Chapter 41: The Admiral and the Secretary Fight Side by Side

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The starry sky lit up.

Amongst deafening noise, Luo Ran imagined that he could even feel the battleship shake.

Fireworks bloomed on the pirates’ warships, fighters, and mecha one after another. This wave of attacks caught them by complete surprise, so they could only passively defend and fall back under the onslaught.

“What’s going on?! Boss, this…”

“Boss, should we retreat?” the scarred man next to Huntsman asked in a low tone.

“We can’t retreat.” Huntsman’s gaze was heavy as he watched the bright red dot on the monitoring screen get ever closer. 

That was Lucas.

Single-handedly, fearlessly, he charged towards Huntsman’s flagship, followed by his troops.

“We can only fight to the end,” Huntsman sneered.

Not far away, Lucas set his sights on his person, as if he’d decided to behead the snake’s head first.

Huntsman saw his expression clearly.

It was as if Lucas was provoking and showing off to him, telling him: no matter where you go, whether that be the UNK hyperlane or B647, you will never win.

Victory does not belong to you.

* * *

“Barton, Zheng Lan, listen up!” Lucas sat within his mecha with a hand on the joystick and intently observed the display panels in front of him. “Prepare to bombard the enemy flagship!”

The Imperial army under Lucas’ command was extraordinarily organised, and quickly surrounded the interstellar pirates. Using a staggered firing sequence to attack and defend in turn, they slowly pressed their advantage.

On the one hand, Lucas gave orders to the adjutants and corporals leading their formations, and on the other, he brought two elite teams to rush straight to Huntsman’s flagship.

He didn’t stop for anything.

On the other side.

“Secretary Luo…?” Lu Cheng watched Luo Ran go into the launch bay and pick out a light starfighter rated for S-class agility.

“I’ll go out and help.”

Lu Cheng was stunned for a moment, then protested, “Don’t…! Now that the admiral’s here, we only need to wait!”

“It’s exactly because the admiral’s here.” Luo Ran raised an eyebrow. “What are you worried about?”

“…” Lu Cheng paused. H-He does make sense…

“Then… Secretary Luo should choose a sturdier aircraft!”

“No need.” Luo Ran climbed in and got familiar with the controls. He smiled at Lu Cheng. “This is more convenient.”

“Then I’ll…”

“I’m going by myself.”

Lu Cheng’s face was full of disapproval.

“Don’t worry. Only I can go, because there’s only one escape pod,” Luo Ran said.

As a result, an obvious silver fighter exited the flagship and charged recklessly into the enemy line.

“That’s…?” The scarred man reacted. “That’s Lucas’s secretary! Boss, should we chase him?

“Tsk, he’s obviously a newbie, his positioning is so bad, their formation can’t protect him at all there! He’s a sitting duck!”

Huntsman narrowed his eyes and considered his options.

That secretary… he’d seen him before.

Only after the fact did he learn that the person with delicious pheromones at the black market was Luo Ran, secretary-general of the Empire.*

He found several of his photos on the starnet, most of which were taken secretly by others.

Luo Ran was indeed very handsome in the photos.

He was also the original target of their mission.

“Boss, where’s he going?”

“He wants to find Lucas,” Huntsman replied with a frown. “Tsk.”

The two were inseparable at the black market, and acted so intimate as well — they should be a couple.

Hey, he’d almost caught Luo Ran just then, maybe he couldn’t resist looking for Lucas now?

Boom——

“Our ship can’t hold on anymore!” the scarred man cried nervously. “Boss, let’s find a stronger ship and leave first!”

Huntsman clenched his fists tight.

This time was his mistake. He was so proud of his plan, and arrogantly prophesied his victory.

But he didn’t expect that Lucas could detect the abnormalities so quickly and predict his thoughts.

“Huntsman!”

Lucas turned on the mecha’s external broadcast system and shouted again, “Huntsman! Before, I thought you were short of red blood cells, you looked like you crawled out of a morgue every day! Now I know you’re also missing fucking brain cells! You’ve never won a fight against me. Don’t say your dad six feet under can’t take it, even I can’t take it!”

The low yet arrogant voice spread everywhere, to the delight of the Imperial soldiers.

Lucas’ uncle, Admiral Alton, had fought against Huntsman’s father for many years until both their deaths — and now a new round of struggles began with Lucas and Huntsman.

Everyone expected Lucas to end Huntsman like his uncle did his father, but didn’t want him to use a similarly extreme method.

Huntsman’s expression darkened, and his originally pale white skin became dusted with red.

“Boss…!” The scarred man looked at the monitor, which showed that their flagship’s back half had already been blown up!

“Go! Find me a faster fighter to chase the secretary-general, don’t let them meet.” Huntsman turned, his gaze terrifying. “Catch him.”

