Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 188

Chapter 188 – Very Certain

“The mech cores of the Great Swords contain massive amounts of data from past warfare, allowing them to make fair judgements on the battlefield. Therefore, I will need all fleets from the First, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Squadrons who are ready to be dispatched to mobilize at the frontlines.” Lin Jingheng said, “We don’t need to lure them in, they’ll be able to find us.”

“No, no, we can’t dispatch everyone…wait, are you saying that the super AIs will likely determine where they should go just from the scale and arrangement of troops on the battlefield?” Lu Bixing lifted his head from behind the desk and frowned at Lin Jingheng. “Tell Zhanlu to give us an estimate on the amount of available military supplies and troops the First Galaxy can mobilize. What if all of the mechs on reserve can be mobilized by the AIs? If the Eighth Galaxy acts too aggressively, we might attract…”

Lin Jingheng held up a hand to interrupt him. “The best case scenario is that Woolf will deplete all of his reserves in the First Galaxy, that way you’ll be much safer to act over there—of course, this won’t happen. Woolf isn’t the kind of idiot who’d make such a simple mistake, but the more he sends over, the better.”

The smile on Lu Bixing’s face disappeared. “I said no!”

Lin Jingheng leaned back on his chair and turned towards the rest of the Captains in the meeting. “Your Prime Minister says no but I’m saying yes. Who are you guys going to listen to?”

The current Eighth Galaxy government maintained a seamless balance between military and political control, but they had never been the same body of authority to begin with. In addition, the current main fleets of the Galactic Forces were all made up from the revered Silver Ten; if the Prime Minister and Marshal were political opponents, there would be no question who the leaders of the Silver Command would listen to.

The problem was the Prime Minister and Marshal were not political enemies. The Captains all exchanged glances and came to a silent consensus–if someone won this verbal fight, he might have to move out of the bedroom and start building a new bed in the study. And this particular gentleman before them happened to be a continuous offender of putting the blame on other people; he proudly displayed the line “I’m right, the world and everyone else around me is wrong” on his cape as his life’s motto. If he were to move into the study and spend more time with a robotic arm, who knew what kind of unreasonable excuse he would make to take his anger out on someone else. This mess of potential family feud was more fearsome than a thunderstorm to the rest of the world, therefore the Captains decided to all stand in silence as if their signals had gone bad with perfect timing.

Lin Jingheng: “…..”

Thankfully, Zhanlu chimed in to break the Marshal’s awkward silence: “It’s alright, Headmaster Lu. An AI’s battle analysis may not always be accurate; besides, they still have a whole wormhole zone standing in their way to get to us. To tell you the truth, after working alongside my master for so many years, he’s never listened to my analysis reports and has relied solely on his own judgement. Every time I would disagree with him, he would tell me to shut up. Though historical data has proven that he is often correct with his judgments.”

“AI soldiers have only been able to work as backups under properly trained human soldiers in the Union for a reason. I keep my word and will accomplish what I said I would do; I’ll never take the security of the Eighth Galaxy as a joke.” Despite feeling that Zhanlu wasn’t praising him, Lin Jingheng still followed up to end the awkward silence and said sternly, “Now back to your concern. We can’t control how long it takes to pass through the wormhole, so what do you plan on doing if you arrive in the First Galaxy before those backup AI fleets in the Heart of the Rose sail towards us?”

“We can’t control time, but at least we can provide fair estimation. It normally takes about five to eight days to travel through the wormhole, and the chances of running into anything that falls outside of this general scale is, scientifically speaking, astronomically slim. We will plan everything based on this schedule.” Lu Bixing mimicked Zhanlu’s tone of voice and said, “But according to historical data, you’re the only one in the world that could possibly run into these near-impossible situations.”

Lin Jingheng: “Quit the nonsense; what will happen if you run into this situation then?”

“That’s right, Prime Minister,” Turan, who finally mustered enough courage to speak up, voiced her concern. “Y’know, Murphy’s law?”

Lu Bixing paused momentarily and said, “I still have the Alliance troops.”

Eight days later—

People traveling inside the wormhole cannot feel the passing of time outside the terminal. Lu Bixing felt like he left the wormhole almost as soon as he had entered.

There was a small timer on their mech made from a special type of technology that calculated time based on analyzing the electromagnetic change of energy passing through the wormhole, allowing it to approximately estimate the absolute amount of time they spent inside the wormhole.

Lu Bixing’s gaze skimmed over the timer–travel time seven days and two hours.

The energy change alert flashed inside the mech, meaning that they were about to leave the wormhole zone. Lu Bixing let out half a sigh of relief–they had managed to pass through the wormhole within the estimated time frame; running into astronomically impossible events certainly wasn’t that easy.

