8: Head to the construction base

In a corner of the asteroid belt, a small abandoned military outpost was floating quietly. Its mottled hull still barely showed traces of its former paint job, and the faded emblem spoke of a thousand years of vicissitudes.

It was unknown how many years ago it had last carried out a mission, but now, the last duty personnel had long since evacuated after destroying the core data.

Its original fate was to be torn apart by ion winds and turned into a pile of irregular space metal resources.

However, before that could happen, a group of uninvited guests found it, made some slight modifications to its external structure, restored a portion of its external functions, and used it as a small transit station on a smuggling route.

Today, a small fleet arrived here.

"Sector Z-2, five frigates requesting docking."

"Received, berth opened for you."

Four frigates converted from civilian starships, along with a G-8B "Wolf" frigate launched by The Corporation 17 years ago, slowly pulled into the dock, guided by several small red tugs.

On the starboard side of that "Wolf," where the identification emblem should have been painted, there were only a few sloppy scratches.

Inside the Bridge, Del watched the approaching port, turned to his first mate, and said, "Notify the buyer, we are in position."

"Yes."

In the cargo hold of the "Wolf," two DL-228 heavy plasma torpedoes lay quietly, like crouching tigers, waiting to unleash astonishing energy.

—————— At this moment, inside the Starport of Planet Three.

"Gate opened."

"Mechanical arms disconnected."

"Channel K-12 cleared."

"Channel safe, cleared for departure."

"Repeat,"

"Channel safe, cleared for departure."

Instructions from the guidance station sounded on the Bridge's communication console. About 20 minutes had passed since Xi Hai and his group boarded the ship.

Xu Ling had already lain down in the Warship's medical pod, beginning to receive customized treatment from the shipboard ai system.

As for Xu Chang, he had been arranged into a virtual reality Hibernation Pod to cram on space common knowledge.

Xi Hai glanced at the Clones captain Speer beside him and nodded slightly, "Set sail."

Speer bowed slightly, "Yes."

Immediately, he issued the order via the wireless neural induction device attached to the back of his neck.

The shipboard ai responded immediately, "Order received."

"Channel confirmed."

"Depart!"

The silver hull floated up slowly, and the EN-100 universal vector engines at the stern emitted a blue light, pushing the Warship toward the deep space outside the gate.

Just as the stern of the last FG300 floated out of the gate, the night lamp in Xi Hai's mind suddenly stirred, "Left the area 'Kelaifu City' connected to the planetary port."

"Welcome to 'Unknown Space Region'."

"Mission issued: Build a Pathfinder base."

"Failure penalty: None."

"Mission reward: proxima centauri coin * 300, Encrypted Technical Archive (Speed Version) * 1."

A mission had arrived. Build a Pathfinder base? Xi Hai already had this intention anyway.

Although the base inside the night lamp's own space was convenient, it was exactly like in the game in every aspect, with ship service limits and port population limits. He had already clicked auto-upgrade, but due to resources and time, it was currently only level 2.

The FG-300 production blueprint in there had already changed to 3/15 in the bottom right corner. A base built externally had absolutely no such restrictions; neither Warship service nor port capacity had a cap.

The problem was, where should this base be built? This star system undoubtedly had an owner. He certainly had no chance near those planets.

"If only there were a star map, sigh." Xi Hai rubbed his temples.

"Regional intelligence collection complete." Suddenly, the shipboard ai blurted out, and a star region structure map was projected in 3D onto the console in front of Xi Hai.

It marked all the various asteroids and small celestial bodies. It also included some of the military and transportation facilities in the star system.

Hey, isn't that a coincidence? Xi Hai leaned in, zoomed in on the star map, and carefully confirmed the locations of the space outposts and structures within each star system.

Then he opened the night lamp, "night lamp, based on the distribution of these space structures, can you calculate the degree of control the local forces have over this star system?"

"Calculating... According to big data model analysis, the local forces' degree of control over the current star system is estimated to be between 5% and 10%."

"That is, they have built a certain scale of ground and orbital structures on each planet, controlled the surrounding areas of each planet and important space structures, controlled several safe channels between celestial bodies, and have space structures of a certain scale at the setting stable points."

"If you could allow me to access the local network, I could provide you with a more accurate analysis."

Xi Hai rested his chin on his hand and thought for a moment. If it was really as the night lamp said, then with the star map scanned by the night lamp, wouldn't he be able to travel freely in this star system?

Come to think of it, a star system has a diameter of two to three light-years. For an interstellar regime to monitor every corner of this star system, that would be impossible... At least it would be impossible for the regime in this bizarre star system.

Hmm, the profit outweighs the risk, let's do it!

After carefully selecting, Xi Hai chose an area with relatively dense celestial bodies and clicked directly, "Let's build it here, depart."

The shipboard ai replied in a second, "Received."

"Calculating landing point."

"Landing point calculation complete."

"Depart!"

"Warp Drive Module activated."

A wave appeared in space, and after a slight distortion, the three FG300s disappeared right under the noses of the guidance station.

At this moment, inside the guidance station, "Wait, what?"

"Where are those three ships?"

The people who had just sent off the three FG300s were dumbfounded. How did they suddenly disappear? They couldn't be ghosts from space, could they!

Everyone had the same thought involuntarily. Suddenly, everyone felt goosebumps rise all over their bodies, and a chill seeped up from the soles of their feet, gradually crawling all over them.

After 40 minutes of travel...

"Exited warp state."

Arriving at the destination, the three FG300s exited warp, and before them was a large, misty asteroid cluster.

"night lamp, how should the base be built?"

"Just issue the order directly to the engineering ship."

Hearing this, Xi Hai opened his self-contained base and manufactured four X-8 small engineering ships; the resource port instantly reached its population cap. Using prefabricated modules to accelerate, after they all came off the line, Xi Hai directly chose to take them out on the spot.

A space rift opened, and four orange-yellow engineering ships sailed out, "Build Pathfinder base."

Xi Hai tried to issue orders to them through the night lamp, and then he saw those four X-8s flying toward the area he had selected earlier. After entering a hovering state, small engineering drones flew out and began the engineering method unique to the setting: printing out of thin air.

"night lamp, can all ships be contacted through you?"

"Yes, theoretically I can access all connected devices,"

"Among them, all ships in the setting system, whether built by the base in the space or the self-built base, carry quantum communication devices that contact me individually."

"That is to say, I can command the fleet?"

"At your service, Commander."

Xi Hai was silent, watching quietly as the base in front of him gradually took shape. The boundless universe seemed to open up to him, and his past fantasies were becoming reality.