Reboot the Galaxy

The female officer, referred to as "Captain Li," returned the greeting briefly, then smiled slightly at Di Yan: "Hello, Di Yan, I am Lieutenant Li Guangyu, the captain of this J-45." As she spoke, she extended her hand in a friendly manner.

Di Yan shook hands with her and felt the warmth and strength in her palm.

He stared into the other person's eyes, trying his best to suppress the urge to look around.

Even a quick glance revealed that everything inside the starship was both new and attractive. However, there would be plenty of time to explore later, and he didn't want to be seen as a "country bumpkin."

So far, the Viyin Starship Force has left a fairly good impression on him.

"You've worked hard today, and we're honored to have you on our team. Qinghe," Li Guangyu said quickly, turning his gaze to Han Qinghe, who immediately responded.

"It's getting late. Take Di Yan to the rest area. We have one last stop tomorrow."

"Yes." Han Qinghe answered readily, signaling Di Yan to follow, and began to lead the way.

Before setting off, Di Yan glanced at Li Guangyu one last time and saw her smiling and nodding at him, so he nodded back slightly.

The corridor is several meters wide and less than three meters high, running straight ahead. It is a gentle white color that is not glaring. Black patterns are scattered everywhere, sometimes dense and sometimes sparse, like vines growing wildly along the walls and floor. Although there are many of them, they do not look messy at all.

The patterns are arranged randomly, with no repeated elements, making it look like a huge work of art.

Di Yan searched for a long time but couldn't find a light source, which could only mean that all the walls were emitting their own light.

The lighting was just enough to make all the details visible, which made the white of the corridor look a little dim. But this shadowless lighting environment still made Di Yan feel a little uncomfortable, and he kept having the illusion that he and his surroundings were "not on the same level", and the ground under his feet even felt unstable.

"Lieutenant Li just said there's another stop tomorrow, which one are you referring to?" Di Yan asked casually.

"Africa, Elmendo."

Di Yan stopped walking, his breath caught in his throat.

Han Qinghe noticed Di Yan's unusual behavior, stopped, and turned around to look at him: "What's wrong?"

Di Yan stared at the ground, pondering the place name. After a short while, he looked back at Han Qinghe and shook his head: "It's nothing, let's go."

This time, Han Qinghe and Di Yan walked side by side.

"Do you have a story in that area?" Han Qinghe asked with concern.

Di Yan touched his face: "A little, but not much."

Han Qinghe frowned slightly and nodded, not asking any further questions.

A door to an elevator shaft suddenly appeared on the side wall of the corridor ahead. Han Qinghe walked over and pressed the down button.

The door opened the instant he pressed the button. He gestured for him to enter.

The elevator interior was also white, just like the exterior, with irregular black patterns.

Han Qinghe pressed the third-to-last button, and the elevator doors closed quickly. Di Yan glanced at the buttons; they weren't even labeled with numbers.

However, the elevator doors closed and then reopened after only about a second.

"Is the door not closed?" Di Yan asked softly.

"No, we've arrived." Han Qinghe tilted his head and saw Di Yan's surprised expression. He couldn't help but smile and walked out first.

"We've... arrived?"

Di Yan didn't sense any change. The door opened and closed in just a few seconds, and he didn't even feel any acceleration or deceleration...

Gravity control.

The scene of being sucked into the open crack in the J-45's hull resurfaced, and everything made sense.

"Are you surprised?" Han Qinghe smiled tolerantly. "You'll get used to it. There are still many functions on this starship worth exploring."

Di Yan was so engrossed in the elevator experience that he couldn't pull himself out of it: this was not a fact he could easily accept.

What kind of technology allows for such precise and perfect control of gravity? What's the difference between this technology and that of a god? It can use gravity to attract people from the ground to board a ship, and it can also use gravity to balance the acceleration caused by an elevator...

Is this technology really that "cheap"? It's everywhere on this starship!

"From now on, you'll be sleeping in an eight-person dormitory." Han Qinghe's voice pulled Di Yan back to reality from his reverie.

"Of course, not all of your dorm members have arrived yet; there are only four of you including you."

"Tomorrow we're going to pick up the remaining four, right?" Di Yan asked from behind, "the 'last stop' you mentioned."

You're absolutely right.

"You just said it yourself, I'm number 44. It's not hard to tell that there are six dorm rooms like this, with a total of 48 people." Di Yan stated bluntly, "You went to great lengths to gather us from all over the world, it can't be just for military service, there must be a very important mission, right?"

