Chapter 1550 — 筑起一座巨城

As surging energy was injected into the acceleration system, the ancient giant orbital module began moving toward the Cangqiong Space Station in orbit. The module carried 120 engineers and the first batch of 22 “Mother Planet Barrier Broadcast Components.” Thanks to the astonishing technology of the Voyagers, these cargoes would be smoothly delivered into space within a few hours and installed at several reserved sites near the transit module over the following days; a week later, they would undergo trial operation without being connected to the neural network.

Amid the stars, the ancient Celestial Vault Station floated quietly in the dark void of space. Its towering orbital elevator extended from the planet's surface to the station's inner ring, and the lights burned brightly near the transit modules connected to the elevator. The engineering corps led by Nikolxi had by now successfully restarted roughly a tenth of the entire station's power systems, and these steadily "awakening" systems in turn roused the rest of the station. A tide of awakening was spreading through the Celestial Vault Station, and nearly every day new lights came on along the far ring of the station.

Against the backdrop of the vastness of space, these lights stretching through the darkness are like a Great Wall of lights encircling the planet.

In the inner edge of a ring band near the transit pod, striking sparks lit up space, and the constantly flickering particle jets and the lights on the nearby bulkheads enhanced each other's brilliance. A piece of engineering machinery of bizarre structure was gripping the nearby support pipes tightly with limbs that resembled walking legs, and using a spear-like structure at its front end to perform welding operations on the exterior wall of the space station. At the "head" of this engineering machinery, a "spherical shell" made of high-strength transparent polymer could be seen, and Cassandra, dressed in a deep-space work suit, was sitting inside it, her hands on the control stick, nervously watching the progress of the engineering machinery's work.

A moment later, the welding flame gradually died down. Cassandra let out a slight sigh of relief inside the operator cabin and casually switched on the communications system beside her: "My welding is done here—the external support frame has been connected at the designated position. Who's coming over to check it?"

After a while, Cassandra, inside the cockpit, saw the nearby gate open and Iron Commander Alice float out from within. This lady, whose entire body was constructed of precision machinery, wore only ordinary clothes, without any protective gear, but the magical mechanisms within her body projected a faintly shimmering shield. That shield shone in space, blocking the high-energy rays ubiquitous throughout the universe—apart from this layer of shielding, Alice needed no life-support system at all.

"Sometimes I'm actually quite envious of you," Cassandra couldn't help saying over the communicator as she watched Miss Alice in space activate the magnets in the soles of her feet and step toward the welding point. "You just raise a shield and can move around directly in space, while we Sirens still have to rely on protective suits—otherwise we'd freeze solid out there and turn into a cloud of ice mist..."

"The Iron Man was born precisely to carry out missions in harsh environments," Alice didn't open her mouth, yet her voice rang directly in Cassandra's cockpit. "Our batch underwent special modifications by Her Highness Ophelia; the enchanted bionic skin and the internal thermostatic shell are enough to handle the extreme temperatures of space—though compared with the space engineering machinery you're using now, this is hardly advanced technology."

“Ha, then I really have to thank you for the compliment—I never thought I’d one day be sitting in something like this again doing extravehicular welding tasks,” Cassandra laughed, casually patting the dashboard in front of her, then immediately and carefully checking the spot she had patted, and said sheepishly, “These things were cobbled together from old antiques in the warehouse. Although the key parts have been replaced and modified with new technology, their working condition is nothing like what I remember.”

The Sirens were once an interstellar civilization that had mastered the technology for building colossal starships. Although they ultimately became stranded on this primitive and savage planet, the ancient database of Antawyn and the Vault still preserve the lingering glory of that powerful civilization from ages past—in order to carry out the Sky Station repair mission, the Sirens brought out all their most prized possessions from the bottom of their reserves, including space operation equipment that had been sealed away for hundreds of thousands of years, such as the protective suit worn by Cassandra and the small engineering craft known as the "Deep Space Fish" that she was operating...

Of course, this is a redesigned version adapted to the environment of this universe and localized using “magitek.” Because it was designed in haste, its performance is not as excellent as in Cassandra’s memory—the original “Deep Space Fish” was designed to maintain Antavien’s ecological dome and also had combat capabilities. It clung to starship hulls with its tentacles, and its powerful welding nozzles could carry out repairs on armor plates; after overloading, it could also serve as a beam turret to intercept meteors. This one before us... clearly cannot.

Let alone using beam turrets to intercept meteors and small hostile spacecraft—its pedipalps would even get stuck on their own from time to time, and its sensor efficiency was outrageously poor, to the point that after welding work was completed, support personnel still had to conduct a visual inspection from outside the cabin...

"Better than nothing," Alice's voice came through the communicator, rousing Cassandra from those distant, blurry memories. "Think about it—just a few years ago, weren't you still struggling with the most basic energy problems? And now you're able to return to the post you know so well, operating machinery like this to carry out space welding tasks—I'd say that's a rather astonishing amount of progress."

"...You've learned how to comfort people, Miss Alice," Cassandra said, glancing with some surprise at the Iron Commander, who was inspecting the weld points at the front end of the engineering machinery. "I remember when you first arrived, you knew only two things: 'mission' and 'orders'..."

"I have relatively advanced emotion simulation and learning modules installed to adapt to situations where I execute missions in coordination with other races," Alice explained in a stiff, deliberate manner. "Additionally, as the first... correction, as the second Iron Person to operate independently from the Iron Person network, my activity records will serve as an important reference for the improvement and upgrading of subsequent models. For this reason, Her Highness Ophelia has granted me many permissions, which allows my mind to grow in the same way as Dailan's."

"...The Queen once said that every civilization has technology it can be proud of, and I for one find that mind core in your belly astonishing," Cassandra exclaimed with heartfelt admiration, then raised her head and gazed at the distant scenery.

Against a vast, boundless starry backdrop, she saw the inner side of the Sky Vault Station's ring stretching endlessly into the distance like a great steel land tilted slightly upward, its silver-gray steel giving off a cold, hard texture, with scattered lights dotting both sides of this steel land like eyes peering into the sea of stars; and against the backdrop of those lights, that steel, and the starry sky, she could also see four or five places where light was flashing, those lights flickering on and off, shining brilliantly on the station's inner ring.