“Can you contact White Night right now?” Cillin asked Moon.
Moon shook his head. “Not from here. We need to enter the first planet before we can reach out to her.”
It was at this moment Cary walked up to them and asked, “Who are you talking about?”
The Hunter had finished his preparations a while ago, and he was just waiting for the mission to begin.
Moon tilted his head and answered, “Oh, nothing. We’re just talking about Czedow’s girlfriend.”
Czedow, who was reading a book nearby: “…” Since when do I have a girlfriend?
“Oh—”
The bridge wasn’t nearly big enough for their conversation to not be overheard, so everyone walked over to them like flies to honey immediately. Even Mao, someone who had never cared much for gossip couldn’t help but join the group of gossipers. The curiosity was just too great. Czedow’s girlfriend? A robot’s girlfriend? Who was she, and how would a relationship like that work?
“I know you guys are curious, but you’ll know naturally when the time comes. Now get into position and stand by for orders. Also, we’re going to be cooperating with the Free Army this time, so be sure to perform to the best of your abilities. Don’t let them look down on us, understand?” Cillin said while clapping Cary behind the shoulder.
Cary and the others looked conflicted, but in the end their sense of duty won over curiosity. Still, they wanted to know about everything so bad…
On screen, Aikenseth said, “We’re ready to descend.”
“Understood.”
Cillin gestured at his crew, and they all got to work immediately.
The whole crew would be descending on the planet. There should be no problems leaving their starship unmanned outside the planet because their super AI, Little Eleven would be in command while they were gone.
When it was time, a small number of space fighters flew out of the Eleventh Squadron starship’s hangar and toward the planet. Their streamlined fuselage and unusual exterior made them look like ghosts in space. Their camouflage was so good, and their speed so fast that it was difficult to catch even a glimpse of them with the naked eye.
Aikenseth observed the Eleventh Squadron’s fighters on the screen for a moment. He would be lying if he claimed that he wasn’t envious. He was also surprised because as far as he was aware, the only force in Vanguard that owned custom-made fighters was the Liberty Fleet. A B squad definitely shouldn’t have them.
“The scanners cannot detect anything. We’ve tried several different scanning methods to no avail either,” Reysen said while pointing at the screen. All they saw was the fighters exiting the Eleventh Squadron’s starship, a flash, and then nothing. Their spaceplane’s scanner were unable to pick up anything.
Cillin did not pilot a fighter. He was piloting the small spaceplane carrying Mo Heng, Czedow, Tang Qiuqiu, Snowball and Scarlet Wind.
He would’ve left his master behind on the starship, but Mo Heng had insisted on following them. He was extremely curious about the planet and even more curious about the top-grade energy ores that countless would kill to get.
There were no plants on the planet. It was all rocks and mountains with energy ores embedded in them.
The moment the Free Army touched down on the planet, they immediately got out of their ships in protective suits and started mining the energy ores. It was because it was only a matter of time before their competitors showed up and fight them for the spoils.
Meanwhile, Sigma and Moon had flown out of the spaceplane after Cillin had landed it at the coordinates Moon had specified. The Free Army was having a helluva good time mining the energy ores when suddenly, they began to shine brightly. The area was pretty dark just a moment ago, but now it was like someone was shining a spotlight on them.
“Who, are you people?” A gentle voice entered everyone’s ears. At the same time, a bunch of white figures appeared all over the place. They were all identical copies of each other, and they all looked as white as snow. They were White Night.
One of the figures was sitting on top of a pile of energy ores and staring at the miners with her pure white eyes. She was holding up her long hair with one hand and combing it with the other.
“It’s the Ghost!” Someone exclaimed in shock. None of them tried to attack her, however. Aikenseth had told them someone would deal with the Ghost beforehand, and all they needed to do was to leave her alone and keep mining.
That was the plan, but White Night’s appearance still scared the shit out of everyone. It wasn’t just the Free Army either. Even Cary and the crew who were patrolling the airspace in their fighters could not help but break out in goosebumps.
How did she appear like that?
Is it just a projection, or…?
Moon immediately began communicating with White Night using the method his master had left behind to him. Although White Night, Moon and Sigma had never met each other before, they were all creations of the Xi Family. Not only did they share similar characteristics, they were marked in some ways that would allow them to identify one another with ease. Once Sigma also produced some proof that proved his connection to his late master as well, the communication process was well underway.
A while later, a passage opened on the wall beside Moon that seemed to lead underground. He informed Cillin that they would gone for a bit before entering the passage with Sigma. The passage closed, and the copies of White Nights vanished into thin air once they were inside.
