Chapter 1 When Kタルン Awakened

When Kタルン woke up in bed, his electronic brain recovered the authority to control the body from the assistant AI and reconnected to the four external observation cameras.

At first, he was still wondering where he was, because the room he was in was too bright and too empty. As a Tarren, descended from cave-dwelling arthropods, he was used to being in small, dark spaces to feel safe.

However, the confusion was only temporary. Soon, Kタルン read the information recorded by his mechanical body when his electronic brain was shut down from the memory storage.

Well, the result was not bad. Although the Far Traveler was out of control, exploded, and crashed on an alien planet, 65 percent of the crew members were rescued, and he managed to save his own life—at least it was much better than total annihilation as he had imagined.

Regardless of the first impression, the aliens in the Black Zone had saved their lives. Although the ferocious and strong behemoth seemed terrifying, it was actually quite kind and knew how to control its strength. It didn't crush him when it rescued him. It was just that the excessively strong psionic radiation stimulation caused his electronic brain to shut down.

Getting out of bed, Kタルン noticed that two of his four mechanical limbs needed to be repaired. There was a problem with the transmission of telecommunications signals. Fortunately, the core components surrounding the electronic brain were not damaged, and there was no memory loss. It was a blessing in disguise.

[You are awake.]

Suddenly, a soul communication came. Kタルン could sense that this soul fluctuation was the behemoth that first appeared in front of the Explorer and said 'Welcome to the Solar System' to him.

Immediately, Kタルン's four eyeballs began to scan the surroundings in a 360-degree angle, but he didn't see the behemoth's face. He found himself in a completely enclosed white chamber. The chamber contained a bed and a sterile negative pressure environment. According to scans, this chamber also had a very strong psionic shielding layer. Except for the allowed bands, no communication could be transmitted.

[The AI ​​built into your body designated me as your communication partner. This seems to be one of the instructions you gave yourself before you fell into a coma. I hope you are fully awake now and can communicate smoothly.]

"Yes, my central processing unit has recovered."

The soul communication fluctuation was clear. In response, Kタルン answered fluently, "I am Kタルン, the captain of the Explorer 12 from the Tarren Council. While maintaining a friendly attitude, I will answer most of your questions truthfully."

"Before that, I would like to know the name of your civilization."

[Earth.]

Unlike its appearance, the behemoth's attitude was gentle in Kタルン's ears, but it was concise: [You have been in a coma for three days. During this period, we communicated with your second-in-command and relevant researchers, and parsed each other's languages—we already know that you are from the Tarren Council civilization in the Orion Arm, near the Perseus Arm, and came because of the sudden psionic communication broadcast.]

[At the same time, we are also very clear that you are being chased by enemies, which is why you were forced to jump to this place considered a forbidden zone—that is, the vicinity of our home planet. However, other more specific information is located in the ship's database, and no Tarren other than you, as the captain, has the authority to browse and record this information.]

"What information do you want to know? If it is harmless to the Tarren civilization, I am willing to share it with you completely, as a reward for saving all the crew members of the Explorer."

[All information about your enemy, the Kro. And information about the ancient interstellar civilization called the 'Corporate Alliance' that created the Tarren and the Kro.]

Speaking lightly, the soul communicator's voice had no fluctuations: [This way, we can also decide whether to become enemies with the Kro for your sake.]

"There's no need to test me, Earthling."

Kタルン said calmly, his four claws motionless, "Indeed, this is our dispute with the Kro, and you as a third party have no reason to intervene—but as long as you have communicated with the Kro, you will understand how unbearable their arrogance and madness are."

"Moreover, according to the scans before the ship crashed, I judged that the Earth civilization has extremely developed psionic technology, but it does not have complete interstellar engineering technology. In other words, you do not have organized space exploration equipment. The Tarren are willing to help you."

[Perhaps the Kro are willing too.]

"They won't. At least, we are now under your control, which is safer than the Kro, whose purpose is still unknown."

Soul communication was so simple and straightforward, without so many twists and turns.

Australia, southern forest suburbs.

A newly built alien concentration center, a large group of researchers, old and young, gathered outside a square isolation chamber.

And at the center of these researchers was Su Zhou, who had just arrived from New Zealand.

Outside the isolation room, Su Zhou used his Wuxiang Zhi Xin (Heart of No Thought) to determine that what Kタルン said was completely true. He didn't tell a single lie.

It seemed that this Tarren also knew very well that under the effect of powerful psionic energy, there was no use in hiding anything. In that case, it was better to cooperate and tell the truth.

"Su Zhou, keep asking!"

