Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 62

Chapter 62 – They Say You’re Cold-hearted, But It Was All A Lie

“They are only able to carry out successful guerilla warfare because the commander in the heavy mech is experienced.” Ares Von’s eyes narrowed at the screen, “See that ‘life and nature’ one who’s all talk and is actually scared of dying? His frontline is made up of the AUS’s elite pilots that have an average mech sync rate of over 80%, enough to scare off most people on the battlefield just by showing their faces. Yet they were all wiped out within minutes, just how strong is the enemy’s mental strength? It’s just a shame that his subordinates are a bunch of useless animals.”

The subordinate beside Ares Von was originally just a nurse who was in charge of taking care of the Prince’s Frankenstein body. After spending so much time around a crazy serial murderer, the nurse also earned himself the unofficial title of ‘General’ of the fleet. The appointed ‘General’, while a qualified caretaker, was by no means experienced in warfare and could only stare back at his boss blankly.

“Fool, you still don’t understand?” Ares Von let out a long sigh as he scolded his subordinate. In contrast to his complaint, his expression remained calm; he was a fan of fools, and very fond of people he could easily manipulate. In the eyes of the pirate prince, witty people were as dangerous as pointing a laser gun right at his own head and should be eliminated promptly. On the other hand, he was a lot more patient with average people who were not quick-witted and explained, “Particle cannons are much less deadly than missiles. If they fired missiles out instead of particle cannons on the last ambush, they could’ve at least completely wiped out one side of the fleet. The enemy travels around at ease and is clearly an experienced fighter, which means they would normally not make this kind of careless mistakes. I’m guessing that those useless shrimps don’t know how to aim properly and have no idea how to fire a missile…the fleet under this top-notch commander must be newbies that just learned how to pilot a mech, so they can only use particle cannons for make up for their lack of skill.”

A mech’s shield could deflect a certain level of particle beams and be fortunate enough to not suffer grave damage, but after two waves of attack even the Prophet’s fleet needed time to reorganize. All the mechs that fell during the last ambush were victims of the missiles fired from the Model 3.

Even though Ares Von used the Prophet as a tool to draw out the enemy, it was simply because he completely underestimated the pirate prince. The Prophet wasn’t actually stupid, and soon realized the same problem after a few rounds of crossfire. His face twisted into a wicked sneer as he stomped on the floor and ordered: “Pull up data for the Silver Ten within the last 20 years and run it through a preference analysis!”

The highest-class of all heavy mechs were usually always equipped with equally high-grade mech cores. The mechs of the AUS were no exceptions despite all the talks of anti-technology.

While the Prophet spoke of modern technology like beasts of the apocalypse and AIs like illegal drugs, the AUS still utilized these ‘evil inventions’ in practice in order to achieve their goals of saving humanity.

The AIs under the AUS all had strictly regulated databases that essentially eliminated its cognitive functions to learn, making it only slightly more advanced than a supercomputer. These AIs equipped on the mechs were designed for combat and to swiftly carry out orders; naturally, they didn’t have the function of talking, let alone chatting endlessly like Zhanlu. If Commander Lin were to see it, he wouldn’t hesitate to trade Zhanlu in for one of those AIs.

The wordless AI quickly scanned through the AUS’s database for all the records of the organizations who’d harassed the IU and then subsequently gotten their asses kicked by the Silver Ten over the past 20 years. Within ten seconds, AI completed its analysis and reported its findings on the screen by sectioning off all the possible missile ranges on the map. Each section of the map was marked by percentage of the likelihood of the armed force’s hideout based on the data collected from the Silver Ten’s fighting style.

The Prophet glanced quickly at the report and quickly selected three locations of the most likely hideout. He split his fleet in thirds and immediately ordered his subordinates to fire missiles towards the designated areas on the map, and ordered: “Release disruption signals!”

The communication channels on the armed force’s side immediately cut off.

A well-trained fleet of space militia normally wouldn’t be fazed at an interruption like this as it wouldn’t affect their combat abilities on the battlefield; the mental network’s field of vision was far more extensive than the naked human eye, and pilots could still see their comrades and commander while remaining connected. When the commander moved, his soldiers usually followed and knew what to do without having to communicate to each other.

However, the armed forces of the space station clearly had no sense of cooperation. They’d only just learned the channel etiquette from Commander Lin’s threat not too long ago, how could they possibly compare to a properly trained military fleet?

