Chapter 96: Set Sail
Tom, or rather the clone inhabited by his consciousness, stood in the control room of an Aerospace Carrier, gazing at the starry river outside the viewport.
In the vast and boundless deep space, fifty colossal Aerospace Carriers were neatly arranged like sparkling stars.
"If you had told me when I first arrived at Loshen Star, I wouldn’t have dared to imagine that one day I would be executing such a magnificent project."
Fifty Aerospace Carriers, loaded with a total of approximately 450 million tons of cargo, were about to embark on a journey of over 15 billion kilometers, traveling from the depths of distant space to the Inner Solar System.
The approximately 450 million tons of cargo comprised a vast array of items, too numerous and varied to list. If one were to count them meticulously, there would likely be tens of millions of different types.
Among them, complete power plant facilities, complete metallurgical equipment, complete casting equipment, complete mining equipment, and so on—for every piece of equipment involved in every industrial category, Tom brought ten or more units.
He did not want to have to start building a base from scratch again after arriving in the Inner Solar System.
With these complete industrial facilities, as soon as he landed on a planet, he would immediately possess considerable industrial strength and embark on a path of rapid development.
This meant that the industrial facilities Tom needed to carry were extremely numerous and heavy.
Their combined mass reached 110 million tons, occupying a full 370 grids and requiring 13 Aerospace Carriers!
Apart from industrial facilities, the other largest category of supplies Tom carried was consumables for the journey.
This long voyage would cover a total distance of over 15 billion kilometers and take approximately six years.
During these six years, people would need to eat and drink, the various equipment on the spacecraft would need to operate, and engines would need to provide thrust—how many supplies would that require?
For drinking water and domestic water alone, Tom prepared 5 million tons, and for industrial water, he prepared over 20 million tons.
This was under the premise that water could be recycled.
Although the secondary pressurized engines significantly reduced chemical fuel consumption, compared to nuclear fuel, their consumption was still far too high.
Thus, Tom had no choice but to carry over 30 million tons of methane, ethane, liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, and so on.
With 15 million clones, and each clone weighing 75 kg, the mass of the clones alone amounted to over 1 million tons.
It was not convenient to carry out planting and breeding operations during the voyage, but the clones needed to eat every day. Therefore, Tom could only bring a large amount of food such as flour, rice, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and fish.
Calculating based on each clone consuming a total of 1.5 kg of various foods per day, over six years, 15 million clones would require approximately 50 million tons of reserves.
However, Tom obviously could not just carry 50 million tons. After all, even without considering accidents, he had to account for initial consumption after reaching the new planet.
In the first year or two, he probably wouldn’t be able to produce much food.
Therefore, Tom had no choice but to bring a total of 80 million tons of various foods.
In addition to these, a large number of spacecraft also needed to be taken.
Aerospace-capable spacecraft, combat spacecraft, specialized industrial spacecraft, probe spacecraft, satellites, space telescopes, space antennas, and various complex space devices combined added up to tens of millions of tons of mass.
This did not even include cargo spacecraft. Calculating a cargo spacecraft’s empty weight at 10,000 tons, dozens of cargo ships would add another few hundred thousand tons.
Because these cargo spacecraft were equipped with secondary pressurized thrusters, they did not need to be carried by Aerospace Carriers and could fly there on their own.
They could also carry some supplies, just in case of emergencies. Furthermore, they could carry some clones to prevent the Aerospace Carriers from becoming too crowded.
Thus, the various categories of materials, too numerous to list, nearly filled all 50 Aerospace Carriers.
At this moment, this enormous fleet, composed of 50 Aerospace Carriers and 60 large cargo spacecraft, had completed its assembly above Loshen Star.
There was no longer a single clone on the vast Loshen Star.
Like God-Enemy Star, the once bustling Loshen Star had now fallen into complete silence.
Looking down from above at Loshen Star, which had once again fallen into darkness, Tom was filled with emotion.
He recalled the scene from hundreds of years ago when he first arrived at Loshen Star, with only a few clones under his command, struggling to survive there.
"Unbeknownst to me, it has already been several hundred years since humanity disappeared.
Where exactly did you go?"
Tom remained silent.
"But, whether you are here or not, this Solar System belongs to our Human Civilization.
I will never allow alien civilizations to occupy it.
The enemy is indeed very powerful, so powerful that I am almost unable to resist them. But, even if I fight with all my might, even if I fight until the last clone, I will never surrender.
Since I am the only human left in the Solar System, then I will protect our galaxy.
I hope that one day I can see you return. At that time, I will return to you a Solar System that is still peaceful and beautiful, and an Earth that is still vibrant and magnificently blue..."
"Order... launch!"
Under Tom’s gaze, over a thousand interstellar missiles, carrying nuclear warheads, fiercely shot out from the combat spacecraft.
They trailed long plumes of flame, like falling meteors, crashing down onto the dark and silent surface of Loshen Star. Then, in one fireball after another, each brighter than the sun, they completely wiped away all traces left by Tom, leaving nothing behind.
After this, Tom resolutely turned his head and looked in the direction of the sun.
Depart!
From the rear of each cargo ship and each Aerospace Carrier, a total of over a thousand bright, scorching blue flames erupted, propelling each spacecraft into a slow acceleration.
Their speed increased very, very slowly; for every second that passed, their speed increased by only 1 centimeter.
But this increase in speed was extremely stable, constant, and persistent.
Thus, after more than three days of acceleration, and several more orbits around Loshen Star, the fleet finally achieved the velocity needed to break free from Loshen Star’s gravity field, no longer bound by it, and began to journey towards the vast deep space.
The entire fleet maintained an acceleration of 0.01 meters per second squared.
Gradually, a month passed, and the fleet accelerated to approximately 26 kilometers per second, having traveled a total distance of about 34 million kilometers.
Neither God-Enemy Star nor Loshen Star could be seen at this distance.
The vast starry sky, surrounded by countless stars.
Tom felt as if he had entered an ocean made of void and stars. This ocean was boundless, so vast that no matter how long he sailed, he felt no sense of movement at all.
But with the assistance of the deep space communication network and its own navigation system, the massive fleet continued to steadily advance towards its predetermined direction.