Interstellar Survival: Invasion

Chapter 101: Finding Planet Amoeba

From the system projection, we could clearly see that over 10,000 drifting planets had passed through the Orion Constellation in the past 25 years.

"What now? There are so many of them. How do we find that Amoeba?" Zhang Bao'er asked.

"This is actually good. The sheer number of drifting planets in existence will serve to hide the transparent creatures," said Master Crystal.

"Lifu, when Amoeba had passed by Planet Eternal, data on its size must have been taken, right?" Old Du asked.

"Of course," Lifu answered.

"Dodo, use the spectroscopic parallax method to filter out all the drifting planets of similar size before eliminating gaseous planets from the result," said Old Du.

"Alright. According to the apparent magnitude of the planet and its absolute magnitude, we will calculate its size and distance. Formula set. Filtering will start shortly," said Dodo.

As we were only searching through around 10,000 planets, the result was out in only a few minutes. Ultimately, three solid planets met all the search parameters.

"Which is Planet Amoeba?" Zhang Bao'er wondered.

"This planet is heading straight toward the star Rigel. We can take it out of consideration. According to Master Crystal, Amoeba was heading toward Bellatrix, a completely different direction. It is very unlikely that this would be what we're looking for," said Old Du as he pointed at one of the planets.

"In that case, will these two be our final targets?" Zhang Xingxing confirmed.

"Yes. From their direction and distance, they are both likely heading toward Bellatrix. From the records, they are probably still within the Betelgeuse System," said Dodo.

"Then let's lock on to the projected general location of one of them first and get working," said Zhang Xingxing.

"Roger. Initiating wormhole leap in 10 minutes. Fearless will return to the outer fringe of the Betelgeuse System," said Dodo.

When all preparations were in place, a wormhole was produced before Fearless.

"Before we go, let us offer the interstellar warrior, Adelan, a final minute of silence," said Zhang Xingxing.

Everyone faced the window in the direction of the dark planet with gamma-ray bursts, and we lowered our heads to express our gratitude to the heroic warrior in silence. When the moment of silence ended, Fearless entered the wormhole. After about 10 minutes of wormhole travel, we were back at the Betelgeuse System.

Following the location guidance, we arrived at the outer fringe of the Betelgeuse System. We were very far away from the Betelgeuse star, and despite its massive size, the distance made the giant star look as small as the Solar System's sun.

"Betelgeuse's outer fringe, 0.9 light-years from the mother star," Dodo reported.

"My god. How big is this star system? Looking for a planet here is like looking for a needle in an ocean," I said.

"Yeah. I had thought that we had minimized our search range sufficiently, but isn't this a joke?" complained Zhang Bao'er.

"I have identified several zones. I'm preparing to produce leap-tunnels and send our probes out," said Dodo.

"Let's do it," said Zhang Xingxing.

Dodo immediately started searching the different zones according to the plan. Each robotic probe would take three hours to finish a search. The wait was dry and dull. After three hours, the first batch of probes returned. Apart from some small asteroids and rocky celestial objects, nothing was found.

"This is too hard. Searching like this is even harder than gold panning," Zhang Bao'er said.

"We don't have a better alternative. Dodo, determine the next set of coordinates and send the probes out," said Zhang Xingxing.

"Roger," Dodo replied.

And thus, we endured our boredom for three more hours. During that period, I watched as Dondon ate at least five packs of crackers. The new result returned and was projected. A large silhouette appeared on the screen.

"Found it!" Zhang Bao'er jumped in excitement.

Everyone else was just as excited.

"This doesn't look like our target. It's a brown gaseous planet. Clearly, it's not the planet we're looking for," Lifu said.

I paid more attention to the image and noted that the silhouette was indeed a gaseous planet. Everyone sat down in disappointment.

"Don't be discouraged. Dodo, continue the search," Zhang Xingxing said.

"Canyue, why don't we just send them to Sirius B?" Zhang Bao'er stupidly mentioned a name we had all been trying to avoid saying.

I saw Titan and Amethyst turn anxious. That was understandable as life on Sirius B was already hard enough. If a species so powerful was injected into the ecosystem, the Brightlings would find it even harder to survive. Everyone suffered another three hours of boredom before a new batch of images returned.

After going through a series of celestial objects, another massive black silhouette appeared on the screen. Due to the previous disappointment, everyone was prudent to not celebrate too quickly. The planet was black, and from the data gathered by the robotic probe, it was clearly a solid planet.

Due to its distance from Betelgeuse, the planet appeared to be extremely cold. Its thick atmosphere was covered with some whitish frosty substance, giving it the appearance of a frozen planet.

