Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 107

Chapter 107 – Pissed Off at the Union

“Why didn’t you say anything about the temperature being so high, aren’t you scared of melting into goo?” Lu Bixing connected to the mental network and spoke to the small repairing robot onto the side: “The ventilation panel is broken.”

Saturday wiped off the sweat from his face. After countless battles and frontline experiences, he was no longer the foolish baby-faced boy who tried to solve everything with his fist. Perhaps the harsh military training had straightened his slouching back or perhaps he just never hit puberty in a timely manner, but he grew a little taller than before – even at the age of 30.

He hadn’t properly rested in over 30 hours and the exhaustion from using relaxants was still clear on his face. Despite that, he still forced himself to stay beside Lu Bixing and snatch every opportunity he could to learn: “Professor Lu, is this caused by the leakage of high-density particle waves?”

“Yes, but the leakage isn’t the main issue. Check your shield,” Lu Bixing said, “see that? The leakage happened because the energy consumption mode on your shield got blocked off–you had your mental network hijacked, right? During network battles, the stability of the human-mech port will lower, and it can sometimes cause partial areas of the mech to malfunction and even cause automated blocking of certain functions. If you feel something is off, don’t forget to reset immediately or you might end up with a lot of issues…although it’s not entirely your fault, this model is way too old.”

Saturday nodded as he made notes on his personal device.

“You don’t need to make notes of these things, just focus on what you need to.” Lu Bixing disconnected from the mental network. This was the 46th mech he repaired, and the constant logging on and off of the mental network was starting to take a toll on his body. He rubbed his eye and felt that he may also need a relaxant. “I wrote a small repair app to fix up common mech malfunctioning issues last night and passed it to the engineering team to revise. After three rounds of revision it should be ready to install onto mechs…how’s the supply level here?”

“We have more than enough for food,” Saturday said, “one shot of nutrient syringe could make us go without food for two months so we’re not using it up as much right now. We’re mostly low on weapons and ammo. Captain Turan’s going insane and making us upload all our battle recordings after every battle for two supercomputers to analyze, and if she finds that any of us has a high rate of misfires…”

Saturday shivered a little: “Don’t mention it, she’s crazy–can you mention to the Prime Minister sometime and ask when we can build a human rights commission or something? We have nowhere to report her.”

“Let’s protect human lives first before we talk about human rights,” Lu Bixing twirled the digital pen in his hand before it disappeared into a dot back into his personal device. “Ok, I know about the missile issue, what else are you guys missing?”

“Mechs,” Saturday said. “The number of mechs we have is significantly lower than our enemies. I guess you can say it like this: if they have 1,000 mechs, even if their casualty rate rises to 90%, they still have 100 mechs left. As for us, any mech that gets shot down means we rise up 1% in casualty rate. Also pilots…even if we have enough mechs, we don’t have enough pilots for them.”

As the former Captain of the Ninth Squadron, Turan was always the vanguard during wartime. In a time where they were at a disadvantage in terms of numbers, it was natural that she would choose to plan out all her strategies around maximizing their firepower in the shortest amount of time.

“To be quite honest, Professor Lu, even I have trouble following her up in the frontlines,” Saturday said, “Mint told me about the training mech before, and I was hesitant at first because it was too dangerous. But looking back at it now…man, when can we start producing them?”

Lu Bixing’s mind was on something else as he answered without even lifting his head: “Anytime.”

“What?” Saturday was dumbfounded. “Didn’t you say they all changed their research topic?”

“I designed the blueprint of the training mech when I was little. I gave them this topic to study because I wanted them to learn from it.” Lu Bixing said, “I couldn’t leave the house when I was younger, and since I had nothing to do at home I once drew a whole book of galactic-scale weapons of mass destruction. Even though most of them were imaginary doodles, I did notice that some of them could be realized in theory later–the training mech was one of them.”

Saturday stared at him in great fear.

“What, haven’t you also gone through some foolish teenage years? Although to me it looks like you’re still not done with your puberty.” Lu Bixing stood in front of the shiny outer shell of the mech and used it as a mirror. He noticed that his jacket was wrinkled up and quickly took it off. “Look, I…”

The air defense siren of the armed base interrupted his sentence.

