Gyaly Planet Star Map Draftsman I: Federation War

Dawn Lucius recalled that when he was a student in school, whenever a large number of people gathered together, even if they had a common purpose, several small gangs would form without anyone meaning them to. At first, gangs were built on shared interests, such as those who loved sports, those who did not love studying, and those who were naughty; even the kind of people who were pushed aside by the mainstream gangs would then consciously form their own gangs. And in special times, people who stood alone and did not join a gang would meet many obstacles in their daily lives. At such times, they could choose to join any gang, and they would be welcome, but how should they prove their loyalty to the gang?

Before the young man arrived, the slaves on the Red Pirate ship all belonged to one gang of slaves. The young man had come in not long ago, and now three gangs had already formed: those in the iron cage who chose not to take weapons, those who took weapons but discarded them to grab food, and Dawn Lucius’ group, the people who went to eat but kept their weapons. Once the gangs formed, there was very little cooperation between them; most of the time they showed their positions by tearing each other down, and wasn’t that exactly how the young man planned to manage the gangs he had raised himself?

“You decided in your hearts to stop being slaves when you picked up your weapons, but I underestimated your courage.” The young man pointed at the group who had dropped their weapons and grabbed the food. He let out a long sigh and pressed his fists against his cheeks before continuing. “Today, I gave you the simplest of food and you dropped your weapons, so by the time we get to Gyaly Planet, I doubt very much that you will really be free and able to take your lives back for yourselves. I have heard that on Gyaly Planet, an average Ashton soldier gets as much as thirty times the rations of a Strath slave, and they have endless meat to eat and soup to drink. And a Strath slave? Only hard, dry food, never enough to fill the stomach. Today, for this kind of food ......” The young man pointed fiercely at the floor and continued after making a disgusted gesture. “For this kind of food, you were all willing to throw away your weapons. When we face our enemy, if their soldiers only need to throw out a few rations, will you also be willing to go on being slaves? Have you ever thought about it? One day, when your descendants ask you what you regret most, how will you answer?”

The young man rushed into the crowd, grabbed a slave with a shaved head, and pressed him with a deadly stare: “Tell me, how do you answer?”

“I don’t know.” The bald slave replied, shivering in his thin clothes.

“Don’t know? Here, let me give you a hint. How many times in your life, before you met me, did you have the chance to change the fate of a slave?”

“No ...... no.”

“If not, why not take the chance today?” The young man shook the other man hard, as if all the slaves who had dropped their weapons had failed him that deeply.

“I ......” The bald slave did not finish, but began to cry. Dawn Lucius noticed that the young man’s performance made all those who had dropped their weapons raise their heads.

“I get it, I kind of get it.” The young man let go of the bald slave and stared at the floor, muttering to himself. “None of you want to change your destiny; you still want to remain slaves. Even if one day your descendants ask you why you chose to live your lives in shame, you will not feel ashamed. You will openly admit that you just like to live in shame; you will even openly admit that you are Strath people, and that Strath people are willing to be slaves.”

“No, we’re not.” Someone in Dawn Lucius’ group spoke up, followed by a flurry of rebuttals, which the young man ignored, instead continuing to look down at the floor.

When the crowd quieted down, the young man first praised the tagged group, then walked up to the other group and struck a pose before speaking harshly, in the tone of a parent about to yell at his child in anger. He stared at the crowd and said, “I will ask you one last time, do you want to remain slaves?”

“No!” “No!” The crowd shouted in ragged waves, making their attitude clear, but they still did not know how to prove themselves.

“Okay, then prove it to me.” The young man turned around, pointed to the people in the iron cage, and continued. “Now, go over there and kill these Strath people who chose to be slaves, and show your countrymen how you draw the line on slavery. From now on, we refuse to coexist with those Strath people who choose to remain slaves. Slaves are the Strath people’s permanent shame. Whether we need generations to fight for equality, or whether we can win equality today, it’s all up to you. Take action.”

Hearing the young man order them to kill the slaves in the cage, Dawn Lucius’ heart leapt into his throat. In the early history of Earth’s civilization, generals who wanted their soldiers to obey orders would brutally kill deserters as a warning to others; the purpose was to control the soldiers through fear. But this young man in front of him did not look much better than the Ashton people he talked about. The Ashton people probably would not make slaves kill slaves, but he did not hesitate. If that group opened fire on the cage, what they would get would be neither a new identity nor courage, but more hostile looks. While Dawn Lucius froze, someone opened fire, and the cries from the cage instantly exploded in the small space.

