250: Chapter 250: A desperate gamble in the interstellar piloting simulator; two thousand elites board the ship!

"No! Stop!"

Before Keira's voice had even faded, the right wing of the shuttle grazed the hangar isolation pillar.

The piercing sound of metal grinding filled the entire cockpit. Su Che's forearm muscles tightened in a counter-reaction, and the ship shuddered to a halt half a meter in front of the isolation pillar.

Inertia threw him forward, and the seatbelt dug into his shoulders.

Keira's hand was already pressed against the emergency brake, her blue knuckles showing no tremor.

"Release the muscle signal. Let go slowly."

Su Che complied, relaxing his forearms bit by bit, and the shuttle settled steadily back into its docking bay.

He looked down at his hands; his knuckles were white, and his palms were drenched in sweat.

"I almost tore the hangar apart."

"Your neural response is 0.3 orders of magnitude faster than an ordinary person's."

Keira unbuckled her seatbelt. "But the muscle contraction for the roll command is still too large. The Level 3 Civilization control system will amplify your intent threefold."

"Understood. We'll continue tomorrow."

Su Che exited the cockpit and stretched his stiff neck.

Three days later.

Su Che's shuttle flight training entered its third day. He could now control the roll and pitch within the margin of error, but the landing exercises were still inconsistent.

During these three days, Lin Waner had organized the one hundred logistics personnel smoothly. Jiang Yingxue was even more efficient.

Su Che gave her the encrypted communication frequencies for General Shen Wangchuan and Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang, tasking her with monitoring the progress of three projects: the construction of the Su Family Village interstellar village, the construction of the Dyson Cloud, and the third-generation luan bird Dry Dock at the lunar base.

The three projects had just started, so there wasn't much substantial progress, but the coordination processes were up and running.

Qin Lan and Gao Jian had finished planning the security patrol routes for the unlocked areas, working in shifts to ensure twenty-four-hour coverage.

On the evening of the third day, just as Su Che climbed down from the shuttle, his communicator rang. It was Keira's voice.

"Chief, the Fifth Team has finished unlocking the twentieth door."

Su Che was stunned. Three days? Previously, each door took at most a day and a half. This door took three days?

He hurried to the twentieth door.

Academician Zhong was standing at the entrance. Beside him were the twenty members of the Fifth Team, all with bloodshot eyes. Materials Scientist Shi Changming was leaning against the wall, and Sato Kenta was squatting on the ground, flipping through documents.

"Academician Zhong, was this problem that tough?"

Academician Zhong's expression was one of helplessness.

"There were seventy-two interstellar material molecular bond energy matching problems. Each one required cross-verifying at least three types of operating parameters. Keira helped confirm over a dozen basic constants, but there were some things even she wasn't sure about."

Su Che looked at Keira.

"My specialty isn't in this field. I never encountered some of these bond energy parameters back on Kairos," Keira answered truthfully.

Su Che didn't ask any more questions and pushed the door open to take a look.

Behind the door was a massive docking bay with a ceiling height of fifteen meters and one hundred independent parking bays arranged neatly.

A spaceship was parked in each bay, each of a different model.

There were engineering maintenance boats, with sturdy hulls and mechanical arms and welding modules attached to the front.

There were planetary landing craft with heat shields and buffer supports installed at the bottom. There were supply transport commuter boats with spacious cargo holds and side-opening door designs.

There were also emergency rescue boats, orange-red in color with conspicuous medical markings.

[Carrier-based Engineering and Service Boat Docking Bay]

One hundred various types of auxiliary and logistics spaceships, with supporting maintenance stations for the hulls.

Su Che scanned the area. One hundred ships. Adding the eighteen scout ships unlocked from the fourth door, the number of carrier-based boats on the mothership had reached one hundred and eighteen.

With one hundred pilots who hadn't even fully mastered the scout ships yet, who was going to fly these one hundred service boats?

He shook his head. He couldn't rush. Senior Colonel He and his group had been learning from the Kairos experts for over half a month and had only just gotten the hang of the scout ships. If he brought more people up, Keira wouldn't be able to teach them all by herself.

Su Che turned to leave.

"Chief." Keira called out to him.

