The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

1834, Xilu people

"Silu Empire? Never heard of it at all." Shepard crossed his arms and looked at this unfamiliar symbol in confusion.

The scientist continued: "Well, the database is full of military information, which is not very helpful in understanding their civilization."

Then, the scientist called up a string of incomprehensible words and said: "But what I care about more is this thing...Muggal-Muggal..."

"What??" Shepard was extremely confused and repeated this very strange word, "Mangjia-Mangjia?"

"I don't know what this is..." the scientist said, "but this strange word is mentioned repeatedly in their communications. It seems to be an infectious disease. Along with this word are epidemic prevention, isolation, and infection. Wait for the word... According to their communications, the main mission of the three cruisers is to prevent the infection of Manga-Mangga."

Shepard frowned and said, "I just killed a few of their robots, and they need to stop that Manga-Mangga infection?"

"There may be some relationship between this, but this is what we need to understand further." The scientist said, "In addition, I think this Xilu Empire should be very exclusive. On the main engine of the cruiser that we crashed , the command sequence we find the most is to discover and destroy. In other words, they remain hostile to all outsiders outside their own civilization."

He Ru said in a deep voice: "It seems to be the second situation. They are facing another threat... um, infectious disease?"

Shepard touched his chin and said, "How do I feel...their response seems to be the same as facing the T-Virus?"

"What?" He Ru was surprised.

"Don't you think? This kind of method that is completely unreasonable and without any communication, and just adopts extermination measures as soon as there is any clue, isn't it the same as many cities and countries recorded in the literature when they faced the T virus?" Shepard Said: "I remember that in the database documents, there was an incident in Raccoon Town. This is a very typical situation."

He Ru thought deeply, "The Mangjia-Mangjia infectious disease they are talking about looks very serious."

"Actually, if you go by what these documents say, it's not very serious." Ashley Williams said: "You see, all their prevention strategies for Manga-Mangga are all outposts outside the country. . This shows that the virus has not spread to their country."

"Were there any autopsies on the found remains of the people from the Xilu Empire?" Shepard turned around and asked.

"The dissection is already underway. Because the dissection is in a fully enclosed environment, we can only observe it through surveillance." The scientist said, calling up a set of video images.

In the picture, several biologists are performing autopsies on dozens of corpses. Because the battleship they were traveling on was either smashed into pieces or blown into fireballs, all of these corpses were in dismembered and torn pieces. The biologists are trying to piece together several complete bodies and then study them.

The scientist said: "The corpses we have found so far show that the Xilu people should have evolved from reptiles. If we want to compare, they are somewhat similar to the ancient creatures 'velociraptors' that once appeared on the Dawn Planet. They have flexible forelimbs. Strong hind limbs and long tails. In addition, two of the corpses are basically similar, but the body shape is quite different, and the evolutionary process should also have different types... We initially judge that this should be a Xilu man of females and males.”

Shepard looked at the aliens on the dissection table who had green and brown skin, dense scales and tough outer skin, and a pair of beak-like chitin cuticles at their mouths and asked: "What are the differences between males and females?" Such a big difference?"

"It's impossible to tell at the moment because there are not enough samples. There are only a few corpses with some complete limbs, and the rest were basically blown into rotten flesh." The scientist shrugged, "In addition, the Xilu people have a very sensitive sense of smell. They A red tentacle grows in their nasal cavities, through which they can sense smells thousands of times stronger than ordinary humans. Similarly, this super sense of smell and nasal tentacles are not found in female individuals."

He Ru said: "Okay, actually I don't care what they look like. Now that we have been attacked, the possibility of a battle next is higher, and I need more information."

The scientist said: "I don't have any here. The only thing I can say is that their weapon systems are basically lasers and missiles, and there are no blaster cannons and turbolaser cannons based on explosive gas. In addition, the energy transmission of the spacecraft The system...well, is very strange, but we have to wait for the conclusion of Hasek and the others. But for now, we can also judge that they and the Milky Way have completely different technological development directions."

He Ru nodded and said, "I don't know what's going on with Hasek. They haven't sent a single message in the past few days."

Shepard glanced at him and said: "You actually expect an 'engineer' (Huragok) to take the initiative to come to you and give you a reply? Don't worry, I estimate that Husak has dismantled and reassembled the wreckage. Times."

"Ah, you reminded me. It's time to go take a look. Those 'engineers', once they have a machine in front of them, they can play with it until next year." He Ru suddenly realized.

He hurriedly left the bridge with Shepard and his team, went to the rail transit and headed towards the engineering laboratory in the middle of the battleship.

The Endless-class super aircraft carrier is too big. From the bridge at the front of the battleship to the middle of the battleship, even in a straight line, the distance is close to 3 kilometers. Even by rail transportation, it took almost three minutes.

Because the engineering laboratory occupies a huge area, it is located in the upper middle of the Eternal super aircraft carrier. The next floor is the ecological square. At worst, the purpose of this design is that even if it explodes during an experiment, it will only blow up a square.

Here, the mechanical parts disassembled from the three cruisers and the wreckage of the outpost on the asteroid are all studied here.

As soon as I walked into the engineering laboratory, I heard a very violent explosion and the sound of electricity coming from inside. Then a scientist wearing goggles quickly ran out and said to He Ru and Shepard: "General He! Captain! The commotion just now was caused by Hasek trying to reconstruct the energy system of the three battleships. It's nothing too big. In danger, please come in."

