Modifying the Battle Mecha

Tian Xing Jian felt dejected after seeing the firm look that the two female Federation soldiers had on him. Maybe if he were facing two ugly individuals, the fatty could boldly and confidently throw a few sentences shamelessly - "I’ve already helped you take care of the one escorting you. Quickly escape on your own."

But now, seeing these two subdued, enticing beautiful women in front of him, Fatty could not say anything.

If he threw them aside, they would certainly be unable to escape; furthermore, there was a huge chance that they would be killed while escaping or perhaps sentenced to death after being captured. There were plenty of methods to sentence one to death, and the most probable one would be to get beaten to death by the Imperial soldiers. According to the current situation in the enemy’s base, there were plenty of uses for these two female captives. Being the forward base of the Imperial Army, they did not build any camps for prisoners of war. With two beautiful Federation female captives being sent here, the fatty knew with just a little bit of thinking what they would be used for.

But now that their escorts were killed, whether or not it was done by the captives themselves, they would not be able to escape. Also, Gyaca Woods’ brutal treatment of captives was something everyone knew about. Should a single captive attempt to run away, the Imperial Army would shoot every single captive that belonged to the same section as the escapee to death. In other circumstances when they could not capture any prisoners of wars or were afraid of bringing these burdens along, the captives would be buried alive, burned to death, used as guinea pigs for scientific experiments, locked within the broken civilian spaceships to be used as drones, and many other cruel treatments.

Thinking of how these two beautiful female soldiers who were akin to flowers would be ravaged by the Imperial soldiers, Fatty could not bear to do it, but at the same time, he felt furious and kind of jealous. This was the sickness all males had. There were some things which he himself actually could not do and neither would he want others to do. But, escaping from this forest was easy. What was after that - trying to avoid the enemy’s patrol team and defense lines while bringing the two female captives across the open plains that spanned a few kilometers long before successfully escaping - was even harder than transcending the heavens.

"You girls… mn, I mean… how did you girls become captives?" Fatty felt that the current expressions of the two female soldiers were not friendly at all. Looking at himself, he did not feel anything amiss. He had also not come to the understanding that the shyness was the result of the display of his glorious self moments ago in front of the two women.

"The northeastern part of the urban district had been invaded. That was where I was captured." The beautiful pilot soon cast away the humiliation she felt from the performance of the fatty when he had stripped himself some moments ago. Pointing to the other female soldier, she added, "She was captured there as well. She is the doctor of an Air Force battalion."

"What happened to the urban district then? How far has the enemy’s attacks reached?" To ensure that there was no other Empire patrol team that would coincidently meet the three unlucky souls, the fatty continued to observe his surroundings prudently.

"The first defense line was breached yesterday night. The enemy borrowed a total of close to 200 heavy-sized mechas and 500 medium-sized mecha to bulldoze their way into our two united divisions. The team on alert charged forward in a bid to regain control of our base, yet it was too late. Even if the enemy had not taken over our airport, it would have still taken them at least a week to breach the first defense line." The beautiful female pilot prioritized more on her external appearances rather than her safety. After accepting the circumstances, she sat down before untying her hair while holding the rubber band in her mouth and attempted to comb her hair.

Her actions truly charmed the fatty. He had to spend a large amount of effort before turning his eyes away from her soft and white pair of hands.

"However, our current circumstances aren’t that bad yet. Even though the 6th Division Aviation Squadron and the backup 9th Division didn’t prevent the Gyaca Woods’ Battle Mecha Division from breaching the defense lines, they had still stalled them for over 3 hours, thus preventing them from flanking us. Most of the teams stationed in the first defense line had already safely returned without huge losses." Tying her hair into a ponytail with the rubber band, the beautiful female pilot seemingly became more vibrant and lively.

"Then right now, the situation between the first and second defense lines…" Fatty had seemingly thought of something.

"It’s not positive… Fundamentally, those regions have been occupied by the Gyaca Woods Empire. When we came over, other than small regions with people resisting the invasion, most of the remaining Federation Army had already retreated south of the Su Peng Mang River. Right now, the enemy is reorganizing their troops in preparation to attack our second defense line," the female pilot used her two hands to hold up her chin as she spoke. Her current expression was solemn.

