Imperfections Chapter 39

When the monitor screen blacked out, sharp gravitational alarms reverberated in mech Beijing. Jingheng Lin's heart pounded fiercely. Then he realized that it was not those strange monsters in the base that scared the surveillance camera to blacking out, but because he had gone too far, and the weak intranet signals were finally unsustainable.

"We're affected by gravitation, and we're accelerating towards the known planet as Sodo," Zhanlu said, "Please note that the escape velocity of Sodo is 65.8 km/s, which belongs to a high-gravity planet. Sir, I suggest that the accelerator be opened immediately. Activate or not？"

"No," Jingheng Lin still stared at the black screen. After a moment of silence, he said,"Report the coordinate and gravitational fluctuations, how much are we deviating from the original channel now?"

Right now, they were pa.s.sing through an unmarked zone, which was close to the edge of the Eighth Galaxy. In theory, it was still in the IU's territory. Ironically, however, for the past hundreds of thousands of years, the most active explorers and mapping surveyors in this galaxy were a bunch of black-market smugglers.

Smugglers mapping those navigation channel charts were just for survival. It was obvious that they wouldn't do some extra exploration. Only those safe routes were marked on the underground channel charts, no one knew what would happen if there was a deviation from those routes, what would they encounter, or what was the furthest transfer distance. There were so many blanks waiting for someone to explore them.

Zhanlu gave him the coordinate range immediately: "It is impossible to estimate the angle for our deviation, Sir. I think we have already gone too far in the other direction. What are you searching for?"

The alarms in the mech went quicker, almost close to hysteria.

However, in such a critical moment, Jingheng Lin just opened the playback of the monitor - Bixing Lu, who was acting like he was taking pictures in a tourist resort, jumping back in front of him. That young man's eyebrows were stretched wide, his eyes were clear, his face carefree.

Indulging in a pretty face even at such a dangerous place, even the AI couldn't stand it anymore. Zhanlu reminded him: "Sir, the gravitation is increasing."

"Yeah," Jingheng Lin's gaze did not leave the screen, answering absently, "Approaching the asteroid belt 'Desert', right?"

"Desert" was a stable asteroid belt between Sodo and Eighth Galaxy, containing millions of asteroids which diameters varied from only human height to hundreds of kilometers.

Though this asteroid belt was relatively stable, those asteroids inside were not. They harm each other, collide with each other, and formed families with each other -- a constant cycle of birth and death. What's more, inside the asteroid belt, there were full of uncountable cemeteries of comets. Ghost-like sleeping comets could be woken up by the gravity change anytime, roaring across the dull Eighth Galaxy with their long tails like a phoenix.

The "Desert" asteroid belt was different from other asteroid belts which were made of thin materials. Due to its special astronomical environment, it was very dangerous. It was also known as "Desert of Death"-- a forbidden place for interstellar travelers.

Zhanlu's voice seemed to be a bit distorted along with the mad alarms of mech Beijing,:" Sir, I have to remind you, that the place ahead is very dangerous. Repeat. Very dangerous. The small mech Beijing does not have the material capability to pa.s.s through 'Desert', you have to ..."

Jingheng Lin ignored him, setting the defensive net to maximum. Tiny star dust began to gather together and surrounded the mech. Then, the defense net suddenly appeared with the first impact alarm - a small stone hit the mech.

"Sir, this is ..."

"Locate the nearby transfer point." Jingheng Lin interrupted him.

Zhanlu was forced to execute his master's order, meanwhile, he could not help but say: "There were no records of transfer points around this place."

Before he finished, a missile of mech Beijing was suddenly pushed into the orbit. Jingheng Lin fired with no hesitation. The missile collided directly with a group of planetesimals ahead. They scattered like chessboard pieces, wildly crashing into each other, producing a glimmer of visible light between those collisions, like the light of the ecliptic of the Solar System in the ancient legends. Deadly debris surged towards the mech Beijing.

The orbit adjustments of Beijing were extraordinarily flexible, Jingheng Lin avoided the oncoming stone again and again by his unimaginable precise control - this mech was even more flexible than his body.

"Sir, your behavior is quite unstable ..." Zhanlu's voice stopped suddenly; a huge stone scratched the tail of mech Beijing at a high speed. The whole fuselage shook a little bit, the highly sensitive little mech Beijing began to scream. However, before this collision could actually happen, Zhanlu had detected the magnetic field of a transfer point, and Jingheng Lin activated the jump immediately.

The transfer distance was very short, the target coordinate was less than half of the standard sailing day. It was all over within almost a blink of an eye.

Those thick and dangerous planetesimals suddenly disappeared. Repulsed by the large magnetic field at the transfer point, a vacuum zone with a diameter of about ten kilometers was formed here, like a peaceful eye of a typhoon.

Mech Beijing finally shut its mouth, only the echoes of those screams that made people's ears ache were still left. Zhanlu said: "Transfer is a success."

Jingheng put mech Beijing on the orbit where the transfer point was located, remaining relatively stationary, flying into the field of this strange transfer point.

"Reading the transfer point code. The number is ...," Zhanlu paused strangely, "A word?"

"What?"

"The code of this transfer point is 'surprise'."

An illegal code.

Among the IU's transfer network, every transfer point had its own code, formed by six letters and three numbers. The code contained information like the construction time, location, civil use, maximum carrying capacity and carrying distance of a transfer point. There was a set of fixed rule of naming. Usually, even those fringe people would follow this rule when they set a private point, except that a "*" would be added at the end of it.

As a transfer point located in an asteroid belt, considering either its rationality or its code, its existence was like a joke,

The corners of Jingheng Lin's eye bent a little bit, showing a sign of smile, but quickly disappeared. The protective gas inside mech which hadn't been able to be released was regathered. He sighed, leaning back against the soft chair. His eye looked across the fluorescent gra.s.s above his head. Then through the mental net of the mech, as far as the eyes could reach, there were thick nebulae all around, like layers after layers of a foggy coc.o.o.n, which was extremely hard to observe.

It was just like an invisible backdoor, opening to the most dangerous place.

"Sir," Zhanlu said after a moment of silence, , "the field construction of the transfer point is exactly same as the IU's. It was inferred to have been set up between 100 to 150 years ago, but I'm unable to find any data."

"Your data had been deleted - when he was under house arrest, they were going to check your database." Jingheng Lin kept his gaze, saying gently," I'm not sure if he did this just to be on the safe side. Or he'd already known something's wrong in the IU."