"Everything is working fine with the ship's control system. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info""There is nothing wrong with the energy system. "On the thirty-first day after the Voyager left the opposing civilization, Zhou Xin was conducting a routine daily check of the Voyager's flight status.

"Where's the warp engine?" Zhou Xin didn't care about those normal reports, but opened his mouth to ask the questions that would be asked during the daily inspection during this time, "We have also been flying for almost a month, is there anything abnormal about the newly repaired warp engine?" ”

"Everything is working fine and in good working order." Spred glanced at the screen in front of him and replied, "But I think I should almost stop for a check-up." ”

"Then stop." Zhou Xin said, "After the inspection, we will continue to fly towards our target." ”

Because the warp engine had just been repaired, Zhou Xin and the others were not very confident about the state of the engine. So before they set off, they decided to make a transit in the nearest star system less than a light-year away from the opposing civilization. The main purpose was to conduct a long-running test of the warp engine, as well as to conduct an expedition to the target galaxy. Of course, the star map provided by the Atlanteans has made it abundantly clear that there are no habitable planets within their current target. Therefore, Zhou Xin and the others only planned to stay in that star system for a short time, and then continue to move towards the real goal they had set before.

Then, after pausing to inspect the warp engine for about a day or so, Zhou Xin and the others continued their journey to the nearest star system.

Another twenty days of calm passed, and Voyager successfully reached the periphery of the target star.

"The ship is exiting warp." With the Voyager's report, the unchanging darkness in the outer footage of the spaceship began to change, and after a while, the familiar starry sky appeared in front of Zhou Xin and them again.

A few minutes after exiting the warp state, the Voyager reported again: "The ship is now within the stellar wind coverage of the target star, and is about a daylight away from the target star. ”

"Good location." Zhou Xin nodded, looked up at the screen, and immediately recognized the goal of his trip - a bright white planet much brighter than the surrounding stars.

While Zhou Xin was staring at the planet, Atlas also spoke, "According to the records in the star map, our target this time is a young star about a billion years old, which is about twice the diameter of the Sun and about thirty to forty times brighter than the Sun. Most importantly, records show that the star appears to be active, as evidenced by analysis of stellar winds by external probes. ”

"Hmm." Zhou Xin nodded, most of the content reported by Atlas had already seen and analyzed before leaving. Of course, when he learned that the star was still active, Zhou Xin was still a little surprised. In Atlas's subsequent introduction, he also remembers in his mind what he had seen in the Atlantean star charts.

It's a very ordinary star, and in the star map, there is only a lone planet orbiting around it. However, according to the above description, the only planet is expected to be more than ten times the size of Earth, and it is likely to be a rocky planet. This is also one of the reasons that attracted Zhou Xin and them to come here, after all, everyone has never seen such a big rocky planet. Even if it's not for the sake of investigating, it's good to satisfy everyone's curiosity.

The Voyager stayed where it was for a while, and Atlas discovered another oddity about the galaxy, which was that it was so clean, if not dead, that it was all around. Except for the fact that there is only one planet orbiting it, there are not even asteroid belts around it, and even the number of individual asteroids is very small. In order to find out more about the situation in the star system, the curious Atlas immediately launched a large number of probes into the interior of the star system. At the same time, Voyager began to slowly approach the only planet in the galaxy.

After a day or so of investigation, Atlas reported to Zhou Xin: "Brother Captain, really, the surroundings of this star system are really clean. In the process of investigation, people only saw an asteroid with a diameter of more than 50 kilometers, of course, although there are some asteroids smaller than it, but compared with our solar system, it is much less, and it is estimated that there are only a few thousand at most. Moreover, these asteroids are almost always orbiting the star alone, and the distribution range is also very scattered, from extremely close distances to the range of more than a dozen light hours. ”

After a pause, Atlas continued, "In addition to this, the Comet Cloud at the edge of the galaxy has also been found. However, the matter contained in it is also very thin, and it is almost impossible to aggregate into a fixed form of object. ”

Hearing Atlas's report, Spred instantly became interested, and even Zhou Xin was a little curious, he asked: "This is indeed a bit abnormal, Atlas, can you analyze why this is happening?" ”

"People have already gotten the answer." The little girl's answer on the screen was a hint of pride, "According to people's analysis, at the beginning of the formation of this star, the material around it should be relatively scarce, otherwise it would not have formed only one planet." Coupled with the intense activity of this star, over the years, the violent stellar winds have blown away almost all the remaining material, and it has gradually evolved into what it is today. Then she demonstrated it on screen.

"In that case, there's nothing surprising about that." After listening to Atlas's explanation, Zhou Xin said casually.

As the conversation progressed, a planet slowly began to appear in the exterior of the Voyager. And that was the biggest goal of Zhou Xin's trip - the only planet in this star system.

At first, the picture that appeared on the screen was very normal, nothing more than a planet that was gradually getting bigger. Later, Atlas marked the distance between the Voyager and the planet, and everyone suddenly noticed something unusual. Judging from the data, it is clear that Voyager is still a million kilometers away from the planet, but that star has occupied nearly a third of the entire screen. Obviously, the observation was made with a normal lens, but the results observed were similar to those with a high-magnification lens. This phenomenon made Zhou Xin and their hearts couldn't help but have a strange feeling.

