Kolev's Secret Garden

They were, of course, not heading directly to the Administrative Planet of the Kashi Federation.

A normal Administrative Planet had a comprehensive defense system around it.

This colony was merely a set of coordinates—a beacon guiding them toward the true secret base.

--An abandoned Resource Planet in the same star system as the Administrative Planet.

As Kolev explained the various operations of the ship to Yang Ming, he steadily avoided several sluggish patrol ships, evaded the mostly abandoned defense probes, and entered the Resource Planet's synchronous orbit.

After confirming that there were no abnormalities, the pirate ship slipped into the Resource Planet's thin atmosphere.

The planet looked like a regular lump of ice. --It lay on the outer edge of the star system's habitable zone and received relatively little heat from the star.

When Yang Ming looked down, the ground was a vast expanse of white.

"There's plenty of fresh water here. The only problem is that the atmosphere is rather thin."

Kolev introduced it with a smile:

"This planet wasn't originally here. It was probably towed over during the previous civilization era and made into a satellite for the planet next door. But the resources here have already been drained. Only some enormous empty spaces remain beneath the ice fields.

"The planet next door is quite interesting too. I have quite a few assets there as well, but we're pressed for time this trip, so I won't take you sightseeing."

Yang Ming yawned. The controls before his eyes were like a school of tiny fish, flitting about and frantically attacking his retinas.

He felt that he would probably need to inject some Gene Stabilizer later.

Studying in class was more likely to cause anxiety than fighting.

"How long are we staying here?" Yang Ming asked.

"We brought enough supplies to live here for three years without any problems," Kolev said with a laugh. "But I can't keep Gimo waiting too long. We'll stay for about three months, lie low, and then leave."

Milili asked, "Dad, can I do anything?"

"Be happy, my child," Kolev said with a laugh. "All you need to do is enjoy everything here. This is the fortress I spent more than ten years designing for the two of us. You're definitely going to be stunned later! Guess what I used to build it? This is only a small portion of the fortune I accumulated over half my life."

Yang Ming immediately grew expectant.

--He was looking forward to the pirate's fortune.

The pirate ship slowly headed toward the fishbone-like ridge. Kolev steadily tucked it into a canyon that was extremely difficult to notice, and Yang Ming and the others were ordered to put on bulky planetary exploration suits.

When the old crewmen tried to move the supplies, Kolev merely waved them off. "Don't worry about those. Follow me! There are plenty of tireless laborers here!"

The group left the pirate ship and slowly reached the bottom of the canyon along the ridge.

Kolev walked up to the sheer stone wall and fiddled with something for a while. A two-by-three-meter Projection screen suddenly appeared in front of him.

It was a display interface, showing one surveillance image after another.

Yang Ming leaned over to take a look and praised it. "It's much more spacious inside than the ship."

"Haha! Hanton! You want to know what I've built here, don't you?" Kolev said excitedly.

"No."

"No! Hurry up and say that you do! My dear First Mate Hanton, I can give you management authority equal to my daughter's!"

"The scenery here is really nice."

Yang Ming calmly gazed at the sky filled with auroras.

Milili, standing nearby, could no longer hold back her laughter.

After repeatedly confirming that the base had not been breached, Kolev deliberately waited a few more minutes before opening the base's gate.

Amid a rumble, two camouflaged layers of ice and stone slowly shifted aside, revealing a passage slanting downward.

Kolev and Yang Ming walked at the front. The others proceeded downward in single file. After passing through several rooms resembling airlocks, they finally entered the spacious front hall of the base, which looked like the hangar of a massive aircraft carrier.

Kolev's long-planned performance officially began.

Two rows of robots of all shapes and sizes stood in neat formation. With their differently constructed bodies of varying sizes, they performed elegant bows in unison, then called out in electronic voices of more than fifty different tones:

"Welcome home, Master."

Yang Ming studied the low-intelligence robots with interest.

A small portion of them were humanoid mechanical intelligences modeled after maids and butlers. The rest were engineering machines, with stone chips and debris still clinging to their tracks. They looked as though they had been operating for a very long time.

