Chapter 321: Show of Strength [Part 1]
“It’s Czedow!”
Wheeze pulled free from the Lovages it was playing with and ran straight toward the spaceplane.
Czedow walked out of the hatch. The spaceplane was pretty big, but the robot was the only passenger onboard. He was still wearing the sportswear he wore during the call, and he looked like a free soul who just returned home from his travels.
Czedow smiled when he saw the gray cat bouncing toward him excited. It was much fatter compared to the last time he saw it.
“Long time no see, Czedow!” Wheeze ran up Czedow’s body and gave his shoulder a pat. “Not bad! You upgraded yourself?”
“Yes, I absorbed a couple of rare metals and improved some things,” Czedow replied while giving Wheeze a chin scratch.
Wheeze then pointed a claw at the spaceplane behind him. “Where did you get this spaceplane from?”
“I took it from a bunch of space robbers,” Czedow replied calmly.
When Czedow left the Sixth Squadron, he had been piloting a small spaceplane until he ran into a gang of space robbers. Their equipment turned out to be better than expected, so he took their spaceplane instead.
“Oh right, this is for you.” Czedow took off his ring and gave it to Wheeze. It was the ring Wheeze and Cillin had left behind for him before they vanished into Shortcut; the ring they got from Oskulos to be exact.
“No way, Cillin said that this is for… you… oh my meow…”
At first, Wheeze wanted to tell Czedow to keep the subspace ring for himself. After all, why would it need one when it could just use Cillin’s subspace ring? Then, it checked the contents and lost its train of thought completely.
The subspace ring was filled with rare metals, energy blocks and more importantly, Wheeze’s favorite flavors of fish biscuits. Obviously, Czedow had accumulated the rare metals, energy blocks and fish biscuits during his travels.
“Czedow, you really are my blood-related brother!” Wheeze grinned like an idiot while hugging the ring.
Czedow: “...” Blood-related brother?
It was at this moment Cillin and Sigma emerged from the base. After shooting the dumb cat who was grinning like an idiot on top of Czedow’s shoulder a glance, he greeted the robot, “Welcome back!”
Sigma also zoomed over and gave Czedow a hug. Its happiness value had been skyrocketing for the past two days. The wavy lines on its faceplate hadn’t changed even once, and it kept humming a tune from time to time.
Not far away, Xi Kai was watching Cillin high-fiving Czedow with sparkling eyes. Czedow was a true Origin robot who was very similar to a human, and he was very curious to know the dimension of his mind. He wasn’t in a hurry to find out though; these answers would come to him naturally when he interacted with Czedow. Xi Kai decided that his decision to come to GAL was the right one for sure.
Czedow also kept some rare metals on the spaceplane, which suited Cillin just fine since he was building his own starship anyway. While there were plenty of materials in the base, you could never have too many rare metals.
After Cillin had contacted Ji Feng, he had done nothing but arranging the base because he was waiting for the upper management of Vanguard to give him the official permission to build a new squadron. In fact, he had only received the official notice from Ji Feng last night. Now that Czedow was back, he didn’t need to waste time searching for everyone’s method of contact. He could summon them all right away.
Beaver and Eudy were currently staying with the Third Squadron’s as guests. In fact, they had been there for almost two years already. After the Sixth Squadron went through a massive reorganization and their comrades left the squadron one by one, they too left and moved to the Third Squadron.
The good news was that they were doing well on the Third Squadron thanks to their technical expertise. In fact, the commander, Falvey had offered to hire them officially multiple times. They had never given him a real reply though, and when Cillin’s message reached them the speed at which they packed their stuff and said goodbye was something to behold.
Falvey didn’t know if he should be angry or amused by this. Of all the employment contracts in the B Squadrons, the offers he made to Beaver and Eudy were some of the best of the best. However, they were apparently worth less than a single message from Cillin.
Eudy and Beaver were the first ones to arrive after Cillin sent out the summons. Cary, Ba Dao, Xiao Shang were the next to arrive. After that, Merzenich Tico arrived alone without Rikulab—now known as Shi Huajing, the fourth young master of the Shi Family.
