"Don't be nervous, relax, child." Augustus gave Stetmann a gentle smile. "I will patiently wait until you finish speaking."
"Believe in yourself, Egon, you can do it."
"Uh, I think I should invite you all in to sit for a while. This is something my father once taught me — it basically means that anyone who comes should be treated as a guest." Egon opened the door of his home, inviting Augustus and the others inside.
"Your father?" Augustus had not received any report about this part. In fact, the investigations regarding Stetmann all pointed toward a truth that made people feel sorrowful.
"I haven't seen him for a very long time. Occasionally, I will still mention him. I always remind myself not to mention him again in the future."
Augustus wanted to pat the boy on the head, but when his hand reached toward the oil in that hair, he hesitated somewhat. Stetmann quickly ran into his own bedroom, causing Augustus to ultimately miss that chance.
The guests had originally thought Stetmann's home would be more or less messy, but the actual situation was much better than they had imagined. On several wobbly tables were placed many electronic components, cables, and electronic and electronic integrated boards, and among them were even some silver hubs of unknown purpose.
"What is he doing?" Raynor looked at the components on the tables. "It looks like these things were all picked up from somewhere."
"I am researching a kind of deflection force-field generator, trying to create a movable plasma shield field." Stetmann brought out several packets of cigarettes, tea leaves, and dusty glass cups from his bedroom. He was clearly very happy that someone could be interested in his research—even though that might not truly be the case.
"Then have you succeeded? I remember Rory Swann's engineering team was also researching this thing, but it seems this thing requires psionics," Augustus said.
"Not yet. Maybe it is because I did not use 'psionics'. What is that thing?" Stetmann had already recovered his confidence from the blow just now, and he felt relieved that he was now speaking so fluently and without mistakes. "But I did repair several discarded toasters and weather-forecasting robots. That is not an easy task. I spent a great deal of effort before I understood. Do you want to know how I solved the voltage problem?"
"No, thank you." Augustus took a deep breath.
"Right now we still have more important things to do. You should know the purpose of my coming here: we are here to take you away from Tyrador III."
"I know about this." Stetmann was fully aware of his problem of always speaking without thinking it through, always saying whatever came to mind, yet he could never change it. In private, Stetmann would blame this on the influence of his missing father.
"When are we leaving? I mean, I am already prepared. Marshal Augustus, I think I should call you sir now. The Sons of Korhal people said you would let me go directly into a laboratory," he said.
"That's right," Augustus said. "What I will give you is far more than what you can obtain on Tyrador III."
"How did those two Sons of Korhal merchants convince you?"
"Later they gave me ten bags of rice, each bag weighing fifty-five pounds, sir," Stetmann said. "And I also want to make some contribution for other people."
"Of course, each one of them is an excellent person." Augustus smiled. "If you are already packed, then let's hurry and go."
"I think I must go check whether I forgot to take something." Stetmann walked back to his bedroom on his own. "Can I bring the game console I repaired?"
"Of course." Augustus waved his hand. "I never said you could not do that."
"Eh—uh—brat, I hate brats the most." Harnack rolled his eyes. His voice was quite low, unlike his usual habit of always talking loudly. The experiences over the years had made this irritable and rough Shiloh boy grasp at least some understanding of human relationships.
"Why does he talk so much nonsense?"
"You used to be a brat too." Raynor snapped back at Harnack.
...
Tyrador VIII, the revolutionary army's operational base under construction.
The orbital path of this planet shared a common revolution trajectory with that of its sister planet, Tyrador IX, famed throughout the sector as a resort destination. The two deep-blue worlds drifted close and apart beneath each other's gravitational pull, and this unique binary-orbit pattern brought both planets magnificent tidal vistas and a distinctive yet vibrant natural ecology.
