Chapter 14: Garbage Star
There was boundless rubbish as far as the eye could see and the dirty air was filled with the stench on the level of bio-chemical weapons.
The hatch opened.
The crew stood on their two legs as soft as noodles and rushed out of the burned incomplete ship door unsteadily and then began to vomit wildly, feeling nauseous and dizzy.
It’s not because of the smell.
It’s because of their captain’s fatal sailing skills.
Xiao Yi got tortured the most and vomited the most fiercely, almost throwing up his insides in the process.
As the culprit, Ge Xiu didn’t seem to have the slightest guilt. He stretched out his stiff limbs, and the bones made a slight rubbing sound under the muscles, he squinted his eyes like a cat.
In the distant sky, the lonely Alliance warship was slowing down and approaching the surface of the planet, and it seems that it was also preparing to land.
Ge Xiu shouted: “Pack the materials and evacuate.”
The crew also knew their priorities. They rushed back to the cabin at the fastest speed in hurried footsteps, took the materials, weapons and tools they depended on for survival and followed behind Ge Xiu, to quickly leave the ship.
They stumbled and ran forward in the billowing garbage dump. After walking a certain distance, Ge Xiu suddenly stopped his steps and then dodged and hid behind the steel wreck leaning on the garbage mountain. He made a ‘follow’ gesture to the others. Although the crew members were confused, they still followed Ge Xiu obediently and looked in the direction they came from through the cracks in the wreck.
Not far away was a battleship with a burnt and broken cockpit, emitting black smoke. The front part was stuck in a soft garbage dump. The middle section was torn revealing the steel skeleton, which looked horrible. The hatch was wide open, and you could vaguely see the empty space inside.
On a flat and gentle slope behind, the Alliance warship was slowly landing and a group of men in Alliance army uniforms came out from the open hatch, loaded with guns and live ammunition. They cautiously approached warship that used to be Alliance’s. After confirming that there was no enemy in ambush inside, the advance troops cautiously walked into the opened cabin.
Ge Xiu bent his eyes, a pure and gentle smile overflowed on his lips and he silently mouthed a word-
bang.
As if they had touched some switch, the remaining hull of the warship exploded suddenly and the deafening sound spread across the planet. The bright flames rushed into the sky and the scorching shock wave almost knocked the Alliance forces surrounding the ship to the ground. From this distance they could only vaguely hear panicked cries of the Alliance’s army and the appearance of little figures in dark blue uniforms quickly evacuating outside of the ship.
Obviously, fuel alone can’t cause such an explosion.
Xiao Yi turned his head to look at Ge Xiu dumbfounded, barely able to utter a syllable from shock.
Ge Xiu sighed happily, threw the detonator in his pocket aside and then turned to look at the crew behind him:
”Let’s go, let’s go.”
With a careless smile on his face and blazing flames reflecting in his indifferent eyes, he seemed to have no awareness he just blew up their only hope of leaving the planet, he said lightly:
“Are you going or do you want to wait to get caught?”
The crew returned to their senses and followed Ge Xiu to the distance and continued to evacuate.
The group of people seemed like tiny ants, walking through huge and multicoloured mountains of garbage, all trace of them disappeared in an instant.
The captain in the uniform of the Alliance army raised his hand to cover his nose, and watched with a sullen expression ship, that exploded in front of his eyes, leaving almost no piece of intact metal left, and frowned tightly.
An adjutant covered in gunpowder in dust, apparently having barely escaped from the explosion, stumbled towards his captain:
”Report, report! There is not a single survivor from advance forces!”
The captain’s expression became even gloomier.* He did not expect that there would be such a maniac who dared to put a large number of deadly explosives on a warship he was driving. The external protective layer was designed to be relatively thin, and no one dared to take such a big risk except for suicide attacks.
He watched the still burning wreckage of a battleship, coldly asking:
”Have the data and navigation coordinates loaded on the ship been rescued?”
Adjutant shook his head painfully:
”All blown up”
This result was not a surprise to the captain. After all, the shell of the battleship was shattered to dust under such a large amount of destructive power and the possibility that sophisticated high-end smart devices would survive was extremely slim.
He once again remembered the thrilling chase just now. After being in the Alliance Army for so many years, he has never seen such a tricky and crazy operation method. The captains of the other crashed ships were experienced, but they were still thrown around, even thinking about it now, he couldn’t help but have lingering fears.
Years of military service gave the captain a hunch that the ship he was chasing this time might have a lot to do with the extremely tense recent situation of abducting ships in Alliance. The desire to get merits ignited in his eyes, but this time the danger of the mission also made him more cautious:
”You, bring half of the people, equipped with light energy guns and divide them into small teams to search. If you encounter them, shoot directly, regardless of life or death.”
”Yes!”
The ashened adjutant took the order to leave.
The captain turned his head and said to another subordinate who was on standby behind him: “The remaining half of the people will stay on the ship with me.”
The man was taken aback.
The captain narrowed his eyes slightly and explained: “Their ship was blown up, and now our ship is the only way to leave this planet. If they want to escape, they will definitely come to grab the ship.”
”Sir is wise!”
It suddenly dawned on the young subordinate and his face was full of admiration.