"It’s truly the end. Somehow, what I feared has come true," the fatty sighed in despair within his heart. Even though he had assessed the overall situation from the Imperial Army’s actions and organization, there had still been some hope in his heart. But now, the situation had finally been confirmed. Surrounding them was the Imperial Army. Either they would be captured in the forest or the enemy would play hide-and-seek with them until the war ended. If not, he could only depend on his own strength to retreat to the second defense line.

Fatty’s expression was downcast. The intention in his heart revolved around thousands of different possibilities. He himself could not even guarantee that he could get out of his current predicament, and yet he now had to bring these two burdens along…

The moment he thought of something vile, he felt someone pulling on the hem of his clothes. Raising his head, he saw the fresh and pure female doctor soldier pulling it. She had an expression that seemed like a smile yet was not a smile — an expression that showed that she had more or less guessed what the fatty was thinking. Even though she was still resentful over what had happened earlier, her clear eyes were full of trust. Fatty immediately surrendered. Damn your mother, so what if he died! The more people they had, the more power there would be. Maybe he could escape if he utilized the initial plan, but where would he escape to?

Thinking about the direction he should take, he frowned. New Rome was filled with a massive military force and was definitely a no go for him. As for the urban district or military base near New Rome, they were also being occupied on a large scale by the Imperial Army and was another place they could not proceed. The only remaining safe place should be the capital of this planet, Jialipalan City.

Jialipalan City was one of the three low-lying cities of Miracolo Planet. Other than having a completely intact ecology chain in the three big lakes, it was surrounded by mountains, giving the capital natural protection. With six aviation bases and over 300 guided missiles hidden within the surrounding mountains, the Imperial Army could not easily send supplies via the air. Without any ground forces, occupying this place was merely done with words.

If the Imperial Army’s land forces descended within the basin (referring to the city), there would be complex geological circumstances, fast changing weather, and precipitous mountain ranges. Even the best ground-based Battle Mechas would have to split up. With the intention of conquering this area, Gyaca Woods Imperial Army could only gather all their aviation squadron and attack from the sky, destroying the opponent’s anti-air system and forcibly taking control over the airfield while simultaneously attacking the two expressway leading to the basin. However, these expressways had already been heavily fortified by the Federation, and furthermore, these expressways were built amongst the mountains with many bridges and tunnels. Thus, the Federation would have plenty of options to defend these places against the Imperial Army, as they could create many obstacles for them.

At the very least, even after the large scale arrival of the Imperial Army’s land force, the forward command center in the capital, Jialipalan, was still able to send out commands via signals. The broadcast by the capital towards the citizens on Miracolo Planet allowed them to continue their resistance against the enemy. This implied that the capital had not yet been fully conquered.

Even if the capital was conquered, the surrounding chains of ten thousand mountains was the ideal place to hide. There was dense vegetation, forests, and many wild animals located within. To a scout-trained Tian Xing Jian, bringing with him two beautiful girls amidst the mountains, building a treehouse or finding a cave to live in, and eating the wild animals and plants made him feel like he was living as an immortal.

Continuing his thoughts of living in seclusion with the two women, Fatty made his decision.

"Let’s head north, taking a detour around the land base of the enemy before heading east towards Jialipalan." Fatty firmly waved his hand and used a staunch tone to encourage himself.

"Jialipalan? That’s like a few thousand kilometers away!" the female pilot opened her eyes widely.

"How are we getting there?" the pure female doctor soldier’s glittering eyes held some bewilderment within as she asked, "There are enemies all around us."

"Gyaca Woods Empire simultaneously deployed their soldiers in over forty cities. Other than surrounding the entire capital and to isolate the Federation forces’ most important junctions, they have no need to control other empty lands." Fatty felt as if he was some genius regarding military matters. The accumulated experience from the past half year of escaping over 20 times has allowed him to familiarize himself with the Imperial Army’s method of war. With a tone of certainty, he continued, "The area of these empty lands is so great that they can’t be bothered to monitor them. Their focus should only be our capital and the military bases. As long as they can closely monitor those targets of theirs, it is enough for them. Leaving the cities without any food supply, nobody will be able to raise a resistance force in these desolate lands."

