As he spoke, Academician Xiao led Hu Yu into a room sealed behind a heavy blast door. The moment he entered, an intense chill hit him, and the room was filled with freezing air. Inside a glass case, Hu Yu saw Academician Xiao's new creation.
A gigantic monster over ten meters long lay frozen in the glass case. It bore some resemblance to a Sand Python creature: it had an enormous python-like head, powerful limbs, and eight fleshy appendages on its back like an octopus's tentacles, with spikes and claws at their tips. At a glance, it was a gigantic biological war machine.
"Academician Xiao, what is this?" Hu Yu asked.
"A first-generation interstellar biological warrior."
"For landing operations?"
"No, it's capable of interstellar flight. On the surface, it looks like an organism, but it's actually an organism in its ultimate form. Inside it is a biological reactor, something we discovered in fifth-tier insects from the Solar System. Its speed and strength are far greater than a fifth-tier insect's, and its outer biological armor can withstand the ultra-low temperatures and complex radiation environment of space."
"Our current combat strength should be enough to deal with insects above the tenth tier. Isn't this of little use now?"
"No, I only said its speed and strength far exceed a fifth-tier insect's. Its overall capabilities should actually be around the tenth tier. That's only a rough guess, because we have very little information on the Insect Race. As for what it's useful for, that depends on the circumstances. This thing's bite and the spikes on its tentacles are exceptionally powerful. Even the high-strength tempered glass on our Hunter-Killers is nothing more than a snack to it. It still can't fly at warp, though. The twenty-fifth-tier insect Mr. Daozi mentioned was capable of warp flight, and we're continuing to study and improve its genes, especially the biological reactor."
"Can it bite through a warship's armor?" Hu Yu was growing interested.
"General, of course not. Forget our Hunter-Killers and the Stealth Killers that will soon enter service-it can't even bite through the high-strength alloys from the Earth era," Academician Xiao explained.
"Then it's not much use."
"Of course it's useful. No warship is completely sealed, at least not those of civilizations somewhat similar to humanity. We humans need glass to see the outside world, or sensors placed outside to gather information about it. There are also the exhaust ports on our conventional engines. These are all weak points on a warship, and biological warriors will find and attack them. Although they're unlikely to destroy a warship, they can easily make an enemy ship deaf and blind or leave it unable to move. Moreover, although they can't travel at warp, they can reach one-third the speed of light in a short time. In the spatially chaotic environment of a battlefield, that speed is terrifying. Add their vast, endless numbers, and they're enough to tip the scales of victory in a war."
"What!! Endless? Academician, creatures like these must have some intelligence, right? What if we fail to control them and they turn on us?"
"Yes, biological warriors are very easy to cultivate. We only need one Deep Blue or one underground city to produce tens of billions of embryos. Of course, they have to be isolated, mainly for safety. As for safety, first of all, these creatures don't reproduce naturally, and they won't have the ability to reproduce either, so we can fully control their numbers. Every biological warrior has to be cultivated as an embryo in machines in our factories before it can emerge. In three days, it grows to about two centimeters and is born. Then we feed it until it grows up. This one has only grown for two months. As long as we keep feeding it, it can grow hundreds of meters long. Of course, its current size is optimal. Growing too big doesn't offer many advantages. Second, this creature does indeed have considerable intelligence. Its core genes come from Sand Python creatures, combined with Insect Race genes we collected during the Earth era and the genes of several Earth creatures. Without controls, its intelligence wouldn't be much lower than a human's. After numerous experiments, we removed several sequences from the Sand Python creature genes and replaced them with canine genes. It has less cunning and sense of self, and more loyalty and obedience. In addition, our most important safety measure is this."
As he spoke, Academician Xiao took something resembling a soft-bodied crab out of a nearby container. It was covered in slippery slime and looked as disgusting as could be. Its eight limbs clung tightly to Academician Xiao's hand, gently stroking it, as though it were very affectionate with him.