Beside Su Zhou, leading figures in relevant fields from various countries were waiting for the content of his communication with the alien exploration ship captain. Among them, Yu Sheng from Zheng Guo was particularly excited. His mechanical left eye was even faintly flashing red light. "Whether it's historical data of outside interstellar civilizations or spaceship engineering, ask as much as you can!"

"Yes, yes, yes, don't let him stop!"

The others also scrambled to express their opinions one after another: "Tell this alien that we Earth humans are friendly and kind, and willing to help! He can rest assured about us!"

"Yes, and tell him that they have no way to return to their home planet in a short time. In that case, Earth is willing to hire him as an aerospace engineer with excellent benefits!"

—How does this friendly and kind line sound so familiar?

"No problem."

Although he felt that this set of confessions was a bit familiar, Su Zhou still agreed to everything, and then talked to Kタルン through the isolation chamber.

The isolation chamber was mainly to prevent the Tarren from carrying any special alien viruses and bacteria that could hybridize with Earth's native viruses and bacteria, creating some super disease.

At the same time, it was also because the atmospheric pressure that the Tarren lived in was different from that of humans on Earth. The atmospheric pressure of their home planet was a little lower than that of Earth, so in order to avoid the life loss of the precious and highly intelligent aliens, each Tarren lived in these isolation chambers until they gradually adapted to Earth's atmospheric pressure and it was verified that there were no alien pathogens before they could be allowed to leave.

Su Zhou and Kタルン's communication lasted for most of the night, from the evening of June 17th to the early hours of the 18th.

Kタルン deserved to be the Tarren with the highest authority on the exploration ship, who had also undergone almost a full-body prosthetic modification. The detail and clarity of his memory were by no means comparable to those of ordinary Tarren.

During this long exchange, the Earth side, led by Su Zhou, roughly understood the grievances between the Kro and the Tarren civilization.

In addition, they also learned about the 'Silent Era', the idea that spiritual energy was cut off in interstellar civilizations, and the serious consequences it caused.

That was a disaster that destroyed almost all civilizations in the observable universe.

For interstellar civilizations before the Silent Era, the importance of psionic energy was equivalent to the importance of electricity in human civilization. Although it was not a necessity for life, it was indeed the pillar of a civilization and the cornerstone of the operation of everything. Therefore, the cutoff of spiritual energy could naturally completely destroy a large interstellar civilization.

There could be no civilization that did not use psionic power, just as there could be no life that did not use the four fundamental forces.

As the only super civilization in the Orion Arm, the 'Corporate Alliance' was such an unlucky and destroyed super civilization. Its predecessor was the 'Thousand Star Trading Community', the force affiliated with the Shoggoth Group on the moon. The communication specifications have never changed.

As two civilizations that grew up on the corpse of the Corporate Alliance, the Kro and the Tarren inherited the communication specifications of the Corporate Alliance, so they could naturally receive the psionic communication warnings from the Shoggoth Group, so they came together to investigate the situation.

Moreover, just as Su Zhou guessed.

In the eyes of outside civilizations, the Earth in the age of gods and immortals was indeed very dangerous. No matter what exploration team or warship, they were all blown up by the gods and immortals, lost contact, and then thrown to the back of the moon or other planetary satellites to become garbage dumps, or even garbage mountains.

According to detection, some mountains on Mars transmitted extremely high metal reactions. Scientists speculated that it was likely not a natural iron ore, but a large number of alien spaceships buried there, gradually becoming the shape of mountains for various reasons.

The civilization of gods and immortals was so violent in the eyes of the outside world. Even the current Earth civilization, in Kタルン's words, was an extremely extraordinary, ‘transcendent and holy’ psionic civilization with all members being psionicists.

But because the Silent Era had passed and many of the original forbidden zones had lost their mystery, the Kro and the Tarren wanted to try their luck and see if they could pick up some ancient garbage on Earth and discover the technology of some ancient civilization.

"Their idea is correct. There are indeed countless spaceship wrecks on the back of the moon. If they are all analyzed, Earth's spaceships may be upgraded to the twelfth generation or above."

The communication with Kタルン was very pleasant, first because he cooperated seriously, and second because Su Zhou had Wuxiang Zhi Xin (Heart of No Thought), so he didn't need to use too many tactics to confirm whether what the other party said was true or false, or whether there was any perfunctory behavior.

But for this reason, Su Zhou couldn't help but frown: "However, just as Kタルン said, we Earth indeed have no spaceships to defend against enemy attacks now—and if the Kro discover this and think that they can obtain benefits from Earth, or even simply go to excavate the alien spaceships on the back of the moon before us, that would be a loss to our Earth."

