Prologue
In 2165, dozens of higher-dimensional passages suddenly appeared across Earth. Endless swarms of bugs poured out, and humanity fought back with everything it had. Yet the bugs' descendants evolved to become increasingly formidable, gaining the ability to fly and fight in space.
The higher-dimensional passages could not be closed, and the swarms continued pouring through them onto Earth. Humanity's technology could not make a major breakthrough in the short term, so it had no choice but to abandon Earth, leave the Solar System, and venture into the vast universe in search of a new planet on which to rebuild its home.
During the twenty years spent fighting the bugs, China established a base on a hidden asteroid. There, away from the bugs, it secretly built 250 enormous Polaris ships, each over 5,000 meters long, to evacuate more than a billion people.
To buy time for the construction of the Polaris Fleet, the military, under its leader, waged an arduous twenty-year war against the bugs. But advances in military technology lagged far behind the bugs' evolution. The space force fought desperately, overcoming swarm crises time and again while losing many of its finest young warriors.
From the first day the bugs poured out of the higher-dimensional passages, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and numerous academicians had foreseen that humanity was bound to lose the war. Their only way out was to flee the Solar System. To carry out the escape, President Xu Xiaodong led a group of academicians in planning the Shadow Project and building the vast Polaris Fleet to carry the entire nation out of the Solar System.
Hu Yu, an ordinary planetarium educator, abandoned his civilian career for the military at the urging of his old friend Wen Zhonghua after the bug disaster broke out. He became an ordinary space force pilot and, over twenty years of fighting, gradually rose to become a leading military figure. He was also the protagonist of this book.
P.S.: The formula for the volume of a cylinder is the area of its base multiplied by its height: 3.14 × 750 × 750 × 5,000 = 8,831,250,000 cubic meters, or 8.8 billion cubic meters. Divide that by five million to find the space available per person, and the result is 1,766.25 cubic meters. Our homes generally have a floor height of three meters, so divide by three again, and the result is 588.75. These days, a family of four lives in only about eighty or ninety square meters. Since they are fleeing a disaster, that space can be reduced further, and the space freed up can be used for farming, production, storage, medical care, propulsion systems, and so on. Also, this is science fiction. The future is unknowable, and there is no standard for engine size.
This book tells a science-fiction story on a vast scale that reaches beyond the Milky Way.
"Abyssal Starlight" mainly tells a story set within the Milky Way. Its sequel, "Annihilation Starlight," will expand to encompass the entire universe, as well as parallel universes, higher-dimensional universes, rules, time, dimensions, and so on. "Annihilation Starlight" will be the final installment of the Starlight trilogy. Nearly 700,000 Chinese characters have already been published, and it can be found on both Toutiao and Fanqie.
Outside the porthole loomed the enormous bulk of Sedna, the last dwarf planet in the Solar System to have attained hydrostatic equilibrium. Once they crossed its orbit, one might say, in a sense, that they had left the Solar System behind.
The Polaris switched on its enormous searchlight. Its powerful beam crossed tens of thousands of kilometers, becoming a patch of light more than ten kilometers wide on Sedna's surface. The once-busy base was bustling no longer, leaving only dilapidated buildings and endless desolation.
The footprints of civilization covered the planet. Barring the unexpected, these traces would still be faintly visible a million years later, proclaiming that this had once been civilization's territory. Yet the unexpected was inevitable. In less than ten years, the bugs would surely set foot on Sedna and destroy every trace of humanity.
Under the Polaris's powerful light, the terrain of the Solar System's last planet appeared on every electronic screen aboard the ship. People silently gazed at Sedna's surface. Though this was not Earth, it was the land of the last planet in the Solar System, and only in this distant, remote region could peace still be maintained for the time being.
The fleet did not approach Sedna. Though sturdy, the Polaris was too large; Sedna's immense gravity might produce tidal effects, deforming the ship and damaging its precision electronic equipment.
It had been more than seven months since they left Earth, and the fleet was slowly accelerating forward. Hu Yu stood quietly by the porthole. Earth had long since vanished from sight, and none of the satellites left in its orbit could have survived the swarm's purge. Even if they could still function, the Earth people saw would no longer have blue skies and waters, teeming with life. Instead, there would be a vast white swarm of bugs, a wild dance of monsters in the sky and on the ground.
The Sun had become an ordinary point of starlight, now shining at magnitude negative one. The spectacular sight it presented from nearby was completely gone, along with every distinctive detail. Yet even so, Sedna, more than a hundred astronomical units away, the countless asteroids of the Kuiper Belt, and the interstellar dust all obeyed the Sun's rules, dutifully orbiting her.
If its domain were measured by the reach of its gravity, the Sun's sphere of influence could extend to roughly one light-year. The Kuiper Belt, less than one light-day away, was merely the innermost part of the Sun's domain; the outermost part was the vast Oort Cloud.
The immense fleet of 250 enormous Polaris ships was spread across millions of cubic kilometers of space. Hundreds of thousands of J-85 fighters patrolled around the Polaris Fleet on guard duty. The Polaris ships were five kilometers long and accelerated exceptionally slowly. Even though each was equipped with hundreds of engines, the limitations of materials technology and human physical endurance kept acceleration below 0.1 G. After months of acceleration, the fleet's speed finally stabilized at eight million kilometers per hour.
Within the Solar System, their speed had to be kept within the limits of their warning range. Otherwise, even a pebble the size of a fingernail could cause a tragedy, destroying a ship and killing everyone aboard.
The fleet needed to travel 500 astronomical units at low speed. Only after leaving the Kuiper Belt would it begin accelerating again, continuing until it reached 0.3 times the speed of light. It would then spend twenty years traveling to Barnard's Star in Ophiuchus.
