Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 68

Chapter 68 – Uh…With Just This Adaptor

“Zhanlu, cover the entire headquarters with your network. I want to see a full panoramic image of the infrastructure including all natural and artificial energy reactions.”

“Yes sir.”

“Limit the monitoring access, verify the basic communication system, and block out all mech connection ports. Send the completed panoramic image to everyone’s personal device once it’s ready, and order the Ninth Squadron to split up into six teams to clean up the headquarters for our use. Operational base name is….” Lin Jingheng wiped his hands clean as he scanned

the headquarters

and paused slightly, “temporarily called SPMF1, codename Base One.”

The former soldiers of the Silver Fortress would not even dare to question the commander’s naming, even if he’d decided to call the base “chihuahua” – only Zhanlu had the guts to speak up against all political incorrectness: “Sir, according to the universal code of the Union, terrestrial military bases do not have names that start with the letter ‘S’, and…”

Lin Jingheng pointed at him and ordered: “The panoramic image!”

As a high-spec AI with an incredible processing system, as long as there was enough battery, Zhanlu could multitask without any issues. He continued to nag and complain as he scanned and created the map that Lin Jingheng requested. Within seconds, a large 3D panorama image of the entire facility along with lines of complex data appeared in midair. At the same time, a more compact version of the image and data was sent directly to every soldier’s personal devices.

Zhanlu also finally ended his rant: “……Codename ‘SPMF1’ has already been used by the Silver Fortress.”

Satisfied with the results, Lin Jingheng didn’t lose his temper at the AI and only responded calmly: “Fuck the rules of the Union.”

The sudden disturbance left the praying followers of the AUS in panic. Yet while they attempted to reorganize in response, Zhanlu’s vast mental network engulfed the entire facility like a giant surveillance camera that allowed the soldiers of the Silver Fortress to disarm them immediately. The members of the AUS were dragged out of their little huts by the armed mobiles like scraps of garbage.

Members of the AUS were all dressed in outlandish outfits as if they were in a wild historical costume party; Lin Jingheng scanned the crowd quickly and felt as if he just walked into a giant gathering of freaks.

Amongst the crowd was a single middle-aged man who was cleanly dressed in comparison, earning himself an extra second of Commander Lin’s attention.

The middle-aged man didn’t seem like a high-ranking official as he quietly followed the crowd without causing a commotion. From the lack of reaction from the other followers when they got dragged away by the armed mobiles, it didn’t seem like he was anyone of particular importance.

The man looked about 200 years old from appearance; lines of wrinkles surrounded the corners of his eyes, but his pupils were clear and calm as if they were looking out a window. His hair was cut short, his fringes on the side whitened from age. Unlike the others who had many accessories on their clothing, the man wore a simple but fitting beige coat that lifted slightly with the wind as he got pushed by a robotic arm off of the armed mobile. His posture remained still and collected despite being in a hostage situation, looking uncharacteristically well-put-together.

When the middle-aged man passed by Lin Jingheng, he immediately called out the commander’s identity: “Commander Lin.”

Lin Jingheng stopped at that instant. The armed mobile also made a stop, its mechanical arm raised up as a laser gun reached out from inside the mobile and pointed directly at the temples of the elderly man.

Lin Jingheng’s gaze sharpened: “What did you call me?”

The elderly man answered cordially: “Commander Lin Jingheng; I’ve seen photos and videos of you before, so I am quite familiar with your looks. Allow me to introduce myself: my baptismal name is Hope, a nameless member of the AUS. It is an honor to finally meet you in person.”

A nameless follower was perhaps an accurate description; anyone worth a title wouldn’t have been sent to the Eighth Galaxy with Ares Von as most of the main forces of the AUS were busy spreading their influence in the other galaxies.

“I gave a detailed introduction to your boss, Ares Von; but from his expression, he still firmly believed I was an imposter, even on his deathbed. And you are sure that I am Lin Jingheng just based on one look?” Lin Jingheng gestured for the mechanical arm to release Hope from its restraint, “The death of ‘Lin Jingheng’ was confirmed by Eden, did you not hear about it?”

Hope dropped to the ground as the mechanical arms released him violently, but did not show any signs of anger or fear. Instead, he turned to give a nod of thanks towards the armed mobile and answered the commander kindly: “I have heard of this, but I don’t believe that you are simply a man obsessed with plastic surgery. That you were able to take control of the headquarters here must mean that Ares Von’s fleet has been completely annihilated, correct? To be completely honest, Ares Von was like a wild animal with very extreme values. He often played games with the organization, and has…defied nature by altering his body, making him a very hostile figure within the organization. The reason we still offered him a helping hand was because we saw military potential in his madness. Within the last few years, he had organized countless strategies against the Union with his careful planning and experience in battle; he was a formidable opponent even amongst pirates.”

Hope paused and looked up courageously to meet Lin Jingheng’s gaze.

Perhaps the infamous commander didn’t have the rumored look of a thug in his eyes, but the middle-aged follower didn’t shy away from those grey eyes and spoke,implication heavy in each word: “Eden is not perfect, am I right, Commander Lin?”