“Rikulab won’t be participating in the establishment of the squadron. He has stuff he needs to do in his family,” Tico said with a smile. While they were chatting, she let out the rabbit in her pocket so it could play with Wheeze and the others. The little rabbit hadn’t changed at all since the last time they saw it, but by now everyone knew it was special and paid it no mind.
“I’ve heard about him from Czedow. This chaos is the perfect opportunity for him to regain his lost power as the fourth young master.”
Some time later, Cillin contacted Shi Huajing in secret and came to some sort of cooperative relationship with him. No one could stay aloof in this chaotic times, and those who tried would only be putting themselves in a worse position than before. Every connection they could gain was an extra chip on the table.
Dias and the gang were the last ones to arrive. After the Sixth Squadron was reorganized, Dias, Asiya, their newborn son, Tang Qiuqiu, Scarlet Wind and Snowball had left the squad together. In the Sixth Squadron, there was no one Tang Qiuqiu trusted more than Dias and Cillin, so it made sense she went with Dias after Cillin had disappeared.
When Dias’ spaceplane landed, the first person—or creature, in this case—to run out of the hatch was a big, white hairball. It ran and ran and… rolled into a ball midway probably because it was faster that way.
“The gluttons have all grown fatter” was Cillin’s biggest impression after he came back to GAL.
In the past, Tang Qiuqiu could carry Snowball on her back. Now, it was almost as tall as Cillin when it stood upright. It quickly got together with Wheeze and Dough and caused a ruckus in no time.
Tang Qiuqiu was now a beautiful young girl. She would seem even friendlier if she wasn’t carrying a gigantic sniper rifle behind her back.
Scarlet Wind was doing its utmost to maintain a prim appearance, but anyone who saw its madly wagging tail would know its excitement.
“Old man, look…” Tesoro exclaimed while pointing at Scarlet Wind. The boy was already quite surprised when the eight-armed Ba Dao showed up, but now a literal alien had joined them and was wagging its tail in the open. Although he knew that GAL was a different galaxy, he still wasn’t used to this sight.
In the past, everyone would be doing their utmost to hide their characteristics and appear as human as possible. But now, he was really starting to realize that Cillin’s claims were true. This was a world that didn’t care how you look; a world where might is right.
“Call me dad!” Shusag slapped Tesoro in the head immediately.
Shusag had trimmed his hair and beard for the occasion. Even his attire looked a lot more tidy than before. Shusag looked a lot older than Dias, and they couldn’t communicate with everyone without using translators, but Cillin believed that it was only a matter of time before they truly became a part of the team.
The base naturally became a lot livelier with the influx of people. For example, Cary’s morning outburst was back with some minor differences. In the past, he could at least corner the thieving gluttons who stole his food from time to time. On the planet though, it was basically a pointless endeavor. The bastards could be anywhere.
Tang Qiuqiu warmed up to Sha Rou pretty quickly. Ba Dao and the others often trained with Shusag, but they almost never managed to defeat him in combat. It wasn’t surprising though. Cillin knew from the beginning that Shusag was a very capable fighter.
Xi Kai was building robots as usual, but without the help of Moon or Sigma. Moon obviously wasn’t going to help him. Sigma was kept busy and away from Xi Kai research area by Moon. In the end, Xi Kai had no choice but to turn to Czedow.
Czedow didn’t reject Xi Kai’s request. After all, helping Xi Kai was the same as helping Cillin improve their squadron. Sometimes Czedow would share his thoughts with Xi Kai, and the latter learned a lot because of it. Although he still didn’t make much progress in terms of building a robot with an independent mind, he was able to improve certain details drastically. His robots now had greater cloaking abilities and prowess than before.
Every task in the base was being completed in an orderly manner. When their new symbol was created, a party to celebrate the birth of the new Eleventh B Squadron and their reunion was thrown. They still had a long way ahead of them, and it would be hard and full of obstacles as usual. But it didn’t matter, did it? It was the path they chose to follow, and they would finish it even if they had to crawl all the way to the finish line.
The construction of the main starship was overseen by Cillin, Moon, Sigma and Xi Kai, and Xi Kai’s first batch of new engineer robot was used as the labor force to build it. With enough energy, these robots could work day and night without rest, so the starship was completed at an astonishing rate.
Finally, the ship was complete.