266: Chapter 267 Baby Bus

The slender hull was filled with cold, rigid Gothic lines.

On the ship's sharp, forward-facing ram, a golden double-headed eagle relief symbolizing the Empire was embedded; while on the left side of the bridge, a torch relief representing the Spark Alliance was carved.

As for the most conspicuous spot on the right side of the bridge, the players had used exaggerated, colorful paint to spray a Baby Bus cartoon logo that felt completely out of place.

The shuttle successfully approached the ventral docking port of the Void Ship and landed smoothly in the spacious internal hangar, where it began unloading cargo.

At this moment, Dog Bro strode over.

"How is it?"

Dog Bro proudly patted the metal bulkhead of the hangar. "This ship is now completely the private property of our guild! It's 1.5 kilometers long. The weaponry is equipped with the Mass-Energy Conversion Cannon and other top-tier mainstream equipment currently available in the Alliance. To save our skins, we even spent a fortune to force an extra layer of Void Shield inside the standard Deflector Shield!"

Penny looked around at the grand metal structure and exclaimed, "It certainly looks the part!"

Dog Bro pointed to a hovering motorcycle parked not far away. "Let's go. There's still plenty of time. I'll take you around to see our new home."

The two mounted the motorcycle and began wandering through the intricate internal corridors of the Void Ship.

On this Void Ship, besides the players, there were actually quite a few local indigenous inhabitants acting as basic operators.

Most of them were skilled workers who had gained some mechanical experience in factories or starports.

Because the Spark Alliance had enacted strict human rights legislation, it explicitly forbade converting living people into mindless Servitor units.

However, at the same time, the Alliance was promoting basic education on a large scale across various Hive Cities.

Therefore, there was now a relatively sufficient supply of technical personnel capable of operating standard equipment.

On the entire massive Void Ship, only the most critical fire control, engine, and main cannon stations were personally operated and maintained by a very small number of high-level players; all other basic life support and logistics were handed over to these highly paid NPCs.

Riding the motorcycle, the two toured from the bottom-level warehouses, processing plants, and heavy armor decks, all the way to the armory and living quarters.

It took a full hour just to take a cursory look around.

Finally, they took the elevator to the core bridge located at the top of the ship.

At this time, most of the combat players participating in the maiden voyage had already gathered there.

As soon as Penny got off the motorcycle, he immediately spotted the most conspicuous figure in the crowd—a giant white bear standing there like a small mountain!

"Holy crap!" Penny was startled. "Why is there a real bear on the bridge?!"

The giant white bear turned its head, rolled its eyes in annoyance, and spoke in human language: "What kind of talk is that! Call me Bear Bro, alright!"

Penny only then recognized that this was the famous 'Lightning Mage' Wu A Level Combo from the forums.

Beside the white bear, there was also a petite female player wearing Red Arrow Power Armor.

Penny recognized this player; it was the sharp-tongued Devil Muscle Thor.

Dog Bro explained from the side, "These two are mercenaries we hired at a high price for this expedition team. The kind with off-the-charts combat power! There are about a hundred or so high-level solo players like them recruited temporarily on the ship, specifically responsible for boarding battles."

Penny nodded repeatedly, feeling reassured.

After finishing the tour, Penny found an observation chair in the corner of the bridge to sit and rest.

During this time, players arrived one after another to report in.

After almost all the players on the list had arrived, the guild leader, Dumpling, pulled a megaphone out of nowhere, stood on the command platform, and shouted loudly, "Brothers! Attention! The Baby Bus fleet is now officially departing!"

"The destination of this flight is an unknown star system about fifteen astronomical units away from us! Beer, beverages, melon seeds, and mineral water on board are all free and provided in unlimited quantities! The e-sports room and holographic recreation room on the lower deck are also open 24 hours a day!"

"Alright, enough small talk! Ignite engines, we're leaving now!"

Dumpling finished shouting his slogan enthusiastically, but none of the players below responded or applauded.

The situation was somewhat awkward.

But the next moment, everyone immediately felt a deep, rumbling vibration coming from the deck beneath their feet.

The plasma thrusters at the rear of the ship spewed dazzling blue light, and the massive hull began to slowly break away from the orbit of Mobius Prime, accelerating into the depths of the profound starry sea.

A few hours later, the originally bright blue-white lighting on the bridge instantly switched to an alarming scarlet red.

This was the sign that the ship was about to tear through the veil of reality and enter Warp travel!

Several players pressed against the porthole glass, shouting excitedly, "It's happening! The legendary Warp travel is finally here! I want to see what the demons that the forums hype up so much actually look like!"

However... "Boom—Clack!"

Outside all the transparent portholes on the bridge, metal shutters descended instantly, physically cutting off all lines of sight to the outside, and the entire bridge turned into a sealed metal tin can.

