125: carnival

May 27, 2102, Earth Gregorian Calendar.

For the Kari People, today is a special day.

According to the kari calendar, exactly sixty orbital periods ago—about fifty years in Earth time—following the landing on the satellite "Lux," the pioneers of the Kari Civilization successfully landed for the first time on that massive satellite hanging in the firmament named "Nox," piloting a primitive chemical rocket.

That day was once regarded as the peak of the Kari Civilization's glory, the first step in their journey toward the sea of stars.

However, history is always full of dark humor; that first step remarkably became the last one to date.

Nowadays, that crude research base once established on the satellite's surface has long been abandoned, buried under thick cosmic dust, and the space program that once made countless kari youths burn with enthusiasm has been indefinitely shelved amid over forty years of "Great Scientific Stagnation" and a series of launch accidents.

But the Kari People are a romantic and emotional race; even though interstellar exploration has stalled in reality, they still construct a magnificent starry sky in their spiritual world.

This day is known as the "Star-Touch Festival."

In the capital, "Dawn," and in cities all over the globe, countless short, grey-green-skinned Kari People took to the streets, wearing festive attire, waving glow sticks and ribbons with their four arms, and singing songs in praise of the starry sky.

Huge screens on high-rise buildings played the blurry footage of that moon landing, the glory of their forefathers and a distant, unreachable dream in the hearts of this generation.

Artists splashed ink on the squares, painting images of alien civilizations as they imagined them: beautiful, friendly, and peaceful groups. Poets recited verses about friendship and peace, entrusting their infinite reveries to the "alien friends" who had yet to reply.

A large number of Kari People were immersed in the atmosphere of self-indulgent emotion during the festival.

They would soon know that the "guests" they had been expecting for half a century had truly arrived.

...

The Kali Star Northern Polar Radio Observatory was once the outpost for the Kari Civilization to explore the universe and the launch site that sent a "greeting signal" to the entire universe. But in the decades of scientific decline, it had been reduced to a semi-abandoned "cultural heritage site."

Most of the high-end detection equipment had long since stopped working due to a lack of maintenance and technical upgrades; only a few old-fashioned radio telescopes were still mechanically scanning that dead, silent starry sky under the control of fully automatic programs.

Young signal analyst Lila sat bored in front of a dusty monitoring console. She was not a scientist—there were not many real scientists left on Kali Star now—and she was more like a musician who had come here to find inspiration.

She wore headphones, trying to find some rhythm from the static of cosmic background radiation that she could incorporate into her new symphony.

"What a boring day..." Lila yawned, twirling a paintbrush with her lower pair of small hands.

Suddenly, a harsh buzzing sound broke the silence of the control room.

It was the sound of a system alarm, indicating that a strong signal exceeding the threshold had been received.

"Is it another solar flare?" Lila glanced at the screen nonchalantly.

In the past few decades, such alarms had occurred frequently, but each time they were eventually proven to be equipment malfunctions or interference from stellar activity.

Because an invisible "mist" (a planetary interference layer composed of Grey Wind's nano-individual units) shrouded the planet, the universe they saw was always a filtered and forged false image.

But today, the situation seemed different.

Just a few minutes ago, inside that silver-white scout ship hidden in synchronous orbit, Grey Wind snapped her fingers with a smile.

"The show begins, the curtain rises."

The nano-interference layer that had shrouded the periphery of Kali Star for forty-five years vanished silently in an instant.

The real universe was revealed to the Kari People without reservation.

Lila's eyes widened sharply; the waveform on the screen was no longer chaotic noise, but strings of regular pulse signals.

These signals did not come from a single point, but from a large area at the edge of the galaxy, as if a massive meteor shower were intruding into this star system.

"What is this?" Lila's fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, trying to parse the source of these signals.

The system quickly provided the calculation results; it was Doppler shift data.

The results showed that these thousands of unknown signal sources were not operating in the orbits of natural celestial bodies; they were undergoing violent deceleration!

"Deceleration... decelerating against stellar gravity..." Lila muttered to herself. Although her knowledge of physics was limited, common sense told her that only objects with propulsion could actively decelerate in space.

Meteorites do not decelerate; comets do not decelerate.

Only spaceships do.

"This... this is..."

