Academician Liu Bo was a rising talent of the new generation of space physicists who had developed under Academician Zeng. He was born when the fleet left Earth and was awarded the title of academician when it reached Tau Ceti. Unlike other scientists, whose serious faces made it obvious they were researchers, Academician Liu had the tall build of a northerner, a plump body, and glasses with a prescription of over four diopters. Without the glasses, he looked more like a fat butcher at a market.
Academician Liu Bo had progressed rapidly in space physics. Under Academician Zeng's guidance, he had distinguished himself among the many space physicists in just over a decade, putting forward several new theories in the field that had since been verified. Academician Zeng intended to put Liu Bo in charge of space physics. He himself was responsible for the entire science ship and no longer had much time to devote to research, unlike Academician Xiao, who could quietly lead a team in research aboard the biology ship. Academician Liu Bo's proposal to stretch three-dimensional space from the greater universe into the four-dimensional space bubble had now undergone all manner of calculations, putting its chance of success at over eighty percent.
The experiment began. In the three-dimensional space of the greater universe surrounding the four-dimensional space bubble, more than a hundred Hunter-Killers formed a sphere several kilometers in diameter. A small spacecraft was stationed inside it, with Academician Zeng, Academician Liu Bo, and several others once again aboard.
The Hunter-Killers forming the spherical shell activated their warp drives simultaneously, but the small spacecraft made no move. Outside the space, Hu Yu watched the great sphere of warships slowly vanish before his eyes, along with the small spacecraft inside.
Five minutes later, the ships reappeared out of nowhere before Hu Yu, as if they had never moved at all.
"Academician Zeng, Academician Liu, how did it go?" Hu Yu sent a message at once.
"We succeeded, General," Academician Liu Bo replied.
"Thank you." At that moment, Hu Yu could find no other suitable words. Without these scientists, the fleet might have ceased to exist long ago.
When warp drives operated, they distorted the space around them. When the sphere of more than a hundred Hunter-Killers activated its warp drives simultaneously, they effectively distorted the entire perimeter of the space, making it very difficult for any changes outside the spherical space to enter it, unless the Hunter-Killers were destroyed to open a passage through normal space. Once distorted, the space would enter the four-dimensional space bubble, whose spatial walls were extremely thin at this location. As long as the Hunter-Killers held formation, the three-dimensional sphere of space they created would not be permeated by the fourth dimension after entering it. It was an independent space.
To understand it in two dimensions, the Hunter-Killers were like a circular blade cutting a circle out of a sheet of paper. The circle would fall into the third dimension, but the two-dimensional beings on the circular piece of paper could still live normally. Of course, the three-dimensional sphere formed by the Hunter-Killers could hardly be described as cut out. The space that entered the fourth dimension was still the three-dimensional space of the greater universe. There was no break between them at any point; it had merely been stretched out of shape.
After the small spacecraft in the experiment entered the fourth dimension, everything inside remained normal. The scientists did not feel the fourth dimension. The space there was still the three-dimensional space of the greater universe.
After conducting several more, longer experiments, the scientists confirmed that the space was safe. Hu Yu immediately ordered the Deep Blue ships to move close together and all the crews of the 300,000 Hunter-Killers guarding them to evacuate aboard the Deep Blue ships. The remaining work could be left to AI; for such simple tasks, computers were far more reliable than humans.
Under the central computer's control, the 300,000 Hunter-Killers lined up one after another, forming a gigantic sphere more than 300 kilometers in diameter in the starry sky. Inside it were 300 Deep Blue ships and other specialized vessels, packed tightly together. Had they been in flight, such spacing would have been almost fatal. The Hunter-Killers activated their warp drives, and the enormous sphere gradually vanished from the three-dimensional greater universe. The fleet was safe.
"Chen Peng, the general and the Deep Blue ships are safe now. Let's prepare to withdraw too. I've already lost more than a thousand Hunter-Killers," Yang Fan said, connecting to Chen Peng through the four-dimensional network.