The lost lambs of the farm just barely got to celebrate a small victory and boost their egos when the communication channel cut off and slapped them in the face. Suddenly, the inexperienced thugs of the armed forces downgraded into a bunch of lost toddlers scrambling around headlessly.

At the same time, a wave of missiles swarmed into their fleet.

Statistically speaking, firing blindly into space wasn’t the most effective method of combat; the enemy probably just made a lucky guess.

If it was only Lin Jingheng by himself, he wouldn’t even bat an eyelash at the missiles. Yet, he was currently stuck with a bunch of lost lambs that just lost their shepherd after the communication was cut off; the sudden missiles scared them into thinking that the camouflage of the anti-detection was broken. The entire armed forces immediately lost their composure in panic. Disregarding those that were shocked to immobility, some who jumped the gun too quickly started sailing out in hysteria and revealed their coordinates as they ran directly into the missiles. The once fully collected fleet instantly fell apart during this chaos.

Inside the Model 3, the four students collectively took a cold breath in as they watched the 3D livestream on the screen. It took them a few seconds to finally realize that they weren’t just playing games and losing some points; these were real missiles and real mechs that got destroyed, and the people that were hit would no longer come back.

Their heart rates shot up in fear as the realization sank in.

On the other hand, it was hard to tell if Lin Jingheng was just used to remaining calm in chaotic situations or if he really didn’t care about the lives of these lambs. His facial expression remained cold and emotionless as he sent out a long-distance signal through the nearest portal directly onto Lu Bixing’s mech.

The signal that passed through the portal was immediately caught by the pirates. Yet before they could point their cannons toward the direction of the Model 3, Lin Jingheng made an emergency warp without any notice, pushing the four students into the corner with air cushions. In the midst of the pirate fleet, the Model 3 appeared soundlessly like a ghost.

At the same time, Lu Bixing swiftly set up a communication network the moment he received the signal from the Model 3. Without bothering to decode the signal message, he quickly sent out the communication passcode included in the signal and installed it onto all protected and non-protected portals around him. He then connected to the anti-detection system’s administrative control without any delays. Like a spider spinning its web, Lu Bixing glued the signal he received from the Model 3 containing the passcode onto the anti-detection system, and turned his own mech into a signal station. With his administrative access, Lu Bixing reconnected all the mechs of the armed forces through the anti-detection system and created a temporary internal communication channel.

The moment the connection was back on, Lin Jingheng’s voice rang inside all of the armed forces’ mechs: “Warp through #004, fools!”

The fools almost broke into tears of joy as they heard his voice and followed his order immediately without thinking; only to be greeted by a party of pirates right before them.

Lin Jingheng: “Missiles!”

The terrified lambs of the armed forces started firing their missiles as they cried out in terror. The pirates, while still having their attention on the Model 3, weren’t expecting their enemy’s communication network to be fixed this quickly and ate a wave of missiles head-on as they stood still in shock.

As the missiles made their way into the pirate fleet, the Model 3 wiped out the mental networks of a small dozen of pirate mechs around it. The enormous shield of the Model 3 covered the heavy mech in a bright silver light as it deflected all the missiles firing in its direction. At the same time, the Model 3’s particle cannons all came out and charged to full-power.

Lin Jingheng took a quick glance at the armed forces. These clueless earthworms of the self-proclaimed armed forces probably lacked the brain cells to comprehend complex commands. An order like ‘carry out a pincer attack on the enemy fleet’s tail end’ would likely end in some spaceship accident. Lin swallowed his own commands and ordered in the simplest way possible: “Males at Portal 0045, females at 0031, go!”

Thankfully this was a command that even a child could carry out. The mess that was the fleet of the armed forces immediately split into two teams and sailed towards the directions they were ordered to. They all swarmed into the portals at the fastest speed, looking almost as organized as a real military fleet.

The Prophet of the AUS looked at them in shock, questioning if he had been fooled all this time.

This was the first time Lin Jingheng had commanded a fleet like this; he almost felt like he was a toll guide standing outside a public restroom directing a bunch of strangers into the proper stalls. He took the Model 3 and ran directly into the closest pirate mech beside him in frustration, sending it off to the periphery of the fleet. At the same time, 3 missiles fired towards him from behind; Lin Jingheng pulled up the particle cannons of the Model 3 and shot mercilessly towards the missiles, deflecting it off to the side. Then, the Model 3 accelerated ahead of the missiles and once again disappeared into an emergency warp. The missiles that followed him proceeded to fire straight into a portal right ahead.

