Chapter 1,173 The Mysterious Coffin

ff37;u85c0f;8bf4;66f4;65b0;6700;5feb;5c0f;8bf4;9605;8bfb;7f51;As soon as the council finished speaking, it disappeared again in front of Sandora and me. This time it took several seconds before it reappeared. appeared, and my whole body was flashing non-stop. Seeing this, I couldn't help but feel a little worried: "What...are you okay?"

"It doesn't matter," the council still looked indifferent, "my data subject is placed on the planet, and the interference encountered by the extended body on the network will not affect the subject. The amount of data in the Yunad Aggregate is too huge, and we don't have With your advanced mass projection technology, if I want to appear at the far node of the network and be able to contact the physical world, I can only use this extremely demanding bandwidth and environment..." Flash, disappear, reappear, Parliament Then he said: "...extended body technology."

Coco Keener looked at his old partner who had recently reunited after a long absence: "Actually, you don't have to use an extension body to come here. If you use a regular projection, you can still see the scene."

"But I want to 'touch' that thing myself, and I want to know what kind of thing brought you such a disaster." The council smiled slightly and looked at Cocokina's uncertain face, "In contact with the material world, It’s the only happiness I have…”

Three seconds later, the parliament appeared in front of us again. She looked at Lin Xue sincerely: "Um...can you turn off the small device in your hand? Although you think it's okay, it is still very fragile to us. The Internet has a huge impact.”

I glanced at Miss Lin and found that she was using a data terminal to play StarCraft online, and she was playing online with Bubbles: I immediately knew what was going on with the abnormally frequent interference from just now, and at the same time I felt sorry for the parliament. deeply apologise.

At this moment, the rail car that relies on tractor beams to transport personnel between the space station and the large spacecraft also arrived at the end smoothly. We felt a slight vibration underneath our bodies, and then the porthole next to us opened, revealing the scene inside the spacecraft. .

A group of people came outside. There were already many staff here to respond, and most of them had their eyes more or less on Sandora and I. How should I put it? Although the exchanges between the Empire and the exiles are now becoming normalized, this cannot yet change the status quo that the Imperials are rare creatures in the eyes of the exiles. Our presence in front of them is indeed quite curious.

"Oh, it looks... such an ancient spaceship." Lin Xue raised her head and looked around, unable to help mumbling. According to what we know about the history of the exiles, this colonial giant ship should have been built when it was the exile fleet. It is an antique that is tens of thousands of years old. We have to admit that this is a very magnificent giant spaceship. If people on earth were to see it, they would probably be shocked by it, but it is undeniable that it is old and dilapidated. Severe traces of wear can be seen on the alloy floor of the ship's docking port. Although this special metal will never rust, years of erosion have also left them devastated. The lighting in the wide mooring port is very uneven, and many places are even dark. Local artificial gravity has a deflection of at least five degrees. It feels very uncomfortable, and the atmospheric circulation here seems to have completely stopped. The low air pressure is not like an environment prepared for living things. Most of the staff on site are wearing special fully enclosed work clothes: another small Some are probably due to special races and can survive in low pressure and oxygen-free environments.

"The Ankach series is the oldest colonial giant ship model. It was built without experience at the beginning. It has many design deficiencies. No one would have thought that its ecosystem would need to be maintained for so many years," Cocokina said. Floating in front of us to lead the way, although this spiritual creature also has humanoid limbs, he seems not used to walking, and is more like a ghost floating around. "In addition, we are not yet proficient in the technology of psionic energy. Ankakh 5 had several accidents, and its ecosystem was the worst among all giant ships. When it escaped, only one-sixth of the ship's refuge cabins could survive. But compared to Considering Ankah 6, which disappeared in the depths of the void during the Nether Energy Furnace rampage hundreds of years ago, it is actually quite lucky."

how to say. My biggest problem when communicating with these exiles is that I always end up in awkward situations from time to time. Even though the other party didn’t mean anything intentionally, I don’t have to take all the responsibility. But I am still embarrassed when I should be embarrassed. This can only be said to be a result of my personality - just like a real artistic youth, he can't help but use parallelism even when he curses...

The long axis of Ankakh No. 5 is more than 100 kilometers long, and the passage inside the ship is of course very complicated. The target warehouse is in the middle of the giant ship. It is definitely not possible to walk there. However, due to the failure of the transmission device in the ship , we can only go there by small shuttle. To pass through the gate in the surface area, you need to cross a large plain attached to the isolation bulkhead (this plain was originally supposed to be a residential and ecological area, but now it has become a dead place due to poisonous gas and pollution. You can only see through the portholes. to the abandoned urban buildings and the scorched earth, as well as some twisted plant remains), and then flew directly into the intricate pipe network cabin of the giant ship from a large crack in the secondary blockade wall that did not look like a normal design. Finally, after passing through a small town built near the cooling core that still had faint lights, we arrived at the warehouse where "that thing" was stored.

