Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

The lights on the departure platform were still on.

The Starsea was docked at its berth in the core area of ​​the home port, its hull coated with a dark gold film by quantum light flow. Seven people stood before the boarding gangway, each standing ramrod straight. The person at the very front paused at the bottom step of the gangway and glanced back at the home port.

Su Kuang was twenty-four years old. Tan Yue had been in the Proxima Centauri zone for four years, and this was the first time he had stood at the front of this ship as the commander.

He didn't give a declaration of departure, nor did he shout any slogans. He simply placed his hand on the gangway handrail for a moment, then stepped onto the first step.

In the cockpit, Ji Beihang had been sitting in the right seat for a while. The left seat was empty. He checked all the preset switches on the manual control panel; they were all green.

When Su Kuang entered the cockpit, he saw Ji Beihang sitting on the right and was taken aback.

Ji Beihang did not stand up, but pointed to the left seat and said, "Your seat."

Su Kuang walked over and sat down, touching the control panel with his hand. He had sat in this position countless times on the simulator, but the temperature of the real control panel was different from that of the simulator; it was warm because Ji Beihang had just tested the resistance of all the contact surfaces with the back of his hand.

"Don't be nervous," Ji Beihang said. "I'll be sitting in this seat starting today. There are two seats in the cockpit; you sit on the left, and I'll sit on the right. When the instrument panel doesn't light up, glance to the right, and I'll nod. I'm not telling you how to operate it, I'm just letting you know everything's alright."

Su Kuang didn't say anything and fastened his seatbelt.

On the observation platform at the home port, Zuo Cheng stands at the edge.

He didn't go down to see her off. Yu Ying stood next to him, following his gaze to the Xinghai. The radiation-proof coating on the hull reflected a very faint blue-purple hull in the light stream.

"Aren't you going down to say your last words to Ji Beihang?" Yu Ying asked.

Zuo Cheng shook his head. "No need." He owed Zuo Cheng a thank you, but Zuo Cheng had already heard it.

Yu Ying did not ask any further questions.

When he brought the Xinghai to port last time, Zuo Cheng said he changed a word in the last chapter of the pilot's manual, from "push" to "point." He said the coordinates he left were mine. Now the new captain knows that the coordinates weren't navigation points, but people.

Yu Ying reached out and grasped Zuo Cheng's fingers.

The instant the Quantum Heart shifted from idle to cruising, the light stream at the homeport deflected at an angle. An extremely thin spatial compression bubble emerged from the bottom of the Starsea, unfolding within the quantum field outside the homeport. The rainbow halo re-entered the ship; the true colors moved more slowly than those rendered in textbooks, each ray of light possessing texture.

Tan Yue stared at the monitoring screen, with Shen Yiming standing beside him. Tan Yue explained that the spectrum showed the halo color was slightly lighter than before, indicating that the quantum optical flow at the homeport had produced new interference colors at the edge of the compressed bubble.

Shen Yiming said the universe is still changing.

Tan Yue nodded, and the halo was also changing; the new halo would be brighter than the previous one.

The Starry Sea began to move, not by the acceleration of the engine, but by the folding of the space in front of the hull by the space compression bubble. It was as if the ship was gently pushed by the light flow of the home port and slid out of the berth.

Su Kuang checked the deactivation signals of each security interlock on the control panel, his hands steady. Ji Beihang didn't give him any instructions, only occasionally glancing at the left seat to make sure his breathing rhythm was normal.

For someone setting sail for the first time, the biggest fear isn't operational error. When the entire ship is enveloped by an invisible field, the chest instinctively tightens. But Su Kuang's breathing remained unchanged.

The light stream from the home port converged into an extremely thin line at the stern, and the Starsea gradually shrank in size. Zuo Cheng stood motionless on the observation platform until the spaceship became an almost indistinguishable speck of light.

Yu Ying said that the rainbow halo looked like a line from a distance.

