The hatch slid open as green indicator lights flickered to life along the pristine white corridor, guiding Tang Xiao toward the elevator to the bridge. The nurse standing by the door bowed slightly and hurried back to the medical bay to clean up.
"The Administrator is awake. All personnel, please check your work schedules... The Administrator is awake..." The central brain's announcement echoed through the empty hallway.
Despite the announcement, the place felt eerily deserted. Tang Xiao walked for what seemed like forever before finally spotting two soldiers in black uniforms standing at attention by the elevator doors.
When they saw Tang Xiao approaching, both soldiers snapped to attention and gave him a crisp, textbook military salute. "Welcome, Administrator!"
Tang Xiao felt awkward but nodded and returned their salute. Seeing his acknowledgment, the soldiers somehow managed to puff out their chests even more proudly.
The elevator took a good ten minutes to reach the bridge level. Thankfully, there was a TV inside to kill time, and even a terminal for handling work stuff. But Tang Xiao had no clue what he was supposed to be doing right now.
Soon, he entered a massive hall. Two more stern-faced soldiers guarded the entrance, and they immediately stood at attention and saluted when Tang Xiao approached.
In the center of the hall floated a giant holographic star map, though most of it was shrouded in darkness, revealing nothing of what lay beyond.
Around the map were dozens of seats and control consoles, clearly designed for at least a hundred people working together at full capacity. But right now, there were only about a dozen people scattered throughout the enormous space.
"Welcome, Administrator!" Everyone in the room jumped to their feet in perfect unison and saluted Tang Xiao.
Tang Xiao nodded and turned his attention to the massive panoramic window. A green planet came into view. Unlike Earth's blue appearance, this world was mostly covered in vast stretches of vegetation, giving it an emerald hue.
Around the planet, a white atmospheric cloud layer was clearly visible - a good sign for breathable air.
But the planet wasn't even the most impressive sight. Behind it loomed an absolutely gigantic planet that made the green world look like a mouse cowering beneath an elephant's foot.
The pale blue sphere appeared smooth and clean, with just a few dark cyclones swirling across its surface. It reminded Tang Xiao of those rubber balls from childhood - clearly a gas giant.
"Is this the habitable planet we found?" Tang Xiao asked.
"Yes, Administrator." The central hologram immediately switched to display the star system, and the central brain explained: "This is a binary star system, with two stars orbiting a common center. Within this system, there's only one planet - this gas giant with a diameter of 48,951 kilometers."
"Additionally, this gas giant has nine moons, and we're currently positioned near one of them. There is another moon with suitable climate conditions, but over 99% of its surface is covered by oceans, making it impractical for colonization."
"Nine moons orbiting a gas giant?" Tang Xiao frowned, searching his memory. "So we can only settle on this small moon? What am I supposed to do now? Don't you have any suggestions?"
A young man around 25-26 years old wearing a deep blue military uniform stood up from a nearby round table. He saluted Tang Xiao and said: "First priority is replenishing our fuel. The atmosphere of this gas giant contains large amounts of helium, which can power various spaceship reactors. We need to build a mining station near the gas giant. The mothership's warehouse has modular components ready to go, and there are engineering ships in the hangar that can handle the assembly, but we need pilots for those ships."
"So I need to wake up the pilots?"
"Yes. After you came out of hibernation, the central brain woke fifty of us to begin preparations. That includes 10 Marines, 5 civilian staff, 5 strategists, 5 communications officers, 5 maintenance personnel, 10 mothership operators, and 10 medical personnel to monitor everyone's health. We now need your authorization to wake up more people."
"Alright, what's your name?" Tang Xiao asked, noticing how organized the man's thinking was.
"Qi Jian, sir! Strategy department!" Qi Jian answered loudly, standing ramrod straight.
"Flagship, nice name. Very fitting. If you don't already have a designated position, then as of now, you're our temporary chief of staff." Tang Xiao decided.
Qi Jian immediately lit up with excitement. "Yes, sir! I'll make sure everything gets done!"
"Good. Now let me check out the hibernation crew situation." Following the central brain's prompts, Tang Xiao sat down in the command chair on the bridge, and a large holographic screen materialized in front of him.
