Jingheng Lin licked his lips.
His lips were cracked. The tang of blood and the tiny brain made it slightly easier for him to concentrate. If the high fever and the mental strength overload the antibody caused didn"t count as much of a problem, the dehydration did.
He dragged out the emergency repair tools in the inner parts of the mech and checked the power system -- normal.
Since Primalien still needed him to guide the way for him, it was impossible for him to give him a mech that couldn"t travel.
Jingheng Lin quickly and neatly dismounted one of the sixteen cooling fins.
Every cooling fin on the mech was two meters wide and tall, and all were about three centimeters thick. Smart regulation chips were installed on their upper left corners, and if you cut them open, you could see a special low temperature radiator core flowing in it. Each of the cores were approximately palm-sized, and could maintain super cold temperatures for months. After they expired, they would be gathered up on one side, regularly pushed out.
Of course, the radiator cores couldn"t directly touch the skin. Normally about ten degrees below zero, the expired ones were instead friendlier.
Jingheng Lin removed several radiator cores that had already expired, but weren"t discharged yet. He stuck them directly on himself, packaging himself into a human shaped ice pack, forcing himself to cool down.
The bird youth squatted down beside him and watched, melancholy showing in his eyes, him doubting that this person, whom he had fished out with much difficulty, had not much left to live.
"Don"t worry," Jingheng Lin said, "At this speed, we"ll be back on the pa.s.sages in less than a day, and there"ll be supply spots on the pa.s.sages."
Plus, after a day, Primalien would think that the Rainbow Virus in his body had onset, and would definitely show up.
"What"s your name?" Jingheng Lin asked.
The bird youth considered it for a while, but then shook his head as if he was embarra.s.sed. It made sense, as Primalien did possibly address him in some way, but that was definitely not a respectful one of any sorts......As to his own name, he probably forgot it long ago.
Jingheng Lin then asked again, "Can you read?"
The bird youth still replied with a shake of his head. Then he opened his mouth to say something inaudible.
Clearly he could speak human language. But his morphed tongue and vocal cord forbade him from making normal sounds, so he could only make similar shapes with his mouth. With context, Jingheng Lin could understand the individual words, but when it came to extended sentences, he found it difficult. The two of them stared at each other for a while, unable to communicate. The bird youth curled up in despair, his flat arms round his knees. He looked down, like an insecure bird wrapping itself in its wings.
Jingheng Lin tested him half in earnest, half in jest. "If you know Cow, how come you don"t know who I am?"
The bird youth shook his head, stretching out two fingers at him with difficulty. Then he kept trying to mouth a word to him, and on the third try, Jingheng Lin understood it through his fever seared eyes.
He was trying to say the word "save".
"He saved you twice?"
A shake of the head.
"He saved your life, but you"ve only seen him twice."
This time, the bird youth nodded.
The two of them, unable to understand what the other was trying to say, communicated for a while with a ton of blatant guessing and difficulty. Jingheng Lin roughly understood a story he did not know was right, or rea l-- from what he heard, many years ago, for some reason, Cow had saved this bird youth once. And not long ago, because of trading, Cow met Primalien, who loved to shop at black markets, out in extraterrestrial areas. The bird youth, who was staying close to Primalien, remembered him. He gave Cow a hint to some degree and told him the news that pirates were about to invade.
Jingheng Lin pretended that he finally understood, but did not actually believe it.
He thought that this story sounded like those fake ancient novels sold on the side of the streets. An entire article of "chivalry" and "repaying debts of grat.i.tude", with a theme that described how ancient people had virtuous morals and how the height of people"s morality nowadays were going downhill.
Ignoring how cliche this "repaying debts of grat.i.tude" story was, just the fact that Primalien allowed the bird youth to get close to Jingheng Lin and let the two of them out together made it impossible to be a coincidence.
Jingheng Lin pretended he was drained of energy and exited the mental network. He shifted the mech to autopilot, closing his eyes to rest.
After some time, when the bird youth thought that he was asleep, only then did the bird youth approach him tentatively. He observed him for a while, and put out a hand above his forehead and breath to check his temperature. Then he found a blanket from somewhere, hesitating as he did not know whether to cover the person using cooling fins or not.
At last, the bird youth rolled the blanket into a thin roll, placing it lightly on the man"s abdomen. Then he used a clean towel to delicately wipe the thin layer of sweat on Hydrophis"s face. He placed a rolled-up towel under his unsupported neck, as if he was used to taking care of other people.
After doing all these things, the bird youth looked out the viewing window on the mech cabin"s wall out into the endless universe. There was still anxiety on his face, and he was still in low spirits.
The mech approached the asteroid belt outside the Sodo planet in autopilot. More than twenty hours had quickly pa.s.sed by.
