The Record of Unusual Creatures

Sailing silently in the dark universe, the fleet of spaceships of more than ten, seemed to have been traveling for years. It was hard to miss as their shapes were somewhat unusual. They looked short and thick, covered in heavy gray-black armor. There were scales on the shield, tilted up, looked like blunt triangular short thorns. The size of each spaceship was incredibly large, all in the range of hundreds of kilometers in length. Due to the thick and dark armor, these aircraft look like a large group of asteroids floating in the universe when watching from afar.

It was not known how long they had been flying; all of them were dilapidated. Though objects in space would not be subject to weathering like that on Earth, these ships were battered through the baptism of high temperatures, corrosion and plasma gas. Large and small scratches and missing parts were on the ship bodies. On one of the spaceships that suffered the most damage, a large part of the armor body was missing, revealing the sponge-like support structure beneath. Hao Ren believed that this was mostly the result of a powerful meteorite impact, or something worse. But even so, the structure of these ships was intact. The sparsely flashing lights on their pitted surfaces were only making the fleet appear even weirder and more miserable.

But the lights nevertheless meant that these old aircraft were still running.

Flying at a languid pace, they must have come out of hyperspace decades ago and continue to decelerate until today judging from the signs previously discovered. It was unclear why the fleet was out of hyperspace since there was no reason for them to visit this area of emptiness: there were neither celestial bodies, spaceport that allowed them to replenish supplies nor traces of other civilizations, the only visible thing here was the lavender-colored stardust. Perhaps mechanical failure had forced these spaceships leaving the superluminal state.

The Petrachelys followed the contrails and slowly caught up with one of the massive spaceships of the fleet from the rear. Although it might be primitive technological-wise, these spaceships were huge. The Petrachelys hovered over the black armored spacecraft like a hummingbird. On the flight deck of the Petrachelys, all they saw on the monitor screen were rough ancient spaceship structures. Light strips shimmered on the surface of the armor plates and did not show any response when the Petrachelys approached. The old spaceship seemed not bothered at all.

“We have detected radar signals,” Nolan said. Her life-size holographic image just appeared next to Hao Ren. Dressed in a military outfit, she looked like an adjutant of a spaceship. “Seven different radar signals are coming from three different spaceships, but no hostile response or signal of the weapon system,” Nolan reported.

Hao Ren looked at the visual on the monitor screen. The Petrachelys was flying slowly over a giant spaceship from a few hundred meters away. The rough metal structure appeared to fly past them as the Petrachelys moved forward. “Is there any contact signal?” Hao Ren asked.

“No, I have sent our contact signal– full frequency band– but no response,” Nolan replied, shaking her head. “But I intercepted the signals between these spaceships. They still maintained communication with each other, just…”

Hao Ren’s eyebrows arched. “Just what?” he asked.

Nolan projected the intercepted signal on a hologram. It was a stream of symbols and numbers. But Hao Ren quickly found the signals were monotonous.

“Every aircraft is monotonously sending these signals. It is to check their respective positions and system integrity. There is nothing else. I suspect this is an automatic signal.”

Nangong Wuyue crawled to the console. “So, are they ghost ships?” she asked curiously.

Hao Ren glanced at her. “Why are you so excited about ghost ships?”

“You know, half of the ghost-ship legends in human history are related to sirens while the remaining half are mere stories told by drunk sailors,” Nangong Wuyue said and wagged her tail. “Scaring people with ghost ships has been our culture. Do you understand now?” she said.

“Stop talking about that, you have never been in the sea since birth as a siren,” Hao Ren said, motioning Nangong Wuyue to step aside. He then nodded to Nolan. “Can you find the entrance to the ship?” he asked.

“The deep-layer scan shows a groove in the waistline of the spacecraft below. It should be the entrance, but not wide enough for the Petrachelys to enter; it is only a dozen meters wide.”

Hao Ren smacked his lips. “That’s a tiny door for a hundred-kilometer-long spaceship. Let us go down there in person. Nolan, follow our signals, get an evacuation portal ready on the outside after we get into the inside.”

“Are all of us going down?” Vivian looked at everyone on the flight deck. Every single demons and otherworldlings in Hao Ren’s house were present today.

“Well, maybe just a few. You, Lily, and—”

Before Hao Ren finished, Nangong Sanba suddenly stepped forward. “My sister and I are going too. Demon hunter and siren may be of help here,” he said.

Thinking for a moment, Hao Ren felt that what Nangong Sanba said made sense. The fleet of spaceships before them was not of guardians or treacherous children but a group of vagrants who fled from the catastrophic natural disaster. Judging from the condition of the fleet, it probably had become ghost ships. In this environment, there was no need for combat strength but people who were good at scouting and adaptive. Nangong Sanba was a demon hunter, and Nangong Wuyue was amorphous which were most suitable for this operation.

Hao Ren handed Lil Pea to Rollie before he turned and walked to the portal. “The others stay on the spaceship. We are going down to take a look.”

The Petrachelys came to the entrance and hovered at the height of more than 100 meters above the ‘land of steel.’ Hao Ren and his teammates emerged on the surface of the mysterious spacecraft in a beam of light.

There was almost no gravity. The team maneuvered on the outside of the spaceship with the help of auxiliary propulsion. Looking up into the distance, Hao Ren saw the surface of the dark-gray ‘land of steel’ extending in front of him in a slight curve. The distant stars and the grayish cosmic dust were hanging like smudges in the horizon. Sporadic lights dotted the protruding structures on the far side of the spaceship as if ghost fires.

“It’s all quiet,” Vivian said over the radio. “I couldn’t sense any signs of life.”

Hao Ren pressed on his forehead. “MDT, activate shared vision,” he commanded.

A radar image instantly appeared in his vision. The ‘land of steel’ suddenly became a complex, layered structure. The 3D image detailed the situation below the surface. He found the place that marked ‘Gate.’ As they drew closer, the ‘gate’ was a downward slope that led to a massive metal barrier.

Before they reached the metal barrier, Lily crawled on the walls trying to see if she could find any control panel. But there was nothing.

“Buddy, do you want to use explosive?” the MDT asked casually.

“No, let’s use a more conventional way,” Hao Ren replied and waved off the suggestion. “If there is someone on the inside?” he said.

“I don’t like this feeling,” Lily muttered. “I’ve got a headache.”

Hao Ren did not say anything. He kept searching for clues with the help of the shared vision from the MDT. Beneath the metal panels, there were some shallow tunnels laid with pipes and cables, some of which should be for the gate switch. The MDT was much faster in its analysis as it soon found a suspected device, most probably a switch, by tracing the cable circuit around the gate. It marked it with a bold red color in Hao Ren’s field of vision.

Hao Ren pointed to a metal plate on the wall. “Take this panel out. Be careful not to damage the internal.”

Lily immediately flew up and wielded her Frostfire Claws to quickly dismantle the metal plate, revealing the complicated old cable and circuit board.

This device used electricity.

Hao Ren found the critical control circuit with the help of the MDT. He carefully cut off two cables attached to the circuit board and motioned Vivian. “I need your electric power. 28 Volt DC.”

Vivian’s expression was like “Really?”