Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 185: Embryo of the Mother Nest...

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Yao Yuan and Xiao Niao’s secret meeting didn’t reach a conclusion, but there was one thing that was certain: even though this ZERO might not be the UFO’s AI, she was an entity that held sway over the Hope’s space-warping technology. To be more specific, she could decide the warp exit.

The threat of the cosmos was its size. It might not present itself as an active threat, but its pure existence alone would bring despair to any life forms. This was because its size was impossible; it bypassed all given logic.

If the cosmos was described as an ocean, then the planets would be something smaller than the water particles in the sea. To enable the Hope to wrap into a star system, or in the most recent case, into the ground of a planet, was something impossible. The probability of that happening could be equated to winning the lottery every day for a whole year!

However, the reality was that it did happen. Making it happen once might be a random luck, but it happened again and again. The Hope had committed to more than 100 warps, and a great majority of them was near or within a star system. One had to wonder, could this still be called random?

In fact, before Xiao Niao came to him, Yao Yuan already had his own suspicions. And it was shared by Ren Tao. However, it was merely suspicion. They had no proof to say that the warp was controlled by someone or something, and that thing was the UFO.

The secret meeting didn’t exactly add light to ZERO’s identity, but it wasn’t entirely fruitless either. At least they knew that the space warps could be controlled to a certain degree. The actual mechanics still eluded them, but it was a start. Furthermore, they were relieved that this ZERO didn’t appear to wish to harm mankind.

"In any case, your biggest responsibility now is to find out this ZERO’s identity. Of course, you can’t just go ahead and ask her directly. Befriend her first and get to know each other. However, no matter what you do, don’t get on her bad side; endear mankind to her if possible." After Yao Yuan found out about ZERO’s existence, he nagged at Xiao Niao like he was his mom. In a way, he was giving Xiao Niao a mission, but it was one that didn’t involve any fights.

Xiao Niao laughed garrulously. "Look at who you’re talking to. It is not for nothing that I’m known as the Love Master within the Black Star Troopers. As if I need your help to teach me how to chase after girls. Just leave it to me."

Yao Yuan frowned, but he kept his mouth shut because after he thought about it, he suspected that this ZERO approached Xiao Niao because he didn’t have a hidden agenda. If he told Xiao Niao to change his MO, it might raise red flags. ZERO would get suspicious of their intentions, and who knew what tragedy that might entail?

If Xiao Niao’s two best friends were there, they would not hesitate to point out that Xiao Niao was blowing his own trumpet. The whole Love Master thing was a straight up lie. Xiao Niao had no relationship experience and was a virgin. His boastfulness was to hide his own insecurities.

The pair returned to the shuttle to get back to the Hope, each nursing their own thoughts.

When they were within the 100 meters range of the Hope, the intermission said that the shuttle was to be taken over by the Barracks. After the shuttle landed inside the hangar, the two of them went through the decontamination room. Yao Yuan believed that the takeover was because they had given false alarm by activating the creator’s particle away from the Hope. He even rebuked Xiao Niao for it.

It wasn’t until Guang Zhen rushed over with a bunch of troopers in company that Yao Yuan knew that something serious had happened.

Without wasting any time, he asked, "What happened? The Hope is under attack? Or we discovered a giant monster?"

Guang Zhen passed him a photograph, adding, "Look at this. This was taken by the defense unit about 30 minutes ago. They were given the order to clear this area of the forest, but after a subunit was sent to the area, 2 soldiers mysteriously disappeared. After they returned to the Hope following a failed search, the Hope’s radar picked up a genetic mesomeric action at a location 50 meters underneath the surface."

Yao Yuan gave the picture a close look. It showed a dark brown patch of land that had a different coloration from its surroundings. It looked like a combination of dirt and muscle.

"A mother nest embryo... So what’s next? Why didn’t we just destroy it? Insert high volume explosives underground and blow it up from within!" Yao Yuan ordered instantly.

