Radiation Source Capture Programme

Hundreds of thousands of kilometres away, the giant monster that is Jupiter watches over the place in silence, as chaotic as ever. In the distance, the massive rings of Jupiter orbited quietly, with over sixty moons sinking in and out of them. Hawke could find nothing in the Jupiter system that might have caused the strong radiation.

If Hawke hadn't intentionally reinforced the ship's insulation and radiation shield before arriving, in this very instant, it is estimated that Hawke would have been killed by this burst of anomalies that caused all the instruments to malfunction and the central computer to short-circuit.

But even so, Hawke was still in a very bad way. There were already tiny sparks bursting from some places on the ship. If not dealt with in time, it could cause a much larger short circuit in the wiring, and then it would be dangerous.

Thousands of sensors scattered all over the ship's hull began to collect data, Geiger counters, magnetometers, photometers, spectral analysers and other testing equipment were in full swing, and countless data was transmitted to Hawke's brain and began to be calculated.

Almost instantly, Hawke came to a conclusion.

"No redshift? No blue shift either? How is this possible?" This conclusion left Hawke unable to figure out how.

If there was radiation, there was bound to be a source of radiation. And according to the Doppler effect, when moving away from the radiation source, the radiation band would move towards the red end, or redshift, and conversely when moving closer, there would be a blueshift. But Hawke's current observations show neither a redshift nor a blueshift.

This would suggest that the radiation could not have come from Jupiter. Because Hawk is now moving away from Jupiter, or Jupiter is moving away from Hawk, if the radiation is coming from Jupiter, then Hawk should be observing a redshift.

There is only one possibility then, that the radiation source is maintaining the same rate of movement as Hawke's ship, both in speed and direction. Or maybe the ... radiation source was simply on top of the ship.

Hawke immediately began the next round of tests.

"The radiation inside the ship is dozens of times weaker than the outside of the ship, and the sensors on the ship's shell detect the most radiation ... Could the radiation be coming from outside the ship, no, or is it attached to the shell?"

Hawk immediately activated the optical sensors and carefully examined the ship's shell. But there was nothing on top of the ship's shell that didn't belong to the ship's original contents.

"What the fuck is going on here!" Hawke's heart was racing, in a situation like this, a little more delay could lead to a serious accident, but Hawke had exhausted all his options, but he couldn't detect what the problem was.

"Calm down, you must be calm." Hawke forced down the panic in his heart, "I've been through such a big storm as the Wooden Moon collision, I don't believe I'll turn over in the gutter."

Just then, the Geiger counter jumped up again, and another powerful source of radiation was observed. The difference was that this time Hawke observed a distinct blue shift, which indicated that the radiation source was rapidly approaching itself.

Having established his position, Hawke immediately aimed his optical detection equipment there, but all he could see was the giant Jupiter slowly rotating itself, with at most a few meteorites carefree in their orbits, and nothing else.

But the radiation was still building up, and Hawke almost broke into a cursing fit.

"What the hell is that? What the hell?" Hawke was depressed and couldn't figure it out. Suddenly, the spectrum analyser showed that the blue shift of this powerful source of radiation disappeared.

At the same time, the intensity of the radiation on the ship's shell had doubled from what it had been a moment ago.

This indicated that the radiation source had stopped moving.

"Could another radiation source have attached itself to the shell of my ship?" Hawk made this speculation, but no matter how much he searched, he could not find any object in the visible wavelengths that could be emitting radiation.

Based on the current radiation intensity, two more such sources would not be able to withstand Hawk's radiation shield, and the ship's internal machinery, instruments and circuits would be severely damaged, even irreparably.

"Eh?" Just as Hawk's heart was agitated, he detected another unusual fluctuation.

He felt that the intensity of the radiation source had increased, slightly. It was as if the radiation source was working its way through the radiation barrier and trying to make its way to the interior of the ship.

"Doesn't this thing have a mind of its own? Could it be life?" With a start, Hawke immediately energised some of the wiring under the radiation barrier, and the feeling of being penetrated only disappeared under the electromagnetic field.

Hawke, now, was past the point of closest approach to Jupiter. Now Hawke was moving away from Jupiter at a speed of fifty-eight kilometres per second.

"It's too weird here on Jupiter, anyway, I've got enough observations, so I'd better run and get out of danger first." Hawke made up his mind and accelerated for another ten seconds, consuming tons of fuel and accelerating his speed to sixty-three kilometres per second.

