Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 116

Chapter 116 – Do You Have an Answer?

Prime Minister Edward looked at Ankur as if the latter had gone mad.

“What are you looking at, I didn’t fucking blow this up!” Ankur yelled at him, “These are my people, my soldiers, and my planet! Do you think I’m crazy!? Guards–”

The door of the ceremonial hall broke open as a whole line of tanks busted in. The armed tanks followed energy reactions and locked on their targets regardless if the people were armed, then shot dead any suspicious individuals that stood in its way without hesitation.

Ankur ordered frantically: “Get the people on the armed mobiles and tanks, quick!”

The guards inside the hall set off the alarms, and after a short moment of panic inside the hall, some people stood up to help maintain order for the crowd.

Once the crowd had settled down, all of the Prime Minister’s guards ran up and pointed their guns at Ankur. The guards on Ankur’s side also reacted at the same time while the Prime Minister’s guards opened up an energy field, ready to leave at any time.

Ankur immediately caught on, pressing down the gun from his guards and walking up to the Prime Minister while holding his hands up. He didn’t mind the guns pointing at him and quickly told the Prime Minister: “There will only be a few minutes before the missiles land once they pass through the system, are you guys sure you want to waste your time arguing with me? The energy field leads directly to your starship, right? You passed through security so it’s impossible for you all to carry galactic-grade weapons, which means you guys have something that can let you all escape this place in an instant–are you all sure you have the technology to warp under the AUS disruptions? What happens if you guys can’t get past them? Fly out of the atmosphere right into the enemy’s firing range?”

Prime Minister Edward wiped off the spit on his face in disgust, thinking Ankur was getting a little too close with that big mouth.

Yet within an instant, the Prime Minister also made a decision as he held his hand out and gestured for his guards to lower their guns, turn off the energy field, and keep quiet. He then turned back to Ankur and said: “You’re also not better than them!”

Ankur let out a loud sneer in response while another four armed mobiles drove by. Within the short exchange of words, the entire crowd inside the ceremonial hall was cleared as people fled on the tanks and armed mobiles.

Ankur waved at Prime Minister Edward and said: “Get on!”

The ceremonial hall was in shambles by the time everyone left. Prime Minister Edward noticed that the large structure collapsed almost immediately after their armed mobile flew out of the hall. Soon after, the missile landed about twenty kilometers away, its aftershock almost piercing through the shields of the tanks and armed mobiles making their escape. All of the drivers inside the fleeing vehicles opened up their energy fields, then disappeared before the bright light of the missile explosion. Prime Minister Edward could almost feel the seatbelt inside the vehicle choking him as the world around him blanked out.

The next moment, they passed through the rough ride of the energy field and drove right inside the mech launching dock of the planet. The old Prime Minister caught his breath and almost found himself crawling out of the armed mobile only to be greeted with a crowd of people clearly not from the military.

“This planet just made its way into the middle of two intergalactic terminals, it’s doomed to be caught in crossfire,” Ankur explained quickly, “Eastern half of the hemisphere gets twenty minutes of time to retreat and escape, the Western half will stay against the sun temporarily for up to one hour. Send out a broadcast, announce it multiple times because the public signals are unstable right now. This bastard Lin Jingheng, how dare he disrupt my signals at this time!”

Prime Minister Edward turned to him in shock: “How is twenty minutes enough to retreat!?”

The guard beside Ankur said: “All residents’ houses are equipped with an energy field that’s automatically set to the closest coordinates near aerospace launching docks. They don’t need to do anything, it’s all pre-programmed into the energy field.”

The Prime Minister let out a sigh of relief: “That’s good, can everyone manage to escape?”

Ankur waved him off rudely: “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What will happen if they can’t escape in time?”

“They can crawl into their underground bomb shelter.”

The Prime Minister was stunned and wondered why his engineers didn’t think of this: “Do bomb shelters work?”

Ankur was losing his temper at this point: “Kiss my ass if they work! Can you block off a galactic missile by digging up a hole in your backyard?”

He turned his bloodshot eyes to the sky and saw the eerie and demonic looking clouds past the countless shields set up by the mechs on the dock. Lights of misfortune created from the clash of missiles and anti-missiles on ground passed through the clouds every once in a while as if counting down the impending doom.

Only ancient battlefields could create a ground filled with corpses and deserted land, allowing survivors to still have words to describe the hellish scene.

What were they left with now? Under the threat of galactic-grade weapons, human lives were like grains of sand that disappeared into stardust within a blink of an eye.

Perhaps this was the lingering effect that began when the Union crushed the old Era with force and established a new order.

Missiles and cannons built the strong foundation of the great Interstellar Union that lasted over two centuries, and today that same gunfire was ripping the peaceful civilization apart from the inside.

