White Ghost did not bring shame to her own name. Although she had no physical body and could only show herself to the world as a hologram, few entities were as free as her in the world of electronic systems.
In a sense, she was akin to a computer virus. The Robert Family was the best robot builder in GAL, so it stood to reason that their system protection was almost as good. However, White Ghost had taken over the dozen of monitors in the control room in just the blink of an eye.
Robert Borat, a.k.a the man in the hologram, was shaking with fury right now. When he decided to execute his plan, he hadn’t known that the guardian of this planet would be this annoying to deal with, and he definitely hadn’t expected these people to possess the technology to ward off his shield disrupter. How the hell did some trash from Sector V come by such a technology anyway?
Borat clenched his fists together. An unexpected obstacle or two might have appeared on his path, but it did not matter. Since he had decided to take on this action plan, he would see it through by hook or by crook! Only then could he return home and become the biggest authority in his family!
Borat was no match for Frentz when it came to research. It was why his voice had always come second to Frentz. After he cooperated with the military though, he was able to obtain the support of the Eighth Army and some of his clan members and snap up the executive rights of several action plans with his diplomacy skills, which was much better than Frentz. He had encountered little to no problems when carrying out the early action plans, and it was during that time he accidentally discovered this gem of a planet.
Borat’s first thought after discovering the planet wasn’t to dig out the top grade energy ores, however. It was true that the quality of their energy ores were no match for them, but what they lacked in quality, they made up with sheer quantity. That was why Borat’s attention was more on how he could leverage these energy ores to carry out his plans, not the other way around.
As Cillin had predicted, Sector V’s “accidental” discovery of this planet wasn’t an accident after all. Borat was the mastermind who had instigated everything. He was going to use this opportunity to take out most of the rising stars of Sector V in one go, earn enough merit in the eyes of his family and the Eighth Army, and obtain even greater support as a result. Assuming this mission went well, he even believed that he would surpass Frentz and all other competitors to become the new generation leader of his family once the war situation had stabilized.
Unfortunately, reality was, as usual, a harsh mistress. He had not anticipated that the Free Army would seek out an ally, and that that ally would be far more formidable than anticipated. In fact, he still did not think that they were a true threat. Like most of the people of the Robert Family, Borat was your stereotypical stubborn and arrogant bastard. Not only was he too confident in himself and the strength of his robot army, he had not researched the Eleventh Squad and their past achievements as well as he should have. In his opinion, the Ghost was the only worthy opponent on the battlefield right now.
Back to the present. All of the monitors in the control room had been taken over by the Ghost. Borat ordered his subordinate to intercept her electronically only to discover that their efforts were useless because the enemy was already inside their system. Already, White Ghost had altered or wrecked many of their programs in just a short time, and even their countermeasures only caused the monitors to flash twice. The white figure remained affixed to the screens as if she was a permanent fixture of their spaceplane.
“Activate ‘Private Room’!” Borat ordered without hesitation.
“Private Room” was a system-encrypted zone that only the master had access to. It was a technology the Robert Family had developed independently. Usually, the technology was left inactive, and the master was potentially exposed to any intruder lurking in the external systems. However, once “Private Room” was activated, the master would be isolated from all external systems and theoretically be fully secure from all intruders.
Activating “Private Room” increased one’s computer security, but the trade off was reduced functionality. In Borat’s case, he had been cut off from many of the functions of the spaceplane. He was fine with this though. Reduced functionality was still better than being overtaken completely by the Ghost.
On the ground, Cillin took a moment to observe the spaceplane. Although he couldn’t tell exactly what was going on in there, the occasional burst of mechanical language told him that a silent war was happening inside the vessel right now.
A sense of helplessness washed over Aikenseth as he looked back and forth between the spaceplane in the sky and Cillin. He was incredibly glad that he had decided to ask Cillin to join them on this mission, or the Free Army could have brought twice as many men and still be absolutely massacred by the robot army. It was bad enough that the robot had superior technology, but their numbers were almost the same as well. This meant that their combat strength was at least several times greater than the Free Army’s. They only needed to look at the bodies and debris outside the energy shield to know what would have happened if they had had to clash against the robot army head on.
Even with the Eleventh Squad’s help, he still did not think that the battle was in their favor. The energy shield was currently protecting them from all harm, but it wasn’t like they could hide here forever. How could they overcome this situation?
Aikenseth was wracking his brain to come up with a plan when Cillin looked in a certain direction. The next second, a white figure winked into view.
The blue strip on Moon’s face flashed as he asked, “What happened in there, Little White?”
Little… White?
