Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 90

Chapter 90 – We’re No Longer Fighters

The missles pierced through the dark space like shooting stars while a single dot indicating a mech on the communication channel disappeared. This was the third time Monoeyed Hawk made an emergency warp and felt the protection airbag crush into his chest; his vision turned black and he almost fell off the mental network. His nosebleed rolled down as he thought, he really is getting old.

One more emergency warp and he could probably die on the spot.

197 years old, he was still barely hanging onto the definition of youth; there were no wrinkles on his face, no signs of balding nor gaining weight. He could still earn himself a few looks from pretty young girls walking on the street with his characteristic heterochromia and aquiline nose, foolishly buying into his looks without knowing that he’s almost reaching middle age.

He had already seen too many buildings being built and then fallen, people and memories walking into fire and then turning into ashes; after a century of letting himself free in the delusion of women and alcohol, both the muscles on his body and the fire in his heart left without a word. He was no longer the passionate young man that lived and bathed in blood and violence.

“Monoeyed Hawk,” William’s voice came up from the channel, “they’re chasing us down again!”

Their small fleet was made up of veteran soldiers of the old Independent Navy, a total of a little less than 20 people slipped into ten small mechs–some people had already forgotten how to pilot a mech so some mechs required two pilots to take turns for safety reasons.

When these middle-aged men came out of their caves, they left remenicensing the spring-flavored cup of wine under the peach tree, the decade of rainstorm in the night of the mortal world. [1] They planned on lighting their own fire and bringing out their own pans for an overdue gourmet with old friends, only to find out that the rice bowls on the table were already cold–the reunion gathering turned into mindless overdrinking as these old men hold their bellies full of warm alcohol and cry. After recalling the high points of their lives, the only thing that’s left is just a cold floor full of chicken feather complaints with nothing else to say.

They were getting old; their dreams and aspirations shrunk down along with their muscles and they realized they could no longer hold in a lie as big as the Eighth Galaxy.

While on their way back from this fruitless journey, these spiritless old men only managed to catch a nearby enemy fleet when they were less than 500 kilometers away. There was no way this was an accidental confrontation because with a fleet of this size, unless it was purposely concealed, regular merchant starships and mechs could detect its existence outside half a day of travel even without purposely scanning for danger.

Monoeyed Hawk ordered everyone to escape immediately and sent an SOS signal to Qiming the moment he discovered them. The enemy fleet waiting to ambush then fired without a warning and knocked down two of their small mechs within a blink of an eye. What’s more, the enemy refused to communicate and chased the small mechs down like a cat chasing down rats.

Nobody knew why the enemy wanted to ambush them nor where they came from, let alone who gave away their exact itinerary.

“No, they have a heavy mech with them. Heavy mechs can use transfer portals to do a wide-range scan, there’s no way we can escape! When can the backups come?”

“You look at the damn map yourself and tell me how far this damn place is from Qiming,” Monoeyed Hawk pulled his sleeves up and wiped the blood off his nose, “what shitty backup, even if they come they’ll only be able to make it when we’re dead, we can only rely on ourselves!”

“What are they even doing? Playing around with us?” Someone inside the channel asked, “Say, why don’t we make a strategic concession?”

Monoeyed Hawk snorted in frustration, but couldn’t deny that this was a reasonable suggestion.

The old arms seller wasn’t some heroic soldier that would rather die than give in. Despite having a bad attitude that said otherwise, he was someone that will not hesitate to give in under extreme circumstances. As long as he lived, there was hope; that was his philosophy. He didn’t know who betrayed them yet, and dying without knowing would be a regret for him. Besides, having old men like them bow down before a fleet like this to forfeit wouldn’t be considered shameful.

This place was actually not too far from the Old Fart’s underground passage outside the Eighth Galaxy–there were two major routes in his control. One route was from the Eighth Galaxy towards the space station that the Cayley pirates discovered on accident, and the other was from the space station expanding outside of the Eighth Galaxy. The Ninth Squadron had used the latter once in order to collect supplies. Both the old residents of the space station and the supplies on the station were slowly being moved to Qiming, and because Lin Jingheng had cleaned up the remnants of the Cayley pirates without a trace, there was almost no one else that knew about that underground passage outside of the Eighth Galaxy aside from a handful of people.

All the transfer portals in the passage were protected, and without a map it would be very difficult to navigate around it; perhaps they could escape there.

