Chapter 5: Planetary Fission

 ERROR666  Editor: DarkGemYear 9516 of the Galactic Calender.

“Commander, I would like to report to you that the planet termination plan has been set up, you can initiate at any time.”

“Right.” The commander of the No.333 space station, Lu Ren, stood up from the commanding chair. He took a look at the giant black mass in front of him, then turned to look at the deputy who was reporting to him. “What about planetary scan? Have you done it yet?”

“It’s been completed,” the deputy commander replied.

“How many times?”

“Three times, no evidence of life signs.”

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“Life signs?” His brows stitched together.

“We haven’t discovered any biological signs either.” Understanding what he was asking, the deputy immediately added another sentence.

“That’s good.” Lu Ren was finally able to ease his heart. “You must be thorough with these scans, if you missed anything, neither of us could bear the responsibility, understood?”

“Yes! I will make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“That’s not good enough!” Lu Ren exclaimed. “It must be hundred percent that no mistakes are made.”

“Yes, commander.”

“Good.” Only then did Lu Ren nod in satisfaction. “By the way, how’s the unconscious person that we found not long ago? Have you found out what race she’s from?”

“She has been awake for a few days.” The deputy commander clicked the optical computer on his hand and transferred the documents over. “The medical team has already examined her. She doesn’t have any external injuries, but due to her long coma, her brain doesn’t seem to function well. Temporarily, she can’t recall her own race.”

“If she can’t remember then test her genes, I don’t believe that we can’t figure it out.”

“Yes!” The deputy saluted, then turned and pointed at the planet before him that began to crack on the surface. “And the planet termination plan…”

Lu Ren lurched forward, straightening his seating posture. “Let’s initiate the plan!” he said and slapped with his palm the red button in front of him.

An emotionless machine frequency immediately sounded.

“The planet termination plan initiated, one minute count-down, 59, 58, 57…”

_______

At the same time Yao Si was in the infirmary…

Her face was filled with confusion, and she really wanted a watermelon to calm herself.

“Doctor, come again, what year is this?”

“Right now is the year 9516 of the galactic calender, today is the eighth of June.”

“Galactic calender, what…” She had only heard of the lunar calender, the solar calender, the Julian calender, and the Georgian calender, what the hell was this galactic calender?

“Year 9516!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!”

“Then can I ask, how far is this galactic calender date from year 2017 of the Julian calender?”

“The Julian calender? Aren’t those pre-historic years?”

“Pre…Pre-historic!”

No way, she was there just yesterday!

“Have you remembered anything? Don’t worry, you’ve been asleep for too long. You are suffering from neural damage in the brain, there will be a period of time where your memories are jumbled up,” the female doctor in white comforted. “Don’t rush yourself trying to remember things, everything will be better once you rest a bit more and get in contact with people…”

Yao Si thought that she probably was not going to get any better, because she seemed to have accidentally… slept through the end of time.

As a person who had recently been informed that she wasn’t human, she had now woken up after god-knows how many years in the blink of an eye.

‘Do we really have to be so fast paced? You barely leave enough time for the readers to react!

And where in the world is this place?’

“This is the No.333 space station of the T region.” Probably realizing her questions, the female doctor comforted her in a gentle voice. “My last name is Wang, I’m your physician. Let your heart calm down, you are perfectly safe in…”

Before she had the opportunity to finish her sentence, a beeping warning tone boomed through the entire room, accompanied by the sound of a countdown.

Yao Si had a jump scare. “What’s wrong?!” What about the safety you promised?

“It’s finally starting.” Dr. Wang had an overwhelming sense of excitement.

“What…What has began?”

“The planet termination.”

“Planet termination?” What is that?

“Planet termination is… Oh, let me just show you since you need to walk about anyways, it’s good for your condition.” After saying that, Dr. Wang pulled her hand to drag her out. “Don’t forget the translation device, otherwise you won’t understand the commentaries.”

Having been reminded, Yao Si took the silver earring-like object from the bedside and followed her out. When she had just woken up, she couldn’t understand what the people around her were saying until the girl placed this beside her bed. Thanks to this high-tech device, she could then finally understand what everyone was speaking about.

Dr. Wang took her onto a very vast platform that was surrounded by pitch-black sky filled with stars. It seemed to be endless at a glance, with some small and big planets floating around. Although Dr. Wang had told her that this was a space station, she was still unable to comprehend that for the longest time. Only when she saw the starry sky did she have the real sense of what it felt like being out in the galaxy. She also suddenly understood what “the sea of stars” meant!

