Chapter 436: New Peril_1

Hao Ying was incredibly busy, needing to tally the types of workers among the survivors, coordinate the initial construction personnel, survey the foundation for the first base, arrange for hibernation, and so forth.

With the assistance of Galaxy III, a lot of Hao Ying's workload had been reduced.

However, Hao Ying was short on staff, and many of the skilled officials brought for the reclamation, from Reclamation Office Director Steven Virgil Wian to ordinary clerical workers, were still missing, their fate unknown.

The personnel at Hao Ying's disposal were all from the Wallfacer Office, adept at macroscopic national management, but not particularly skilled in civil and productive tasks.

There were numerous issues to attend to all at once, and oftentimes they had to seek work experience from the Solar System's Governing Council.

Jiang Yu was well-versed in management, and while his subordinates were frantically busy, he found himself with more leisure, often taking walks on the icy surface.

One day when Cao Yang saw Jiang Yu donning his spacesuit, he knew he was about to go out again.

Noticing Cao Yang's gaze, Jiang Yu invited him, "Care to join me for a walk?"

Cao Yang gladly accepted, "Sure."

Most of his staff officers had been reassigned to assist Hao Ying, and with no military actions underway, he too had some free time.

The explosion from Operation Peak Return had blown a crater several kilometers in diameter.

To facilitate traffic between the Command Ship and the outside, Cao Yang had the soldiers install a simple anti-gravity elevator using the available resources.

The structure of the elevator was straightforward: its main body was a large metal plate with an anti-gravity engine installed underneath.

At the top and bottom of the ice, there were laser emitters.

The main body of the elevator traveled up and down using the lasers as its tracks.

At the top of the ice, there was also a structure similar to a small dock, to facilitate the loading and unloading of personnel or materials from the elevator.

Upon reaching the surface of this planet, all that met the eye was a white desert, with an occasional breeze lifting a fine layer of frost.

Above them hung a constant star about the size of a pigeon's egg, its only function being to prevent this world from darkness.

This world felt so familiar yet so foreign, somewhat reminiscent of the Chaotic Era in the "Three-Body" game.

Jiang Yu stamped his feet, asking Cao Yang, "You might find it weird that I always like to head outside, right?"

Because the gravitational force was greater than Earth's, the snow on this planet was much firmer, and due to the cold surface, it was frozen solid. Jiang Yu stomped twice but only left shallow footprints.

Cao Yang smiled and said, "Maybe it's just too stuffy inside the Command Ship."

Jiang Yu shook his head, "When I was in school, I never dreamt that one day I'd stand on a planet in another star system, see a different sun, witness a different snowy plain,

"and in the future, experience a different summer."

This answer made Cao Yang pause for a moment, often forgetting that Jiang Yu was a person from the Common Era.

Because Jiang Yu's ideas were always so progressive, except for smoking, there was hardly anything about him that felt outdated.

Jiang Yu sighed, "It's only when looking back that we can see the grand feats of humanity; we actually have the capacity for interstellar migration now."

Cao Yang laughed, "It's just that the first round of migration wasn't very successful."

The two men shared a smile, but in the next second, the smiles vanished from their faces.

They both saw a black dot in the distance, and it was moving.

Jiang Yu adjusted the telescope system on his helmet and clearly saw that the black dot was about the same size as J195. The top was an isosceles triangle, and the bottom was a rectangle, resembling a small black house made of building blocks.

As Jiang Yu followed the "small house" down, when he saw that it was suspended above the ground with a gap in between, he immediately went on high alert—the "small house" was definitely not a creature from this planet.

Cao Yang, who was beside him, had already drawn his gun. While keeping his eyes on the "small house," he contacted Ai La in the command center, asking her to divert the near-earth orbit detectors to guide the target for J195 at any time.

And ordered J195 to take off immediately for an aerial strike.

The "small house" seemed to have also "seen" Jiang Yu and Cao Yang, as it stopped and stayed motionless where it was.

After a standoff of more than ten seconds, the "small house" suddenly toppled over and sped away.

While in pursuit, Cao Yang ordered, "Attack the fast-moving black object! Quick, quick, quick!"

He and Jiang Yu ran a few steps, only to realize that the "small house" was moving too fast to be chased on foot.

After several seconds, the first J195 took off, heading straight for the "small house." Soon, a second J195 set off to support it.

Jiang Yu and Cao Yang used their privileges to tap into the perspectives of the two J195s.

The first J195 had begun striking at the target, with its plasma guns tailing the "small house," having already gained a decisive advantage. Once the second J195 arrived, they would be able to complete the encirclement.

After seeing the details of the target, Cao Yang commanded the two J195s, "Use the air compression cannon, allowed to injure but not to destroy."

The air compression cannon would cause a temporary paralysis of the target, generally not inflicting devastating damage.

At that moment, the "small house" suddenly exploded!

...

The "little black room" was the official name given to the suddenly appeared black target.

After investigating the debris of the "little black room," Jiang Yu spontaneously called an emergency meeting.

Hao Ying, Xing Yuanbin, and others were already picking a location for the base and had no time to return, so they attended the meeting in the form of holographic images.

Cao Yang reported on the debris analysis of the little black room, "First, the little black room self-detonated; it was not destroyed by an attack.

"The precision of the instruments on the command ship is limited, allowing only a simple analysis. The material composing the little black room is made up of some metal alloys, mixed with some crystals.

"The technology of this material roughly reached the level of Seamless Technology but also has clear differences from humanity's Seamless Technology.

"Especially those crystals; so far, we have been unable to determine what substance they are, only that we have never encountered anything like it before."

The so-called Seamless Technology is a level of microscopic smelting technology developed from the study of the Black Square.

This level of material is still notably inferior to the shell of the Black Square but has almost reached the standard of The Waterdrop's surface.

Jiang Yu once captured an injured The Waterdrop, and through reverse-engineering, essentially mastered the technology of materials based on the strong force interaction.

After comparing the technologies of the Black Cuboid People and the Trisolarans, the Solar System State chose to follow the path of the Black Cuboid People.

Because the strong force interaction material technology of the Trisolarans required a continuous force field to be maintained.

Seamless Technology materials, although not as durable and hard as strong force interaction materials, benefit from being less costly, relatively simple to produce, and not requiring force field maintenance.

To manufacture the little black room, an advanced industrial system must be in place for support, and no such highly intelligent life has been discovered on this planet yet.

So there is only one possible origin of this little black room: it was left by enemies!