Yet, almost as soon as this idea came up in Monoeyed Hawk’s mind, it vanished silently. The underground passage was still quite a distance away from their location, and was unfortunately in the direction of where the enemies were coming from. In order to make it over, they would have to face the enemy fleet head-on. With this old and crippled fleet, asking them to make another emergency warp would take their lives, breaking through a large naval fleet.

Monoeyed Hawk: “That’s actually not…”

Before he could comment, William immediately shot the suggestion down in the channel: “No way!”

Even if they were all part of the Independent Navy in the past, the members that made up the group were all from different parts of the Eighth Galaxy. The battlefields were all spread out in different places and most people had never fought side by side with their comrades. Monoeyed Hawk only had such a wide network because he was a merchant that spent years working with people, and the Independent Navy was more like a tool used to build relationships, similar to how people bring up shared alma maters in social gatherings.

Among the people that came out with him on this trip, only about two or three were Monoeyed Hawk’s old comrades, everyone else was either friends of friends or relatives of fellow veteran soldiers. All these strangers were only recently acquainted with one another after the outbreak of the mutated Rainbow Virus pandemic, so most people were still not quite courteous around each other and only William was thick-skinned enough to start talking to them without reserves.

William accused the person with just: “Did you forget the oath you took when you swore to become a soldier back then? If you want to be a coward, go ahead and do it on your own, but I won’t back down!”

The channel went silent for a few moments before countless mouths opened at the same time.

“Superintendent Yu, I understand how you feel, but we still have to look at the situation objectively here.”

“Are we going to push through if we don’t surrender? We can’t possibly make it!”

“A soldier will never surrender, but we’re no longer fighters.”

“Stop with this nonsense already. This is number 3 here, my pilot partner already knocked out and if we continue running like this I’ll be next; can y’all just be realistic here old fellas?”

“Number 4 needs to change pilots, my blood pressure is too high right now and I can’t handle it!”

Monoeyed Hawk cleared his throat: “Superintendent…”

William cut him off with a cold voice: “If they didn’t fire first and ask us to surrender, I might consider it. Except they opened fire on us first and knocked down two of our mechs, so did our four friends in there all die in vain?”

The Superintendent shifted the argument to morality and left everyone else speechless. They all secretly agreed that this William Yu might be a real dumbass; it was one thing if this guy wanted to die, but he was now waving around a flag of righteousness to force everyone else down with him. If they knew this would happen, they would’ve left him to die during the pandemic when he got infected.

At this time, the signal on mech number 6 flashed in the channel and someone by the nickname of “Grey Wolf” said: “I was the one that brought over the people on number 2 and 7, and the pilot on number 2 was my brother-in-law. I know you guys aren’t acquainted with them, but since it’s an emergency right now, let me say this in place of the dead–Monoeyed Hawk, we’ll deal with avenging the dead later, let’s focus on saving the survivors.”

Monoeyed Hawk was immediately knocked off his horse: “Yeah, you’re right. My condolences…missiles incoming, spread out!”

The crowd separated the moment he yelled the warning; then, a missile fired over like a ball of yarn being thrown out. This was a tracking missile that would automatically reroute after missing its target through an energy detection function. It swiftly changed its direction in mid-air and flew directly towards the closest mech number 9.

Within the split second of passing by the missile, Monoeyed Hawk detected the missile type on his mech as TOC-RV230, which was a model produced exclusively by the Military Council of the Union in Factory 6.

Monoeyed Hawk’s eyes widened, but it wasn’t time to think about who the enemy is: “What are you all doing, turn on your anti missile functions! You all think you can run from a missile?”

Mech number 9 frantically turned on its anti-missile system and fired an interceptor missile in an attempt to stop the enemy fire, but under high stress the pilot made a mistake and misfired before he could lock on its target.

An interceptor missile is different from an active missile; due to having system backup, the aim is automatically locked on through the computer, so the pilot only needs to send out a command to fire. Even a child can fire an interceptor without fail with some training. Monoeyed Hawk almost lost his mind over this and couldn’t imagine how this interceptor misfired.

The enemy had fearsome firepower and was well-equipped as if a god of war descended, yet the unreliable teammates of Monoeyed Hawk’s fleet couldn’t even fire a half-automated missile properly!

He recalled someone’s comment in the channel earlier—we’re no longer fighters.

They sure were in a laughable situation engulfed by complicated emotions.

The panicked number 9 mech was forced to sail around in circles by the tracking missile, so William rushed in and shot down the tracker with an interceptor. The missiles perished into ashes like a sandstorm in space.