The atmosphere of the garbage star was toxic and merciless. An extinguished star not far away hung in the sky, like a decayed corpse, making the planet gray and decayed day and night, endless sticky garbage crunched under the feet. The various colours mixed together, exuding an unbearable disgusting smell.
A group of people walked deep into the garbage dumps.
After all, this was their home planet.
Looking at the monotonous repetitive garbage, the irregular mountainous terrain seemed very familiar in their eyes. The rotten garbage, deep and shallow, did not slow down their pace and soon they would be gone without a trace. The trailing Alliance army got left far behind.
As Ge Xiu walked, he picked anything he saw from the trash piles he passed by, occasionally finding some peculiarly shaped broken copper and rotten iron and threw it into the arms of the Xiao Yi aside.
Seeing that they were about to approach the residential area in the garbage star, the scene on the roadside became more and more familiar and everyone’s expressions were no longer as calm as before.
Although they haven’t seen any acquaintances, even just looking at the dirty planet where they have lived for decades made everyone feel complicated: nostalgia, joy, sorrow, pain… all turned into an indescribable depression, emotions accumulated deeply in everyone’s eyes and spread throughout the team.
Xiao Yi quickened his pace and joined Ge Xiu, asking,
”Xiao Qi, what shall we do next?”
Ge Xiu did not answer, because he was busy digging through the trash to find something, he didn’t seem mind the foul smell in it and took out a half burned chip from the depths of the garbage dump with his bare hands, wiped it clean with his clothes, and carefully looked at the turbid and gray light in the air.
A crew member suggested: “The Alliance army who is chasing us should start searching for us on the planet soon. After all, we are weak and not difficult to fight against. It is better to complete the mission as soon as possible before they find us.”
”Yes, yes.” another man nodded and should track, turned to see Ge Xiu and asked: “What do we do now, do we inform all people on the gathering square or one after another?”
Ge Xiu was thrown by the broken chip in his hand to the hard work, carrying his baggage, holding the tattered Xiao Yi in his arms, and raised his eyebrows to look over.
His expression was still sloppy, but his eyes unexpectedly gave people an extremely sharp feeling, which shocked people involuntarily.
Ge Xiu shrugged, and suddenly asked nonchalantly: “Do you know when the selection according to the Alliance Humanitarian Decree started?”
Everyone was stumped by his sudden question.
The crew member who made the suggestion hesitated for a long while and replied hesitantly: “This… We don’t know the exact time, but anyway, ever since we remember, the selection has always been there…”
”That’s right. “
Ge Xiu turned around, looked aimlessly on the garbage dump beside him and slowly said:
”Will you directly overthrow your own ingrained concepts because of something an outsider said?”
Everyone was choked.
They looked at each other and saw the same uncertainty in each other’s eyes.
On the garbage star, no one has the conditions to receive any form of education. Even if someone could barely recognize a few words, they are still in consideration of survival. The groping and learning from the vague signs on the garbage is extremely bad. The environment and alliances come to collect labor from time to time, which also leads to the extreme life expectancy of residents here, narrow and stubborn vision.
Everyone asked themselves, if they hadn’t really experienced the thrilling situation of almost becoming a slave, as well as the study on the main ship in the past few months, and the contact with other more knowledgeable people, they would not be able to rely solely on the words of others to easily deny one’s own experience and ideas of ten or even twenty years.
Plus…this is the reason all the inhabitants of Garbage Star depend on their hardship to survive. It is their only hope in extreme environments.
All the crew fell silent, and they finally realized the biggest obstacle to their journey.
It is not the Alliance warships that followed, the wanton search of enemy forces, or even the spaceship that had been blown to ashes, but the intertwined and even indestructible false beliefs on this planet – of the residents of the Garbage Star. The reason why they struggled so hard to survive is because, one day, they may get rid of such a harsh environment in front of them, and can live a dignified life with their own hands and labor.
-And they won’t allow anyone to take this hope from their lives.
Xiao Yi looked at Ge Xiu for help, almost desperately asking:
”We… can we really convince everyone that all this was a lie?”
Ge Xiu dug out half of the fragment of a machine from the trash on the side, threw it into Xiao Yi’s arms again with great pleasure and then replied lightly,
”Of course we can.”
Everyone was taken aback.
Ge Xiu smiled and turned his head to look at the crowd: “People who have survived such a dangerous and harsh environment are not actually incapable of detecting the strangeness. They just chose not to see, not to listen, or believe. They allow themselves to indulge in false and deadly hope and give up the possibility of reality for the sake of an delusional illusion.”
His smile was beautiful and cruel: “Only when we break their unrealistic fantasy can the problem be solved.”
Holding his breath for a moment, he asked softly, “Then…what are we going to do?”
Ge Xiu skipped the gap between a few pieces of trash and replied calmly:
”Split into teams and go find friends and relatives you know, especially the families of those residents who have escaped from the Leibert, and tell them—”
Ge Xiu turned his head, his lips curled up:
”The next selection is about to begin.”
————-
*lit. got so bad/dark it could drip water, changed it for something more comprehensible
Little Theater:
Lulai: I gave you access to all ships.
Lulai: and first thing you did was crash it and blow it up??
Ge Xiu: guilty_cat_pretending_to_be_innocent.gif
