Deep Space Scavenging, Hand Over Alien Warships at the Beginning

Chapter 202 Packing Up the Stars and Taking Them Away”Boss, this thing is a bit big; it won’t fit in the trunk.”

In the communication channel, Academician Wang’s slightly hoarse voice came through, with a background of noisy keyboard clacking and alarms of current overload.

Lin Yuan floated in the vacuum, facing the golden star he had just ”tamed.” It looked quite well-behaved at this moment, like a primary school student who had just been spanked by their parents, obediently huddled in the gravitational net, emitting light and heat.

But the problem arose.

This was a star, after all. Even if compressed, its mass was still there. Although Earth was a wanderer now, roaming the universe, he had never heard of any wanderer going out carrying a boiler on their back.

”It won’t fit?” Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow, casually flicking away a piece of drifting warship wreckage. ”Then hang it behind and drag it along. Doesn’t our Earth have twelve thousand planetary engines? If it can’t even pull a tricycle, we might as well dismantle this broken ball and sell it for scrap.”

”Drag... drag it?”

Academician Wang on the other end of the video almost choked to death on a mouthful of tea, his wrinkled old face scrunching up like a chrysanthemum. ”Boss, be scientific! That’s gravitational traction, not tying a dog with a rope! If you forcibly merge the orbits, Earth will be torn to pieces by tidal forces!”

”Who told you to tie it directly?” Lin Yuan pointed to the ring fortress nearby that had been beaten to a half-crippled state. ”Doesn’t that thing have some kind of ’gravitational lens’? Alita just said that although two axes are broken, the core is still usable.”

”You want to use it as... a hitch?” Academician Wang was stunned.

”Yes, fix that broken ring and turn it into a tractor. Earth pulls in the front, the gravitational lens acts as a buffer and force field relay in the middle, and the star hangs at the very back.” Lin Yuan made an extremely absurd gesture in the void. ”Like that... semi-truck trailer, understand?”

The channel was silent for a full five seconds.

Then came the excited roars of the madmen in the Engineering Department.

”Holy crap! This idea is brilliant!”

”Can the gravity slingshot effect even be used like this?”

”As long as the dynamic balance of the Lagrange points is calculated correctly, it’s theoretically feasible!”

”Quick, quick, quick! Pull up the blueprints for that gravitational lens! I told you the boss is a physics genius, even if his methods are a bit wild!”

Academician Wang took a deep breath, pushed up the glasses on his nose, and a hint of fanaticism flashed in his eyes. ”Since the boss has spoken, let’s do it! All units, pay attention. Target the gravitational node ahead, prepare for docking!”

Lin Yuan nodded with satisfaction.

Just then, hundreds of red dots suddenly appeared on the radar screen.

Those pirate coalition forces and the remnants of the Holy See, who had been shivering in the corners, saw this god of slaughter studying how to pack up and take the sun with him, and their minds suddenly became active.

If you don’t run now, are you waiting for the New Year?

Hundreds of tattered warships engaged their engines at full power, colorful exhaust flames spraying from their rears, scattering and fleeing toward the edge of the galaxy like startled cockroaches.

”Yo, you haven’t paid the bill yet, and you want to leave?”

Lin Yuan didn’t even turn his head; he just snapped his fingers lightly.

Hum—!

An invisible ripple of void swept across the entire sector instantly.

It wasn’t an attack, but a lockdown.

Space folding technology.

The pirate ships that were accelerating suddenly found that the space in front of them had turned into an invisible wall. The destroyer in the lead couldn’t brake in time and slammed head-on into the spatial barrier, looking like a flattened soda can, instantly exploding into a brilliant firework in space.

The rest were scared out of their wits and hurriedly engaged reverse thrusters; for a moment, space turned into a chaotic mess, with bumper cars playing out in full force.

Lin Yuan turned around, two red lights lighting up on the visor of his void armor. His voice broadcasted across all channels, cold as if it had been fished out of an ice cellar.

”I’ll count to three.”

”All ships still capable of moving, shut down your engines immediately and kneel right there.”

