VIII
The moment the ship emerged from the Stargate, the first thing to greet the eyes was the dazzling brilliance of the central star.
Elly, having seen images of the Explorers System from the Explorers' data, was nevertheless astonished at the sight. Unlike the White Dwarf in the Kaos Star System, which radiated a cold, icy light, the central star of the Explorers System was a fierce blaze, radiating robust and thriving energy.
Everyone from the Kaos Star System found themselves instinctively drawn to that star, almost as if they could feel its warmth. Elly stood up to check on her grandpa. She saw the elder Oliver with his eyes cracked open and a calm expression. It was unclear whether or not he was conscious. Dr. Lu came over and gently shook his head, indicating that Elly shouldn't bother the elderly man. "He's exhausted and needs to rest. We'll be heading to the City of Antontas now. The medical crew is ready."
Elly quietly acknowledged this with a nod. Then, Dr. Lu pointed behind her. "Elly, look."
Elly turned toward the porthole at her right, suddenly struck with awe. A myriad of sparkling lights dotted the dark void, overwhelming her with their grandeur.
"These are..." Tears suddenly filled Elly's eyes as the sparkling dots seemed to leap and dance like little fairies.
"Stars," Dr. Lu's voice was choked with emotion. "Elly, those are the stars."
"No," Oliver leaned on the table as if the entire world was collapsing. "No... it can't be true..."
This just couldn't be the truth. In the Kaos Star System, hundreds of thousands of inhabitants had lived and labored tirelessly for generations — many of whom died while mining, their bodies vanishing in a fiery burst. They never had a chance to grieve, only to persist in their work in the hopes of rebuilding the Stargate.
Oliver's grandfather had been vaporized in a split second in a mining accident, hit by a high-speed asteroid shower from the Oort Cloud. If what Mr. Kaos had revealed was true, then it all amounted to nothing! The dogged efforts and hard work spanning centuries, the sweat and blood of several generations, all in vain!
"No!" Oliver yelled, "You're lying! You're lying!"
"I'm not lying, Oliver. This is the truth." Mr. Kaos reached out his hand.
"Like how you have the authority to grant me an Explorer certificate!" Oliver spat out. "No, you've been lying to me all this time! You lunatic!"
He stumbled and ran away, ignoring Mr. Kaos' desperate calls from behind.
"Oliver, listen to me! I've intercepted messages from the Lagrange Network through a specific frequency: the war has ended! A new "Dawn Accord" has been signed. Explorers are on their way here!"
Oliver ran without turning back, heading into the darkness. Little did he know, he would regret this for the rest of his life.
Once the seed of truth is sown, it begins to take root and grow. Oliver, for the first time, felt that the Carr Mining Group slogans were particularly sarcastic. He pretended nothing had happened, casually asking other miners where the Trojite Crystals they mined had gone. But no one had any idea.
Oliver stopped thinking about this. Instead, he forced himself to forget the days spent with Mr. Kaos. When he was 10, he'd never entered that dark tunnel and never encountered Mr. Kaos. He'd lived like anyone else, just carrying out his work, getting married, raising children, and striving for the construction of the Stargate. Why not? Why ask for more trouble?
Numbness, after all, is the best remedy for life.
Isn't it?
As time silently slipped away, Oliver woke as if from a deep slumber. He checked the time. It was still a while before his shift, but he found himself unable to go back to sleep. Oliver's eyes aimlessly roamed his modest room and settled on the dust-covered telescope in the corner.
Oliver felt a twinge, as if something soft deep inside him had been stirred. He moved toward it, bent down, and picked up that simple telescope, dusting it off. Like a precious, muddied gem meeting a surge of waves, long-buried memories resurfaced in Oliver's mind.
He placed the telescope inside his coat, got changed, and stepped out of the room.
Leaving the Living Quarters as if guided by an invisible hand, Oliver reached the spaceport hall with its wide-open view. Through the dome, he could see the docking area with several corridors extending out, each leading to a port for docking ships. Most of the ports were abandoned, and many corridors had been demolished, leaving only one port still functioning, which hadn't seen a ship in a long while.
Oliver was lost in thought as he contemplated the deep, dark void. On a whim, he pulled out the telescope and looked into the far distance. For some reason, a different scene played out: he clearly saw numerous bright spots emerging from the darkness.
