Dawn Sleep

Ambush (4)

The grotesque rocks were covered with frost and ice, and the snow-like mecha slowly landed among the high mountains.

The sun gradually headed west, and disappeared behind the mountains. The cockpit of the mecha was dim, only the console and the screen were lit with various fluorescent lights, as darkness overwhelmed the sky.

Garcia was panting, he pulled off the seat belt and took Jiang Jianming into his arms.

“Wake up.”

“Jiang.”

Jiang Jianming’s face was frighteningly pale, his eyes slightly opened, his eyelashes trembled, and the exposed dark pupils were out of focus.

“….Your Highness.”

His voice was barely audible.

“I’m here.” Garcia replied, while holding the disabled human with a cold body temperature, as he reached out to open the treatment cabin.

However, there was a trace of little resistance from the cuff. It was Jiang Jianming who raised his hand and grabbed his sleeve, but soon, the finger lost its strength and slipped down.

“Don’t move,” Garcia immediately held his cold fingers and said hoarsely, “you need to rest.” 

Jiang Jianming shook his head lightly in the prince’s arms.

Garcia leaned over as heard him say in a low voice, “No……..energy source……”

The incident happened suddenly. As they hurriedly changed their mecha and retreated to this snow-capped mountain, almost all the supplies were left in Slash Comet’s fuselage.

S-Snow Dove was the only mecha they had left, and they didn’t even have a backup energy source. In addition, the current situation was unknown, if Snow Dove ran out of energy and failed to start…….things would really be troublesome. 

“…!”

Garcia gritted his teeth violently, as if someone high above the sky had whipped him for nothing, it was hard to tell whether his expression was of pain or anger.

He was tense for a while, then lowered his head and embraced the body in his arms, his voice trembling, “But you…”

Jiang Jianming shrank into his arms, and after a while, the disabled man was smiling softly, and a weak voice came from his lips, “Are you frightened? I won’t die……”

He looked so weak that he looked about to breathe his last at any moment, but he still had the energy to pat His Royal Highness on the arm, and said intermittently, “It didn’t cause crystal disorder…….nothing, wait for me to get over it…… Cough, I’ll get over it after a while………”

Garcia pressed his index finger on his lips and whispered helplessly, “Stop talking, you should lie down quietly.”

When his fingertips left, there was a little red stain, it was blood.

“……”

Garcia’s breathing became short and quick, his eyes turned cold and dark, his fingers curled up, and his nails dug into his palm mercilessly.

..Before setting off, he thought that no matter what situation they encountered, he could always protect Jiang Jianming.

But now, his disabled human being was so seriously injured that he was dying.

And he couldn’t do anything.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

The voices of the two overlapped without warning.

Garcia’s pupils trembled in disbelief, “You!”

Jiang Jianming was also taken aback for a moment, and hesitated to speak.

He originally wanted to say sorry, that he was too complacent before they set off, but still dragged his feet, and also made him feel so frightened. It was indeed his responsibility.

As a result, when he raised his eyes, he saw Garcia’s livid face, and wisely chose to shut up.

He also grabbed the prince’s sleeve as if nothing had happened, and said in a low voice, “Cough…… let’s not talk about this anymore, please help me, I will put Snow…………away.”

However, Garcia didn’t help him.

The prince took off his coat and wrapped it around him, and directly hugged Jiang Jianming, and drew back the mecha.

It was getting dark outside, the dead branches along the way were shaking, and stratus clouds covered the top of the snow-capped mountains. Looking at this situation, it would snow again tonight.

Garcia suddenly turned around and looked up, there were several black spots flying around the mountains, and strange cries came from time to time in the wind. They were the bird-like creatures in the Alpha Alien Star, and these things were flying around above their heads, as if watching them.

A trace of killing intent flashed in the prince’s eyes, but soon disappeared in the next second.

No, Jiang Jianming’s current physical condition can’t support more crystal particle fluctuations, therefore he can’t fight here.

Garcia turned around with Jiang Jianming in his arms, carefully guarding his surroundings deeply in mind, and stepped on the snow to the depths of the dangerous mountain step by step.

And those birds seemed to know themselves they were not the opponents of His Royal Highness. They were simply high above in the rear, not far away, nor close to the distance that Garcia’s real crystal could reach.