Lin Jingheng sneered slightly, but didn’t deny it: “Maybe.”

“Nothing is perfect,” Hope continued slowly. “Including mankind. From ancient times, the wise man slowly conquered the food chain, the environment, earth itself, the Milky Way, and now the

Eight Galaxies. From then on, time, dimensions and space…virtually every untamed living organism has been eradicated by mankind and then reborn through genetic rebuilding. In the Union, natural occurrences like climate and weather are all controlled by man. We’ve crossed the line of mingling with nature and tapped our hands in creationism, arrogantly acting like gods– Commander Lin, what do you think will become the next enemy of the wiseman?”

Lin Jingheng was shocked; he’d never met anyone crazy enough to attempt to preach at him even after being captured as a hostage.

He was already unwilling to talk, but his desire to even give a snarky reaction dropped to a negative at this cult missionary attempt. The commander turned his back expressionlessly and walked away.

“Commander, did you know? Since the first city of human civilization was built in ancient times, mankind has voluntarily given up their freedoms to build walls in order to keep themselves in. Thousands of years passed, and mankind only learned how to fight amongst themselves over worthless ownership of property and land like insects inside a container. And when the insects age, the next generations follow their example. They’ve now given up the freedom of their minds and spirits, along with the freedom of their senses in favor of building a giant web of connection that allows everyone’s thoughts and feelings to become transparent in the form of quantitative data. Everyone’s thoughts are now buried in a sea of information controlled by others in an endless process of invisible brainwashing that forces them to follow the current of the mainstream. This was already dangerous in itself, and now mankind even built Eden! Mankind has finally given up on the freedom of their souls!” Hope announced loudly behind the commander, “Commander Lin, Eden is just a beginning, what are we going to give up next? The Union doesn’t have freedom or equality – we are all just fooling ourselves into believing it does! If mankind continues like this, we’ll become extinct!”

Lin Jingheng kept walking.

“Please open your eyes,” Hope sighed deeply as the drivers inside the armed mobile dragged him away. His coat danced along with the wind as the man looked forward like a savior facing the guillotine. The followers around him were touched by his earlier words and turned quiet; some began to tear up while others began chanting with Hope about enlightenment.

“Open your eyes, my brethren,” they chanted, “may nature bless you.”

The mumbling voices of the followers merged into a large stream until they were gone with the wind..

Lu Bixing arrived two days later onto Planet Qiming. Due to the technological differences between the AUS and the Union, the energy plug of the mechs didn’t match with the ports; in other words, the charger didn’t match up and required a mechanical engineer to fix.

Lin Jingheng was at a meeting on the fourth floor of the new operational base when Lu Bixing landed. The meeting room had a spherical window that reached all the way to the ground facing directly towards the mech receiving dock, creating a very open space. Inside the meeting room, a commissioner of the Ninth Squadron was giving his report on developing a channel to replenish military supplies. Lin Jingheng listened in without a word, but the unamused expression on his face had everyone else in the room standing on their toes.

Just then, a large sound from the mech dock pierced through the noise-canceling walls of the meeting room. Lin Jingheng subconsciously turned to look and saw one of the Ninth Squadron’s old mechs parking, letting out a whole circus as its door opened.

The members of the newly formed Self-Defense Force rolled out like a party; some people had perhaps never stepped on an actual planet in their life and got a little too excited. There were some that jumped in excitement, others who reached their hands up to cheer, and others…who laid on the ground to study the soil.

This circus completely killed the deathly serious mood of the newly obtained operational base.

Lin Jingheng: “……”

The reporting commissioner saw the expression on the commander’s face grow grim and slowly shut his mouth.

Lu Bixing casually strolled down the mech after most people stepped out. Perhaps the message that the soldiers sent back had been worded poorly, but Lu Bixing didn’t seem like he was here for work and was actually here for a vacation. He wore a very stylish long coat paired with shoes that carefully managed to stay on the fine line between casual and formal. The dress shirt he wore was a slim cut that fitted nicely to his waistline with the collar propped up fashionably. The whole look was completed with some snazzy shades on his face, along with a little Rickhead minion holding his bag at his side. The other three students plus a ferocious Monoeyed Hawk as entourage seemed like a bunch of cheap bodyguards around a rich model who were there to send the model off to his next fashion show.

Maybe there was a telescope built in the sunglasses, but Lu Bixing only scanned around a few moments before he locked his gaze at the meeting room. From far away, he gave a bright grin and waved in the direction of the room.

The commissioner studied the commander a little and noticed that even though his expression was still dark, his eyebrows lifted a little and the frown on his face returned to a straight line. He then attempted to continue: “…..Shall I continue on about the future development of plan two?”

Lin Jingheng lowered his gaze and finally gave a response: “That won’t work out, move on to the next one. Just say the main points, make it short.”

Despite it being a rejection, it was at least an advice from the normally-wordless commander. The commissioner finally received a clear order and could almost feel tears run down his cheeks as he efficiently reported the rest of his plans.

By the time this meeting was over, Lu Bixing had already fixed the charging problem with an electromagnetic configuration.