Saturday acted on reflex and pulled Lu Bixing, dragging him into a mech that looked more completed. Aside from a dumbfounded young engineer, everyone else in the base immediately took cover swiftly and efficiently.

The poor young engineer wanted to scream, but stood awkwardly with their mouth open as everyone else kept quiet and hidden.

The next moment, a giant shield lifted up as the anti-missile system warned of an enemy attack.

Lu Bixing quickly waved to take over the mental network of the mech he was hiding inside. All the mechs parked in the post needed to be repaired, so he naturally scanned the mech for any issues while giving out repairment orders to the robot next to him. At the same time, he connected onto the Defence Force’s internal channel and noticed that the patrolling teams reacted to the siren in merely three seconds.

That’s too fast , Lu Bixing thought, if we had more time on our hands with frontline forces like this, we would be almost invincible.

The more easy-going Turan only came out during her off hours, otherwise she ruled her squadron with an iron fist. Even if running naked was a joke, a lot of her punishments were borderline unethical and unnecessarily brutal. As a refined gentleman, Lu Bixing was never quite fond of those methods; however, he had to admit that it was certainly effective. Everyone that survived under her draconian military rule came out anew.

Saturday: “Professor Lu, this mech’s shield is broken and can’t protect against enemy attacks, we should move to another soon!”

Lu Bixing answered without lifting his head: “Don’t worry. Are ambushes like this common?”

The mechanical sound of the mech’s AI system announced in the background: “Reopening the shield—failed to reopen—attempting second reopening—”

“Yeah,” Saturday said, “Captain Turan takes us out to fight guerillas with them a lot, so the enemies learn from us and keep sending scouters. Most of them travel in small groups of three to five small mechs that won’t be caught easily even if they draw near us. Compared to them, we’re like giant targets; once a scouting team finds us and report it to the higher ups, the enemy will launch a suicide attack–you know. They’re willing to die with us even if they’re scouts, it’s like none of them are afraid to increase their casualties or lose mechs. There’s too many madmen in the AUS, I swear I’m getting neurotic these past few days because of them.”

The mech continued to report: “Second attempt at reopening unsuccessful—third attempt at reopening—-”

Lu Bixing turned on the repair mode of the mech and connected his personal device to it as he swiftly typed at someone from his device.

Saturday couldn’t help but remind him again: “Professor Lu, I think we should…”

Before he could finish, a sharp alarm went off as a single missile shot through the anti-missile system and landed right in the center of the station. The emergency 3D-printed camps and architecture perished instantly as deadly radiation and particle waves spread out around the station.

Saturday’s voice cracked: “Professor Lu!”

The shield wasn’t repaired yet!

A heavy aftershock burst through the entrance of the mech repair station. An invisible demon made its way into the station as Saturday stared in terror. Then, Lu Bixing quickly pressed on his wrist and closed down the screen of his personal device. At the same time, a low buzz came from the mech as the shield light turned on, meeting the aftershock with only a tremble.

“Shield opening successful, all functions are running properly.”

“Lu Bixing!” Saturday screamed as he drenched himself in cold sweat.

“Repair completed,” Lu Bixing said, “signed, Engineer ID 001.”

Turan’s voice came from the communication channel: “There’s quite a few rats this time, team 2 get ready to support the frontlines, everyone else be prepared to retreat.”

Lu Bixin jumped directly into the conversation and asked: “If their scan range is the entire galaxy, I don’t believe they can possibly find you all that quickly. Even though the AUS were much better in the department of warp scanning than the Union, they’re still too efficient; I suspect that they can lock in on all the portals you all pass through and shrink down their searching area to a smaller radius, then send out suicide troops to scout.”

Turan almost choked on her spit: “Professor Lu, what are you doing on the frontlines? Did the commander agree to it? Did the Prime Minister allow you to come in? The old man’s even planning on having you succeed him, who said you can jump to the frontlines like this!?”