“Wait, what are you doing? You’re the same people.” Dawn Lucius shouted as he ran toward the young man, waving his weapon to signal the firing men to stop, but he didn’t get far before the soldiers stopped him and held him down.

The adjutant beside the young man quickly stepped forward, took away the weapon in Dawn Lucius’ hand, grabbed him by the hair, glanced at him and then quickly walked over to the young man, muttered a few words and then took two steps back.

“Don’t kill them, ah, killing them doesn’t mean anything to you, ah.” Dawn Lucius kept shouting. When he had just woken up, the small children in the iron cage had lent him clothes, and they were also inside the cage; they were Dawn Lucius’ big kid and little kid. In fact, when the young man shouted at everyone to pick weapons, all the children had been pulled back into the cage by the adults. If Stacean Lucius had been in this group, Dawn Lucius would also have chosen to bring him back to the cage. As parents, no one was willing to take risks; even if it meant humiliation, they would accept it, because protecting the children was what mattered most.

“Don’t kill them, there are a lot of kids in there, they don’t mean any harm.” Dawn Lucius shouted, struggling on the floor, even banging his head on the floor to try to get the young man’s attention, but all this only made the young man pause slightly. The young man did not look at him; he waved his hand to signal another team to continue firing, and in the space of a breath, no more sound could be heard from the iron cage. Dawn Lucius never saw the two children again. All the muscles in his body tensed; his anger could not escape through his pores and pooled under his skin, especially around his temples, which burned as if on fire. He gritted his teeth to keep his body from shaking. He turned his face to the other side, and when he saw the crowd in the cage, his heart hurt as if a rough oil driller were boring into it with a drilling rig.

After the gunfire ended, Dawn Lucius’ determination to return to Earth grew firmer. The situation on Earth was stable on the surface, but several major political powers were still looking for ways to compete for air supremacy, and the Dawn ship was just a small incident in that struggle. If a real war broke out, he had to protect Stacean Lucius. Thinking of this, Dawn Lucius shed tears powerlessly. The young man walked to the box containing galaxy coin, grabbed a handful, walked over to the firing squad, handed it to an older man, and praised him to his face for having gotten rid of his slave status. Then he instructed the other soldiers to distribute all the remaining galaxy coin, and whatever guilt was left in the firing squad was sold off when they received the galaxy coin.

“Prince, what about this?” The adjutant asked as he approached the young man.

“Kill it.” When the young man finished speaking, he started to walk out the door.

“Wait, Prince Burt.” The brother of the Red Pirate ship’s original captain stopped the young man. He had despised his brother for lacking courage and then killed him; come to think of it, the Strath people’s success in boarding the Red Pirate ship and the current situation were all thanks to him. “You promised me something, and you have to keep your word.”

“Oh, what did I promise you?” The young man asked rhetorically. At this point, Dawn Lucius gathered that the man’s name was Burt, supposedly a prince of the Strath people.

“Prince, I gave you the Red Pirate ship and the slaves, and you promised me Gyaly Planet.”

“Oh, so I did. Well, Gyaly Planet is yours. Go and get it now.” Prince Burt pointed to the door.

“Prince, we did agree that after Gyaly Planet was conquered, you would give it to me to manage.”

“Yes, so we did, but I just remembered that if I give you Gyaly Planet, won’t it be easier for you to enslave Strath people? Well, I can’t promise you that.”

“But Prince, that’s how Gyaly Planet has always worked.”

“That was before.” Prince Burt stared at the man viciously, his eyeballs bulging as if they might fall off at any moment. “Lieutenant, kill him too.”

“Yes, Prince.” The adjutant said as he walked toward the man with his gun.

“Wait, wait.” The man hastily waved his hand, backing up and begging for mercy. “Prince, it won’t do you any good to kill me. I’m the only one who has the spaceport’s passage identification information. If you kill me, you have no way to get close to Gyaly Planet.”

“Oh, that too.” Prince Burt’s face fell for a moment, and just when the man thought he had won, Prince Burt shot him in the chest. Surely, seeing this, all the slaves present couldn’t help but clench the guns in their hands, but his ruthlessness did not make the slaves afraid; instead they believed in him even more. After kicking the corpse on the floor hard, the young man turned to the slaves and said, “In this universe, there is one less person to enslave you.”