Before Guang Zhen could reply, a voice came from behind him. "We can’t do that. It is not so easily destructible." The person who said that was Ivan. He led a group of scientists.

Yao Yuan frowned. "Why not? Don’t tell me you want to experiment with it. I’ll not allow it! I might consider it if it’s one of those flesh monsters, but we can’t let this embryo fester. This thing has to be eliminated, or it’ll be a pain in the butt in the future. I’m more than willing to give up the scientific discovery that would result from its analysis than leave such a potential threat to our future generation! You have to understand that this is going to be our new home planet, not the ruined Moon 2. If you still think the experimentation is worth it, just look at what Moon 2 has become. It’s a complete death planet! Furthermore, after we clean up everything here, I have plans to clear up Moon 2 as well, so don’t even think about persuading me to let the Academy keep this thing!"

Ivan chuckled mirthlessly as he said, "I believe Captain might have misunderstood us. We have no intention of keeping this thing to experiment on. We are on the same wavelength; the Academy also wishes to leave a clean planet for our future generations to enjoy. For that, we have a proposal that could remove this threat completely with one go."

Yao Yuan scratched his face in thought. After some time, he said, "Alright, I’ll hear you out. If it’s worth the effort, I’ll allow it. If not, I’ll order the Barracks to blow it up immediately."

Ivan turned to a middle-aged woman that stood beside him. She nodded at Ivan as she came forward. "Captain, I am Peto Nora, an entomologist. My research interest has been in the similarities between the flesh aliens and bugs ever since the war began. To be honest, I have to say that my research couldn’t have been so successful without Zhang Heng’s help. He allowed us a greater and deeper contact with this alien race.

"In short, this alien race has many similarities with bug civilizations, like bees and ants. They have a hive mind. However, there exists some minor differences between the two, most notably being the alien’s hive mind is concentrated on the mother nest... Anyway, now is not the time to get into the details. Based on our current observations, the mother nest’s hive mind only has one purpose, and that is to instigate cellular renewal for the sake of consumption... Then it brings us to the question: how come the mother nest couldn’t regrow itself from the remaining alien monsters or even just splices of alien DNA?

"Therefore, we feel the mother nest might have some sort of unique method that prevents its cells from splitting this way. This is why we’ve seen that no matter how big these cells grow, as long as it has been separated from the mother nest, it will not evolve into another mother nest..."

Yao Yuan nodded along.

The middle-aged woman continued, "Because of this, we have a hypothesis that if there is already a mother nest, there won’t be another. This leads us to an extended hypothesis that for this alien, each of its monster types is unique. For example, the squishy foot soldiers are the only close-quarter combat type, and the giant meat blob is its only transportation type. Back to the issue at hand, this means that if we don’t destroy this mother nest embryo, it means that we will never have to deal with a new mother nest."

"But this is no reason to keep this embryo alive. If there’s another mother nest embryo that appears, we will similarly hunt it down; we will not give it the chance to grow," replied Yao Yuan.

"But what if the next embryo grows at a location that evades our detection? Like in the middle of the ocean? Like what Lieutenant Zhang Heng had said, we have no clue whether this alien can only survive on land. In other words, we should consider ourselves lucky that this new embryo was found on land."

Xiao Niao, who had been quiet, suddenly piped up. "Wait, you previously mentioned bees and ants. Don’t tell me..."

The middle-aged woman nodded. "It seems like you’ve guessed our plan. Yes, it’s correct, we plan to use this embryo as bait to lure the rest of monsters back to its location. The plan is actually very simple. Because the alien has a hive mind, every single monster out there technically is a part of it. They will not shy away from saving its brain. Therefore, we should keep this embryo and limit its growth by burning it once in a while. That will also provide the necessary stimulus for the monsters that are hiding on the planet to come save it.

"With a good army stationed around the embryo, we’ll be able to eliminate the remaining aliens in one go!"

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