Tian Xingjian felt melancholy as he watched the two female Federal soldiers glaring at him. Perhaps, facing those two unsightly figures, the fat man could have shamelessly declared, "I've already taken care of your guards. Run for your lives." However, the two beautiful women, radiating allure in their uniforms, held the fat man back. If he left them behind, they would be unable to escape, and there was a high probability they would be shot or executed if caught. There were many ways to execute them, but the most likely scenario was a series of "executions" by Imperial soldiers. Given the situation at the base, the purpose of these two female soldiers being brought here was obvious. This was an Imperial Army forward base, with no established prisoner-of-war camps. The fat man knew the reason these two beautiful Federal women were brought here with a quick thought. The soldiers escorting them were killed, and whether or not the prisoners were responsible, they were inextricably linked. Furthermore, the brutality of the Gacharin in their treatment of prisoners was well known. If even one escaped, the Imperials would execute the entire unit they were in. Other atrocities, such as systematic burying alive, burning, chemical experiments, and confining prisoners in dilapidated civilian space transports as drones, were innumerable. The thought of these two beautiful women, like blooming flowers, being tormented by Imperial soldiers filled the fat man with indignation, anger, and even a touch of jealousy. It was a common male trait: there were things they couldn't do themselves, and they didn't want others to do them. However, escaping the jungle was easy; evading enemy patrols and defenses, and escaping with two women on a flat plain where you could see for kilometers at a glance, was a tall order. "You... um, I mean... how were you captured?" The fat man noticed the unfriendly expressions of the two women he had rescued. He looked at himself but couldn't see anything wrong, feeling no shame at all for stripping naked in front of them. "The airfield northeast of the city was captured. I was captured there." The beautiful pilot quickly shook off the embarrassment caused by the fat man's striptease and pointed to the female soldier next to her. "She's one too. She's a medic in the Aviation Squadron." "What about the city? Where has the enemy advanced?" The fat man surveyed his surroundings warily, making sure no Imperial patrols had stumbled upon the three unfortunate Confederates, one man and two women. "The first line of defense was breached last night. The enemy, employing nearly two hundred heavy mechas and five hundred medium mechas, forced their way through the junction of our two divisions. By the time the reserves rushed to recapture the position, it was too late. If the airfield hadn't been captured by their airborne troops, it would have taken them at least a week to break through the first line of defense." The beautiful female pilot, clearly prioritizing her appearance over her own safety, sat down casually, untangling her messy hair. She bit a pink elastic band between her lips and tried to smooth it out with her hands. Her movements were so charming that the fat man struggled to tear his eyes away from her soft, white hands. "But our situation isn't too bad. While the 6th Marine Division and the 9th Division in reserve didn't stop the Gacharin Empire Armored Division's breakthrough, they held them off for over three hours, preventing them from making a detour and splitting the enemy. The troops on the first line of defense have basically been withdrawn, so the losses aren't great." Her hair was tied into a ponytail with a rubber band, and the beautiful female pilot looked bright and energetic. "So now, between the first and second lines..." The fat man seemed to see a glimmer of hope. "It's not optimistic... It's basically been occupied by the Gacharin Empire. When we arrived, except for a few areas still resisting, the majority of the Federation forces had already retreated south of the Supengman River. The enemy is now deploying troops, preparing to attack our second line of defense." The female pilot held her chin with both hands, her expression gloomy. "It's over! What I feared has come true," the fat man lamented internally. Although he had already deduced the general situation from the Imperial army's movements and deployments here, he still held onto a glimmer of hope. Now the situation was set in stone. The Imperial army was everywhere. He could either play hide-and-seek with the enemy in the woods until the battle was over, or escape to the second line of defense on his own. The fat man's expression shifted, his mind racing. He was already struggling, and if he brought these two burdens with him... Just as he was about to think something ruthless, he felt someone grab his shirt. He looked up and saw a pure female medic quietly tugging at his shirt. Her half-smile seemed to have read the fat man's mind. A hint of shame and anger at what had just happened still lingered in her brow, but her clear eyes were filled with trust. The fat man surrendered instantly. "Fuck you! Die!" he cried. "Strength in numbers. Maybe we can escape the old-fashioned way." But where? He frowned, pondering a possible escape route. He could certainly not return to the heavily garrisoned New Rome, and nearly all nearby cities and military bases were either defended or occupied by the massive Imperial landing force. The only possible safe place was the planet's capital, Garipalan. Garipalan lay within the Three Lakes Basin of Milok. Besides the three vast lakes, which provided a complete ecosystem, the basin was also tightly protected by towering mountains. Without destroying the city's six air bases and the over 300 anti-aircraft missile bases dotted throughout the mountains, the Imperial Army's massive air transports would be unable to land. Without ground forces, capturing the capital was a futile undertaking.