The adjutant gestured to the soldiers holding Dawn Lucius down, and the three men let go and stepped backward, raising their guns and aiming them at Dawn Lucius, and just as they were about to open fire, Sandra jumped out of the crowd. “Prince Burt, please don’t kill him.”

Burt slowly turned around, glanced at Sandra, and slowly asked, “What’s in it for me?”

“What benefit does the prince want?”

“I don’t know. Tell me about the benefits you can offer and I’ll think about whether it’s a good deal.” Burt raised the gun in his hand and looked at it playfully.

“I have identifying information for the spaceport.” Sandra stammered and continued to add. “I can bring the Red Pirate ship to land.”

“That’s not much of a temptation, is it? And how do you know I can’t land?”

“At Moreth Federation’s spaceport, the identifying information not only has to match the system; the system also verifies that the custodian of the information is alive. You just killed the person carrying the information, so you can’t land.” Sandra pointed to the corpse on the floor.

“Sounds like you’re offering a valuable benefit.” With a broad smile on his face, showing no sign that he had just killed someone, Burt took a few steps in Dawn Lucius’ direction before stopping to continue. “But why should I trust you?”

Sandra pulled open her outer clothes, revealing the diplomat uniform again, and replied: “My name is Sandra. I am an Ashton Federation diplomat, and I have Moreth Federation Star Bridge identification information, so I can freely enter and leave the spaceport.”

“Ooh, so you’re a diplomat.” Prince Burt cheered and walked up to Sandra, clapping his hands like a small child with a new set of building blocks, but then his face darkened and he stared at Sandra and asked, “That makes me even more curious. Is he so valuable that you would give that up to take us to the spaceport?” Burt pointed at Dawn Lucius as he said it.

“Hmph, that’s not it.” Sandra sneered. “He’s an Earthling, and all he wants to do is go back. He has nothing to do with our three major Federations.”

“Oh, so he’s an Earthling. This is the first time I’ve come into contact with someone from a level zero civilization. You’re a diplomat; how did you get involved with him and get mixed up with the slaves?”

“Prince Burt, this is none of your business. Your concern is landing at the spaceport; the rest is none of your concern.” Sandra raised her voice as she pointed at Dawn Lucius and continued. “I’ll get you into the spaceport; you just give me the Earthling.”

“This tone ...... of voice. If you weren’t a favorite of the Moreth Federation’s Moreth Steader, you wouldn’t even get the chance to open your mouth.” Burt said this, looking at Sandra viciously, and then his expression changed to a smile, which made Dawn Lucius’ scalp tingle. Burt continued, “Let’s go then,” and led the group out of the room.

Before landing at the spaceport, Dawn Lucius had a hard time picturing what the Red Pirate ship looked like. Although it was a pirate ship, it did not look like the down-and-out pirate ships in pirate movies. The Red Pirate ship was bright red from the bow to the engine cluster. The bow was relatively narrow, and below the porthole there was a high-powered gun facing forward. Near the midpoint, there were three arrays of guns on the left and right, and a smaller porthole directly above the guns, which was where Dawn Lucius was kept after he came out of the iron cage. The stern of the ship consisted of a cluster of engines, which seemed to be tied into a bundle, with the hull simply inserted into the middle of them. Besides emitting a blue light when ignited, the engine cluster had two engines facing opposite to the direction of flight, which must have been used to slow down or turn around, or, in a special scenario, for someone flying the Red Pirate ship backward.

Dawn Lucius looked out of the porthole. Light emitted by the stars in ancient times had rushed across the vast darkness of space to reach Dawn Lucius’ eyes, leaving him with a strange feeling and a longing to go back. He had seen countless nebulae in the space agency’s data, gorgeous smoke floating quietly in space, like a painter’s paint spilled from the table and frozen in a certain moment, and in the colorful nebulae were scattered crystal-clear planets, and even newborn stars, rendered glowing like diamonds. But in fact, even in space, the distant nebulae are dull, not as bright and colorful as the renderings in textbooks on Earth, and as for the newborn stars, the naked eye cannot distinguish them.

