Chapter 48
After the incident on Prison Star, Rong Yuan refused Yisili's request to go with him and left on his own spaceship. Anyway, the spaceship was basically controlled by No. 2, so he didn't need to worry about it at all. On the seventh day, No. 2 said that the spaceship received a distress signal.
"Go and take a look." Rong Yuan said.
So the spacecraft slowly turned its bow and headed in the direction where the signal came from, and soon left the designated route.
The distress signal was intermittent and difficult to locate. However, for the most powerful intelligent computer in the Milky Way, Noah II, this was not a problem. It didn't take long to lock the direction and distance of the signal. After a few hours, Rong Yuan saw a small escape pod floating alone in space, and the spacecraft was approaching rapidly.
Suddenly, the electronic voice of No. 2 sounded in the cabin: "Captured a strange signal...decrypting...decrypting...decryption completed. The signal content is: Target found! Repeat, target found!"
Rong Yuan laughed and said, "Besides me, there shouldn't be anyone else who can be the target, right?"
"That's logically true," said No. 2.
Rong Yuan asked: "Can you find out the exact location where the signal was transmitted?"
"It can only lock onto the escape pod in front of us. The specific target of the launch is unclear, and the receiving target is unclear." No. 2 paused and said, "The laser cannon has been fully charged and locked onto the escape pod. Master, do you want to fire?"
At this time, the two aircraft were only a few kilometers apart, and both maintained a constant speed in the same direction. The guns on the bottom of the side of the spacecraft were aimed at the escape capsule, and there was no possibility of missing at such a close distance. However, the shield in front of the guns had not been opened, so the people in the escape capsule did not know that their lives were hanging by a thread.
No. 2 transmitted the images captured by the spacecraft's external camera to the display screen in front of Rong Yuan. It can be seen that the people in the cabin felt that they had escaped and were jumping and dancing in joy. Although they knew that no sound could be transmitted in a vacuum, they still waved their hands and shouted something. Among them, a black-skinned boy was particularly active, dancing and waving his hands, full of joy, and his bright smile was very contagious.
Rong Yuan couldn't help but smile and said, "It's okay, pick them up."
Number Two was silent for a moment, then grumbled, "I'm free anyway, so I might as well find you something fun, right?"
Rong Yuan could hear that it was a little unhappy, but he didn't care. Compared to Noah, who was a bit eager to cause trouble, No. 2 preferred to be less involved. As an intelligent computer, it was simply too lazy. Normally, when Rong Yuan didn't call it, it wouldn't speak on its own initiative. So its reaction was what Rong Yuan expected.
Rong Yuan's decision did not exceed No. 2's expectations, so even though it complained, it still executed the order immediately.
Mu Xiaohu was so confident before, but when the spaceship approached, he was more excited than anyone else. He occupied most of the window by himself. The middle-aged man next to him didn't bother to be angry with him. He pushed Mu Xiaohu's arm away, leaned on the window, and stared at the approaching spaceship, with an expression of crying and laughing on his face.
Zeruo also leaned against the window and watched, only half of his face was exposed behind Mu Xiaohu. He was not as excited as the others, but just breathed a sigh of relief.
Outside the spacecraft, two slender mechanical arms reached out, firmly grabbed the escape capsule, and dragged it into the cabin. With a muffled "hiss", air rushed into the sealed cabin. The escape capsule detected that the external environment had reached the survival index, and the hatch slid open silently. Everyone hesitated for a moment before walking out of the escape capsule one by one.
It was quiet outside. The imagined scene of someone coming to question their identities, or comforting their frightened fragile hearts, or appearing as a savior to ask for their gratitude did not happen. It was so quiet that it seemed as if there was no one here.
Everyone couldn't help but feel uneasy. Someone asked, "What's going on? Is this a cargo ship that is completely controlled by a computer?"
Space travel is complex and changeable. Optical computers are far superior to humans in terms of computing power and reaction speed. They will not feel tired, bored, irritable, or desperate because of long and boring travel. Therefore, more and more spaceships are now fully controlled by optical computers. The existence of human pilots is only to prevent certain emergencies. Especially for specialized cargo ships, most of them do not even have a single person on board. This is also because Landia is one of the countries with the best public security in the Milky Way. If you were in a chaotic star field where pirates were rampant, no matter what type of spaceship you were, you would not dare to go out without hiring one or two mecha teams.
"Impossible." Someone who knew something about the situation immediately retorted, "Although the unmanned spacecraft has the obligation to rescue the escape capsule, its autonomy is very low. It can only follow the prescribed route and will never deviate from the route and automatically come here."
"Then what's going on?" The middle-aged man walking at the end stepped on the hatch of the escape pod, as if he wanted to turn around and run back. He asked in a trembling voice: "Could...did we encounter space pirates?"
"Star pirates?!" Everyone screamed, turning the interrogative sentence into an exclamatory sentence. Many people believed it and were terrified, trying to run back to the escape pod.
After Mu Xiaohu stepped off the escape pod, he behaved very well and didn't run around or touch anything. He looked around with his big eyes, looking very curious. When everyone was panicking, he put his hands together in a trumpet shape around his mouth and shouted loudly: "Hello - hello - is anyone there -"
Is anyone there——
Is anyone there——
The echo kept reverberating in the cabin, amplifying Mu Xiaohu's voice several times. The already terrified people were frightened by his shouting, and their movements were frozen. A helpless electronic voice came from the player: "Don't you see the door in front of you?"