“Nonsense, if I don’t come to the frontlines to see for myself, how can I possibly allocate the rest of our supplies? Am I supposed to decide behind closed doors blindly? You can’t expect that old Prime Minister to come to the frontlines.” Lu Bixing said, “Captain, don’t shoot down all their mechs, leave one for me to dissect when I get back.”

Turan: “No, listen, you…”

Before she would even finish, the connection got cut off–it was the signature disruption from the AUS.

Lu Bixing placed a hand on the cold walls of the mech: “Hey babe, you just got repaired, can you do it?”

The small mech had no AI built in for chatter and couldn’t respond. The mental network glowed as Lu Bixing pushed the mech onto the launching tracks as if he wanted to get closer to the battlefield.

Saturday watched him and suddenly said: “Professor Lu, I feel like you’re a little off today.”

Lu Bixing turned around to glance at him: “Is it obvious?”

Saturday shook his head: “No, just my hunch.”

“Good hunch, I’ll have you be my personal advisor next time we gamble.” The anti-missile system on the small military station was much more mobile and flexible than the ones on a planet. The artificial atmosphere was essentially destroyed and all the winds blowing by the mechs were deadly aftershocks and particle waves that could easily take a human life. Lu Bixing swiftly pulled the mech up out the atmosphere and said, “I’m extremely pissed off at the Union right now, but the only people left on Qiming are either old and anxious citizens or subordinates and younger students; I can’t just express my anger nor say anything harmful….fuck that.”

Saturday: “……”

What did the scholarly and gentle Professor Lu just say? He rubbed his ears and felt like his hearing might also need repair.

The enemy above them immediately locked on these fleeing mechs. A cannon fired at them as Lu Bixing was about to leave the general area of the military base, and the young man quickly took a sharp turn to dodge the fire before he accelerated his way right into the enemy fleet.

The enemy was getting used to Turan’s wolfpack strategy and didn’t expect to deal with a delinquent today. Panicking, about three or four enemy mechs fired their missiles at him. Lu Bixing dodged two of them in style then fired a shot of particle cannons to distract the enemy, turning off the engine of the mech at the same time. Losing its engine power, the mech floated behind the wave of particle cannons and dodged a missile coming for him from behind. Another missile that approached him from the front quickly turned towards the target mech, but crashed into the other missile charging the opposite direction and exploded.

Through the loud alarm of the mech, Saturday could hear Lu Bixing say in a low voice as with clenched teeth: “How can they treat him like this?”

Saturday asked: “Who? What?”

The intercepted signal finally returned and Turan screamed as she almost lost her mind: “Lu Bixing! Get your ass back here!”

“Roger that, heading over right now.” Lu Bixing sailed in front of the enemy fleet for a short while before he turned back behind the Eighth Galaxy Galactic Forces. He then connected his personal device to the military-grade recorder and scanned through the data he’d collected earlier during the short confrontation. “The quality of the AUS mechs is clearly superior to ours, but their pilots are average and lack experiences to think on the spot–I suggest lowering the density of ammunition and firepower for missiles. Sacrificing a bit of weapon quality can save us a bit on ammo; is that acceptable, Captain Turan?”

Turan bluffed in response: “I can shoot directly into their air vents even if you give me a brick.”

Lu Bixing quickly followed up: “I’ve already finished revising the blueprint and construction program for the training mech, it will be built upon the regular mech production line with a few adjustments on supply allocation. I will determine the total production based on the number of current mech damages, the amount of newly enlisted soldiers, and the output of our current factories right now…but even then, I’m afraid we might not last until the Silver Ten arrives. So I’m suggesting we physically build a firebreak around the area.”

Turan: “What do you mean?”

“In other words, block off all roads. Ancient people would form a man-made firebreak by burning off an area to prevent the spread of wildfires; by eliminating all burnable materials within the area, they could contain the fire behind a certain point.”

Saturday and Turan both spoke up at the same time: “You mean the transfer portals?”

If starships and mechs were vehicles for transportation, then transfer portals were like roads in space.