"This is our last line of defense. We call it Little Crab. It's also a genetically engineered organism we created, a parasitic product and a very loyal one. It normally lives in a biological warrior's brain, exerting further influence over the warrior's thinking when it carries out orders and making it more loyal to us. If the biological warrior makes any unusual move that threatens humanity, it will use its eight legs to mash the warrior's brain. As long as we produce enough biological warriors, they can blockade almost an entire planetary system."
"Academician, we could simply implant a chip and put a small bomb in the biological warrior's brain. Wouldn't that be more reliable?"
"Of course a chip isn't as reliable as Little Crab. The energy inside a biological warrior far exceeds that of an ordinary animal. You can't think of it as an enhanced tiger or lion; it's a completely distinct new species. I know our materials technology is already quite advanced, but biological warriors have no service-life limit. They'll remain in use until the second generation is created. There's too great a chance of something going wrong with a tiny chip in the harsh environment of a biological warrior's brain. Little Crab won't have that problem. General, let me tell you a secret: Little Crab has some human genes. Subconsciously, it might consider itself part of humanity. But it has no intelligence, so we don't need to feel burdened by it."
"Academician Xiao, even if loyalty isn't a problem, it can't be easy to cultivate enough biological warriors to blockade a planetary system. At the very least, growing them would require the entire mass of several planets."
"Yes. Although they aren't picky about their food, they primarily need organic matter. Their capacity to absorb and convert it is especially strong: if they eat 1,000 grams of organic matter, they can gain 500 grams in weight. For an organism at the end of the food chain, that conversion rate is already exceptionally high. I also discussed it with Academician Zeng. At present, the fleet doesn't have much food to spare, and our reserves would last less than two hundred years. Large-scale cultivation of these biological warriors isn't very feasible yet, but cultivating ten or twenty million is no problem. When the time comes, we'll load them into Stealth Killers and use drugs to keep them dormant. Once a war breaks out, they can be deployed into the combat zone at any time. They'll automatically seek out and attack targets, or follow our orders and coordinate attacks with the warships. After the fighting ends, they can be recovered and reused."
"In that case, let's build a biological legion. At least they're far easier to produce than Stealth Killers. I'll have the base speed up organic matter production and release part of our strategic reserves so you can start cultivating embryos. Produce a hundred million small ones first, and we'll gradually raise them once we have enough food."
"General, these things can only ever be a supplementary product. They can't be used as our main force. Although the Insect Race can dominate half the Milky Way, I don't believe human biotechnology can reach that level. I suspect the Insect Race isn't merely a biological product. I'm not ashamed to say that this biological warrior already represents the very peak of our current biotechnology. Even if you gave us another ten thousand years, it wouldn't evolve much further. Living creatures are living creatures, after all; they can't compete with weapons of steel. We established that when we were researching biotechnology. Much of the biotechnology we're accumulating now is intended for a future confrontation with the Insect Race. In wars against other civilizations, biotechnology can only play a supporting role."
"I understand that, Academician Xiao. What do you mean when you say the Insect Race isn't a biological product?"
"I can understand living creatures surviving in outer space and using energy to power interstellar flight. But I don't believe they could occupy half the Milky Way through sheer numbers alone. No matter how powerful they are, how could they withstand attacks from the civilizations of the entire Milky Way without something special about them? Leaving everything else aside, the explosion of any star is a force no living creature could withstand. Mr. Daozi said that a single twenty-fifth-tier insect could send even the fleet of a small star sector civilization fleeing in panic. It's hard to imagine what environment and power could create an individual creature that shouldn't exist. So I suspect these high-tier insects aren't simple organisms. There must be some secret behind them that no one in the entire Milky Way knows, and that secret must come from the legendary Abyss."
"Speaking of the Abyss, what exactly is it? That Destroyer mentioned it before, and Mr. Daozi clearly knew something about it later, but they both seemed terrified at the mention of it and refused to reveal even a little more information. It's strange."
