After all, these were knockoff bioelectric batteries, made in shady, improvised workshops with a guerrilla-style approach. Naturally, they came with all sorts of problems. The others were manageable, but the heat and the smell were unavoidable. The former put some strain on the vehicle and its engine; the latter was bound to leave a trail for the pursuers. The nomadic Sandmen bandits, after all, loved to raise spear-nosed Moak runners, whose sense of smell was even sharper than a dog's.
Still, it would be several hours before the Sandmen caught up. Yu Lian had finally gotten his first long breather since being reborn, and it was time to explain the current state of New Jade Gate.
As everyone knew, the Andromeda Galaxy, also called the "Great Andromeda Nebula," was the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. It was 1.6 times the Milky Way's diameter and twice its mass, and conservative estimates put its number of stars at more than triple ours. If the Milky Way had given rise to such a dazzling array of intelligent species and civilizations, there was no reason Andromeda wouldn't have, too. So when the ancient Enlighteners' most precious and mysterious legacy to the civilizations of the Milky Way—the Enlightener Star Gate—opened without warning, the galaxy's civilizations braced for an invasion, convinced that powerful attackers from another universe would pour through. Higher-dimensional demons, for instance...
But after the Galactic Civilization Council took the lead and the two poles and their rival blocs spent over a month standing ready with a united fleet, nothing happened. At last, the Milky Way sent probes and reconnaissance ships cautiously into the new universe. Later events proved that everyone had been far too anxious.
There were civilizations and intelligent life here, but none had come close to interstellar travel. Even after years of exploration, no spacecraft from an Andromedan civilization had been found. The most advanced known civilization in the galaxy was on a planet the Alliance had discovered and named "New Nodal." It seemed to have only just entered the Industrial Revolution.
What did that mean? What did the Galactic Civilization Council's regulations say? Oh, right! "A civilization that has not independently entered the age of space exploration is a native civilization. We hope that the member civilizations of the Council will uphold the basic moral principles expected of intelligent life, and offer native peoples appropriate guidance and respect."
Yes! Guidance and respect. That was how the Empire and Alliance had treated the people of Earth back then. If we hadn't happened to be kin, with hardly any reproductive incompatibility and faces that looked more than ninety percent alike, who knew whether we'd have ended up in cans?
In short, this meant that the vast expanse of space, even greater than the Milky Way, was plainly unclaimed territory—a new continent waiting to be developed.
That had been thirty years ago. At the time, the great founding father of the Blue Star Commonwealth, Marshal Vittorio R. Lee, had died at his desk in his office, worn out from overwork.
When he was born, the Blue Star League, with Earth as its capital, had been an autonomous territory under the Galactic Empire. When he died, the Blue Star Commonwealth was a fully independent nation. Its overall strength was nowhere near that of the two poles, but it had secured a place among the Milky Way's second-tier powers. It had repeatedly beaten back "pacification" forces made up of most of the Empire's vassal states despite being outnumbered, and had even defeated the Empire's own fleet in open battle. Some even called the Blue Star Commonwealth "the Milky Way's third-greatest military power."
Now that it was the "third-greatest military power," the Commonwealth followed Marshal Lee's strategy, using its geographic advantage to keep playing both sides between the two great blocs. And with the Star Gate open, it naturally began developing the Andromeda Galaxy as well.
Superluminal travel within the Milky Way relied on hyperspace routes formed by the gravitational influence between stars. To reach beyond the galaxy, one needed a Star Gate—the most precious legacy left by the ancient Enlighteners. So far, eleven Enlightener Star Gates had been discovered in the Milky Way. The Galactic Empire controlled three; the Free Star Alliance had four in its home territory; the Empire's little brothers had two; the Alliance's allies—its lackeys, really—had one; and the last was within the Blue Star Commonwealth.
However, compared with the powerful Alliance and Empire, the Commonwealth's development of the new universe had not gone especially smoothly. Several colony worlds and space cities still needed subsidies from the central government. New Jade Gate was among the most successful. At least it sent home sizable quantities of high-energy minerals, fine spices, and other local specialties.
As for the natives who had originally lived on the planet, the beings called Sandfolk... Well, this species looked a bit like upright, flat-mouthed crocodiles and seemed to have evolved from egg-laying reptiles. They weren't exactly easy on the human eye, but we were willing to live in peace with them.
We were willing to offer them jobs in the cities, and to hire them to work in the mines and plantations. Of course, they'd never received proper civilized education. They couldn't even handle labor-intensive work, so all they could do was dig, haul bricks, and work in the mines. And since they weren't Commonwealth citizens, they naturally had no labor protections, pension plans, or the like. Even so, we sincerely hoped that after basking in the light of civilization for a while, the Sandfolk would choose to join the civilized family and become an inseparable part of the Blue Star Commonwealth.
Sadly, the Sandfolk had already reached the city-state era, when martial spirit ran high, and they'd developed at least a little sense of ethnic identity. Add in some shadowy figures fanning the flames behind the scenes—or, really, it would've been stranger if nobody had—and of course they weren't willing to accept rule by Earthlings. Their various uprisings and attacks had never stopped.
