Chapter 106: Magnetic Storm
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Just like a treasure hunting game, Xia Fei, who was searching through the ancient battlefield for the parts he needed, could not help but cheer every time he found something.
In truth, any residents with experience would not be as optimistic as Xia Fei. The shipwrecks did have many treasures awaiting discovery, but the dangers far outweighed the joy of the hunt. Terrifying electromagnetic storms could happen any time, and then there were the merciless pirates who could pop up anywhere and everywhere.
The cargo hold was now filled with various parts, all of which had been produced ages ago. They were not as modern or advanced as the parts equipped on the Lunar Eclipse, but at least, these parts would allow his warship to move and leave the Wild Star Region.
Xia Fei checked the condition of these parts in detail. Luckily, as space was in a vacuum, although these parts had spent thousands of years floating in space, they were as good as new.
“We are seven parts away from leaving this place!” said Xia Fei happily.
Phantom nodded indifferently. “Pick up the pace; I don’t wanna stay in this d*mned place for too long.”
Xia Fei smiled. “You’re a phantom. It doesn’t matter where you are. Plus, can’t you create a virtual space that fits your fancy?”
“It’s not the same.” Phantom shook his head solemnly. “There’s no smell of the sun in virtual spaces. I actually don’t like them at all.”
After doing some inventory, Xia Fei went back to the command deck and looked around on the map.
It had been over nine hours since he departed at Red Rock Base, and Xia Fei had finished scanning through all the yellow zones around it.
There were two choices: One would be to travel to yellow zones further away. To do this, he would need to vast-warp, able to cover greater distance in one go. Setting aside the huge time expenditure, he had to generate a large energy signature, which could expose him to pirates, making this quite the dangerous option.
Alternatively, he could try to enter a red zone four thousand lightyears away. Red zones were unstable areas or pirate hotspots, and this was also very dangerous.
There was still the third choice of heading back to Red Rock Base, which would mean he conceded defeat. Xia Fei did not even entertain this choice; he would never give up now that he was seven parts away from getting Lunar Eclipse to fly again.
After thinking on the captain’s seat for a while, Xia Fei decided to venture into a nearby red zone. The reasoning was simple; if both choices were equally as risky, why would he travel farther? Why not just travel to the closest point? Moreover, the energy signature from a four thousand lightyear warp was smaller than a vast-warp, meaning a smaller chance of being detected.
Xia Fei stood up at the control panel and prepared to initiate the warp. At this moment, a ray of silver light could be seen from the right window, and the red emergency lights started flashing, too.
Xia Fei was extremely alarmed.
He could see that a ball of silver lights gathering some ways away from the ship. The sight was incredibly dazzling, a sign that an electromagnetic storm was brewing.
This was the most famous natural phenomenon in the Wild Star Region, dubbed the Wrath of the Goddess of Destruction.
“Activate emergency systems; perform random warps immediately!” Xia Fei ordered quickly.
“Affirmative. Emergency systems activated, warping in fifteen seconds.”
An emergency wormhole opened in front of the ship, and the Amarr-executioner frigate traveled toward it at full speed.
The electromagnetic storm, which was brewing far away, suddenly exploded, traveling toward Xia Fei at impressive speeds like a huge cloud.
“Ten seconds till warp.
“Five seconds till warp.”
The electromagnetic storm was nearing, yet Xia Fei’s ship had only just started entering the wormhole.
The wormhole started closing after the ship entered it. At the same time, the electromagnetic storm swept over like a massive tidal wave.
Then, the wormhole started shaking like crazy.
The ship was also shaking with it.
Everything was shaking.
Xia Fei clenched his teeth as he held onto the control panel for dear life.
When the frigate finally started its warp sequence, it was no longer influenced by the crazy electromagnetic storm.
The electromagnetic storm was caused by the acceleration of the magnetic field due to some unknown reason, strengthening any radiation and polarising electromagnetic fields it massed through, generating an incredibly destructive EMP.
When caught in an electromagnetic storm, if lucky, only all the equipment on the ship might be destroyed, and if unlucky, the ones onboard might die right then and there, becoming specks of dust among the stars.
After letting out a long sigh, Xia Fei sat back down in his hair.
