Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Working with the doctor to inspect the Ark's power, electricity, and heat dissipation systems, she quickly made a decision to activate the first emergency hibernation matrix—because the situation was so dire that the few people on duty could not handle it.

"Are we home?" Kroos asked as her first question. "Or are we about to explode?" She shouldn't have been awakened unless one of these two possibilities existed.

"No, it's not that. It's that we're about to die, literally about to die." The reactors need to be shut down for maintenance, and the heating protection inside the spacecraft will soon fail. It really is about to die, literally about die, and it's the kind of death that reaches -270 degrees Celsius.

Kroos caught the tablet that Gladys handed her, glanced at the circuit map, and her hair stood on end in shock. "My God! This is only the second year! There are still three years to go, and after that, we still have to maintain the colonies and deployment capabilities. How did things get so bad?"

"Prioritize the warp drive and hibernation matrix, then begin the overhaul." Master Ke is very skilled at this repair work because, apart from him, no one else is willing to repair many of the devices in Kazdel, especially those he designed.

Soon, the once desolate Ark became extremely lively, waking up thousands of hibernating engineers at once to begin large-scale maintenance and troubleshooting operations. This caused the life support resources on board the Ark to be consumed at a rate of dozens of times faster. However, between the choice between consuming life support resources and letting the entire crew perish halfway through the journey, it was actually easy to make a choice.

"Fortunately, we have plenty of spare Originium components." The Originium reactor, hundreds of meters high, was extracted and launched directly off the Ark along the catapult track. Then, a brand new one was placed inside. After several months of intensive maintenance and inspection, the reactor matrix was finally put back into operation.

This means that everyone won't cool down so quickly. The next step is to continue inspecting the power lines and backup power generation equipment. As for the warp engines that have been operating at overload, there's nothing they can do to repair them. They can only hope that the Covenant's custom-made parts are of high enough quality to last until the 37-light-year journey is completely completed.

"Finally out!" Blitz raised his hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight, his voice sounding as if he were coming out of prison. To be honest, this past year had been no different from being behind bars. Every day was filled with uninterrupted, irregular interrogations. After the authenticity of Levi's device was initially confirmed, he was subjected to even more serious questioning and inquiry.

Surrounded by a large group of experts who looked at them like monkeys, and indeed they were treating them like monkeys, Blitzkrieg felt as if he had been studying among monkeys, even though there was only a difference of a little over two centuries.

Compared to the Rainbow Team's four members, who were completely drained in a year, Levi is still serving his prison sentence. It's estimated that he won't be out for at least another six months because the Covenant replicated his device. Although they observed some spacetime fluctuations, they didn't see the phenomenon he described.

So, the current investigation is whether it was a coincidence, or a chance occurrence due to phenomena that Levi's instruments couldn't observe, such as micro-wormholes, or whether this guy was hiding something crucial.

"Let's go. Now our problem is finding new jobs."

“I did find it.” Alexander said with a strange expression.

"Oh? I remember your specialty is..." He is very good at commanding and coordinating large-scale operations, as well as urban warfare and positional warfare, but most of his command skills are not very useful here.

Blitzkrieg did consider returning to its old ways, but the Covenant's intelligence and army departments obviously couldn't accept an Earthling of unknown origin. The former because of his unknown origin, and the latter because he was an Earthling. They could guess this too—could a general from ancient Rome command a modern aircraft carrier battle group?

It's obvious that the military institutions here wouldn't want a group of people whose tactics and concepts are stuck in the old era.

For example, in large-scale operations, Blitzkrieg had seen the exercises and some publicly available military information, as well as equipment magazines, during his house arrest. He thought about it and felt that no commander from Earth's era seemed to have the ability to coordinate and command a battle group composed of hundreds of millions of combat units. The difficulty of information processing, communication and reporting had exceeded the limits of what humans could handle.

God knows how these people managed to command such a large group so smoothly, and he didn't think Alexander's experience would be of any use.

“I am Russian,” Alexander said, looking at Blitzkrieg with pity. “And what are Russians good at?”

"Um, drinking? Hunting? Driving tanks?" That's a good question. These are the stereotypes about what Russians are good at, since that's what was promoted in the past.

"Actually, there's another one: Russians are good at art and mathematics."

"Ah, this~" Thinking about it carefully, it seems to make sense. For example, Levi passed the teacher qualification exam and can teach elementary school math here, and middle school math too—teaching calculus in elementary school is something only the Soviet Union and the Star Alliance here could do.

