Chapter 389

Chapter 390: Docking

The ship trembled in a brief, strange way as it exited Hyperspace.

Even though the hull and its position in real space stayed steady, the moment the space around it relaxed back to normal made everyone’s senses slide out of alignment for a heartbeat. It felt like being in several places at once, then having all those places collapse into a single spot in the real world. For anyone riding a faster than light craft for the first time, this was a brand new kind of shock.

Outside the observation window, the red blue shift faded fast. The closed space bubble opened. As warp space smoothed out, the stars snapped back from a flat film into proper points of light. A sky totally different from what you see near the Grand Void Spiritual Axis spread out before their eyes.

Irene pattered to the observation window, climbed onto the platform, craned her neck at the vast starfield, and gasped: “Woooow.”

She twisted back toward the captain’s chair and asked: “Hey, Yu Sheng, where’s Sentinel Silence?”

Before her words finished, the starfield outside the window began to drift. A dim orange red star slid into view.

Yu Sheng answered from the captain’s seat: “We’re moving at sublight. We should reach the near star deceleration zone around Sentinel Silence in about an hour. But the Otherworldly Hotel can’t land on the surface. This planet doesn’t open its civilian spaceports to ships this big, so we’ll dock at an orbital parking station and then ride a Shuttle Maid down through the atmosphere.”

Irene blinked and asked: “Shuttle Maid? Our ship has that?”

Yu Sheng said, a little too casually: “It’s Foxy.”

Irene blinked twice more and echoed: “It is, is it?”

Sitting beside Yu Sheng, the Fox Maiden narrowed her eyes in smug delight. She really did look pleased.

On the other side, Zheng Zhi listened to Yu Sheng and Irene’s back and forth, turned his head left and right like he was trying to find who they were even talking about, then leaned toward Luna, who sat like a statue without moving or speaking, and muttered: “Whenever I’m next to Brother Yu, I feel like my imagination just isn’t big enough.”

Luna still didn’t respond. She stayed planted there like carved stone.

About ten seconds after Irene’s “is it,” she finally snapped to the follow up. She stared at Yu Sheng and asked: “Wait, we don’t have a normal landing craft? You know, a small flyer or something?”

Yu Sheng rubbed his neck and admitted: “We did. One of the launches ran into an accident while moving Anka Aila crystals. Then, when the Special Affairs Bureau intercepted us last time, the other two got damaged. Three more are parked in the hangar, but I never figured out how to start them. They aren’t on the same system as the Otherworldly Hotel. They’re independent artifacts. When I took over the big ship, I didn’t take over the small ones, so we aren’t synced.”

Irene thought it over and said: “That’s easy. You can pop into the hangar and die a few times while you test them.”

Yu Sheng’s face went green as he blurted: “Do you hear yourself?”

For a second he missed the Irene from when they first met. Back then that doll was so sweet. She cared about whether he lived through things and tried to help him die fewer times to avoid weird side effects. [When did she get this wild?]

He brooded a few seconds, then sighed. [Maybe this is on me. Value drops when you flood the market.]

He cleared his throat and changed the subject: “I’ll study the small flyers later and figure them out.” As he spoke, he guided the Otherworldly Hotel toward the star that Sentinel Silence orbited. “Besides, don’t you think reentering the atmosphere with a Nine-Tailed Silver Fox is pretty cool?”

Irene was easy to persuade: “It is, is it?”

Two seconds later, Luna suddenly gave Zheng Zhi a small nod and said: “Mm, right.”

Zheng Zhi froze and made a small sound: “…?”

As the ship angled toward Sentinel Silence, Immortal Yuan Hao rose from his seat.

He reached into his sleeve and drew out a square, white jade object that looked perfectly carved. [Don’t ask why it is perfectly square.] Narrowing his eyes, he stood still to sense, murmuring under his breath. A soft, warm glow pulsed across the jade.

Irene leaned over and asked: “Hey, what are you doing?”

Immortal Yuan Hao opened his eyes with a serious look and said: “Checking for watchers. Yun Qing Zi may have worked in Sentinel Silence for years. We must be careful here.”

Irene’s eyes went wide as she blurted: “No way. That extreme? We’re still in space braking. You mean he can lock onto us from this far out?”