* * *

Beep– Beep–

“An enemy spacecraft is approaching at full speed…”

“Coordinates X5, Y7, Z1…”

Luo Ran kept a hand on the joystick while he observed the displays.

He knew that his current position was outside the formation, and that the Imperial soldiers couldn’t protect him, because the formation was not allowed to be in chaos.

Lucas wasn’t far away, but someone else was closer still — Huntsman.

Luo Ran gently shut his eyes and lightly rested his fingers on the red emergency evacuation button.

Beep– Beep–

“Alert, alert, the enemy spacecraft has fired a missile…”

“T-minus five, four, three…”

“Two…”

“One!”

Boom——

Luo Ran’s fighter exploded, and at the same time, Huntsman’s fighter also disintegrated.

The two fighters were destroyed at the same time.

“Holy shit.” Lu Cheng, standing in command within their flagship, had a perfect view of how Luo Ran deliberately flew into a tricky angle of their formation, and how he incited Huntsman into chasing him.

As he watched Huntsman shoot at Luo Ran, he felt that even his palms were sweating.

Luo Ran successfully escaped in an emergency escape pod the instant before his fighter was scrapped.

However, Huntsman wasn’t so lucky. He’d been lured into a vulnerable position, which moreover was one where Lucas had a perfect shot.

Lucas’ artillery fire and lasers blasted towards him. Huntsman’s fighter, still firing its own missiles, couldn’t react at all. Under the intense barrage, his fighter’s safety system kicked in and forcefully ejected him in an escape pod.

This automatic ejection was different from Luo Ran’s early retreat. Luo Ran left unscathed, but Huntsman… Luo Ran could see that the person in the escape pod was covered in blood and had obviously lost their capability to command.

Then Lu Cheng saw the pirates firing on Luo Ran’s escape capsule, which had lost the protection of the fighter.

But Lucas quickly arrived.

The mecha stretched out a large metal hand and caught the falling escape pod.

A tiny pod laid in a mecha’s giant hand.

Seeing their boss go down, the rest of the pirates immediately opened fire on Lucas’ Lion 01 like crazy.

Lion 01 wasn’t in a hurry to dodge. Instead, it first carefully retracted its hand and enveloped the escape pod in sturdy metal to protect it from harm.

This big guy wasn’t afraid of these attacks at all, because it was strong enough to tough it out.

It was the strongest mecha in the Empire. Because Lucas’ spiritual power could manipulate such a weight, the mecha designer didn’t worry about anything else except stacking more material into it until the Shield of the Empire was created.

Lu Cheng had goosebumps all over his body.

He hadn’t expected that Luo Ran and Lucas could cooperate to this extent.

They as Lucas’ adjutants sometimes couldn’t keep up with his thinking, and this was even Luo Ran’s first time on the battlefield. They didn’t plan anything together, nor had they discussed a single sentence.

Yet Luo Ran and Lucas could tacitly meet here, catch the enemies by surprise, and work together to counter Huntsman.

Although the situation wasn’t so suitable, and he had to control the flagship’s weapons system, Lu Cheng still wanted to say those four words.

* * *

Luo Ran watched his escape pod land in Lion 01’s palm. Now, he was so close to Lucas than he only needed to turn his head to see him.

When the two met eyes, Lucas glared at Luo Ran warningly.

Too dangerous!

Luo Ran only smiled in return. When Lion 01 retracted his palm, he could no longer see Lucas.

But he heard Lucas shouting over the comms, “The pirates’ leader has fallen! Fire at will–”

Luo Ran’s heart pounded as Lucas’ profile appeared in his mind. He could well imagine what Lucas looked like as he gave his orders.

Boom——

Boom, boom——

Each explosion rang louder than the last.

The starry universe was blown apart by gunfire, and the Empire’s warships, fighters, and mechas swarmed over the interstellar pirates like a black tide.

“The Empire is victorious!”

“The Empire is victorious!!”

“The Empire is victorious–!”

One of the very excited captains shouted it over the comms, then everyone followed suit.

For a moment, Luo Ran felt that the entire universe was filled with their voices.

They ignited this patch of stars.

　　—— XXXX ——

In the vast space, there was no such thing as day and night — there was only ever pitch-black silence.

But when Luo Ran checked his terminal, he saw that this battle had lasted for almost a whole day.

Now, he and Lucas stood in the hangar as they listened to Freeman and Lu Cheng’s inventory reports.

“The southeastern troops captured a total of 765 interstellar pirates, consisting of 231 females and 534 males. An estimated three hundred to four hundred have escaped…”

“The southwestern troops captured 1671 interstellar pirates, of whom three quarters were males, while two hundred to two hundred fifty escaped…”

Huntsman had also escaped. He unhesitatingly stepped over the corpses of his subordinates and used the remaining pirates to cover his retreat, using any means necessary to slip away. The people around him were also loyal enough — their families were in Huntsman’s hands, so they escorted him away with their lives.