If the Imperial Army's ground forces were to land outside the basin, even the best land combat mechas would be helpless against the complex geology, unpredictable climate, and steep, rugged mountains. To capture this area, the Gacharin Empire's only option was to concentrate all its air forces in an airstrike, destroying the air defenses and forcing a parachute landing, while simultaneously attacking the two highways leading into the basin. However, these roads were not only heavily fortified by the Federation Army, but also stretched through the mountains, with countless bridges and tunnels, providing ample means for the defenders to create obstacles for the Imperial Army's advance. At least since the large-scale, multi-point Imperial Army landings, the Federation's frontline headquarters in the capital, Garipalan, had issued orders without interruption, and the capital's major communications broadcasts had continuously urged the Federation citizens of Milok to offer unlimited resistance. This meant that the capital had not yet suffered a devastating blow. Even if the capital were captured, the surrounding Shiwan Mountains offered an ideal hiding place, home to lush jungles and a diverse array of wildlife. For Tian Xingjian, trained as a scout, the idea of taking two beautiful women with him into the mountains, building a treehouse or finding a cave to feast on wild game and vegetables, was a life better than heaven's. After a lewd imagination of a secluded life with one man and two women, the fat man made up his mind. "Go north, bypass the enemy landing base, then east to Garipalan," the fat man said, emphasizing his resolve. "Garipalan? Thousands of kilometers from here!" the female pilot's eyes widened. "How do we get there?" The innocent female medical soldier asked with some confusion in her big, flickering eyes. "There are enemies everywhere outside." "The Gacharin Empire landed in more than 40 cities at the same time. Apart from surrounding the entire city and dividing the traffic arteries that the federal forces need to guard, they don't need to fully control other blank areas." The fat man felt that he had some military talent. The twenty escape experiences in the past six months made him very familiar with the imperial army's combat methods. He continued in an affirmative tone: "These blank areas are too big for them to take care of. They only have their eyes on our cities and military bases. As long as they keep their eyes on these targets, it is enough for them. Without the city's supplies, these barren areas will not be able to generate any resistance. They don't care." "Besides, they don't have enough troops." The fat man said as he thought, and the context of the whole situation became clearer and clearer: "They want to control the four immigrant planets in the Galileo Galaxy that have been occupied and the Milok II planet in the Newton Galaxy. These five planets occupy the vast majority of their ground forces. This planet should be the Gacharin Empire's battle "The end point, time is too short. They need time to fully control these six immigrant planets." "Previously, they would forcefully land in the most important cities on a planet, tearing the defenses between the cities into a few uncoordinated rags before launching a full-scale landing, using their superior forces to form an all-around encirclement of the immigrant cities. But this time, their full-scale landing only targeted forty of the more than sixty cities. This means they don't have enough troops, or that subsequent troops are still on the way, making it impossible to strike all cities during the airborne landing." The fat man confirmed his reasoning and came to a conclusion that shocked him. He didn't continue. This conclusion horrified him. He thought, "Such a landing can only be carried out with the greatest certainty if precise strikes are carried out against ground forces and garrison bases. Accurately destroy the ground defenses, and then encircle and capture the city with minimal manpower. Many bases were hidden underground or in the mountains, but they were all destroyed without exception. The two space fleets responsible for defending the Galileo system were defeated so quickly, practically collapsing at the first blow. It seems there's a traitor within the Federation's leadership. The military deployment maps of the six colony planets aren't accessible to ordinary people." With a sudden change of mind, the fat man's newly determined retreat plan began to waver. "So, the defense of the capital, Garipalan..." The fat man felt overly melancholic. The thought of a mechanic pondering such a complex problem was truly troubling. "If a mechanic can think of something, surely the High Command can as well!" he consoled himself, finding his concern for the ancients somewhat ridiculous. "But you haven't told us how to escape from here yet," the female pilot said impatiently. Tian Xingjian pointed to the destroyed and abandoned mechas of both sides on the battlefield not far away and said, "I think I can piece together a vehicle with the parts of these guys. Now that this place has become the enemy's forward base, the base where the giant transport ships landed in the north should be gradually abandoned, and materials and troops will be transferred to various forward bases like this." He pointed to several vaguely visible mountains in the north and said, "The further north we go, the looser their defenses will be. As long as we have a chance to escape across the plain north of the jungle and get into the jungle under the mountain over there, we can get out of the control of the imperial army." "Then what should we do now?" the pure female medical soldier asked softly. "Let's wait until dark. Once we've rested up, we can dig a hole together tonight. Hehe, I can't do this alone." After saying that, the bitch asked with a lewd look on his face, "Who wants to sleep with me? It's warm." The two female soldiers automatically ignored the fat man's teasing. Together, the three of them dug a hole in the bushes on the other side of the jungle, far away from the Empire's forward base, to rest and wait for nightfall. Tian Xingjian had put a lot of thought into the hole, setting several traps and camouflaging them perfectly with branches. The three of them huddled together waiting for nightfall. Although the fat man was a bit mean, this was his first time having such intimate contact with a woman. With the psychological barrier, he was less shameless and justified. Instead, he pressed his body against the wall of the hole as much as possible, closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep.
