Counterfeit Hero

The old man led Tian Xingjian straight into an inconspicuous gray two-story building. Just as they reached the entrance, they saw another soldier wearing only shorts, with a pair of standard Federation mechanical repair auto-arms attached to his hands. The old man grinned and muttered to himself, "Heh, did those damn guys finally come to their senses today? They know I'm short-handed and actually sent two people." He shouted to the soldier, "Hey! You, what are you looking at? I'm talking to you. Follow me!"

The mechanical repair soldier looked extremely reluctant, as if he had been assigned an unbearable task. He followed the old man dejectedly and turned to ask Tian Xingjian in a low voice, "Brother, what did you do to get sent to this monster?" Fatty was stunned, feeling a sense of impending doom. He replied, "I just got here, I don't know anything." Internally, he speculated, "Damn it, it must be about those more than twenty escape attempts recorded by the battlefield recorder." Fatty knew since he joined the military that according to the regulations, deserters would undergo a military trial and be punished depending on the severity of their actions, with the most severe punishment being death! Especially during wartime, almost all deserters were executed. Though he was a mechanical repair soldier, the number of his escape attempts was indeed a bit too high.

In fact, aside from combat units that had specialized combat repair teams, other professional mechanical repair soldiers were not part of the combat sequence. In the military, they belonged to the logistics sequence like field hospitals and should be evacuated first when the battle situation was unfavorable. Except in special circumstances, they would not be sent to the battlefield. Without receiving combat orders, escaping when one's combat unit was defeated could not be considered deserting.

Fatty's escape record was already known by some. In their eyes, he was just seen as a quick-running mechanical repair soldier with no sense of duty to fight to the death for his country, making them somewhat disdainful of his cowardice. However, this only affected his future prospects in the army. The charge of desertion didn't stick to him.

Thinking of this, Fatty felt some anxiety, but what could he do now? If he had known, he would have taken a few more days on the way or simply lived in seclusion in the mountains.

The old man led them around several corners in the hallway, passed through several heavy iron doors, and entered an elevator. He fiddled with the control panel in the elevator, and a panel popped out. The old man placed his hand on the panel, and a green light scanned his palm from top to bottom, then scanned his pupils. After confirming, the elevator began to descend, taking about five or six minutes before finally stopping. Based on Fatty's sense of the elevator speed, they must have descended at least five to six hundred meters underground.

"Where exactly are we going? I'm just a mechanical repair soldier, do I need such tight security?" Fatty lamented in his heart.

When the elevator doors opened, a passageway appeared in front of the three of them. After walking along the passageway for a few dozen meters, they reached a transparent disinfection room. The old man pushed the two of them inside, shouting, "Hurry inside, after disinfection, there's anti-germ clothing on the side. Put it on yourself!"

Hearing that it wasn't a gas chamber, Fatty felt somewhat relieved. He quickly entered the room, cleaned himself under the showerhead, and put on a large-sized anti-germ suit.

Seeing Fatty's quick actions, the old man nodded in satisfaction and said, "Hmm, you're pretty fast." After waiting for a minute, he saw that the other mechanical repair soldier was still slowly putting on his clothes. The old man angrily shouted at him, "You should be shot! Hurry up! Don't waste my time."

Finally, when that mechanical repair soldier finished dressing and came out, the old man led the two of them through the final door. It was an automatic alloy door, and upon entering, a massive hall appeared before Tian Xingjian's eyes. The hall was filled with mechanical parts, mechas, weapons, and various equipment. In the center of the hall, there was a huge central computer flashing with tens of thousands of electronic signal tubes. A group of people in white dust-proof clothing were busy working. There were also some passageways and doors around the hall.