"Hey? Is there one?" Mu Xiaohu looked around. The cabin was all white, and there was no door. But he had sharp eyes, and after a quick glance, he saw an inconspicuous door handle on the wall. He walked over, grabbed the door handle, thought for a moment, knocked on the door again, and asked politely, "Can I come in?"
The voice said, "Yes."
Mu Xiaohu pushed the door open. The others hid behind him and huddled together to look forward.
Behind the door is another room.
A thick glass wall divided the room into two parts, one large and one small. There was a blue square screen about a foot in size on the glass wall. The small part was empty, and the large part had palm-sized baffles on all the walls and ceiling that suddenly opened, and black gun muzzles stretched out from them, pointing at everyone from all directions. There was no doubt that if they made any unusual movements, they would be shot into sieves immediately.
Everyone held their breath, suppressing their fear and not moving. Mu Xiaohu stood at the front, ignoring the guns and shouted, "I'm coming in, where are you?"
"Don't be so loud, I can hear you." The electronic voice ignored Mu Xiaohu's question and said, "Put your ID bracelet on the reader, verify your identity and enter the quarantine room. You can enter the spacecraft after the quarantine is completed."
"I understand!" Mu Xiaohu still answered loudly, pointing to the blue square screen on the glass wall and asked: "Is this the reader?"
After waiting for a while, seeing that no one answered, he strode over and put the identity bracelet on his left wrist on the square screen. With a light "beep", the verification was completed, and a door slid open on the glass wall. He walked into the small room, the door closed, and several blue lights swept around him up and down for a few circles, and then there was another light "beep", the quarantine was completed, and the green light on the door opposite came on. Mu Xiaohu pushed the door gently, and it opened. He turned around and waved happily to others, and walked in without hesitation.
There was still no one behind the door, but a long corridor. The lights on the roof lit up in rows, illuminating the corridor as bright as day. At the same time, the electronic voice said, "Welcome to Feiyan. Please follow the light. The fifth room on the left is your temporary residence. There are drinking water, compressed nutrients, a star network login helmet, a toilet and a hibernation cabin in the room. If you need anything else, you can contact us through the pager. Feiyan will take you to the nearest habitable star, Baiqi Star. The estimated journey time is 87 hours, 54 minutes and 3 seconds. Please do not move around before arriving at your destination."
"Well, thank you! But I'm not used to you talking like that!" Mu Xiaohu said as he counted the doors and walked forward, "This ship is called Feiyan? Are you the captain?"
The electronic sound did not return.
"Ignoring me again." Mu Xiaohu muttered, but he was not angry. The rooms on the spaceship usually don't take up too much space, so he quickly found the fifth room. Before opening the door, he suddenly thought of a question, so he hurriedly asked: "Wait, can I ask you another question?"
"Speak." The electronic voice was concise and cool.
"Um...excuse me, do you charge for this?" Mu Xiaohu asked embarrassedly.
The electronic voice paused for a moment and said, "The Interstellar Alliance Law stipulates that in space rescue, the rescuer can receive a compensation of 2.5 times the normal ship ticket, and food, accommodation and other charges are calculated separately."
"Is that so..." Mu Xiaohu blushed and whispered, "But I... don't have that much money..."
After a moment, the electronic voice stopped talking, and a male voice said softly, "So do you want to jump off the boat now ?"
"Of course not! Someone will die if he goes out!" Mu Xiaohu shook his head desperately.
"So, I am your creditor now." The man made the final decision.
Mu Xiaohu was dumbfounded. He could almost imagine the smirking face on the other end of the line. After a long pause, he walked into the room dejectedly. He touched the high-end-looking StarNet login helmet, and stared at the richly flavored compressed nutrients in the food refrigerator. He swallowed his saliva, dared not touch anything, and fell on the bed, holding his stomach.
"So, he didn't eat, drink water, or play games. Is he planning to just go through these days on an empty stomach?" Rong Yuan said with a smile.
For the sake of privacy, no monitoring equipment was installed in the personal room. But as the central intelligence brain controlling the spacecraft, No. 2 controlled all the instruments and was required to refill the water supply once it ran out, so it was clear that Mu Xiaohu had not used anything except the bed.
Number Two thought about it, and finally decided not to comment on Rong Yuan's behavior of bullying the child, and casually responded: "Well, I won't starve to death anyway."
"This kid is quite interesting." Rong Yuan said, "Remember to remind him to enter the hibernation chamber before jumping through the wormhole and inject him with high-quality nutrient solution."
"Don't forget, he might also be the one who sent the signal." Number Two reminded.
"It doesn't matter." Rong Yuan said, his eyes fell on another display screen, where people coming out of the escape pod were passing through the quarantine room one by one, and were assigned to vacant rooms by No. 2. After reading the identity bracelets, No. 2 also obtained the information of these people and found nothing abnormal.
Rong Yuan said, "You have to keep a close eye on the journey. After we reach Baiqixing, it will be impossible for them to contact us."
"Huh?" Number Two said in surprise, "I thought you would want to find that guy yourself."
"When did I ever say such a thing?" Rong Yuan raised his head slightly and chuckled, "I prefer being a hunter to being the prey."