"The First Team has already reached the twenty-first door. I have initiated the unlocking process for them."

Su Che's footsteps paused.

"Another punishment mechanism?"

Keira nodded and pointed to the content on the door panel.

Su Che walked over and read it word for word.

[Simulated Emergency Situation Flight Verification.]

[Teleport one carbon-based lifeform into the flight simulator to complete all emergency situation modules.]

[Pilot selection method: Random assignment. Scope: All carbon-based lifeforms currently on the mothership.]

[Simulation failure criteria: Death of the carbon-based lifeform inside the cockpit. Death is irreversible.]

Su Che's heart sank. Random assignment? There were over three hundred people on the mothership, and Keira was the only one who knew how to fly a spaceship. The others? They didn't even understand the startup sequence. Death is irreversible. This wasn't a simulation; this was gambling with lives.

Below the door panel, a line of red numbers began to count down. [Random assignment countdown: 10... 9... 8...]

Su Che scanned the surroundings. Ye Zhiqiu and the twenty members of the First Team were all there, and the people from Patrick's Fourth Team hadn't left yet. Adding the logistics and security personnel, there were forty or fifty people standing in the corridor. Who would be chosen?

Keira? That would be the ideal result, but such incredible luck was hard to come by. Himself? Su Che's hand clenched involuntarily. He had only been learning the shuttle for a few days and still couldn't control the landing.

[7... 6... 5...]

"System, is there any way to interfere with the random result?" Su Che asked in his consciousness space.

[No. Random assignment is executed by the mothership's underlying rules and cannot be interfered with.]

[4... 3... 2...]

Su Che's heart leaped into his throat. [1... Assignment complete.]

In the center of the door panel, a name appeared. Lu Zheng.

Su Che recognized the name. He was one of the five key trainees reported by Senior Colonel He, a flight squad leader, and one of the most experienced among the one hundred pilots. But no matter how much experience he had, that was experience with Earth aircraft. A Level 3 Civilization flight simulator?

A blue light shot out from the door panel, scanned the corridor, and precisely locked onto a figure standing in the direction of the hangar.

Lu Zheng had just finished his scout ship training and hadn't had time to change his clothes. His whole body was enveloped in blue light, and the floor beneath his feet turned into a transparent transport platform.

"What's going on?" Lu Zheng instinctively tried to break free, but the blue light remained immovable.

"Lu Zheng!" Su Che shouted toward him. "Don't move! You've been chosen. Enter the simulator and complete the emergency situation flight module. If you fail, you die!"

Lu Zheng froze. He glanced at Su Che; there was no hesitation, no fear, just a straightening of his uniform collar.

"Understood."

The blue light retracted, and Lu Zheng's figure vanished inside the door panel. The surface of the door panel turned into a huge transparent screen, projecting the real-time interior view of the flight simulator.

Everyone gathered around. Inside the simulator, Lu Zheng sat in the pilot's seat, facing a complete Level 3 Civilization warship control console.

A holographic projection unfolded, with a three-dimensional situational map floating in mid-air and dense streams of data scrolling along the edges. Lu Zheng's hands hovered above the control panel, motionless. He was observing.

Su Che stared at the screen, his palms drenched in sweat.

[Module 1: Gravitational Anomaly Evasion.]

The starry sky in the holographic projection suddenly distorted. An invisible gravitational source struck from the right, forcibly pulling the warship's heading off course.

Lu Zheng's right hand slammed onto the panel, and the ship banked sharply to the left. The movement was too large; the ship's deflection angle exceeded sixty degrees, and alarms blared. Lu Zheng immediately corrected in the opposite direction, his left hand tracing an arc on the touch panel, and the ship leveled out.

The gravitational source changed direction again, pressing in from directly ahead. Lu Zheng didn't turn hard again; he pulled the ship's pitch angle to its limit and sliced past the edge of the gravitational source. The entire process took less than ten seconds.

Outside the screen, someone let out a long sigh of relief.

[Module 1 Passed.]

[Module 2: Asteroid Belt Blind Navigation.]

The holographic projection switched. The field of view was filled with dense debris, varying in size and speed, with no navigation signals whatsoever.

Lu Zheng's eyes scanned the holographic map rapidly, his right hand inputting commands continuously on the panel, and the ship began a serpentine maneuver.

