returned to the Noah One to enjoy their leisurely lunch. There was even relaxing music provided in the public canteens. Due to the great success of Operation Water, everyone on the Noah One was in a relaxed mood. There were plenty of smiles during lunch.

"…The food is running low."

In the restaurant reserved for higher officers, a few officers were whispering as they enjoyed their steaks.

One of them said, "There is still some in storage, but most of it disappeared during the warp. The remaining food probably can’t support the whole ship for long… Didn’t I hear that the science unit was testing this planet’s animals and plants? How is that coming along?"

Another person shook his head. "Even though the high temperature can kill the bacteria, there must be some unique materials to this planet’s animals and plants that are harmless to them but will be poison for us. Who can be sure? After all, this is space, so it is better to be careful. It will be fine as long as we can find a replacement before our food storage runs out."

The rest nodded in agreement. These were people from the information era. They had seen those sci-fi movies before, and none of them wished to have those scary things happen to them, so they had to be extremely careful.

However, compared to these higher officers or even the public, the scientists assigned to experiment and analyze these possibly edible animals and plants were more open minded. For them, the stuff in sci-fi were exactly that, fictional. Even though there wasn’t a 100 percent chance that those thing wouldn’t happen, those events where humans turned into aliens by ingesting alien flesh was something impossible, or at least it was on this planet.

Why? Simple. If there was really such an organism on this planet, its gene must have incredible aggression and monopoly, not unlike the Zerg from Star Craft. According to the environment of the planet the Noah One was in, it was unlikely that such organisms existed on the planet, or they would have covered the planet completely.

Therefore, these scientists, though still careful with their experiments on the new plants and animals on this planet, all thought that there was chance that they could find new food sources on this planet. For example, there was a species of enlarged lizard. They were 70 centimeters long and 30 centimeters wide white mollusks. Other than that, there was also a species of mushroom-like fungus that grew in humid areas as well as dark black trees with dried branches that collected their nutrients in their roots. These were the few species that the scientists had high hopes would become the Noah One’s new food sources.

After lunch, the scientists returned to their own labs. The new food source unit entered their lab and saw on their tables a few new plastic bags of recently harvested samples.

One of the scientists said, with a laugh, "They gave us so many new samples. Looks like today is going to be another long night… But why are there so many red blood spots on this particular bag of samples?"

The surrounding scientists all crowded around the bag and studied the sample with curious gazes. Inside the bag was the body of an animal that was about 70 centimeters in size. It looked like an enlarged cockroach, but its internal organs and structure were completely different from one. However, the most eye-grabbing was the fact that the carcass was covered with spots of red blood.

This was because this planet’s ecosystem was different from Earth's in the sense that the organisms on this planet had generally orange-colored blood and not red like the ones back on Earth. This was discounting the crustaceans and mollusks of course. Therefore, when they saw that the creature had red-colored blood, it was quite shocking.

Then they quickly returned to work. With the aid from the interns, the scientists started analyzing the sample. The first sample they analyzed was the animal with the red blood. After all, they were too interested in this biological anomaly.

The analysis report soon appeared… The red blood didn’t belong to the organism, it was human blood!

When Norton received this update, he was shocked and angered.

"Haven’t we outlined the different zones of danger? Why is there still people venturing beyond the red zone? Or do the Blue Berets now think they’re above the law and have decided to ignore the threat of aliens?" Norton started scolding loudly after he heard the report.

The few adjutants stood there motionlessly. The report they just gave was indeed a bit troublesome. In today’s patrol, one unit discovered a fresh pool of blood. The unit immediately reported their discovery to their superiors. The information went through the chain of command quickly and the military immediately dispatched a unit to follow the blood trail.

Soon, the unit reached the limit of the danger zone line. In other words, they were about 10 kilometers away from the Noah One. A few more steps and they would be in the black zone, places where humanity had not ventured into before. The blood trail continued deeper into the zone, but the unit no longer dared to give chase. Therefore, they resigned to collecting clues around the area. They discovered a few sample bags and animal samples that had fallen out of the bags. With no better choice, the unit collected these samples and returned to the Noah One before noon. Now the Noah One’s army had done their headcount and realized that 3 people had gone missing from the Blue Berets. The blood probably belonged to them.

Austin suddenly opened his mouth to say, "The place where they discovered the blood stains isn’t the black zone, it’s only 4 kilometers away from the Noah One. It is well within the Blue Berets’ activity zone, so Captain shouldn’t punish them for violating the military rules… But there is one thing that I’m curious about. This Blue Beret unit that has gone missing has 3 members in it, and they were only 4 kilometers away from Noah One when they were attacked, but from morning until now, none of us have heard the sound of gunfire. We’re in deep underground, so the echo should be obvious, but the surveillance center didn’t receive any such signal or even an SOS message. In other words…"

Norton had calmed down and said, after some thought, "In other words, there is an organism agile enough to kill all three of them without them able to fire off a bullet first?"

"No, it’s not that." Austin immediately shook his head. "They only found one blood trail at the scene, and there is no flesh or many blood splatters. It doesn’t look like the place the three of them were killed, and the blood trail was thin. If anything, it looks like a signal that was purposely laid there to lead us deeper, or perhaps it was a blood trail used a coordinate marker…"

Norton and the other adjutants were confused and asked in unison, "What do you mean by that?"

Austin shrugged and continued with helplessness in his voice, "I have no idea. This is just the conclusion from my analysis. Based on the blood trail we saw on site, the sample bags that littered the area as well as the gunshot that we didn’t hear, rather than the hypothesis where these 3 Blue Berets were killed by some agile organisms, it feels more like the three of them have gone deeper underground, but one of them suffered a light injury and was bleeding. With each other’s support, they shuffled willingly deeper into the darkness…"

At this point, everyone there, other than Austin, could feel chills running up their backs and fear blossoming in their hearts…

What did he mean by… shuffling willingly deeper into the darkness…