Tyrador VIII was likewise one of the early immigrant colony worlds, long renowned throughout the sector for its orderly streets, tidy districts, and rich academic atmosphere. As with Tyrador IX, Tyrador's climatic differences across each latitude were extremely drastic; finding frozen tundra on one side of a latitude boundary and tropical rainforest on the other was about as common as it could get.
The differences in city styles across its regions were worlds apart: modernized metropolises on the plains, crimson industrial cities atop gobi deserts, science cities blanketed in dense greenery, and military steel fortresses in frozen lands could all be found on Tyrador VIII.
The Korhal Revolutionary Army's operational base under construction was situated near Tyrador VIII's equator. Here, temperatures stayed above 30°C year-round, and during perihelion they climbed even higher. The air was stifling and extremely humid, and all construction materials had to undergo anti-corrosion treatment.
Rory Swann's First Engineering Regiment of the revolutionary army bore full responsibility for constructing this operational base, and his deputy, the Kel-Morian Victor Kachinsky, was personally on-site overseeing the work. Aside from one or two battalion-sized revolutionary army engineering corps and a logistics support department, a full-strength battalion of the revolutionary army's Marine Corps was also stationed here.
Augustus's temporary Marshal Command Center was set up here. Centered on this operational base, the revolutionary army fleet could rapidly deploy forces to the planet's surface. Judging by the Confederacy garrison's current defensive posture in the Tyrador system, the revolutionary army needed only a strong and decisive blitz to destroy and seize these worlds within two to three days.
The massive revolutionary army fleet was still anchored at the fringe of interstellar space, holding a relatively stationary orbit in the dark-side lee of a gas giant a hundred times Earth's size to evade radar and sensor sweeps. So long as Augustus gave the order, taking the loosely defended Tyrador system would not cost the slightest effort.
However, the problem was that even if the revolutionary army could take the Tyrador system, they had no way to hold it. This system belonged to the Terran Confederacy's core region, and the Terran naval fleets could swiftly arrive to pacify the rebellion.
Therefore, Augustus still adopted a strategy basically identical to that of the Mar Sara uprising: the revolutionary army would, through gradual infiltration and political propaganda resisting the Confederacy's tyranny, take control of the Tyrador system, but would not initiate an uprising for the time being. The resentment that the lower-class majority of the Tyrador system's population held toward the Terran Confederacy and the upper class would become fertile soil nourishing the revolution.
And when in the future Augustus's forces and the Terran Confederacy's main fleets fought on the other side of the Koprulu sector, the Tyrador system would immediately change its flag, becoming a nail driven into the Confederacy's chest by Augustus and throwing the Confederacy's forces into utter disarray.
Now, Augustus was standing inside the operational base's command center watching reports sent from the revolutionary army guerrillas of the Sara system, most of which were images of Zerg invading that system.
On Chau Sara, countless Zerg flying creatures numbering in the millions were shrouding the sky and encircling this planet; from the orbital telescope of that system's other planet, Mar Sara, it looked like a black halo.
The Zerg creep that Augustus had once seen at the Confederacy's Xenomorph Research Station on Vyctor V had already covered the northern hemisphere of the Chau Sara system. The deep-purple, viscous creep, with its vine-like and tendril-like protrusions, burrowed deep underground as though sucking dry the nutrients that sustained life on this planet. The once lush world no longer held a single blade of grass; the emerald-green planet had turned into a dull, sickly dark brown, and all life upon it had already been devoured by the swarm.
This was the survival law of the Zerg race: all organisms that could not provide them with evolutionary genetic material could only nourish the entire swarm and make it grow even stronger.
At this very moment, right before Augustus there was an LED 2d screen, and displayed upon it was the footage sent back from the capital of Chau Sara. There, a Korhal Revolutionary Army underground organization was responsible for handling propaganda work.
To this day, the Terran Confederacy was still sparing no effort to blockade all information from the Sara system, and any reports regarding this catastrophe had been cut off. Only the revolutionary army men whom Augustus had left there had intermittently sent back some footage.
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