Can Ci Pin - - - Chapter 93

Chapter 93 – The Backdoor on the Biochip

It was as if this fleet descended from the heavens and struck everyone by surprise.

Without a greeting, the Model 3 released a capture net toward Monoeyed Hawk and dragged the small mechs into its large body.

Monoeyed Hawk frantically shifted gears to sail into the capturing net: “Wait…”

He shifted gears too rapidly and overloaded the gravitational balance inside his mech. The protection airbag shot out and filled the interior of the mech, knocking its pilot to the wall.

The small mech was locked onto the Model 3’s launching deck immediately after a rough landing that almost sparked fire on the tracks. Monoeyed Hawk fell out of the airbag’s cushion and yelled: “Which one of you in the Ninth Squadron is this, are you fucking from the same family as your damn boss Lin Jingheng?”

After the air pressure readjusted, a row of medical capsules rolled into the launching dock and carried away all the old and exhausted pilots. Then, the soul of the heavy mech, Zhanlu’s voice rang up in the broadcast.

Zhanlu said in his robotic voice: “It’s a relief to see you in such good spirits, Mr. Lu. Please allow me to first pass on a message from Headmaster Lu. He’s been waiting outside the medical chamber for a while and would like to give you a hug right now.”

Monoeyed Hawk was taken aback by this news and pressed his lips down: “Oh, why is he here too?”

Zhanlu didn’t answer his question: “Next, here’s a message from Commander Lin. He said ‘look at the way you’re running away so pathetically with just one fleet of enemies, maybe you should take your retirement life easy.’”

Monoeyed Hawk didn’t expect Lin Jingheng to come to his rescue and wasn’t prepared to bite back at this taunt, so he could only swallow his frustration and shock like a cat drenched in water glaring at the person responsible for getting him wet.

The enemy fleet chasing after Monoeyed Hawk retracted their forces in shock and turned back in an attempt to escape. Giving up on the hostages they were about to capture, they turned to see the backup forces from the Eighth Galaxy firing at them in a short confrontation.

The guerilla forces were clearly no match for an organized navy and suffered a great damage within the short confrontation.

“Commander.”

Lin Jingheng: “They’re in the way, sail pass them.”

Two small teams of mechs flew by the two sides of the enemy fleet that was stopped momentarily by the Eighth Galaxy forces. Like two sharp blades slashing across its prey, the two teams from the Ninth Squadron sailed past the Eight Galaxy forces and charged right into the enemy’s formation.

A 360 degree round of particle cannons opened fire simultaneously with the mech as its central point, creating a sphere of deadly line of fire as the mechs sailed into the enemy fleet.

Saturday, who was watching the battle on the mech, stared wide-eyed at this formation–this high-speed attack was nothing like he’d ever seen before. Every single mech was precisely located at the deadend of every cannon shot like a perfect rubix cube; even the slightest mistake here could cost a comrade’s life.

Every nerve on Saturday’s body stung as if he could feel the horror of getting caught in friendly fire in the midst of this battle.

Yet, as this breath-taking line of fire shot out and pierced through the enemy fleet like a sharp knife, the organized fleet instantaneously broke down into pieces. The Ninth Squadron’s formation was perfectly executed with no mistakes while a silent signal interception was sent out at the same time.

Lu Bixing waited in front of the medical chamber as he monitored the communication networks of both the enemy fleet and their own; this was a skill he copied from the AUS after paying a visit to their headquarters, and it was the first time he used it in combat. “The signal tracking is very precise, the accuracy of overwriting long-distance signals is above 99.5% and uses less than 16 cals of energy to activate, perfect.” He said.

The enemy’s communication cut off and the fleet formation fell apart within seconds. This seemingly organized fleet was stripped of its facade as the heavy mech was stuck within the center of the fleet. The surrounding mechs sailed around frantically without direction, and could only pretend to maintain its threatening presence before the Eighth Galaxy backup forces.