Monoeyed Hawk thought: What a waste of a missile.

As the leader of the fleet, he decided to ignore the Superintendent’s complaint and asked to surrender to the enemy as what most people agreed to do.

He once again sent out a communication request to the enemy along with a special peace signal from his mech. Then, according to the unspoken rule of intergalactic warfare, they should all voluntarily disconnect from the mental network and hand control over to the enemy to prove their sincerity.

Before he could send out the order after delivering the message, this “middle-aged surrender-happy team” all disconnected from the network at once. The connection to the channel also cut off the moment they dropped out, and within a blink of an eye the only people left in the channel were Superintendent Yu and Monoeyed Hawk himself.

Monoeyed Hawk: “…..No wait, can’t you guys at least let me do a countdown before we jump off?”

William Yu spoke coldly through the channel: “150 years ago, I would have never imagined that I would kneel down and beg for my life with a bunch of cowardly comrades.”

Monoeyed Hawk didn’t want to argue with him and laughed bitterly: “Not even 150, if this was 100 years ago I would also pick a fight with them until I’m dead–do you want to disconnect first?”

William fell silent as if he planned on fighting until the end. Monoeyed Hawk had no spare time to worry about him as the enemy fleet was already closing in and sighed: “Prepare to disconnect…”

At this time, mechs number 9 and 3 beside him suddenly changed course.

When pilots voluntarily disconnected from the mental network, the mech would become a pilotless drone; this control was clearly an act of a person, so the enemy must have already taken control of their mental networks.

William broke his silence and called out: “Wait, be careful!”

Monoeyed Hawk lifted his gaze to see number 3 and 9 accelerate like maniacs before he could completely disconnect from his mental network. The two mechs circled around each other as if performing a dance and suddenly crashed into each other without warning.

At the same time, the connection request Monoeyed Hawk sent out was once again denied.

Not only did the enemy refuse their surrender, they even planned on toying with this small fleet before killing them!

Monoeyed Hawk cursed and yelled into the channel: “Number 3!”

William understood the message and expanded his mental network simultaneously with Monoeyed Hawk to take over mech number 3. There were two pilots on the mech, who also noticed something was wrong and connected onto the mental network. The four men crashed into the human-mech port and fended off the enemy with their combined forces.

Soon after, Monoeyed Hawk and William both retreated as the pilots of mech number 3 regained control of their mech and turned to sail away from number 9 before they crashed again.

The others quickly caught on and frantically reconnected back onto their mental network after witnessing this mess.

Little dots began to reappear in the silent communication channel like fireflies.

As the decision maker of the team, Monoeyed Hawk couldn’t explain himself after causing such trouble due to his choice. He bit down his lips, sent the map of the underground passage to William and mech number 3, and passed through number 3 and 9 suddenly without hesitation. He opened the way with a missile and charged right into the enemy camp. The enemy fleet that surrounded them scattered and expanded their mental network range in an attempt to trap him, but Monoeyed Hawk immediately opened fire at the enemy fleet.

William, after helping number 3 regain control of their mental networks, made an emergency warp while Monoeyed Hawk stole the enemy’s attention as if the two could read each other’s minds.

After catching Monoeyed Hawk attempting to cover for his comrades to flee, the enemy troops reacted by expanding the heavy mech’s mental network over the surrounding transfer portals and relocated the two small mechs escaping the battlefield. They then split up evenly to chase after the mechs; Monoeyed Hawk heard a large crash coming from the side wing of his mech and proceeded to remove the damaged parts without a second thought. The next moment, the damaged part exploded while the backup energy system was also crushed by the enemy missile. Monoeyed Hawk accelerated his mech to the max under the firestorm, slashing through the enemy fleet like a sharp blade.

Because the position of the mechs made a drastic shift, the overlapping mental networks quickly moved away from each other. The small mechs that had their networks taken over by the enemy were suddenly relieved of their pressure. Two pilots who were still more abled quickly recovered their networks and made an emergency warp to a completely different location without any orders. They could then most effectively split up the enemy’s force by running off on their own, starting with number 4, number 7, then number 8….

The small gathering of eight mechs split up into seven different directions with only one small mech remaining inside enemy territory to contain the fire. Before these gangster-like small teams of mechs, the enemy troops also quickly responded by condensing their forces to split up and focus on capturing only one mech.

Monoeyed Hawk sent out a communication request earlier and SOS signal on behalf of his people and was now containing firepower, making him look like some sort of leader of the group. The enemy stopped firing their missiles and surrounded him; a powerful wave of countless particle cannons made its way toward his shield along with their invasive mental network, ready to capture him alive.