"Let's take things as they come. The Abyss is still beyond our reach for now. Once our Stealth Killer fleet is complete, we should have the strength of a star system-level civilization. At least we won't have any trouble protecting ourselves. Then we can find a habitable planet and gradually develop and grow stronger."
The slow bird had to start early, and the poor had to work harder. The wandering fleet was a vagrant both slow and poor. If it wanted a prosperous life, it had to work hard. Everywhere in the underground city, people were busy and machines roared. Fortunately, after obtaining the Sand Python Civilization's technology, they had completely mastered the technology behind element decay machines and fusion machines. These machines not only supplied the fleet with various scarce elements, but also provided it with a constant stream of energy. That energy was delivered throughout the underground city, eventually becoming Stealth Killer components, oxygen, water, food, and all manner of everyday necessities.
Energy was the foundation of the fleet. Whether for the residents' clothing, food, housing, and transportation or for maintaining the fleet, energy was indispensable. From relying solely on helium fusion at the beginning to the decay and fusion of most elements and matter-antimatter annihilation now, the fleet had come to have energy in abundance. That abundance meant a higher standard of living for the residents.
After a busy day on the production lines, people could return home, enjoy a hot bath, and eat the various fruits and vegetables grown by the fleet, along with synthesized meat products. The dismantling of the Hunter-Killers supplied much of the steel needed for the Stealth Killers. One Hunter-Killer had a volume equivalent to ten Stealth Killers. In fact, nearly a third of a Hunter-Killer's front section consisted of steel structures for protection, and the steel from one Hunter-Killer was enough to build twenty Stealth Killers. The 600,000 Hunter-Killers amounted to 12 million Stealth Killers, just enough to ease the initial shortage in steel production.
Watching the number of Stealth Killers on the surface grow day by day, everyone was filled with pride. Stealth Killers now covered more than 200,000 square kilometers of the first planet. Like the Hunter-Killers, they were painted pitch-black. They stood in neat rows on the surface of the first planet, where temperatures exceeded 600 degrees, filling the entire planet with a menacing air. With their newfound strength, they no longer needed to hide the Stealth Killers beneath the planet's soil.
In just eighteen years, twenty million Stealth Killers had been completed, two years ahead of schedule. People grew more enthusiastic about their work with each passing day. After drifting through space for hundreds of years, they seemed to long even more for the feeling of wandering among the stars. After all, an underground city was not a place humans liked, and the world they could see from the fleet was much broader. The sooner they finished building the fleet, the sooner they could leave. Whatever the future held, they had to have hope. Hu Yu, however, hoped even more to find everyone a habitable planet, so they could put an end to their anxious wandering.
The fleet had now grown powerful. Even if they encountered another star system-level civilization, Hu Yu believed that as long as they did not provoke it, no such civilization would take the initiative to wage war. Mutual destruction was an outcome no normal person wanted to see. After the fleet set sail in some time, it would search for a habitable planet where people could settle down, then gradually transform planets in the surrounding star systems for colonial development. That was what a civilization ought to be. No matter how powerful a fleet civilization became, it was still rootless duckweed, unable to withstand any blow.
What no one knew at the time was that a silver, diamond-shaped spacecraft only a little over 200 meters long had been hiding in the flames of Alpha Centauri's third star for more than two years. Motionless, it watched the fleet's every move, like a venomous snake concealed in the grass watching the prey before it, ready to strike a fatal blow at any moment.
In the end, however, it did not attack. It turned around and flew toward Tau Ceti at more than 5,000 times the speed of light. Tau Ceti was only 500 light-years from Alpha Centauri, and at that speed, it arrived in a little over a month. On the scale of the universe, a month passed in the blink of an eye.
"Where is Ma Meng?" the being aboard the silver diamond-shaped spacecraft sent a message.
"Lord Patrol, Ma Meng greets you."