"Furthermore, they do not have enough manpower," as Fatty continued to talk, he continued contemplating as he started to get a clearer picture of what was happening, "What they want to control are the already-occupied Galileo Galaxy’s 4 human-populated planets and the Newton Galaxy’s Miracolo No.2 Planet. These 5 planets contain the majority of their land forces. This planet should be the final destination of the Gyaca Woods Empire during this war. They do not have enough time to fully control these 6 planets. What they need most is time."

"In the past, they usually chose the most important cities within a planet to forcibly conquer, causing the defense of the entire planet to be fragmented in a way that prevents cities from aiding one another. Thereafter, they will continue with a full-blown attack in other cities. Focusing their full firepower on the human-populated cities will give them greater chances of surrounding these places. However, this time, their entire force has only targeted 40 cities out of over 60 cities. This means that they either do not have enough manpower or their reinforcement is still on the way, thus preventing them from attacking all the cities," the fatty continued with his analysis before concluding with such a shocking conclusion.

He did not continue to say anything after. This conclusion was enough to create goosebumps as he thought, "Only when they strategically attack the land defense forces will they be able to realize their efforts with the greatest chance of success. Accurately destroying our land defenses before using the least amount of manpower to conquer the surrounding cities. We have many other bases hidden underground or within the mountains, yet they have been completely destroyed. The two space fleets in charge of Galileo Galaxy’s defense has also lost their battle in such a short period of time, as if they gave way. It seems that there’s a spy amongst the higher-ups in the Federation. After all, it’s not easy for an ordinary to procure military secrets regarding our six human-populated planets."

Once he thought of this, Fatty’s initially firm analysis started to be shaken once again. "If that’s the case, the capital Jialipalan’s defense…" Fatty turned sullen. For a machinery engineer to analyze a single problem to such an extent was enough to cause headaches.

"If a single machinery engineer was able to think of such issues cropping up, I bet the Supreme Headquarters would have thought of it as well!" he consoled himself, thinking that it was such a joke to worry for others.

"But you haven’t told us how to escape from this place," the female pilot felt irritable.

Tian Xing Jian pointed to the recently destroyed and abandoned mecha in the battlefield close by as he said, "We’ll use them as parts to build a transport vehicle. Right now, this location has become the forward base of operations of the enemy. If that’s the case, the northern location where the transport ship arrived should slowly be given up. Their supplies and manpower would slowly turn towards the other forward bases like this." He pointed to the northern side where a few mountain ranges could be seen, "The further north we go, the more slack their defenses will get. As long as we have an opportunity to escape to the plains north of this forest and enter the forest at the foot of that mountain, we’ll have escaped the control zone of the Imperial Army."

"Then what should we do now?" the pure female doctor soldier softly asked.

"We’ll wait until it’s dark. For now, we’ll be digging a hole to rest in. Hei hei, this isn’t something I can do by myself alone," saying that, the fatty had a vulgar expression as he asked, "Who wants to sleep with me? It’ll be really comfortable."

The two female soldiers naturally filtered out the fatty’s obscene words. The three of them went to the other side that was further away from the Imperial Army’s forward base. They found a region filled with shrubs and began to dig a hole to rest in while waiting for night to come. Outside the burrows, Fatty contemplated heavily before building a few traps that used tree branches to make them seem seamless.

The three stayed close together as they waited for night. Even though Fatty had a vulgar mouth, this was his first time being so close in contact with women. With such an obstacle in his heart, he did not dare to be so shameless anymore. He tried his best to keep his body close as close to the walls of the burrow as possible before closing his eyes to rest.

The two female soldiers did not really have any apprehensions over it. Before being saved by the fatty, they did not dare to think of what would have happened to them if they were escorted to the enemy’s base. They truly knew how they would have been handled — raped before getting killed or perhaps they would die on the way. Such terror was enough to make them unable to breathe.

They did not know whether they would have the courage to commit suicide. At least before the fatty saved them, they had no opportunities to commit suicide. The moment Tian Xing Jian had jumped out of the grassfield, the somewhat silly, somewhat fierce, and somewhat wretched fatty had become their pillar.

The disappearance of the escort was soon discovered when it was almost evening, leading to a large scale manhunt by the Imperial Army. However, this sort of search soon ended quickly. For a male soldier escorting two female soldiers who could not resist to go missing, the Imperial soldiers had a tacit understanding of what had actually happened. These two females were unrelated to them. They were the prey of the commanding officer and some soldiers would naturally be too excited.