The pirates around the portal all yelped in fear that the portal would explode and ran for their lives. Watching the chaos before him, the Prophet scolded: “Why are you running? Don’t you idiots know that it takes a high level of energy to blow up a transfer portal? A few missiles won’t do anything, go chase after them!”

The pirates all turned back towards the portal and saw that nothing had happened. Just as they prepared to chase after the Model 3 into the portal following their strategic analysis, all the communication channels in the pirate mechs suddenly got cut off.

Just then, the transfer portal exploded without warning, wiping out the entire vanguard team of the pirate fleet.

At the same time, a team of mechs from the armed forces appeared from Portal 0045 and fired directly at the ends of the pirate fleet. While the pirates were scrambling to pull up their shields, another team of mechs appeared from their blind spot and tossed another wave of missiles from behind the pirates. After another scramble, the guerilla forces once again sunk back into the maze-like camouflage of the anti-detection system.

The once grand and fearsome fleet of pirates now became a naked rooster that just lost a fight in the midst of the battlefield.

Lu Bixing blinked dumbly and asked: “What did you put in the portals? A timed bomb?”

“A fuzed system that lowered the energy range of explosions inside the portal.” Lin Jingheng paused for a second before adding on, “Only a small portion of the portals speculated to become the frontline of battle have them installed, it’s a common setup for homefield battles.”

Lu Bixing asked: “When did you install it? How come I never saw this?”

Lin Jingheng didn’t answer, and nobody else dared to speak, leaving the channel awkwardly silent.

Lu Bixing then realized the answer: it was during the few days Lin avoided him.

He silently praised the commander for being able to remain productive and prepare for battle even while hiding around like a ninja.

Lu Bixing cleared his throat and appointed himself as Lin’s personal engineer advisor:”…They selected three areas as points of interest to fire their missiles after they disrupted our communication signals –there’s no way this was randomized. It’s possible that they used some sort of strategic model for analysis with very high accuracy. The energy emitted by a portal explosion is extremely high, and if the pirates have such powerful AIs, the entire system might be broken through very soon. We’ll need to change strategies.”

As if sharing the same mind with Lu Bixing, the supercomputer on the Prophet’s spaceship immediately collected a large amount of data the moment the explosion happened and had already mapped out a silhouette of the anti-detection system. Just like before, the supercomputers referenced the fighting styles of the Silver Ten and drew out a number of potential ambush locations around the nearest portals.

After receiving the orders, the remaining pirate fleets made their way swiftly towards the target locations.

When the fleets of the AUS mobilize, they follow orders like a machine. Yet when the former elites of the Silver Ten reigned the Union, they were like a group of barbarians that blocked off Eden just like their boss.

Perhaps all extremes in this world were meant to delve into the opposite direction as it reached its limits.

Lin Jingheng’s gaze rested on the vast and ever-expanding long-distance communication chart.

“Understood,” He said as he mapped out two retreat routes and sent them to the two teams he split up earlier. “Split up and retreat immediately. Those that don’t retreat within five seconds can leave their wills with me.”

The pirates quickly detected the armed forces’ movements: “Prophet, the enemy’s retreating!”

“Analyze their escape routes!”

Within seconds, the supercomputer collected numerous data and calculated two escape routes that weren’t too far off from the routes that Lin Jingheng mapped out.

“The Silver Ten…” The Prophet could feel his blood boiling. “Send out interception signals!”

One of the Cayley Pirates’ signature strategies was warp disruption; as long as they could calculate the landing coordinates of their enemies, the pirate fleet could send out interception signals to forcefully change the course of the warp.

Yet while the pirates were fast in sending out their interceptions, the armed forces reacted even faster under the threat of Lin Jingheng, scattering like rats running for their lives. Within five seconds, aside from a few that were slower, most of the fleet had completely disappeared from sight.

The pirates’ interception only managed to hold off the few that reacted too slowly. Without any delays, the pirates extended their mental networks in an attempt to hijack the mechs caught in their webs, only to be knocked out immediately the moment their networks touched the armed forces’ mechs. What the pirates didn’t know was that Lin Jingheng had already taken control of all the mental networks in the smaller mechs and launched a violent counterattack as if he had already predicted their next move. A powerful and fierce force of mental energy struck back at the pirate fleet and forced the hijacked pirate mechs to start up their self-destruction function.

With this brief gap in combat, the Model 3 took the handful of little mechs around him and disappeared into the energy field of the transfer portal like a tornado that just passed.

Lin Jingheng had said five seconds, and indeed five seconds later, the pirates charged in.