Lila did not dare to delay and immediately reported to her superior on duty via a dedicated line.

"This is the Northern Polar Observatory! ID K-741! Emergency report!"

...

The news spread like wildfire.

Not only the Northern Polar Radio Observatory, but at the moment Grey Wind removed the interference, the few remaining radio telescopes on the surface of Kali Star and those old astronomical satellites in orbit simultaneously captured the massive fleet that was approaching.

Without the interference, real data poured in like a flood.

Although they could not directly see images of the fleet due to the backwardness of their optical equipment, radar and radio signals had already outlined the fleet's silhouette.

Thousands of massive objects were arranged in neat formations, approaching the interior of the star system—in the direction of Kali Star—at high speed in a way that violated celestial mechanics.

After experiencing the initial shock and verification, the kari Community government made an extremely bold decision—or rather, one that was extremely in line with the romantic nature of their race.

They did not block the news; on the contrary, on this special day of the "Star-Touch Festival," the supreme leader addressed the globe directly via a televised speech.

"Fellow citizens! Just today, on this day commemorating our journey toward the starry sky, the universe has responded to us!"

The leader stood on a high platform, spreading his four arms, his face glowing with excitement.

"Radio observatories everywhere have confirmed that a massive alien fleet is entering our star system! They have crossed the endless deep space; this is the response to the greeting we sent forty-five years ago!"

"We are not alone; there is other intelligent life in the universe!"

With the leader's announcement, the entire Kali Star boiled over.

The crowd, already in a state of carnival, instantly fell into a frenzy.

"Aliens have really come?"

"They must have come for peace and art!"

"Quick! Play the most magnificent symphony! Light up all the lights! We must guide our guests!"

Countless fireworks bloomed over the city, more brilliant than before; musicians improvised welcoming symphonies, and painters daubed scenes of imagined alien friends bringing gifts onto the walls.

In their simple and beautiful imaginations, this fleet must have come bearing friendship.

Few people stopped to think why "friends" would need to bring thousands of warships to pay a visit, or why the other side had not sent a single greeting after entering the star system, instead maintaining an unsettling radio silence.

Most Kari People were immersed in a self-woven fairy tale, unwilling to wake up.

However, at this moment of global celebration, a very few sober people still felt a bone-chilling coldness.

In an office at the kari Supreme Academy of Sciences, piled high with discarded manuscripts and obsolete instruments, the former dean, Walker Tala, now in the twilight of his years, was staring fixedly at the raw data just transmitted from the observatory on his screen.

Although he had been retired for many years and the scientific community had declined, he still retained the basic keenness and logic of a top scientist.

"This is not right... this is not right..."

Walker's cloudy, slit-pupiled eyes were filled with fear.

He performed calculations on the computer with trembling hands.

"This scale of mass reaction... this energy overflow produced by deceleration... this cannot be an expeditionary fleet! And it cannot be a diplomatic mission!"

He looked at the most prominent parameter in the data—deceleration overload.

The opposing ships had performed an extremely high-intensity deceleration maneuver when entering the edge of the star system; the resulting overload was enough to crush any ordinary creature into pulp.

This meant that the other side possessed an extremely high level of inertial damping technology, or their hull structure was solid to an unimaginable degree.

More importantly, the quantity.

Thousands of interstellar ships, each larger than the largest ships of the Kari Civilization.

Walker's hands were trembling.

"If it were just for communication, a few ships would be enough; if it were for trade, a dozen or so ships would be enough."

"Crossing light-years with thousands of warships to knock on our door..."

"There is only one purpose."

"Conquest."

He suddenly grabbed the communicator on the table, wanting to contact the government, wanting to warn that leader immersed in fantasy.

"Connect me to the leader's office! Hurry! I have top-priority emergency intelligence!"

However, only a busy signal came from the communicator.

Then came the office operator's joyful, perfunctory response: "Oh, old Dean Walker, today is the Star-Touch Festival, and the leader is celebrating with the public in the square! Let's talk about whatever it is tomorrow! Everyone is happy, so don't always be a wet blanket!"

The call was disconnected.

Walker held the receiver blankly, listening to the deafening cheers and fireworks coming from outside the window.

To him, those sounds were like the footsteps of death approaching.

"Idiots! A bunch of idiots..."