A giant rock with a diameter greater than the ship's width rushed out from the left. Almost simultaneously, Lu Zheng's left hand pushed down on the pitch stick, and the ship grazed past the bottom of the giant rock. The gap was less than two meters.

Ye Zhiqiu's fingers dug into his own arm.

Another swarm of debris surged in. Lu Zheng no longer dodged; he rolled the ship ninety degrees and flew sideways through the gap between two giant rocks.

"What the hell kind of reaction speed is that..." someone behind Patrick muttered.

[Module 2 Passed.]

[Module 3: Damaged Hull Single-Engine Landing.]

The holographic projection changed to the surface of a planet. Simulated sparks erupted from the ship's right wing, the right engine died, and the attitude control failed.

Lu Zheng's hands operated on the panel simultaneously, cranking the left engine output to maximum, and firing the attitude thrusters alternately, forcibly stabilizing the out-of-control ship.

The altitude was dropping: five hundred meters, four hundred meters, three hundred meters. Lu Zheng didn't slow down; he was looking for a landing spot.

The surface was full of rugged rocks; there wasn't a single flat patch of ground to be found. Two hundred meters.

Lu Zheng suddenly pulled the nose of the ship up, using the thrust of the remaining engine to let the tail of the ship land first. The moment it touched the ground, he shut off the engine. The ship bounced twice on the ground, slid for over thirty meters, and came to a stop.

[Module 3 Passed.]

Next came the fourth, fifth, and sixth modules. Each one was trickier and more dangerous than the last. Lu Zheng's forehead was covered in sweat, and his uniform was soaked through, but his hands hadn't trembled once.

When the sixth module ended, Su Che heard someone counting in a low voice nearby. "One last module left."

[Module 7: Multiple System Failure Emergency Control.]

In the holographic projection, the ship simultaneously lost three core systems: navigation, communication, and attitude control, leaving only one main engine and the manual control panel.

Lu Zheng's breathing rate clearly accelerated. Without navigation, he could only judge his orientation visually. Without attitude control, he could only use the difference in engine thrust to adjust the ship's heading.

The outline of a space station appeared in the holographic projection, requiring a manual docking while all systems were down.

Lu Zheng stared at the space station for three seconds. Then he did one thing: he locked the engine output at a constant value, used the thrust vector fine-tuning on the manual control panel, and let the ship glide in a straight line toward the docking port at a fixed speed and angle.

No corrections, no deceleration, just a straight line. Either it would align, or it would crash.

The ship approached the space station: ten meters, five meters, three meters. The moment the docking port clicked into the front of the ship, Lu Zheng shut off the engine.

"Click." A soft sound came from inside the simulator.

[All modules passed.]

The screen on the door panel dimmed for a second, then erupted in green light. The simulator door opened. When Lu Zheng walked out, his legs were a bit weak, but he stood very straight.

The corridor exploded in cheers. The people from Ye Zhiqiu's First Team rushed up and surrounded Lu Zheng; some patted his shoulders, others grabbed his arms.

"Well done!"

"That was awesome, brother!"

Academician Zhong shouted from the back, "Toss him up!" A few scientists actually went to lift him. With their old arms and legs—four people lifting his legs, three lifting his arms—they shouted one, two, three, and simply couldn't lift him.

Lu Zheng was a big guy, one meter eighty, and with that build, he weighed at least one hundred and fifty jin. Xu Zhaoning almost threw out his back and was leaning against the wall, groaning. Wechsler slipped and sat down on the floor.

Lu Zheng was suspended in mid-air, unable to go up or come down, his face flushed red.

"Everyone... everyone, seniors, I can walk myself, really, no need to..."

Su Che watched from the side and couldn't help but chuckle.

"Alright, alright, put him down. Don't tear the hero apart."

Everyone dispersed with laughter. Lu Zheng straightened his disheveled uniform, walked up to Su Che, stood at attention, and saluted.

"Report to Chief Engineer Su, Lu Zheng has completed the modules."

Su Che patted his shoulder.

"Well done."

He turned to look at the twenty-first door, which was already open.

"Holy crap, just when I was getting drowsy, someone handed me a pillow!"