245: Chapter 245 A Hundred Elite Soldiers Arrive, the Thirteenth Gate is Going to Eat Dead!
"Did you unlock a spaceship hangar?" General Shen asked on the other end.
Su Che held the communicator, standing in the corridor next to the fourth gate.
"Yes, it unlocked a dedicated hangar for interstellar scout ships."
"That's definitely good stuff."
"A Level 3 Civilization scout ship, with a standard complement of eighteen, specializes in all-domain detection of surrounding airspace, route reconnaissance, long-range early warning, and deep space environmental exploration."
He shifted his stance. "Let's put it this way: that Tayake Civilization sentry ship from before is blind compared to this thing. It's thousands of times better than our White Emperor and Mingdi Interceptor; it's generations ahead."
The reply on the other end came quickly.
"Alright, I'll handle the pilots. The best of the best: an aviation brigade, four flight squadrons, one hundred people."
"How long until they arrive?"
"Three days. Three days at the fastest."
Su Che noted this down and added.
"There's one more thing you need to keep in mind. For such a massive interstellar mothership, counting combat, operations, and support personnel, we'll likely need about two thousand more people later on."
"Understood. I will make preparations in advance and stockpile the personnel."
The communication ended.
The next morning.
Group Three assembled in front of the fifth gate, led by Friedman.
This senior professor from Heidelberg University in Germany had graying hair, was quite tall, and always stood perfectly straight.
Su Che inserted the data disk provided by the system.
After a short while, the data stream finished running, and a 3D projection of the Milky Way appeared on the gate panel, with forty-seven marked points scattered across different spiral arms.
The task required using the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center as an absolute reference to sort the forty-seven marked points by gravitational hierarchy and label the optimal jump route offset for each point.
Friedman took a glance and turned to wave at his team members.
Twenty people gathered around; some pulled out notebooks, others adjusted terminals.
Su Che stood by for a while and realized that this problem was right up an astrophysicist's alley.
Friedman and Borne Garcia split up to run the data, one handling the gravitational hierarchy and the other the route offsets, while Mark Harper performed cross-validation on the side.
Su Che couldn't help, so he arranged for someone to find a Kairos expert to confirm a few basic constants, then returned and handed the data to Friedman.
The entire morning, the people in Group Three spent calculating.
After lunch, Friedman entered the final results into the gate panel.
Forty-seven points, all correct.
The galactic projection on the gate panel shrank into a ribbon of light and sank into the gate.
The fifth gate opened.
The space behind the gate wasn't very large. In the center was a circular console with a holographic star map of the Milky Way floating above it, with dense star coordinates flickering on it.
Su Che walked to the console; the explanatory text on the panel had been translated into Chinese.
[Galactic Center Anchored Galactic Reference Navigation System]
Uses the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center as an absolute reference anchor, with built-in precise ephemeris and motion parameters for eighty-seven percent of known stars in the Milky Way.
Supports full-domain galactic navigation calibration, optimal jump route planning, dynamic gravity well avoidance, stellar activity early warning, and passive detection of anomalous celestial bodies.
Can simultaneously calibrate the 3D coordinates, velocity vectors, and attitude angles of the mothership and all auxiliary carrier vehicles.
Su Che stared at the holographic star map for a good while.
This was the fundamental core system for the mothership to achieve interstellar navigation; without it, Genesis would just be a lump of iron drifting in space.
Friedman stood behind him and muttered in English.
"Eighty-seven percent of the Milky Way's star data—how many years did the Kairos actually spend mapping it all out?"
Su Che didn't reply and left the navigation cabin.
The third day.
Group Four waited in front of the sixth gate, led by Patrick.
This quantum computing expert from Cambridge, UK, was a man of few words and extremely methodical in his work.
After the data disk was inserted, a huge matrix table appeared on the gate panel.
The horizontal axis represented physiological parameters of twelve different species, and the vertical axis represented thirty types of cabin environmental variables.
The requirement was to find the unique compatible solution in the matrix so that all species could maintain their optimal physiological state in the corresponding cabin environments.
Patrick turned and scanned his team members.
"Biological adaptation problems are not my strong suit."
An expert in life sciences from the team stood up. "I'll handle the physiological parameters side; you take care of the quantum state calculations for the environmental variables."
Patrick agreed, and the two split up to start working.
Group Four worked at it for the whole day and entered the compatible solution at dusk.