Thankfully, the emergency warp sequence was always ready, or else the unspeakable might have happened.
The destination of emergency warps like this was decided by the random number generator on the ship. Nobody knew where it would send Xia Fei.
Under these circumstances, warps usually would never exceed fifty thousand lightyears. However, he could not be sure of this as the wormhole was greatly affected by the electromagnetic storm when the warp started, meaning that the wormhole might have been twisted and distorted. It might even send Xia Fei millions of lightyears away.
When Xia Fei went through the wormhole opened by the insectoid ship, it was the twisting of the wormhole that had sent him into the Wild Star Region hundreds of thousands of lightyears away from where he was then.
Xia Fei lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. It was the only thing he could do at this point.
About two minutes later, the executioner frigate exited the wormhole.
Looking outside the window, Xia Fei’s heart, which had just returned to normal, started beating out of his chest again.
Before his sight was the wreckage of an entire combined fleet of warships, floating in this pitch-black space.
It was easy to tell if it was a combined fleet; one just had to look for the presence of a capital ship.
There were almost one thousand ships in the fleet in front of Xia Fei. More importantly, it had a carrier; a proper capital ship.
Furthermore, the ship was in perfect condition.
“Why would there be a capital ship in perfect condition among the wreckages of an entire fleet?” Xia Fei’s eyes were wide open, seemingly unable to believe what he was seeing.
Phantom let out a big gulp, heading toward the window to take in the massive carrier. “How is that ship seemingly unharmed?”
capital ships were different from other ships as they had a size and firepower that dramatically exceeded other ships. Take this Thanatos-class carrier from Gaia Corps for example. It weighed 15.75 million tonnes and was over one hundred and thirty million cubic meters in volume.
The other ships, such as the battlecruisers or frigates, were minuscule compared to it, so tiny they were not even worth mentioning.
The small ships were in a circle, with the capital ship at their center, as if they were arranged in a strategic defense formation.
Xia Fei stamped out his cigarette and started working on the captain’s console. Although he was completely taken aback by the completely intact capital ship, there was a process to everything.
The executioner-class frigate did not take too much of a hit from the storm. A few non-essential parts were damaged, and there was static coming outside the radar and communications systems; meaning, he could not communicate, nor could he confirm his position.
Xia Fei did another in-depth check and discovered that the radar system was not damaged at all, but it was malfunctioning for some reason.
Furrowing his brows, Xia Fei decided to ignore the malfunctioning radar for now. He neared the capital ship, scanning it to obtain its present status.
Scanning the capital ship took longer than appraising a normal warship, purely because of how much bigger it was and how many more parts it had.
The analysis report finally showed up on the screen after twenty minutes.
It took Xia Fei almost half an hour to look through the report, which was a few hundred pages long, but the doubts in his heart did not decrease in the slightest.
The report showed that the armor and its internals were all perfectly intact. If someone boarded the ship, they could even drive it away.
“That’s weird; why would the military leave a capital ship in perfect condition here? Evidently, the fleet is in pristine condition, so why are the ships around it so severely damaged?” muttered Phantom.
Xia Fei had also noticed everything that Phantom mentioned. Moreover, he noticed something even weirder. There were only Alliance ships around here, and there was not a single insectoid ship in sight.
There was no way a well-organized fleet, such as this one, could not down a single enemy ship. This did not make sense at all. Could it be that these ships were not destroyed by insectoids?
Clearing his thoughts, Xia Fei scanned the fleet with all the detectors he had on the ship. Scanning all parts of it with life detection, energy detection, infra-red detection…
“You wanna go look?” Phantom egged on Xia Fei.
“I’m not boarding the ship before finding out what happened here,” asserted Xia Fei.
“Just go take a look, are you not curious about learning what happened to this fleet? Don’t you want to find the answer?”
“Of course, I’m curious, but I still care about my life. You’re a phantom; why don’t you check it out yourself? You’ve been dead for a long time, after all,” said Xia Fei.
“Sigh…” Phantom pouted. “You think I don’t want to? I can’t be more than twenty meters away from the Moore Stone on your neck. I would be gone otherwise.”
At this moment, the reports from the various detection systems were done. Xia Fei narrowed his eyes as he read through them.
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