Han Qinghe stopped and turned to Di Yan with a smile: "That's right, you're very smart."

The two had stopped in front of an arched hatch, and there were two more such hatches in the distance.

"Come on, meet your new roommate."

Han Qinghe placed his palm on the sand-white door, and with a slight sliding sound, the hatch split in two and retracted into the side walls.

The dormitory wasn't completely dark, but the light was dim, with only the floor emitting a faint yellowish glow, while the surrounding walls and ceiling were completely black.

The dormitory is very spacious, and the eight single beds are sturdy just by looking at their outlines. They are evenly placed on both sides of the bedroom, with the heads facing outwards and the feet facing inwards.

There were lights on two beds; two people were each holding up a screen and looking at something.

As the hatch opened, one of the men turned around, and his greeting came from the darkness: "Hey, hello."

Di Yan raised his hand in greeting.

"There are no eye masks here; you can only use a tablet to see things. There's a very thin blue border on the wall above the bed; the wall is smart, you can just remove it and use it."

Di Yan frowned slightly, but Han Qinghe didn't give him a chance to ask questions. Instead, he continued, "I still have to take charge of the J-45's piloting duties. You should get some rest. We have plans for tomorrow morning."

After saying that, Han Qinghe left, his steps a little hurried, as if he really had something urgent to attend to.

Di Yan stepped through the door, and the arched doorway closed almost silently behind him.

The person who had just greeted Di Yan looked at him again, the flat panel illuminating the contours of his face.

"You can sleep anywhere, just don't disturb those who are already asleep." He spoke softly. "Hello, my name is He Xu."

"Di Yan."

Di Yan walked to the bed next to him and sat down, examining his blurry features in the dim light. "I'll sleep here."

"Can."

He Xu nodded and continued looking at the tablet, a slight smile on his face.

Di Yan turned to look at the opposite side. One person was already asleep on the two beds, wrapped tightly in a white blanket. The other person looked like a Westerner, but kept staring at a tablet and didn't make a sound the whole time.

"Do you know them?" Di Yan asked softly.

"I only know that person," He Xu pointed to the sleeping man with his tablet, "His name is Ahn Jae-in. He used to belong to the 'White Tiger Unit' in the Korean region. After retiring, he was mainly active in the Middle East. We brought him back from the Iraq battlefield yesterday. He was seriously injured, and he went to bed early today after recovering."

"You told me so easily?"

As Di Yan spoke, he spotted the thin blue frame that Han Qinghe had mentioned on the wall by the bedside. It glowed faintly in the darkness, so he reached out and touched it.

"It's not about my identity, and I have no connection with him, so why can't I say anything?" He Xu shrugged.

"What if I ask you something about you?"

"You can ask, but you can only ask one question at a time, and after I answer, you must answer the same question." He Xu turned his head to look at Di Yan, his eyes flashing with a flat light. "This is called 'information parity'."

"Hmm, that makes sense."

Di Yan finally understood what Han Qinghe meant by "the wall is very intelligent": after his hand touched the blue border, he could clearly feel the wall automatically deforming, vaguely creating a gap that his fingertips could slip into. He then inserted his fingers into this gap and easily removed the tablet from the wall.

So, go ahead and ask.

I won't ask.

He Xu looked over in surprise and saw that Di Yan had already casually lay down on the bed, picked up the tablet and started clicking.

"I don't like 'information parity'."

Di Yan discovered that there were quite a few books on the tablet, so he pulled one up. "Besides, the more information we know about each other, the less beneficial it is."

He glanced ahead and saw Ahn Jae-in, who was already asleep, on one side, and a Westerner sitting on a tablet on the other.

He seemed to act as if no one was in the room, remaining unmoved from beginning to end.

He even doubted whether the other person could understand what they were talking about at all.

He Xu chuckled, coughed a few times, and after a while suddenly said, "I used to belong to the Central Security Bureau."

Di Yan remained silent.

"Until one of the security incidents I was in charge of, I was dismissed, and after that I started working as a private bodyguard."

Di Yan remained silent.

"At first, I worked as a bodyguard for good people, but who would have thought that in less than two years, I would transform into a bodyguard for bad guys... Heh..."

He Xu chuckled self-deprecatingly, closed the tablet, and sank into the blankets. "I slowly realized that there are actually no bad people in this world. The definitions of good and bad are relative. Once I understood this, the burden on my heart lessened a bit."

"Hmm." This was the only response He Xu received from Di Yan.