No matter whether it was the Sodo Planet with a strong gravitational pull, or the rough asteroid belt, both of them counted as dangerous sections. Alarms naturally started to ring in the mech as they were close to these places. The bird youth was scared s.h.i.tless by the alarms" ringing and could only try to shake Hydrophis. After a while did Hydrophis open his eyes, which, when he opened them, were close to being unfocused. When his feet touched the ground, his entire body slumped on the ground, seemingly burning up even more.
The bird youth screamed in shock and tried to support him up. But Hydrophis couldn"t stand up. Every hard bone of his had become a puff pastry, but his limbs were so heavy he felt like they were filled with lead.
The bird youth circled him anxiously, squawking out as if there was a crowd squabbling around him all at once. Jingheng Lin was annoyed by the noise he was making, the veins on his forehead almost popping out. For Hydrophis"s image, he managed to keep his irritable mouth shut with great difficulty. He scourged up a bit of teeny, fake gentleness in him, "Shh--be good and stay quiet. We"re preparing for a transfer, it"s just once then we"ll reach our destination."
But at the same time, the mech compatibility had dropped to 52%. The mech let out a cold warning, "Warning, network compatibility is lower than 60%, the transfer may lead to separation from the network, pilot must be careful when operating......"
Nervous, the bird boy spoke. "Chirp chirp chirp chirp!"
Jingheng Lin: "......"
No wonder why back in the Silver Fortress, one of the spoiled brat soldiers almost went to the court-martial with his neighboring comrades when he insisted on having a pet parrot.
He clenched his teeth, "Pair transfer point. Preparation to jump confirmed."
The mech answered, "Illegal coordinate, confirm or not?"
Primalien, who was on the pirates" heavy mech, leaned forward -- Sodo"s asteroid belt was where Xin Lu entered the Eighth Galaxy back then. To the Cayley Guard"s old members, this area was way too sensitive.
Could there be a hidden underground pa.s.sage here?
The next moment, following Hydrophis"s hoa.r.s.e "Confirm", the small dot of light on Primalien"s tracker suddenly emanated a ring of energy. They had entered the transfer point. Instantly, the tracker furiously searched for a signal to re-mark the coordinates. Five minutes later, a new coordinate was dropped onto Primalien"s screen.
It was a transfer point that had never been marked before.
The men around him stared at each other, not knowing how to act. Seconds later, a pirate walked up and whispered to Primalien, "This looks like a Union transfer point, the serial code number is......"Surprise"."
Primalien squeezed out two words between his clenched teeth. "Xin. Lu."
From the tapping device, as the signal error caused by the transfer had only caused the sound coming from the device to be cut off temporarily, soon, the bird youth"s clear screams resumed transmitting, but the other person"s voice failed to transmit.
It seemed like the Rainbow virus had gone into full effect faster than they expected. Probably because malnutrition caused by the long term interstellar drifting had affected his immune system.
Primalien gave a small wave of his hand. "Prepare to jump."
Hydrophis, finishing the last jump, had dropped out of the mental network as expected and lost consciousness. The unmanned mental network floated in the mech body in a mess, yet they were deep in the dangerous asteroid belt. The bird youth was desperate, shoving him hard, but it was no use. And at the same time, the mech suddenly let out alarms, the bird youth looked up all of a sudden--no need for a mental network, he could see the black, swarming fleet of pirates endlessly surging out of the transfer point!
The unmanned mech was quickly remote controlled by the pirates. At the same time, the communication screen in the mech cabin lit up. Primalien"s face, mixed with both kindness and twisted sickness, almost filled up the entire screen. His viper-like gaze shot out of the screen, staring at the unconscious person with undisguised hunger. The bird youth stood up, trying to use his tiny frame to block Hydrophis out of his view.
"I"m surprised, actually surprised. So this is the site where the Union b.a.s.t.a.r.ds invaded the Eighth Galaxy from a long time ago. It was somehow found by Spencer -- that smelly bug. Thankfully the fates are on our side this time," Primalien looked at the bird youth, "You did well this time, little kingfisher."
The bird youth"s eyes widened in horror.
"You like him? It"s fine, he"ll be yours from now on," Primalien said, "Now, bring your trophy back, and we"ll spray some insecticide into the smelly bug"s den......whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, youngster, relax. Don"t be so agitated."
Hydrophis had woken up without anyone noticing. He heard the full conversation between the two and had his hand around the bird youth"s neck.
More than twenty hours of fever and lack of water had him on the brink of dehydration, the aggressive Rainbow virus pulling away the last bit of strength in his body. He looked like he was about to drop down any second and was on his last breath.
A pathetic "squawk" emitted from the bird youth"s throat, as if trying to explain something. Hydrophis--Jingheng Lin finally had the chance to spit out the words he had been holding back for the whole day: "Shut up."
