nucmednet Chapter 427 Sailing Towards Home
Chapter 427 Sailing Towards Home
Alice looked into the distance. The fleet's dozens of jumps went very smoothly, without any conflicts or unexpected incidents. For all the officers and men of the expeditionary fleet, it was almost too smooth.
Every member of the fleet was on high alert. Since the last jump, they had been far from the known range of civilizations. Although many in the fleet were disgusted with this so-called supreme human empire, at least it was the only "civilized area".
For most people, Amelancy is actually their home, the place that holds their memories; Earth is just a symbol.
Although their primal instincts as humans led them to yearn for Earth, this blue planet, it was ultimately not as intense as Alice's yearning.
Alice curled her hair and looked ahead—the starlight outside the porthole was gradually shortening, and the jump duration calculated by the hyperspace core system was decreasing.
"All fleet, prepare to disembark."
Earth, oh Earth—humanity's eternal home, the birthplace of humankind—
When the starlight outside the window reappeared, when the yellow G-type star appeared before everyone, when the blue planet appeared before humanity once again, almost everyone in the fleet stared blankly at the blue planet.
"It's so beautiful."
It is acknowledged that beyond that blue planet lies a vast expanse of debris, with a gray satellite, trailing numerous fragments, orbiting it, creating a debris belt that is almost akin to an asteroid belt.
But it's still too beautiful.
On the path of human interstellar colonization, Earth, this blue planet, has gone through a long period of time. It has become less green and less blue, until humankind rejuvenated it and restored its vitality. Only then did this blue marble regain its brilliance.
"We have arrived at Earth, our home."
“A large number of intelligent life signals were detected, but…”
"No signs of civilization."
The so-called signals of civilization, namely electromagnetic waves, visible light, and other signals generated by the communication of civilizations themselves, have disappeared from the Earth today.
"Got it, behind the terminator..."
Where the sun sets, darkness envelops the earth, yet still, someone lights a lamp.
Humanity has not ended; civilization still exists on this blue planet, and humanity still exists.
"All fleet, proceed according to our pre-arranged plan."
The fleet's primary objective was not to restore Earth or Mars, but to repair the stargate network located in the Martian ring of the solar system.
—During humanity's golden age, the United Nations of Earth mobilized several star systems, including the solar system, to establish a ring structure around the entire solar system in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, in order to relocate the overburdened inhabitants of Earth to these places.
But now, this once-miraculous galaxy has been destroyed, large parts of its structure have been ravaged by war, and only one of the four large stargate networks remains.
Most of the ships in the fleet turned back to the Martian belt. Mars was once part of a human mega-project during the golden age of mankind. At that time, humans had the experience of terraforming the planet with the Imellancy IV, and they also carried out terraforming on this planet. The atmosphere was modified to be breathable, a large amount of water was sent from the Koboai Belt and became the original ocean, and the biosphere transplanted from Earth also underwent corresponding DNA modification.
At least that's how Mars is described in the United Nations archives on Earth, which are preserved on Imellanth.
From the fleet's perspective, this was indeed the case—the newly formed Amerlancy humans had never imagined what Mars would look like back then. Some even mistook Mars for Earth, recognizing Earth's appearance only because of its continental structure, which was very similar to Amerlancy IV.
Surprisingly, despite the lack of any signs of catastrophic damage on either planet, they seem to have never entered a golden age.
Despite the ecological restoration and transformation of Earth, as the official capital of the United Nations of the Earth, it should have retained several megacities. However, looking down from Alice's height, there is nothing at all. Those megacities seem to have never existed, and what lights up at night are just some pre-modern cities and villages.
She wanted to see for herself why humanity had become what it is today.
"There are still some well-preserved base structures remaining on the moon, and it seems we can make full use of these places."
There are no longer any usable interstellar facilities on Earth—whether it was done by humans back then or was the result of that war, humans on Earth were not as fortunate as the humans on Amelanxi or the humans on United Star, who returned to the universe in this era.
However, if they possess the key to unlock the sky, they can reclaim their legacy from back then.
However, in retrospect, their development has been too slow.
Alice instructed the captain to sail the warship to the moon—for Earth's civilization, the moon was the initial harbor on the path to the stars, and also Earth's most solid barrier.
Unlike Mars, the Moon does not have the ability to become a habitable planet, but humans have still built a large number of facilities on its surface, including fortresses, cities, and docks.
Some of them were not destroyed in that great battle.
The moon could serve as a forward base for Alice's return to Earth—until the stargate is fully repaired.
After all, Alicia had spent over a decade fighting alone in a space gate to restore the complex to a barely usable level.
Repairing these galactic wonders doesn't require a genius engineer; more often than not, all it takes is a string of licensed code and a bit of luck for automated programs to restore them.
It just takes time.
The captain quickly located a dry dock with a largely intact structure. Warp is not without its costs. Ships built by the Amelan West Stargate Complex lack several key materials, causing their warp core hyperspace drives to overheat multiple times, resulting in damage to the entire ship.
To this day, the ship has suffered multiple fires caused by overheating, and the forced cooling system is overwhelmed, or rather, most of the ships in the fleet are in the same situation.
In other words, they were unable to return before the stargate was repaired.
Alice looked at the blue planet, focusing her gaze on one place: the Eurasian Plate, East Asia.