Chapter 98: Encountering Interstellar Raiders

Chapter 98: Encountering Interstellar Raiders

Picking up from the last chapter — Xuanze’s father had taken the ten crates of data and the two prisoners with him, telling me he needed to return to HD Star at once to report everything and prepare for war.

Silver Pearl and the rest of us saw Xuanze’s father, Mother Han, and their party out past the swamp, watching as they boarded their ship and lifted off for HD Star.

Silver Pearl had wanted very much to go along, but Mother Han asked her to stay behind. This place was, after all, the anchor point for Earth’s projections into the virtual Future World. Someone had to look after it.

Honestly, I wanted to go to HD Star myself — wanted to see their interstellar war firsthand. I hadn’t really put my cosmic abilities to the test yet, and I was itching to try them.

Dealing with the Tengshe Star team, I’d only faced ordinary surveyors — nothing close to real fighters. Beating them had been far too easy to feel satisfying. What I really wanted was a proper opponent, someone worth crossing swords with.

Silver Pearl caught the restless look on my face, came over, and straightened my collar.

“Itching for a fight, are you? It seems the cosmic energy you absorbed this time took remarkably well — the transformation was thorough, too. Xuanze and Hanming both came here to absorb it once, but neither of them got results like yours. Maybe your constitution simply suits this kind of energy better.”

Only then did Du Xiaoran dare look properly at Silver Pearl. Just as I’d told him, she was beautiful as an immortal, pure as ice and jade, gentle in every motion. And the tender way she looked at me sent him into such fits of envy that blood came streaming from his squirrel nose.

Silver Pearl, ever perceptive, spoke to me again, softer this time.

“Why don’t you make your way to Yaomei Star? It’s one of the eight outer satellites of HD Star, and it’s been suffering raids from Tengshe Star’s interstellar pirates lately. It’s the smallest of the eight, too — it has a few capable fighters, but nowhere near enough overall strength. Mostly it just holds the line; it can’t strike back. Most of its people are merchants working the interstellar docks there. Its real defense comes from the border-defense garrison HD Star has stationed on it. You could go there first and get a feel for your cosmic abilities.”

“Is Yaomei Star far?” I asked. “Can our Blue Planet’s virtual projection even reach that far?”

Silver Pearl smiled. “You shouldn’t think of the virtual world as a projection at all — a projection would have distance limits. But what Xuanze built isn’t a projection. It’s a mirror image, built on the relationship between entangled photon pairs. If quantum interaction can span twenty-one light-years, why would a little distance like this matter? Ordinary people from the Blue Planet who come to Bixian Star can’t step outside that circle — but that’s not a matter of distance. It’s a matter of ability.

“Yaomei Star lies to the east of Bixian Star, about a trillion kilometers off. You can catch a scheduled flight from here — there are regular routes running between all eight outer satellites. Or, if you’d rather use your own cosmic ability and teleport through the green jade disk’s cavity-sac, that works too, though it’s nowhere near as comfortable or reliable as a scheduled flight. Here — take this crystal token from Bixian Star. Show it to the border-defense garrison there. They’ll know exactly who you are.”

She drew out a crystal token, tucked it against my chest, and pressed a sweet kiss to my lips.

I smoothed a hand through her hair and said, “All right. Wait for me.”

Silver Pearl nodded.

Watching us say our goodbyes, Du Xiaoran — halfway through choking down secondhand romance — sprayed another ten drops of blood from his little squirrel nose.

I shot him a look, but he pretended not to notice.

I knew he had no intention of leaving. He wanted to stay right there in the Crystal Palace. Beautiful women aside, the place was packed with treasures — even the decorative pieces in the reception hall alone would be worth a fortune back on Earth. Of course, he also knew perfectly well he couldn’t take any of it with him. If he couldn’t even carry off minerals, these trinkets were even further out of reach. All he could really do was look. And besides — he was still stuck as a flying squirrel.

Silver Pearl told me that, for my sake, she’d be willing to gather some cosmic force of consciousness for Du Xiaoran.

I didn’t bother arguing with him further. Let him stay wherever he wanted. I said my goodbyes to Silver Pearl and headed straight for the scheduled flight from Bixian Star to Yaomei Star.

If Bixian Star was roughly Earth-sized, Yaomei Star was barely the size of the Moon — a vast difference between the two. But precisely because it was small, it also happened to sit closest to HD Star itself.

Being nearest to the main planet made Yaomei Star’s strategic value all the greater. According to Silver Pearl, its favorable position meant that countless merchant ships traveling between satellites, or making the interstellar crossing to HD Star, would pass through it to resupply or transfer. That, in turn, made it the single most frequent target for pirate raids — its garrison stretched thin and run ragged, the most beleaguered of all eight satellites.

Just as the spacecraft I rode was closing in on Yaomei Star, seven interstellar fighters burst suddenly out of the dark matter around us and came racing straight for the ship.

I probed them with cosmic force of consciousness, but I still couldn’t place their origin — the squadron’s markings were a chaotic jumble, nothing consistent. Still, hostility radiated off them, unmistakable.

Many of the other passengers had clearly lived through this kind of thing before; they were rigid with nerves. A humanoid mother and daughter sat trembling, hands shaking so hard their true forms slipped through — some kind of sheep-like creature, judging by the horns now poking through their hair in their distress.

Quietly, I drew out the chakra green jade disk Xuanze’s father had given me. On the way here, I’d already tested it with force of consciousness. He’d been right — chakra truly meant the meeting of body and mind. I could fuse the disk directly into my body, let it move with my will, use it either as an outer shield like the lotus-shaped green jade disk, or as a weapon to seize an enemy’s sea of consciousness. And in ordinary times, I could simply draw it back inside myself.