Without transfer portals that could warp through space, it would be impossible to sail across galaxies that were hundreds of lightyears apart. The transfer portal system was a miracle built by hundreds of generations of people during the Galactic Age of Exploration; it was precisely this foundation that allowed mankind to continuously expand and conquer the vast universe.

“Exactly, the great transfer portals. It was like the entirety of human civilization since the old Sidereal Era has regressed for almost a whole millennium straight. Aside from entertainment and personal well-being, technology as a whole has been regressing to the point that we are still using ancient artifacts from the Age of Exploration.” Lu Bixing continued and sighed, “If we can’t hold our enemies back, let’s relocate the residents of the planets closer to the frontlines and blow up the transfer portals. We’ll turn the Eighth Galaxy into an isolated land where no one can leave or enter; at least that way we can keep the disease of stupidity out.”

The communication channel fell into dead silence. Blowing up a few transfer portals during wartime wasn’t a huge deal and wouldn’t even affect the larger communication networks, all it would take was some repair after the battle. However, what Lu Bixing was suggesting was different; this was grand-scale work that would physically alter the ‘geography’ of the entire universe.

The Galactic Laws of the Union clearly stated that this was an act of treason categorized as anti-society and anti-humanity.

“No…no wait,” Saturday stuttered as he asked, “isn’t this…does this mean we’re going to walk out and turn the Eighth Galaxy into a foreign land outside of the Union?”

Lu Bixing returned his question calmly: “is there something wrong with that?”

“We should’ve fucking done that much sooner,” Turan bursted out into laughter, “Hey little Lu, I sure love people like you who look like a goodie-two-shoes normally but can drop a bomb when you’re looking for trouble. If our commander gives you a hard time today after we get back, I’ll cover for you!”

Lu Bixing gave a courteous smile in response and didn’t poke at the blatant lie from the Captain.

“Captain, we caught signals of large fleets sailing over.”

“The stars aren’t aligned today,” Turan cursed under her breath and then ordered, “be careful and protect the workers on land, prepare to retreat!”

The non-combat personnel on land had already been prepared to retreat since the first air raid. Under Turan’s order, all mechs that could fly took off in an orderly fashion as the other people who couldn’t make it onto mechs got into individual ecopods and stuck to the capture nets of the mechs. All unrepaired mechs had no choice but to stay; Turan could almost cry at those poor mechs that would be left behind.

Her heart was dripping blood of pain for her mechs so she was naturally more brutal in action; the few scouting teams that had been discovered earlier were immediately annihilated by her cannons. Soon after, a heavy mental network pressed down on her as a heavy mech fleet of the AUS suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The entire frontline of the Eighth Galaxy Forces suffered a wave of mental network attack.

Turan: “Shit, Professor Lu, you. Go ahead…tsk….”

The signal interruption returned.

Lu Bixing frowned as he felt his mental network tremble violently—the enemy heavy mech’s network range was too large, and this old mech had a human-mech port too unstable to handle the pressure. The moment their network got hacked, the engine of the mech once again shut down abruptly; to make matters worse, this mech that’d just gotten repaired didn’t have a backup engine or energy source.

Immediately after, a wave of particle cannons swept the tail of his mech, sending the mech flying off into the distance uncontrollably. The enemy immediately noticed the problem with his mech and shot a missile at him.

It was too late for Turan to turn around and save him.

A hair’s breadth away from death, Lu Bixing once again turned the mech back into repair mode through the unstable human-mech port; Saturday panicked and felt his legs turn into jelly.

The mech that had lost its power ran head-on to the missile; the alarm inside the mech pierced through the mechanic and pilot’s ears as it reported: “engine system attempting to reboot—”

A buzz rang inside the mech. Saturday thought they’d been hit by the missile and closed his eyes subconsciously.

At that moment, the mech’s engine successfully restarted and made a sharp turn immediately as it passed by the missile.

Saturday’s heart sunk to the ground: “That was too…”

Before his heart touched the ground, this ventilation panel on the mech melted from overheating, completely rendering its engine useless.

Saturday: “……”

He figured he might need some medication for heart disease soon.

