Hunting the Stars

Unknown Planet

After the rainstorm, the damp air was filled with a stench of decay. Elian Hawk had to close the command room door to make it easier to breathe. Sitting in the chair inside the command room, Elian Hawk forced himself to calm down and think carefully. "It looks like I've really crossed over. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know yet. Whether I have some kind of protagonist template or not, that’s something I’ll set aside for now. What matters most right now is to figure out what dangers are nearby and whether I can survive in this hellhole."

Once Elian Hawk had calmed down, the mind of a typical otaku began to work quickly. After all, the greatest advantage of an otaku is knowing how to assess the situation. Thinking back to when he first appeared here, there was fighting going on at the time. So Elian Hawk had to consider whether those "beast" creatures or bugs would attack this place again in the future. If they did, fighting back would be impossible. The only option would be to hide. However, since Elian wasn’t familiar with this place, he needed to quickly figure out its layout. With that in mind, Elian Hawk stood up and left the command room.

Opening the door, the nauseating stench of blood and decay hit him like a wall, making Elian Hawk feel sick. He gritted his teeth and fought the urge to vomit as he surveyed the external facilities of the military station. The entire military station covered about the size of five basketball courts. Apart from the twenty-meter-high perimeter walls, there were four tall watchtowers. The command room was built right next to the northern wall, and to the west, there was a metal semicircular building, which Elian assumed was the supply warehouse. He remembered that when he first arrived, the person who had sent him into battle had pointed toward that building and told him to get weapons from there.

Beside the semicircular metal building, there was a three-story, rectangular metal structure. "That must be where the soldiers rest," Elian thought. "Weapons and food are what I need right now. I’ll check out the supply warehouse first." Elian Hawk quickly made his decision. He walked over to the building and circled it several times, but after searching for a long time, he still couldn’t find the door or switch for the warehouse.

"Damn it!" Elian cursed under his breath. "I can understand what they’re saying, but I can’t understand their writing. This is ridiculous!" Frustrated, he gave up and returned to the command room. Sitting on the couch with a dark expression, Elian muttered to himself, "If I can’t open the warehouse, I won’t be able to get weapons. All the weapons the soldiers were using are broken and useless. If there’s real danger, what am I supposed to do?"

After thinking for a while and not coming up with a solution, Elian’s frustration grew. The cultural, cognitive, and technological gap between this world and his own was enormous. If he could use the tools of this era right away, then he'd truly be a prodigy.

Suddenly, Elian stood up and walked over to the control panel. After a long while, he still couldn’t figure out what it did. "Sigh..." Elian sighed deeply. "Bang!" He struck the surface of the panel with a punch, and sparks flew as the device crackled and sparked.

"Without opening the warehouse and finding the weapons, food, and water, I’ll never survive," Elian muttered, looking out at the bodies outside. "God knows if those 'monsters' will attack again."

Just as he was feeling more and more frustrated, a sudden hissing sound came from behind him. "What the hell? There's a gas leak!" Elian quickly turned around and saw a one-square-meter hole in the metal floor. He walked over and saw a staircase leading down. But the question was, was it safe down there?

His heart was full of hesitation. After all, who wouldn't feel fear when faced with the unknown? Then Elian realized that the hole must have opened when he punched the control panel. "Seems like this panel controls the whole place," Elian thought. "I’d better figure it out."

Two hours later, Elian finally understood part of the device’s functions. Though he couldn’t figure everything out, at least he could now identify the buttons that controlled the warehouse door, the bunker door, and the gates of the camp. There were still many other functions he couldn’t make sense of, such as requesting help from a fleet or the station’s energy level, but at least he’d made some progress.

In the warehouse, Elian found food, water, and a change of clothes. These were the most important things for him. After testing out a laser gun, Elian took it and strapped it to his back. "Damn it! I’ll have to use this laser gun since I’ve already tried it. The other weapons are no good; I don’t even know how to use them. If something happens, I’ll be screwed."

Now wearing a black combat suit with metallic armor at the shoulders and chest, Elian Hawk looked more alert and ready. He filled his backpack with supplies and stepped out. Looking at the corpses scattered outside, he sighed. "What should I do with these bodies? I can't just leave them here. If I don't clean them up, the smell and the bacteria will become a problem."

For now, he had no choice but to leave the bodies to decay. Elian climbed up onto the tall metal walls and began surveying the surrounding area. As a person from another world, Elian needed to know about his environment. What he saw before him was nothing but endless desert, with a huge planet hanging in the sky, along with another distant planet visible on the horizon. This kind of scene was nothing like Earth. Elian was shocked.

"It seems this is an alien planet," Elian thought, as the scene reminded him of a movie he had once seen. Given the similarity, he was nearly certain he was on an unknown planet. "This damned place is nothing but desert. After the desert, there’s more desert! Isn’t there anything else?"

He could see only endless sand dunes stretching out before him, and it was making his head spin. "What a headache!" Elian thought. Without knowing what dangers awaited him, Elian knew he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed to find a human settlement or city. But where could that be? He had no idea.

Suddenly, a black line appeared on the horizon. Elian squinted and realized it was a sandstorm rapidly heading towards the military station. "A sandstorm!" Elian quickly recognized it and, knowing the danger, ran back to the command room. He closed the door and then also locked the tunnel door behind him, hearing the wind howl as it hit the station.

Elian took a deep breath, stood up straight, and descended into the underground tunnel. Down there, he was met with a spacious underground area, the size of a basketball court. The room had several video screens playing images of the raging sandstorm, and along the walls were numerous instruments Elian couldn’t understand.

“What's this place?” Elian muttered, walking over to the bar. He picked up a cigarette, sniffed it, and grinned. "Damn! What a good smoke!" As a veteran smoker, Elian could immediately tell the quality of the cigarette.