The hot wind lifted Lu Yuan's sideburns, wafting the lingering smell of smoke across his nose. He lowered the car window, gazing with a complex expression toward the distant Xiyun.
Just minutes ago, he had crashed the all-terrain vehicle out of the escape pod and sped along the landing ramp. As the external scan had shown earlier, beyond the warship lay an endless desert. Only after the reconnaissance drone confirmed low risk did Lu Yuan turn off the vehicle's air circulation system, jump out, and step onto solid ground.
The dust beneath his boots was as fine as powder, interspersed with faintly green fragments of crystal. Grabbing a handful, it quickly sifted through his fingers, but when he slashed his hand through the sand, he hit rougher, larger grains just a few centimeters down. Shading his eyes from the scorching sun, he climbed back onto the all-terrain vehicle and took in the sight of the Xiyun. Judging by the wreckage, the ship's coating might have burnt away into fine powder as it passed through the atmosphere.
On the far side of the Xiyun, the reconnaissance drone also detected a ridge only about thirty or forty meters high, likely a weathered mountain range. This small ridge shielded the Xiyun's near-severed body from the fierce winds sweeping down from the north, barely saving it from complete obliteration. Even so, all external facilities on the Xiyun were long gone, and smaller items had been strewn as far as several kilometers away.
Sweat dripped onto his boots. His personal thermometer was already reading above forty degrees Celsius. At this rate, no one could stand as still as Lu Yuan for too long.
He took off his sun hat, placed his hand over his heart, and lowered his head in a minute of silence. Droplets of water ran down his chin, scattering like ashes in the wind.
Lu Yuan climbed back into the all-terrain vehicle. The fuel gauge showed it could travel up to 1,500 kilometers, though sustained off-road travel would shorten that. With seven spare fuel cells, assuming everything went well, he could reach the northeast Lichuan Aerospace Base within a week at an average speed of forty-five kilometers per hour. Whatever Murphy wanted him to do upon arrival would come later. As a paratrooper captain, he was accustomed to receiving only a mission objective, leaving the rest of the mission plan to him.
So, he loaded his gun, sharpened his blade—dying in the sand wouldn't be the worst fate.
The drone hovered ahead, gradually mapping the area, while Lu Yuan set the all-terrain vehicle to cruise. Leaning out of the turret, he watched the Xiyun fade bit by bit. Within three hours, this steel vessel would be completely swallowed by the desert, along with its thousand sailors and, almost certainly, Zhang Yueyang. He didn't know where his paratrooper brothers from the Corona were, nor whether he would be able to deliver the death notices kept in the captain's office himself.
Probably not.
Within minutes, the Xiyun vanished below the horizon. Lu Yuan clenched his fist and slammed it down, teeth bared as he roared until his despair drained away. He pounded the steel turret edge rhythmically, yelling out, letting the pain settle deep within his tempered, unyielding heart.
"Go anywhere! Fear nothing!"
The desert echoed the paratroopers' creed. Lu Yuan yelled until his throat was raw, then took a deep breath of the hot air, climbed back into the vehicle, wiped his sweat away, and looked through the grille at the dust-filled wasteland.
He decided to wait out the Xiyun's final moments in silence.
One hundred eighty minutes passed quickly in memory as Lu Yuan's watch ticked to zero. A slight tremor, like a ripple, passed through the vehicle, then the flat desert suddenly rippled. In the pale blue sky, a perfectly shaped ring of cloud rose and spread to the ground. As it expanded to fill his entire view, it reached its limit and collapsed. Dust, sucked back by the enormous force, began swirling in the opposite direction. Finally, a thunderous blast broke the silence, loud enough to pierce the eardrums. The sky remained the sky; Earth remained Earth.
Lu Yuan had no reason to linger any longer.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," he murmured, quietly honoring the unknown names and their undying legacy. Someone had to bring back all that had happened.
Unfolding a small table from the vehicle's cabin, he said, "Murphy, send the terrain map from earlier scans of the ship's surroundings."
"Map transmitted. Note that the bio-projection chip will no longer remain fully activated."
"Your consciousness—this chip—will enter a dormant state?" he asked, pencil between his teeth.
Sure enough, inside the co-pilot's compartment, he found a blank map book. In front of his eyes appeared a mess of mapping lines, while in his mind, he grasped this specific content with newfound clarity.