"All right. We'll stick to the original plan and split into two groups, then travel most of the way around a circle before returning to Alpha Centauri. We're about 400 light-years from Alpha Centauri here. The detour will make it roughly 700 to 800 light-years, and it'll take about thirty years. Be careful on the way. If you encounter any other civilizations, try not to get into a conflict. We're already beset on all sides, and the general is under too much pressure," Yang Fan replied.
"I hope those alien warships don't stay here too long. Otherwise, the general and the others will have to stay there longer."
"Let's go. The faster we leave, the less the general will have to worry. See you in thirty years."
"All right. Keep in touch."
With the four-dimensional space network, warships would never lose contact no matter how far apart they were. However, even two ships close together might have to relay their messages through a third ship, or more ships, tens or hundreds of light-years away in order to communicate.
Although the 300,000 Hunter-Killers had lost several thousand ships to the pursuing alien warships, they were still a massive force. They no longer tried to delay the alien warships and instead raced outward at full speed. As time passed, the distances between them grew ever greater, making the pursuit increasingly difficult. The aliens' kills fell from dozens a day to one a day, then one every few days, then one every few months, until they finally lost track of the Hunter-Killers altogether.
Although the number of alien warships later rose to more than a hundred, the Hunter-Killers were simply too scattered. Tracking a few 300-meter-long Hunter-Killers across a region of space several to dozens of light-years wide was a challenge even a star system-level civilization found insurmountable. After searching the starry sky for more than a decade, the alien warships finally sped off in the direction Daozi's Azure Ox spacecraft had taken.
Satellites disguised as warship debris or interstellar meteorites and concealed in the starry sky detected the alien ships. After confirming that they had completely departed, the 300,000 fleeing Hunter-Killers regrouped into two formations more than 700 light-years apart. They would continue their detour, passing Alpha Centauri from afar before turning back. It was an enormous loop.
The Deep Blue ships were still hiding in the four-dimensional space bubble. Their pursuers had only just left, so it was not yet time to return to the greater universe. Besides, this was an excellent opportunity to study the fourth dimension. Once they left, finding another space bubble left behind by the Insect Race would be difficult. This was an immense treasure Mr. Daozi had left the fleet, and they would not leave until they had had their fill. It did not matter if the fleet's development was delayed by decades or centuries. As long as they completely mastered this one technology of the fourth dimension, the fleet would at least be capable of standing up to a small star sector civilization, and might even be able to escape from a great star region civilization.
Still, no one believed they could master dimensional technology relying on this single four-dimensional space bubble alone. Mastering even part of it would be good enough. The fleet also had technological reserves from four and a half other civilizations, and this was the perfect time to analyze them in safety. By the time the fleet reached Alpha Centauri, it would at least have attained the early stage of a star system-level civilization, and perhaps even the middle stage.
The people aboard the Deep Blue ships felt no difference. There was very little work for the fleet now, and aside from maintaining the Hunter-Killers, there was almost nothing else to do. Everyone lived a very leisurely life. Fortunately, new technologies were being analyzed every day, and the people needed to learn them, as they would be of great use in the future. Their days were leisurely but fulfilling.
The busiest of all were, of course, Academician Zeng Zhaoyuan and a handful of the most outstanding space physicists. Over the years, their understanding of dimensions had risen several levels. They had also trained a large number of new talents in space physics. Space physics would be a major weapon for the fleet in the future, so it could never have too many experts. Besides, in the vast fleet, only a handful of people could truly be called pillars of the field. But training talent was a long-term undertaking that could not be rushed. The fleet's members had all undergone genetic modification and had lifespans of a million years. Scientists would no longer pass away one after another because of their limited lifespans, and as time went on, new scientists would only grow more numerous.
The first to reach Alpha Centauri were two engineering ships. They had been fortunate enough to escape the alien warships' pursuit and arrive ahead of the others. There were very few people aboard the engineering ships, however, only about a hundred in total. They had taken twenty years to reach Alpha Centauri, and the heavy responsibility of acting as pioneers fell to the two ships.