The screen listed all personnel available for awakening: 600,000 residents and 50,000 crew members, specialized in different fields. Given the circumstances, it made sense to choose from the 50,000 crew members first, since they'd be more familiar with running the mothership.
The crew members were categorized by ranks: ordinary, elite, and master, with three additional levels marked with question marks. The conditions for waking these people varied dramatically.
The master-level talents, for instance, were the absolute top experts in their fields. Waking them up to face a barren colony with nothing but tents would probably result in them losing their minds or flat-out refusing to work.
Tang Xiao curiously checked out the master-level personnel and opened one profile at random. It was a master astrophysicist whose conditions included a three-story villa, private pool, cutting-edge laboratory, and a super radio telescope built at least 3,000 meters above sea level.
He opened another one. This time it was a master of quantum mechanics who demanded a dust-free laboratory, state-of-the-art equipment, and a particle collider at least 50 kilometers long. He also required two female secretaries under 20 and a velvet bed at least 5 meters wide?
Seriously? What the hell, dude?!
Some requests were slightly more reasonable, like a master sociologist who only required the colony population to exceed 10 million people and didn't care much about food or accommodations...
...
...
These demands were getting ridiculous! (╯°Д°)╯（┻━┻!!
Tang Xiao slammed the master-level profiles shut and didn't even bother checking the elite-level ones. Since he had literally nothing to offer, waking them up would be pointless - they'd refuse to cooperate or worse, cause trouble.
The ordinary-level crew, by comparison, had few if any conditions. Scanning their profiles, most were happy with just basic necessities. Only a few had minor requests, like wanting coworkers of the opposite sex or hoping to eat noodles occasionally.
Before authorizing any awakenings, Tang Xiao paused and asked: "Central brain, am I the only one who can authorize crew awakening? And are all these people actually working for me?"
"Correct. You are the highest authority owner of the mothership. All your orders will be executed without question, including immediate self-destruction of the entire vessel if you so command. All crew and residents were selected by you personally, and they maintain absolute loyalty to you."
"When exactly did I select them?"
"There is no record of this in the database."
Tang Xiao nodded silently. He quickly located the engineering department among the ordinary-level crew and authorized the awakening of 10 teams, 10 people each, to pilot the engineering ships. Following the central brain's recommendations, he also woke up two teams of logistics and maintenance personnel, 10 each.
Once he got the hang of it, Tang Xiao settled into his role pretty quickly. This small-scale management wasn't too complicated. He also woke up 20 people from the agricultural department after noticing many crops in the hydroponic chambers had withered.
No wonder the central brain had mentioned supplies running low.
After handling the most urgent business, Tang Xiao finally relaxed, kicked back in his chair, and said, "Central brain, give me a rundown of the mothership's basic status."
"Understood."
The central hologram displayed a panoramic view of the mothership as the central brain continued: "Ship's civilization of origin: unknown. Manufacturer: unknown. Current highest authority owner: Administrator Tang Xiao."
"Technical specifications: height 41.37 km, longest section 10.92 km, total weight 373.079 billion tons. Armament: 5 mass drivers and a point-defense system with 377 small electromagnetic rapid-fire cannons. Total capacity..."
While the central brain droned on with all the technical details, Tang Xiao wasn't listening at all. He was completely stunned by the holographic image of the enormous ship floating before him!
It looked like a massive crescent or banana-shaped spaceship with an elegant design. In the middle, near the upper section, there was a gap with numerous portholes—the bridge where he was standing right now.
What shocked Tang Xiao wasn't just the incredible size of the ship—equivalent to the distance between the imperial capital and Langfang. It was because... he recognized this ship!
"Homeworld!! The Kushan Mothership!!" Tang Xiao leaped from his seat, shouting in disbelief.
Of course he'd played Homeworld: The Song of Kushan—that legendary game that revolutionized real-time space strategy. The game was famous for its epic storyline, and back in elementary school, he had been absolutely obsessed with it.
But now, this iconic ship from the Homeworld universe—the Kushan Mothership—was somehow under his control?!
This made no sense! How were things from a video game becoming reality? And if the mothership from Homeworld had materialized in reality, then...
That dream... it might actually have been real! Could it be... was he truly in the Star Wars universe now?