But although they missed out on the leader, this mission was still very rewarding, and they could be considered to have dealt a serious blow to the vitality of the pirates.

Lucas was very satisfied with the adjutants’ reports.

He raised an eyebrow at Luo Ran. “It’s your first time here, how does it feel?”

“I won by laying down, Admiral took me to fly, it feels very good,” Luo Ran replied earnestly.

The people around them couldn’t help smiling.

“Of course.” Lucas crossed his arms. “This is my territory. Let me tell you, I’ve never lost a battle. Here, no one can bully you.”

The victorious general was in high spirits, and was immersed in an air of arrogance that Luo Ran had never seen before.

The people around them covered their mouths and cried.

They obviously came here to fight, but at the end of the day, they were stuffed with dog food.

“Give a hug.” Then, Lucas suddenly opened his arms.

Luo Ran froze.

Lucas was in the mecha the whole time, so his body was completely clean with not even a trace of battle — except for the suffocating aura on his body and the aggression in his eyes.

Everyone was watching, Luo Ran thought that he couldn’t let Lucas be embarrassed.

So he smiled, stepped forward, and rubbed himself into Lucas’ embrace.

Although Luo Ran wasn’t short, Lucas was too tall. At this moment, Luo Ran could hear Lucas’ heartbeat — it raced beneath his ears, having just left the battlefield, and was complemented by the heat emanating from Lucas’ body which almost melted him.

Lucas hugged Luo Ran with his arms around his waist and asked in a voice that only the two of them could hear, “Scared?”

“Not scared,” Luo Ran replied.

Lucas wanted to ask why, but as soon as the two hugged, everyone around them exploded.

“Ohh!! Kiss! Kiss!”

“Wow!! Kiss–!”

A group of grown adults shouted at the top of their lungs, and with the joy of victory in their veins, each was louder than the last as if they were injected with chicken blood.*

“Kiss!!!”

“Kiss!!!!”

It was so loud that Luo Ran became dizzy.

Perhaps it was because this was his first battle that he felt like his blood was boiling.

Or perhaps it was because it was the first time he saw such a Lucas who held his man close with deadly aggression, with such a stifling tobacco scent that it overwhelmed Luo Ran’s nerves.

Luo Ran subconsciously raised himself to his toes and gently kissed Lucas on his cheek.

Just like a dragonfly skimming over water, Lucas felt a pair of soft lips brush against his cheek, but before he could enjoy the warmth, Luo Ran had already moved away.

Only afterwards did Luo Ran begin to feel embarrassed and regretful.

I’m finished.

He… Did he go crazy?!

Their surroundings reached another level of noise.

“The admiral and secretary got together!!”

“The admiral and secretary got together!!”

“The admiral and secretary are marrying tomorrow–”

Luo Ran, quickly losing the will to live, wished he could give himself a few slaps.

And Lucas had completely turned into stone.

Fuck.

This little bastard.

Fuck. 

Seducing people in public, what a vixen.

Fuck.

C-Can’t you control your love a bit?!

Fuck.

He couldn’t move.

“Admiral…” Luo Ran’s face was about to be cooked through. He felt extremely humiliated and full of regret. “Let’s go back.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said blankly, “Back to the Empire.”

Before the two entered the battleship, Lucas glanced at Lion 01 parked in the hangar — his sturdiest, most powerful weapon.

With one arm still around Luo Ran’s waist, Lucas bowed his head and kissed Lion 01.

More precisely, it wasn’t a kiss but a touch of his forehead.

Such scenes weren’t uncommon among Imperial soldiers. Most of them would kiss their mechas before and after their expedition, and there were quite a few who considered their mechas as wives.

But at this moment, the one in Lucas’ arms was Luo Ran. This man with a deadly aura all over his body gently bowed his head and caressed the silver-blue Lion 01.

Luo Ran’s ears instantly turned red.

---

Translator:
Watch out for the first of several teaser chapters for a new novel live on the site, right now! It’s super low on the priority list though, so those will upload irregularly.

Footnotes:

1. Secretary-general [秘书长]: the chief administrative officer (CAO) of an organisation, who typically reports directly to the CEO. Luo Ran shouldn’t be the Empire’s CAO — that would be someone reporting to the emperor — and the only way I can think of to solve the contradiction is if Lucas’ company is named Empire or something. Which is vanishingly unlikely.
2. Injected with chicken blood [打鸡血]: very excited; the phrase originates from chicken-blood therapy, which was a pseudo-medical therapy (pseudo as in it doesn’t work) popular in China in the 1960s which involved drawing blood from a rooster and injecting it in people, with the aim of making them stronger and more aggressive (see Wikipedia)

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