"And this place, the Viyin Star Fleet, is no ordinary place. They are completely different from what is advertised outside, as you have seen."

Although it was pitch black there, Di Yan could feel the other person's burning gaze looking at him, which made him feel uncomfortable.

"So what do you mean?" Di Yan finally asked.

"What I mean is, maybe this time, I can get back on track."

In the darkness, He Xu sighed softly, "Perhaps, this time I don't need to worry about those problems anymore. Everything from before can be wiped clean."

Di Yan's eyes darted around; he hadn't turned a single page since he opened the book.

He turned off the tablet and slid into the covers as well: "Go to sleep."

The dormitory fell silent. The Westerner across from me on the bed continued reading a book on his tablet, as always.

The book is titled "My Starship Life," and it is an autobiography written by a veteran who served on a starship.

He died alone on the ship, and even his ashes were scattered in the universe, unable to return to his homeland, Earth.

……

3414年2月3日，6：07。

West of Elmundo, on the outskirts of Setate.

Due to the time difference, Settat is currently shrouded in darkness, around 2 PM on February 2nd.

The massive J-45 aircraft carrier was already parked on the desert, with a town not far away. A cold wind swept by, carrying the faint crackling of gunfire from time to time, like dry firewood burning fiercely.

The black stripes on the J-45 shimmered with blue dots, casting a new blue star over the starless Iron Curtain.

On the open ground to one side of the starship, scattered lights appeared particularly desolate in the bleak and cold wind.

Many people wanted to smoke, but Lieutenant Li Guangyu forbade it, which led to a lot of discontent, which grew louder and louder as the cold wind blew.

Di Yan leaned against a withered tree, wearing familiar tactical armor, fiddling with the rifle he had just acquired.

A few minutes ago, all the weapons and equipment were "spit out" by the J-45s in boxes, arming everyone to the teeth, while those stacked empty boxes are now just silhouettes in the night.

With a crisp click, he pushed the magazine down, ejected a bullet, tossed it up, caught it, tossed it up again, and caught it again.

This reminded him of his time in the mercenary group.

Back then, a group of shirtless men gathered in a smoky, run-down tavern, throwing darts, arm wrestling, and smashing bottles, with cheers and madness everywhere.

"Hey kid, do you know what's most important for a mercenary?"

A burly man with a bushy brown beard found Di Yan and downed half a bottle of beer in one gulp.

"Tell me, Charlie. What is it?" The young Di Yan smiled as he tossed a bullet, caught it, tossed it again, and caught it again.

"He's alive! He's fucking alive!"

Charlie puffed out his belly, patted Di Yan on the shoulder and smiled, a hint of kindness flashing in his eyes, "If you don't live, you have nothing!"

"Hehehe...yes...alive..." Di Yan muttered to himself.

Suddenly, a gust of wind swept by, stirring up heat waves and dust, which, like red-hot knives, scraped painfully across Di Yan's face.

Everything around was quiet, except for the sound of the wind. The tavern, the burly man, and Charick had all vanished.

The ground was covered with rubble, as well as buried and pierced corpses. The blood had long since dried into a deep red, sticking to the light-colored dust, like magma seeping out after the earth cracked open, hot and dazzling.

A burly man with brown, frizzy hair and a large beard lay on the ground in front of them.

For a moment, Di Yan didn't recognize him.

He should have... he should have been living a good life.

Di Yan was imprisoned by the past, almost suffocating. He spent two years trying to forget, but tonight those thoughts came back again.

"Hey, Di Yan."

The light from the shoulder of He Xuyi's armor shone on him, a little dazzling. "Assemble. Lieutenant Li is about to issue the mission instructions."

"Hmm..." Di Yan inserted the magazine back, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and walked into the semi-circle formed by the people.

In the center of the semi-circular area, Li Guangyu stood with her hands on her hips, her sharp eyes scanning the crowd, including those who disliked her.

She spoke loudly in English: "We have just finished our rest and have a natural advantage over the insurgents who are exhausted from the night. Nearly 80% of them have been in the war for less than a year. So I will not allow any of you to die."

As for the mission objectives, Xavier will transmit different instructions to each person through their earpieces. Don't consider others; strictly follow these instructions without any hesitation.

The cold wind outside Settat gently lifted the ends of her fine hair and also brushed against Di Yan's slightly rough long hair.

She paused, and in the darkness pierced by the light, she saw dozens of pairs of eyes, each with a different personality and varying heights.

"Set off!"