Another small team beside the Model 3 sailed out without a sound during the mess and split up into two different transfer portals. The two small teams then rounded back towards the enemy fleet and stopped right in front of the enemy’s vanguard mechs, shot a wave of particle cannons to disrupt the vanguards, then followed with another wave of missiles.

Firing missiles into a group of small mechs gathered together would yield a deadly result. Any mech that got hit and self-destructed would create a chain reaction of explosions within the group from its aftershock, causing an extremely high-density explosion within a short amount of time.

Tonight, a bloodthirsty coven may have led the way for the ambush fleet, but they failed to catch the danger creeping up behind them. The result was a bloody festival on a quiet night.

It took only the blink of an eye from the Ninth Squadron making its appearance for the enemies to drop their guns; before Monoeyed Hawk’s team could react, the fleet that chased after them was already an eagle without its wings. The commanding heavy mech couldn’t wait until their technicians repaired their internal communication and made an emergency warp to escape, leaving the rest of its fleet behind.

Unfortunately, they were not the only one with a heavy mech this time.

The scale of Zhanlu’s network was unmatched by any average heavy mech. The moment the enemy made their emergency warp, Zhanlu expanded his network through the transfer portals and covered the area of their escape. Unable to run from Zhanlu’s network, the enemy mech suffered another wave of strong mental network attack the moment they landed and knocked the pilot out. Before the backup pilots could regain control of their own mental network, the gravity system and backup energy supply were both removed from the main body of the mech, causing another moment of panic. Soon after, a team from the Ninth Squadron followed up immediately with three missiles that hit the tail of the heavy mech, knocking off the launching dock from the main body.

The air inside the mech leaked out of the hole that was the launching dock mere seconds ago and disrupted the air pressure. In addition, without the artificial gravity inside the mech, everyone inside was thrown around the interior like ping-pong balls by the protection airbags with no time to put on a proper space suit. A majority of the people inside the heavy mech fell out into the deadly space environment while the limited ecopods left on the mech were taken by the selfish commanders and operational personnel. While the people left behind frantically crawled into the ecopods, Zhanlu’s network locked on its targets before they could make their escape.

Immediately after, the Ninth Squadron released their capture nets all at once and while skillfully avoiding scraps of waste in space, captured both the people exposed in space and the ecopods out of the heavy mech.

The Ninth Squadron swept the battlefield like a violent storm, short yet deadly. The backup forces from the Eighth Galaxy retreated back 10,000 kilometers away as they watched this heavily one-sided massacre in awe.

Soon after, they received a communication request. The backup forces accepted the request in hesitation only to see a warm and friendly looking young man appear on their screens: “Good evening everyone, I am the director of the special wartime planning committee. On behalf of the Union Government of the Eighth Galaxy, I thank you all for choosing to side with us during times of crisis.”

His voice was like a soft spring wind that blew gently through the battlefield, only to pave way for deadly missiles following behind him. No missile misfired as the remaining enemy fleet was being cleared out one by one in the background as the young man spoke. Lu Bixing gave his short pep talk about collaborating and working together for a better future in the Eighth Galaxy without giving any mind to his violent surroundings, passing on homemade cookies of hope to all of his dumbstruck audience…even if the cookies all had smog and ashes on them.

While Lu Bixing was busy passing out his cookies, Monoeyed Hawk struggled out of the medical capsule and broke into the Model 3’s control room with an arm over his injured rib-cage: “There’s a traitor among us, they must have news from us already so we can’t let him go!”

Lin Jingheng didn’t even bother lifting his gaze: “Worry about yourself first, who said you can walk around on your own? You sound like you need a….”

Lu Bixing rushed out immediately after finishing his speech: “What are you doing out here, old man!?”

Lin Jingheng pulled his sneer back and turned his head around awkwardly as he swallowed down his “you need a leash” comment.