Murphy's answer was affirmative, but Lu Yuan remained calm; he'd been through many bloody battles, seen plenty of officers equipped with chips die, and bullets were fair to all. Biting the pencil, he didn't waste time and quickly sketched the terrain across approximately 530 kilometers. A simple sketch was a required skill for officers, and Lu Yuan swiftly outlined the whole area, supplementing it with details of the terrain around Lichuan.
After marking the contour lines, Lu Yuan tore off a corner of the map book, using a ruler to draw a short line. Before easing his aching wrist, the retinal projection suddenly shut down, forcing him to rely on memory to complete the curved mountain range covering the Lichuan base's valley.
"Notice: The chip is no longer fully active. Remaining biological power: 841 hours and 37 minutes," Murphy said. Lu Yuan had no interest in conversing with this military AI, which lacked much in the way of personality modules. He simply grunted, allowing it to fall silent.
Blowing the dust off the map, Lu Yuan smoothed its creases and traced his chin, contemplating the best route to reach Lichuan.
First, while the Hare all-terrain vehicle was durable, it couldn't continuously traverse jagged, gravel-strewn desert terrain for weeks. A blown tire would be a serious problem. Though knowledgeable, Lu Yuan didn't handle vehicle repairs himself. The reconnaissance drone would also eventually need maintenance.
And within this vast expanse, which covered tens of thousands of square kilometers, it was uncertain whether any signs of life existed. For centuries, the United Alliance's knowledge of "Old Earth" was limited to the basic descriptions in educational curricula, which suggested Earth had been abandoned and left desolate.
Having wandered across thirteen planets, each of which was worse off than Earth, Lu Yuan doubted the desert's barrenness implied lifelessness. With enough moisture in the air, it was unlikely a place like this, where one could breathe without an oxygen mask, was worse than a gas planet. Especially with a ring of mountains to the northeast; life could survive in the shade beyond the mountains, perhaps even old Earth humans or imperial outposts. Yet, recklessly charging forward wouldn't be wise—Lu Yuan might be able to handle ten men alone, but a hundred would force him to use his honor grenade.
If there were indeed settlements of old Earth inhabitants… honestly, Lu Yuan wasn't sure how he'd approach them. His instincts told him that humans confined to the ground for centuries, compared to someone like him who traveled the stars, would likely resemble those cavemen from educational reading. Though he held respect for fire and bullets, he had no particular curiosity about people's games.
The vehicle suddenly hit a rock, jarring him as he clutched the handrail and peered outside the armor panel attached to the door. In the distance, he thought he saw shadows like iron—perhaps a mirage. Shaking his head, he carefully sipped from a water bottle to moisten his throat. With his route confirmed, he began to check the vehicle's supplies.
This was a vehicle model Lu Yuan was familiar with. He had driven a Hare under a rain of enemy fire onto a landing ship during the Battle of Sentinel Star. The gas turbine engine provided immense horsepower, and the sturdy chassis ignored multiple anti-infantry land mines. The modified escape cabin even had a small radiation-cleaning chamber with radiation-resistant items such as ceramic-encased lead plates, high-grade gas masks, and potassium iodide tablets.
With half the cabin space filled with supply boxes, the interior was hardly cramped; there was plenty of room to stretch out. Lu Yuan sat down and pulled over a skull-marked munitions box. Sensing his chip, it opened with a click.
He hefted a QF47 caseless rifle, cocked and uncocked it with a "click," the matte, baked-enamel gun body still gleaming with a certain menace. This was his go-to surface combat rifle, though the paratrooper pulse rifle had here been swapped for a shoulder-mounted anti-air pulse cannon. He also found other essential gear, like a versatile survival rifle, full-cover assault armor, remote probe spheres, and multipurpose micro-robots. Aside from an exoskeleton, this Hare all-terrain vehicle was essentially an armory on wheels.
Survival supplies, needless to say, were just as plentiful, with ten-person rations enough to sustain even his full appetite for over six months. He even found a portable grill, which he put to good use, setting up barley beef soup on his mess tin and, after eating his fill, laid out a waterproof mat, letting the drone keep watch as he dozed off atop a crate.
When Lu Yuan woke up, dusk was setting in. He halted the vehicle's power system, wiped away sweat, and climbed back into the cockpit, adjusting the route based on the reconnaissance results.
The Lichuan Base was still far off.