Kolev's old companions were completely dumbfounded.

"Molly!" Kolev roared. "Get out here and receive our guests! Where the hell are you, Molly?"

"Coming, Master."

A cold electronic voice suddenly rang out. Beams of light shot from the four corners and interwove into a three-dimensional projection before Kolev.

It was a virtual character with a somewhat contradictory appearance.

She wore a professional skirt suit, stockings, and a pair of red-soled high heels, but her small, round face was as youthful as a girl's, and she also wore square-framed glasses.

Yang Ming smiled. "Kolev, you've exposed your preferences."

"Guest, please do not slander my master."

Molly—the virtual image—spoke with utmost seriousness. Her voice seemed to come directly from her mouth:

"When my master first configured my appearance, the secretion of the relevant hormones in his body was already insufficient to give him any interest in this area. He is quite old already."

"Molly! Shut up!" Kolev removed his exploration helmet and cursed through gritted teeth.

Molly said softly, "Understood, Master. If my momentary honesty has caused you to lose face, I am deeply sorry."

"Lower your sharp-tongued index by twenty percent, your nagging index by fifty percent, and your humor index by fifty percent! Damn it! Why did I give you so many useless parameters?"

Kolev bumped Yang Ming with his shoulder and cursed:

"Having this woman argue with me was already giving me a headache. Now, some of your functions can be retired!"

"Oh, that's wonderful news... Configuration complete."

Molly's tone changed slightly, becoming much more serious.

"Master, please set the guest's permissions."

"Milili, my only daughter and the heir to everything after my death," Kolev said, pointing toward Milili behind him. "Set her permissions to the highest level."

He then added in a lowered voice, "Except for my property list. She can only receive that after I die."

"Set. Second Master."

Milili raised a hand to her forehead, her face full of helplessness. "Dad! I don't need you to survive!"

"But you'll certainly live more comfortably under my care."

Kolev laughed smugly and pointed at Yang Ming:

"This guy gets the same permissions as Milili, but he's forbidden from entering the women's quarters I'm about to show him. Everyone else gets guest privileges."

"Set. Third Master. Forbidden from entering the women's rooms... But I have no way to control mechanical door locks that aren't connected to the network."

"Just keep an eye on him! Report to me at all times!"

"Understood, my old master."

Molly's virtual image took out a notebook and quickly recorded something with her head lowered.

She then turned and called out names. Two butler robots and eight maid robots stepped forward to help Yang Ming's group remove their heavy planetary exploration suits. More than ten tracked robots left the base through a dedicated passage on the other side and headed to the pirate ship to transport the supplies.

A few minutes later, everyone sat on the soft sofas to the left of the main hall, drinking delicious beverages, listening to melodious music, and admiring the scenic projections on the walls that were almost indistinguishable from reality.

The old pirates marveled constantly at the luxury.

Yang Ming had already begun impatiently exploring every corner.

After the robots left, the front hall became somewhat spacious.

The entertainment area was on the left side of the front hall, while the work area was on the right. Several workbenches, a row of black, box-shaped computer units, and several highly integrated consoles had been arranged there.

The center of the front hall was empty. After carefully observing it for a while, Yang Ming quickly noticed something unusual.

It was a circular lift twenty meters in diameter. In addition, there was a hidden exit diagonally above it. When he thought of the terrain outside—the fishbone-like ridges—Yang Ming immediately formed a guess.

"Kolev, there's an escape pod and an ejection acceleration track here, right?"

Yang Ming asked in surprise.

Kolev, who had been showing off to his old companions, raised his brows and smiled.

"A proper pirate always has to carefully consider his escape route. Since you're so interested, I'll take you around first, Hanton. This place is only the tip of the iceberg."

Milili asked, "Dad, when you disappeared every so often before, were you coming here?"

"Yes," Kolev said with a smile. "If I died in prison, Molly would give you the information. This is the last gift I'm giving you—a self-sustaining base."

Milili's eyes were filled with emotion, and she said guiltily, "I messed everything up."

"Cheer up," Kolev sighed. "Your Uncle Hanton was right. I put too many rose-colored filters over the way I saw you. But you don't need to worry at all. Dad will take care of everything for you."

