Chapter 110: First Steps onto a New World

Oxygen: 22.8%. Nitrogen: 76.5%. The rest includes helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon and more. Almost identical to Earth’s composition. No toxic substances detected.

The planet’s diameter is 13,700 kilometers, just a bit larger than Earth.

Land covers 42%, oceans make up 58%, and there’s an abundance of freshwater resources.

There’s a rich variety of plants and animals, but so far, no signs of advanced intelligent life.

Orbital period is 178 Earth days. One full rotation takes 1.2 Earth days.

Gravity is 0.99 times that of Earth.

The orbit of Proxima II is crowded with research satellites, and even more sensors have been sent deep below the planet’s surface.

Some landed on the ground, while others are hovering high up in the atmosphere.

As time passes, more and more data streams in.

Everyone on the bridge was practically glowing with excitement. This really felt like discovering a brand-new continent.

Even the initial readings show that this place ticks all the boxes for human life. Of course, they’d need detailed surveys and samples to confirm everything, but the prospects were looking great.

In other words, it was all but certain.

After all, this was a genuine life-bearing planet—not a terraformed one like Mars.

Sure, planets like Mars could be made suitable for humans with enough technology.

But reality was, no matter how advanced the tech, even the best terraformed worlds couldn’t compare to the real thing.

“Lin Yu, I want to head down as soon as possible.”

“No problem. Leave it to me.”

Lin Yu saw how excited Lu Bo was and agreed with a grin.

Of course, there was no way Lu Bo and the scientists would be going alone. This planet was crawling with all kinds of large animals—many of which looked downright dangerous.

And who knew what kind of nasty surprises the plants might have waiting for them.

Lin Yu put together a full Heavy Orbital Paratrooper Regiment, armed to the teeth and ready to escort them down aboard assault ships.

On top of that, a squad of Bai Ze Mechs would be landing with them, just to be safe.

There could be no room for error.

After all…

Lu Bo and the other scientists were precious—irreplaceable.

“Lin Yu, how about… I go down for a look too?”

Following Lin Yu’s arrangements for the troops and mechs, George came over to ask.

George walked up to Lin Yu and made the request.

“Absolutely not!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m personally leading the team!”

……

……

George was left speechless.

This was, after all, humanity’s first landing on a life-bearing planet beyond Earth.

The first group to set foot here would go down in history. But now…

Lin Yu wanted to lead the team in person.

That meant George didn’t stand a chance—it wouldn’t be right if both the commander and his deputy bailed together.

There was nothing he could do. Rank had its privileges.

And Lin Yu outranked him by four levels. Being under that was like having Five Finger Mountain smashing down on your head.

George caught sight of Lin Yu’s epaulets and quietly gave up. He’d just have to stay behind.

——

An hour later.

Lu Bo and nine other scientists loaded up with their gear and boarded a medium-sized shuttle.

Meanwhile, a full Heavy Orbital Paratrooper Regiment split into ten assault ships, all ready for launch.

A squad of seven Bai Ze Mechs were already being sent into their hexagonal launch tubes.

Everything was ready to go.

“Huh? Si Rong, why is it you this time?”

After stepping into his custom mech, Lin Yu booted up the command system.

Moments later, the real-time status of the other six mechs appeared on the virtual screen to his right.

Every mech had a live feed of its pilot’s head right next to its status display.

Lin Yu instantly recognized one of them—the 77th Mech Battalion’s captain, Si Rong, who served under the 101st Mech Regiment.

But hadn’t George said that Ziming was supposed to be in charge of the mech squad?

“Captain—uh, no, Commander now. Ziming suddenly got a bad case of the runs, so I’m filling in.”

Si Rong had been with Lin Yu from the start. Calling him ‘Captain’ was such a habit that even now he’d sometimes slip up.

Lin Yu was now a Rear Admiral, the commander of the Sixth Fleet.

Not that Lin Yu minded.

As for Si Rong’s excuse, Lin Yu just chuckled.

A bad stomach, huh…

Does he really think I’m buying that?

Lin Yu figured Ziming was likely hiding in a corner of the mechbay, sobbing.

Then again, he wasn’t much better—if George told the truth, he was probably crying up on the bridge right now.

Everyone’s in the same boat, aren’t they?

None of them were exactly fearless.

Three minutes later, all seven Bai Ze Mechs were launched one after another from the tubes.

A medium shuttle and ten assault ships took off from the Zhulong, each heading for their assigned orbital insertion points.

“Lin Yu, the baby you and Commander Mu have should be born by now, right?”

Lu Bo’s message came through as they traveled.

“Yeah. I only managed a remote video call when we were about to reach the Kuiper Belt.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Twins. One boy, one girl.”

“Damn, just like that you’ve already hit the target!”

Lu Bo laughed.

After the war with the Klein, the Presidential Office passed a new law.

As humanity geared up for large-scale colonization, the current population numbers simply weren’t enough.

Population, transportation, communication—those three would decide the scale of human expansion.

To boost the birth rate, that closed-door meeting of four leaders laid out a bunch of new policies.

Tax and land policies were at the heart of it all.

The gist: if a couple had two kids before turning thirty-five, there’d be no penalties.

But with only one child, or none at all…

A penalty tax would kick in: 15% for no kids, 10% for one, which would disappear entirely if you had two.

Don’t underestimate that tax. The Federation’s base income tax was already 20%. High earners could be hit with 30% or even 40%.

Add another 15% on top of that and it really stings.

On the flip side, those with more kids could get a federal subsidy and a reduction in their base tax rate.

For every extra child after the first two, the tax rate dropped by 1%, up to a maximum of 10%.

In other words, with twelve kids, your tax rate could go from 20% down to just 10%.

To put it simply, the Federation was desperate for more people—a lot more.

If you could handle raising kids, the Federation was happy to slash your taxes.

As for Mu Qingxue and Lin Yu…

Like Lu Bo said, they hit the target in one go. Pretty efficient.

Of course, neither really cared about incentives.

Another rule: join the Federation Fleet and those penalty taxes don’t apply.

After all, once you’d shipped off for colonization missions that lasted years, how much time did you have left to grow your family?

So the fleet was exempt from the penalty taxes.

Making babies to fill the population gap?

That was for those back on Earth.

Land policy was still just a concept, not yet in play.

It couldn’t start until humans actually began settling other worlds.

The basic idea: any family migrating to a new life-bearing planet captured by the Federation Fleet would get free land, with the size based on their number of children.

Put simply—more kids, more land, all for free.

Of course, if you were rich, you could always buy extra.

But the price? Let’s just say it wouldn’t be cheap.