A year has passed, and it has been five years since the formation of the Galactic Alliance.

In the space of five years, the Empire's exploration fleet has found more than 1,300 civilizations, and the star systems that have been explored account for 3.45 percent of the Milky Way's area.

Among the more than 1,300 civilizations, 820 civilizations chose to join the galaxy alliance family, while the remaining civilizations disappeared in the long history of the galaxy due to various "natural disasters".

Because the number of stars in the galaxy is too large, and the number of imperial fleets is limited, the current territory of the galaxy alliance in the galaxy is in the shape of a three-dimensional spider web.

Countless "cobwebs" extending out connect the civilizations discovered by the exploration ship, and each civilization extends thousands of cobwebs outward, which means that this civilization has joined the Galactic Alliance and has taken on the important task of exploring the galaxy.

Even so, in five years, the Milky Way has only been discovered by 3.45 percent, and there are still countless unknowns in the galaxy waiting for adventurers to uncover.

However, the prototype of the Galactic Alliance has been formed, and at present, the Galactic Alliance is already a behemoth in the galaxy that no one can shake.

Thousands of light-years away from the galaxy alliance's reticulated star field, a mushroom-shaped spaceship suddenly broke out of hyperspace.

"This is Ark Gemini, call Imperial Headquarters, call Imperial Headquarters!" Dozens of communications were sent out from the ship, but none of them responded.

"We still can't get in touch with the Imperial Headquarters, we've been jumping in this starry sky for decades, and we still haven't reached the star system."

"It's as if we've been making hyperspace jumps in place, and we can't get out of this ghost place at all." In the bridge of the ark, the captain Zhang Jianzheng muttered angrily to himself.

The lights in the bridge were dim, because after decades of non-stop jumping, the ark needed a lot of energy, and the ark carried a limited amount of energy, and without the resources in the star system, it had to turn off unnecessary energy consumption to ensure the most basic needs of the ark, so that it could run for a longer time.

But even then, decades of uninterrupted jumps have brought the Ark's reactors close to depletion.

In order to save resources to the greatest extent, Zhang Jian turned off all life-supporting facilities and lights on the ark except for the bridge, and all the crew members were driven into the sleeping cabin by him, leaving him alone on duty in the bridge.

In these lonely thirty years, the only thing he can communicate with is the ship's artificial intelligence, and his spirit is on the verge of collapse.

"Captain, the energy of our ark can only sustain three hyperspace jumps, if we can't reach the star system after these three jumps, our ark will drift infinitely in the universe, and all the people in the dormant chamber will die in their sleep." Shipboard Intelligence appeared next to the captain and warned.

"I hate myself! Why did you take the ark to this road of no return in the first place! Captain Zhang Jian covered his eyes with his hands as he spoke, and two tears of unwillingness, regret, and guilt flowed out of his hands.

It all started with an unknown signal they received thirty years ago.

After receiving this unknown signal from deep space, Zhang Jian ordered the ark to turn around and fly along this signal.

But they never imagined that following this signal, the Ark would finally come to such a strange place, they were trapped in this empty space, and no matter how they flew, they could not fly out of this area.

After thirty years of trying, Zhang Jian still did not give up, he knew that once he gave up, the colonists on the ark would all die because of him.

Six days passed quickly, and after the third jump out of hyperspace, the scanning device on the Ark still found no trace of the existence of a star system.

The Gemini Ark has no energy left for the next jump, and there is only enough energy left for the dormant chamber on the Ark to last a year.

Just when Zhang Jian wanted to give up, suddenly several flashes of light appeared in the starry sky in front of the ark.

"Speed up, let's go over and see!" As if the frequent death suddenly found a life-saving straw, Zhang Jian eagerly commanded the ship's intelligence.

The Ark's bulky body began to slowly accelerate, flying towards the spot where the flash had just appeared.

After dozens of days of flight, the ark seemed to have suddenly passed through some barrier, and the surrounding scenery suddenly changed, and the original boundless void disappeared, replaced by the wreckage of the spaceship floating in the sky.

And in the wreckage, there are countless small boats busy, which are speeding away with the useful metal cut from the wreckage and putting it in the cargo hold behind it.

"What is this?" Zhang Jian suddenly understood, it turned out that this star field needed the spacecraft to fly normally to pass through, instead of entering hyperspace to jump through.

This must be some kind of protective barrier against faster-than-light movement, and he has led the Ark to leap in place for thirty years!

Looking at the wreckage all over the place, it seems that there are not a few people who have the same thinking as him, and these ships should have exhausted their energy and turned into a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron.

However, the situation of the Gemini Ark is not much better, the long-term high-speed sub-light speed flight has made the energy of the Ark have bottomed out, and if Zhang Jian starts the Ark to fly at sub-light speed again, it may make the Ark completely lose energy.

Just as he was struggling with what to do, a huge fleet suddenly emerged from behind the wreckage.

Seeing this fleet, Zhang Jian's mouth opened wide in shock, the reason why he was shocked was not because the scale or volume of this fleet was beyond imagination, but because the shape of these spaceships was really .....

The ships in this fleet all have a roughly similar appearance: the appearance of a mast-mounted galleon from the late 18th century on Earth!

The three large sails of these mast galleons were still retained, but the canvas on them had been replaced by a panel of black unknown material.

The main body of these ships is also made entirely of alloy, but with some wood-like decorations in some places.

Originally, the position of the gun ports on both sides of the hull was still the gun port, and the upper and lower rows of fifty ancient guns were just sticking out of the hull.

And the tail of the battleship, where the rudder of the sailing ship was originally located, was composed of dozens of thrusters of various sizes, which seemed to be the main power responsible for the advance of these warships.

In this way, under Zhang Jian's shocked gaze, twenty spaceships with strange and retro shapes flew around the ark.

"Guests of unknown civilization, please let your guard down, we have no ill intentions, we are here with friendliness." Zhang Jian suddenly received a communication message from these spaceships, and a middle-aged man wearing a top hat and bronzed skin appeared on the holographic screen.