A lot of people had unkind thoughts about that nickname, but they wisely chose to keep their mouths shut. After all, only an idiot would try to provoke an actual ghost-like entity.
White Ghost did not look at Moon, but she replied while staring at the spaceplane in the sky, “They have quarantine measures.”
“What should we do then?” Cary asked Cillin while observing the robots outside the energy shield warily. No one thought that charging out of the shield heedlessly was a good idea. Unlike the “slow” enemies they had fought before, these robots were at a whole other level. Even with their new fighters, he did not think the situation would improve much considering that the enemy had enough firepower and precision to wipe the airspace clean in just a short time.
Before Cillin could give him an answer, Borat’s voice blasted out of the speakers on the spaceplane.
“You guys like hiding inside your shell, huh? Very well! I shall give you a taste of the apocalypse and the might of our robot army! Attack!”
With that command, all the robots in the sky and on the ground started firing at the energy shield. Although the energy shield shielded them from all attacks, the same could not be said for the shockwaves that were generated as a result of the impact. Waves of dizziness and nausea spread across the protected zone immediately. The Eleventh Squad weathered it well because they were all wearing Armor, but the members of the Free Army couldn’t claim the same thing. The protective suit they wore were good enough to withstand the hostile environment of this planet, but not the terrible shockwaves that felt like the world was ending.
In fact, the bombardment had barely begun when some members of the Free Army started yelling about giving the metallic sonuvabitches a taste of their own medicine. They would rather risk it all than endure this kind of torture.
Aikenseth looked to Cillin for his opinion. After all, the master control of the energy shield was in his hands. If he refused to let them out, the Free Army could cry all they wanted, and they still would not be able to get out of the shield. They could battle the Eleventh Squad for it, but he would rather not as a matter of course. Not only did he think they couldn’t win, he really did not want to damage their newly established alliance unless he there was no other option.
“Tell your people to endure for a bit. It’ll take half a minute at most,” Cillin replied simply. Even before he said this, he had already ordered Xi Kai and Xi Mu to do their thing and the flyers to land their fighters for the moment.
It was only half a minute, but the frustration building up in the Free Army was visible for all to see. The shockwaves had caused the air inside the energy shield to be filled up with charged particles, and they felt extremely uncomfortable even though it did them little to no harm. To give an example, it was like being pricked by millions of needles. Their temper was already terrible in the first place, and the unwanted stimulation had shredded their self-control like paper. If Aikenseth hadn’t shouted for them to wait and kept an iron grip over them, they would have thrown themselves at the energy shields in an attempt to break out and fight their enemies already.
Meanwhile, the Eleventh Squad had spent the half a minute reorganizing the equipment at hand. Fighting robots were quite different from fighting organic creatures, so much so that even the ammo they used had to be switched out completely. When Cary had walked out of his fighter, he had installed a shoulder cannon on his shoulder, tested the folded wristblade on his arm, and reassembled his guns. He was currently warming himself up for the inevitable battle.
When Aikenseth counted up to twenty three seconds, a number of energy beams suddenly appeared at the distant sky. In fact, he realized that they were appearing from every direction. They were not aimed at them, however. They were aimed at the robots bombarding the energy shield.
The robots had come from the Eleventh Squad’s starship, and truth be told they could have reached their location even sooner. However, Xi Kai took his time spreading them out and organizing their formation so as to maximize their combat effectiveness.
The appearance of the new force stunned the Free Army so much that they forgot about their discomfort for a moment. Just a while ago, they had seen Borat’s robot army absolutely massacring their enemies outside the energy shield. To say that they were formidable would be understatement. However, a new force had appeared out of seemingly nowhere to challenge them.
Who are they?
In the spaceplane, Borat’s complexion had turned a shade of angry purple. Some of the energy beams had struck his spaceplane and shaken it to the point where he nearly tripped over his own feet. Things improved a little after the shields were turned on, by only a little. Because “Private Room” was active right now, part of the functions of their scanners were unusable. That was why they failed to detect the surprise attack until it literally hit their ship.
“Are those… robots?!” One of Borat’s subordinate exclaimed in shock.
As the people who fired the energy beams flew closer and closer, it became clear that they were no people at all. Their silver white exterior gleamed coldly under the dark sky.
At this point, it was clear to everyone that the new force was made up of robots. Looking at their exterior alone, they did not look so different from Borat’s robot army. They were shaped like birds, humans, and other animals.
Beside Aikenseth, Reysen asked in disbelief, “Since when did GAL have another force with a robot army of this caliber?”
Blue shot Cillin a glance before whispering, “And this is why they’re so mysterious.”