Monoeyed Hawk wasn’t in the mood to nitpick the commander’s attitude and said: “I heard a lot of planets and stations sent out backups, but if I was the traitor I’d also send out some backup to pretend I was on their side. This traitor must be one of the last ones to dispatch their navy with more mechs than supply ships because the former would be much easier to sneak into the battlefield…”

A Ninth Squadron soldier connected over to the Model 3 before Monoeyed Hawk could finish: “Commander, team 4 is currently tracking all the backup forces from the Eighth Galaxy. Five minutes ago, a mech fleet left the small planet Heart of the Ocean. This planet declared independence not too long ago and witnessed that one of the government official’s mech was among the fleet that sailed out, should we siege them?”

Lin Jingheng glanced over at Monoeyed Hawk. The older man’s face was half covered by harsh shadow from the lighting inside the control room, his eyes completely blank as if he was a wax statue.

Lin Jingheng: “Siege and capture them alive.”

“Commander, the fleet that ambushed Mister Monoeyed Hawk’s team had equipment and supplies from the Union, these are the newer models that came out before the war broke out. The hostages also have biochip ‘opium’ injected into their bodies.”

“Are you surprised? We’ve blocked them off from entering the market here plenty of times already, it’s about time they send out a force to test our military.” Lin Jingheng lifted an eyebrow, “but wasn’t opium supposed to significantly increase mental strength? Look at how pathetic they are even after getting an artificial boost, just how garbage were they before?”

“Tiger Shark from the Heart of the Ocean declared independence half a month after the war broke out and immediately placed three laws into effect. One of them prohibited residents of the planet from leaving the atmosphere and cut off all ties from the outside. All visitors were not allowed to come near the planet within two sailing days distance, so the fact that he welcomed you all into his base was likely a trap in itself.” Lu Bixing quickly flipped through the data Zhanlu provided and picked out the important information for Lin Jingheng and Monoeyed Hawk, “the energy waves we’ve captured around the Heart of the Ocean had been very suspicious; even though they only have a population of six million, it was likely that the planet contained massive military supplies and arms. Hey dad, I remember this guy; he used to do business with you and was also an arms merchant.”

It wasn’t too hard to understand; you can’t have two big fishes in a small pond, and perhaps Tiger Shark chose to use opium for its ability to strengthen his soldiers. Perhaps his ambition and ego were too great to bow down to a weak ‘Eighth Galaxy Government;’ he planned out this dangerous ambush by buying power from the Union.

Monoeyed Hawk staggered a bit as he stepped up and dodged Lu Bixing’s attempt to help him up.

It was truly a strange feeling; the two young men before him both had some connection to Lu Xin that reminded Monoeyed Hawk of that person whenever he looked at either one of them.

When he saw Lu Bixing, he remembered the century of friendship and could feel his heart soften into a pillow that could make him forget all his life’s worries and frustration.

Yet when he faced Lin Jingheng, he remembered the anger and grievances during the Crisis of Wolto. His heart would grow a layer of hard metal shield with thorns that stabbed him sharply from the inside, empowering him with rage and pain.

Now that Superintendent Yu perished into dust, his old ‘friends’ all fled away for their lives, he needed this anger to help him stand up on his feet.

Monoeyed Hawk said in a low voice: “Tiger Shark and I are brothers that went through life and death together. We were once stuck inside a mech together and floated endlessly for at least 50 days.”

Lin Jingheng answered without emotion: “Even if you two spent months in the same uterus together, it wouldn’t explain anything. Zhanlu, find a dark corner for the old man, he needs to cry and whine for a bit.”

Monoeyed Hawk: “…..”

Lin Jingheng knocked all his weakness with one harsh hammer to the point where he couldn’t even spew out a punctuation mark. In frustration, he could only release his anger on someone else: “Lu Bixing, that damn head of yours is absolutely fucking hopeless!”

Lu Bixing, who just got dragged into the mess as collateral damage: “……”

City of Angel Fortress.

The head guard frantically attempted to walk inside Lin Jingshu’s office, only to be stopped by an AI secretary and be informed that the lady had a guest in her office.

The head guard had no choice but to wait outside impatiently for about an hour. Sweat rolled down his face as he walked around in circles until he finally saw Lin Jingshu lead her guest out.