Shepard and others walked in and saw countless mechanical fragments and wreckage placed in the extremely wide testing site. There are the engines and reactors of the spaceship, some turrets, and various unknown small parts, almost piled up into a mountain.

But what is even more surprising is that there are three strange creatures working in front of this rubbish mountain that is tens of meters high.

These three creatures were floating in the air like jellyfish. They are about 1.7 to 2 meters tall, and have a huge air sac on their back, which should be the organ structure that keeps them floating. In front of them, there are four tentacles, two long and two short, which look very flexible. Above the body structure, there are two red tentacles, which seem to be a little different from the four tentacles. They should be sensing organs.

At this moment, these three creatures are busy around a huge reactor. The four tentacles in front of their bodies are swinging flexibly, and they are skillfully manipulating various instruments and equipment, but they are still methodical, even more skillful than humans.

They are the Huragok, a race from the world of "Halo". They have a gentle personality and are almost non-aggressive, and have no desire to hit anyone with their soft tentacles unless they are cornered.

In addition, 'engineers' love any kind of machinery. As long as they have machinery in hand, they will almost ignore all the surrounding environment and devote themselves wholeheartedly to the analysis and research and development of machinery. Moreover, they have long lifespans, extremely developed brains, strong curiosity, and mechanical talents like geniuses.

Two years ago, one year after the establishment of the Galactic Empire, Tang Xiao, the Grand Duke of Dawn, made the decision to awaken and start cultivating the 'engineer' race, allowing them to join the Principality's Engineering Department. But it's obvious that these 'engineers' are very interested in the Endless-class super aircraft carrier. When they are in the base, they can keep playing in the engine room and mechanical compartment inside the aircraft carrier.

According to the conversation, they were actually very interested in the Forerunner technology in the Infinity-class super aircraft carrier's energy system.

At this time, one of the 'engineers' was using his tentacles to pull out a strange corpse from the reactor device in front of him. This corpse should be of another unknown race, whose name cannot be named at all.

Seeing these corpses, Lieutenant General He Ru looked a little unhappy. He turned around and said loudly: "What happened? Were these samples not processed when they were sent for inspection? Why did you let these corpses appear in the laboratory!? What if contamination occurs? !”

No wonder he was angry. He had just learned from the data that the Xilu people were guarding against an infectious disease. As a result, the staff did not carefully examine the remains, which led to the possibility that the virus-contaminated corpses had contaminated the laboratory.

At this time, one of the 'engineers' turned around and waved his four tentacles flexibly, as if gesturing in a sign language. At the same time, the air bag on his back contracted violently, making a sound like a bellows.

The scientist who came over just now was obviously able to understand the sign language of the 'engineer' and said: "Hasek said that these corpses are inside the reactor and exist as part of the reactor."

"Inside the reactor? Are they still using these organisms to generate electricity?" Shepard said.

At this time, an 'engineer' in the middle floated over and came to He Ru. He turned around and quickly output an article on the host next to him. He was the Hasek the scientist just mentioned.

Shepard's eyes were sharp. She saw these 'engineers' growing countless tiny cilia from the tips of their four tentacles at that moment. One cilia was responsible for one button. In just one minute, they had already output one A two thousand word description.

It would be great if a certain lens had this speed...

'Engineers' do not have perfect language skills, so they basically rely on sign language to communicate with other races, or input directly into the host to be read directly.

While Shepard was checking the report, Hasek seemed to be very smart. He flexibly pulled out a cigarette from the cigarette box next to him, took out a lighter and lit a cigarette for Lieutenant General He Ru.

When they saw someone coming, the other two 'engineers' also stopped working, took a piece of chocolate cake from the table next to them, rolled it up piece by piece with their flexible tentacles, and put it into their mouths. They seemed to be very happy to eat it. got up.

Shepard looked at the brief report written by Hasek, "Hasek said that these creatures are part of the reactor. The Xilu people use a strange technology to make the bodies of these creatures generate huge energy, as battleships Driven by it. However, according to calculations, the efficiency of this reactor is actually not high, and there is a big gap compared with the nuclear fusion sublight speed engines we currently use widely."

"The energy in these living creatures can support the navigation of a cruiser?" Shepard felt unbelievable when he saw this.

Hasek gestured and said that this was also a very strange place for him, so he just conducted some experiments to get the reactor to run, but an explosion occurred.

"But they came through the hyperspace engine." He Ru said.

Hasek continued to gesture quickly. The hyperspace engine technology of the Xilu people is not much different from the one we use. This is in sharp contrast to their completely different sub-light engine technology. Therefore, it is believed that the Xilu people have had technical input at least in terms of hyperspace navigation. I just don’t know who the input party is.

After some more understanding, Shepard concluded: "So, the Xilu Empire is an extremely exclusive empire with a centralized government. Their people evolved from reptiles, some similar to lizards or dinosaurs. They have Two partially similar but very different individuals are presumed to be a female and a male."

She paused and then continued: "They use bioenergy as a conventional energy source, and the energy output is lower than our commonly used cold nuclear fusion engines. In addition, their hyperspace engine technology is suspected to be imported from the outside world. The last and most important thing is The key point is that the Siru people are suffering from a serious infectious disease, which they call Manga-Mangga."

Lieutenant General He Ru thought for a moment and asked Shepard, "Do you have any judgment? Captain Shepard."

Shepard nodded and said: "At this point, peaceful coexistence is unlikely. We can consider taking a preemptive strike and immediately launch a landing operation after finding the opponent's core planet to destroy their regime. Next, we can learn from their mouths Got more information about the unknown star field."