The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 180

After the spaceship stopped again, Jiang Momo stepped out into darkness. A heavy metal door stood before her, slowly rising under her gaze.

E Mingjun stood still, watching Jiang Momo’s cautious steps forward. He said, “This is inside our mining field in the Chaos Star System. It’s surrounded by ore on all sides, which completely blocks the Federation’s signal. No one knows this place exists except me.”

“Mm.” Jiang Momo rubbed her forehead, feeling a slight tingling itch, as if something was pressing on her brow, making her a little uncomfortable. “Does this ore have radiation?”

“A bit but not enough to cause concern.” E Mingjun nodded.

“Got it.” Jiang Momo pulled out a spatial compression storage box she had brought, preparing to unload materials for the warship.

“Wait.” E Mingjun pressed a few spots on the wall to register Jiang Momo’s info into the access system. Then he adjusted the light screen to be visible to her and, under her gaze, deleted his own information. “There’s enough nutrient solutions inside for two months. If you need to leave, just stand by the door and call for it to open.”

“You’re not staying here?” Jiang Momo asked.

E Mingjun hesitated. “Can I even stay?” He laughed after he said it. “I’ve got other things to do. Don’t worry, no one will bother you here.”

This was someone extremely important to Jiang Momo. Whether she minded his presence or not, he understood he needed to step away.

“What are you going to do?” Jiang Momo suddenly remembered E Mingjun’s plan to wipe out the interstellar pirates and asked impulsively, her tone slightly anxious.

E Mingjun looked back in surprise. “I’m going to mobilize those interstellar pirates to join the fight.” He had decided to go through with his original plan, even though Yan Chang had already made it clear that he wouldn’t support it.

?

A question mark seemed to pop up above Jiang Momo’s head. “They’ll agree?”

E Mingjun smiled with a strange brightness in his eyes. But his fingers tensed until the joints cracked quietly. “I’ll find a way to brainwash them. Remember the interstellar pirates who helped make the legendary mechas? They’re in the textbooks now.”

Jiang Momo didn’t know what expression to make. She smiled faintly at the corners of her mouth. “Be careful.”

“Got it.” E Mingjun nodded and turned to leave.

The heavy metal door slowly closed.

A dim light glowed from the surrounding rock walls, just enough to let an ordinary person barely see if they focused. Of course, it didn’t affect Jiang Momo who had night vision. She examined the place roughly and confirmed it was only about ten square meters. Then she sat cross-legged at the furthest point from the door and turned on her light brain.

Little Eight popped up immediately. [Momo! How could you just shut me down like that?!]

“There’s no network signal here. Have you calmed down yet?” Jiang Momo propped up her chin with one hand and asked.

[I’ve always been calm. Why do you think my judgment was flawed?] The Siamese cat avatar was clearly offended.

Jiang Momo shook her head. “I wasn’t certain before. But you went to find Yan Chang.”

[What’s wrong with that? He’s the best choice. He knows you, you trust him, and he has enough authority and influence,] the Siamese cat patiently listed Yan Chang’s strengths one by one.

“But you’ve never liked him. You said you hate all politicians, that everyone in politics has a dirty heart,” Jiang Momo said with conviction. “Even if I don’t know the exact reason, your database isn’t complete enough to justify fully trusting him.”

It was precisely Little Eight’s decision that showed her how disoriented it had become. It had actually cast aside its own biases and acted purely on logic without hesitation.

“And your program and subconscious are probably in conflict, aren’t they? Otherwise, with your ability to speak online, there’s no way you wouldn’t leave some kind of failsafe.” Jiang Momo watched the Siamese cat flinch at the word ‘politician’ and smiled.

The Siamese cat swayed its tail, lowered its head, and replied a bit gloomily, [That makes it sound like I’m two-faced and unwilling to sacrifice myself for humanity.]

“It’s not your fault.” Jiang Momo reached out into the air, miming a gentle pat on Little Eight’s head.

Little Eight lifted its head slightly and ‘rubbed’ against her palm, licked its paw, and after a long silence, suddenly spoke, [My previous pilot was an exceptional young man. He was upright, kind, diligent in his training, far more humane than most, and he was always anxiously saving money for his mother and younger sister.]

Jiang Momo immediately sat up straight, giving her full attention.

Little Eight rarely spoke about its past. Especially anything related to the war or its former pilot. It had always remained tight-lipped. This was the first time it had willingly brought it up.

[I’ve actually had many pilots before him but none of them cared about me. Only he would talk to me like a friend in his downtime, telling me about his family and dreams. So I decided, unilaterally, to make him my one and only pilot.]

[I found out my true purpose in the eleventh month of the war while fighting alongside my one and only pilot; that I and my series of warships were developed by the research institute as a new generation of functional warships. We were equipped with the most advanced tracking systems capable of detecting the energy fluctuations generated when the alien beasts use their abilities and lock onto their positions via those fluctuations to perform spatial jumps. They had made some defective prototypes before us, one of which still exists as the alien beast detection device currently in the research institute.]

[Originally, according to the design plan, we were supposed to perform the missions autonomously after developing self-awareness. However, due to reasons that can no longer be verified, the leadership at the time used political manipulation to alter the course of the war. While I was fighting alongside my pilot, they sent the battle data to our model’s trigger threshold. It activated a forced protocol. I took my pilot and charged straight into the alien beast’s lair…]

[I’ve been trying to rewrite that forced protocol ever since. But it seems…] Little Eight’s voice began to glitch, lagging in patches. Then it shook its head hard. [Fortunately, we’re not connected to the Internet right now. The delayed data input is helping me stay barely conscious.]

[What I just told you, I didn’t know any of it before I escaped from the alien beast’s lair and lost my pilot. It took years of self-analysis and correction to piece it together. But one thing is certain; this was orchestrated by those in power. When data exists, it can be traced. And once I was clear-headed, it was obvious how unreasonable that data was.]

Jiang Momo was shocked. “Then what about the other warships made in the same batch as you?”

[Possibly because they rarely communicated with humans, they had less advanced cognition and didn’t have strong survival instincts… So only I escaped with my pilot.] The Siamese cat looked up. [That’s why, Momo, if we want to end this war, I might be the only key.]

E/N: Repeat after me: I HATE CORRUPT POLITICIANS!!!!