The two female soldiers, in fact, had little concern. Before being rescued by the fat man, they had barely conceived the consequences of being escorted to the base. They knew exactly what would happen to them—gang rape followed by execution. They might even die before their execution. The fear was suffocating. They didn't know if they had the courage to commit suicide. At least before the fat man rescued them, they didn't even have the chance. The moment Tian Xingjian leaped from the bushes, this somewhat foolish, ruthless, and somewhat mean-spirited fat man had become their pillar of support. The disappearance of the escorting soldier sparked a widespread search throughout the Imperial base as night fell. However, the search was quickly concluded. Under what circumstances could a male soldier, escorting two defenseless female soldiers, disappear? The Imperial soldiers exchanged tacit glances, sharing their thoughts on the disappearance. The two women had nothing to do with them; they were prey to their superiors. Some soldiers even felt a sense of gloating. Even this cursory search left the fat man trembling with fear. He climbed the cave wall, his ears focused on every sound. An Imperial soldier approached the thicket, but the overgrown branches and thorns quickly dissuaded him from entering. He carefully scanned the outside of the bush, saw no sign of anyone passing, and turned away. The fat man breathed a sigh of relief. As his tense body relaxed, he suddenly felt two soft bodies cuddling tightly against his. The exposed forearms touched the female soldiers' skin, yet the touch was almost indescribable, leaving the virgin fat man intoxicated and intoxicated. "Hey, we don't know your name yet," the female medic said softly and faintly. "Well... my name is Tian Xingjian, Corporal of the First Squad, Logistics Squadron, Third Armored Battalion, Fifth Division." The fat man's voice was reserved and trembling, the result of the numbness in his arms. "My name is Meiduo," the female medic's voice remained soft. "Her name is Nia." The female pilot, Nia, seemed to be almost asleep. Hearing her name, she hummed a half-awake, half-dreamy sound. At night, the sky had completely darkened. The only star in the Newtonian system, also known as the Sun, disappeared below the horizon. Planets without a moon as a companion were pitch black. Fatty reached the edge of a wrecked mecha and used his robotic arms to quickly dismantle the parts he needed. The rigorous training at the Mechanical Maintenance Training Camp had given Fatty a thorough understanding of the structures of various mechas. His disassembly work was as swift and untraceable as butchering an ox. Fatty assigned the two female soldiers to dig a hole. They had to dig a three-meter-deep, five-meter-long, and five-meter-wide hole beneath their hiding place. This would become Fatty's underground workshop, where he would assemble and conceal his vehicles. Over the next two days, Tian Xingjian, like a mouse that hibernates during the day and emerges at night, gradually dragged the disassembled mecha parts back to the cave. He even found some dry food, temporarily solving the problem of the two female soldiers refusing to eat unidentified animals or insects. The two female mice were also very effective. They dug a beautiful underground cave and carefully disposed of the excavated soil. Even Fatty thought they had a natural talent for digging. Using dismantled armored soundproof tiles to soundproof the cave, Fatty began to work on his vehicle. He first used a dismantled Imperial single-soldier mecha cabin to assemble a cabin that could accommodate three people. He removed the Empire's small energy engine and installed three powerful Federation Honor 15 energy engines. One of them would provide the energy needed for the energy shield. It should be noted that the energy engines of this era were significantly different from the various fuel engines that existed before humans entered space. The invention of highly compressed solid energy, high-energy storage batteries, and ultra-light alloy micro-kinetic pods had revolutionized engines. A heavy engine made of ultra-light alloy could be carried by one person. The entire weight of a mecha lies in its armor; no one would spare the expense of using expensive superalloys for the surface armor of a land-based mecha. Aside from the anti-gravity system, which requires enormous energy and is bulky and heavy due to technological limitations, conventional power systems have been completely miniaturized, yet they generate tens or even hundreds of times more force than before. Tian Xingjian then installed the various undamaged instruments he found within the cabin. He still used the control system of the Gacharin Empire's Holy Armor 22 individual mecha, but he removed the computer and switched all controls and instruments to manual operation. He also added six automatic landing legs to