Chapter 122

Chapter 122

The static inside the mech helmet faded, and Yu Han, ignoring the fluctuating score, sank into a strange state of intense focus.

She couldn't feel her limbs being restrained in the cockpit; instead, she felt grounded, becoming the mech's "soul," standing firmly in front of everyone. At the same time, she could borrow the mech's vision, looking down from above, clearly taking in the surprised or delighted expressions around her.

She tried moving, commanding the mech to walk.

The mech obeyed her will, her viewpoint shifting in other directions, and she noticed everyone's heads turning along with the mech's movements.

Compared to the human-machine integration in a standard mech or the earlier prototype mech, her senses felt sharper, and the mech was easier to handle.

Yu Han's heart started pounding involuntarily.

If she could fight like this, combined with human-machine integration techniques, how awesome would it be to roam through space!

A fighting spirit flared up in her chest.

Whether it was the escaped old rival He Yuanqing or the legendary Mech War God Yan Feiyu, she felt like she could take them all on.

Turning to see everyone staring at her, Yu Han suppressed her excitement, obediently stopped the mech, removed her helmet, and stuck half her face out of the cockpit.

"What's up?" Meng Rong laughed. "I thought you were going to keep showing off, and I was thinking of getting in a mech to see if you've improved."

"Captain Meng! Your injuries haven't even healed yet, and you're already itching for a fight!" a team member called out from behind.

Meng Rong raised an eyebrow: "I've been in the treatment pod; I'm already moving around fine!"

Yu Han hopped down from the cockpit: "Lieutenant Colonel Meng, you were injured?"

Meng Rong put a hand on her hip, beaming, still every bit the lively captain of the Mech Team.

She said casually, "Getting hurt is just part of the job for us..."

"And you're not even taking it seriously, Captain," a team member interjected before she could continue.

"Earlier, to protect the new recruits, Captain Meng took on ten enemies by herself. We just needed to stall for time, but then Yan Feiyu ambushed her from behind. The captain's mech got wrecked, and she almost died out in space."

Meng Rong tried to cut them off: "Okay, okay, just being alive is lucky enough!"

But the team member turned to Yu Han: "Lieutenant Colonel Meng is one of the few genuinely good captains in the Imperial Army. We want to share the load, but sometimes we just can't... We've always hoped for someone strong enough to fight alongside her."

Their eager, hopeful looks turned to Yu Han.

You could tell what kind of person Meng Rong was from the vibe of the Aurora Mech Team.

Meng Rong looked around at the team behind her: "Don't put so much pressure on her. Even if she's talented, she's still new."

Then she said to Yu Han, "And don't let it get to you..."

"I understand, I'll remember that," Yu Han said, looking up. "Since I'm here, I hope to become a teammate Lieutenant Colonel Meng can count on."

Meng Rong gave a helpless smile: "You said it yourself."

The door leading out was slightly open, and their talk about the new mech, broken up by occasional laughter, drifted through the gap into the hallway.

The rest of the Mech Team was busy with their usual work or training, except for one young guy in uniform hanging around nearby.

He leaned against the wall, fiddling with a hair tie, his refined face completely blank.

Hearing another round of laughter, he dropped his gaze and crushed the hair tie wrapped around his fingers into a ball.

He didn't look up again until a long, thin shadow cast by the light slid over to his feet.

The newcomer moved without a sound, but as soon as the young man looked up, he smiled and said:

"Long time no see, Sian Deverdo."

Xi An had always found Lu Zhuo's gentle expression fake, and seeing him up close now only made him dislike him more.

"This is the Mech Team's workspace," he said, squinting at Lu Zhuo's department badge. "Aren't you from Intelligence? Got nothing to do, just wandering the ship?"

Lu Zhuo wasn't bothered by his rude question: "All departments are connected and need to work together. It's no surprise I'm passing through on official business."

"Besides, the Mech Team shouldn't be off duty right now."

"I'm just passing through too," Xi An said, turning his head away, not wanting to look at Lu Zhuo's knowing smile.

"Were you just passing by on the ship that day too?" Lu Zhuo glanced at the hair tie in Xi An's hand, his smile widening. "Even if you interrupted, it was only for that moment. You can't stop things from getting better between me and her."

"No matter how hung up you are on her, your relationship is over," he went on. "Maybe focus on yourself instead of acting like a brat. After all, you don't have the right to be stubborn anymore."

Xi An had been looking around like he didn't care, but at the word "child," he finally reacted—his brow twitched, and his eyes shot Lu Zhuo a look of irritation.

Lu Zhuo was still smiling: "I gave you some advice. Aren't you going to say thanks?"

Xi An let out a cold snort: "You'd better get the hell out of here, the farther the better. Next time you come to the Mech Team, you'd better hope I'm not in a mech."

His annoyance only made Lu Zhuo's mood better, and he hummed a tune as he walked off. After work, he timed his return perfectly, pretending to bump into Yu Han by accident.

Back on the starship after being in space, the first person Yu Han ran into outside the Mech Team was Lu Zhuo.

