The ecological cabin was so tiny that it was capable of holding only one person. Bixing Lu"s small mech was not high-level either. Among the self-destructed heavy mech, the dangerous asteroid belt, and the flying remains of mechs, the action of catching between these two "little things" between was quite suspenseful —— looking like a great forest fire, with a short-legged squirrel jumping to catch fallen pine cones from the tree.
The ecological cabin flying with high speed dragged the small mech getting out of control. At the moment of contact, the catching net got torn. Under such high speed, the solid catching hand was completely useless. Bixing Lu dared not to drag. He could only speed up at once and turned an angle to release the second catching hand in the constant turbulence of the mech. Before it could stabilize, one corner of the mech hit a piece of debris.
Bixing Lu hissed, he had no time to check the damage of the mech. With a quick hand, he built a simple intranet within a short distance using the broadcast by the mech itself, trying to contact the ecological cabin, "Lin, can you hear me? You better slow down or lose some weight, I can"t catch you!"
Jingheng Lin didn"t respond. But at the next moment, Bixing Lu heard the voice of Zhanlu.
Zhanlu said courteously, "Good evening Headmaster Lu, it is a pleasure to see you."
Hearing the voice of the AI that was as calm as usual, Bixing Lu felt much rea.s.sured. At this time, his mech just went through a breath-taking race against death, but the pilot himself almost let out a sigh of relief. "Well, Zhanlu, I"m not having a good evening at all. I"m almost freaked out by your master."
"I agree with you. It was a terrible night." In the incessant explosion and fire, Zhanlu kept a uniform speed of speech, " This ecological cabin was imitated by my shaping function. It is not a real ecological cabin, unable to supply constant nutrition and treatment."
Bixing Lu just said," No problem, I have them all..."
Then he heard Zhanlu continue, "As a mech core without a mech as myself, in this s.p.a.ce environment, I can provide the master protection as much as a mech shield does. And the battery can only last three minutes. Now, entering the last minute countdown —59,58..."
Bixing Lu was too irritated to breathe out," Zhan, Lu!"
It cost 6 million per gram, not to mention in First Galaxy Currency, to build such garbage!
How much corruption was raised by this decaying Military Commission!
However, it was clearly not good timing to talk about politics with AI.
Bixing Lu pushed the acceleration of the mech to max, ignoring the defense system screaming around him — because under this speed, a hit by a little stone would easily break the shield of the mech kill him.
Under such suicidal acceleration, Bixing Lu caught up with the ecological cabin in 30 seconds. Then he turned suddenly, and reversed the course of the gravity simulator of the mech.
All of a sudden, all non-fixed objects in the cabin — including the pilot himself, was thrown out by the abrupt gravity change.
At the same time, the gravitational field expanded outward like a vacuum cleaner and sucked the ecological cabin up.
Zhanlu"s countdown was twenty-five seconds away.
Bixing Lu opened the receiving device instantly, the voice of the catching net rubbing with the cabin door was not comfortable.
But at the same time, it was not only the ecological cabin that was sucked up by this little gravitational field but also tons of asteroid and mech debris. A hostile cabin door suddenly got into the catching net and entangled with it, colliding towards the receiving door before the ecological cabin.
Bixing Lu was forced to shoot it with particle cannon, but the ecological cabin was also bounced off.
Fifteen seconds left on the countdown.
Bixing Lu pulled the gravitational field back in place without warning, sliding down from the cabin door to the ground, almost breaking his tailbone. Meanwhile, the mech slightly deviated from its original pathway, brushing past dozens of asteroid with a wild acceleration, throwing out the last spare catching net, and precisely entangling the ecological cabin.
Ten seconds left.
Bixing Lu pulled the power unit to the direction of emergency braking abruptly. The mech came to an emergency brake like a psychotic, letting the ecological cabin roll through the open receiving door through inertia.
The receiving door closed immediately, and the pressure adjustment regulation was started rapidly — the time required for the surrounding air pressure to be adjusted to the condition in which human beings could live, it takes exactly ten seconds!
In ten seconds, the tiny mech flew out of the self-destruct range of the heavy mech.
Bixing Lu jumped up and ran.
A slight click came from the receiving door, indicating that the pressure had been adjusted. The door opened from the inside. At this moment, the shield of Zhanlu"s ecological cabin fell apart into pieces. This time, Zhanlu didn"t even leave any power for a greeting, turning into a mechanical hand and hung on one side.
Bixing Lu held the door, and had a view of the man on his side. He almost knelt down, staggering towards Lin. He extended his hand tremblingly and pressed on Jingheng Lin"s carotid artery, "Lin..Lin!"
