Chapter 611: The Gray Dwarf Star

The small shuttlecraft, still in stealth mode, slipped deftly through an arc after crossing the Lagrange point, further hiding itself within the star’s immense gravitational field and chaotic electromagnetic background. Then it turned, deployed its thermal shields at the rear, and aimed the antenna array at its nose toward a certain point in the dark starry sky.

There, a faster-than-light communications array was anchored in the deep space between Luo’s hideout and the Gray Dwarf Star. A set of high-power transmission antennas were moored in that darkness, powered by an old reactor and an accompanying gas collection station that had been running for centuries.

The array had originally been built by a group of reckless interstellar traders—in the Dark Meteor Domain, the term was essentially a tense form of “pirate”—but after an unpleasant transaction, the Black Spot Group had revoked that caravan’s business license in the domain. The revocation method consisted mainly of 1250mm convergence cannons and “Inferno” fortress torpedoes.

Afterward, the entire communications array became the property of the Black Spot Group.

In the Dark Meteor Domain, such “makeshift” communication arrays built by various factions were as important as navigational beacons along the shipping lanes. Though they often came with dangerous virus broadcasts and countless scam signals, and sometimes operated unreliably, at least they supported the most basic communication “business” in the lawless zone. They prevented the gutter rats hiding in the dim nebulas from degenerating into blind, deaf primitive tribes after a few generations—after all, the Universal Union, Terra, and the Borderlands would never come to such a place to build space infrastructure. The locals had to solve their own practical problems.

Chaotic, busy communication signals, noisy illegal broadcasts, all kinds of garbled encrypted calls mixed into the dark net, and those scam texts—Luo’s mechanical limbs pierced the shuttle’s control panel, and the ship’s antenna became an extension of those mechanical appendages. The information echoing through space roared in her mind like a strange, howling, endless wind.

“Ah… what a familiar damn noise. This is the sound of the happy home…” Luo stretched in the pilot’s seat, letting the roaring noise howl between the shuttle’s antenna system and her brain implants. With practiced ease, she disguised herself as an insignificant fringe traveler, listening to the sounds of this lawless star sector, filtering out useful things, and cautiously began activating the “ghost identities” she had planted in the local network years ago.

Most of the communication signals came from the Gray Dwarf Star—it was considered the “border town” and commercial hub of this desolate region. A smaller portion came from local broadcasts, originating from the surface and orbit of that barren rocky planet.

Luo overheard people on the interstellar comms discussing the “missing” Black Spot pioneer lab, others talking about the spatial oscillations from not long ago. Some anonymous boards were even heatedly debating whether they could take the opportunity to “try their luck” at those temporarily offline Black Spot facilities. In the local signals, some were asking about the “boss’s” whereabouts and whether they should continue executing the production plan the boss had left behind.

All relevant discussions had stopped as of last week, and then a takeover notice from the group company had ended—at least ostensibly ended—the chaos.

Streams of light flickered in Luo’s eyes. Her fingers slid across the control panel, and the holographic projection in the pilot’s seat displayed the announcement the Black Spot Group had issued locally.

“Regional director died in a lab accident, full authority transfer…” she muttered softly, but a strange smile appeared on her face. “Not bad, they’ve already declared me dead. Good thing I came over secretly…”

“Boss, should we contact the port director?” the guard captain asked cautiously. “Lex should still be loyal. He…”

“No rush. Let’s find a place to lay low first,” Luo said casually, her gaze sweeping over the hidden compartment beside her seat. “Maybe we don’t have to keep such a low profile…”

The shuttle’s engines quietly lit up, accelerating along the edge of the mother planet’s radar alert radius into deep space. After exiting the planet’s alert perimeter and setting the jump target to the Gray Dwarf Star, Luo opened the communicator and began hailing within the Black Spot Group’s internal network.

After a brief burst of noise, a mechanical-sounding voice directly entered Luo’s mind: “Who?”

“Old Joe,” Luo leaned back in the pilot’s seat, a cold hardness in her expression, though her mental tone carried a false politeness. “Long time no talk—can you still recognize my voice?”

The voice on the other end fell silent for a few seconds. After a moment’s hesitation, the mechanical voice finally spoke again: “Ah, so you’re still alive. I knew you wouldn’t go down so easily. This is… gratifying.”

“Gratifying? Gratifying that someone’s come back to snatch the territory you finally got your hands on?”