It might seem absurd to ask Levi, a respectable former Soviet scientist and university professor, to teach elementary school math here. But if you think about it carefully, the difficulty of the courses seems about the same. In elementary school, it might even be much simpler. However, the level of middle school should be about the same, and it would be a little difficult to teach some special mathematical tools.

“But…” Ash looked Alexander up and down, thinking, “You don’t seem to have anything to do with art or mathematics, do you?”

“No, a virtual network company hired me as their consultant.” Alexander gave a strange smile. “Well, as a historical consultant on urban warfare data and tactical command from the Earth era. They’re making a very hardcore FPS game. Although I don’t think it will sell many copies, it should be enough to earn a salary and social security.”

"Oh right, I actually found a job too," Ash said somewhat embarrassedly. "It's similar to my previous job. They value my talent in structural mechanics, and..." and also my talent in making explosions. They're going to give me a chance to participate in the dismantling and renovation of the Covenant's old space facilities. If I'm lucky, I might even get a permanent position.

"Don't look at me," Shuanghua said, taking out the "Hunting Management Association Training Camp Instructor" certificate card issued by the Star Alliance.

"I'm in charge of teaching hunting and wilderness survival, like how to survive in the jungle for a week with just a knife. Oh, and I also found a job as a summer camp instructor at a middle school. The pay isn't high, but it's a lot of fun."

"So..." Blitzkrieg looked around, "Am I the only one unemployed right now?"

"What else?" they all said in unison.

His linguistics major was meaningless in Blitzkrieg; the symbiote and various translation software that served the symbiote were simply overwhelming. His social skills were also meaningless; the foundation of social skills is connections and social status, but he had almost no connections here.

Sociology majors are even less useful; even their own sociology experts can't figure out how the Covenant's social structure and composition were formed and maintained, let alone Blitzkrieg.

The only thing he and the Covenant sociologists agreed on was that since this thing could run, and run quite well, they should leave it alone for now. If Covenant sociologists saw Covenant society as just a goat simulator, then Blitzkrieg saw it as more like seeing a pigeon flapping its head and taking flight.

In conclusion, he is the only unemployed person. Fortunately, the Star Alliance unemployment insurance is quite comprehensive, so he won't have to start living on the streets right away, but it probably won't be long.

Chapter 105 Welcome to Ephesus II

Chapter 105

The colonial capital, a colossal, wheel-shaped city, floats on the sea. Judging from the mountain-sized supports extending deep into the water, it is clearly not built on an island or reef, but on an underwater plateau—a true floating city.

A salty sea breeze, carrying moisture, swept across the docks on the edge of the city. White sailboats were neatly moored at their berths, and several workers directed a drone to lift up cylindrical aquaculture nets, which were full of lively, fast-growing white-fleshed fish.

"It feels similar to fishing cities on Earth." As the only unemployed vagrant, Blitzkrieg could only rely on Old Xia for a living. Coincidentally, he did need a social butterfly to help him.

"Actually, there's a big difference. The main pillar industries here are nuclear fuel manufacturing and heavy metal salt mining," Lao Xia said. "Fisheries are just an adjunct to tourism."

Those inverted pyramid-shaped desalination plants around cities are used to extract deuterium fuel and heavy metal salts. Freshwater is just a byproduct. Of course, these freshwater byproducts are also transported into space. Water is also a resource.

The extensive planetary terraforming industry requires large amounts of freshwater and even seawater, which has caused the sea level in this colony to drop at a rate of about 2 meters per year, resulting in some underwater plateaus and places where artificial islands can be built.

"The main task of the orbital ring is to extract seawater from the system. Here, that's the extraction process." One of the inverted pyramid-shaped facilities slowly rose up, followed by a flat, pale white block of ice about 1 kilometer on each side and about 50 meters thick, which rose from the top and flew towards the sky.

"After the orbital ring receives these ice blocks, it will melt some of them, piece them together into larger ice blocks, attach trigger beacons and bases, and launch them directly toward the stargate. Through the stargate, they will be transported to the target site, where they will become ice meteorites with a diameter of tens of kilometers and crash down, thus creating clouds, lakes, and oceans."

Each working node in the ring surrounding the planet sends and receives such ice blocks every 10 minutes, which is why the sea level on the entire ocean planet is dropping rapidly.

When the sea level drops to expose the seabed land, and the ratio of sea to land approaches 5:5, ice harvesting operations will cease, and seeding will begin on the muddy seabed to transform it into a saline-alkali swamp ecosystem. As bioaccumulation occurs, metal salts will be continuously extracted and desalination will take place.