Jingheng Lin"s head hung powerlessly alongside with his fingers.
"Say something," Bixing Lu"s voice somehow cracked, " Please, anything!"
Bixing Lu took more than ten seconds to steady his shaking hands, then he felt a slight pulse. He just wanted to stand up, but instead, he slumped back with a weak leg.
The medical cabin on the mech was summoned by him. Bixing Lu gritted his teeth, picked up Jingheng Lin, then pushed him inside the medical cabin. The man"s weight was so light that it was beyond his imagination. His lean bones were so close to his hands, he even felt as if he was holding a pile of burning charcoal with his bare hands.
The medical cabin scanned the wounded body faithfully and reported immediately.
There were tons of results, as much as the barrage when the top singer in the universe sang the first song of a concert.
Such words including "the Rainbow Virus", "severe dehydration", "severe mental overload", "breakthrough of gunshot wound" were so harrowing, far beyond the range that a non-medical staff could handle. Bixing Lu had no idea what to do and had to leave it all to the automatic program of the medical cabin.
The tiny mech didn"t get much damage during such high speed just then. However, after escaping from the range of self-destruction, it crashed into several particles due to the distractions of the pilot. The shield was already weak, making the cabin shake as if it suffered from earthquakes.
Bixing Lu chased after the sterile medical room, and at the same time managed to pull himself together to drive the tiny mech circling in the Desert of Death.
The door of the sterile medical room closed before him, shutting him out. There was only a tiny window — no bigger than one"s hand — for him to look around. For a moment, the gla.s.s was blurred by his breathing.
Bixing Lu lowered his head, putting his forehand on the gla.s.s window.
Right now, he came to realize that his head was emptied and all his senses were swallowed up.
The top one mech core rolled its mechanical fingers and hung over on one side, without any sense of beauty, nor any sense of power. It looked no better than the inferior toys of the kids in the base, which had blood stains on them.
Bixing Lu glimpsed at him and thought, "What would you do if I didn"t come?"
Zhanlu could only protect you three minutes. After three minutes, you would be exposed in the universe with wounds all around your body. You might die immediately due to the cosmic rays. You might be suffocated in seconds, your capillaries and some cells might break, and the water inside you might be evaporated by the radiation of the self-destructed heavy mech. You might rest forever in the Desert of Death, in the middle of countless comet cemeteries. You might become a desolate particle.
Yet the comets could be resurrected, how about you?
Didn"t you say that the Silver Nine Squadrons were outside of our galaxy?
Didn"t you plan every step carefully, and were ready to catch Prince Cayley for all using that rubbish base of Cow as a bait?
Didn"t you suppose to rea.s.sume the Ten Squadrons to save the IU like a Messiah, and become another legend stepping on bones and fire?
Jingheng Lin laid inside the medical cabin, letting the medical instruments do their job. Bixing Lu couldn"t help to clean the window and tried to confirm what it looked like. He stared into the vital signs on the screen of the medical cabin, and thought, "Can"t you die without talking big?"
It was painful all over Jingheng Lin"s body — Primalien under the control of the chip shot him across his abdomen, yet the ecological cabin shaped by Zhanlu in such hurry couldn"t cushion or balance as the real one, so he lost his consciousness the moment they ejected from the heavy mech. Not to mention, his high fever and tense nerves made him unable to rest completely, and illusions and nightmares continued to rise.
He seemed to return back to his youth, back at the Lu"s house.
Jingheng Lin didn"t spend much time in the Lu"s house very often —he grew up around Xin Lu fooling around in the military and went to the Black Orchid Academy after he was fourteen, staying there to reside most time of a year. He would only stay in the Lu"s house temporarily during holidays and politely greet Mrs.Lu.
In fact, he didn"t like living at the Lu"s house because the Lu"s house occupied such a large area that General Lu"s lieutenant, secretary, and even the whole team would often come and stay with their own rooms. Occasionally, Mrs.Lu brought back her students with a crowd, it was like an illegal spring outing organization. For the young Lin Jingheng who hated not being able to be deaf, the environment was too noisy with these men coming in and out.
He vaguely knew he was only dreaming, but the visions of the Lu"s house were as authentic as a thorn in his throat. He looked down on his fingers— it was a young man"s hands that were clean and slim, not yet tainted with hardships and battles.
From not far away came the voice of a man, who frowned habitually and turned to hide under a tree. Someone on the tree tossed a pinecone towards him. He caught it without lifting his head, "What are you doing?"