“…The regional takeover was a decision by the group’s upper management. If I hadn’t taken it, another specialist would have,” the voice called “Old Joe” seemed somewhat embarrassed, though it was hard to tell how sincere that embarrassment was. “At least I won’t casually mess up someone else’s production plans. Where are you now? Let’s meet and talk, then we can submit a report to the higher-ups together, explain the situation?”

Luo glanced sideways at the holographic projection beside her.

“I know you’re tracking my signal, but your technique is a bit crude,” she said casually, then abruptly changed the subject. “But that’s fine—we can skip these hassles. Gray Dwarf Star, I have a suitable place to meet there. I’ll send you coordinates later. Let’s meet.”

With that, she cleanly cut the signal and, without hesitation, activated the shuttle’s jump drive.

Even with her auxiliary brain assisting calculations, the little ship’s electronic countermeasures had reached their limit.

The shuttle turned into a streak of light stretched rapidly across the darkness, then in an instant plunged into a bubble formed by warped space.

Half a minute after it vanished, three iron-gray stealth interceptors jumped in one after another—broadcasting public rescue codes on the common frequency, with jump scramblers and search radars running at full power.

After a brief patrol, the interceptors, having found nothing, reported their empty catch and turned back to return.

The flash of engines lit up this dark, cold deep space. The survival rules of the happy home were as always…

…

The Gray Dwarf Star, a rocky planet at the edge of the Dark Meteor Domain, was generally regarded as a “buffer bridge” between this lawless zone and the “civilized world.” The last military action by the Algreades against the Black Spot Group had stopped at the planet’s high orbit. The Borderland law enforcement fleet would, at the end of every Terra year, routinely illuminate the Gray Dwarf Star’s planetary shield with fire-control radar. This place retained the last shred of dignity from the civilized world, but it was also filled with the “wild folkways” unique to lawless star sectors. All in all, it was a bustling, lively place.

Though even by local standards, it could hardly be called “habitable.”

A gray-black haze from excessive development in earlier years filled its atmosphere. Hardened mutant vegetation covered the abandoned mines and canyons beyond the big cities. The planet’s surface was scarred with ghastly huge trenches, some of which even pierced the crust, reaching deep into the cooling mantle.

Seen from space, the Gray Dwarf Star looked like a shriveled, terrifying skull, its face covered with wounds deep enough to show bone. Crisscrossing steel megastructures barely stitched the planet together, which seemed about to fall apart. The overcrowded cities were built on those steel frameworks, trembling precariously, like countless parasitic cysts on the surface of that dreadful skull.

The shuttle passed through the pitch-black clouds, darting swiftly through the crowded, stacked cities. Everywhere were towering yet dilapidated high-rises, twisted and deformed like giant pillars, their original appearance long lost under countless renovations and additions over the years. Their bases might have been a factory from centuries ago, a bridge, even a church. The upper layers were uniformly smeared with the passage of time, like… man-made, rotten growth rings.

Many buildings’ main frameworks were already precarious. Sometimes Luo felt a single gust of wind would be enough to send the whole city toppling like dominoes—their wreckage would tumble into the planet’s surface trenches and canyons, the steel and stone extracted from the crust returning to the crust, filling the planet back up in some form, turning it from a pockmarked zombie skull into a smooth, rounded skeleton.

Luo felt she was fucking poetic.

If only she had studied the humanities back then.

The shuttle stopped in the depths of the giant city, at the upper level of a towering spire. This tower was more magnificent and imposing than the surrounding buildings, its neat upper structure not chaotically added onto like the others. It even had several semicircular docking platforms protruding from the tower, with guide lights shining into the half-empty space above, and uniformed service personnel standing at every gate’s entrance.

An upscale neighborhood—an upscale neighborhood in the gutter.

Luo entered the tower with several fully armed guard soldiers. The staff along the way bowed respectfully to her, even though none of them knew Luo’s real name or “background.”

Luo owned some property here—in fact, a third of the tower’s structure belonged to her. The remaining two-thirds were occupied by an ancient AI that stubbornly believed this was still a church offering shelter to travelers. Communicating with that thing was a hassle. Luo had tried several times to buy the remaining floors from it without success, and eventually gave up.

After a quick check of the building’s security system to confirm no signs of intrusion, Luo sent the coordinates to “Old Joe.”

While waiting, she opened the portable suitcase she carried and took out a small crystal bottle.

The liquid inside shimmered with a fascinating luster under the light.

(End of chapter)