Even if this was a slovenly done manhunt, it was enough to scare the fatty into trembling. He stayed calm with rapt attention over the walls of the burrow, using his ears to capture every single slight sound that could be heard. An Imperial soldier actually came close to this shrubbery, but the overflowing branches and dense thorns deterred any thoughts of entering it. After carefully looking into the shrubbery, he did not discover any signs of people entering, thus he turned around and left.

Fatty finally let out a sigh of relief. When his taut body started to relax, he suddenly discovered that two soft bodies were closely snuggled up to his. His exposed arms had actually touched the skin of the female soldier. This overwhelmed him with a feeling that could not be described — he felt as if he was drunk and on cloud nine.

"Hey, we still don’t know your name," the female doctor soldier softly said.

"This… I’m called Tian Xing Jian, a small corporal from the 5th Division, 3rd Armored Battalion, Logistics Company," the fatty said in a reserved tone while shivering. That was the result of a numbing effect after his arm touched the skin of a woman.

"I’m called Mei Duo," the female doctor’s voice continued to be mild and soft, "and she is Ni Ya."

The female pilot, Ni Ya, was about to fall asleep, though hearing her name being called caused her to mumble an acknowledgement.

The sky had fully turned dark as it became night. The so-called "sun" of the Newton Galaxy had sunk below the horizons. Without any moonlight to brighten up the darkness, Fatty touched the remains of a mecha by his side. Using the mechanical arm, he soon dismantled all the wreckage. The bitter training in the machinery maintenance camp had led to Fatty knowing all the components of a mecha like the back of his hand. Naturally, dismantling those parts were done extremely quickly.

The two female soldiers were instead sent to continue digging holes. They had to dig until the burrow was 3 meters deep and 5 meters long and wide. This would be Fatty’s underground workshop for building the transport vehicle.

During the next two days, Tian Xing Jian was like a nocturnal rat, dismantling part by part of the mecha wreckage around him as he pulled those parts into the burrow. He had even found several snacks to temporarily sate the two troublesome female soldiers’ staunch rejection towards the consumption of any animals or insects.

The two mother rats’ work was also highly effective. The burrow had been dug beautifully while the soil was cleared meticulously by them. Even the fatty felt that the two of them had an innate skill in digging.

Using the dismantled, sound-proof armor parts, he built a sound-proof system underground. Only then did Fatty truly started building the transport vehicle. First, he used some of the dismantled parts from the Imperial Army’s Battle Mecha’s cabin to build a cabin that could fit three people. Then, he fixed on the dismantled small-sized energy engine from the Imperial Army’s mecha and three of the strong and robust Federation Glory 15’s energy engines. One of the engines could even provide an energy equivalent to that of an energy shield.

There was something that had to be elaborated. The energy engine of this era and the human’s combustible engine that was used to first enter space had great differences. With the invention of great compression of energy capabilities, batteries that could store large amounts of electrical energy, and ultra-light alloys that were used to build miniature portable cabins, there had been a qualitative change in the state of engines. One single ultra-light alloy-made heavy-sized engine could be carried by a single person. The weight of a Battle Mecha was placed entirely on its exoframe. Nobody would extravagantly use the expensive alloy to make the exoframe of a land-based Battle Mecha. Because of the need for huge amounts of energy and the bulkiness and weight of the previous technology’s propulsion system, it had been miniaturized. Still, this current system was able to provide a power of up to a few dozens, perhaps even up to a hundred times, of that of the past.

After that, Tian Xing Jian installed various undamaged parts into the cabin. He used the operating system for the single-operated Gyaca Woods Empire’s Divine Mecha 22 as the main system. But because of the dismantling of the computer, all the controls and instruments were changed from automatic to manual. As for the Imperial Army’s single-operated mecha’s mechanical legs, he installed six of them onto the cabin. These legs would automatically rise and fall, and would be retracted to the waist of the cabin when not in use. When retracted, nobody would really be able to discern their existence.

The two side-wings of the Battle Mechas’ missile launcher instruments were also modified into a jet-propelled auxiliary system — this was the most delightful modification done by Tian Xing Jian since he had no payload to fire and neither would the external appearance of that launchers need to be changed. The only drawback was that the missiles could not be automatically reloaded during battle.