Lin Jingshu courteously walked her guest out of her office, looked up to see her guard and nodded slightly to let him in. The guard might have been tall and presentable on the outside, but he was actually a coward that would sweat a river anytime he ran into small inconveniences and was not a very dependable person.

The good news was Lin Jingshu didn’t need to keep a wolf beside her. She asked: “What is it?”

The guard closed the door and answered in a hurry: “Madam, ‘the Eagle’ was completely annihilated.”

Lin Jingshu turned her head slightly in an expression that was hard to decipher as she asked gently: “How?”

The guard cleared his throat anxiously as he watched her expression, more sweat rolled down his face as he answered: “The Eagle recently got in contact with a small warlord in the Eighth Galaxy who claimed that the people sieging our products were the people called ‘the Eighth Galaxy Government’. The government just happened to send out diplomats to make talks at the same time, so the Eagle decided to take this chance to take these people as hostage and pry some information about the Eighth Galaxy government out of them…but who knew that a random fleet jumped in the middle of this…they….”

Lin Jingshu held her chin up with her palm and asked innocently: “A fleet of demons and ghosts?”

The guard’s throat rolled as he answered in hesitation: “…the Silver Ten.”

A hint of surprise flashed across Lin Jingshu’s face for an instant, then she turned her head down and giggled slightly as if she just heard a joke during a party.

Chills ran down the guard’s spine as he saw her smile. He instinctively wiped the sweat from his hand on his pants, then opened up his personal device and projected a military recording onto the office wall: “I have two videos here. The first is from the military camera from the Eagle’s heavy mech, the recording was sent real-time to us.”

Lin Jingshu watched her subordinates get captured by the enemy and sighed: “If I knew they were such garbage, I wouldn’t have given them such high-end equipment. It’s not cheap to buy from the military factories.”

“Madam, the Eagle is as strong as a standard military fleet, they only lost because the enemy is too powerful. If you look at the level of this assault, it could only be…”

Lin Jingshu interrupted with a carefree tone: “I don’t care, I don’t understand anyway. If you lose you lose, garbage is garbage, you don’t need to give me all these excuses. I need someone to pay for my mechs, I can also take lives if there’s no money. You can use your own or a pretty young girl’s life, I’m not picky.”

The guard’s face turned pale as he struggled to say: “There’s….there’s one more video, please…you must take a look….”

Lin Jingshu looked at him for half a minute with her clear eyes. She smiled in satisfaction as she saw the guard’s legs tremble in fear and said: “Sure.”

The camera from the second video wasn’t very clear and looked as if they were looking at something through someone else’s eyes with very limited perspective. Whoever the person was, they were clearly being carried away and couldn’t walk properly.

“People on the Eagle who carried arms were injected with chips that are slightly different from the average opium,” the guard said anxiously. “According to your orders, we need to be able to control them at any given time so we kept a backdoor on the biochip that can allow us to hack into the chip under special circumstances. We can then share the senses of the person carrying the chip and artificially manage their hormone level.”

Lin Jingshu nodded her head patiently and didn’t interrupt him. She scanned through the enemy’s mech through the hostage’s eyes with slight interest. She even lifted a fascinated smile when she saw that the greenbelt of the heavy mech was filled with little mushrooms.

“The enemy blocked out the biochip’s ability to send out signals but doesn’t know about this backdoor, so we received the recording of what the Eagle’s commander saw on the enemy mech right before they removed his biochip.”

All the soldiers on the mech stood upright like properly trained personnel, sending an air of cold but stern order within the mech. Lin Jingshu’s expression grew slightly more serious as she watched the recording. Then, the people dragging the hostage stopped; the hostage shook a little as the camera panned upwards when the hostage lifted his head.

A man quickly walked by the hostage while a soldier beside the man reported something to his ears. As the man walked by the hostage, his gaze passed the hostage for a few moments as if he was looking at someone standing behind the hostage. Soon after, a robotic arm appeared from the floor of the mech and attached itself onto the man’s shoulder.

Lin Jingshu froze up on the spot like a lifeless puppet.