Along the way, I saw a starship that was more like a steaming wreckage of a spaceship than a colonial ship. The level of dilapidation of the stacked ecological zones, transportation networks, and concentrated living areas was shocking, and I couldn't help but feel sad. I dare to imagine how they survived in such an ecological environment during the last few hundred years of their exile. The most depressing thing is the big hole in the center of the secondary blockade wall. It is said that there was a leak of psionic energy there. Two material synthesis factories and a small residential area near the rift were instantly radiated into powdery crystalline matter. The remaining pollution has not been cleaned up until now, and the residents near the contaminated area at that time had nowhere to go. Going there, you can only risk your life and live in a shelter that is only separated by a wall from the deadly dust - these are all told by Cocokina on the way. He is very familiar with the accidents that have happened to every colonial ship in the Fifth Fleet. Palm.

I don’t know if it was the dilapidated scenes she saw along the way that touched Sandora. Her expression was not very good. When the shuttle arrived at its destination, she whispered: "Arjun, I'm a little bit An uneasy feeling.”

"Indeed, the situation of the Fifth Fleet is really..."

"No, I didn't mean that," Sandora's voice sounded in the spiritual connection. "It's for some other reason that makes me feel...uncomfortable. Maybe it's my intuition that something is going to happen."

I glanced at Sandora strangely, and then suddenly thought: As a person who has witnessed tens of millions of years of history (perhaps longer?) and has been exposed to events that are more touching than the exiles, there is almost no upper limit to the level of calmness. Queen of the Empire, could Sandora be so rude because she saw an abandoned ecological ship? Obviously impossible.

Just when I was about to ask further what was going on. But Ke Keina suddenly spoke: "That's the one in front."

Sandora waved her hand gently, indicating that there was no need to worry about her, and then she pulled me out of the shuttle.

What was in front of everyone was a large group of metal structures that had been severely deformed and damaged, with no material or function visible at all. It is roughly square in shape, with sides about ten meters long. It stood in front of us like a small building. Its surface was covered with twisted metal plates. Jagged fragments of parts were protruded from under the broken metal plates. All parts of it were completely black, but we didn't know where they were originally. The color turned into this later. I couldn't feel any noteworthy energy reaction inside it. Although there was a trace amount of radiation and secondary energy, it was not "alive". It looked like a mass of ordinary people. A scrap of metal salvaged from the battlefield. If there's anything that's eye-catching, it's that this lump of alloy is quite ugly.

"Um, you said... it's because you guys accidentally discovered this thing, and then the Merova people came over?"

I looked at Cocokina suspiciously, and suddenly felt that things were a bit funny: I originally thought I would see some treasure, such as the buzzing high-tech non-burnable garbage of the Empire, but I didn’t expect that what appeared in front of me was just a ten-meter A square piece of iron doesn't even have high-energy reactions inside it. And I observed the mechanical structures exposed under the damaged alloy shell and found that their design was extremely crude. Not to mention comparing with Imperial Technology. Even compared with the ships of the Fifth Fleet, they are not from the same era. Although my own professional knowledge is not very exquisite... okay, I admit it. My professional knowledge is just a bunch of stuff, but because I see a lot of high-tech gadgets that I don’t know how powerful they are, I still have some discernment in related fields. No matter how you look at the square wreckage in front of you, it is quite ancient and backward. Product - most of its internal circuits are connected with mechanical locks!

"History... oh, it's so long ago that it's impossible to tell." The eldest lady reached out and touched the shell of the thing, and immediately became speechless. "God knows when this was made. According to the normal course of history, it should have been long ago. It’s a disappearing thing.”

"It's just a guess now," Cocokina seemed to be shrugging, or maybe just waving his hands. "A statistician stumbled upon this incident. The unidentified object was first discovered outside the world barrier, When we were inspecting a faulty node, we found that it was stuck in the base of the guard station. Later, the maintenance team sent it to the research department to try to analyze its origin. As a result, a few days later... those Melova people Appeared. This unknown object was packed and sent to the spacecraft along with scientific research materials."

"It's hard to prove that the Merova people are attracted by this thing." I frowned.

"But they pursued the giant ship Ankakh 5 fiercely and used almost half of their troops to try to stop the ship. However, at the critical moment they seemed to be timid, as if they were afraid of damaging something," said Cocokina's three Both eyes lit up at the same time, showing his excitement, "So we have always suspected that something on Ankakh 5 caught their attention, so we started to organize manpower to check all the registered goods on Ankakh 5. Not even a single nail was missed, and finally we found the only thing whose origin we couldn't explain...the square."

Cocokina's description finally made Sandora and I pay attention. In this way, the intention of the Merova people's actions was too obvious. There was no doubt that they came for the cargo of Ankah No. 5, but just For such a block?

"Didn't you find any other suspicious items?" I looked at Cocokina's blurry figure with worry.

