Chapter 390: Docking |
The starship experienced a brief yet uncanny jolt as it exited hyperspace.
Although the vessel remained structurally and spatially stable, the moment space-time curvature relaxed everyone’s perceptions slipped out of true for a heartbeat. It felt as if one’s body existed in several different positions at once, then all those positions collapsed into a single fixed point in the real world. For anyone riding a faster?than?light craft for the first time, it was an utterly unprecedented sensation.
Beyond the vast observation window, the red? and blue?shift bled away as the closed space bubble opened. In the instant the warped field smoothed, the stars sprang back from a two?dimensional film into their proper shapes, and a night sky entirely different from what one can observe near the Grand Void Spiritual Axis unfolded before everyone’s eyes.
Irene pattered up to the viewing glass, climbed onto the platform, craned her neck toward the grand panorama, then exclaimed: “Woooow.”
She twisted around and asked: “Hey, Yu Sheng, where’s Sentinel Silence?”
Before her words had faded, the starfield beyond the window began to drift, and a dim orange?red sun slid into view.
“We’re running at sublight now and should enter the near?star deceleration zone around Sentinel Silence in about an hour,” said Yu Sheng casually from the captain’s chair. “But the Interdimensional Hotel can’t land directly on the surface. This planet doesn’t open any civilian spaceports to vessels of our tonnage. We’ll dock at a high?orbit station, then ride a shuttle down through the atmosphere.”
Irene blinked: “A shuttle? Our ship is equipped for that?”
Yu Sheng said: “That would be Foxy.”
The demon?fox girl seated beside Yu Sheng narrowed her eyes in smug delight; the young lady looked genuinely pleased.
On the other side, Zheng Zhi had been listening to Yu Sheng and Irene, turning his head left and right as if searching for someone to talk to. At last he leaned toward Luna, who sat motionless and silent like a statue, and muttered: “Whenever I’m around Brother Yu I always feel my imagination isn’t quite vivid enough.”
Luna did not respond, remaining as statue?like as before.
Only after a good ten seconds did Irene suddenly catch up, staring at Yu Sheng as she blurted: “Wait, don’t we have anything more normal to land with? A small flyer or something?”
“Uh, we did have a few,” said Yu Sheng, a little embarrassed. “One of the small boats was lost when we were transporting Anka Aila crystals. The other two were damaged when we were intercepted by the Special Service. There are three more parked in the hangar, but… I couldn’t figure out how to start them. They aren’t on the same system as the Interdimensional Hotel, they’re independent units. When I took over the big ship I didn’t take over the small ones, so they aren’t synchronized with me.”
Irene thought for a moment and said: “Then that’s easy, find some time to go die in the hangar.”
Yu Sheng turned green: “Does that sound like something a sane person would say?”
[He could not help missing the Irene from when they first met. Back then the little doll actually worried about his life and death and tried to keep him from dying too often in case there were side effects. When did she start flying this far off the handle?]
Yu Sheng pondered for a few seconds, then decided the problem might lie with himself: [After all, currency devaluation usually begins with over?issuance.]
“I’ll take my time studying how to run the small flyers,” he said at once, shifting the topic as he guided the Interdimensional Hotel toward the system’s primary while speaking offhandedly, “and anyway, don’t you think reentering the atmosphere astride a nine?tailed silver fox is pretty stylish?”
Irene was easy to talk around: “Is… is it?”
Two seconds later, Luna suddenly nodded to Zheng Zhi and said: “Mm, yes.”
Zheng Zhi had no idea what she was answering: “…?”
Meanwhile, as the ship eased toward Sentinel Silence, Immortal Yuan Hao rose from his seat. He reached into his sleeve and produced a neat square object that looked as if it had been carved from white jade. Narrowing his eyes, he seemed to sense something with great care while murmuring under his breath; the surface of the jade emitted a gentle, lustrous glow.
Irene cocked her head in curiosity and asked: “Hey, what’s that for?”
“To sense if there is any prying,” Immortal Yuan Hao opened his eyes, face grave. “Yun Qing Zi may have been operating on Sentinel Silence for years. We must be cautious here.”
Irene’s eyes went round: “No way. That exaggerated? We’re still decelerating out in space. Can that guy really lock onto someone from this far away?”
“Do not underestimate the ancient great cultivators,” Immortal Yuan Hao shook his head solemnly. “In those chaotic ages when histories were reforged and heaven and earth reopened, many among them stabilized entire planets by their own strength and shielded billions of lives. They command all manner of uncanny methods, and many archaic secret arts appear downright unreasonable to people today.”
Irene said nothing.