Plantations, mines, freight rails, settlements, even the larger towns—all were targets for Sandfolk attacks. If you were human and had never been attacked on New Jade Gate, you must've been living on a fake colony.
Still, the Governor's Office did its best to maintain absolute control over several towns, including Tulong. With garrisons at security outposts across the region, and the industries and settlements protected by militias belonging to plantation owners and mine bosses, it had formed a reasonably connected transport network. That was just enough to maintain its rule over the whole planet.
Sound familiar?
Now you knew why Outpost 12 served as a blockhouse, and could understand why the Sandfolk were so violent, right?
"Down with Earthling tyranny! Freedom for the Sandfolk!"
"New Jade Gate? That's just another insult the Earthlings have imposed on us! This is Daan, our home!"
"Daan? It's clearly Nuwa!"
"Nuwa is some backwater name. This place is called Oga Nu!"
All right, the Sandfolk's understanding of the world was still thousands of years away from the concept of a planet. Different tribes had different names for the world beneath their feet. They'd united against a common enemy they wanted to overthrow, yet still kept coming to blows over details like these. As a result, despite numbering in the hundreds of millions on New Jade Gate, the Sandfolk had never managed to threaten the New Jade Gate colony.
So for the Sandfolk tribes—little more than a rabble—to gather an army of a million and lay siege to Tulong this time was news worthy of headlines across the civilizations of the Milky Way.
And that was exactly what happened. There was so much documentation about it in the future, and it marked the beginning of a whole chain of later events, so Yu Lian had once studied that period closely.
The one who organized this campaign was the Sandfolk's most respected spiritual leader, Elder Hesen of the Brown Eyes. He had originally been a priest of the local primitive religion, as well as a psionic sensitive. After the Earthlings incorporated the entire planet into their territory, he led the tribes in resistance. During the arduous struggle, he awakened his psionic powers and later "by chance" acquired a systematic method of psionic cultivation. Over the decades, he had also tutored a number of talented disciples and become the Sandfolk's most revered figure.
Of course, it was important to understand what "spiritual leader" meant. A spiritual leader was, by definition, not a secular one. Though he was highly respected and the Sandfolk's "greatest warrior," real power remained in the hands of the various tribal chiefs and the former "kings" of the city-states.
As for Hesen of the Brown Eyes, who had never had followers or subjects of his own, the reason he could gather such a huge army—even a "rabble" was still an army—was that he had backing from behind the scenes.
By now, the Sandfolk had obtained a considerable number of guns, high-carbon blades, composite armor, and even siege cannons powerful enough to threaten Tulong Port's city shield. Compared with that, a few armored vehicles weren't all that surprising, right?
Even so, when Ina spotted the hover tanks emerging from the pitch-black night through her binoculars, she still looked incredulous. "There really are tanks! How did they even get these things to New Jade Gate?"
"The Commonwealth's surveillance across the Andromeda Galaxy is full of holes. Even on New Jade Gate, there are vast regions nobody's explored," Yu Lian replied casually. "Uncle Carl, can you tell where they're from? Is there anything we can use?"
"Hmm... From the outside, they look a bit like products from Polaris Heavy Industries over in the Alliance, but we'd have to take one apart to know for sure. Still, based on the signals from the sensors you planted earlier, there's a good chance they were built on the Katai mastiff tank chassis. That thing uses an Imperial Lu-3 ground-combat engine. I know its sound too well..." The old mechanic answered casually, then seemed to think of something and said helplessly, "Wait, sir, you don't expect me to identify their model and structure, and figure out their weaknesses, just by looking from several kilometers away, do you? I'm only human!"
He seemed to have been reminded of some painful memory, and went on rambling. "When I was young, I always thought I could become a psionic and set out on the great path of exploring truth and knowledge! I didn't even mind if I ended up with constant tinnitus, babbling to myself, and turning into some shut-in nutcase. But it took me until this age to realize that dreams are just dreams. No matter how hard you try, you're destined to live an ordinary life..."
That was called a "Listener," a fifth-ring psionic master specializing in general knowledge and research. Any nation or organization would treat one like royalty. Besides, not all Listeners were shut-ins. The ones I'd met in the "future" were more lively than the last.
Yu Lian ignored the old mechanic's rambling. He'd already gotten the answer he wanted, so he turned back and nodded to Ina.
"So let's take them out right here!"
The military commander nodded and silently picked up an anti-materiel rifle—the heaviest weapon anyone had besides the Vulcan cannon on the Black Panther.
"They've got forty men... all riding Moak dragons," the old mechanic said.
"I counted them."
"They've also got five tanks. Whatever they cobbled together, they're still tanks, with cannons and armor..."
"I saw them! That's why we're going to meet them here!"
"..."
All right, whatever you say. Even if you ordered us to charge them right now, nobody would dare object.
Before you continue