"But, Dad..."

"Come on, I'll show you around first!"

Kolev gave his daughter no further chance to speak. He draped an arm around Yang Ming's shoulders and walked toward the corridor on the far right.

Milili's expression was somewhat downcast.

"Master Milili," Molly's projected figure appeared beside her. "He loves you very much."

"Thank you."

"He loves you even more than you think," Molly said softly.

Milili shrugged and followed the two men ahead with her arms folded. She chuckled softly, "Looking at things now, he seems to like Uncle Hanton more."

Molly said, "For an eccentric and slovenly old man like your father, finding a friend who shares his peculiarities is truly rare. It is a wonderful experience for his later years."

Milili snorted softly and raised her brows at Molly.

They began a pleasant conversation.

Yang Ming learned the origin of the base from the old man.

When planning everything, Kolev had spent a fortune obtaining a supporting base system for a planetary terraforming system, then had machines construct it over the course of more than a decade.

"Don't worry. I won't create a mechanical intelligence crisis. If no one ever comes here, it will only continue operating for twenty years."

Kolev laughed:

"Molly is the brain of this place. I installed a pile of patches in her mind, which is why she seems so silly. That's my masterpiece as well."

He turned his head and glanced at Milili, whose attention had been drawn to the decorations. Then he said quietly, "I usually call Molly my younger daughter. In fact, when my wife and I were planning to have a second child, we wanted to name her Momoli."

"Milili will get jealous," Yang Ming reminded him with a smile. "You'd better treat Molly as a little butler."

"Yes, exactly. Milili is especially like her mother in that regard."

Kolev stopped and looked toward a nearby corridor. He smiled and said, "Her mother's tomb is just ahead. It'll be mine someday too. I hope so, at least."

Milili had already been drawn over by the signposts. Accompanied by Molly, she walked toward the tomb at the end of the corridor.

Inside was an indoor jungle.

Yang Ming leaned against a wall projecting an aquarium scene and watched the backs of his two "daughters" together with Kolev.

The old pirates had already begun touring the base through the other passageways.

Yang Ming asked slowly, "What are you planning to do?"

"In what regard?"

"Kill Gimo."

"Come with me." Kolev instinctively clasped his hands behind his back, a habit Yang Ming had influenced him into adopting. "Molly, cancel surveillance on the two of us. Warn us if anyone approaches."

Molly's voice came from the walls. "Understood, Master."

Kolev slowly walked around with Yang Ming. They passed through the tastefully decorated residential district and entertainment rooms before heading toward the sports field at the rear of the base.

The old pirate analyzed the situation carefully:

"The Black Dragon won't be united right now. Gimo was not originally the successor I chose. He's a captain and a Captain. The other three Captains all have friction with him. At the very least, they won't obey him as completely as they appear to.

"My appearance was like smashing a hammer into those cracks. What we need to do next is wait—just wait a little.

"Gimo is the anxious one now.

"I want to choose one of the other three Captains and win him over. I know their temperaments. They're all pirates I raised myself. That's the foundation on which I'll oppose Gimo.

"Now, Hanton, I need your help."

"Get rid of Gimo?" Yang Ming smiled. "I need an Assault Boat, or you need to get me into the same room as him."

Kolev smiled and patted Yang Ming's arm, saying gently, "Although that wasn't my intention in saying it this way, this is a transaction. I'm asking for your help because of my daughter, so I should give you sufficient compensation."

He stopped and pressed several spots on a wall beside them. The metal wall slowly rose, revealing a transparent glass wall.

And behind the glass wall was a gigantic hangar.

A medium-sized, claw-shaped spacecraft lay quietly inside the hangar. Some movable scaffolding stood beside it, along with more than a dozen tracked robots busy at various tasks.

"This is your compensation. I acquired it at an extremely low price and will transfer it to you for... one million Federal Credit Points. You can pay in installments. How does that sound?"

Kolev revealed a merchant-like smile.

"Oh? Only one million?"

Yang Ming was unable to tear his eyes away. "Are you serious?"

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