“Man,” Lu Bixing let out another sigh, “you should’ve told me if you can’t handle it sooner, I guess we’ll need to jump into ecopods now.”

Of course, the enemy didn’t give him a chance to get into an ecopod and chased after him. The alarm inside the mech rang up again within the next instant—large energy signals were detected ahead, a large armed fleet was closing in with nowhere for them to hide.

Nobody could tell how large the incoming fleet was under high speed, yet within seconds a large capture net with protective airbags slapped onto the battlefield like a giant web and captured their mech in it. The mech’s internal gravity system also shut off as both Lu Bixing and Saturday floated in midair inside the mech.

Saturday frantically connected back onto the mental network as the backup pilot in a desperate attempt to hold off another battle of mental networks.

Lu Bixing was shocked and thought, Did the AUS learn how to capture their enemies alive?

The half-broken mech was like a bug that flew onto a giant spider web and was quickly consumed by the large capture net as it got pulled towards the heavy mech. The next moment, the communication signals returned and Lu Bixing heard Turan scream inside the channel: “Commander!”

Com…mander?

Lin Jingheng’s sudden appearance took both sides by surprise. The AUS was still fearful of him from their last encounter, but before they could even react with a clear head, they were already scared out of their wits and thought they had run into another trap.

The scales of the battle tipped within a blink of an eye.

At the same time, the small mech that had lost control was dragged to the launching deck of the heavy mech. Lu Bixing and Saturday both fell to the ground as they heard Zhanlu’s familiar voice greet them: “I’m sending the commander’s greeting on behalf of him. Professor Lu, he said you’re a genius of many talents; you don’t need to pilot mechs anymore, build a toy tank with a tin can and you’re ready to kick yourself up the atmosphere.”

Lu Bixing crawled up from the ground and dusted off the ashes in defeat as he disconnected from the mental network. He jumped off the small mech to see two medical capsules already waiting from them by the entrance into the Model 3.

Lu Bixing: “I don’t need it, wait….”

The medical capsule ignored his refusal and rolled behind him, then quickly pulled out a few robotic arms as they dragged Lu Bixing into the capsule and restrained him—like the time he’d done it to Lin Jingheng back then near the small dwarf planet outside the Eighth Galaxy.

Saturday shivered in fear and crawled into the medical capsule like a good child: “I can do it myself, I can do it myself.”

Lu Bixing: “Zhanlu, I want to speak to him!”

Zhanlu: “He refuses.”

Lu Bixing exhaled and said: “Okay, tell him I love him.”

Zhanlu was silent for a second until he gave the response: “He said ‘fuck off’.”

Lu Bixing: “Then connect to Captain Turan for me and have her explain to the commander.”

Zhanlu fell silent again and responded: “Captain Turan said she lost her voice.”

Lu Bixing: “……”

Who was the dumb bitch that said she was going to cover for him earlier!?

Lu Bixing attempted to struggle out of the restraint for a bit, but if the great medical restraint of the machine could hold down Lin Jingheng, Lu Bixing had no way to break free.

Lu Bixing thought about it for a second and said: “Hey Zhanlu, can you ask him if he’s tying me up like this because he wants to do dirty things to me?”

Zhanlu didn’t respond this time, probably because he’d been ordered to stay silent again. Soon after, the cover of the medical capsule lowered and completely closed Lu Bixing inside the capsule, forcefully shutting his mouth.

“Commander,” Captain ‘I lost my voice’ Turan said inside the communication channel, “the enemy is retreating.”

“Go after them,” Lin Jingheng said, “don’t leave until every single mech is shot down.”

Turan: “But Professor Lu said to save him one earlier…”

Zhanlu interrupted before she could finish: “Sir, we’ve detected an unidentified armed fleet closing in.”

Lin Jingheng frowned.

Turan ordered immediately: “Vanguard, retreat temporarily!”

A fleet of armed mechs appeared behind the AUS fleet as she finished. The seemingly formidable support opened fire before Turan’s vanguard could turn around; yet to everyone’s surprise, the fire was aimed at the AUS and not the Eighth Galaxy fleet.