The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 312: Wreckage (2)

In the vast and dead space, electromagnetic wave signals were transmitted again and again, but the scarred transport ship was still floating quietly in the planet's orbit without any response.

The dim light of the red dwarf star illuminated the numerous scars on the hull, making this man-made object that once traversed the stars now as inconspicuous as an ordinary asteroid. The body of the Reconnaissance Star Scorpion was dragging a blazing plasma tail flame, passing by like a comet, forming a sharp contrast.

A modified detector structure popped out from the electromagnetic catapult structure on the side of the reconnaissance star scorpion and flew straight towards the Ezki transport ship. Several small electric rocket engines ejected weak ion streams to help it stabilize its posture and adjust its angle.

The structure of these detectors is still based on the stealth detectors that have been used as early as the fission era. They are centered on the space bacterial carpet structure and the supporting integrated autotrophic synthesis system, and are equipped with electric plate column organs and electric rocket propulsion, with attitude adjustment and short-distance navigation capabilities.

However, the speed of the Reconnaissance Star Scorpion itself and its electromagnetic acceleration structure provide a relatively fast initial velocity, allowing it to attach to the hull of the target ship. It can even adjust its posture and change its trajectory during this period to choose a better attachment location.

The fungal mat structure at the front end of the detector began to deform, slowly attached to a broken shell, and quickly began to extend its roots, slowly eroding the solid metal shell and continuing to take root inward.

The design of the Ezki battleship is to concentrate all the equipment and living space that require human operation in a core cabin, and only carry the life support system in this cabin.

Transport ships are also somewhat different due to their different uses. They have more compartments equipped with life support systems in order to transport more supplies that need to be stored in an environment with life support systems.

But the special thing is that after the roots growing in the vacuum environment extended into the interior of the ship, they found that at least in the cabin in this area, there was no oxygen-containing air for carbon-based organisms to breathe and other necessary conditions for normal life.

The roots continued to go deeper, and under the action of the comprehensive autotrophic synthesis system, several small space-grade creatures used for exploration in battleships that looked similar to marine workers but were equipped with electric rocket engines were produced.

After exploring these space workers whose size and structure were designed to be suitable for traveling inside the Ezki battleship, Lin Yi could basically confirm that there was a high probability that there were no living people in this transport ship.

The entire transport ship is now basically just an empty shell. Inside the ship, both the cargo hold for storing various supplies and the storage hold for storing fusion fuel have basically been moved out.

Of course, it wasn't that clean - some less important structures, such as most of the planet's combat weapons, were still stuffed intact in the cabin. It seemed that after the transport ship was damaged, the remaining warships could no longer accommodate so much cargo, and had to abandon some of it.

The space worker moved between the cabins, heading towards the position equivalent to the bridge of a surface ship, trying to see if there was any equipment that recorded everything that the transport ship had encountered before.

But soon, Lin Yi felt that there was probably no need for that - in nearby star systems, other reconnaissance star scorpions once again discovered some traces.

This star system is directly connected to the one where the wreckage was found before, and in a circle of asteroid belts in this star system, the reconnaissance star scorpion found two more severely damaged wreckages, and the outlines showed that they belonged to the Ezki escort ship. Compared with the transport ship wreckage, the most serious damage was concentrated on the nozzle at the stern, and the damage in other parts was not enough to be called destructive. The serious damage of the two warship wreckages was all over the body, and some of them were even shattered, and the internal components below were disintegrated together.

It is still the same old operation, using radio waves to confirm whether there are living people on the ship who can communicate. If not, they will board the ship, confirm the status of the wreckage in detail, and obtain more information.

As expected, there were indeed no living people on the wreckage with whom they could communicate. After several rounds of radio signals went unanswered, the reconnaissance star scorpion flew past the wreckage and dropped several detector structures.

It was still the same old operation. He easily emerged from the hull of the ship as a space worker for exploration, started up the light thrusters he carried, passed through the passage inside the ship, and began to check the conditions of these warships along the way.

Entering the core cabin with the life support system, what appeared before Lin Yi's eyes was an astonishing scene - in the cabin with the same weightless environment, there was a corpse of an Ezki floating!

The fusion reactor had long since stopped functioning, and the life support system was also no longer functioning, but the entire sealed core module environment was still filled with gas, so the corpse remained intact to a certain extent.

There was an obvious blood hole where the corpse's brain was, and the back half of the cabin wall was covered with dried blood. The size of the blood hole roughly matched the caliber of the lethal bullet of the Ezki standard electromagnetic gun.

Apparently in order to prevent serious damage to the bulkhead, the initial velocity of the launch was not high, but it was enough to kill - as long as it was a creature with a complex brain, the brain must be its weak point, even more deadly than the heart.

Two pairs of improved and more flexible chelicerae slowly picked up the opponent's corpse, turned it over, and examined the wound. At the same time, fungal spores were also sent into the corpse for detailed analysis.

The familiar brain-computer interface appeared in the senses, which was also affected by the kinetic energy of the bullet and severely damaged, but the general outline could still be vaguely seen. There might be a special biochip installed inside, but even if there was, it had now dissolved without leaving any trace.

There were a lot of corpses piled up in other cabins nearby. After inspection, it was found that all of them had brain-computer interface structures - at this point, the fate of this fleet was basically certain.

It is very likely that the experience will be similar to that of the Fifth Exploration Fleet heading towards Earth. The long-dormant traitor will rebel in an instant, causing a civil war in the fleet. However, without Lin Yi's intervention this time, the battle will inevitably be more intense.

The final result is what Lin Yi is seeing now. After winning, one side abandons the warship wreckage and evacuates, sailing to the current location of the transport ship wreckage, then abandons the transport ship that is completely unable to sail and continues to move.

But the good news is that according to the emptying of the living supplies in the transport ship, it can be inferred that the winner should be the living party. This also means that Lin Yi's trip was not in vain, and the remnants of the exploration fleet should still be alive and have fled to other unknown directions in deep space.

(End of this chapter)