Chapter 1360 — Plan B

In Xuanyao City the sun had already sunk below the horizon, leaving only a brilliant gold-red radiance that spilled over from the far side of the mountains; it swept across the vast woodlands and riverbanks of the western districts before pouring down upon the rooftops of the city. Yet Gao Yang, having just finished dealing with an urgent document that had arrived moments ago, had little time to admire the magnificent view beyond his window. He arranged for Amber to help with some of the less important work, then sat down directly in the armchair of his study and once more concentrated his mind, opening a link to the Firmament Station's surveillance systems.

After confirming the expedition fleet's position, he did not tell anyone else about it for the time being. Instead he maintained a shallow connection to the Firmament Station at all times, keeping watch on Byron's movements, and whenever he had a spare moment he would enter a deep-link state and use the station's optical sensors to directly confirm the Winter's Day's situation.

For some time now the Winter's Day and the fleet it led had been anchored near the orbital elevator's sea platform, seemingly without any major activity, and the Firmament Station's systems had sent no further news since. But Gao Yang knew that Byron had to be continuing his exploration of the orbital elevator platform—he was not the sort to sit idle in calm waters wasting time.

And from what he could currently tell, Byron's exploration had not provoked any "overreaction" from the Pioneers' legacy; at least the fleet had not come under attack, and Gao Yang had received no intrusion warnings from the system.

"...Thank goodness it's Byron leading the fleet and not Rebecca," Gao Yang couldn't help muttering to himself as he kept his link with the Firmament Station open. "If that iron-headed girl were over there, she'd probably pull some suicidal stunt—like conjuring a fireball the size of a city gate and hurling it at any door she couldn't open..."

He was barely halfway through that thought when an abrupt voice barged into his mind: "Visitor has arrived at the Firmament Station. Guidance procedure cannot be initiated—interaction medium activated. Switching to backup procedure..."

Gao Yang was stunned. Before the thought "What?" had even formed in his head, he felt a wholly new stream of information surge up from the depths of his consciousness—complex, vast, unfamiliar, yet almost instantly it merged smoothly into his existing connection with the Firmament Station. His awareness was guided forward through the darkness, and suddenly he saw new colors and light appear in his "field of view." The "limited bandwidth" he had grown used to over the past few years of connecting with space facilities seemed to have broadened all at once. Gao Yang's astonishment lasted only a few seconds before he "saw" those colors and lights stabilize rapidly, resolving into a clear image:

In a dark space, he saw a woman with long black hair and a tear-shaped mole at the corner of her eye suddenly lean in close. Her face was tense; she scrutinized the spot where Gao Yang's viewpoint was located and poked at it with her finger, her slightly distorted voice reaching his mind: "...Asarena, come look at this... it's lit up! It's lit up! I just poked it once and it suddenly came on! What do we do now?"

"What the hell?!" The instant that face appeared, Gao Yang's heart lurched—he was profoundly shaken. In all his years as a satellite spirit, seeing "outsiders" while connected to the system was a first. It felt like a hearse driver of twenty years' experience suddenly having the passenger in the back seat get up and tap him on the shoulder; the shock would probably stop the heart of even Rebecca, whose nerves were thick enough to be described as "sturdy." Gao Yang himself needed more than ten seconds to finally react and recognize the figure appearing before him.

It was Cassandra, chief navigator of the Empire's expedition fleet, ally from the deep sea. She had set out from Northport together with Byron. Theoretically, she ought to be aboard the Winter's Day right now—so why was she here?!

Gao Yang's badly shaken heart finally began to settle, and he gradually adapted to this "new viewpoint" that had just appeared deep in his consciousness. He noticed that he seemed to be connected to some device equipped with a camera, and around Cassandra's figure he could also see a space shrouded in dim lamplight—though the angle was limited and the light poor, it was still enough to judge that this was definitely not any part of the Winter's Day.

He suddenly thought of the voice that had rung out in his mind a moment ago: Visitor has arrived at the Firmament Station. Interaction medium activated.

His mood became one of holy shit. Very, quite, extremely holy shit.

While an unending chorus of holy shits echoed through Gao Yang's mind, Cassandra inside the camera was hardly idle. The siren lady seemed to have confirmed that the device which had suddenly lit up before her was not dangerous, and the adventurous spirit peculiar to the siren race quickly got the upper hand. Her tail tip jabbed and prodded around the lens, apparently testing how to interact with the device, and then another figure appeared in Gao Yang's field of view: Asarena, the red-haired dragon-marked witch. The dragonkin lady first watched Cassandra's poking with a look of horror, then, while warning her companion to be careful, could not resist peering curiously toward where Gao Yang (the camera) was.

Their conversation reached Gao Yang's mind, Asarena's voice first: "...Be careful! Don't accidentally trigger something like a weapons system—we're intruders..."

"We're not intruders. We're 'visitors' who entered this station through legitimate procedures—didn't you hear the broadcast in the orbital elevator earlier?" Cassandra said with perfect reasonableness. "Besides, how could a facility like this have a weapons system that fires off the moment you say the wrong thing, especially in a transit port meant to receive visitors—at worst my operation gets flagged as illegal access and blocked. Don't worry, we sirens have built spaceships before. I'm very steady..."

Asarena seemed convinced. Her attention fixed on the device that had just begun operating: "...What do you suppose this thing is?"

"Probably an operation terminal, though I don't know what it operates. Could also be a port inquiry device—after all, it's placed near the elevator entrance," Cassandra said. "Theoretically there ought to be something here that actively guides us, but the corresponding system is clearly broken. This terminal doesn't seem to respond at all..."

"When we rode that 'orbital elevator' up earlier, we could still hear broadcasts... Maybe the ground portion and the space portion of this system run separately?"

"Possible. We built similar things a very, very long time ago—nothing as absurd as this ring, of course, but back then the space stations and ground stations we built in our home world did operate separately..."

Gao Yang listened carefully to the two ladies' conversation, and gradually he came to understand roughly what had happened—how they had come up, what they had done after arriving, and how they had activated this "operation terminal."

It seemed that Cassandra's "poke, poke, poke" had inadvertently activated an interaction terminal in the Firmament Station, and that terminal had automatically directed the data stream to the ring-orbiting station's current "sole authority"—namely, himself.

If that was the case... bold ideas suddenly and irresistibly surfaced in Gao Yang's mind—ideas that... could help him further understand himself, and understand the Pioneers' legacy in space.