Sure enough, before long, the seven fighters had our ship pincered front and back, forcing us to a stop in open space not far from Yaomei Star. The pilot, having no wish to die today, docked obediently and let the raiders board.

I stayed in my seat, watching quietly to see how it would all play out.

Before long, seven or eight interstellar beastmen filed into the passenger cabin. Some wore black armor with short, rigid tails — Tengshe Star, unmistakably. Others had dog-like heads on human bodies, their origin a mystery to me. Clearly this was some ragtag band of raiders, mismatched in every way except for the electronic laser guns each of them carried.

I couldn’t tell if that black armor was skin or clothing. I found myself oddly tempted to go touch it and find out.

The black-armored leader of the group barked out,

“Open your seas of consciousness — we’re searching every one of you, one by one. Hand over your cosmic energy, your energy-condensed objects, your Zhuxian Pills, your HD Star coins — everything on you.”

I nearly laughed. For a crew armed to the teeth like this, their methods were painfully generic — even their script sounded recycled.

The creature that might have been a little lamb burst into frightened tears, and the sound instantly irritated the black-armored beastman, who raised his gun to fire.

That gave me the perfect chance to test the chakra green jade disk. I poured my force of consciousness into it and used it to seize their seas of consciousness, one after another. Then I turned my attention to the fighters outside the window and seized the pilots’ seas of consciousness too, one by one.

Once their seas of consciousness had been emptied, the raiders didn’t drop dead — they simply froze in place like people in a vegetative state, utterly still. Outside, their fighters drifted and collided like scattered leaves in the wind.

Most of the passengers had no idea what had happened and kept fumbling to hand over their belongings.

The pilot was the first to notice something was wrong, though he didn’t dare set off immediately. He came rushing out of the cockpit into the cabin, saw that every last raider had lost whatever animated them, and guessed some hidden expert had intervened. He called out,

“Is there an expert among the passengers who acted? If so, we’ll depart now!”

I slipped my force of consciousness into the little lamb’s mind and answered through it.

“I’m the one who seized the raiders’ seas of consciousness. They’re finished — harmless now. You can set off. Those fighters out there are spoils, by the way — mind bringing them along to Yaomei Star too?”

The pilot glanced at the lamb, uncertain but clearly not about to press the matter. “Then — my thanks, expert. I’ll have my copilot fly the fighters in as an escort back to Yaomei Star. We wouldn’t dream of claiming credit ourselves — if you’d share your name, we can report it properly to HD Star’s authorities, to have the merit recorded.”

Still speaking through the lamb, I said, “Go ahead and do that. Just record the merit under this creature’s name.”

Only then did the other passengers seem to register what was happening, all turning at once to stare at the bewildered, wide-eyed little lamb.

I withdrew my hold over its mind.

The lamb had no idea what had just occurred and stared around at everyone with wide, innocent eyes. Seeing itself the center of attention, it burst into tears all over again. Its mother snatched it up into her arms at once, not daring to move another inch.

The ship set off once more, the captured fighters trailing obediently behind, all bound together for Yaomei Star.

Having survived the ordeal, the passengers fell into hushed, excited conversation.

Nearly an hour later, as the ship neared Yaomei Star at last, the lamb’s mother finally worked up the courage to rise and address everyone.

“We are deeply grateful to the expert who saved my daughter and me. Had you not acted, those raiders surely would have taken our lives. To defeat this band and capture seven fighters besides — that is no small feat. Suyi and her daughter possess no such power, and we would never dare claim credit that isn’t ours. Once we reach Yaomei Star, please, benefactor, claim your reward yourself.”

I said nothing, staying quiet in my seat.

The reward meant nothing to me — worse, it would only draw unwanted attention and gossip.

Besides, these raiders had been weak, nothing but common bandits preying on a civilian ship, disorganized and unremarkable.

Once the ship touched down at the Yaomei Star base, the passengers filed off one by one, but the sheep-like mother and daughter lingered by the cabin door, scanning every face, searching for whoever had intervened.

Yaomei Star’s garrison had already received word from the pilot and sent a unit to wait on the landing pad.

When my turn came to disembark, the mother and daughter swept me with their force of consciousness several times. But I had already shielded my own sea of consciousness — they saw nothing through me at all.

I walked slowly down from the cabin. The garrison captain who’d come to receive the ship reached me first, having quickly sensed something unusual about me.

I wasn’t from HD Star — my presence, my very signature, was wrong to his senses.

He gave me a formal military salute and asked to see identification.

I handed him the crystal token Silver Pearl had given me. He read it with a pulse of consciousness, then saluted again at once.

“Survey Inspector Xuan is an administrative chief of HD Star. His guest is, by extension, one of our leaders as well. Please, come with me back to the garrison to rest.”

At that, the sheep-like mother and daughter rushed forward and dropped to their knees before me.

“To think our benefactor is a guest of HD Star’s own administrative chief! Such kindness can never be repaid. Please accept the humble bow of Suyi and her daughter.”

Only then did the garrison captain seem to recall the seven captured fighters. “So this was your work, sir. Forgive my earlier oversight — this merit will be recorded under your name.”

I only smiled. “I came here simply to test the cosmic abilities I’ve recently gained. I’m nothing more than a quantum-entanglement projection from the Blue Planet myself — merit is of no use to me. If it can be transferred, please record it instead under this mother and daughter’s names.”

The sheep-like pair had clearly never been treated with such regard in their lives. They stood frozen, unable to move, their horns rising once more under the strain of their nerves.