Elder Wang's hands trembled violently as he held his phone.
He abruptly turned toward Elder Hua beside him.
"The mech must have entered the clouds and lost its signal. We need to use military satellite communication clearance immediately!"
"That's not enough! We need to get back to base right away and have the technical team use the base's research mainframe to connect to the mech's communications system. Only then can we be absolutely sure!"
"Let's go!"
Escorted by well-trained soldiers, Elder Wang and Elder Hua got into a military off-road vehicle and sped toward the research base.
The vast sky stretched for ten thousand miles.
Amid the clouds.
Wang Yixue sat in the cockpit seat that snugly enclosed her, unable to calm her thoughts.
Already nervous and afraid, she became even more frightened after losing contact with her grandfather.
She worked to take deep breaths and calm herself.
In this situation, she could only rely on herself!
After a prolonged period of extreme tension, she actually became capable of thinking rationally.
Clouds completely blocked her view, leaving nothing but a dazzling expanse of white. She could see nothing.
Only a transparent data panel remained visible in the lower-right corner.
Glowing text on it recorded the mech's current readings.
She could understand only two: hull temperature, 240; speed, Mach 2.3.
"The mech's external temperature has already reached 240? I can't feel it at all in this cockpit. And the speed- that should be more than twice the speed of sound!"
Just as Wang Yixue was analyzing the panel's contents.
The entire mech abruptly burst out of the sea of clouds like a spirit fox darting out of the snow.
The clouds blocking the mech's view vanished in an instant.
The vista suddenly opened up.
Light flooded her vision.
An endless sea of clouds drifted across the horizon.
A realm in the sky, boundless as mist!
Wang Yixue's eyes widened instantly.
Both eyes shone.
She felt as though she had entered an immortal realm.
The visual impact delivered by the holographic helmet was so lifelike that it felt as if she herself had stepped onto the clouds.
She was utterly awestruck and exhilarated.
Even the fear in her heart was swept away.
Wang Yixue gripped the control sticks on either side with both hands.
Now calm, she tried to control the Crimson Sky No. 1 mech, which was still out of control.
Just then.
A commercial airliner approached from the distance.
The flag of Little Japan was painted on its tail.
Captain Kotori Taro had set the plane to autopilot and was dozing against his seat.
"Warning!"
"Warning!"
"..."
An urgent, piercing alarm suddenly sounded.
Kotori Taro jolted awake and sprang up from his seat.
Without his seat belt, he could have smashed through the windshield and flown out.
His expression changed in alarm as he looked around.
The copilot beside him looked just like a student caught in class by his homeroom teacher, his face full of panic.
"What's going on?"
Kotori Taro swept his gaze around before finally looking through the windshield at a tiny red dot diagonally below them.
The tiny red dot rapidly grew larger, shooting straight up through the clouds below them in the blink of an eye.
A dark-red mech appeared before the two men.
The four vectored nozzles on its back spat azure snakes of flame as it hurtled toward outer space, trailing a cone-shaped sonic barrier.
Immediately afterward, the plane began shaking violently.
It was far too close; they nearly collided.
A sound like space being torn apart threatened to shake the entire plane to pieces.
"N-na... nani?"
"Majika???"
"Quick, slap me! I must still be asleep!"
"Captain Kotori, the problem is, I think I'm still asleep too!!"
Kotori Taro and the copilot gaped in shock, their eyes practically falling out of their sockets.
It was simply inconceivable.
It exceeded anything they could imagine.
Inside the cabin, the passengers descended into chaos. Only a few had vaguely seen a red object approaching the plane.
Some of the more timid passengers panicked and shouted outright,
"A flying saucer! It's a flying saucer!"
"Yamete!!"
"Chotto matte!!!"
Cries rose one after another, making the plane extraordinarily lively.
However, after the brief close encounter, the plane quickly returned to normal.
Still shaken, Kotori Taro leaned against his seat and gasped for breath.
His hands shook nonstop as he gripped the control yoke.
Only after a long while did he take a deep breath.
"Quick, report it immediately!"
"The Footbath Chicken encountered a Gundam attack while passing through Xia Nation's airspace!"
"Fortunately, I, Kotori Taro, remained calm in the face of danger and brought us safely through."
The copilot's mouth twitched.
His gaze flicked almost imperceptibly toward Kotori Taro's soaking-wet crotch.
Baka! What a fucking shameless bastard! he thought.
Zhonghai City Military Research Base.
The atmosphere in Briefing Hall No. 1 was somewhat somber.
Both Elder Wang's and Elder Hua's faces had darkened.
Led by the young computer genius Tong Yao, dozens of communications and computer experts had gathered together, yet they could not crack Wang Yixue.
They could not even transfer and install it.
The national team itself lacked even this little ability. People would laugh if word got out.
Facing Elder Wang's and Elder Hua's man-eating stares, Tong Yao felt terribly wronged.
Her preliminary analysis of the code had already secretly shocked her.
This was not code as they understood it at all.
She could not understand any of it.
It was not a conventional programming language at all!
Tong Yao fell into deep doubt over her title as a young computer genius.
At the same time, she was stunned. Just how formidable would someone's programming skills have to be to-
This level had long since surpassed the world's highest standards by more than tenfold.
If she could meet its developer in person, she could truly die without regrets.
Watching the experts fail once again, Elder Wang could only sigh.
"Forget it. Cast the phone's screen onto the briefing hall's display first."
Just then, Elder Hua suddenly approached.
"I've received word that the military satellite is in position. We can start connecting to the signal."
Tong Yao immediately understood, her slender, pale fingers tapping deftly across the keyboard.
Lines of code rapidly ran on the computer.
A line of text appeared on the briefing hall's large screen.
Countless hearts leaped into their owners' throats. Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed intently on that small line of text on the screen.
[Connecting to Tianshu satellite signal...]
Elder Hua stepped forward and gently patted Elder Wang's shoulder.
He signaled for Elder Wang not to grieve too much.
No matter what happened, his old friend would always be there.
Elder Hua knew perfectly well.
Judging by the last data the mech had synced to the phone.
The pilot, Wang Yixue-Elder Wang's granddaughter-had most likely already met with misfortune.
The mech's temperature had exceeded 200 degrees. Without heat-resistant tiles, even with a thermal barrier coating, the cockpit would have been at least 100 degrees!
Moreover, Elder Hua had seen the mech himself. Its exterior had no thermal insulation whatsoever.
How could the pilot survive!
Besides, the temperature had still been rising sharply at the time.
Once the signal connected, they would very likely see Wang Yixue baked beyond recognition by the intense heat.
How could Elder Wang not know this himself?
He was more anxious than anyone, yet he could not let it show.