“Retreat! Hurry up and retreat!” Ankur yelled, “If they want to fight, let Lin Jingheng fight them, we’re retreating! First Fleet, let all unarmed starships flee first, everyone else stay behind and come with me! Contact neighboring planets and space stations on the terminal to take refuge—”

“Announce entering a state of emergency for the Eighth Galaxy,” Lin Jingheng said, “Turan, I’m leaving it up to you. If anything happens on our end, be prepared to cut off communication between the Seventh and Eighth Galaxies, don’t wait for me. If I need to, we’ll find time to return to the emergency terminal from the other side.”

“No problem.” Turan answered without hesitation, “Don’t worry, I’ll leave you alone to do what you need to do.”

Lin Jingheng’s lip curled up slightly at the response; if it were someone else, he’d probably need to give a longer lecture, but this was Turan. This Captain of the Ninth Squadron was infamously harsh and cold-hearted, every order she received was an order through and through. Even if her own family was outside the galaxy, she would not hesitate to block off the terminals if she was ordered to do so.

As for the pirate fleets that arrived through the intergalactic terminals, they were as fast as lightning and were closing in on the formerly named planet Sabien as they surrounded the small planet like a massive cloud. Even with Zhanlu’s mental network range it was impossible to see the full fleet from end to end.

“They sure came prepared.” Lin Jingheng was like a deadly bayonet that pierced through the side wing of the pirate fleet with his men and fired their way into enemy territory with their cannons. The pirate tsunami was completely forced to the defensive for a moment as he said, “Tell the Prime Minister he can get out of the atmosphere now, we’ll retreat once we pick him up.”

They didn’t expect Ankur to summon such a grand fleet of pirates. The old planet Sabien had a very small population and had two other satellite towns neighboring the same terminals, so casualties would be unavoidable if war broke out in this area. Of course, Ankur couldn’t possibly hurt his own people, right? Therefore the tools they designed for the old Prime Minister were to help him make a quick escape in case anything went wrong.

Yet facing a whole fleet of heavily armed pirates was a completely different story. Perhaps even the original designer of the training mechs Lu Bixing himself couldn’t guarantee that these little fly-like mechs could successfully make an emergency warp within this web of pirates. To be safe, Lin Jingheng could only personally escort the old Prime Minister and their team.

“Commander, the Prime Minister responded that Ankur is not the mastermind. The Seventh Galaxy Militia is currently helping the residents out, he can’t get on the same public terminal as the residents…”

Lin Jingheng interrupted the guard: “Cut the nonsense, we don’t have much time left, tell that old man to hurry up!”

The next moment, through Zhanlu’s mental network he saw a team of what seemed like a vanguard mech fleet fly out of the atmosphere of the planet and shoot right into the weak spot of the pirate fleet that Lin Jingheng had forcefully opened up earlier. They desperately attempted to force their way out of the barricade as a swarm of unarmed starships followed behind them. It was dangerous to keep large amounts of untrained civilians on a military-grade mech; even if they were just passengers, they could only stay inside the limited ecopods provided inside the mechs. It would be possible to flee with a few people, but a mass migration like this would require a large and heavy starship.

Due to the equipment and supplies on civilian starships, a filled starship was almost like heavy baggage that could not compare to a military-mech. Even at full speed, it was impossible for the starships to catch up to the vanguard fleet attempting to pave the road for escape. As the guards that were ordered to protect the starships, the vanguard team could not leave the civilians behind and naturally had to give up their speed to let the starships keep up.

Yet during a scenario like this where the enemy had a significant advantage in numbers and firepower, giving up the mobility of the vanguard fleet was a fatal drawback for the Seventh Galaxy.

Lin Jingheng’s expression grew grave, yet before he could do anything, the large pirate fleet they cut through easily like paper earlier gathered back up again and surrounded the poor starship fleet in a deadly triangular barricade.

The starships were like a harmless large fish in a pool of man-eating sharks. In the spur of the moment, the starships all pulled up their civilian passes like a giant glowing olive branch through the mental network.

However, it was already too late; the pirates ignored the signs and fired a round of merciless cannons toward the glowing olive branches.

Lin Jingheng clenched his fist on the side quietly.

“Sir, a communication request from the Seventh Galaxy—”

“Lin…..buzz…”

The signal disruption was clearly still in effect as it cut off the communication the second after it connected.

Soon after, the Prime Minister’s signal connected in. The Eighth Galaxy’s internal network was protected by a special passcode that could withstand disruption and connect smoothly under this situation–yet the person speaking from the Prime Minister’s personal device was Ankur.

Ankur: “There’s about two billion people living on the planet and the surrounding satellites, Commander Lin, you….”