However, Hawke sensed danger again. He again observed the blueshift phenomenon that symbolised the radiation source was rapidly approaching him. This time, it was two different sources of radiation!

"Shit, this is killing me!" Hawk was so alarmed and in a panic that he didn't care that he couldn't even see these things, he just took his laser gun out, aimed it at the direction of the observed radiation source's arrival, and fired a section of laser at maximum power.

The laser flickered away, and in Hawke's observation device, it showed that the blue shift of one radiation source had disappeared, and that the radiation intensity of this source had also decreased by two percentage points.

"That's bizarre." Hawke was secretly relieved, but the next moment, that radiation source once again appeared blueshifted.

It was as if there was an invisible creature there, pausing slightly under the blow of Hawke's laser gun, and then continuing to lunge towards Hawke again.

"That's really odd." Hawke cursed and continued to fire up with his laser gun in that direction.

The shot didn't make it any less intense. After checking the data, Hawk realized that the thing had actually changed its orientation and dodged the laser gun's shot.

With a shudder in his heart, Hawke then turned his gun around and redirected it at the radiation source. The radiation source dodged again, and Hawke aimed again. It was as if he was a policeman, constantly aiming at a bandit who kept dodging.

Under the constant laser strikes, the observation equipment showed that the radiation source was decreasing in intensity, but although it was decreasing in intensity, its blue shift did not disappear.

The laser gun fired for about three minutes, consuming almost a ton of fuel, and finally, the radiation source disappeared among Hawke's observation equipment.

"What a hell of an encounter." Although he had eliminated one source of radiation, Hawke did not dare to slow down at all, so he turned the laser gun around and fired at another source of radiation.

Hawke began to think about what the hell this thing was.

First of all, this thing was invisible, but their presence could be detected by the Geiger counter, their direction of movement as well as their speed could be determined by red-shifting and blue-shifting, and their radiation intensity could be reduced by the laser gun until they were eliminated.

"Is this a creature from ... Jupiter?" Gradually, under the analysis, an amazing thought appeared in Hawke's mind.

The fact that it could actively attack Hawke and also actively dodge the laser gun's fire seemed to indicate that this thing had a consciousness of its own.

This was a complete reversal of Hawke's previous understanding of the word "life". In the minds of most people, including Hawke, life was something that could be seen and touched, and even the tiniest of viruses with a basic dna structure could be revealed under an electron microscope.

So how does one define a being that has a consciousness of its own, can move around, but has no mass, is completely transparent, does not emit or reflect any visible light, and whose entire body is just a source of radiation?

Time was running out for Hawke to think. For Hawke had observed at least a hundred of them, 300,000 kilometres ahead, on one of Jupiter's moons, and they were all showing a strong blue shift, which indicated that they were approaching Hawke at an alarming speed, almost 150 kilometres per second!

At this rate, it would only take half an hour for the two sides to meet head-on!

If hundreds of radiation sources were to attach to the surface of Hawk's ship, Hawk's shell would melt instantly, the ship's circuitry would short-circuit, and the central computer would be instantly disabled!

Such a result would mean the complete death of Hawk. Even if the central computer could be repaired and turned on again, Hawk would not survive.

Because as soon as it was switched off, Hawk's consciousness and spirit would become a piece of code fixed to the storage device, losing its own self-awareness.

"Holy shit!" Hawke cursed bitterly, no longer caring about the energy consumption, he increased the power of the laser gun to the maximum, aimed at that direction, and started firing.

The laser gun was firing powerful lasers at a rate of almost a ton of fuel per minute, but even with that, it took Hawke almost two minutes to eliminate a radiation source. At that rate, by the time they met head-on, Hawke had only eliminated at most fifteen sources of radiation.

But what about the eighty or ninety radiation sources still remaining?

"This won't work." Hawk's brain began to calculate at full power, and in an instant, countless plans surfaced, which were tested for feasibility and then abandoned one by one by Hawk.

Finally, there was one plan that passed the feasibility test.

"That's the only way out, then, let's give it a try, it's better than sitting around and waiting for death."

Hawke sighed and began to control the droids as they quickly transformed a metal box and attached it to the inner walls of the ship.

"So let's get started, the Radiation Source Capture Program!"