Volume 7: Abandoned Sandstone City Chapter 341: Interesting Bugs
"Military background?" Ke Lan subconsciously wanted to call Makino, but after thinking about it, she put down the phone.
There are many factions within the military, and the interests between different factions are extremely complicated. The Hound has mentioned this to them countless times. Maginot, who holds the rank of lieutenant general, is actually just a messenger sent out by one of their factions to contact them. If you ask Maginot about such things, nine out of ten times you will not get anything out of him.
But if it was the guys from the Undead Crew, they would definitely be able to find out the background of this "Dark Crow Professional Club". But the problem was that Ke Lan didn't have the contact information of the Undead Crew members... Even if he had it, he wouldn't bother those who were at the pinnacle of power in the Ark for such a small matter... If they were still human.
The clues basically ended here, and Ke Lan had no choice but to give up.
However, what puzzled Ke Lan was that since "Dark Crow" had a military background, why were all their ace players civilian pilots with no military service experience? Their coach, as the only ace from the military, was traded to the club through a normal transfer method. If they really had a military background, then it should not be difficult to gather three "real aces". Even if the number of "Iron Blade" medals awarded in recent years is much less than that of a decade ago, then finding some pilots like Chi Hanfeng who have rich practical experience will definitely be much better than these "professional competitive pilots" who have never seen blood.
Even with a large amount of sponsorship, the annual expenditure to run a top-level mecha club, feed so many people and those mechas that are more valuable than humans is absolutely an astronomical figure. If they can't even come up with this money, can't they mobilize a few ace pilots to play a few games?
Thinking of this, Ke Lan couldn't help but have a bold guess...
Could it be that Dark Crow did this to conceal its identity and distance itself from the so-called "military background"? Could it be that the owner of this club does not want others to find out about his background?
This is too weird...
Ke Lan clearly remembered that there were no regulations in the military regulations of the three major services of the Ark that prohibited retired or active military personnel from participating in commercial competitions, not to mention top-level events like the Ark Mech Competition, which cooperated with the official and could be called the "World Cup" of the new era. In the third, fourth and ninth sessions, there were even precedents of the military directly participating in the competition, and the fourth championship team was even from the "Red Baron Squad" of the Air Force's "First Fleet Carrier-based Mech Unit."
Could it be that... this guy, like Manstein, embezzled military funds to play clubs? Then this guy is really bold... If you embezzle company funds, at most you will lose everything and be blacklisted, and then you will have to pay for the rest of your life. But if you embezzle military funds privately, if you are found... even if the amount is not large, the military court will only give one verdict: confiscation of property and execution, and it is the kind of execution that is executed immediately.
But upon careful analysis, this speculation is obviously untenable - Manstein embezzled public funds only to buy some mecha accessories such as shield generators for his young son. Compared with the operating expenses of an entire wealthy club, this amount of money is only a drop in the bucket... If this guy really embezzled military funds to invest in the club, such a flow of money based on billions would never escape the eyes of the monitoring system.
Rules are rules. Even if this person made a lot of money from the club and made up for all the accounts, as long as he misappropriated military funds without permission, it would be a capital crime... Unless he could come up with a legitimate reason that convinced the judge and the jury afterwards, he would definitely not be able to escape.
There must be something wrong with this "Dark Crow", but Ke Lan couldn't tell what exactly was wrong.
Even that powerful intelligence dealer could only find out that the other party had a military background, and knew nothing else. With the resources that Ke Lan and his team had, they would not be able to find out anything.
"Forget it." Ke Lan walked to the computer, pressed the "ESC" key, and closed the search engine. "It's just a game anyway. We just wanted to have fun at the beginning. Even if we are targeted and killed, at least we have made it to the top 16... After all, we are a professional hunting group, not a professional mecha competition club. If we continue like this, we will be putting the cart before the horse."
"That makes sense." Hound nodded and threw a can of iced beer to Ke Lan. "Anyway, Valentina's medical expenses have been paid, so you don't have to worry about anything, Old Chi. As for us... we were just having fun at the beginning."
As he was talking, the hound suddenly put his hands together and made a gesture that seemed pious but was very funny to others: "To use Buddhist terms - donor, you are obsessed with appearances."
"To be honest, old dog, I think when you are too old to walk, you can shave your head and put on a monk's robe, then you can go and compete with those heretical guys for jobs. You have great potential, and I am optimistic about you." Leighton leaned back on the sofa, drinking and laughing.
"Bullshit! I think your fucking bald head is much more suitable than mine, except for a few scars from the monk's vows. How about you use the welding gun in your robotic arm to fire it a few times?" The Hound immediately replied.
The originally tense atmosphere in the private room suddenly relaxed. Even Song Shiyun, who was following Ye Yan, put down her airs as a rich girl and joined in the drinking. After a while, the coffee table in front of the sofa was already piled with empty cans.
"Not good! This beer is totally not good! Tasteless! As light as water!" The Hound yelled with his neck stretched out, but this time, what he was holding in his hand was no longer a can of beer, but a 700 ml bottle of strong whiskey. The huge wine cabinet in the private room was already half empty, and glass bottles were rolling everywhere under the sofa.
There were only four people left in the private room who were not drunk - Ke Lan, Zofia, Ivan and Asano Akira: Ke Lan and Zofia didn't drink much. Ke Lan didn't even finish the can of beer that the Hound threw to him. Zofia just poured a glass of white wine and drank less than three sips in total. Asano Akira sat cross-legged on the sofa and ate melon seeds without drinking a single sip of wine... As for Ivan, he could never get drunk.