General Lu was leading a group of gardening robots to cut the trees with his sleeves rolled. All gardening robots were programmed to make sure every branch was cut in place. Yet, Xin Lu still wanted to command them with his poor gardening knowledge.
"Don"t cut the branch on top... Stop telling me what is standard, I am the standard!" Xin Lu hung his arm on the thick branch and turned to him, asking with a smile, "Do you like kids?"
Jingheng Lin answered with a poker face, "No."
"Ow, how can you be so alone?" Xin Lu said, "I"m telling you, a home can"t be a home without raising something. Isn"t it wonderful to have some kids or animals hanging around to play with you?"
Fifteen years old Jingheng Lin thought the whole world was stupid and had no interest in hanging around. He simpered and put on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to block Xin Lu, reading his "a.n.a.lysis of Cla.s.sical Battles" under the tree.
His headphones were pulled out the next second. Xin Lu jumped on the ground like a gorilla, holding his shoulders and lowering his voice, "Your teacher"s wife didn"t want to have a child before then, I didn"t dare to mention it. Thanks to you!"
Jingheng Lin said, "Oh, I made you bored."
"Due to your temper." Xin Lu slapped him on his back cheerfully, "When you came here in the beginning, you were quiet and gentle. Your teacher"s wife liked you at first sight. But who knew you were a wolf cub who didn"t get close to her for so many years..."
Mrs. Lu was gentle but reserved. She treated people nice and warm, but she was never too enthusiastic. Two implicit people coming together could never be so enthusiastic, so of course, there was no spark. Jingheng Lin used to consider himself to be a burden that was taken to the Lu"s by Xin Lu"s own initiative. He tried not to hang around before her, afraid of getting in their way.
Hearing this, the young man was shocked, and was stunned to think, "She didn"t hate me?"
Such faint thought made him antsy immediately. He was like a young beast that had been paid too much attention to and became trembling.
Yet Xin Lu, with a heart bigger than the First Galaxy, didn"t notice at all. He got excited and ruffled his hair, "...I told her, this child too hard to be familiar, why don"t we have one for ourselves and raise from childhood? Guess what, she didn"t say anything! Silence is acquiescence! You will have a little brother or sister soon!"
Jingheng Lin nudged him off, savinh his own hair from the overexcited gorilla.
"Oh, you are jealous?" Xin Lu smiled at him with his white teeth, "Don"t worry, even with a younger kid, you will still be dad"s favorite."
Jingheng Lin stood up with a poker face, "Stay away."
"It"s not cool to be jealous!" Xin Lu yelled at his red ears, "I tell you that, it"s great to have a kid to call you big brother. He will stick to you and believe everything you ever boast... just like when you were a kid! Hahaha..."
That laugher was gradually left behind him, spread out, then faded.
It penetrated through time, penetrated through memory. When Jingheng Lin looked back, the vivid image of the Lu"s house had long disappeared in the distant depths of the stars, falling apart inside his memory.
Headache attacked him like being pinned with a needle, followed by indescribable dizziness. Jingheng Lin moved unconsciously. He felt there was something hard next to him, so he tried to hit with his head hard, trying to relieve the sequelae of mental overload.
But the antic.i.p.ated pain didn"t come. He b.u.mped into a warm hand. That man caught him with his palm, then pushed aside his hair that was drenched with cold sweat and stabilized his head, "Shh...hold it, just go to sleep, I"m here...Get him some sedatives."
Jingheng Lin opened his mouth, but before his intention to say that he had resistance to all sedation and sleeping drugs so they wouldn"t work for him, the syringes had been stuck in.
In a trance, he saw a familiar person, and it looked like Bixing Lu.
Jingheng Lin thought vaguely, "How can this dream be continuous?"
That warm hand was all around his head and temples, pressing his acupoints. The vague words rang around his ears, and he couldn"t catch one word.
Lin Jingheng"s eyelids became heavier and heavier, and they finally closed silently.
Bixing Lu sat beside the medical cabin and held Jingheng Lin tight until he was finally breathing evenly. He breathed a sigh of relief. Jingheng Lin"s body dropped eventually after breaking out in a sweat.
The blood over Lin"s body had been cleaned up, and the nutrient solution was being fed constantly through his veins. He was so weak that one could see the rhythm of blood vessels underneath his skin. Bixing Lu wiped off the cold sweat on his forehead and stared at him for a while. He came to himself and moved away his eyesight uncomfortably. He coughed, then asked like a decent man, "What on earth did you do to yourself?"
Of course, Jingheng Lin couldn"t answer.