However…

As the mech sailed out of the wormhole zone, the timespace distortion finally diminished while noise began to ring out of the communication channel. The first thing Lu Bixing heard was “Prime Minister, an ambush!”

Lu Bixing’s head shot up to look at the military camera.

The screen on the camera showed nothing but smoke around them–for safety measures, the first few vanguard mechs they sent out were autopilot dummies that could withstand a round of attack in the case of an enemy ambush.

Now, those shielding dummies had all fallen the moment they sailed into the enemy range of fire. Immediately after, a missile warning rang out inside Lu Bixing’s mech.

The pilot was an experienced soldier from the Silver Tenth Squadron who quickly adjusted their route without breaking a sweat and turned the shield up to the maximum. The mech shot past the remnants of its fallen comrade; the gravity system inside still hadn’t had the chance to readjust itself after coming out of the wormhole and the motion jolted everyone locked in with the safety belts off their feet into various poses.

The commanding ship sailed past two particle cannon shots while the missile still chased them. The pilot charged right into the enemy AI’s fleet, to which the enemy mechs responded by sailing forward to block off the commanding ship. The pilot on Lu Bixing’s mech was a stingy individual and had refused to open fire until now, when he reluctantly shot out a round of particle cannonfire–

A small crack opened between the small mechs blocking them, which the commanding ship barely zoomed through in a very close slide.

The next moment, the missile following the commanding ship arrived and clashed right into the enemy mech cluster too quickly for them to disperse, blowing all the mechs up in a chain of explosions.

The commanding ship slid past the enemy fleet like a needle sewing through fine openings and left with a vibrant firework; the pilots in the cockpit danced in joy and said, “We saved another missile for the anti-missile system.”

Lu Bixing: “……”

“Wait,” Lu Bixing quickly took off his safety belt and zoomed in on the military camera. His eyes scanned quickly across the screen and he said, “We didn’t miscalculate; look, the enemy fleets around the Heart of the Rose are mostly mid-sized to small mechs. None of the Great Sword supermechs are here.

In other words, the fleet here must be an emergency dispatch made by Woolf after the main AI fleet was all lured into the Eighth Galaxy!

It was clear that AI Woolf had taken into consideration that the top commander on the enemy side must be Lin Jingheng and planned his strategy accordingly, treating the man as his most fearsome enemy. Thus, the AI didn’t hesitate to dispatch the massive mech reserves in the First Galaxy military stations.

The Eighth Galaxy.

Lin Jingheng had drawn an area within the wormhole zone and turned it into an artificial digital void, trapping the AI fleets into being punching bags for a good while in the beginning.

However, AIs weren’t programmed with effective vitalities and value in life like humans had; groups and groups of mechs continued to swarm in from the wormhole zone. After Longyuan and Chengying came the other supermechs–within a matter of days, aside from Ganjiang and Moye who were still stuck inside the terminals, the rest of the Great Swords had gathered in the Eighth Galaxy.

The Union’s Great Swords were top-class weapons that only high-ranking commanders were able to use. Unfortunately, the Military Council had been oppressed by the Committee in the past and hadn’t managed to turn out suitable pilots for the supermechs, degrading these legendary weapons into nothing but galactic models. High ranking commanders were old and useless, unable to meet even the minimum mental strength criteria to control these supermechs. Aside from Lin Jingheng, very few high-rank military officials could manage to even stand in the frontlines of galactic warfare. Thus, Zhanlu remained the only Great Sword still on duty while the others became decorations–they had never fully gathered together in any battle ever since they were made.

Nobody could have expected that such a historic moment in military history would be met with the cannons of the supermechs pointing at humanity itself.

Massive mental networks began to overlap and engulf the battlefield like a tightly-knit web, looming as if it was ready to consume the Eighth Galaxy sun. Every pilot that stepped into the range of their mental networks couldn’t help but feel their breaths be taken away.

To make matters worse, the scale of these mental network ranges was closing in near the edge of the digital void that Lin Jingheng had set up. Once the last two supermechs came out from the wormhole, they could very likely break out of this barrier.

Turan hadn’t closed her eyes in days and was forced to take another relaxant.

She couldn’t speak to Lin Jingheng within the digital void, making her grow more anxious by the minute.

That was when another wave of abnormal energy was detected from the wormhole zone; another wave of AI fleets had arrived!

The Heart of the Rose.

Lu Bixing’s brain was operating at full speed: “Turn back the commanding ship and send out wormhole disruption signals!”

The pilot was taken aback as the commanding ship was about to break out of the barricade.

“Hurry!” Lu Bixing demanded, “There’s too much pressure over there!”

The dispersed mech team quickly regrouped at his command, large amounts of disruption signals began to shoot out from the mechs. The gravitational force within the wormhole zone began to pull in its surrounding objects; Lu Bixing’s commanding ship accelerated violently out of the affected zone while the unsuspecting AI mechs were pulled into it. The timespace terminal was instantly transformed into a massive meat grinder.