"These guys can't drink so much but they insist on drinking..." Ke Lan looked at the drunken people helplessly and said to Ivan, "Help me and drag these guys back to their beds."
Compared with bases built on the ground, the space on the "Zulong" super airship is more limited. However, because only the participating teams that enter the knockout stage and the spectators in the VIP viewing area can board the ship, the per capita space is actually much larger than at the base, and various facilities are configured according to the standards of a five-star hotel.
Sitting on the bed, Ke Lan looked at the scenery outside the porthole on one side. Night had just fallen, but the temperature outside had dropped sharply to below zero. The vast wasteland was gradually covered with a thin layer of frost. Under the light refracted by the two moons, the originally white frost showed a dreamy deep blue color... Although Ke Lan knew that the environment outside at this time could , he had to admit that the night view in the wasteland was really beautiful. This was a scene that people living in the residential area of the Ark would never see in their lifetime.
More than 70% of the humans on the Ark will never leave this fortress-like interstellar colony ship throughout their lives, and their knowledge of Alpha is limited to pictures and videos on the Internet... For some reason, Ke Lan always feels that these people are pitiful. They are like a group of prisoners who voluntarily imprison themselves in this prison that symbolizes safety... To them, Alpha is no different from the Earth in the old era. Their daily lives are repetitive: work, earning wages, buying food and other daily necessities... They are unwilling to know anything that has nothing to do with them, and watching news programs is just to kill the short leisure time after dinner.
The vast majority of people are like this... No, it may not be accurate to describe them as prisoners, they are more like livestock in captivity, obedient and numb.
Ke Lan remembered that in the old era there was a special word to describe such people: social animals.
But they don't feel that they are being kept in captivity - in the eyes of many people, working outside the Ark is "dangerous and dishonorable". Although the income of professions like relic hunters far exceeds the average income level of ordinary residents of the Ark, in their opinion, relic hunters cannot be considered a normal profession at all.
Just like those mercenaries in the old era who were active in war-torn areas and sold their lives for money, there might be some passionate teenagers who yearned for such a career when they were in middle school, but when they grew up, entered the society and started working, no one would think about becoming a mercenary. "Summer job in Syria" is, after all, just a joke.
Being content with the status quo is the nature of ordinary people; and the vast majority of people are ordinary people.
Those who were able to board the Ark were all, without exception, the elites of humanity. These people had been carefully chosen, and no matter in terms of ability, character, morality or genes, they were the best among humans... However, over the past nine hundred years, the descendants of these elites have all become mediocre people.
In the eyes of that "big lizard", whether it is the elite of mankind or the ordinary people who make up the vast majority, they are all just bugs. Even Ke Lan is just a "more interesting bug".
Ke Lan suddenly began to understand those believers who converted to heretical sects.
The gap between civilizations is so huge that it makes people despair and it is impossible for them to even think of fighting against it...but for some people, their despair turns into worship...even faith.
Admiring the strong and seeking benefits and avoiding harm are biological instincts, which is understandable. Otherwise, there would not be so many "traitors" in the war years. It's just that these believers did not betray their own country and nation, they betrayed their own race.
"If Alpha Civilization still exists in some corner of this universe, and returns to this planet one day in the future...how will they treat humans, and how will they treat these 'traitors' among humans?"
War? Conquest? Slavery? Massacre?
As for equal dialogue, Ke Lan did not think that humans would have the opportunity to have equal dialogue when there was a huge disparity in power between the two civilizations - perhaps humans would be treated by the Alphas as some kind of rare biological specimens and kept in a fixed-sized area, just like the "protected animals" locked in cages in a zoo.
Could it be that... this planet is a huge zoo?
Ke Lan shuddered.
He suddenly felt that the gaze he had felt in the East 9th District was just like humans observing microorganisms in a petri dish - two bacteria were fighting each other, and one of the bacteria suddenly sent a signal to humans asking for help. This action aroused the surprise and interest of humans. They dripped some reagent into the petri dish, easily helping the bacteria asking for help to kill the other bacteria. At the same time, they began to observe the former more frequently.
After all, it is rare to find bacteria that can send out distress signals like humans.
Perhaps, even the Alphas were just a kind of bacteria that once multiplied in this petri dish.
…
Thinking about these things, Ke Lan couldn't help but fall asleep in a daze... He didn't drink much, but the sleepiness he felt was much stronger than usual...
…
He didn't dream, or maybe he did dream but had forgotten it. When Ke Lan woke up the next day, he felt as if he had forgotten something important, as if it was him, not the Hound and the others, who had blacked out from drinking yesterday.
Everyone else was still sleeping. Ke Lan scooped up some water and wiped his face roughly, then pushed open the door of the private room and walked out. He originally wanted to go to the restaurant on the ship to see what special breakfasts were available, but he happened to run into the two "Dark Crow" people standing outside the corridor.
"What... it's you again? Is something wrong?" Ke Lan subconsciously reached into his pocket and gripped the handle of the pistol.
"Uh, we were just passing by. We were really just passing by this time." The two men seemed to have noticed Ke Lan's sleepy face, and they said something perfunctorily and turned away, unaware that the sleepiness on Ke Lan's face had disappeared after they turned around.
He closed the door and waited until the two men had walked nearly fifty meters away before slowly following them.
Anyway, this is the way to the restaurant, so Ke Lan wanted to see what these people were trying to do secretly...