Bixing Lu turned his head around, and pointed out his finger on Jingheng Lin"s temple, "Hey."
Jingheng Lin"s head tilted, making his face seem sharper. There was no color on his checks, and little cracks were on his pale lips. With his eyebrows twisted, some rare fragility of his appeared.
Bixing Lu"s heart beat heavily for several times. The mech that had almost left the asteroid belt moved in an "S" pattern. He moved back Jingheng Lin"s head, and his pinky finger accidentally touched his lips. This made him become like a cat that walked through an electronic door. Under such confusion, he wanted to jump up right away and retreat miles away. It felt like a feather got stuck inside his throat and could not be cleared up. He explained to the unconscious Lin, "I, I...I didn"t take advantage of you. I didn"t mean it."
The screen above the medical cabin was monitoring the brainwaves of the patient, indicating that the patient was under deep coma, leaving the monologue of the young scientist Bixing Lu ironically.
Mr. Lu, a young scientist, moved around bewilderedly and had no idea how to figure out why his heart was pounding from his experiences before. Confused and ignorant, he turned to science for an answer — this genius turned around to an empty medical and said, "Scan my current hormone levels."
A thin and long needle came from the medical cabin, piercing through his vein full of hormones. The first conclusion was that the phenethylamine concentrations were above normal. The medical instrument asked with no emotions, "Did you take any related pills?"
Bixing Lu stood rigidly, "...No, I am not on drugs."[Note]
Soon, dopamine, oxytocin and norepinephrine... results came out nonstop. Science indicated that his endocrine system was changing and releasing tons of hormones for another man in the mech.
Bixing Lu raised his hand and covered his eyes.
Such unfamiliar feelings that had never been seen for more than thirty years were identified by medical instruments. It was as if his ident.i.ty had crossed the clear road, and these feelings got stronger and stronger like waves, almost swallowing him. Bixing Lu dared not to look at Jingheng Lin anymore and escaped from the medical room.
Jingheng Lin woke up after twelve hours. With slight movements, he noticed that he had been disconnected from Zhanlu"s mental network. He found himself lying inside a medical cabin with all wounds taken care of. There was no viscid feeling around his naked skin. Someone else had put a thin blanket around him.
The last thing he remembered was flying out from a self-destructed mech — who would pick him up under such circ.u.mstances?
Some missing pirates?
Jingheng Lin moved his hands and legs and pulled off the nutrition needle directly. He felt the mental network of this tiny mech, and noticed that the pilot was in some unsteady mental condition. The power of the mental network got strong and weak from time to time, making it seems easy to take over control of the mech, or... it may be a trap.
Jingheng Lin didn"t move rashly, grabbing the clothes neatly folded on the side. He checked the clothes in and out to make sure there was no extra stuff on it, then took them to hold, and pushed out the closed door of the medical room.
Then he saw that pilot "in unsteady mental condition".
The tiny mech was no big place. Under the coverage of the mental network, Bixing Lu was able to sense anything even if a little noise was made. He knew it immediately when Jingheng Lin woke up. His hands were covered with sweat in a few minutes. He pretended to be very surprised, greeting in an easy way, "Finally awake, how are you feeling? Zhanlu is out of battery, and the backup energy on this mech is not enough for him. I"m afraid the hibernation mode cannot be secured until we return to the base."
Jingheng Lin was stunned at first, suspected himself of having some kind of illusion due to oversleeping, and asked, "Why are you here?"
"Beijing was lost from the locator and I came out to search for you, just in time when you exploded the transfer point." Saying this, Bixing Lu became serious, "Lin, I think we must have a talk. How can you..."
Jingheng Lin interrupted him, his temples beginning to pulse, "You said you scanned the energy fluctuation of the explosion of the transfer point and still came?"
Bixing Lu said, "I saw..."
Jingheng Lin felt as if fire burned through his skull, "You flew into the Desert of Death, and jumped into the Desert of Death at least once?!"
The author has something to say:
[Note]: In addition to being one of the love hormones, phenethylamine is also an antidepressant, hallucinogenic and ecstasy ingredient. You can"t eat it blindly, it"s all government-controlled*~
In addition, yesterday I saw a comment about what would it be like if a person jumped out of the s.p.a.cecraft. I can"t find where, I"ll reply here. We humans are not totally closed balloons. Generally speaking, we won"t explode. As long as we don"t hold our breath and explode our lungs, we can live for more than ten seconds in a relatively peaceful vacuum.
(*pi used an internet slang here, 河蟹了, literally river crabs,
a slang term refers to the Chinese government"s censorships)