"Stop struggling," Primalien said, "Your mech is in our hands, your map is in our hands, and now you"ve opened this door for us with your own hands......what, how does a taste of the Rainbow Virus feel like?"
Hydrophis"s entire body swayed unsteadily. "What?"
Primalien laughed once. The next second, the mech, having its mental network invaded by the pirates, slid into the pirate fleet against its will. Hydrophis tried without success to take back control of the mental network without success. But his resistance was getting weaker and weaker, and he was almost unable to stand straight himself.
At the moment, all of the pirates" mechs had finished jumping, sailing out of the transfer point "Surprise". Primalien stopped the useless talk with what was already in his bag. He quickly checked the pa.s.sage map, confidently traveling into the "unknown" underground pa.s.sage in the lead.
The safe pa.s.sage in the asteroid belt was very narrow. The mechanical fleet of the pirates couldn"t spread out, and could only transform into a long and narrow formation from the originally spread out one.
This time, the advance team that was in charge of capturing the mech brought up the rear instead. The medium mech that had picked up the "Beijing" mech before easily extended its net towards Hydrophis and his companion again......but what the pirate carrying out the pick up mission didn"t see was, in the warehouse where they stored sc.r.a.p metal, on the small mech Beijing, which was almost a sc.r.a.p itself, a "vase stand" dropped onto the ground without a sound and transformed into the shape of a man.
Right at this moment, everything flipped over.
The bird youth suddenly felt the burning hot hand around his neck stop trembling, and the man laughed lowly beside his ears.
The next second, from the medium mech that just extended its net, an extremely powerful mental network suddenly spread out, covering the entire advance pirate team in the rear almost instantly.
Six medium battle mechs had their mental networks taken away at the same time, the brutal backlash leaving the pilots barely any time to react. They all lost consciousness, standing or sitting, with none of the other people on the mech noticing.
Next, all six medium mechs loaded missiles simultaneously. It was only until the missile launch command was given did the pirates on the mechs sense that something was wrong, but it was already too late.
The small mech Jingheng Lin was in hit the net. The medium mech that picked him up instantly jumped the second it caught him. At the same time, the tracker in the bird youth"s body was completely shielded by Zhanlu. They disappeared right before Primalien"s eyes!
Thirty released missiles struck the "Surprise" transfer point simultaneously. The transfer point, packing giant amounts of energy, was lit up by the missiles, triggering an unimaginable explosion. The whole asteroid belt was stirred up, even causing a time and s.p.a.ce collapse in a short distance. The pirate fleet, which was contracted into a line, was instantly destroyed over half. Dozens of mech vaporized in the explosion before they could project a shield!
Bixing Lu had arrived where the Beijing mech had disappeared.
Lin had lingered here for a while. He seemed to have found something off, but no matter what he discovered, it was definitely not within the internal network"s range, or the base"s communication center would have reacted. He must had let Zhanlu do remote scanning using transfer points nearby.
The way using transfer points to remote scan was similar to how remote communication worked, and Bixing Lu was familiar with it. The only problem was that he did not have Zhanlu.
"Scientists nowadays use AIs to scan, so the primitive humans nowadays can only use the exhaustive method to eliminate the possibilities one by one. Ah, technology, such a thing that makes people love and hate it." Bixing Lu lamented. With the location where Lin disappeared at as the center, he went and checked every transfer point around the area himself. The repeating time and s.p.a.ce jumping made him want to puke a little bit, and he couldn"t help but complain, "What happened, can"t you send a message? You annoying loner."
But in the vast universe, Bixing Lu only had a pathetic tiny mech on hand, with the scanning range about the size of an umbrella. Even if he tried remote scanning, he could only scan places not far from the transfer point. He whipped through around a dozen transfer points without any result. Just as Bixing Lu was frowning over it, the mech suddenly captured a strange energy wave.
Bixing Lu gave a violent shudder -- an energy fluctuation like this had to be at least an asteroid explosion, or......if someone triggered a transfer point explosion.
Who was it? Were they out of their mind?
Jingheng Lin"s finger moved lightly, pinching the bird youth unconscious. "Zhanlu, sterilize for me."
Immediately, in the controlled medium mech, all the escape cabins and doors closed shut at his command. Highly toxic gases killed every carbon-based life on the mech within half a minute.
Jingheng Lin, with the unconscious bird youth in one hand, walked into the pirate mech, bodies strewn everywhere. Zhanlu"s voice sounded, "Sir, you"re in terrible condition, you are in continuous dehydration......"
"Just inject glucose and electrolytes," Jingheng Lin stuck one hand into a medical cabin, the corners of his mouth curling up, "It"s not over yet."
A ma.s.sacre had begun.