Chapter 720: Chapter 405, The Defector Interstellar Warrior
On Rage Owl Star, within the Warband Monastery.
Matins sat quietly and finished reading the battle report.
Throughout this period, the Star-language communication had never been disconnected. On the other end, Gu Hang also waited patiently — or he might have taken the opportunity to attend to other matters while maintaining the communication.
Realizing the time that had passed, Matins said, “Sorry, Governor, to have kept you waiting.”
“No problem. What do you plan to do next?”
“I will depart immediately with my team to take care of this issue personally. Thank you for your concern.” Matins was always very polite towards Gu Hang.
…
“Good, I’ll leave it to you. I’ll have the navy cooperate with you, whether it’s the Alliance Fleet or the Tianma Fleet.”
“Thank you.”
After the communication ended, Matins turned back around. From a secure safe behind him, he took out a thick notebook and placed it on the table.
He flipped through the pages, which recorded one name after another.
Those were the names of all the members of the Phoenix Battle Group since its inception to the present.
He turned to a page where his own name was listed. And just two lines above it was the name ‘Sydney Bravens’.
He remembered that Bravens had joined Phoenix with him. They trained together, encouraged each other, underwent implant surgery together, and fought side by side.
In the seventy-ninth year of Phoenix’s penitent expedition, during a rebellion suppression mission, Phoenix deployed fifty warriors. Initially, the battle went rather smoothly, but later on, the front lines suddenly collapsed. The Planetary Defense Forces, acting as allies, were routed, and he and his comrades were trapped in a siege, forced to hold out in a fortress.
Fifty Phoenix warriors fought innumerable enemy soldiers equipped with heavy firepower. They eliminated a vast number of enemies, instilling such fear in the rebels that they dared not attack any further and had to circumvent their defenses.
Eventually, out of ammunition and supplies, the Phoenix warriors could not hold out any longer. Without any hope of reinforcement, they were forced to attempt a breakout. They charged through minefields, faced bullets and artillery fire, and endured air strikes before finally breaking out of the encirclement.
During this process, however, their ranks were scattered under repeated crises. When they regrouped behind the lines, there were only just over twenty of them left.
Among the lost personnel, some died in the defense of the fortress, others went missing during the breakout and never returned. His friend, Sydney Bravens, was among the latter.
Furious, he had the Planetary Defense Army commander who had ordered the retreat without notifying the Phoenix beforehand executed by firing squad. He decisively took over command and ultimately won the war.
But there were no rewards, only pain and censure from the empire.
There were no rewards because they were on a penitent expedition, and honor was not something they could claim. The censure was because, as convicts, they had dared to execute a commander on the battlefield and take control.
However, Matins had no regrets, and neither did the Battle Group punish him.
That incompetent and foolish commander directly caused the deaths of over twenty of their brothers, all in an ordinary rebellion suppression mission. This was something unforgivable.
Especially since among those killed was his good friend.
And at this moment, Matins recalled the images of those days, the times he had spent with Sydney Bravens.
The memory of his silhouette kept reappearing before his eyes, becoming more and more tangible.
He stared at the picture that was blurry and fleeting for a long, long time.
…
Extinct Soil Star is a desert world located in the Cultivating Horse Star Sector and connected to Hongjian Star on the star map.
It’s somewhat akin to an enlarged version of the Western Desert on Rage Owl Star; the entire planet is covered in desert, with a smaller ocean area and extremely harsh conditions.
Still, about two hundred million people manage to live here.
Most of them roam following the availability of water and grass. The rainfall on Extinct Soil Star is scarce and shows distinct seasonality and regionality. The inhabitants have developed the ability to chase the rainy seasons, creating nomadic groups that wander across the entire planet.
Additional minor populations inhabit valleys and oases, relying on underground water sources to establish stable residential areas and even cities.
The main exports of this planet are grains, meat products, furs, and leather goods. A yearly tax of twenty million can be scraped together; occasionally, in years of poor harvests or internal disturbances on the planet, a bit of head tax is taken to compensate.
The life of the planet’s governor, therefore, isn’t particularly great—he’s like a mender.
And so, if life isn’t going well, one always has to look for other solutions.
After a visit from Interstellar Pirates who raided Extinct Soil Star, Governor Ahzimuba came up with an idea.
Not only did he refrain from reporting the raid to the empire, he even offered the Pirate Group more supplies and entered into a long-term collaboration with them, a group called ‘Red Eye’.
Extinct Soil Star provided the Pirate Group with some supplies, even goods, which they sold in the pirate black market. The returns from these sales were higher than the regular Imperial Tax and regular trade. The resources obtained were used to purchase other items difficult to sell on the black market, which were then traded within the empire’s legitimate trade system for different goods.
Additionally, they provided cover for the Pirate Group’s identities, so whenever some official naval forces hunted them down, they could hide on Extinct Soil Star and disguise themselves as locals.