"Looks like this planet resembles the planet we're looking for," said Old Du.

Dodo quickly compared the trajectory, orbit, and size of the planet with the information we had obtained from the Imperial College about Amoeba. Shortly after, Dodo looked up and shook their head.

"No. It's not Amoeba," said Dodo.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Old Du asked.

"This black planet is not a drifting planet. It has a circular orbit, meaning it is a planet orbiting Betelgeuse," said Dodo.

"There is a planet orbiting Betelgeuse from so far away?" Old Du asked in astonishment.

"Yes. This planet requires three billion years to revolve once around Betelgeuse. It probably hasn't finished even one rotation since its formation," said Dodo.

"That is unbelievable. A star's influence can actually reach so far away. How incredible," said Zhang Xingxing.

Alas, the search for Amoeba continued.

"Why don't we just settle Bulu and the others on this planet?" Zhang Bao'er suggested.

I refused, "No. This planet might be far from Eternal, but it'll take them one minute to come here using the wormhole-leap technology. We can't settle them on a planet with a fixed orbit."

"I notice something weird," Dodo suddenly said.

"What is it?" Zhang Bao'er asked.

"There seem to be two parts to this planet's atmosphere. Half of it is frozen while the other half is gaseous. I can't understand why," said Dodo.

"Well, there are way too many weird things in the universe. If even a life form can release gamma-ray bursts from its body, what's impossible?" said Zhang Bao'er.

"Since our target isn't here, should we search a different area instead?" Zhang Xingxing asked.

"I agree to change our search area. But everyone has been up for more than 10 hours. I suggest we take a meal before we continue," said Master Crystal.

Both Dondon and Zhang Bao'er perked up at the mention of food. Amethyst and Dodo worked together to prepare the meal. Before long, a sumptuous feast was arranged before us. Apart from some space rations, Amethyst had also prepared some local Sirius B dishes. I saw Domo leisurely take a seat before an aromatic roasted meat dish.

"Do Bulu and its kin need food as well?" I asked.

"When I was cooking, I saw Bulu drink a large amount of water, so I gave them an abundant amount of drinking water," said Amethyst.

We started gorging ourselves. Our current mission was only to look for a planet. That was much lighter work compared to our previous mission where death was on the line. For some reason, I did not have an appetite, so I left with a loaf of bread and a cup of coffee. I sat blankly before the screen, staring at the images that were played on repeat like a robot.

At that time, I saw that Bulu's clone seemed to have awakened from sleep. It was jumping around on the panel. Suddenly, it jumped before the projector, standing right before the black planet. From my point of view, the clone looked like a green ball with a white frozen hat with a silhouette that for some reason reminded me of Santa Claus.

I was amused. Looking at the clone surrounded by the planet's atmosphere, I suddenly recalled Dodo's previous words that this planet's atmosphere was split into two. An idea came to me as I placed my bread down and pushed the clone away. Then, I enlarged the projection slowly. As I did so, a vague silhouette appeared behind the black planet.

"Dodo, come look at this! Look behind this planet, is there a second planet there?" I shouted urgently.

Dodo immediately stopped waiting on the table and rushed over. The android cut the planet out from the image in a well-practiced manner before enlarging it on the screen. Then, Dodo performed another analysis based on the data the probes had collected. A few minutes later, Dodo looked at me and said, "There is another planet behind it. The planet was blocked when the image was taken."

"Oh my god, how did you find that, Canyue?" exclaimed Zhang Bao'er in excitement.

"I followed Dodo's clue that the black planet has two forms of atmosphere. From that, I wondered if the atmosphere had been invaded because that is something that will generally happen in a system with two stars," I said.

"According to the data, the trajectory of the second planet is unstable. It can very well be a drifting planet that had coincidentally encountered the planet orbiting Betelgeuse. In about 20 days, the two planets will go their separate ways in accordance with their own trajectories. In fact, they are probably as close to each other right now than they ever will be," said Dodo in excitement as well.

"This is too big of a coincidence. Why is Canyue always the one to make a major discovery?" said Zhang Bao'er.

"Regardless, that is the truth. See, Canyue is smart because he doesn't eat a lot. Unlike someone who finished a giant roasted beetle all alone, someone who is unsurprisingly not smart," sneered Domo.

Zhang Bao'er stood up in fury and was pressed down again by Old Du.

"Stop arguing, everyone. It is very likely that this planet is Amoeba. I suggest we perform a leap immediately and go after this planet," said Zhang Xingxing.

"Roger. Initiating a wormhole-leap immediately," said Dodo.