The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-124

Chapter 124: An Interstellar Journey

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.

Just as the word left his mouth, the cabin shook violently. It was not the kind that happened during normal acceleration but, more akin to an earthquake. Clearly, the entire spacecraft structure was straining under the stress. Hao Ren did not dare imagine what sort of contraption that meatbag of a captain had activated. From the holographic projection, he saw multiple flashes of radiant light and the heat vents underneath the ship screamed a hot white. Such was the heat and tremors that the whole thing started to turn blurry. At the bottom of the projection, Hao Ren could see that the spacecraft was hurtling towards a red trail of light at almost light speed. A trail of red and blue light shimmered in the horizon.

Finally, another loud crash followed the spacecraft. The illegal acceleration had come to an end. The monitors now showed only darkness outside and the ship’s hyperspace engine was engaged, creating a dimensional bubble for the ship to travel at light speed. The time it exits said bubble, they would have arrived at their destination.

The speakers ranged again. “Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls and our most honored guests, the hyper-acceleration has been completed perfectly. We have once again proven Spacecraft Number 883’s superb capabilities. Now, I will be passing the controls to the main autopilot system. I wish you a pleasant journey. At this point, I will be going into a 24 hour solitary confinement as per the law and pay the fines from the Imperial Hyperspace Travel Authority. Good bye, for now.”

Hao Ren, Wuyue and Y’zaks stared at each other for a good while before bursting into laughter. The MDT also quipped. “Why do I only come across weirdos after meeting you?”

Hao Ren had no response to that and followed Wuyue to fiddle around with the weird contraptions in the room.

It did not take long for him to get bored of it. Advanced technology naturally led to things being simplified. Even the high-tech MDT of his could be operated by Lily or Vivian through thought alone. Most of the gadgets in the ship were also operated by highly advanced AI with an extremely simplified guiding principle. Most of them could be operated by thought alone and even the more complicated ones could easily be explained by the MDT. The fun of tinkering disappeared rather quickly.

“It’s a craft for civilian use after all,” Y’zaks said as he beckoned them towards him. “I heard that every universe has many intelligent races and with the vastness of the void, the way one race perceives things would definitely differ from the other. As such, those in charge of creating and researching tools for daily use would try to simplify things. Some even come with tutorials, hands-on at that. Some are even more advanced; you just tell it what you want and it’ll do whatever is needed.”

The MDT suddenly sprang out of Hao Ren’s pocket and it’s voice beamed with pride. “Yes, yes, I’m just like that. But, my access is limited to civilian areas or decommissioned military items. Anything more advanced would not be so simple.”

The three of them were bored by then and Wuyue wanted to explore the ship to see how an alien spacecraft actually looked like. It did not take more than 30 minutes for her to be sent back to the room. Not because she had went into an off-limits area. The poor lass got loss the moment she stepped out of the passenger cabin. The inner parts of the ship was almost a labyrinth, with odd signs here and there that lead to nowhere. If it was not for some personnel who were stationed at important parts of the ship, the siren would have probably walked into the boiler room and turned into dried fish.

…Guess you could call it a wanderer’s ability?

For the sake of doing something during his maiden interstellar travel as well as Y’zaks suggesting it for the second time, the three of them started playing Landlord…

…Until the ship entered the orbit of an Earth-like planet.