E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 247: Bonus: A science fiction short story previously written by the author

Chapter 247: Bonus: A science fiction short story previously written by the author

A work ship from Leia Star was moving towards Venus in the Solar System. Their main task was to collect olivine and pyroxene.

"This is our first time on Venus," said Eva Rebecca, the captain, holding a transparent tablet and distributing tasks. "According to the instruments, the main gases on Venus are carbon dioxide and a significant amount of nitrogen. Yuna, check the protective suits. Linda, set our landing point on Venus."

"I... What do I do?" Beastsman Pan Amanda could only communicate with them using simple words.

"Amanda, honey, could you help us carry the ores later?" Rebecca gently stroked Amanda’s head.

"Okay! I’ll try hard!" Amanda made an encouraging gesture.

"Rebecca! Ah! Come quick, the control stick, it’s moving by itself! Ah!" Ida Yuna, startled, yelled as the control stick in front of her swayed from side to side as if someone was operating it, seemingly trying to find its own route.

"Did you accidentally turn on the auto-nav again?" Rebecca calmly asked while checking the route navigation on the LCD screen, knowing that it wasn’t the first time Yuna had been startled by the autonomously moving control stick after inadvertently engaging the autopilot.

"No, I swear, I really didn’t press the auto-nav this time!" Yuna carefully inspected the circle of buttons around the control stick; the autopilot was indeed off.

"Let me have a look." Just as Rebecca was about to get up, she suddenly felt dizzy...

"Captain! We’re off course..." The last thing she heard before fainting was Linda’s warning about veering off the flight path...

When Rebecca woke up again, she found herself in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by towering trees with branches that stretched into the sky and many thick and thin vines hanging down. She noticed these types of trees were not found on their home planet. It seemed she now had something resembling a helmet on her head, which was round and had a transparent front, allowing her to see her surroundings clearly.

She looked around; Linda was sleeping next to her, and Amanda was not far away, with similar helmet-like devices on their heads. But Yuna... Where was Yuna?

Just as Rebecca was growing anxious, a familiar yet frightened voice came through the helmet’s speaker, "Where is this place? Ah! I’m so scared! Someone save me, Rebecca, where are you, wuwuwu..."

Rebecca looked up to see Yuna hanging from a thick tree branch, frantically swinging her arms and legs. Her helmet had been tossed about, flipped back and forth.

"Stop moving, I’m right below you. I’ll wake Amanda right now!" After speaking, Rebecca crawled over to Amanda and woke her up in her unique way: tickling her feet.

"Itchy... Rebecca... bad... this... where?" Amanda sat up, bewildered and completely unsure of what had happened.

"Amanda, come here, stretch out your hands and catch Yuna!" Rebecca didn’t have time to explain to Amanda and pulled her under the tree directly below Yuna.

"Okay!" Amanda crouched down and stretched out her hands.

"Yuna, turn around and tear off the vines on you!"

"Ahhhhhh..." As Yuna tore off the vines, she began to free fall, but fortunately, the tree branch wasn’t too high, and Amanda easily caught her.

"Yuna, safe!" Amanda gave a thumbs up.

"Yuna, are you trying to be funny? We’re all on the ground, how did you manage to hang up there?" Linda teased Yuna as she woke up and sat on the ground, laughing about Yuna’s helmet, "And what’s with your helmet? Hahaha..."

"How would I know... When I woke up, everything was dark! It felt like my body was still hanging in midair, it scared me to death." Yuna was still shaken.

"Alright, everyone’s safe now. Now let’s figure out where we are..." Rebecca checked everything on her and found nothing but an unfamiliar wristwatch on her wrist.

Linda and Yuna had a similar wristwatch to hers, while Amanda’s wrist now sported an alloy beast claw. That was all they had.

But what was this wristwatch for? Rebecca pressed every button on the wristwatch, but either it was broken or something else, the screen only displayed coordinates: 20°40′58.4"N, 88°34′7.0"W and nothing else responded.

"What do all of your wristwatches show?"

"It seems to be broken..." Linda’s and Yuna’s wristwatches weren’t displaying anything, not even coordinates...