He gave himself a large shot of relaxant without any hesitation and felt every inch of his muscles getting ripped by knives. Yet his human-mech sync rate still dropped steadily.

There was a rumor that there was a guerilla warfare strategy the Independent Navy used in the past called the “wolf pack”–under absolute disadvantage, they would leave a small group of people as bait to run into an enemy fleet like a suicide team. They would contain the enemy fire and find an opportunity to make an emergency warp while others flee into different directions. If the enemy commander was careful enough, they would give up chasing after the individual mechs flee and take down the bait. After escaping, the ally fleet would retreat immediately and attack the enemy in the dark in order to let the bait find a chance to escape.

But these “wolf pack” strategies only remained in theory in most occasions. Emergency warping would send them off to faraway coordinates, and once the fleet formation was broken, the communication network would also cut off. Everyone that had been on the battlefield knew the feeling of making an emergency warp in desperation under fire, so anyone that managed to escape would peak their heads out like someone drowning, finally getting a breath of air. Unless the bait under enemy pursuit was someone that they must save, nobody would willingly retreat and save them.

How would you know an escapee will come back?

What would happen if you were the only one foolish enough to go back while everyone else fled?

In addition, if the bait was really someone that important, nobody would agree to let them take the position in the first place. Not to mention that the skill level required to fight solo against a full naval fleet was extremely high.

Either way, Monoeyed Hawk didn’t expect them to come back. Even if they did come back, would these old men’s physical condition and mech piloting skills possibly pull a high-level guerilla warfare against the enemy?

That’s why he sent out the map of the underground tunnel before they separated.

A decent life of approximately 200 years was enough, he had no regrets.

The armory sent out a warning: the missiles have been depleted and there is not enough energy to fire particle cannons.

It didn’t seem like the enemy was planning on completely wiping them out, Monoeyed Hawk thought optimistically, otherwise they could’ve just swept the fleet with a wave of high-energy particle cannons in the beginning instead of wasting too much time. Perhaps the enemy planned on killing them one by one, leaving a few to torture mentally and then using them as a hostage to negotiate with the people behind them.

But these people would never guess that the armed forces behind them was Lin Jingheng; this kid had a heart of steel that wouldn’t even blink at his own father being held hostage, let alone anyone else.

Monoeyed Hawk almost wanted to laugh as he thought about it and pitied these enemies wasting their efforts. His head throbbed in pain when the mech sent out an alert that the pilot’s sync rate had dropped to 51% and would be stripped out of the mental network very soon. Monoeyed Hawk’s vision began to blur; he habitually accelerated his mech while attempting to go through the music database inside the mech to see if there was the old anthem of the Independent Navy. Yet he was at the end of his rope and couldn’t even complete a simple task like that.

Human-mech sync rate 51%, 50%—

Alert, sync rate declining—

Alert, about to disconnect from the mental network—

Qiming was about 40 sailing days away from the coordinates of Monoeyed Hawk’s last signal location.

When Ares Von discovered Saturday’s little patrol team outside of the space station, the patrol team was less than 20 sailing days away from the station. Due to lack of skill with the self-defense squad, they were forced to travel through normal routes and took 20 hours before reaching the frontlines.

And if they took another 20 hours this time, then they were really going to fish up some corpses.

Therefore, the members of the self-defense squad witnessed for the first time what a “Union elite” was in their first battle alongside the Ninth Squadron after merging.

The former self-defense squad members all picked up a relaxant before departure and were only assigned as backup pilots. The entire main expeditionary force was made of soldiers from the Ninth Squadron; Saturday was completely dumbfounded when he saw the released itinerary. Normal routes would require passage through about 90 transfer portals, but their itinerary only had less than 30 transfer portals.

“How is this possible?” Saturday asked, “the distances between these portals are too far, and the energy within a portal isn’t enough to send us directly to the next one!”

“Have you heard of ‘cross warp’? Every mech today will have two extra backup energy sources because we will need to activate a similar control as an emergency warp the moment we pass through a transfer portal. The energy will overlap, and bam—” The pilot gave him a pat on the shoulder, “enjoy this rollercoaster ride, my friend!”

[1] 桃李春风一杯酒，江湖夜雨十年灯 – Excerpt of a poem by Song Dynasty Poet Huang Tingjian that refers to the longing of reuniting with a close friend that was separated for 10 years.