“Without your silent consent, how could such a large pirate fleet show up here without warning?” Lin Jingheng cut him off ruthlessly, “You were the one that invited the wolf in the house because you tried to outsmart the pirates, what does it have anything to do with me? You deserved it.”

Ankur: “You….”

“I’ll give you three minutes, turn my men in,” Lin Jingheng said, “otherwise your satellites won’t even survive to see the cannons from the pirates!”

It was clear that Lin Jingheng wasn’t joking around this time. The Eighth Galaxy fleet was right near a satellite by the planet, and by the time Lin Jingheng gave his ultimatum, their missiles were locked on that tiny satellite city.

Ankur cried out from the other end: “Lin Jingheng, you’re the director of the Silver Fortress and Top Commander of the Union, did not you swear into the military the day you walked in the Black Orchid Academy? Did you not say with your own mouth that you would protect all legal citizens of the Union, regardless of age or gender, with your own life until death!?”

Lin Jingheng sneered back, “Sorry, you guys ripped the claws off your ‘Top Commander of the Union’, so now he’s just a poor man who doesn’t even have enough power to protect the Eighth Galaxy. I don’t have energy to join your dogpile.”

Ankur: “Do you even have a good conscience!?”

He didn’t even hesitate at saying the words ‘good conscience.’

Lin Jingheng’s heart was set in stone: “Give me my men, or I’m opening fire!”

Ankur howled back: “Fuck off!”

Prime Minister Edward knew that Lin Jingheng really didn’t have that many tricks up his sleeves and had no way to protect two whole galaxies from this large pirate fleet.

It was already difficult for the Eighth Galaxy Forces to be able to safely pull back the Prime Minister and his team from this mess. The most reasonable course of action from here on out would be to return to the Eighth Galaxy, blow up the transfer portals, and block off the pirates. Was the situation here in the Seventh Galaxy not a result of Ankur reaping the seeds he’d sown?

“Prime Minister, let’s go.”

Under Lin Jingheng’s pressure, Ankur could only open up the terminal and let the Prime Minister leave.

At the same time, the footage of the first fleet of starship being blown up by the pirates finally arrived on land after passing through the layers of signal disruption. Cries of despair filled the mech dock within an instant. An old man, perhaps who had a relative on that starship, ran out from the crowd and fell to the Prime Minister’s feet as he hit his head on the ground and called out a name. Two guards pulled the old man off the ground and carried him to the side.

“Prime Minister!” A voice called out from the crowd, “Prime Minister, please save us! I used to live on planet Cayley in the Eighth Galaxy!”

“I’m from Qiming, please take me back!”

“Prime Minister, help!”

“Prime Minister, please take us….”

Prime Minister Edward turned his head abruptly to see the same child who hadtouched his hand earlier before the ceremony. The child was still being held by his parents, but unlike before the small face was filled with tears and snot as the poor child didn’t understand what was happening.

A guard from the Eighth Galaxy called out: “Prime Minister!”

The old Prime Minister felt as if his soul was being ripped into pieces. Yet he had no choice, because even though the Military and government of the Eighth Galaxy were separate, Lin Jingheng would not listen to him.

Though he knew this was slightly biased; even if Lin Jingheng listened to him, could he possibly make such a big decision on his own?

The Prime Minister finally turned around and entered the mech with a heavy heart.

Ankur also realized at that instant that nobody would help him anymore. He summoned all the forces on the planet to personally lead them against the battlefield, but he also didn’t have many troops.

He held bad intentions to lure out all the important figures of the Eighth Galaxy, but because he was fearful of alarming Lin Jingheng, he cut down a lot of armed forces around the planet and its surrounding satellites to the point where he had even less people than Lin Jingheng had brought with him to the border.

He was like a hopeless grasshopper that ate his own poison as he held out his arms hopelessly against a fate of darkness.

The cannon fire and missiles of the space pirates pressed down on this small grasshopper.

“Prime Minister, look, the commanding ship of the Seventh Galaxy fleet!”

The Prime Minister was still recovering from the migraine caused by the ascension of the mech when he stumbled towards the camera of the military recording. He saw that Ankur’s commanding ship was like an old and broken spear that attempted to open up a path of survival amidst this chaos.

He was too angry, too aggressive; he’d sailed out too quickly.

A missile scratched the tail of Ankur’s commanding ship as the mech fell out of the terminal from the side. The mech almost hit its guard as the guarding mechs quickly dispersed. Before Ankur could return to the terminal, another missile pieced through the Seventh Galaxy fleet and landed right on the commanding ship–

Bang.

The lingering cover of the coffin closed up as stardust sprinkled against the backdrop of gunfire.

Commander Lin, do you have an answer now?