“The Eighth Galaxy was originally a hub of underground trades, so I’ve seen plenty of wild mechs. You know a lot of private mech designers work with underground engineers, so they’re super flexible and don’t care about whether something should follow IU or Intergalactic regulations. As long as it functions as it should, anything goes, even if they don’t fit on the launching decks or tracks.” Lu Bixing said off-handedly as he held a digital pen in his hand inside the mech dock. “So my suggestion is, if you don’t know the sources of your mechs and weapons, it’s best to set up a ‘negotiation platform’ or something and make all ports removable so that you can adjust them as necessary.”

Turan stood dumbfoundedly: “Isn’t that a lot of work? How long will it take?”

“If you let me do it then it shouldn’t take too long. Let me borrow the Ninth Squadron’s repair team, and should be done in about a week.” Lu Bixing reached out and pinched the digital pen, turning it back into a dot of light as it returned to his personal device. “I was the one that rebuilt the mech storage my dad used back on Cayley.”

Turan, who had never seen this kind of rural civilian scientist, and stared in surprise: “Just…with this adaptor thing…”

“It’s an electromagnetic configurator.”

“….The electrowhatever, if we had that back on the Silver Fortress, we’d still need to gather up those useless losers of the Third Squadron for a meeting that’d last about the whole afternoon while we got people to take meeting notes. We’d then need to go through the Captain of the Third Squadron, the Military Council, and the Secretary Office before it got approved and sent to our boss’s hands. Boss’d then need to approve that before the Third Squadron could take the proposal to request for funding and send a report to the Council, which’d take at least three days even if you ran faster than light.” Turan grabbed his hands in sincere thankfulness, “Three days, and you took care of this in five minutes. Professor Lu, having good looks really saves the world!”

Lin Jingheng’s voice passed through like a chill down her spine: “Sure, once we getcommunication back, you’ll be in charge of informing the Third Squadron that they can all commit suicide right on spot.”

Turan frantically let go of his hand and stood up straight.

Lin Jingheng nitpicked at her without shame: “Captain Turan, you’re quite familiar with the procedures. So tell me, when did I say you could bring those useless animals from the station over?”

Turan took the blame for no reason and felt that she was wrong from inside the Eighth Galaxy and out: “I…”

“It was me.” Lu Bixing quickly pushed the sunglasses above his head, “I asked them to come help. Saturday and them are pretty good helpers, and most of them don’t want to return to those gloomy days after experiencing war firsthand. The Self-Defence Force reassembled and wanted to become your secondary fleet. Elites may be elites, but even if the whole Silver Ten comes over they wouldn’t be able to watch out for the Eighth Galaxy, right? We’re going to need a new fleet at some point.”

Lin Jingheng had no comments after those words. He pretended nothing just happened and left quickly after inspecting the dock that Lu Bixing just reformed.

Lu Bixing nudged Turan and asked in a small voice: “Do all your mechanics have to get the commander’s approval to everything they do?”

Turan complained in mental exhaustion: “Of course, the Union’s Military Council is steeped in bureaucracy. There’s a lot of eyes on the Silver Fortress, and if you don’t follow all the internal procedures, everything will be sent back by the Council. Even our commander can’t help it, he had no say in this. Those tech geeks of the Third Squadron also have way too many ideas, making it so that the Captain’s always following the commander around with a giant stack of proposals. He got shot down and insulted every day by the commander because of this, but for some reason he never got sick of it and would even pay to live inside the commander’s personal device.”

Sometimes Lin Jingheng would purposely mess with the Council when he received the proposal and wouldn’t even write ‘approved’ on it, only make a little mark– a period meant it was approved, a question mark meant the proposal needed further detailing, an exclamation mark meant it needed to be sent back to revise, and a X mark meant ‘you’re a dumbass.’

Lu Bixing quietly digested this information.

A rural military mechanic didn’t need to attend meetings nor did he need to speak with anyone; he only needed four students with their notebooks to complete the negotiation platform in one afternoon. Lu Bixing raised his invisible tail up to the sky proudly as he excitedly made his way to find Commander Lin for his turn to be scolded.

The reporting time ended up taking longer than the actual planning, yet Lin Jingheng didn’t scold him nor send him away with markings on his papers. He only listened silently as Lu Bixing rambled on about his project, and even managed to pull out the main points from the rant to ask three questions. He then nodded his head and answered: “Sure, you can try it. Let me know if you run into any problems.”

The sunglasses were still resting on top of his head as Lu Bixing stood up after finishing the report. He leaned on

Lin Jingheng’s desk with both arms and shot a cheery smile at the commander.

Lin Jingheng had a bad feeling.

“It’s already past dinner time,” Lu Bixing said. “We finally made it on land — are you still going to eat your nutrients?”

Lin Jingheng quietly let out a sigh. Even though this unconventional engineer could replace a whole team of mechanics, he was still quite delicate at heart and needed extra care and attention. Lin Jingheng placed his hand on his personal device and was ready to call in an AI to serve this spoiled brat.

“Don’t bother, AIs also have rights,” Lu Bixing grabbed his wrist. “Commander, we’re only 300 kilometers away from the biggest city of Qiming, let’s go out and eat.”