"Unlike the Tarren, the Kro are obviously ill-intentioned."

Speaking was an aerospace expert from the Ross Country. This capable female scholar's tone was gentle, but the meaning was very clear: "In fact, even with the Tarren, if their spaceships were not damaged, the attitude of our communication now would never be as cooperative as it is now."

"We must prepare for the Kro's attack."

This was the armored soldier of the American Federation. He waved his hand and said seriously: "The Kro's spaceship technology is obviously better than the Tarren's. We cannot entrust Earth's safety to the goodwill of aliens. We must strike first."

The representative of the European Union did not speak, but was clearly inclined to the American Federation's side—rather than thinking about how to communicate with the aliens on the spaceship, it was better to show their muscles first, so that the other party would be cautious and communicate with goodwill.

As for Su Zhou himself, he would rather think of the Kro as bad.

The spiritual energy revival had indeed brought countless benefits to Earth's civilization, but because of the reappearance of spiritual energy, the Earth side had temporarily put aside various industrial technologies and instead focused on the popularization of individual strength, resulting in the stagnation of research in related majors.

Although it was said that when powerful transcendents reached a certain realm, psionic civilizations could surpass and even catch up with those ordinary civilizations… because at that time, the transcendents could directly control the microscopic world, which was too great for the progress of technology and could completely allow psionic civilizations to grow by leaps and bounds.

"Corporate Alliance, Kro, Tarren... and there are many civilizations in other arms of the galaxy, and even in other galaxies."

Thinking this way, Su Zhou couldn't help but raise his head, stand on the earth, and gaze at the stars in the sky. He sighed in his heart: "Even if old civilizations are destroyed, new civilizations are born on the corpses—haha, this world doesn't look deserted, but it's actually very lively."

"If one day, we can explore this sea of ​​stars, how interesting would that be?"

However, before that, we must first take care of the Kro.

This was probably the first test for Earthlings to enter the sea of ​​stars.

[Do you have any ideas on how to deal with the Kro who are tracking you?]

If he had any thoughts, he would ask directly. Su Zhou never left his doubts to the next second. If he had a question mark, he would ask it directly.

He once again used soul communication to communicate with Kタルン: [Don't worry about our technical level. Just tell me what should be done in theory.]

"The Kro have the technology to detect and hide psionic energy. To deal with them, they must be exposed from their hidden state."

In response, Kタルン's answer was also very simple: "This requires a specially modified large-scale psionic radar. Although its principle is simple, we know how to manufacture it, but because its size is too exaggerated, it is generally only equipped on large warships. The Far Traveler does not have this kind of radar."

"Originally, we planned to arrive at the signal source and use the parts of the spaceship that sent out the psionic communication to manufacture this kind of radar. After all, the equipment that can emit that level of psionic signals can be easily modified to become the emission source of psionic radar."

"It's just that now, the Far Traveler has crashed, and there are no ready-made communication parts to modify it—even if Earthlings start producing from scratch, I'm afraid it will be too late. If the Kro do not retreat, but choose to chase after them, they will definitely arrive here within ten days."

Although he said bad news, Kタルン found that Su Zhou did not seem disappointed after hearing his not-so-optimistic predictions.

Instead, he seemed very interested.

[Are you saying that this kind of radar is not difficult to manufacture, but just lacks parts?]

The young man asked in a meaningful tone: [And the essence of those parts is not something very complicated. You can completely use parts from other spaceships to replace them?]

"Yes, large-scale psionic detection radar is ultimately relying on power to forcibly illuminate psionic stealth units. The important thing is the psionic emission source."

Not quite understanding Su Zhou's thoughts, Kタルン still explained seriously: "We Tarren cannot manufacture miniaturized psionic emission sources, but in the relics of ancient civilizations, these emission sources are not uncommon... Ah, could it be that Earth civilization has this level of psionic emission source? But even if you have it, without the matching radar parts..."

Speaking of this, Kタルン couldn't help but feel happy when he thought of the powerful predecessor of Earth civilization, but then he sighed again: "If only we could recover the exploration parts from the Far Traveler. It's a pity that after the engine explosion and being shot down by you, it's estimated that there are not many usable things left on the Far Traveler..."

[Just... missing parts?]

Su Zhou did not reply to Kタルン's sigh.

He just exchanged glances with Yu Sheng on the side, and the two couldn't help but smile slightly.

Even the experts from other countries couldn't help but laugh after hearing this condition.

Then, everyone looked up at the moon.

If it's just spaceship parts...

"Earthlings have plenty of that kind of thing."