When their eyes met, the surprise in his turned to delight.

"What a coincidence, I was just walking by."

"Why aren't you with Miss Pendleton?" he asked.

"We're not in the same group, and our assignments are different," Yu Han said. "The tech team is full of people who lose track of time when they're researching mechs. I saw their door still shut tight."

She raised a hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and Lu Zhuo handed her a tissue. When she reached for it, he moved past her hand and gently dabbed her forehead himself.

The gesture felt natural, like he'd done it a hundred times before.

"Being back on the Aurora feels a little different, doesn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah, the situation the Imperial Army is in has changed too," Yu Han said.

They walked side by side down the Aurora's long hallway. Lu Zhuo turned his head, and the window glass reflected their moving shadows. Yu Han kept her eyes forward, while he only caught her profile and his own eyes, which occasionally gave away his hesitation.

She was indeed a member of the Imperial Army, but her beliefs didn't quite align with it.

—Don't make excuses for being wishy-washy.

Felix would definitely say something like that.

"Lu Zhuo? Lu Zhuo?"

Yu Han's voice sounded far away, but it eventually snapped him back to reality.

"What are you looking at?"

She set her hand on the windowsill, gazing out at the enormous celestial bodies hanging motionless in space.

Lu Zhuo scrambled for an excuse: "Just wondering why the Dawn Legion is camped out so far away."

Yu Han smiled. "Isn't that your intel department's job?"

"Well, we're both on guard against each other now, so neither side can easily get intel on the other," he said.

Yu Han glanced at the fork in the path ahead. "The Mech Team and intel dorms are on different sides, so I'll head back first."

"Rest up."

He suddenly leaned in, brushing a feather-light kiss across her forehead, then pulled back.

So quick that a soldier walking by, flipping through files, paused mid-step, stealing a glance in their direction, wondering if he'd seen things.

Yu Han blinked, finally reacting.

"Sneak attack again?"

"Or would you prefer that I do it in front of everybody..."

Yu Han cut him off: "No way, that'd be a bad look."

Lu Zhuo just smiled, saying nothing.

"I'm actually heading back now."

Lu Zhuo smiled and nodded.

He stayed put, and Yu Han walked off toward her destination without a backward glance.

Only when Yu Han vanished around the corner did Lu Zhuo finally move.

As he turned, he caught a glimpse of someone in his peripheral vision, but pretended not to notice, strolling off like it was nothing.

He'd said all there was to say. If the other guy insisted on following, that was his own problem.

Xi An stood a short distance away, silent, his face dark.

·

Inside Fort Kademlon's central command room, the garrison was staring at the real-time tactical display.

Red dots marking the Dawn Legion were scattered around the fortress with no rhyme or reason, their movements lacking any tactical logic.

The garrison had long since gotten used to this routine.

Even before the Dawn Legion launched a full-scale assault on the Empire, they'd regularly harass the fortress like this, and had even tried using such tactics as cover to seize control.

But Kademlon had been built from the ground up to be a tough nut to crack—it had rarely seen any real incidents, and even fending off rebel guerrilla raids had become boring.

Admiral Valen walked into the central command room as usual to check on the fortress's counter-guerrilla operations. The garrison had plenty of experience with this, so unless something unusual came up, he didn't need to micromanage.

One by one, the red dots on the tactical map blinked out—today's guerrilla raid by the Dawn Legion was about to fail again.

Just as Admiral Valen was making his rounds, static suddenly filled every screen in the command room.

Before anyone could panic, Admiral Valen's orders snapped everyone back into focus.

"Sound the fortress-wide alarm. All personnel, man your battle stations."

"All fortress guns, including the main cannon, start charging."

"Notify all regional commanders—the Dawn Legion is attacking the fortress again."

From years of experience, he knew the Dawn Legion was making a large-scale jump, and the jump coordinates were dangerously close to the fortress—otherwise, there wouldn't be this kind of interference.

At the very least, a fleet. At most... well, the battlefield could change in an instant, and he couldn't easily predict it.

The interference would fade soon. Admiral Valen settled into the commander's seat, and like everyone else in the room, held his breath, eyes locked on the main screen.

The static vanished, but what appeared before them wasn't the massive fleet they'd expected.

Everyone in the room froze, staring at the colossal object filling their view, recognizing the patterns on its surface as mountain ranges and city clusters from a planet.

Admiral Valen shot to his feet, his voice hoarse: "The Dawn Legion... those madmen!"

Before them was Peripheris—the prison planet of the Eleventh Administrative District!

Flames were already rising from the prison planet's surface.

Admiral Valen barked orders: "Activate fortress defense mode! Protect the comm towers and gun emplacements first. Send another message to all regional commanders—request reinforcements!"

Then, in a calmer voice, he added: "Prep the escape pods. If things go south, evacuate non-combat personnel first."

The enemy had prepared well before the jump—their fleet launched into flight the moment they arrived, swarming toward the fortress like a swarm of bees.

Author's note:

None