Dawn Lucius sat down at the foot of the wall and gripped the flexible device on his wrist, remembering the pirate ship game he had played with Stacean Lucius. It was not like being on the Red Pirate ship now; to Stacean Lucius, a pirate ship was something like a swing. Every night before going to bed, he would sit in the middle of the blanket and have Dawn Lucius pick up the four corners of the blanket and swing him around, and even when the two of them were so dizzy they almost vomited, he would climb onto Dawn Lucius’ chest to make Dawn Lucius swing him again. His favorite words were “Dad, I promise this is the last time.” Dawn Lucius would take a break and swing him around again before he would fall asleep happily. Dawn Lucius remembered one night before he left, Stacean Lucius was laughing in his sleep, almost waking himself up, and Dawn Lucius and his wife looked at each other’s confused expressions and covered their mouths, laughing too. “Daddy promises to come back.” Dawn Lucius clenched his wrist and made that promise to himself in his heart.

Sandra came to visit Dawn Lucius partway through the voyage, and as for the two questions “Why did you bring me to the Red Pirate ship? Who told you to do that?”, Sandra promised to tell him later. He learned from her that Prince Burt was one of the princes of Strath Federation, a warlike and murderous man, but he made sure that the soldiers who followed him were fed and lived a good life, even if the means were not very honorable. For ordinary soldiers who might lose their lives at any time on the battlefield, war is about seizing resources; war is not about honor or dishonor, war is war. But over time, some generals felt he was too brutal. As far as Sandra knew, Burt’s current deputy general, Les, felt that Burt was more and more temperamental and that following him was very dangerous.

The Strath Federation’s regime is a chieftaincy system, with the chief voted on by multiple heads inside the Federation. The old chief is now very old; they disdain taking White Crystal, so his life is coming to an end, and this war is in fact a test to select the next chief. Strath Federation also has a prince named Carlson, who is just the opposite of Burt. He does not like to kill and will negotiate before fighting an opponent; even when Carlson has an absolute advantage, he will give priority to making peace with the other side. Half of the people in Strath Federation support him, but the other half feel that Carlson is weak. This attack on Gyaly Planet is nominally to rescue Strath people who were used as slaves, but in reality it is for the two princes to each find their own way to canvass support.

“Oh no.” Dawn Lucius exclaimed after Sandra explained the situation, startling her.

“What’s wrong?” Sandra asked.

“You said two princes were competing. Since Burt was going to attack Gyaly Planet, where did Carlson go to attack?”

“Ah, now that you say that, yeah, where did Carlson go? He’s got quite an army with him.”

“That’s a problem.” Dawn Lucius said, propping one hand on the porthole glass and looking at Sandra. “By the way, why were you willing to take them to the spaceport so they wouldn’t kill me?”

“You got involved in this for no reason, and besides, aren’t you always going on about going back to Earth?”

“Your answer is obviously not very convincing. I’m your mission, right? But thank you for saving me anyway. But have you thought about it? If you help them take the spaceport, then Gyaly Planet falls.”

Sandra did not answer the question of whether she was convincing, but answered the second half of his sentence. “I’m not worried about that. The Moreth Federation ships will jump to the spaceport in no time once the spaceport finds out it’s been invaded. It’s a good thing for us: it saves us the time of going after the Strath people, and their main force will be gathered in one place where we can destroy it quickly.”

“Was this something you and the Moreth Federation planned ahead of time?”

“No, it wasn’t. I was supposed to go to Moreth Federation and convey Madam Winifred’s wish to cooperate, but I was caught by the Red Pirate ship.” Sandra said as she straightened her sleeves.

“Madam Winifred is?”

“The supreme leader of the Ashton Federation. The White Crystal that the rich people on Orion Arm take was invented by her ......” Sandra paused after saying this; she noticed Dawn Lucius was staring at her. Sandra avoided his eyes and continued. “Madam Winifred also has a son, Lord Winifred, and the future rule of Ashton Federation will pass to him.”

“You knew the Strath people were going to attack?” Dawn Lucius asked.

“Ashton Federation has placed monitoring equipment in some areas of the nebula. We saw the Strath people assembling their fleet and coming toward Gyaly Planet, and fewer merchant fleets were coming to Gyaly Planet; they knew there would be a war here and stayed away in advance. What we didn’t expect was that Burt would come so fast.”

Dawn Lucius and she looked at each other, not knowing whether to say goodbye or offer comfort, and then Sandra left with the soldiers. At this point he was like a passenger in the back of a small car trying to see the view from the window: with his face pressed against the glass and his eyes looking as far forward as possible, he saw half of the spaceport. At the top of it was an observation room supported by an oval vault, with a high-powered guiding light at the very top, a band of lights near the floor of the vault, and on the floor, a huge circle with some large machinery on the side of the circle that looked like machine arms for unloading or loading, and some other low devices that looked like artillery. On one side of the circle also stood a column with two sharpened ends; it was not clear what purpose it served. Below the circle was a much longer cylinder with lots of blue flames, and it looked like this bottom cylinder, together with the engine cluster, was the powerhouse of the spaceport.