The Free Army resumed working after noting that the Ghost was truly gone. They were curious about her existence as a matter of course, but not so curious that they would abandon the energy ores right in front of their faces in pursuit of the truth.
Aikenseth was wondering why the Eleventh Squadron hadn’t started mining the energy ores yet when he saw the bigger spaceplanes descending on the planet and unloading a ton of big mining robots on the ground. The robots immediately started mining and carrying the energy ores into the spaceplanes.
Aikenseth shot Cillin—the young man was still sitting inside his spaceplane—a glance. This time, he had to admit that he was jealous.
The Eleventh Squad had a small crew, but they made up for their deficiency with the robots. The mining robots were great at mining for obvious reasons, and they worked fast enough that they weren’t slower than the Free Army even though the latter had more people.
The mining robots weren’t the only ones who were working either. Wheeze wasn’t the type to sit still and do nothing when something interesting was going on, so it had exited the spaceplane together with Sigma and Moon. But instead of following the two robots down the underground passage, it had opted to stay behind instead. Why? To mine the energy ores with its own claws, of course! These were all credits!
Once again, the Free Army was very curious about the fat gray cat that seemed completely unimpeded by the planet’s hellish environment despite wearing no protective suit, but they could not allow themselves to be outdone by it. They started working harder and faster when they saw the cat digging out the energy ors with everything they got.
Suddenly, Wheeze froze for a moment and looked up into the sky.
“Meowtherfucker! They’re here, Cillin! Cary, shoot them all out of the sky!”
The Free Army’s first thought after seeing Wheeze standing atop a pile of energy ores and shouting at the sky: The cat’s the one eavesdropping on us last time?
Their second thought was: It can talk?
And their third: Who did it say is here?
It took them only an instant to realize who Wheeze was talking about though. It could only be the other Sector V factions.
In the sky, Cary felt a vein popping across his forehead after hearing Wheeze’s shout. The gray cat had been growing more and more arrogant as of late.
On a side note, the Eleventh Squad’s starship was currently invisible right now. That was why the newcomers never noticed that a starship was parked right outside the planet.
Their fleet was made up of countless spaceplanes just like the Free Army, and they were frustrated that someone had made it to the planet before them. They all wanted first dibs on the energy ores after all, if not all of it. That was why they attacked the Free Army before they even descended on the planet. Cannonfire began blasting giant holes on the ground, scattering debris and ore fragments were all over the place.
The unrestrained bombardment only lasted until Cary and the others began returning fire though. Their fighters were moving so quickly that the enemy just barely caught a glimpse of them before they were struck. It was also near impossible to lock down their attackers.
On the surface, it looked like the Eleventh Squad was retaliating against the enemy haphazardly. In reality, they were executing a battle plan and coordinating wonderfully with each other. From time to time, Cillin would hear them joking and quipping with each other through the communicator.
Brilliant colors and flashes of light began populating the sky like fireworks, though no fireworks would rain metallic debris on the ground. Some of them belonged to the Free Army, and some to the newcomers. None of them came from the Eleventh Squad.
Wheeze didn’t stop mining even though an aerial battle was taking place right above their heads. Together with the mining robots, it worked like its life depended on it. Some fighters saw this and wanted to shoot Wheeze and the mining robots, but they couldn’t even get a shot off before they were attacked by the ghost-like fighters.
The reason Wheeze was mining away with impunity was because Cary and the crew were covering for it, but of course, it had nothing to fear from the fighters even without their protection. It would take quite a number of direct hits for the cannons to injure it significantly.
“A new force is here,” Czedow said suddenly.
As he said, a new force had flown in their direction, but did not engage them in battle immediately. They waited just outside the periphery of the battlefield as if they were waiting for both sides to be weakened before they swooped in for the kill.
Unfortunately for them, reality was a cruel mistress. They were hardly the only ones who wanted a piece of the pie. As if on cue, another force appeared from the distance and soon engaged them in battle. It did not take a genius to figure out that more forces would be showing up as well. They all learned about the planet at about the same time and spent almost the same time preparing for the journey. If the Free Army hadn’t chosen to cooperate with Cillin, or Cillin hadn’t told them to use faster route, they would’ve arrived at the same time as these forces.
The battle quickly grew in size as it devolved into utter chaos. The sounds of battle shattered the silence that had dominated the planet for centuries.
Although the aerial battle was fierce, the energy ores on the ground was everyone’s goal. That was why the enemy’s land forces quickly landed on the planet and began scrambling for the resources.
“Let’s go,” Cillin said to everyone before stepping out of the spaceplane.