Chapter 36: Stealth Rock
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Thump! An extremely off-putting thud centered at Ye Chong’s right fist as countless cracks densely formed towards the surrounding in a frenzied manner. The black entrance storage door soon cracked like a blooming flower, of white silver tainted with crimson patches. It bloomed rapidly in front of Ye Chong.
Smash! A glass shattering like-sound rang as the tiny bits of metallic flower withered petal by petal. Hush! Shush! The crack soon caused the door to have its pieces fall down in a heavy shower.
Ye Chong glanced at his right hand, where an open wound bled with its flesh lacerated. He couldn’t help but shudder upon the bloody mess. Apparently smashing a door open barehanded is highly dangerous. I should refrain doing that too much in the future!
Without hesitation, Ye Chong stormed into the storage area.
He then immediately found a series of mech warp switches neatly arranged on the rack by the wall. As if a famished wolf which bumped into a feast, he pounced in a hurry.
Since these were mechs for back-up, other than some of them being specialized scouting models, most of them happened to be mechs for use in outer space.
Ye Chong thought for a moment and picked a scorpion-shaped mech model painted completely black, named the “Sand Scorpio”, which had outstanding speed and a wide scope of vision. The body was satisfactory and the color allowed it to perfectly hide and go unnoticed by enemies. Ye Chong didn’t pick the Sand Scorpio merely because of these features, but there was something unique in the functions that caught his eyes.
Staring at the rack, he grit his teeth. The warp switches clinked as he swept all of them into his fanny pack.
He tumbled and hopped into the cabin of a Sand Scorpio. He looked at the interface with panic, as it required him to perform a first launch set-up.
He missed Mu. Mu was so much more convenient than this. He never was required to perform a complicated set-up. It only took a drop of his blood to launch.
His eyes glared at the popping messages on the hologram while his hands moved quicker than its shadows. There were a number of properties exclusive to the Sand Scorpio and to utilize them well, Ye Chong had to go through the settings first. In the battlefield, what lies between life and death is only a matter of seconds. A slip could change things forever. He would not dare to proceed without any form of preparation.
In a panic, he might have been in a rush but he didn’t rush, instead Ye Chong carefully and calmly went through the overall settings.
Only if Mu was there… then his pathetic life would be saved. And he wouldn’t have to be so agitated at the moment!
Gu Shaoze and Number 2 sat quietly in the room, looking at each other.
Meanwhile in the battlefield, it was total chaos. Both sides had experienced pilots. Beams of laser in all kinds of colors diverged, converged, overlapped and collided into each other. The darkness of dead space was lustered by the sparks of war.
The Oak Leaves were more like an actual army than a bunch of pilots. They raided in a planned formation. Disciplined, supportive, and orderly as they helped each other out. All for one, one for all. Ten advanced pilots formed the branches of the entire army, while Fid, the crew master, was the mastermind of it all.
Man shalt not be weak under his great reputation. The space pirates of the Red Owl Beard came in an overwhelming amount against the Oak Leaves and everyone piloted a mech programmed for combat. They arrived like a pack of wolves, cunningly avoiding direct contact with the Oak Leaves and began ruffling their wings and tail without holding back. They would never stay for long on the Oak Leaves, they would just hit and run.
Judging by the situation, both parties couldn’t do anything to each other at first. But as the Red Owl Beard easily outnumbered the Oak Leaves, the scale of war gradually tilted in favor of the space pirates.
Ye Chong was piloting his Space Scorpio as he stealthily tailed behind a trading vessel. With much caution, he glanced at the chaotic situation before him. He might had seen much more brutality back at Trash Planet-12 in the past years he stayed there, yet the scene before him was still casting chills down his spine.
Countless mechs swayed, glided and exploded from time to time. Ye Chong witnessed the mechs bursting into shots of fireworks, illuminating the dark space before him. Even though he had been into numerous matches at the NRS training ground and had smashed enough machines, none of those were overwhelming enough to compete with the epic scene at that moment.
He tried to calm down the rustling in his thoughts.