Alpha Centauri was a triple-star system. Two of its stars each had more than ten times the mass of the Sun, and each emitted over 20,000 times as much radiation. Those two stars alone produced more than 40,000 times the Sun's radiation combined. If Earth had been there, it would have been baked into vapor before long. The third star was somewhat better, but it too was a young, violent star. At its current rate, it would reach the end of its life in less than a few million years.
A triple-star system made up of three violent stars was bound to have an extremely harsh environment. Ordinary planets could not survive in such conditions at all. Moreover, the orbital paths in triple-star systems were extremely complex, and the eventual fate of most planets in them was to plunge headlong into a star and become part of it.
Alpha Centauri's triple-star system was relatively stable. The two massive stars formed a binary system, which in turn formed a composite binary system with the third, less massive star. In this configuration, the stars followed regular orbital paths and did not move chaotically.
Scientists had long ago used the transit method and gravitational lensing to calculate that Alpha Centauri's third star had two planets. The arrival of the engineering ships confirmed their calculations: the third star, the one with the smaller mass, did indeed have two planets. The two were similar in size, with masses about twice that of Earth, and both were rocky planets.
The two planets' orbits were extremely peculiar, and they probably would not remain in Alpha Centauri for very long. Even a stable triple-star system was stable only as far as its stars were concerned; for planets, it remained unstable. The gravitational pull on the planets changed constantly as the three stars moved along their orbits. As a result, they could not have nearly circular orbits like the planets in the Solar System. Their orbits were irregular, but could be accurately predicted with mathematical models.
By now, the orbits of both planets had shifted considerably toward the binary system formed by the two massive stars. Before long, the binary system might snatch them away. However, their survival in such a violent energy environment meant that their orbits kept them far from the stars. The closest distance between the two planets was only two astronomical units, but the closest point of their orbits to the third planet was still more than fifty astronomical units away. That closest distance would gradually shrink over time until they were snatched away by the binary system or plunged headlong into the third star.
For humanity, all of that lay in the distant future; it would not happen for hundreds of thousands of years. Now the planets would become human territory, contributing various resources to humanity's development.
Because the two planets' orbits changed, their temperatures also changed constantly. Neither rotated. Perhaps the pull of the three stars had stopped their rotation, or perhaps they were tidally locked. Preliminary calculations put their orbital periods at between roughly 450 and 480 years. That was ideal: the fleet could conduct all kinds of activities on their sunless sides in the future.
A low temperature of minus 200 degrees Celsius was nothing to the engineering ships. The temperature in the vacuum of space was dozens of degrees lower still. No signs of life could exist in such a harsh environment, and there would certainly be no water, atmosphere, or rotational magnetic field either. Nevertheless, as a precaution, the engineering ships deployed small robots from high orbit to collect and analyze samples. Only after confirming that the planet would cause humans no active harm did the ships land on its surface.
After surveying the planets, the two engineering ships chose the first planet, which was closer to the third star. In twenty years, it would move into a position between the third star and the other two. It would then be scorched by all three stars for more than 200 years, raising the surface temperature of the entire planet to over 600 degrees Celsius. For any civilized living being, that was hell.
Yet it was precisely this extreme environment that made it safer. No one would expect a civilization's fleet to be hidden in such harsh conditions.
The two engineering ships began work immediately after landing. Their first and most important task was to determine the mineral reserves across the planet. Since it was a rocky planet, its iron reserves were bound to be considerable. The fleet now had elemental decay and fusion machines, which could theoretically use decay and fusion on any element to obtain whatever elements the fleet wanted, while also producing enormous amounts of energy. But building a fleet by relying on those machines was essentially impossible.
Only scarce elements would be obtained through decay or fusion. Elements used in large quantities, such as iron and carbon, would still have to be mined directly from planets.
The engineering ships soon determined the distribution of minerals on the first planet and transmitted the information back to the Deep Blue Fleet through a four-dimensional channel. By then, the Deep Blue Fleet had left the four-dimensional space bubble under the escort of the 300,000 Hunter-Killers and was sailing toward Alpha Centauri. They would arrive in eighty years. Using the information sent back by the engineering ships, the fleet's scientists quickly drew up a development plan for Alpha Centauri.