The Red Pirate ship glided some distance, hovered briefly not far from the spaceport, and then flew toward the spaceport’s deck. It was obvious to the naked eye that Gyaly Planet was at least three times the size of Earth, and as the ship approached the spaceport, Dawn Lucius looked down at the planet, which was covered with clouds that made it difficult to see the terrain below. After the Red Pirate ship came to a complete stop, Dawn Lucius walked toward the door; each time he lifted his leg, it took more force.

“You can’t go out there yet!” As Dawn Lucius raised his hand to open the door, the soldier outside the door glanced at him and said this.

“I want to go see if I can help.” Dawn Lucius said with a smile.

“No need.”

“Look, I’m unarmed and I’m not your enemy, so instead of wasting your time watching me here, why don’t you go see if there’s anything you need help with?” Dawn Lucius finished, and when the soldier didn’t say anything, he continued. “Think about it. Prince Burt needs manpower to take over the spaceport first, ah. If you don’t hurry to help and Moreth Federation’s warships attack, won’t you lose, ah?”

“Don’t be a smart ass, Moreth people are busy!” The soldier said, the corners of his mouth rising slightly.

“Why do you say that?”

“You just mind your own business and stay.” The soldier didn’t turn his face to look at Dawn Lucius, but replied coldly.

“As you know, I’m an Earthling, and this is the first time I’ve traveled this far in space. Can you take me outside to see it?” Dawn Lucius changed tactics and chatted with the soldier, hoping he would let him out.

“I can’t help you with that, but I’m just curious: how did you get here when Earth is so far from Gyaly Planet?” The soldier’s curiosity seemed to draw him into the conversation.

“I’m curious too. I was on an expedition not far from home, and then I was hit in the chest by something, and when I woke up I was in a slave colony.”

“That’s strange. The Red Pirate ship has always plundered near Gyaly Planet, which makes it convenient for them to sell the captured slaves to Gyaly Planet and to get rid of the stolen goods on Gyaly Planet. Your appearance here is certainly no coincidence.” The soldier’s attitude was a little friendlier.

“Yeah. Will you let me out?”

“What can you do if I let you out? You can’t do anything outside. It’s safer here.”

“I want to find Sandra and get her to help me get back to Earth.”

“You won’t make it back.” The soldier shook his head.

“No, I have to go back to my child, no matter what.” As he said this, Dawn Lucius raised his wrist, intending to wake up the flexible screen to show the soldier Stacean Lucius’s picture, but probably because there was no power, the screen did not respond.

Dawn Lucius was still trying to wake up the screen when the soldier opened the door and gestured for him to come out of the room. He looked at the soldier and hesitated before walking out. The soldier told him the general situation of the spaceport and that Dawn Lucius would need to wear a space suit: the Red Pirate ship had landed some distance from the spaceport command room, and the spaceport was no longer crowded, and no one was driving the shuttle buses that normally carried passengers, so he needed to wear a space suit in order to walk to the command room.

“Why are you helping me?” Dawn Lucius turned to ask the soldier as he walked out of the Red Pirate ship.

“You spoke up for the slaves in the iron cage. Although they were killed in the end, we thank you for that.”

“I see. Could you tell me how to get back to Earth?”

“You can only turn to the Moreth Federation. Only the Star Bridge can get you back; otherwise, no one can travel that far through space and survive the voyage.”

“Thanks, take care.” Dawn Lucius said this, then took a few steps in the direction of the spaceport command room and stopped. He looked at the starry sky behind him, and then at the stars to the left and to the right. In fact, he now had no idea which direction home was. The solar system did not know that much about space; even though several major countries were studying space, they were always busy guarding against each other. Only a few idealistic scientists had considered cooperating with each other, or tried to persuade top managers to support research farther afield, but in the end, they were pulled back to the development of the moon base and the Mars base. It seems that the way back can only rely on the Star Bridge.