"From the observations, the diameter of the planet is about 10.5 to 11 times the diameter of the Earth. It is about 500 million kilometers away from the star at the center of the galaxy. Just as everyone's attention in the command module was drawn to the planets on the screen, Atlas's voice rang out.

"I've known for a long time that such a rocky planet exists, but seeing it with my own eyes is really different." Zhou Xin said with emotion, "It's unimaginable. ”

At this time, the surface of the planet has already appeared in front of everyone's eyes. Its surface is mostly covered in earthy yellow, with a few stripes interspersed with reddish-brown stripes, most of which are reddish-brown. The longest pattern occupied almost two-thirds of the diameter of the planet facing Zhou Xin, writhing on the surface of the planet like a long snake.

That's right, Zhou Xin saw with his own eyes that those long patterns on the surface of the planet were slowly writhing. At first, he thought he was delusional. But after repeated confirmation, Zhou Xin finally found that he was not mistaken, the stripes were indeed writhing slightly. Not all of the stripes are writhing, but just one that moves is surprising enough.

Before Zhou Xin could say what he had discovered, Dart spoke in surprise; "Look, are the stripes moving? Are they alive? ”

"Impossible." Spred looked at it carefully for a moment, then replied with a frown, "If those stripes are living beings, don't you think they're too huge in terms of size?" Then he thought for a moment and then said in a cautious tone, "Rather than a living organism, I believe it may be a natural phenomenon on this planet that we don't know about, maybe like the streaks on the surface of the gas giants." ”

"That's right." Dart scratched his head, and even Zhou Xin's face had a hint of embarrassment, because the same thought came to him the moment he saw the moving stripes. Coughing, he commanded, "Send a probe to this planet and see what its surface looks like." Especially for those active stripes, it is necessary to focus on the investigation, and it is best to be able to find the reason for their activity. ”

"Got it." Atlas preempted the Voyager and said that she had discovered the streaks of activity on the planet's surface before Zhou Xin and the others. If it weren't for the fact that the probes she had launched earlier were too far away from the planet, she would have controlled the probes to investigate the planet's surface.

A little more than a minute later, countless probes flew out of the Voyager, and they rained down on the planet's surface. It didn't take long for those detectors to disappear from the footage.

With the release of the probe, the Voyager flew in the direction of the planet for a while, and finally stopped at a distance of about 400,000 kilometers from the planet.

Although the distance between Voyager and the planet is about the same as the distance between the Earth and the Moon, looking at the planet from its current position is completely different from looking at the Earth from the Moon. At least in terms of visual impact, it is far from being comparable to looking at the Earth from the Moon. At this moment, the screen in front of Zhou Xin, except for the four corners, was almost completely covered by an earthy yellow. Although they had seen similar scenes before, they had never observed them so far away from a planet.

If the external footage shown on the screen isn't enough to shock people, put the perspective into space. If you can look at the Voyager and the planet around it from a distance, you will find that if you take that vast and incomparably large planet for Earth, the entire ship will look like an insect flying near its surface. As an observer, no matter how closely you observe, there is no way to find the existence of the Voyager without anyone to guide you.

Of course, Zhou Xin in the spaceship couldn't see such a scene. While the probe was still on its way to the planet, the crowd began to take a closer look at the surface of the planet on the screen.

Because the distance between the Voyager and the planet was still a little far, Zhou Xin and the others could not see more details on the surface of the planet, but some of the more obvious features could still be recognized. In addition to the red stripes that could be seen at first glance, the most obvious news that Zhou Xin and the others could get from the picture was that there was no liquid water on the surface of the huge rocky planet in front of them, because not even a single boundary between land and water could be seen on the surface of the planet.

For this situation, Zhou Xin and they were not much surprised. Although the distance between the planet and the central star has reached more than twice the distance between the Sun and the Earth, it is also in a period of high activity because the energy released by the central star far exceeds that of the sun. According to Atlas's calculations, the only planet in the galaxy is still too close to the star to sustain the presence of liquid water.

In addition, under the careful observation of the high-powered lens, Zhou Xin also found a lot of black areas on the surface of the planet that looked like shadows. This means that there should be extremely tall mountains on this planet, otherwise it would not have been possible to see such a clear shadow from such a distance. Some of the shadows at the edges of the stripes form an indescribable pattern with the stripes themselves.

As the Voyager slowly orbits the planet, the images in the high-powered lens are changing at any time. Except for the surprise that everyone felt at the first sight of those lines, it was difficult for their emotions to fluctuate in the following pictures. Some people had even taken their attention off the screen, and even Zhou Xin was a little absent-minded, and Spred was asking Atlas when the probes would reach the surface of the planet.

Nearly half an hour passed, and Voyager slowly approached the planet's dawn and dusk line. At this time, Zhou Xin's eyes accidentally glanced at the picture on the screen. Suddenly, he noticed that the junction of light and darkness on the planet's surface seemed a little unusual compared to the rest of the world. Looking closely, Zhou Xin saw a scene there that surprised him extremely......