At this moment, an impatient explanation came over the broadcast from the player in charge of fire control: "Brothers at the windows, stop looking! Staring directly into the Warp is not a good thing. Although for us players without soul projections, it might not feel like much—at most, you lose some Sanity points—but for those indigenous NPCs on the ship responsible for steering, one look and they'll go insane and mutate! For everyone's safety, the viewing windows are forcibly closed during the jump."

Everyone understood after hearing this, and since there was no scenery to look at, everyone dispersed, bored, to go to the recreation rooms or training grounds to do their own things.

In fact, this kind of long-distance space travel was similar to sailing on an ocean freighter on Earth. After the initial few hours of novelty and excitement, life would become extremely dull and boring.

If living people were kept locked up in such a sealed, oppressive metal shell for months, they would inevitably develop some mental illnesses. Therefore, the vast majority of players decisively chose to log off right then and there, leaving only a few on-duty personnel to wait for the arrival notification in the WeChat group.

Penny, however, did not choose to log off. He returned alone to his private cabin on the lower deck. Closing the door, he took out the large alloy case marked with "Confidential Shipment."

Penny's cabin was furnished very simply, with nothing high-tech, but it had one very obvious feature—the shelves on the walls were piled high with many physical paper books!

There was a special reason why he had furnished it this way. Because in his favorite game, Stardew Valley, the female resident named Penny was characterized as a girl who loved quiet and loved to read.

Penny Is My Wife took a deep breath and pressed the combination lock on the alloy case. "Hiss—" Accompanied by a puff of white condensed gas, the case slowly opened.

Inside the case, a perfect 1:1 high-fidelity android was quietly curled up! She had soft brown curly hair and was wearing a classic yellow shirt and a pink skirt. Her skin felt soft and warm to the touch.

This was exactly the custom-made physical android of the Stardew Valley resident "Penny" that Penny had spent a large amount of points to have Stone Man Hong help create!

Apart from the cerebral center being composed of electronic neural equipment, the structure of the other organs in her body was almost identical to that of a real human. She had a heartbeat, body temperature, and even required normal breathing and eating. But at this moment, her brain was still a blank slate, without any programs.

Penny carefully took out the AI sphere. He gently brushed aside the hair on the back of the android's head, locating the direct neural interface at the nape of her neck. He precisely connected the data cable from the metal sphere, beginning the physical transfer of the massive amount of data.

A few minutes later, the data transfer was complete. Under Penny's nervous and expectant gaze, the girl curled up in the case moved her fingers slightly, and then, she slowly opened those clear, gentle eyes.

...

It is unknown how much time had passed. On the command platform of the Baby Bus, several players on duty were gathered together, bored out of their minds. They were staring curiously at the central holographic tactical sandbox.

On the sandbox, the light point representing the Void Ship was struggling to navigate through a constantly twisting and changing current of Warp shadows.

Dumpling took a sip of coffee and pointed at the sandbox, analyzing: "According to the cosmic physics settings of Warhammer, every shadow gravity well marked on this hologram represents a corresponding massive celestial body in the real universe. Do you think there might be a star system with a habitable planet hidden deep within these shadows?"

Dog Bro nodded. "There definitely is! The Galaxy is so big. It's just that the Warp routes to those unknown deep space regions are completely unclear. According to that navigator, wanting to weave a new route out of thin air in the Warp requires a long time to feel the currents, and you could be swallowed by storms at any moment. You can only explore it carefully, bit by bit, like a blind man feeling an elephant."

Dumpling sighed. "Sigh, if only we could develop a technology that allows for faster-than-light jumps directly in the real universe without having to dive into the Warp, that would be perfect! We could completely avoid the Warp, that cesspit full of demons everywhere."

Dog Bro rubbed his chin. "In our Earth's science fiction theories, the most likely to be realized are nothing more than Warp drives and artificial wormholes. But these technologies involve high-dimensional space folding. Currently, our Shelter's tech tree hasn't even touched the shadow of those."

While the two were chatting and lamenting, Luluchiu, the girl in charge of radar observation, suddenly stood up and shouted, pointing at the screen: "Look at the radar! Space anomaly ahead! Detected a planet gravity well in the real universe! We've reached the exit!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the originally oppressive scarlet alarm lights on the bridge instantly switched back to bright blue-white! At the same time, the heavy metal blast shutters on the surrounding walls began to slowly retract with the sound of grinding gears.

Upon hearing this, the players excitedly swarmed toward the transparent porthole glass. As the ship completely broke through the energy vortex of the Warp, the starlight of the real universe came back into view.

They saw, in the distance against the dark, deep background, a young star emitting a faint blue glow hanging quietly in the sea of stars. By the light of the star, three planets orbiting it could be clearly seen.

And what made all the players' adrenaline spike instantly was—in the near-Earth orbit of one of the yellowish planets, a massive, metallic-textured wreck of a space station was quietly floating there!

"Holy crap!" Dumpling's eyes widened. "There's a space station! There are traces of intelligent civilization here!"