”Either sign a contract of indentured servitude and be incorporated into the Earth’s logistics transport brigade, or I’ll send you to meet that dead ghost Jealousy right now.”

”Three.”

It didn’t even need to reach two.

The hundreds of warships that had just wanted to run away cut their power in unison; some sensible captains even opened their cargo holds and ejection ports, hanging out white flags.

Negotiate with a monster that can play with the sun like a lightbulb and build walls out of space? If you’re tired of living, that’s not the way to die.

”A Ji, take some people and go conscript them.” Lin Yuan waved his hand as if shooing away flies. ”These bastards might not be good at fighting, but the cargo holds in their ships are quite big. We just happen to be short on porters.”

”You got it, Boss! Just watch me!” A Ji rubbed his hands excitedly, shouting loudly in the communication channel. ”Brothers! Work is here! Remember the Boss’s teachings: that’s our reserve supplies! Anyone who dares to resist, beat them to death, as long as they have enough breath left to move bricks, it’s fine!”

The scene that followed was enough to be recorded in the annals of this star sector, known to future generations as the ”Locust Swarm Transit.”

Countless engineering ships and armed shuttles poured out from Earth’s underground cities. These Earthlings, who had been cooped up in the apocalypse, saw the wreckage of ships and the intact Holy See supplies everywhere, and their eyes turned green.

That wasn’t clearing the battlefield; that was scraping the ground three layers deep.

”Although that ring fortress is half-blown, the remaining metal is high-strength titanium alloy! Dismantle it! Dismantle it all and take it away!”

”Don’t smash the gold statues in the church; they are pure gold! Melt them down to make conductive coatings!”

”The pirate ship over there, unload that leather sofa for me! Our command room happens to be short a few chairs!”

”Floor tiles! That floor tile looks like nano-ceramic! Pry it up! Don’t leave a single one for them!”

The originally grand and magnificent Holy See sanctuary was dismantled by this ”demolition team” from Earth in less than two hours, leaving only the load-bearing walls. Even the load-bearing walls were marked, ready to be packed up and taken away later.

The surrendered pirates and believers watched this scene, huddling together and shivering.

They never dreamed in their lives that these ”primitives,” who seemed to have a lower technological level than the Holy See, would be a hundred times more professional at looting than the greediest interstellar pirates.

”That’s about enough.”

Lin Yuan glanced at the void that had been scraped clean, and then looked at the golden sun in the distance that had been ”captured” by Earth’s gravitational field.

”Academician Wang, is the hitch connected?”

”Connected! The gravitational lens has rebooted, and the phase lock is complete! But Boss...” Academician Wang’s voice trembled a bit, ”Carrying such a big thing, the conventional engines definitely won’t be able to pull it. We must initiate a super-large-scale void jump.”

”Then initiate it.”

”But there isn’t enough energy! Earth’s current energy reserves are at most enough for us to jump by ourselves. If we take a sun, we need at least three more orders of magnitude of energy!”

”Energy?”

Lin Yuan smiled.

He glanced at the well-behaved golden star behind him, a greedy arc curling up at the corner of his mouth.

”Aren’t we carrying a super power bank right now?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Yuan suddenly raised his hands.

Boom!

The void armor on his body suddenly disintegrated, turning into countless black tentacles that plunged directly into the star’s corona. At the same time, the other end connected to the planetary engine array on Earth’s equator.

”Suck it up for me!”

The originally calm star suddenly shone with a blinding light. Massive amounts of stellar energy were forcibly extracted by Lin Yuan, the ”humanoid converter,” purified by the void engine, and turned into pure, ghostly blue psionic energy, which was frantically poured into Earth’s core.

Hum, hum, hum—!

The twelve thousand planetary engines on Earth’s surface let out an unprecedented roar at this moment. The originally blue plasma beams instantly surged into blinding white light, shooting straight into the sky.

The entire Earth’s atmosphere was trembling, as if the planet were letting out a comfortable groan.

”Energy reserves... 120%... 200%... 500%!!!”

Alita’s alarm voice went out of tune, ”Boss! That’s enough! If you keep sucking, it’s going to burst! Earth’s energy shield is already shining like a supernova!”