Stay alive… Stay alive… I must stay alive! Ye Chong mumbled repetitively, as he attempted hypnotizing himself to remind how he could not just die there. I had stayed on Trash Planet for long enough and I had finally made my way out of there! I have not seen enough of the outside world! How could I just die here?
I can’t die! He screamed to the top of his lungs!
Puff… Huff… He gasped boldly. Slowly he caught his breath and regained serenity.
What to do now? At this rate, it would be only a matter of time when the Oak Leaves miserably lose. Even in self-content, Ye Chong knew his position well, as he might have assumed himself to be powerful and invincible, but he could barely turn over the place in such situation. He could not change what would happen in the end.
As soon as he calmed down, he started to ponder.
Considering how both parties were busy with each other, and no one had the grace to look over here… He had an idea. How about I just get onto one vessel and sneak away? I had just learned some tricks on this from Gu Shaoze a while before, it shouldn’t be a problem!
Wait, no. He turned down the idea himself as he thought about the limited speed a vessel could offer. By the time the space pirates ended the fight in glory, he might be merely slightly ahead of them. There’s no way for him to race with a pirate craft! He would be cornered in no time!
How about escaping with one of the mechs I got? Guarantee they would not notice. Well, even if they had caught me red-handedly running away, they would send nobody to go after me. Even if they would, they wouldn’t send a flock of them… If that’s the case, with only one or two of them, I still have a chance.
But mechs aren’t theoretically designed for long-term flights, as the energy gets depleted fast. It was insufficient to begin with and there was no resupply; Ye Chong had neither water nor food for necessities. If he even managed to escape, he would be starved or dehyrated to death in the boundless galaxy.
Then what should I do! He was puzzled, knotting his brows.
Suddenly, the corners of his eyes discerned a strangely crafted spaceship and it was crowded by pirates. It seemed to be the head of all pirate crafts. By then, an idea automatically popped up in his mind and it began lingering in his mind ever since.
As he shifted his sights upon a number of floating rocks a few meters away, his idea took shape.
The battle was reaching its climax as both sides began to have major injuries. Almost everyone took part in the tipping point of the fight.
This is it!
He made up his mind and grit his teeth, with the thought of risking his life. Whether he would be dead or alive, it all depended on this!
He sat up straight in the controlling seat, closed his eyes and took a specific rhythm to breathe. Inhale…Exhale…Inhale…Exhale. Consciously adjusting his muscles into relaxation, his arms reached the control panel gently, with the fingers curving naturally.
Right then! His eyes forced open, lustrously.
Dammit! He cursed softly. His hands illusively moved. Right on the fence between death and life, he did not let up. He dared to promise, and that was the time where his hands moved the fastest they could ever be.
Accelerate! Gear up! Within the spark of his eyes, he had hit the highest velocity as he drove towards the front of the vessel diagonally, as if the vessel was his nemesis.
At 10 meters away from the vessel, completely immersed in the shadow of the gigantic craft, he was still speeding up with his hands, away from split seconds crashing. Sand Scorpio at maximum speed, launched the additional engines in a bombardment.
The Sand Scorpio made a gorgeous curve as he glided it under the bottom of the vessel. There was barely 10 centimeters between the Scorpio and the vessel.
Ye Chong focused on the hologram and repeated the calculation in his mind. His hands had hardly paused. Sweat hung on his forehead. It looked like it was rather consuming for Ye Chong to perform such input.
The bottom of the vessel had a breadth about 50 meters long… at this speed, the Sand Scorpio would flee from the vessel within less than a second!
In that second, when the Sand Scorpio glided through, the smooth dark body turned into dents and unorderly lumps all over. The long sting was also kept underneath. The Sand Scorpio by then appeared to be like a random space rock from nowhere. The engines were all shut down the moment the craft fled from beneath.
Such a chain of complications done in one go within a second… Ye Chong could feel the amazing speed of his hands!
That was the first time in his life appreciating Mu’s “inhumane” marble training!
The Sand Scorpio propelled like a shattered meteorite through the group of vessels in silence.
No one in the battle noticed the existence of this “meteorite”.