"I think, I feel like I know this place... We don’t need to use... this piece of junk anymore!" Linda removed her head cover, "Look, nothing’s wrong! There’s plenty of oxygen here!"

Linda’s bodily structure was different from that of Rebecca and the others; she did not rely on her nose to breathe. Her nose was only for smelling, and she primarily inhaled through the gaps in the scales on her sides, like fish gills, equipped with a special sensory system to distribute oxygen throughout her body.

"Let’s head that way!" Linda and Rebecca pointed in the same direction simultaneously, Linda having made her judgment by sniffing the air.

"Rebecca, Rebecca, ahhhhhhhh!! Look, look behind us!!!!!" Yuna started shouting again, then suddenly jumped onto Amanda’s back.

"What now... ohhhh!!!!! Run!!!" As soon as Rebecca turned around, she saw a giant mantis standing erect among the trees, stretching its forearms and shaking its body, ready to strike at the four of them.

Hearing Rebecca’s shout to run, Amanda immediately tucked Rebecca and Linda under her arms and bolted toward the direction they had pointed out. Actually, Amanda hadn’t noticed that Rebecca and Linda had pointed in the same direction. The reason she ran there was purely based on beastly instinct, believing that direction would offer them some cover.

"Wrong way, wrong way, wrong way! Amanda, stop!" Rebecca desperately yelled; she was facing backward while being held by Amanda.

"No, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not! Amanda, keep running!" Linda also kept shouting desperately; she was facing forward while being held by Amanda.

"That way... is safe..." Amanda completely ignored the two of them, just hastening her steps.

But trying to move like flying through the dense primeval forest is somewhat difficult. Tree branches were wildly slapping Amanda’s face. Fortunately, beastpeople’s cheeks are also covered with fur, otherwise Amanda’s face would have been scarred. Not only that, there were vines hanging down from the tall trees, often scraping against her helmet... plus she was carrying the burden of three people.

"Yuna, the helmet... it’s getting in the way... help..." Amanda ran while trying to ask Yuna to help remove her helmet.

"Sure!" Yuna immediately helped her remove the helmet, then threw it back forcefully, only to hear a "clang" sound as if it hit something. She turned her head back to see that not just one mantis was hopping after them, but many mantises were leaping from both sides towards them.

"Run, run, run! I don’t want to die yet! Wuuuuu..." The craven Yuna was already scared enough to wet her pants.

"They won’t catch up to us, these creatures, I’ve read about them in the Bug Encyclopedia on a certain planet, they have strong attack power but are slow movers; they just hop..." Rebecca had just finished speaking when the leading mantis’ forearm, like a large machete, swung down in front of her, narrowly missing her by 2 mm – Rebecca was nearly decapitated," Amanda, speed up! Why didn’t we bring any weapons on this trip... wuuuuu..." Now it was Rebecca who was close to crying.

"We are almost at a safe place, trust me!" Although all she could see ahead was the dense, lush tall trees, Linda, with her keen sense of smell, was very confident in her intuition.

No sooner had she spoken than the seemingly endless forest ahead suddenly disappeared, replaced by a vast spread of tall grass.

"I told you, I know this place!" Linda wriggled out from under Amanda’s arm.

"Huh? Those giant insects are gone too!" Rebecca was completely clueless about what had just happened in that moment. From her perspective, the insects that had been hopping after them suddenly vanished, as did the forest, and the four people who were supposed to be fleeing for their lives in the jungle were now standing in a grassland taller than a person.

To the east of the four was a pyramid with a square top.

"Follow me! The genes in my blood are guiding me..." Linda spoke as though she had visited this place a very, very long time ago. She led the other three to the south side of the pyramid, where there was a serpentine head on either side of the passage leading to the pyramid’s top. However, Linda did not lead them up to the top of the pyramid but to a hidden door next to the right serpentine head. She extended her right hand, covered with scales and webbed, and reached forward...

In front of her, what appeared to be an utterly dark passageway suddenly transformed into a staircase leading downward.

"Come on, there should be something we need below," Linda said confidently.

So, Rebecca and the others followed Linda down the staircase leading underground...

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