Chapter 105 - Ancient Battlefields
Anyone who was familiar with history would know about the war between the Pan-Human Alliance and insectoids that had happened over two thousand years ago.
The cause of the war was a bit absurd. A distinguished insectoid aristocrat bought a beautiful human woman as his personal slave, helping him with various tasks, such as dressing and eating. After spending some time together, they fell in love.
The love-stricken insectoid abandoned everything he owned and brought his beloved from the Wild Star Region, which was thriving with danger, to her home planet to see her parents. The two of them intended to travel the universe until they died of old age.
Unfortunately, it never played out as they wanted, for harsh reality hit them in the face. At that time, the humans were already rattling their sabers with the insectoids and were competing to secure as much resources from all over the universe. Both sides had a lot of troops around the border, and everyone knew that a war was inevitable. It was only a matter of when and who would start the war.
Unfortunately for the insectoid aristocrat, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The moment he hit the border, he was captured by the Alliance and sentenced to death for espionage, and the woman was sent back to her home planet.
This was originally just a small confrontation and was not enough to trigger a war.
However, when the speech given by this woman was broadcasted on television was sent to the insectoids’ headquarters by one of their spies, the warriors of their species could no longer contain their anger and they thirsted for war.
Phantom sighed, then returned to his world. “Then, have fun salvaging; perhaps you’ll gather everything you need in eight to ten years’ time.”
Xia Fei pursed his lips, ignoring Phantom.
The ship warped once again, arriving at another wreckage. It was not much better as he only managed to salvage one piece, much worse than his last run.
The novelty of salvaging slowly receded and Xia Fei started to get bored. This time, he took a good look at the wreckage distribution map that Andy had given him.
The map had all known ancient battlefields labeled. The ones in the green were safer as they were relatively close to the base, but these safe zones had been raided by countless others, meaning that the salvaging rate was going to be exceedingly low.
The yellow regions were those areas with some risk. It might be that the regions were not all that stable or were under pirates’ control. Red zones represented death zones, and the black zones should be avoided at all costs.
Xia Fei lit a cigarette and considered all his options. He decided to skip the green areas as the rates would be too low.
The ship warped again, arriving at a yellow zone nearest to Xia Fei.
This ancient battlefield was huge, and from the number of wreckages and the condition they were in, it must have been a horrible battle. Countless insectoid and human warships were stacked on top of others. Both parties were exchanging fire incredibly close—perhaps even too close.
The scanner was activated immediately. A red beam of light came out from the top of the ship, reporting the status of each of the wreckages and the usable parts to the AI computer.
Xia Fei changed his strategy this time around. He decided to ignore pieces he could buy, leaving just the thirty-four different essential pieces on the search list.
The ship navigated through the wreckage in search of the parts Xia Fei was looking for.
Twenty or so minutes later, the screen lit up, and Xia Fei found an intact lidar positioning system on a Caldari heron-class frigate. Although the system was a bit old, it was still usable on the Lunar Eclipse.
Xia Fei was exceedingly happy. He tapped on the projected screen to start the salvaging operation immediately.
The salvage happened in three steps. First, the system would confirm the position of the item. Second, a laser would be shot out from the salvager, making a round hole through the thick armor, then it would whittle away anything preventing the piece from getting extracted. Third, a traction beam would attract that part to the ship.
The whole process, which was managed by the AI computer, would only take minutes without any need for intervention.
Another hour or so later, Xia Fei discovered and salvaged another piece that he needed.
Just like that, he jumped from one area to another. Xia Fei slowly discovered the hope of fixing the Lunar Eclipse. He warped from one wreckage to another within the yellow zone, but slowly but surely, he was edging ever close to the extremely dangerous red zone.