Featherfall, also known as Skyfeather Star, was one of the capitals of the Shi'ar Empire and its birthplace—a planet that had nearly been hollowed out.
The Shi'ar had an extremely mature Stargate network, allowing them to conveniently transport their fleets and supplies throughout their territory.
At present, Su Ming knew of three technological methods of space travel. The first involved using devices like Stargates, similar to mass accelerators, to "launch" a spacecraft out, then finding another Stargate in the next star system to launch it again.
The second was warp travel, an ultra-long-range jump achieved by folding space, which required a relatively lengthy energy-charging process beforehand.
The third involved using natural or artificial wormholes in the universe. It was like being propelled by Cosmic Energy through a network of natural tunnels into faster-than-light travel, though the limitation was the need for cosmic nodes.
Su Ming's little spacecraft used warp travel. During the spatial folding process, the light around them seemed to distort, making everyone look like elongated noodles to one another, like reflections in a funhouse mirror.
After all, they were sneaking into Featherfall to cause trouble. Both Stargates and wormholes were guarded, so they could only use the clumsy method of making several extra jumps.
Though his appearance had been drastically warped by the distorted light, Su Ming remained calm. He was already used to this sensation of teleportation. Smoking, he asked Jason and his steward beside him, "How much do you know about the Shi'ar Empire?"
The Old Steward patted Jason's back as if the latter were suffering from seasickness and replied, "Not much. Although the Shi'ar Empire is open to large-scale trade, its people have almost no entertainment activities and rarely come to Sparta for tourism. We have no Space Fleet, only orbital defense forces, so we