Sandra had told Dawn Lucius that Gyaly Planet is one of the busiest places in Orion Arm, and the longest queue for ships entering the port to unload cargo can take up to ten days. With so many ships entering the spaceport, the management does not allow the crews to leave their ships. After they unload the cargo they haul, the agents on Gyaly Planet will help them sell the goods, and the final settlement in galaxy coin will appear in the galaxy coin account of the captain or merchant. Once a ship has loaded the goods it bought, the spaceport urges it to hurry up and leave the port to free up space for the ships lined up to enter. Of all the traffic to and from the spaceport, only the top management of Moreth Federation and Ashton Federation have the opportunity to go down to Gyaly Planet to rest. But now, there were no ships entering or leaving the spaceport, and there was no management staff, so the bustle that Sandra had described was nowhere to be seen.

Dawn Lucius walked into the command room and occasionally ran into small groups of Strath soldiers on patrol. The lights in the room were out, and a few palm lights flickered sporadically in the long corridor. After walking some distance, Dawn Lucius stopped two soldiers on patrol, asked them where Sandra was and then rushed over. Before he found her, Dawn Lucius thought Prince Burt would be keeping her to discuss how to fight their way down to the surface of Gyaly Planet, but in fact, Sandra was staring out of the window. Dawn Lucius learned from her that Prince Burt had led the attack on the surface of Gyaly Planet, and that the Moreth people were facing a greater threat, which was why no one had come to support the spaceport.

“Then from what you’re saying ......” Dawn Lucius listened to Sandra’s explanation and more or less understood; he had had some doubts about Prince Burt’s confidence before. Dawn Lucius looked at Sandra and continued. “Carlson and Burt have split the work. They know that if Burt attacks Gyaly Planet, Moreth Federation will send support to Gyaly Planet, so to cut off the support, Carlson simply attacks Moreth Federation first. That makes the Gyaly Planet spaceport troops pull back to help, and Burt takes the spaceport without any pressure at all.”

“Yes. Now the question is, why did he still pretend he didn’t have the spaceport’s passage identification information and bring us along?” Sandra became suspicious of the actions of the two Strath princes as well.

“What if he is jealous of your status in the Ashton Federation?” Dawn Lucius asked.

“No.” Sandra shook her head. Since Strath Federation had chosen to make war on Moreth Federation and Ashton Federation at the same time, they wouldn’t care who she was.

“That’s true.” Dawn Lucius thought for a moment and went on to ask, “So is it possible that he’s trying to get us to carry information out?”

“What kind of information?”

“I don’t know. It could be that Burt was also putting on an act, and the information we saw was all what he wanted us to carry out, meant to mislead.”

“That’s also a possibility. But here’s the thing: he has no intention of taking us down to Gyaly Planet, and he has destroyed the entire spaceport’s communication system, so we can’t send any information out, can we?”

“Have you thought about it?” Dawn Lucius continued as he approached Sandra. “And Burt didn’t stop us from going to Gyaly Planet, did he?”

“You mean ......” Sandra turned her face to look at Dawn Lucius as she understood what he meant. “He’s hoping we’ll choose to visit Gyaly Planet ourselves?”

“I think so. Look, we could choose to leave right away. The Strath people’s warships are staying here, so we could use the Star Bridge to go straight back to Moreth Federation, or something ......” Dawn Lucius wanted to say they could also go to Earth, but Sandra interrupted him.

“No.” Sandra shook her head, pointed outside and continued. “The communication system is broken, so the Star Bridge can’t be opened. For a ship to travel through the Star Bridge, its departure point must first send a voyage request and the destination must confirm it; otherwise it can’t be used.”

“Where can we go without Star Bridge?” Undeterred, Dawn Lucius continued to pursue Sandra.

“The primitive planets around us. We can’t go any farther; we are so small in this space.”

“What if we go get someone to fix this communication system?”

“Too late. They blew up the communications tower; that tower would take a lot of people and a lot of time to fix.” Sandra pointed to the cylinder with two sharpened ends outside the spaceport; the smaller part of its top was now floating in space.

“Then we’ll just have to go to Gyaly Planet and see what’s going on.” Dawn Lucius took a quick glance out the window, trying to find a craft that would work.

“That’ll have to do.” Sandra said and stood up, leading Dawn Lucius outside. Eventually, they found where the shuttle boats were parked, and the two of them flew through the clouds with mixed feelings; even as they flew downward, they encountered no ground-based air defense.

“Where do we stop?” Dawn Lucius asked Sandra.

“I don’t know, but we have to avoid places where Strath people gather, and we can’t go straight to the Ashton Federation city.”