The matrix table lit up with a green light and sank into the gate panel.
The sixth gate opened.
The area behind the gate had a style completely different from all the previously unlocked areas.
The corridor was wider, the floor had a warm wood texture, and soft indirect lighting was embedded in the walls. On both sides were individual cabins, with numbers marked on the doorplates.
Su Che pushed open one of them.
It was a suite layout, complete with an independent office area, exclusive life support facilities, and secure communication interfaces. The bathroom, rest area, and small meeting space were all fully equipped.
The text on the instruction panel was very concise.
[Exclusive Living Area for High-Ranking Ship Personnel]
An independent living area originally designed for mothership officers, research heads, and diplomatic envoys, featuring an independent office area, exclusive life support facilities, and secure communication interfaces, completely separated from ordinary living cabins.
Su Che stood in the center of the suite and looked around; it was more than a grade better than the rest cabins they had lived in before.
He made a decision immediately.
"Kaila, you and I will live in this area."
Kaila replied from outside the door.
Su Che reorganized the accommodation arrangements.
"From now on, the mothership's research personnel will all be arranged to live in Area A, the pilots arriving the day after tomorrow will live in Area B, and logistics personnel will live in Area C."
"Area D is the largest, so keep it empty for now. As we unlock more areas later, we will definitely need more basic operations personnel and basic combat personnel for various positions."
Kaila noted down the arrangements and turned to move things.
The fourth day.
Group Five assembled in front of the seventh gate, led by Academician Zhong.
The old man was nearly eighty, but his back was much straighter than when he first boarded the ship.
The data disk was inserted, and a dense variant of the periodic table appeared on the gate panel.
It wasn't an ordinary periodic table; each cell was packed with quantum state parameters, energy level transition spectra, and crystal lattice structure models.
The requirement was to sort 128 types of materials by quantum coherence and label the optimal storage conditions for each material in a deep space environment.
Academician Zhong looked at it for a while and rubbed his hands together.
"Material science work, my old specialty."
He turned and pointed to a few people. "Materials Scientist Shi Changming, you handle the structural materials batch. Sato Kenta, functional materials are yours. Bai Chunyang, you take charge of the chemical engineering category."
The named experts each took their assignments and dispersed to work.
Group Five spent the better part of the day getting all the sorting and storage conditions done.
Academician Zhong personally entered the results into the gate panel; 128 materials, all correct.
The seventh gate opened.
Behind the gate was a huge 3D storage space, over a dozen meters high, with shelves extending from the floor to the ceiling.
Automated retrieval robots shuttled between the shelves, and the environmental control system hummed softly.
[Mothership General Supplies 3D Storage Area]
Originally used for the classified 3D storage of equipment parts, engineering consumables, scientific research equipment, and colonial supplies needed for long voyages, equipped with automated retrieval and environmental control systems.
Su Che took a glance and retreated. It wasn't needed for the time being.
The morning of the fifth day.
Kaila flew the shuttle to Earth, making five round trips to bring all one hundred pilots from Xishan Military Airport onto Genesis.
The team was led by Senior Colonel He, about forty-five or forty-six, with a crew cut and a back as straight as a javelin.
One hundred people stepped onto the mothership; none of them could move a muscle.
Su Che was waiting for them in the hangar.
Senior Colonel He walked over quickly and saluted. "Chief Engineer Su, Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang reporting with the team."
Su Che returned the salute and sized him up.
"Senior Colonel He, do you know Yang Yi and Zhao Yang?"
Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang swallowed hard. "We're in the same brigade. The twenty-four brothers who sacrificed themselves in the White Emperor were all brought up by me."
Su Che patted his shoulder and didn't mention it further.
"Come with me."
He led Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang and the one hundred pilots through the corridor to the scout ship hangar behind the fourth gate.
Eighteen interstellar scout ships were parked neatly in the docking bays. The streamlined hulls were entirely silver-gray, less than thirty meters long, and a size smaller than the Mingdi Interceptor.
Su Che pointed to one of them.
"A Level 3 Civilization scout ship. Don't let its size fool you; its detection range can cover the entire outer edge of the Solar System."
Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang stared at the eighteen scout ships, clenching his hands together and then letting go.
"Chief Engineer Su, this thing... can we fly it?"
"You can fly it, but you have to learn." Su Che waved at Kaila behind him.