Oliver shook as he reached out to touch each of the bright spots, "Ah, stars... our stars..."
He seemed to see a myriad of stars scattered throughout the void, interconnected by a vast network, with people traversing the starry ocean in colossal metal spacecrafts.
Out of the blue, a star exploded, forcing Oliver to squint. Hold on... Oliver came to his senses. Was this a hallucination? He put down the telescope and rubbed his eyes. Wait, it was real! The flash was visible even to the naked eye. Trembling, Oliver picked up the telescope again and looked in that direction.
This time, he saw it. The flickering spot wasn't just a dot but a continuous series of flashes across the region.
God bless Lagrange! These were... ships appearing from the void!
"I've intercepted messages from the Lagrange Network through a specific frequency: the war has ended! A new "Dawn Accord" has been signed. Explorers are on their way here!"
Mr. Kaos' words reverberated in his mind like a clap of thunder. In a moment of realization, he dashed toward Mr. Kaos' secret base.
He sprinted through the dark tunnels and the empty workshops, running through the endless darkness toward that faint light ahead.
It felt like an eternity before Oliver arrived at the secret base, where he saw a figure hunched before the tiny circular porthole. His heart finally calmed.
The old man turned around at the sound of his footsteps. Oliver felt a pang when he saw Mr. Kaos' face. The old man had aged even more over the past two years.
"There you are, Oliver." Just like countless times before, Mr. Kaos greeted Oliver with a smile.
"Mr. Kaos!" Oliver raced up to the old man. He was now much taller than him. Holding back the urge to hug him, Oliver clasped Mr. Kaos' thin, bony hands, tears pouring down his face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kaos."
"I'm glad to see you return. I'm glad," Mr. Kaos smiled contentedly. "Oliver, I knew you would return. You've arrived just in time. Did you see it?"
"Yes, I saw it. Were they Explorers?"
"Yes and no," said Mr. Kaos. "Those were detection beacons. They're designed to perform environmental surveys to assess the viability of exploration throughout the entire star system. The data they collect will be sent to the City of Antontas. If the Explorer Support Department approves the assessment, the star system will then be designated as suitable for exploration, and actual Explorers will begin to arrive. They'll assist us in rebuilding the Stargate and reconnecting the Kaos Star System to the Lagrange Network."
"Great!" Oliver exclaimed. He then recalled the question that had been bothering him for a long time, "Mr. Kaos, the thing you mentioned before about the Carr Mining Group being able to travel in and out of the Kaos Star System... is that true?"
"Yes, the Carr Mining Group has established a tech research center somewhere in the star system. They have forcibly taken all scientists and engineers there. They did build a Stargate, though. A portable one."
"A portable Stargate?" Oliver inhaled sharply.
"Yes, a portable Stargate. That is a miniaturized version of the Stargate, tech from the Sacrum Chu Imperium. They are actually disposable Stargates, only good for a single use and much smaller than the standard ones, but also a lot cheaper to produce," said Mr. Kaos. "I believe that the Carr Mining Group has already long established a Trojite Crystal trading network within the Lagrange Network. With its endless supply of Trojite Crystals, the Carr Mining Group might be much more powerful than we ever suspected. Over the years, I have noticed these beacons on more than one occasion, but there was never any follow-up. There's only one reason for this: the Carr Mining Group has been intercepting and destroying these beacons, which is why the Explorers have yet to arrive."
Oliver's heart sank. "What should we do then?"
"Oliver, my child," Mr. Kaos said with a meaningful look, "there's only one option: We must intercept the beacon and manually operate it to relay a signal back to its source via the Lagrange Points."
"Huh?" Oliver was shocked, his mind spinning, "But... these beacons are too far away! Our mining ships definitely can't make it there, and I don't have access to a more advanced ship. Also, if the Group decides to intercept, they could do it effortlessly since their ships are much faster than ours."
"We do have a ship," Mr. Kaos said, pointing at the Elemental Furnace behind Oliver. "We've got a warp-capable spacecraft. Follow me, Oliver."
Following Mr. Kaos, they entered a tunnel Oliver had never noticed before. It was a winding, dark passage echoing only with the sound of their footsteps. This reminded Oliver of when he first met Mr. Kaos years ago. The difference was, back then, it was Mr. Kaos leading a young Oliver by the hand; now, it was Oliver assisting the aged and frail Mr. Kaos.
