"Maintenance Master 519, Chen Ming, welcome back."
"Today is March 12, 5601 AD. Please proceed to Office 125, Maintenance Personnel Office, to collect your personal terminal and work kit as soon as possible."
Chen Ming moved his hands stiffly as he climbed out of the hibernation pod he was in.
His somewhat disoriented brain merely received the content of the voice without processing it, leaving him completely unable to comprehend what was happening to him.
Who knows how long it took before Chen Ming finally managed to gather his scattered thoughts.
However, when he observed his surroundings, his breath immediately caught.
Chen Ming looked around nervously, feeling like he was in a place that seemed very dilapidated.
An entire room constructed of metal materials, with four devices similar to the one he just got up from placed in each of the room’s corners.
And by the corner near the door leading out, there was something that made him even more nervous.
A scattered human skeleton and the corpse of a certain kind of giant insect, decayed entirely except for its exoskeleton.
The two corpses lay close together, as if telling Chen Ming what happened before their deaths.
Once confirming they truly were just corpses, Chen Ming breathed a sigh of relief and quickly began to assess his own situation.
His final memory before waking up here was only of that truck rushing toward him.
If the hospital doesn’t look , then there’s basically only one possibility now.
Chen Ming took a few deep breaths to forcibly calm himself down.
This kind of encounter was quite good for him actually.
Having no parents, and his daily life barely qualifying as living, could only be called survival.
A fresh start could only be considered a blessing from above for him.
But now, he at least had to figure out where he was first.
Chen Ming quickly searched himself, but found nothing.
However, when he just woke up, the broadcast seemed to mention his identity.
He was Maintenance Master 519, and he was told to go to that office to collect things.
Chen Ming moved his limbs with a little force, feeling that his physical condition was still good.
Although he seemed to have been frozen for a long time in the adjacent hibernation pod, there was no discomfort when moving.
Reaching that office shouldn’t be a problem.
Besides, the environment here made him uncomfortable, and it was best not to stay.
But before that, Chen Ming suddenly noticed something very sci-fi-looking—a handgun, lying beneath the human skeleton.
Chen Ming hurriedly picked it up and held it in his hand.
Half groping, half imitating the gun-use videos he had seen online, he engaged the safety, removed the magazine, then reinserted it and set the safety to fire.
Though he didn’t know whether this gun, having lain here for who knows how long, would still work, it at least gave him some confidence to face unknown dangers.
Beside the skeleton was the only sealed metal door in the room, which should lead outside.
On the wall next to the door was a conspicuous button.
Seeing nothing else around that could open the metal door, Chen Ming reached out to press it.
A mechanical female voice subsequently sounded.
"Vacuum environment detected, please press the button again to confirm buffer compartment open, ensure protective suit is properly worn."
"Vacuum environment? Am I in space?"
Chen Ming frowned and tapped the solid metal floor beneath his feet, not seeing any signs hinting he was in space.
But he didn’t dare gamble that the voice was wrong. He turned back to search the room for anything that might help him.
In his initial panic upon waking, Chen Ming missed the fact that many places in the room actually held secrets.
Underneath the hibernation pod he had awakened from, there was a compartment that could be opened.
Inside was a full-body suit resembling a spacesuit, though it looked very lightweight.
This must be the protective suit. Follow current novels on ɴovᴇl(F)ɪre.ɴet
And while he found no similar spacesuit in the compartments of the other deserted pods.
Chen Ming did find a personal terminal resembling something often seen in sci-fi movies on the ground next to the hibernation pod.
Unexpectedly, this terminal powered on under his random fiddling.
Although the battery showed low levels, it should suffice for Chen Ming to figure some things out.
Just as he was about to study its operation.
A familiar yet foreign set of memories seemed to be triggered, suddenly surfacing in his mind.
This was Chen Ming’s past memory; those of him as a maintenance master from his past were constantly emerging.
Helping Chen Ming comprehend his current predicament.
Chen Ming now found himself at a Mining Space Station belonging to the Human Empire.
Located on the asteroid belt of an Edge Planet in an Edge Star System of the Human Empire’s expanding territory.
The presence of asteroid belts made the habitable planet below, while having a climate suitable for human habitation, unworthy for settlement due to occasional meteorite impacts.
However, the asteroids in the belt, rich with rare minerals, drew a commercial company to purchase the mining rights of the planet.
They built a Mining Space Station here and publicly opened it to all humans.
Chen Ming, in turn, was the company’s professional maintenance master for the planet’s mining rights owner.
He obtained a job requiring long periods of cryogenic sleep, waking only when necessary to work.
During the hibernation periods, the company still credited Chen Ming’s salary.
So having no parents or friends, he smoothly landed this job.
The primary memories from this world’s self ended when he lay in the hibernation pod.
More fragmented memories still surfaced in Chen Ming’s mind, but they were only scattered pieces.
He still didn’t know what had truly happened within the Mining Space Station.
But thanks to the techniques the memories showed him, like using the terminal and other tools.
Chen Ming quickly pulled up a log record on the terminal.
According to the log content, he could deduce the terminal, and the log recorded therein probably belonged to the skeleton in the room. He seemed to have been a doctor.
The initial entries primarily documented the scheduled health checks of personnel inside hibernation pods.
But in the last few pages of the log, around April 5569 AD, about thirty years ago, the log content began to change.
The Mining Space Station captured an asteroid in the belt potentially rich in rare mineral resources as usual.
When the first batch of rare minerals was extracted, everyone celebrated.
But the following day, a sudden riot erupted from the area where mining equipment was placed.
Countless insects surged from there, spreading throughout the space station, slaughtering its personnel.
The asteroid’s interior held not only rare minerals but also nests of these terrifying insects.
They had hibernated inside the asteroid for a long time, only to wake when provoked by extreme stimuli.
Chen Ming wanted to know what happened next, but the log abruptly ended there.
The doctor had already perished alongside the insect here.
The ultimate conclusion of this incident was clear.
The spaceship station personnel were annihilated, the station abandoned, and now thirty years had passed.
Meaning, Chen Ming was now on an abandoned Mining Space Station infested with the Insect Race.
Chen Ming instinctively glanced at the skeleton and insect exoskeleton beside him.
A large insect like that could surely easily kill him if it attacked.
Yet, despite the terrifying insects, Chen Ming felt starvation was a more likely threat.
No food could be found within the room.
Chen Ming glanced at the rusty, large door beside him, hesitant about whether he should just go out.
Could the Insect Race, capable of hibernating within asteroids for so long, still be in this Mining Space Station, just waiting outside the door?
While still hesitating, the last fragmented memory of Maintenance Master Chen Ming fully integrated into Chen Ming’s mind.
Soon after, two lines suddenly appeared in his mind.
[No ship signal detected]
[Please connect promptly to complete brain signal connection and initialization]