Soon, the saline swamp will become a freshwater wetland environment. At that time, large-scale immigration and urban construction can begin, turning it into a normal Star Alliance light industry and administrative planet. The whole process will take about two centuries, which is unlikely to be seen by Xia's generation.

Two centuries later, if the population growth rate of the inner ring continues without large-scale war losses, the resulting population will be enough to fill the modified planet in this region and expand to more distant territories.

"Alright, there's nothing interesting to see here, let's go." Old Xia didn't find it interesting at all, but everyone, including Yelena, was watching the seawater collection station workers and the white shooting stars that occasionally flew into the sky.

For them, such industrial wonders are something they never tire of seeing. Unfortunately, for Lao Xia, these kinds of things are commonplace. Even if they are spectacular, is it more spectacular than when they blasted the lunar mine and blasted a thing the size of a continent out of the ground?

After a five-year voyage, the Ark finally arrived at its target planet, which is surrounded by a meteorite ring similar to Terra's. However, these meteorites do not contain much Originium; they are simply meteorites.

"Ark Braking Initiation!"

"Separate the launch module!" One by one, the city-sized clamps released, and the hexagonal prism-shaped launch module detached from the ark frame. "Ignite the braking rockets!" A surge of ionized flames was thrown out in the opposite direction of the ark, like six azure wings unfolding. After several hours of deceleration, "Jet off the braking rockets!"

"Deploy the site!" White aerosols continuously spewed out from around the launch vehicle, gradually setting it upright, with the folded rings unfolding in response. Solar panels, independent reactors, communication repeaters, and planetary surface scanners were activated one by one.

The entire cylindrical body shone with a dim green light, and the internal elevators and robotic arms seemed to awaken from a long slumber, moving back and forth, picking up and installing containers one by one.

"Separate the main body of the ark!" The mushroom-shaped top suddenly cracked open, the armor plates flew into space, and the cylindrical core module, along with the sail-shaped constellation, detached from the ark. "Activate the attitude engines!" A large amount of flames spewed out from the side of the ark, and the chemical rockets made it spin. Under the action of centrifugal force and internal ejection equipment, the densely packed airdrop pods fell into the planet's atmosphere like a meteor shower.

Four large supply modules slid out one by one and joined the Terra low-orbit space station, which was separating synchronously. Finally, the core module completed its attitude calibration. After all personnel and supplies had basically completely detached, the remaining part of the Ark accelerated towards the nearest gas giant planet, crashing into the raging storm and being torn apart by it without even making a ripple.

"Tanuki, deployment complete, Sailboat online."

"Taeguk is deployed and is currently calibrating its attitude."

"Tarzan is entering orbit..."

It took several weeks for things to finally stabilize.

Several probes separated from the constellation Sail and plunged into the atmosphere to search for the best location to deploy the colony. This process would take several months. However, the long five-year voyage had already passed, and the remaining months would be fleeting.

Meanwhile, in Terra, the clouds finally dissipated slowly, and the dim sun hung listlessly in the sky. The ground temperature was -34 degrees Celsius. Arms wrapped in thermal protective suits pushed open the door of the bunker and crawled out of the shelter that had been closed for five years, looking particularly bulky and sluggish.

Now is not the best time to leave, but for this refuge that has never done a good job of family planning and rational population planning from the beginning, it is impossible to continue to hold on by any means. They must come to the surface in this cold winter.

Snowflakes drifted down slowly. The city had become ruins. The mobile metropolis lay paralyzed above the shelter, forming a metal cave. The cave's interior walls were covered with dense icicles and hanging metal fragments, which could fall at any moment in the cold wind.

More people crawled out of the underground tunnels or elevators, carrying weapons and scavenging tools, and walked out of the metal cave. What appeared before them was a desolate land that could not even be described as a scarred wasteland.

The snow was tens of meters thick, and even in places without snow, there were only bare rocks and frozen soil harder than steel. "Even microorganisms are almost extinct." The biological detector in his hand searched through the soil for a long time, and only the area under the ruins of the mobile city had a little bit of life.

Elsewhere, even microorganisms suffered widespread extinction. After all, the torrential rains that lasted for more than four years were quickly replaced by blizzards and hail within a year. The extreme cold swept across the land like a sharp blade, and even thermophilic extremophiles could not withstand such drastic and rapid changes. This resulted in only a lucky few microorganisms surviving.

As for plants and animals, they were all wiped out. Most insects perished. Only the fungi and insects hidden deep underground survived, but it was no less devastating than the previous mass extinctions on Earth.

The causes of extinction were similar: the extreme heat from successive volcanic eruptions, followed by the extreme cold of the snow-covered Earth, and then the heating from another volcanic eruption. These three blows directly wiped out more than 95% of life, with only life forms underwater surviving.