The cannons of the AI fleet immediately locked onto the wormhole disruptor and Lu Bixing’s mechs; the barricade grew tight while over half of the disruption equipment was wiped out almost instantly.

“Prime Minister,” the commanding ship pilot said, “it’s impossible to set up a full-fledged disruption system in our current situation; these things we’ve sent out are only temporary disruptions. By the time they all get shot down, the wormhole zone will be stabilized within an hour, and the enemy will be able to pass through without any issues.”

Lu Bixing: “Give me a non-protected communication channel.”

The pilot from the Tenth Squadron was a quick-witted lad who knew what Lu Bixing planned on doing and hesitated. “Prime Minister, don’t you think that’s too risky?”

Lu Bixing answered sternly, “I know my limits.”

The next moment, Lu Bixing’s figure suddenly appeared on the public communication channel for the AIs to see. The young man scanned over his ‘audience’ like a celebrity on stage and grinned: “Weren’t you all asking for me? Look, I’m here now, surprised?”

All of the AI mechs that had been crawling towards the Heart of the Rose suddenly froze as if a pause button had been pressed; soon after, all of the cannons turned and pointed towards his commanding ship.

Lu Bixing turned towards his pilot and said: “Look, even if the wormhole blockade goes away, they won’t be sailing to the Eighth Galaxy anymore.”

The pilot fell into a dilemma and felt a mountain of pressure on his shoulders, having no spare energy to chit chat with the Prime Minister. His entire body broken out in a cold sweat, he decided that he was going to write a formal complaint and cry to his boss when he got back: “Prime Minister, are you sure we can break out of the barricade?”

Lu Bixing glanced at the clock on the mech that had already been automatically adjusted to the First Galaxy time.

“I’m…” Just as he opened his mouth, the AI fleet following behind him was suddenly caught in a round of fire. A handful of mech teams sliced right into the middle of the AI fleet with a sharp attack, their violent fire turning the AI mechs into roasted meat within a matter of seconds–this was the Human Alliance that fled a few days ago upon arriving at the First Galaxy.

A hint of smile finally surfaced in Lu Bixing’s eyes as he slowly and casually finished his earlier line: “….Very certain.”

When Lu Bixing said “I still have the Alliance” at the meeting in the study that day, everyone fell silent.

“We can still contact the main Alliance fleet inside the terminal right now, and I’ve already arranged telecommunication to give them a summary of the situation.” Turan hesitated briefly, “But Minister Lu, I just sent Poisson a message. If we don’t receive a response from him within the next few hours, that’ll mean the situation over in the Heart of the Rose is as the Marshal had suspected–they’ve already destroyed their communication equipment…what will we do if that’s the case? What will happen if that means we break our temporary alliance with our comrades?”

Reality had proven that Lin Jingheng’s guess was correct: there had not been any response from the Heart of the Rose even by the time Lu Bixing secretly prepared to travel through the terminal.

The Third Squadron had cut off all communication with them, and it was very possible that Thomas and Poisson never received Turan’s warning in time.

“Minister Lu,” Turan called him with a heavy heart. “It’s been too long, it looks like the Alliance have all fled in the face of crisis. Are you sure you can still trust the Alliance?”

“Ah, we probably should’ve let the Freedom Corps build their biochip empire, that way we wouldn’t have to suspect each other–thinking about it now, that queen of the biochip empire is also our Marshal’s sister. We’re all relatives, y’know; if we had given in earlier we probably could’ve gotten some fame just by relation. Being the family of the ultimate ruler of the universe must be so much cooler than being a Prime Minister of a galaxy if all eight galaxies are under the same control.” Lu Bixing half-jokingly commented and winked at Turan, “Too bad we can’t predict the future, so now I can only say…I’m very certain.”

The AIs in the Heart of the Rose clearly hadn’t expected that these cowardly Human Alliance fleets would reorganize and counterattack at a time like this. The AIs were shredded like cattle while the fastest fleet from the Human Alliance, a team from the Third Galaxy Central Militia, broke through the barricade.

“We stayed on edge and waited for days, little rascal; you actually came!” General Nagus’ voice rang out from Lu Bixing’s communication channel.

“Prime Minister,” The emergency reinforcements also arrived at the same time, and Anakin’s voice rang out as well. “The Fourth Squadron is here.”

Lu Bixing smiled and turned toward his pilot: “Pull back the wormhole disruptors! Restabilize the wormhole terminal. I’m guessing that Jingheng’s already reaching his limit over there, so kick them out of the Eighth Galaxy to chase after me. My friends, we have five to eight days to settle things. It will depend on your cooperation as to whether or not we can fish out Woolf’s main hardware with a giant bait like me.”