Pairs of red eyeballs were looking down at a high place, staring thoughtfully at the tiny backs of the two.

****

The night soon arrived.

Jiang Jianming didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he was awakened by Garcia.

What he saw was a strange cave, it was very dark in the distance, but a bonfire was lit inside, propping up a small unstable light in the dark night. The snowstorm was whistling outside, and the flames were crackling and burning among the wood branches, which became the only sound besides the shrill wind.

Garcia got water from nowhere and fed him in large leaves.

Jiang Jianming’s mind was fuzzy, and the warm light of the bonfire made him very sleepy. After being persuaded by the prince for a long time, he opened his mouth to swallow. After drinking some water, he was fed by His Royal Highness something, it seemed to be fruit, the flesh was sweet, soft and juicy, and it was actually delicious.

The feeding process lasted for nearly an hour, during which Jiang Jianming wanted to close his eyes several times and continue to sleep, but Garcia stubbornly refused to let him go.

After being tossed back and forth like this, Jiang Jianming didn’t want to be woken up anymore, and eventually sobered up little by little helplessly.

“Your Highness,” he finally raised his head from His Royal Highness’s arms unbearably, “don’t be so nervous……Even if I am a disabled human being, I won’t die casually.” 

Garcia looked at him in an absent-minded manner, with a more helpless expression than Jiang Jianming, who was weak.

The prince murmured in a low voice, “But you…look like you are dying.” After a pause, he pressed his voice and said anxiously, “I don’t know how to save you.”

Jiang Jianming sighed, and slowly raised his hand to lift Garcia’s sagging platinum hair. Under the long hair, the emerald eyes were dim and confused, and the light spots of the campfire danced in their depths.

Alas, this, he is really petrified……

Speaking of which, this person only had three years worth of memory, and had been acting alone before, it should be the first time he had encountered such a situation, which was quite pitiful.

Jiang Jianming didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and only thought to himself: Then again, how did Black Shark Base and Silver Big Dipper instill common sense into the prince who lost his memory—that a disabled human being will be on the verge of death once injured?

He remembered that when Ryann was still alive, he was too eager to protect him.

He firmly believed that if it could be implemented, the Little Highness would definitely want to trap himself into a safe and comfortable box, close the lid, and lock it up.

But at that time, it was not so exaggerated. One was because Ryann grew up in the Imperial Capital, and his common sense of disabled humans was still in the normal category. Another reason was that Jiang Jianming admitted that his temper before was not as good as it is now.

Whether it was a young man who was unruly in will and spirit, or simply a newborn calf who was not afraid of tigers, in those years when he faced Ryann Kaois, who was the Crown Prince of the Empire, he never always follow the principle of superiors and inferiors and refused to give in.

Even when sometimes Ryann annoyed him, he could really fling a cold face to the majestic Crown Prince of the Empire and even open his mouth to reprimand him.

Looking back on the past now, Jiang Jianming seemed to subconsciously feel that he was a commoner who had a relationship with the prince, and once he’d took the first step to concede, he would no longer be able to get along with His Royal Highness and be on an equal footing with him.

In the end, His Royal Highness became more and more afraid of provoking him. Even if he foolishly looked for trouble, Ryann would simply talk again and again a few bitter words at most, and then hide away to worry and fret. After several days, the potential safety hazards around him would be ruled out again.

Thinking of the good old days, Jiang Jianming’s expression softened slightly.

The snowstorm outside the cave was still howling, he stroked Garcia’s curly hair, and said softly, “But you have already saved me, therefore I won’t die.”

Garcia raised his head.

“Look,” Jiang Jianming now had some energy and sat up straight, “I’m much better now. Rest for the night, and tomorrow I should be able to drive Snow Dove as usual.”

Under the night and the bonfire, his pale cheeks were clearly defined, and those dark and clear eyes were beautiful and vivid.

Garcia’s expression was full of hesitation.

But Jiang Jianming believed that he had relaxed at least a little bit.

Because after a few minutes of silence, His Royal Highness got down to business.

Amidst the crackling of the bonfire, Garcia quickly said that there were bird-like alien creatures monitoring outside, and then said, “These alien creatures have intelligence close to that of human beings, and there has never been a related report on the Silver Big Dipper before.”