“Never look down on those ancient powers,” Immortal Yuan Hao said gravely, shaking his head. “In the chaos when the chronicles were reforged and heaven and earth restarted, many of them held entire planets steady by themselves and sheltered billions of lives. They have plenty of strange methods. To people today, many ancient secret arts look like they ignore reason.”

Irene closed her mouth and stared.

Yu Sheng didn’t argue. He silently tightened his sync with the Otherworldly Hotel, then brought every ship radar online. He swept for any small units with abnormal high energy levels and for any sensor beams pointed at their hull.

He didn’t know if Yun Qing Zi could lock onto a target across an astronomical unit. But he was flying one of the top black tech ships in the whole universe. The folks at Holy Revere Hermitage had built this thing specifically for infiltration and special operations across major civilization circles, and its sensor suite was no ornament.

After a moment, Yu Sheng shook his head and reported: “No threats detected. No unauthorized beams on us. Five directed signals total. Two are identification and welcome messages from Sentinel Silence’s surface. One is navigation from the orbital parking station. The last two are from the Traffic Bureau, reminding me not to drink and warning that speeding in the near star deceleration zone costs five thousand spirit stones.”

Immortal Yuan Hao clicked his tongue and said: “Back in my day it was only three thousand.”

No one around him felt brave enough to ask how he knew that so clearly.

The ship cruised at sublight for a while. The orange red star drifted past the observation window, and a beautiful gray blue planet grew ahead along their track. The Otherworldly Hotel trimmed her attitude again and, under the guidance signal, eased toward an orbital parking station near the planet, performing the last stage of braking.

The complex engine array kept changing its mode. After a series of slows and tweaks, the ship neared a moored structure that floated quietly in space: a giant tower connected to many large platforms.

From its styling, you could still spot a few immortal touches. Auspicious clouds and talisman motifs hinted at roots in the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. But the overall look was nothing like most buildings back in the Grand Void. This orbital parking station leaned practical. Its main frame lines were hard and clean, and the tower’s build felt much closer to what Yu Sheng thought of as “space architecture.”

Even the relatively closed Featherwing star region took on outside influences along the Border. This high orbit station above Sentinel Silence carried a few traits from nearby civilization circles. The files said it was influenced more by the Algladians.

Under Yu Sheng’s precise hands, the huge Otherworldly Hotel docked with surprising agility at the edge of a large platform beside the space tower. He barely needed any pull from the station’s tractor system. The ship completed its latch, and after a bit more time spent with Yu Sheng checking the manual to make sure every step met safety standards, the Otherworldly Hotel sent a “connection clear” signal and, by the book, requested guides to come aboard.

The belly hatch opened. Yu Sheng’s group stepped out onto the station’s connecting bridge.

The whole structure looked completely exposed to space. Neither the bridge nor the long platform at the far end had a dome or armored shielding in sight. Yet gravity and air felt normal. Some invisible life support field wrapped the area and kept the environment comfortable.

Several guides in light gray spaceport uniforms were waiting on the bridge. They weren’t registered cultivators, just ordinary staff working on the station.

As soon as they saw people disembark from the giant ship, they came forward to check Yu Sheng’s captain ID, issued by the Borderland, and his pass, issued by the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. Then their leader couldn’t help praising him: “As expected of a captain from the Borderland. To handle a ship this massive with such nimble control. On a normal day, bringing in something this big, even with an artifact spirit or machine spirit helping, takes the port a whole hour of fuss.”

Yu Sheng beamed, then tapped the doll perched on his shoulder and said: “Told you my piloting is good.”

Irene rolled her eyes and replied: “Sure. If you crash yourself while piloting yourself, then you need a neurologist.”

He ignored the doll’s daily snark and, a bit rusty, followed the guide’s prompts to register the large ship’s docking. All fees went straight onto Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain’s account.

Once the checks finished, the guides relaxed. One of them asked offhand: “Will you head straight down to Sentinel Silence, or stay a few days at the spaceport? Our port is a modest tourist spot. We’ve got a few nice markets and restaurants, plus a duty free mall where you can buy crafts from the Alglade region.”

Fresh out of the immortal tone of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, Yu Sheng needed a second to adjust to a border planet staffer pitching tourist tips. [This tone really switched to vibration mode.]

He kept to the cover story and said: “We’re here on business. Straight to the surface. We accepted a commission from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and need to visit Ink City.”

One guide raised his brows and said, casual on the surface: “Ink City? It’s been a bit unsettled the last two days.”