“I understand. There are risks no matter which way we go.” When Dawn Lucius finished, Sandra didn’t answer, but continued to fly down with Dawn Lucius.

Eventually, Sandra landed on a remote hillside. The two took some water and dry food, then walked toward the Ashton Federation city. Standing on the hill and looking into the distance, they could see a blue-purple nebula hanging in space, and if you looked closely, you could see sporadic bright lights pulsing in the nebula. Meteorites and ice crystals outside Gyaly Planet formed a number of rings, whose approximate shape could be traced by the three bean-sized moons above them. Above the forest, flocks of animals were flying, and they seemed to be heading for the plains farther away, where the plants grew golden, like waves of wheat in the autumn sun, and Dawn Lucius couldn’t look away. “If it weren’t for the war, this would be much better than Earth.” He thought to himself.

Strath people were brought to Gyaly Planet as hard laborers after committing crimes in other Federations, and as the number of hard laborers grew, they started to grow their own food. Grain and vegetables: the entire Gyaly Planet was self-sufficient in food and could even trade it outside. However, one term’s Ashton Federation chief executive was greedy, and the Strath hard laborers rebelled. The chief executive killed 320,000 Strath people, after which Gyaly Planet lacked food, and the chief, afraid of being held accountable by the Federation, tacitly allowed the pirates to catch slaves and sell them over as hard labor, which created the special situation on Gyaly Planet today.

“And does Madam Winifred not care?” Dawn Lucius asked.

“Why would she? For Ashton Federation, the most important thing is to keep Gyaly Planet running so that Ashton Federation can continue to sell White Crystal, and maximizing profit is always the goal of the polity.”

“What about the Moreth Federation?”

“Same thing. The more people use the Star Bridge, the more galaxy coins they receive.”

“Well, it’s no wonder Burt’s bringing people over now.” Dawn Lucius said with a sigh.

“Things are not that simple. Fighting for the Strath people is not the main purpose of this war. In fact, Prince Burt is not a good person; his own men often capture Strath people and traffic them to Gyaly Planet. He is no savior of the Strath people.” Sandra said this, paused and pointed into the distance. “All this ground defense, no one is manning it anymore. No wonder the Strath people could come down without any problems.”

Looking where Sandra pointed, Dawn Lucius saw the tall ground anti-aircraft guns, each base as high as five stories. The inclined barrels were brass-colored and gradually thickened from the muzzle to the base, and the base of each barrel was like a circular platform with four claws that gripped deep into the ground and also looked like pipes for the flow of energy. After spending some time crossing the anti-aircraft array, the two came to some buildings built deep down. How to put it? These buildings were built into the ground, as if a ten-story-deep trench had been dug first and then glass buildings had been built against the sides of the trench.

“Look over there.” Sandra continued, pointing to the towering building in the distance. “That’s Sok City.”

“Do all the Ashton Federation people live over there?” Dawn Lucius asked.

“Not really. These buildings down here are specially built to view the underwater world. My brother told me that whenever there is a major festival on Gyaly Planet, the officials fill these channels with water, and Ashton Federation citizens can walk freely in the buildings and watch the animals in the water and the shows that flow through the water. At ordinary times, these buildings are where ordinary citizens live. As for over there ......” Sandra added, pointing to the building farther away. “No one has ever been inside that building, and some say that it is the palace of Madam Winifred, and no one knows what it is like inside.”

“Burt came to attack Gyaly Planet; did he come to capture Madam Winifred?” Dawn Lucius said while catching his breath. Sandra hadn’t stopped since the moment she set foot on land, and she had led him all the way toward Sok City.

“Oh no.” Sandra suddenly shouted.

“What’s wrong?”

“If what you say is right, then wouldn’t Carlson go on the offensive against Kunek Planet?”

“What does Kunek Planet have?” Dawn Lucius asked, pausing.

“That’s the administrative center of the Moreth Federation, where the Moreth Steader of the Moreth Federation lives.”

“This is good. There is a saying on Earth: to catch the thieves, first catch their leader. If the leaders of both Federations are captured, won’t that be chaos?”

“It’s not that easy to catch, but it’s enough to bring tension to the surrounding star fields. Kunek Planet isn’t that easy to fight, as you’ll slowly learn, but let’s go to Sok City first and see if there’s any way to activate the Star Bridge.”

“Good!” Dawn Lucius said, and the two of them hurried on toward Sok City even faster.