The energy shield took Fatty a huge amount of work. Without having any energy shield, the large amounts of mecha armor and the turning of its offensive power into defensive power, would be useless — it would be destroyed in a single bombardment. But because of the special requirements needed to install an energy shield, Fatty had to spend quite an effort mentally before he finally decided to build a seemingly inconspicuous small rabbit tail at the back. This was the main transmission probe of the energy shield. Without resting, Fatty continued to add a reserve probe on two of the mechanical legs. As he continued modifying, he would steal glances at the two female soldiers laughing. Ni Ya and Mei Duo were in a good mood and were laughing every now and then — they were thinking of wanting to use an axe to open up this vulgar fatty’s brain to see what exactly was within it.

Within moments, this mecha, with its external appearance seemingly unchanged from the previous Gyaca Woods Empire Divine Mecha 22, was completed. Ni Ya and Mei Duo were thoroughly stunned by the dazzling performance of Fatty. He had so many mysterious thoughts in his mind, yet the modifications were done reasonably. His hands were flying around, showing how familiar he was with all sorts of components in the mecha. This led the two female soldiers to believe that this fatty was not just an ordinary machinery engineer but instead a Battle Mecha professional. In his hands, modifying a Battle Mecha was like a child placing blocks on top of one another. Furthermore, given the difference between the components and spare parts of the Imperial Army's and Federation's mecha, being able to combine the two together required an extremely broad knowledge! This fatty, who seemed ordinary, was definitely a genius amongst the geniuses.

Fatty was definitely a genius, but he wasn’t truly a genius amongst geniuses. Instead, he had actually escaped 20 times with his life using spare parts to build countless sorts of different things before he was termed as a genius amongst the geniuses.

But Fatty would certainly not tell the two female soldiers about the matter regarding him escaping. That would just make him lose his reputation. Right now, he truly enjoyed the feeling of being admired by others. This has truly blown up the vanity he had.

Now, the only remaining problems were energy and finding the right opportunity to escape.

In the original base of the Federation, there were still large amounts of highly-compressed energy pieces buried by Tian Xing Jian. The place he buried them was actually the rhizome of the twisted roots and the intertwined joints of a huge tree. Due to the fact that the original base was currently filled with large amounts of ashes and wreckages because Fatty had set fire to the entire place, the Imperial Army’s new base was naturally very far away from there. They had chosen the southern part of the forest, a place closer to the original base of the Federation’s Artillery team, which was used to conceal various supply of the Battle Mecha.

At night, Tian Xing Jian stealthily dug out all the energy pieces and a machine gun. He let the two female soldiers bring the energy pieces back to their burrow. Fatty had decided to create some chaos for the Imperial Army in order to facilitate their escape.

Using a mechanical bearing as the wheel, he pulled the machine gun over carefully, avoiding all Imperial patrols by taking a very long roundabout route. Taking three steps to conceal one move, this method had costed him more than half the entire night before finally arriving at a slope in the southeastern part of the Empire’s base. After installing the energy machine gun that faced a part of a temporary Imperial Army’s base, he calibrated the Empire’s Divine Mecha 22’s modified remote sensing equipment before piling the energy pieces found from the wreckage into the energy box of that machine gun,

After finishing his preparation, the fatty had some kind of ineffable delight over his mischief.

"Even though I hate killing, what I like most was eating meat. Even though this father loved peace, my life is very much more precious than anything else. Even if you all died, this father will not die," Fatty affirmed that the Battle Record Device recorded his own action before he went and hid back in his burrow. Thinking about how the machine gun was currently facing the barracks, his own heartbeat started accelerating. "I wonder how many Imperial soldiers will die from this. If 2 officers died, will this father finally be promoted?"

When he returned to the burrow, it was already 4 am in the morning, with just 3 hours left before daybreak. After resting a while, he decided to start acting. Should he continue to wait and someone actually discovers the machine gun, it would definitely be disastrous.

After throwing the energy pieces into the Battle Mecha’s energy box, the three of them entered the cabin. Even though it was kind of cramped, it did not affect the fatty’s control of the Battle Mecha. Instead, with the two passionate and enticing lovable bodies by his side, it had actually left him an after-taste of his soul flying away.

At the juncture when he pressed the activation button of the machine gun, Fatty controlled his Battle Mecha to break out from the ground. The vague sounds of explosions in the base and the bellows from the machine gun could be heard in the distance.