“Also,” he said, pressed the center of his brows, and muttered, “The young head of the Lava bandits, the speed of which he released the real crystal ores, was very quick, and I couldn’t stop it. Seems to have been specially trained, or perhaps……..he had done this many times, and was now familiar with it.”

Jiang Jianming leaned against the stone wall of the cave and asked, “I remember that using real crystal ore without permission, isn’t it a grave crime in the Empire?” Garcia reached out and pulled his coat tighter for him. The coat still belonged to His Royal Highness, “Yes. If large-scale crystal disorder is caused, it’d be the highest crime, resulting in execution. “

Jiang Jianming, “But if you can correctly absorb the crystal particles in the real crystal ore, you can increase the strength of your crystal bone.”

There was no war in the Empire, and only a few people would make reckless moves; however, this kind of life-gambling behavior seemed to make sense for the group of space pirates who make a living by fighting and plundering.

However, Garcia shook his head and said, “I have fought with Chilong several times, and the previous Lava had not done this trick. Including mecha interference waves, highly intelligent alien creatures…” As he said this, his eyes turned cold.

“You mean to say,” Jiang Jianming said, “that there are other forces behind the space pirates……”

The black-haired young man suddenly raised his head, the flames illuminated his brows and eyes, he looked at the howling snowstorm outside, “This is bad for Silver Big Dipper.”

His surroundings seemed to have cooled down for no reason, Jiang Jianming’s lips were slightly pale, and he looked at the prince solemnly.

“Your Highness, you said……we are trapped here and unable to communicate with the fortress, moreover there was such a thick crystal particle storm on the cliff just now, won’t Major General Xie Yuduo send someone for rescue?”

“!” Garcia held his breath, his eyes trembling.

That’s right, if…if Silver Big Dipper sends a large number of soldiers to go deep into this area… ..

As an owner of Super S-class crystal bone, neither the crash of the mecha nor the release of the real crystal ore could do anything to him.

But what about the ordinary soldiers of the Silver Big Dipper?

Among other things, that moment in front of the cliff just now was enough to cause a large-scale acute crystal disorder to erupt in an instant among the ordinary Silver Big Dipper soldiers and officers, and they would all die tragically on the spot in less than three minutes!

Obviously, both of them thought of that tragic scene. Jiang Jianming quickly turned on the wrist device, closed his eyes after a few seconds and shook his head, “No…..communication cannot reach, it should be hindered by an interference wave.”

His eyes were a little distracted, he bowed and coughed twice suddenly, his breathing became unknowingly disordered, and then whispered, “We must find a way to notify the fortress, otherwise it will be too late. Your Highness, where are we now.……”

As he spoke, he staggered on the stone wall and wanted to stand up, but halfway up he groaned and slid down.

“Jiang!” With Garcia’s sharp eyesight and quick hands, he helped him up.

“..TheMilitary General Assembly.” Jiang Jianming gasped for breath with his eyes closed, and said with difficulty, “It will be the day after tomorrow, if the First Fortress suffers serious damage at this point…”

The consequences will be unimaginable!

Jiang Jianming was pressed down by the prince and sat down again. He gritted his teeth and felt chills all over his body.

This was a very meticulous and insidious chessboard. In connection with the events in the Beta Alien, the layout planners started laying out the first chess piece at least one or two months ago.

But the target whom they really wanted to ambush was not only them, but the entire Silver Big Dipper!

Jiang Jianming dug out the projection of the three-dimensional map from his wrist device.

Fortunately, the map was still usable. The nearby bonfire was flickering, and his eyes quickly wandered among the mountains and rivers.

“Where will it be…” He whispered to himself, the light in his eyes were getting brighter and brighter, “If the enemy wants to lay an ambush, there must be a fixed place, but where.” 

“Ambush is all about surprise, so it can’t be on the same cliff, and there’s a high probability that it is at a location further ahead……”

Garcia held his shoulders tightly, his eyes fell on the map, and he drew a line with his fingers, “If Silver Big Dipper sends a rescue team, the rescue team must go to that cliff as their destination, and the route will not have much of a big deviation.”

Where…Where… Jiang Jianming’s breathing became short and rapid, his mind turned at a high speed, every line on the map was intertwined in his mind, and every possibility was created and shattered.

Suddenly, his eyes became stern, and his fingers flashed quickly like white lightning and clicked on a coordinate on the map!

“—Your Highness, here.”