"This is Kaila, an expert from the Kairos Civilization. She will bring a few Kairos experts to teach you. From basic operations to tactical reconnaissance, it's a full training package. Learn quickly."
Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang nodded heavily and turned to shout at the hundred pilots behind him.
"Did you all hear that? Learn it properly for me! If anyone dares to slack off, I'll kick his ass!"
The pilots stood at attention in unison.
Su Che pulled Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang aside and lowered his voice.
"You'll live in Area B. Kaila will take you there in a moment. Also, pick a few from your group who learn fast; I'll need them later."
Senior Colonel He Zhiqiang agreed readily.
Over the next week, Su Che followed the five groups to unlock in turns, maintaining a steady rhythm.
One gate a day, with no punishment mechanisms. The problems were difficult, but with the help of the Kairos experts, they all passed smoothly.
The eighth gate, Group One led by Ye Zhiqiu.
The problem was a set of gravitational field perturbation equations, requiring the solution of field strength boundary conditions for different cabins in independent gravity environments.
Ye Zhiqiu spent the whole day working with Shangguan Li and Roger Hamilton, solving it by dusk.
Behind the gate was the ship-wide zonal gravity precision control system, which could achieve stepless precision adjustment from 0.001 G to 100 G for a single cabin—not even in the same league as basic gravity adjustment.
Su Che stood at the console and casually adjusted the gravity parameters of an empty cabin nearby. A test sphere in that cabin floated up, hovering motionless in mid-air. The precision was truly terrifying.
The ninth gate, Group Two led by Su Wanxing.
The problem was an energy topology network optimization task. Su Wanxing and her team worked on it for a whole day, and Energy Expert Xiao Zhenbang provided quite a bit of experience in energy coordination on the side.
Behind the gate was the mothership's basic energy distribution and management center, which could achieve fine-grained energy diversion, overload protection, and emergency dispatching for the entire ship, as well as independent power supply or cutoff for single zones.
Energy Expert Xiao Zhenbang stood at the main console of the management center, his hands feeling around the panel.
"If we had this thing earlier, the energy distribution for the luan bird wouldn't have been so strapped for resources."
Su Che glanced at him. "Old Xiao, this thing will be under your management from now on."
Energy Expert Xiao Zhenbang paused for a beat, then agreed.
The tenth gate, Group Three led by Friedman.
The problem was a structural stress distribution deduction task.
Behind the gate was the mothership's heavy engineering maintenance workshop, equipped with ten-thousand-ton lifting equipment, atomic-level welding systems, and structural integrity detection arrays.
Qin Feng stood in front of the welding system, his eyes shining frighteningly bright.
"Atomic-level welding... I've spent my whole life on Earth doing special welding, and I've never even touched the edge of this stuff."
Su Che handed the maintenance workshop over to Qin Feng.
The eleventh gate, Group Four led by Patrick.
The problem posed was a fluid mechanics circulation equation task.
Behind the gate was the ship-borne closed-loop water purification and regeneration system, capable of 100% closed-loop regeneration of water resources for the entire ship, handling industrial wastewater, radiation-contaminated water, and water sources in extreme environments.
Su Che didn't even look. Water circulation is important, but there's nothing to see.
The twelfth gate, Group Five led by Academician Zhong.
The problem was a multi-dimensional sensor matrix calibration task. Jiang Zeyu contributed greatly to this unlocking; his background in algorithms saved Group Five a lot of time.
Behind the gate was the full-ship, full-domain multi-dimensional environmental monitoring system, monitoring radiation, microorganisms, harmful gases, and structural stress inside the ship, as well as cosmic rays, gravitational anomalies, and spatial fluctuations outside the ship.
Jiang Zeyu stood in front of the monitoring panel, with a screen full of real-time data streams scrolling down. He was muttering something, but Su Che didn't catch it.
The twelfth day.
Group Five rotated to Group One, led by Ye Zhiqiu.
The data disk was inserted, and the data stream finished running. The entire gate panel turned into a huge honeycomb structure, with dense hexagonal nodes arranged on it.
The colors in the honeycomb nodes were still changing slowly, and the "scent codes" embedded in each hexagonal cell were like some living creature breathing.
Ye Zhiqiu leaned in to look for a long time, then retreated.
"Chief Engineer Su, this is scent coding... our group can't solve this problem."
Su Che walked over and stood in front of the gate, looking at it carefully. Then he turned around, his expression a bit strange.
"Interstellar dark cuisine? This will kill people!"