Mechs jumping between two transfer points did so via the normal channel. With the support of the transfer point, the mech would consume less energy. As long as the pilot did not drop out of the network because of the transfer, the pa.s.sengers on the mech would not be hurt. Not too much, at least.

Emergency transfers, on the other hand, were a lot less friendly. Those involved forcibly tethering one's mech to to a transfer point out of range with known coordinates. Basically, one would be dragging the mech over with raw force. This could be done, albeit at the cost of a ma.s.sive amount of energy, and would incur considerable damage to the mech. This method was incredibly brutal and inhuman — only madmen attempt it.

Besides using the transfer point as a landmine, another reason why Jingheng Lin blew up "Surprise" was to trap the pirates in this small asteroid belt.

He had barely pa.s.sed through "Surprise" before the missiles. .h.i.t, and arrived at a transfer point deeper in the asteroid belt. This was the secret route he had discovered through multiple brushes with death. Unfortunately, it was destined to be destroyed today before he could even finish mapping it.

"Zhanlu," Jingheng Lin pointed at the unconscious bird youth, "Take out the tracker and wiretap in him."

"Extraction is impossible," Zhanlu answered after scanning. "His heart is a 'bio-printed' artificial organ. The organ itself is the tracker. There are no extra hearts in this mech's medical equipment to pick from. If extracted, he will die shortly."

"Then the correct term is not "impossible"," Jingheng Lin said. "It's just that he'll die if you remove it."

"Okay, sir," Zhanlu quickly corrected himself. "Shall I kill him and remove the tracker?"

Jingheng Lin paused, and skipped the question. Without answering Zhanlu, he commanded, "Try to hide parts of the signal, so that what they receive is intermittent and inaccurate. I want them to think that I'm trying to block the tracker, but it's not going well — try to imitate that as well as you can."

"I apologize for my direct words, sir," Zhanlu said, "but I hope that you don't ask any other AIs to perform such unreasonable tasks in future — they might crash."

Jingheng Lin gave him an icy look.

Standing at attention, Zhanlu's stance was especially proper. "Just a suggestion."

Technology might have progressed, but human reaction time was not any faster than it was thousands of years ago. When the heavy mech took a hard blow to the tail, Primalien couldn't even make out what was happening. He could only glance back through the mech's mental network at the explosions across the sky behind him. The communication channels went bats.h.i.+t — but only momentarily.

The extraterrestrial area was not a peace-loving place. The name "interstellar pirates" might not sound professional at all, but each and every one of them was actually well-trained.

After a moment of panic in the communication channel, everyone unanimously went quiet for a second, then started to efficiently give status reports in order.

"No. 1 is missing, No.2 to No. 16 have all crashed...crackle...this is No.17 standing in for the status report. My mech body is severely damaged, the defense system is not working properly, and the arms system is at high risk of exploding. The power system is also not working properly."

"No. 18 to No.24 has crashed, this is No. 25 standing in for the status report. The transfer point has been blown up. I repeat, the transfer point has been blown up. The missing No. 1 pa.s.sed through the transfer point right before the explosion and has now fled."

"Boss, the team lost seventy six mechs, and another fifty three have completely lost their battle capabilities. The remaining sixty all have varying degrees of damage. We have lost over half of our troops, please issue commands if we are to evacuate immediately."

Primalien sucked in a deep breath. He turned to the empty tracker and raged, "Evacuate, my a.s.s! How dare he set me up, I'm going to flay him! Line up! a.s.semble! Link all the mental networks together, expand the search range, and search for the closest transfer point's magnetic field!"

The Cayley Guard's research progress on interstellar transfer had always been ahead than that of the Union's. This showed back during the attack on the honor guard, but unfortunately that tiny group of interstellar pirates was defeated by Jingheng Lin. The Union Military Committee, remaining in their safe little bubble, did not try to outpace them.

Because of this, Primalien was confident that his sixty medium mechs and one heavy mech would be able to catch the opponent.

"Boss, we've detected faint transfer field figures from three sailing days away."

Primalien calmed down from his rage. "It might be a trap. Do a remote scan."

"There aren't any no results. We're not sure where he's headed."

Primalien raised his eyebrows. "Try to activate the tracker on the kingfisher. He might've found a way to block off the signal."

On No.1, Jingheng Lin slowly chewed a bland piece of a compressed nutrition meal. He watched the bird youth's whole body convulse at his feet, as if he was a heart attack victim who had just received electric cardioversion. 

"Primalien is trying to activate the tracker. This guy's interesting. No matter what you give him, he won't trust you. But if you just step back a tiny bit, and halfheartedly conceal your own tracks, he'll be lured to voluntarily chase you himself. As long as he believes that he's worked hard to investigate it himself, he will believe in the conclusion without a doubt, no matter how ridiculous it is. Who gave him this illogical confidence?"

Zhanlu gave a reasoned answer, "The universally famed singer, Miss Yevghania. The hit song that brought her to fame was called Believe In Yourself."

To fit the scene, raucous music started to play in the mech.

Jingheng Lin: "......"

The commodore, who had once been confessed to with fiery pa.s.sion, patiently listened to her for a moment. He felt like his blood pressure had been drummed up by the beat. He also reflected that Miss Yevghania's voice sounded like a crazed donkey.

"Turn it off," Jingheng Lin could no longer tolerate it. "Don't let Primalien's efforts go to waste. Spill a little information to him when needed."

Just as he finished speaking, a weak, choppy signal appeared on Primalien't tracker. A second later, it vanished like a ghost.

Primalien clenched his teeth. "All the damaged mechs, stay here until further command. Pool your power supplies for the ones that can still fight, and prepare for emergency transfer! Firstly, our enemy's mental strength might be very high, so keep the mental networks connected together to prevent him from invading again. Secondly, be prepared to fire your missiles, we'll fire immediately once we've successfully transferred. Don't give him any time to react, and fire up your s.h.i.+elds to the max! We've already caught him!"

Jingheng Lin stuffed the compressed nutrition meal's package into Zhanlu's hands. "Prepare to face missiles, fall back in full speed, and be ready to receive a round of bombing."