Barnard's Star was one of the nearest star systems known to humanity that was most likely to contain planets suitable for terraforming. Planets were certainly there, but no one had a definite answer as to whether they could be made suitable for human habitation.
Even if there were no planets around Barnard's Star suitable for terraforming, it could at least provide the fleet with replenished supplies. That much was certain. Though the fleet carried ample supplies, its consumption was also astronomical. Vast quantities of material were needed every day to support the lives of more than a billion people and keep countless pieces of equipment running.
Besides the energy and supplies the fleet carried, the materials it could normally draw upon came from dozens of asteroids, each less than ten kilometers in diameter. Once those asteroids were exhausted, if supplies could not be replenished in time, the fleet would use up all its energy after thirty years and fall silent in the void. So, all told, the fleet's total supplies amounted to only sixty years' consumption, and that was a theoretical figure. If the fleet encountered any unexpected trouble along the way, that time would be cut drastically.
After more than half a year of travel, people's initial excitement had given way to calm, and they had begun adapting to life in the fleet. Though the Polaris ships provided a fairly complete living environment, a fleet was still a fleet, and many things could not be the same as they had been on Earth or at the various bases on other planets.
All materials used in the fleet had to be recycled as extensively as possible, including waste. Water was rationed, and anyone who wanted a little more simply could not get it. Food was much less restricted: civilians could collect their favorite foods free of charge, although the meat was all synthetic. The vegetables, however, were fresh, grown in the fleet, and available in a wide variety.
Most civilians also chose to grow some vegetables at home. After all, unused light energy would only go to waste. Letting plants absorb it made effective use of the energy, produced oxygen, and eased the burden on the fleet. The plants themselves were also food, satisfying people's appetites. This threefold benefit was strongly promoted throughout the fleet.
Silence was the universe's eternal melody. The fleet had left the Kuiper Belt and entered a cosmic void completely devoid of matter. Once again, pale blue flames a thousand meters long streamed from the sterns of the Polaris ships as the fleet entered its second acceleration phase. This time, it would accelerate all the way to 0.3 times the speed of light, then stop accelerating and coast on inertia to Barnard's Star.
On this vast journey, they could obtain no further material supplies. Matter was so sparse that a cubic meter of space contained only one or two atoms, or even fewer. The fleet seemed to hang silently in space; without a point of reference, there was no telling whether it was moving forward.
Stars dotted the universe's enormous screen. Without sunlight to interfere, they looked to the naked eye like sparkling, translucent gems, exceptionally bright. Even the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light-years away, was clearly visible. Venus, by contrast, the brightest planet as seen from Earth, had vanished entirely from sight.
The thought of Earth filled Hu Yu with pain. More than twenty years ago, Earth had been shaded by green trees, with beautiful mountains and waters, a bright moon and gentle breezes, a landscape like a painting, and people living and working in peace. Hu Yu could have become a scientist striving for his ideals instead of a general fighting bloody battles.
Yet fate was always hard to fathom. Rising from a common soldier to a general, Hu Yu had fought in thousands of battles, large and small, and seen wave after wave of comrades die around him. In twenty years, he had gone from a vigorous young man to a middle-aged man whose temples were beginning to gray. What filled Hu Yu's heart most was melancholy and helplessness.
Now he had left home and entered the vast universe, with an uncertain future and no knowing whether he would live or die. Though Hu Yu was not the nation's leader, he still felt the responsibility on his shoulders weighing on him until he could barely breathe.
Alas...
Hu Yu sighed.
"General, what's wrong?" Colonel Yang Fan asked from beside him. One of the longtime subordinates who had always followed Hu Yu, Yang Fan had also lived through the brutal war, but being young, he was much more optimistic.
"Oh, nothing. How is the fleet?"
"General, everything's normal. Don't worry."
"We must never let our guard down. The J-85 squadrons must remain on high alert at all times. We haven't completely left the Solar System yet. After years of war with the bug race, there are countless pieces of debris throughout the Solar System. Any small fragment could cause the fleet tremendous losses," Hu Yu warned.
"General, don't worry. Nothing will go wrong. Besides, don't we still have two hundred thousand J-90s holding the line up ahead? If anything goes wrong even then, I'll bring you my head," Yang Fan said casually.
"Bring me your head? What's your head worth? If something goes wrong, you can take care of yourself. I won't need to have you shot."
"Yes, yes, General." Yang Fan hurriedly nodded in agreement.
"All right, go on. Either you or Chen Peng must be on guard with the vanguard fleet at all times. Only then can I feel a little more at ease."
"General, that's what we've always done. Chen Peng is in space right now. I'll relieve him in a few hours."
"Mm." Hu Yu nodded and looked out the porthole.
Beyond the porthole, apart from distant points of starlight and the occasional J-85 or J-90 patrol squadron flying past the fleet, it was frighteningly silent. What humanity feared most was not noise, but silence. This silence from the universe was especially unnerving. Silence meant loneliness; it meant having nothing. Here, any small problem the fleet encountered could be fatal, because it could obtain neither supplies nor rescue.
Earth, goodbye. Sun, goodbye.
Hu Yu said this silently to himself, then ordered the J-85 squadrons to release 2,185 flares to commemorate the day they left Earth. The flares lit up the entire fleet, but they could not illuminate Earth or the Sun. They could only burn out silently in the void.
Like Hu Yu, the civilians in the fleet were truly bidding farewell to the Solar System and leaving their home at this moment. Many cried. People held various activities to commemorate the Solar System, and everyone knew that leaving meant saying goodbye forever. Older people in particular felt an even deeper attachment to home. Many wept and called out toward the Sun and Earth, "Mother, goodbye!"