the base of the two Imperial individual mecha's mechanical legs, which retracted into the mecha's belly when not in use, making them virtually invisible. He replaced the wing-like missile launchers on each side of the mecha with jet-assisted propulsion systems. This was Tian Xingjian's most proud modification; after all, there were no missiles to be used, and the appearance remained unchanged. The only difference was that the missiles could not be automatically reloaded during combat. The energy shield took the fat man a lot of effort. This mech, which sacrificed all offensive power and most of its external armor, would have been destroyed in a single blow without it. However, the specific requirements for the energy shield required considerable thought. Finally, he managed to create a small, inconspicuous bunny tail on the back of the mech, which served as the energy shield's transmission probe. To go all out, the fat man also installed a spare probe between the two mechanical legs. As he did so, he chuckled at the two female soldiers with a naive smile. Nia and Meiduo were both furious and amused, wanting to chop open this wretched fat man's head with an axe to see what was inside. Soon, the Gacharin Empire Holy Armor 22 individual mecha, with its appearance almost unchanged, was completed. Nia and Meiduo were completely stunned by the fat man's dazzling performance. His imaginative and reasonable modifications, his flying hands, and his familiarity with the structure of each part of the mecha made the two female soldiers unable to believe that the fat man was just a mechanical repairman. He could be called a mecha expert. In his hands, modifying a mecha was as easy as playing with building blocks. And how much knowledge was needed to seamlessly integrate the completely different instruments and parts of the Empire and the Federation! This unremarkable fat man was simply a genius among geniuses.
The fat man was certainly a genius, but he wasn't the most genius of geniuses. It was just that a genius who had assembled countless bizarre things from these parts during more than twenty escapes could become a genius among geniuses. The fat man wouldn't tell the two female soldiers about these embarrassing escapes; he simply enjoyed being stared at with wonder and admiration. It gave his vanity immense satisfaction. The remaining problems were energy and how to escape. Near the original Federation base, a large block of highly compressed energy, hidden by Tian Xingjian, lay buried. It was buried beneath a large tree, its massive roots tangled and exposed above the ground. Since the original base was covered in ash and debris from the fire set by the fat man, the new Imperial Army base naturally avoided this area, choosing instead a dense forest south of the jungle, near the former Federation artillery base, where mecha materials could be easily concealed. At night, Tian Xingjian secretly unearthed the energy block and cannon. He had two female soldiers carry the energy block back to the cave. Fatty decided to create some confusion for the Imperial forces, facilitating his escape. Pulling the cannon on a small cart with bearings as wheels, he carefully dodged Imperial patrols and took a long detour, his stealthy advance taking him almost half the night. Finally, he reached a small slope in the southwest corner of the Imperial base. He set up the cannon, aiming it squarely at a row of makeshift barracks. He installed a simple remote control he had modified from the remote sensing unit of an Imperial Saint Armor 22 mech, and then loaded the cannon's energy cartridge with the broken energy blocks he had collected from the wreckage. As he did all this, Fatty felt the inexplicable exhilaration of a mischievous child. "Although I hate killing, I prefer eating meat. Although I love peace, my life is more precious. I won't die even if all of you die." Fatty, making sure the battlefield recorder had recorded his actions, crept back into the cave. Thinking of the barracks the machine gun was aimed at, his heartbeat quickened. "I wonder how many Imperial soldiers I can kill. If I can kill two officers, I'll definitely get a promotion, right?" It was already four in the morning when he returned to the cave, nearly three hours before dawn. Fatty rested for a moment and decided to act immediately. Waiting any longer and the machine gun would be discovered would be disastrous. After filling the mech's energy tank with compressed solid energy blocks, the three of them climbed into the mech's cabin. Although a bit cramped, it didn't hinder Fatty's ability to control the mech. Instead, the two fiery, alluring bodies beside him gave Fatty a feeling of spiritual ascension. Flicking the switch on the machine gun remote, Fatty piloted the mech out of the ground. In the distance, the faint sounds of bombings from the Imperial base barracks and the roar of the machine gun could be heard.