Zuo Cheng said that when you're close, it's a circle of light; when you're far away, it's a line; and when you're even further away, you can't see it at all. But not seeing it doesn't mean it's not there.

He stood on the platform for a while longer, then turned and walked back.

After the Starsea sailed out of the outer optical flow range of its home port, the quantum field entered a fully stable cruise mode. Su Kuang, after confirming the subsystem was functioning normally, glanced to his right.

Ji Beihang sat in the right seat, relaxing his posture a bit. He gestured with his chin to the main display screen and said, "This area is quite cramped; you can figure it out yourself."

Su Kuang agreed.

The cockpit was quiet for a short while.

Ji Beihang suddenly spoke up. "Do you know what's written on the first page of the driver's manual?"

Su Kuang said it was the operating instructions.

Ji Beihang said no, the first line says how to befriend a watch face that doesn't need to be operated.

Su Kuang turned his head to look at Ji Beihang.

Ji Beihang didn't look at him; his gaze was fixed on the row of indicator lights above the instrument panel that weren't part of the critical systems. This sentence wasn't originally written by me. Once, I was on duty aboard the Pioneer. That day, Zuo Weiyang was three years old, and it was the first time she had seen the Pioneer's track lights on the control center screen. Zuo Cheng was holding her.

Ji Beihang paused for a moment.

She asked her father if the people on the spaceship were afraid of the dark. Zuo Cheng said no. Because there was someone sitting in the cockpit in front of a bunch of indestructible instruments. He didn't need to operate those things, but just sitting there was like having a light on.

Su Kuang listened in silence.

Ji Beihang lowered his hands from the console and rested them on his knees. That's why I later wrote that sentence on the first page of the manual. It wasn't a technical note; it was a question asked by a three-year-old girl.

The Starship moved silently through the space compression bubble. The stars on the main display screen were stretched into parallel thin lines. Su Kuang took a tiny chip key from his left pocket and inserted it into the interface on the side of the control panel.

The Quantum Heart trembled almost imperceptibly.

Ji Beihang asked what this was.

Su Kuang said that he made a route key himself. After the node is activated, the pre-paired data will be written into it, so there is no need to recalibrate it the next time you depart.

Ji Beihang glanced at him, then turned back to face forward. "How long have you been doing this?"

Su Kuang said three years.

Ji Beihang said that this key is a note you wrote in the manual yourself. I won't look at it or check it. You use it yourself, and if it breaks, you fix it yourself.

Su Kuang agreed.

The Starsea disappeared into a dark dot at the edge of the home port's line of sight. The quantum light stream outside the core area of ​​the home port resumed its original flow rate. Zuo Cheng walked back to the corridor he used to frequent when the Starsea was docked, and paused for a moment at a porthole in the middle of the corridor.

Outside the window was a section of the circular structure of the homeport, and in the distance, a tracking light was flashing. It wasn't the Xinghai; it was a shuttle departing from the other side of the homeport. Zuo Cheng watched for a while, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

He and Ji Beihang had never said those words, never said goodbye, never hugged. He didn't need to go down and say his last words, because Ji Beihang had already written down the words he could say in the handbook.

In the quiet of the cockpit, Su Kuang suddenly said, "Did you see the words Cheng Ge wrote on the whiteboard?"

Ji Beihang said he saw it.

Su Kuang said you didn't speak to him when you left.

Ji Beihang said no. He'd already paid back everything he owed. I didn't need him to owe me anything more.

He sat up straight in the right seat and fastened his seatbelt tighter. I'm sitting here not because you need a co-pilot. It's because once this ship leaves its home port, someone else will eventually sit in the left seat. I'm sitting here to tell that person that the left armrest of this chair is the oldest thing you've ever touched, but it's also something someone warmed for you.

Su Kuang didn't speak, but put his left hand down on the armrest of the left seat.

Metal is cool.

However, the inside of the handrail has a slight curve, which has been worn slightly shiny by years of hands.