Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Looking up at the massive machine in front, he did not know whether it was a machine or a building, or more like an artificial mountain. But one thing was sure; it was massive. The city was an enclosed shell, and the machine was right at one end of the oval space, perpendicular to all buildings in the town. Its main structure was the large cylinder, up to several kilometers high, cast from black steel, with heatsink and light-emitting windows on the surface. While surrounding the main structure was a series of cylindrical structures. No one knew if these circling cylinders were on their own or just ancillary to the main structure, but each cylinder had a vent opening at the top where faint red lights were still shimmering. It looked like there was still some residual energy left. As Lily said, the entire facility had shut down because most of its external lights were out and the surrounding buildings were also dark. Nevertheless, the residual energy inside the behemoth meant that they could probably restart the machine.
“The energy circuit of this machine is separate from the propulsion system. It must be the dedicated power generator of the life-support system.” The MDT did a simple scan of the power circuits around the giant building. “It’s a very clever design. The ship has multiple sets of separate power units and control centers, the life-support system and the propulsion units do not affect each other. No wonder even though the city has died, and the spacecraft navigation and propulsion system is still operational,” the MDT said.
“No one is piloting the spaceship?” Hao Ren mumbled before calling Nolan onboard the Petrachelys. “Nolan, how is the scanning going?” he asked.
“The scan has been completed. No fatal leakage is found except for some scratches on the body. Its structure is very sound, and even the buffer zone is not damaged. Besides, its engine works well, at least for this level of spaceship technology, it is pretty powerful,” Nolan reported.
“But the people inside are all dead. The power system of the propulsion units and the life-support system are two separate systems,” Hao Ren said. “Release the probes and check out the other spaceships. Be careful, these old antiques are very fragile, and I hope they are still intact.”
After hanging up the communication, Hao Ren spread out his hand. “The spacecraft is not damaged,” he said.
“Then where has the atmosphere in the city gone?” Lily was wide-eyed. “If there is no hole, could it be that the air leaked out slowly over a long period?” she said.
“It seems that the air has turned into ice because of the low temperature. As the life-support system stopped, the temperature dropped, so the air liquefied and—” Hao Ren scratched his chin while saying. But Nangong Wuyue interrupted him. The siren maiden bent down and picked up an ice crystal, put it in her mouth and tasted it. “No, it’s water ice. Water ice constitutes 99.99% of all the ice crystals we see here, and the remaining are traces of other elements, which are not enough to fill space of the entire city,” she said.
“That seems that the atmosphere has gone missing.” Hao Ren pouted and stepped forward. “Let’s look for the entrance for this thing. If the MDT is right, this thing would be the hub of the life-support system,” he said.
It was not easy to find a small door in such a vast place, but with the help of the MDT, things got a lot quicker. They soon found an entrance at its base. At the foot of this enormous steel mountain, where it connected to the inner shell of the spaceship, was a series of huge pipes that extended out like roots. Some smaller structures looked like airlocks or crew rooms along the tubes that could lead to the deeper part of the facility.
It did not take Hao Ren much effort to gain access to the inside of the facility. But when he entered, he was amazed to find lights were still working usually inside.
The bright-yellow warm light illuminated the metal corridor. Though it was still as cold as space outside, the warm-colored light made them feel a little better. There was a lot of equipment in the corridor but mostly had been shut down. Some small instruments such as lights and small displays on the wall were still operational. These instruments were flashing their alarms, but no crew was coming to fix the problems.
“It seems that even though the main system has been down, the backup power is still running until this day,” Nangong Sanba said while sliding his hand across and wiped the thin layer of frost off a small display mounted on the wall. “This says the reactor is shut down and the ‘guardian’ host is in a sleep state,” he said.
Hao Ren’s heart missed a beat: it was shut down, not malfunctioning? Or had the self-diagnostic system malfunctioned too?
He looked into the corridor and found a sign that read “To Control Room” with the help of a series of orange-colored illuminated signs.
The control room was not in the deeper part of the “Mount of Steel.” It was not too far from where they were. It seemed that it was not suitable to station crew inside the Mount of Steel considering how high the energy generated inside. They followed the road signs and quickly found the control center. There was an alloy door in their way. Without needing instruction, Lily came up and cut through the alloy door with her claws in no time.
The interior of the control room was simpler and narrower than Hao Ren expected. It was just a standard machine room, which was no larger than a home office. Silver-gray and light-blue cabinet-shaped machines occupied two-thirds of the space inside, leaving only a few seats for the crew. As a control center for the life-support system of the city, it seemed to be too small. Hao Ren could only guess that the system might be highly automated and needing very little manual intervention.
Hao Ren’s gaze quickly fell on the middle of several machines, where there was a high back chair, which belonged to the chief officer of the facility. Hao Ren recalled the little knowledge he had read in the public database of inspectors, the chief officer in this type of doomsday facility was often the chief operator as well and at least responsible for issuing the start and shut down instructions for the highly critical system.
He went up, gently turned the seat, which was frozen on the ground, around. His heart almost stopped; sitting on the chair was a majestic old man, roughly 60 of age, covered in frost. He was wearing a commander’s uniform decorated with a range of strange-looking medals and emblems, which spoke of his extraordinary ranking. Though the old man had died, his face still exuded a powerful aura of authority. His eyes remained open, appeared muddy and cracked from the freezing temperature but had a hint of fire in them as if the thousand-year ice had not been able to extinguish it. Instead, he was like a sword sealed together with its killing scent.
“What a commander,” Hao Ren muttered. He gently pushed the chair to the side and came before the console that the old man was still watching until his last breath. “Let’s see if we can restart this old thing,” Hao Ren said.
Some parts of the console had become fragile due to the freezing temperature. The plastic lamination and instrument cover instantly broke into pieces at the slightest touch of a hand. But the most critical buttons and internal seemed to be made of special materials and were still in good condition. Nangong Wuyue carefully manipulated the power of water to vaporize the frost inside and outside the console naturally. The machine now became as clean as new—at least it looked new.
Core communication group. Generator indicator. Sanctuary atmosphere monitoring. Artificial gravity. Hao Ren’s eyes ran across the alien characters before he finally found a special slot in the corner of the console. “The core reactor,” he muttered.
“Looks like you need a key, an ID card or something,” Nangong Sanba said after checking the slot. “Someone took the key after the system was shut down,” he said.
“The key is here!” Lily suddenly held up a sparkling silver-white metal plate. She pointed her tail in the old man’s direction. “It was in the hands of this old man!” she said.
Hao Ren could not emphasize it more; dogs were good in searches.
He petted the back of Lily’s ear, took the metal and carefully inserted it into the card slot on the console.
The indicators lit up. The entire facility began to shake.