”Then... let’s go!”

Lin Yuan’s eyes shot out two beams of golden light, a sign of energy overflowing within his body.

He waved his hand violently, as if swinging a sharp sword that could sever space and time.

”Target: Orion Arm! void engine, full power output!”

”Earth... departure!”

Rumble—!

At this moment, space shattered.

No sound could describe that shock.

One could see the azure planet dragging that huge mechanical ring, and behind the ring, it was firmly pulling a massive golden sun.

Like an ant carrying an elephant, it crashed through the dimensional barrier of reality amidst a twisted display of light and shadow.

Space shattered like a mirror, revealing the colorful Subspace turbulence behind it.

That massive and bizarre ”demolition convoy” squeezed into the jump tunnel amidst a breathtaking flash, instantly disappearing without a trace.

Leaving only a mess in the void behind.

...

A few minutes later.

On the other planets in this star system, the surviving indigenous inhabitants looked up in confusion.

The sun that should have been hanging in the sky was gone.

Only a pitch-black hole remained, still emitting wisps of cold air.

The sky had gone dark.

It was really dark.

”Gods...” An old priest of Blazing Sun Star knelt in the cold wind, watching the pitch-black sky, tears streaming down his face uncontrollably. ”What has this world come to? That demon... it’s one thing that he kills and sets fires...”

”How could he even steal the sun!!!”

...

Inside the void jump tunnel.

All around was the colorful turbulence of space-time, and Earth was sailing steadily through it, dragging the tamed sun behind it. Because of the energy provided by this star, the temperature on Earth’s surface was rising rapidly, and the ice and snow that had covered the ruins of the cities began to melt.

Lin Yuan sat in the control hall, holding the Pope’s scepter he had just looted—crafted from pure platinum and inlaid with top-quality energy stones the size of pigeon eggs. At this moment, he was using it as a backscratcher, reaching into his undershirt to scratch an itch.

”Boss, we made a fortune this time.” A Ji was counting the spoils over there, his mouth almost crooked from smiling. ”Just the reactors dismantled from those few Holy See capital ships are enough for us to use until the next century. Not to mention there are so many slaves... ah no, laborers.”

”This is nothing.” Lin Yuan curled his lips in disdain. ”We’ve just left the beginner’s village. Later, when we reach the filthy rich central star sector, I’ll take you to loot a dyson sphere.”

Just then.

Alita, who had been silent, suddenly spoke, her tone becoming somewhat strange.

”Boss, there’s a situation.”

”What? Is that sun going to explode again?”

”No.” Alita’s fingers swiped rapidly across the light screen. ”Just now, when we were passing through the spatial barrier, because the energy fluctuations were too large, we seem to have accidentally intercepted a broadcast signal hidden in the deep Subspace.”

”What kind of mess is that? An advertisement?” Lin Yuan waved his hand impatiently. ”Block it; I don’t have time to listen to snake oil salesmen.”

”It’s not an advertisement...” Alita paused, looked up, and a light of shock flickered in her electronic eyes. ”The encryption algorithm used for this signal... is the highest-level military code of ancient Earth. And... the signature is very strange.”

Lin Yuan’s scratching hand stopped.

That cavalier demeanor vanished instantly, replaced by a leopard-like alertness.

”Ancient Earth code? What is the signature?”

The big screen flickered.

A line of red Chinese characters was parsed out amidst the full screen of garbled code, looking particularly glaring and particularly terrifying.

[To all compatriots wandering outside:]

[This is the ”Earth · Great Xia Interstellar Expeditionary Force Remnant”.]

[If you can receive this message, please remain silent immediately.]

[They... are hunting humans.]

Dead silence.

The atmosphere in the hall that had just been cheering instantly froze to the freezing point.

Lin Yuan stared fixedly at that line of text, and the pure gold scepter in his hand was silently squeezed with a few finger indentations.

Great Xia remnant?

Wasn’t Earth empty long ago? Apart from the survivors in their underground cities, where did an expeditionary force come from?

And...

They, who are they?