"Originium radiation safe. Prepare to set up camp." The camp was set up on the edge of the ruins. For these Terrans who had survived the first catastrophe, they needed to continue living on this desolate land, and the ruins of the old cities were their only support.

However, faced with the extreme cold and the occasional terrifying winds, it was uncertain whether they could even stand firm. Before them lay only a vast expanse of pristine white earth.

Island, sunshine, sandy beach, emerald green water, and cute girls playing in the water. "It feels like a vacation in Hawaii. Your island is a bit deserted, but it was a really good deal. It must have appreciated a lot in the last two years, right?" Flash, wearing beach shorts, lay on a deck chair and clinked glasses with Old Xia next to him.

Because they felt out of place in the Covenant cities, Rainbow Team and Levi moved to Xia's island. The place was big enough that it would be more lively with more families living there. Moreover, Levi, who had developed a love for the warm ocean, even built a retro wooden dock by hand in his busy schedule to moor his small fishing boat.

"Well, who would have thought that the council would send a large group of new immigrants from who-knows-where?" Old Xia was also quite puzzled. The island that couldn't be sold before was suddenly bought by the council to settle the new immigrants. They even asked him if he had any plans to sell it. Of course not, he had already retired early.

However, the side effect was that the surrounding area did become much more lively, and many of the islands were staffed with girls. As a single guy, Blitz was dragged to be forced into blind dates several times. However, he didn't seem to have made up his mind at all, and the people he was paired with also seemed very troubled.

Even Alexander, a divorced older man, was asked if he was interested in remarrying, let alone this single guy. Unfortunately, because the age difference between the girls and him was too great, the system stopped asking and arranging anything after he refused.

The only one who is truly at peace is Lao Xia. With an adopted daughter, a daughter, a wife, and a large family of parents-in-law, he is considered a model family in the Star Alliance.

"Speaking of which, how is things going with that doctor? They should be arriving soon."

"Well, I hope so. However, there's not much we can do to help with this. Besides, the research team doesn't seem to have made any progress. At least, I haven't heard any related news in the past two years."

"Hmm..." The two grown men's mood also dropped. "Hey, speaking of which, did you find a job? I heard you became a gigolo?"

"How dare you slander someone's innocence out of thin air?" Flash was immediately alarmed. "He's just an ordinary male escort!"

"Isn't that a gigolo?"

Have you ever been to a male escort club?

"No, you've been there?" Old Xia looked at Flash with a shocked expression. He hadn't realized this energetic young man had this side to him!

"If you knew what host clubs were like in Earth's time, you wouldn't confuse them with the ones in the present day."

"Is there a difference?" Old Xia scratched his head. Could there really be a difference?

"Yes, in my opinion, this profession should be called a psychological therapist."

We don't offer any strange services, just simple conversation and talking, using words to comfort the other person and give them a channel to vent their emotions. After all, Star Alliance is a vast and sparsely populated place, and over time, it can cause psychological problems.

One of the most serious issues is that humans, as social animals, are prone to becoming withdrawn if they don't communicate or confide in anyone for a long time. Blitzkrieg used the talents he honed during his time on Earth to do this job.

"Forget it, I won't dwell on it anymore," Old Xia shook his head, leaned back on the recliner, and continued to enjoy the sun.

The sun's rays shone brightly on the sand, reflecting a golden light. The shadows cast by the red, weathered mountains nearby added a touch of coolness to the place. The early expedition team's coats were open, revealing thin, breathable vests underneath. The girl with cat ears pulled out a probe. "Hmm, this is it."

A floating drone communication station unfolded and sent a message to the space station in orbit: "Site selection for Colony One is complete!"

"Whoosh!" The long shipping container, trailing flames, plummeted into the atmosphere. "Activating the Colonial Agreement, the Industrial Core is being deployed!"

"Boom!" The container landed, the integrated industrial core unfolded, and nanofluids and drones quickly spread outwards to the oasis. Warehouses, batteries, and solar panels grew like plants.

Meanwhile, on the space station, a hibernation pod slowly rose and entered the core thawing chamber of the "Harp Zone" at the top. "Hiss!" A young man with short, thick black hair was gently taken out by a robotic arm and placed on the thawing table. He soon woke up coughing.

The first thing you see is the central hall of the Harp District, where a circular projection table in the center of the pristine white building is projecting a panoramic view of the colony on the ground.

PRST's voice gently rang in my ears: "Welcome to Tower Two, Administrator Number One."