Chapter 132: The Black Ship Wreckage |
A scrap-collecting robot dragged its cart past the workshop, its optical lenses lighting up at the sight of the black ship wreckage by the entrance. "These rare metals could exchange for three months' energy supply!" Its scanners swept over the debris before emitting a sharp alarm. "Detecting high-purity star crystal residue - this is black market currency good enough to trade for a small airship!" Lin Mo bent down to pick up a fragment with faint blue edges. The star crystal's energy patterns pulsed gently in his palm, as if responding to some ancient covenant.
"Leave these for the Alliance engineering team." He placed the fragment back on the wreckage pile, causing the robot's mechanical arms to droop in disappointment. "The energy matrix inside hasn't completely deactivated yet. Careless disassembly could trigger an energy explosion." The robot's processor emitted a stuttering hum before reluctantly dragging its empty cart away, though not before scanning the workshop's direction with its sensors - probably marking coordinates for future "treasure hunting."
Lin Mo crouched by a fissure adjusting his analyzer, watching as the screen's 3D model gradually reconstructed the outline of an underground mechanical vault. "This was originally the Stardust's secret maintenance station," he pointed at a blinking red dot in the model. "My brother secretly modified the underground structure, hiding both the core database and backup engines within a subspace shielding field." The analyzer suddenly emitted a continuous beep as a deep purple energy trail extended from the fissure's depths, tracing the Stardust's hull outline across the floor.
I suddenly recalled last night's scene of the Stardust disintegrating - those scattered light particles hadn't truly dissipated, but instead sank slowly into the workshop's metal flooring like being pulled by invisible threads. "So it didn't disappear... it came home." Lin Mo ran his fingers along the energy trail, causing the faint blue glows to suddenly converge into a stream that flowed up his fingertips into his mechanical arm. "The Stardust's AI core is still operational. It's been waiting for someone who could reactivate it." His mechanical arm hummed to life, its formerly matte metal surface now displaying the same blue patterns as the Stardust.
A dull vibration came from below as the fissure's metal edges began slightly bulging. Lin Mo quickly pulled up the console's authorization interface, inputting a complex password - the energy encoding of "Lin Chen" from his identification badge. As the final character was entered, the ground fissure suddenly split open, revealing a metallic passageway glowing with cold light below. Emergency lights along the tunnel walls illuminated in sequence, like lighting a homecoming path for long-lost visitors.
"Shall we go down?" Lin Mo lifted his toolbox, his mechanical arm's hydraulics emitting cheerful whirrs. "After twenty years, it's time to let these old friends see daylight again." Deep in the passage came sounds of air currents mixing with low-frequency mechanical hums. As I followed him downward, I noticed yellowed copies of flight logs plastered on the walls, the most recent page frozen on the Stardust's final voyage record from twenty years ago - the signature "Lin Chen" bearing forceful pen strokes.
The underground mechanical vault was more spacious than imagined, its central platform holding half of an airship wreckage - the Stardust's main structure. Though its hull was riddled with bullet marks, the main engine's energy ring still rotated slowly, emitting a soft blue glow. Lin Mo approached the console and inserted the "Pioneer of Subspace Exploration" medal into a slot, suddenly illuminating the entire vault as a holographic projection unfolded in midair - displaying the Stardust's complete flight route from back then, dense with red dots marking undisclosed exploration coordinates.
"The core subspace navigation algorithm is hidden here." Lin Mo touched a nebula region in the star map projection, causing it to suddenly enlarge. "My brother discovered the military was using subspace corridors to smuggle contraband, which got him eliminated by the Obsidian Legion. They thought they'd destroyed all data, never realizing the core algorithm was written into the Stardust's AI memory banks." The projection suddenly showed young Lin Chen's image recording logs in the cockpit wearing a flight suit, with Legion black ships visible approaching in the background.
The image abruptly cut off as the vault's alarm system activated. Lin Mo swiftly switched to defense mode, energy barriers deploying at the entrance just in time to block shockwaves pouring through the passage. "Seems someone doesn't want us taking these." He stared at interference patterns dancing across screens while his mechanical arm instantly transformed into weapon configuration. "Military remnants detonating underground explosives remotely." A series of distant explosions made the entire vault shake violently.
The hatch opened just as the data download completion chime sounded. As we rushed through, the vault behind us collapsed with a thunderous crash, burying both the Stardust's wreckage and those criminal secrets. Lin Mo looked at the chip in his hand and suddenly smiled. "Still using his tricky encryption methods - requiring simultaneous verification of bloodline energy and medal authorization." In the distance, Alliance engineering ships gathered in the sky, their silver-white hulls glittering in sunlight.
Back in the workshop, the investigator's communication came through again: "The military's supreme commander has confessed, with complete evidence chains exposing all Obsidian Legion collusion." Her voice carried barely contained excitement. "Subspace corridors will fully open - Stardust's technology could reduce interstellar travel costs by seventy percent." Lin Mo placed the chip on the console where an automatically generated 3D model demonstrated the new navigation system, blue energy streams tracing smooth curves across the star map.
At sunset, Lin Mo pinned the star insignia beside his medal, both relics glowing warmly in twilight. "Time to close this chapter." He watched Alliance engineers working outside while his mechanical arm gently traced the faded writing on his ID badge. "My brother always said exploring space wasn't about conquest, but ensuring every planet could sail freely." Distant subspace ports sounded their horns as new airships launched, their exhaust trails stretching long light bands through dusk - uncannily resembling the Stardust's unextinguished wake.
The scrap-collecting robot had returned unnoticed, carefully dismantling parts by the black ship wreckage. Seeing us emerge, it held up a polished star crystal. "This is for you! The energy patterns match your medal perfectly!" Lin Mo took the crystal and fitted it into the medal's empty slot, instantly creating a complete star map as blue light connected all three objects' energy channels. I suddenly understood - those scattered fragments, hidden coordinates, and twenty-year search had finally, between dawnlight and starlight, pieced together the full truth.