Suddenly, something in Lu Bixing’s mind clicked; the enemy likely had Lin Jingheng, or perhaps the entire Silver Fortress’s, battle preference data on hand. And Commander Lin himself wasn’t just aware of that fact, he was purposely playing along with it and making the enemy believe that they truly were fighting against the Silver Fortress.

“You’re so cold and emotionless on the outside, but in the end it’s all just a lie,” Lu Bixing thought in defeat. “Just how canny can you be?”

“Commander,” Lu Bixing spoke sternly into the communication channel. “The core of the anti-detection system is inside portal 001; if you continue forward, the long-distance communication connection will expose the location of the space station to the pirates.”

Lin Jingheng laughed softly from the other side and didn’t respond.

He was indeed planning on exposing the location of the station.

Lu Bixing understood the wordless message and said: “Understood.”

From the other end of the channel, Monoeyed Hawk spoke up: “Wait, understood what? Lin Jingheng, do you even know what you’re doing?”

On the side of the pirates, the Prophet wiped away all the remnants of the self-exploded mechs with a wave of particle beams and exclaimed: “Useless pirates, bring up the heavy mechs!”

Unlike smaller mechs, even if a heavy mech’s mental network got hacked, it would take a short while before the hacker could activate the self-destruction function. This gap in between would provide enough time for copilots to regain their control of the network, making it much harder to take control from the outside. The giant body of the heavy mechs entered the battlefield like chariots from the heavens, chasing after all the armed forces’ little mechs.

The game of chase continued as the pirates closed in towards the armed forces. Yet every crossfire only ended with damage on both sides and nothing decisive. The Prophet’s frustration increased as time passed by while the strategic analysis of the supercomputer on his mech continued to stay one step behind the actual battlefield.

Ares Von watched the battle on the sidelines as he realized the Prophet of the AUS was becoming a prey that already had one foot in the enemy’s trap. He praised the unknown enemy: “Amazing, truly amazing- it looks like our ‘sacrifice’ really is going to end up becoming a sacrificial lamb. Order the fleets to gather up, we’re going to prepare for a rough battle.”

At this time, the armed forces were closing in towards the area of the anti-detection system’s core.

The pirate fleet closing in was also starting to realize something they hadn’t noticed before: the energy signals coming from the direction of the space station soon popped up onto the pirate’s radar.

The Prophet was stumped at the two different energy signals he saw at first, then clapped his hands in realization: “I was wondering why they had prepared such a complex anti-detection system, it was to hide something else all along!”

Foucault, who just discovered what happened, yelled into the channel: “Shit!”

The entire armed forces freaked out at the moment, completely forgetting the order to carry out every command from Commander Lin without fail and started sailing off in the opposite direction.

Strangely, Lin Jingheng didn’t stop them.

The Prophet’s supercomputer had already caught the source of energy disruption: “We found the core of their anti-detection system!”

Like a bunch of lost cattle, the armed forces were herded back into their farmland by a wave of particle cannons from the pirate fleet. Then, as the armed forces scrambled back into position, they witnessed the Prophet take his fleet to sail directly towards Portal 001.

The armed forces panicked; if the pirates passed through Portal 001, the anti-detection system would no longer be in effect. Except their ironically honest reaction became the road sign towards the portal. After gaining more confidence about his speculation, the Prophet led the fleet closer towards Portal 001 and activated a warp; however, things didn’t go as he planned.

Portal 001 self-destructed while carrying the core of the anti-detection system.

The Prophet didn’t even have a chance to react, and the main pirate fleet was completely wiped out by the enormous energy from the explosion like a shattered vase.

An eerie silence followed as the energy waves from the explosion died down. The entire anti-detection system, being the final trap, shattered into pieces like the pirate fleet.

What felt like an eternity of silence was suddenly broken by Monoeyed Hawk’s whisper of awe: “…Holy shit.”

Lin Jingheng turned off the Model 3’s shield and ordered coldly: “Gather up, get ready to return to the base.”

The remaining armed forces followed behind him dumbfoundedly.

Suddenly, Saturday asked inside the channel: “Did we….win?”

His one line unintentionally broke the rule of ‘no chit chat’ within the communication channel.

“We won?”

“We fought off the pirates!”

“Really!?”

Some people cheered, others sobbed quietly; the entire communication channel suddenly gained new voices.

Yet Lin Jingheng still didn’t stop them. And Lu Bixing never turned off his shield as he continued to scan the surroundings.

Ares Von watched the armed forces from afar: “Ah, they’re already celebrating their victory.”