This wasn’t a dream, she had really slept till the galactic ages!

“Hey girl, over here, here, quickly.”

The platform was already filled with many people. Dr. Wang had found a good spot and was now waving at her to come over.

Yao Si went to her. She only realized while she was walking around and squeezing through the crowd that there was an enormous planet before them, filling up half of their view. Its entire body was a dull black color, and there was a huge crack that ran from the left to the right of the entire sphere. There were some minor cracks as well that were spreading in every direction.

A bunch of thin lines and strange characters floated around the planet.

With a closer inspection, Yao Si realized that they were enclosed by a giant semi-spheric optical dome which loomed above them. The lines of characters she saw were explanations displayed on the see-through surface.

“Why aren’t you putting it on?” The doctor took the translation device from her hands and wound it around her ear. “If you don’t wear it now, when the planet collapses later, you won’t be able to differentiate which piece is which.”

Yao Si heard a beep next to her ear, and the characters she wasn’t able to understand previously were transformed before her eyes into the familiar Chinese. On the huge crevice of the planet floated these words “The Great Fission” while around it were some statistics and data which she was unable to perceive.

So this translation device not only allowed you to understand languages when held in hand, but it could also translate words when you wore it. No wonder it was a piece of future’s high-tech.

Unable to withhold her curiosity, Yao Si asked, “What happened to this planet?”

“Its time is up,” Dr. Wang replied carelessly. “This planet existed for billions of years and now it has reached its end, destruction is just a matter of time.”

“Oh.”

The so-called termination of planets actually meant the destruction of planets, who would have thought… A moment earlier, she was still thinking about whether she’ll boil or braise the duck blood, and now she was about to witness the perishing of a planet.

Looking at everything before her, Yao Si was forced to accept the truth that she had really traveled to the future, a time N years later.

The planet continued to break down, cracks covering its whole surface. The scene suddenly fell quiet, everyone attentively staring at the planet that was beginning to disperse.

The black sphere was like a ripe dandelion, disintegrating into millions of fragments and scattering in every direction. The sunlight seeped through the cracks, splitting into thousand of rays of golden light, decadent yet beautiful.

This show of the collapsing planet only lasted for half an hour. In that time, the originally pure-black planet had turned into a pile of dispersing debris.

“It’s finished, come on.” Dr. Wang patted Yao Si’s shoulder.

Yao Si was stupefied, recuperating from the shocking sight before her. She turned around, and as expected, the people that were on the platform had already left one after another.

She nodded and was prepared to turn away, but she suddenly saw an intense white light streaking across from the right, heading straight towards the pile of broken rocks ahead. “What’s that?”

“Space canon, it’s for cleaning the galaxy.” The girl cast an uncaring look at the white light and pointed to the series of rock piles in front of them. “These disintegrated miniature planets cannot stay here, it will affect our space station.”

As her voice fell silent, the white light had reached the debris, instantly forming a large whole with the bright light from before. The initially shattered rocks around it seemed to be experiencing some chain reaction and were all sucked into it, disappearing into nothingness. In less than a minute, one third of the rocks had already disappeared.

Yao Si sighed with emotion. That big of a planet had disappeared without a sound, yet it seemed to her like there should have been something. This made her think of the eventuality of everything, and she began to miss her home dearly.

“Hold on Dr. Wang, can I ask where did you find me?”

She had already woken up some time ago. Other than yesterday when she couldn’t understand their language, the two days before that she had been in a muddle. Anyone who woke up after a sleep to find themselves in the future would probably also need some time to react. Until now, she didn’t know how she had unknowingly moved from Earth to this high-tech space station. She could clearly recall that she was buried underground by the black-haired vampire.

“I’m not sure about this.” The girl shook her head. “All I know is that the search team found you.”

“Oh.” It looked like she needed to ask the people who had rescued her. “Then, do you know Earth? Is it far from here?”

“Earth?” The girl hesitated.

“Yes.”

“You mean the third planet of the solar system?”

“Yes, yes! You know it?” It was good news that the doctor had heard of it before. Maybe she could even go home, although she wondered if it was still the same as she remembered.

“Of course I know, because…” —the girl pointed behind them—”the one that we just blew up was it.”

“…”

What?