They walked and walked for about ten standard minutes through the darkness, then suddenly came upon a small dockyard. To Oliver's surprise, he found a miniature "spacecraft" that was even smaller than his mining ship.
"This was originally an external automatic repair port," Mr. Kaos said, stepping forward and touching the icy exterior of the spaceship. "Meet the 'Hope.' It was initially an unmanned repair ship. I removed its robotic arms and turned it into a manually operated craft. More importantly, I've fitted it with a micro warp drive, allowing it to travel at maximum warp speed."
The pieces fell into place for Oliver. "All your work throughout these years was for this spacecraft."
"Exactly. I built the Elemental Furnace specifically to produce fuel for the warp drive, and my tracking of the Lagrange Points was to find the detection beacon," Mr. Kaos said with a bitter smile. "But I've become too old to pilot this ship, not to mention the Elemental Furnace has destroyed my health. Oliver, would you take on the challenge?"
In that moment, Oliver was deep in thought. Later, in the long years that followed and during numerous interviews, Oliver would always tell reporters that he didn't hesitate to accept Mr. Kaos' request.
But only Oliver knew that wasn't the case: he was, in fact, hesitant.
"Kid, I know it's hard for you," Mr. Kaos placed his hand on Oliver's shoulder, looking into his eyes, "but opportunities like this rarely come again. In life, people are constantly making decisions. You could walk away like nothing happened, or—" Mr. Kaos paused there for a second before carrying on, "you could be a hero."
"Yes, Mr. Kaos. I'll do it." Oliver gave a decisive nod at last.
As he settled into the narrow cockpit, he pulled out the telescope from his pocket and set it atop the control panel. Under Mr. Kaos' guidance, Oliver quickly learned to pilot the small ship. The ship's control system was almost the same as the mining ship Oliver usually operated.
"Once the ship acquires the detection beacon, its computer will automatically analyze it. The message we need to dispatch has already been encoded and is stored in the system. It will send automatically once the beacon's coordinates are deciphered," Mr. Kaos told Oliver.
"Then what?" asked Oliver. "When will the Explorers arrive?"
The old man paused before responding, "I don't know, Oliver. I truly don't. But one thing I am certain of is that once the message is out, the Explorers will come. They never ignore a single voice in a Lone Island."
"I will wait for them," Oliver nodded in affirmation.
"I have something for you," Mr. Kaos said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a crumpled piece of paper, giving it to Oliver. "This is the item I promised you a long time ago."
Accepting it with curiosity, Oliver found it was in fact a piece of paper filled with tiny writings — a letter.
"When you were little, I promised you an Explorer certification if you studied with me. Later, as you got older, you ceased to believe in such things," the elderly voice of Mr. Kaos intoned. "I haven't lied to you, Oliver, not at all. I genuinely possess the credentials to train Explorers from both Antontas University and Hermann University. While this may not be an actual certificate, it's a letter endorsed by my signature. If you bring this letter to the City of Antontas, the Antontas University will issue you an authentic Explorer certificate."
Oliver's nose tingled, realizing that Mr. Kaos had indeed kept his promise and had never lied to him. His time studying with Mr. Kaos was worthwhile. He could be a real Explorer.
"Thank you, Mr. Kaos." Oliver carefully folded the letter and placed it in his pocket.
"Go forth, my child. May the stars guide your path. Good luck."
The porthole closed. Oliver started up the spaceship, which first moved along a rail into an airlock, the door sealing shut behind him with a loud clang. Looking back to the port, Oliver saw Mr. Kaos still waving at him through the glass.
A hissing noise began as the airlock evacuated the air, gradually fading as the air thinned. A green light on the control panel lit up. It was time to depart.
Oliver took a deep breath, glancing back once more at Mr. Kaos, who was still standing there, hunched and seemingly frail, like a martyr about to face their fate. For some reason, Oliver pictured a flame flickering in the wind, threatening to go out any second. But at this moment, in his eyes, Mr. Kaos was incredibly tall. Oliver's eyes welled up, recognizing the lifetime of sacrifices this old man had made. He waved goodbye to him one last time before hitting the launch button.
The airlock opened without a sound as the "Hope" fired up its vector engine and ejected a trail of dazzling flame, propelling the ship out of the airlock and away from April Space City like a sharp, darting arrow.