While the little doll gaped, Yu Sheng kept his own counsel. He quietly deepened his synchronization with the Interdimensional Hotel, then brought the ship’s full radar suite online to sweep for any abnormally high?energy small units and for any directed signals aimed at the vessel.
He did not know whether Yun Qing Zi could scry and lock a target across an astronomical unit, but at least he was at the helm of a piece of black?tech hardware ranked among the top of the top anywhere in the cosmos. That order built ships like this expressly for special?operations infiltration across major civilization spheres; the radar suite on this craft was not for show.
“No hostile units detected, and no unauthorized illumination,” Yu Sheng reported a moment later, shaking his head. “Five directed signals in total. Two are identification and welcome transmissions from the surface of Sentinel Silence, one is navigational guidance from the dock, and two are from traffic control: remind me not to pilot under the influence, and warn that speeding in the near?star deceleration zone carries a fine of five thousand spirit stones.”
Immortal Yuan Hao clicked his tongue: “Back in my day it was only three thousand.”
No one present felt comfortable asking how he knew that quite so precisely.
The ship cruised at sublight for a time. The orange?red sun drifted off past the window, and a handsome gray?blue planet swam into their forward approach. The Interdimensional Hotel trimmed its attitude again, then, under beacon guidance, angled toward an orbital berthing facility near the planet and began its final terminal deceleration.
Complex engine arrays shifted mode again and again. After a sequence of braking burns and fine adjustments, the vessel neared a berthing complex that hung quietly in the black: a great tower linked to numerous large platforms.
From its style one could still glimpse traces of the immortal aesthetic. Cloud motifs and talismanic ornaments in the details bespoke origins in the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, yet the overall design language no longer matched most architecture on Taixu Star. The station leaned obviously toward a plain, utilitarian approach: a hard?lined primary frame, with a tower structure more akin to the “space architecture” in Yu Sheng’s own impressions.
Clearly, even the comparatively closed?off Featherwing Star Domain felt the outside world’s influence along its frontier. This high?orbit station over Sentinel Silence bore the imprint of neighboring civilization spheres. According to the briefings, it was particularly influenced by the Alglade people.
Under Yu Sheng’s precise control, the massive Interdimensional Hotel slid in with impossible agility to a large platform on the tower’s flank. The ship all but spared the station’s tractor system any load as it made contact. After a further interval, spent mostly with Yu Sheng checking the manuals to confirm every step aligned with safety protocols, the Interdimensional Hotel transmitted a “link nominal” signal and, as required, requested boarding guides to come across and receive them.
A hatch in the ship’s underside opened. Yu Sheng and his companions stepped out onto the berthing platform’s connecting bridge.
The structure looked utterly exposed to space: no domes, no armored Entity shielding anywhere on the bridge or the platform beyond. Yet normal gravity and atmosphere pervaded the whole area. A certain invisible life?support field enveloped everything, maintaining a just?right comfort.
Several guides in light?gray starport uniforms were already waiting on the bridge. They were not naturalized cultivators, merely ordinary people employed by the orbital facility.
As soon as they saw the party disembark from the enormous ship, they came forward to verify Yu Sheng’s captain’s credentials, issued by the Borderland, and his travel pass, issued by the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. The lead guide could not help praising them: “No wonder you’re a captain from the Borderland. Handling a vessel this large with such nimbleness… ordinarily, when something this big comes in, even with artifact spirit or machine spirit assisting, it takes at least an hour of fussing.”
Yu Sheng puffed up with pride and tapped the little doll on his shoulder: “Told you my piloting is good.”
Irene rolled her eyes: “Sure. Piloting yourself, if you still ram the pier you should see a neurologist.”
He ignored her routine snark and, a bit rusty, followed the guides’ prompts to complete the berthing registration for a large vessel. All fees were charged to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain’s account.
Once the information had been verified and recorded, the guides visibly relaxed. One of them asked offhand: “Will you be heading straight to Sentinel Silence’s surface, or staying at the starport a few days? Our station is a not?too?big, not?too?small attraction. There are a few nice market streets and restaurants up top, plus a duty?free mall where you can buy crafts from the Alglade star region.”
Fresh from the immortal ambiance of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, Yu Sheng found himself a bit wrong?footed by a frontier port staffer suddenly pitching tourism. The vibe felt as if someone had flipped the scene into a different gear entirely.
“We’re here on business and will go straight down,” Yu Sheng said after collecting his thoughts, recalling the cover story prepared before departure. “We accepted a commission from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and need to visit Mo City.”
“Mo City?” one of the guides raised his brows and said, seemingly casually: “It’s been a little unsettled there these past couple of days.”
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