Cocokina spread his hands: "There is a list of all the goods transported by Ankah 5. Except for the unknown origin of this cube, the others are resources produced by us from our home planet in the past two hundred years. Those things are more It can't be the culprit that lured the Merova people here. And although this cube looks ordinary, it has a secret that we can't explain at all: it appears outside the world barrier, that is to say, in Before we discovered it, it had already crossed the void."

"But it doesn't have the structure to conduct void navigation." Sandora said with a frown. Her eyes fell on the twisted and broken shell of the cube, as well as the complex mechanical structure exposed from under the shell. "There is no engine, no order field shield generator, and the energy level is not enough... In this way, either, it is It was thrown into your world by a larger carrier ship, and then attracted the Merova people. Or, it was a part of a large spaceship that crashed in the void, and it came to you just by coincidence..."

Then they also attracted the Merova people. No matter how you look at it, the Fifth Fleet is seriously lying this time. So now there is one last question: What do those Merova people see in this cube?

I reached out and struck the metal casing of the cube, too hard. A small piece of severely corroded metal fragments fell directly. I picked up the fragments and pinched them. I found that their strength was probably the weakest among the interstellar alloys I had ever seen - I mean it and other interstellar alloys. If compared with the high-strength alloys produced by world civilizations, and compared with ordinary civilizations still trapped in their own universe, the technological content of this cube may be considered superb. After a simple judgment, I came to the conclusion: the material of the target object is just ordinary materials, and the technological level is hard to say, but it is definitely not comparable to the Empire, and it will not surpass those Merova people who have almost learned all their skills from the Empire. There is no special energy reaction inside. The possibility that there is a treasure hidden in the iron casing has been preliminarily ruled out. I turned my head and glanced at Shandora: "Do you want someone to take it apart on site and take a look? It's all broken like this. I guess there's no need to think about protection methods. The inside is probably a mess."

"I..." Sandora's reaction was strange. She had been staring at the cube with a thoughtful look on her face since just now. She seemed to be thinking about other things when she spoke, "I don't know very well... …But looking at it, I feel an inexplicable sense of familiarity…”

"Be careful when tearing it apart," when I wanted to ask Sandora further, Lin Xue suddenly spoke. "There seems to be something in here...let me take a look."

The eldest lady said. He stepped forward and pressed his hands on the surface of the block, a faint white light emitting from his eyes. Entering the prophet mode, I squeezed Sandora's hand a little worriedly, but suddenly found that Alleria's reaction on the other side was also a little wrong: like Sandora, she was staring at the square in a daze, behind her The wings swayed slightly unconsciously, and he was completely lost in thought.

"Kite? Kite?" I called to Alleria, "What's wrong with you?"

"Your Majesty..." The other party came back to his senses and his wings trembled slightly, "Ah, I'm sorry, I was lost in thought."

"Both you and Sandora reacted strangely," I frowned, "Is everything okay?"

"I don't know," Alleria let out a long breath to regain her usual calm demeanor, "I may have the same feeling as Her Majesty Sandora. Looking at this cube, I suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of intimacy... …Your Majesty, please don’t be deceived by the appearance of this cube. Maybe we need to treat this thing with caution. It seems that it attracts the Merova people here for a reason.”

At this time, the eldest lady had completed her scanning work and leaned over with a strange expression: "Wood, this is a coffin."

Sandora and I said "Ah" at the same time, and Lin Xue said again: "The coffin is either a tomb, I can't see more clearly. You know, I am a prophet, not an X-ray machine. Let the research center Come on, people, bring the most sophisticated dismantling equipment they can find, and be sure not to break the 'things' inside. There is a broken energy node at the core of this cube that needs special attention. In other parts of the cube, In this historical line, there have been more than a dozen disassembly failures caused by this energy knot alone."

I immediately contacted Shadow City and asked the research center to organize a group of the most skilled technicians to rush over immediately. Based on Lin Xue's suggestion, we decided to dismantle the mysterious cube right here to increase the success rate.

The Council and Cocokina knew that things were progressing and that we needed a quiet environment, so they ordered irrelevant personnel to evacuate the scene. Only the two of them stayed here with Sandora's consent. Soon, a team of experts from the Shadow City came to Ankach No. 5 with a full set of equipment. The leader of the team was actually an acquaintance: Victor or Tokwei or Ketowei or Kweto.

By the way, he is leading the dismantling work of the black shuttle. Currently, he has all the dismantling experts in Shadow City.

"Your Majesty, Mistress, Tocqueville is here to report!" The dark-skinned senior technician saluted me, Sandora, and Lin Xue, and then his eyes fell on the unknown cube. Sure enough, his reaction was the same as Sandora's just now. The reactions of La and Alleria were exactly the same: lost in thought.

"Your Majesty, what is this?" The senior technician was confused. "There is a strange sense of familiarity, as if I have seen it somewhere."

"This is a coffin," I breathed out, then quickly pointed at Lin Xue, "By the way, that's what she said."

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